End Of The Week Notes (Part 1?)

As I sit here in the airport waiting to fly home from Chicago (I made a side trip to go visit my family) I thought I would throw a few random notes about things that happened at the convention.

First off, mega, mega kudos to the combined police and state patrol forces for all of their hard work last week. I know that they had their hands full every day trying to keep the balance of free speech and public safety. They responded appropriately to the threats that were presented and did so in a way that was not over the top. Another round of mega thanks goes to Il Duce and the LME for hosting Fausta and I all week. The convention had us running very odd hours and I sure hope we were not too much of an imposition.

Now a couple of short stories…on Tuesday – after a long day at the super secret protest watch bunker, I got a call from Fausta. It seemed that we had been invited to a party at the home of Minnesota’s premier humorist, James Lileks. The party was being thrown by the fine folks at Pajamas Media in honor of the 50^th anniversary of the birth of said Mr. Lileks. The party drew such notables as Hugh Hewitt and Michael Medved (of Salem Radio), Hugh’s producer Duane (Generalissimo) Patterson, Roger L. Simon and Rick Moran (of Pajamas Media), Ed Morrissey (of Hot Air and Minnesota’s Northern Alliance Radio Network), Mitch Berg (also from the Northern Alliance), Mary Katherine Ham and a whole host of traditional media (fellow Star Tribune reporters and radio personalities from Chicago and Minneapolis), bloggers, performers and regular folks. I got to meet many of the dignitaries there (for all you Hot Air Show denizens – yes MKH is as cute and as nice in person…) Probably the most surreal time for me at the party was when I spent about half an hour chatting with Duane and Five For Fighting’s John Ondrasik about what Sarah Palin needed to do in her speech the next night. I don’t know about the guys but I think she definitely “stuck the landing”.

On Wednesday I attended a bloggers brunch with many of the bloggers covering the convention. Governor Bobby Jindal was supposed to be the guest speaker, but he was understandably unable to attend thanks to Hurricane Gustav. The second featured speaker was supposed to be Joe Scarborough from MSNBC but he cancelled at the last moment. But the speakers we got were fascinating indeed. The first to speak to us was Google CEO Eric Schmidt. There was a spirited back and forth about net neutrality and the apparent leftward bias of Google. The second speaker was Representative Kevin McCarthy of California. He spoke to us about the Republican Young Guns program – a program designed to recruit and mentor the next generation of Republican Congressional candidates. At the brunch I met a bunch of online friends including Skye, John and Minnesota’s favorite Small Town Mayor. From there we went to lunch with Ed Morrissey and the Townhall folks. Not much was talked about although a lot of talking and “getting to know you was done”. It was after that lunch that my newfound friends Skye, John and I ran into the Code Pink protest.

Thursday night (prior to the speech) I spent quite a bit of time wandering the halls of the Convention Center looking for friends (Hi Andrea) and just poking around. I saw George Stephanopolus (he is much shorter than I imagined him being), country music artist Trace Atkins (also from TV’s “The Apprentice”) and former Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele. I even got a chance to get my picture take with him. While down in the media dungeon, I got the opportunity to sit in on a discussion with Representative Michael Burgess (TX) where we talked at length about health care reform (more later) in general and Senator McCain’s health care reform plans in specific.

All in all, it was a crazy busy week (as you could probably tell by the lack of posts). However, I learned an awful lot and I had a blast meeting so many on line friends for the first time. This may have been my first convention, but hopefully it will not be my last. I enjoyed it too much.