DNC Day 3

Day 3 was originally scheduled to take place at the large Bank Of America stadium, but due to weather concerns was moved back to the Time Warner Arena.  The stadium would have held 75,000 people for the big finish, but the arena only holds 25,000.  Although this made a lot of people who had been given passes for the stadium event unhappy, it made life a lot easier for the White Hat team and most of the media.  Moving all the gear from the arena to the stadium would have been a lot of work and the stadium would have added another 10 blocks or so to the walk.  One of the TV people told us he thought the networks had wasted around $2 million setting up circuits at the stadium that would now not be used for anything.

So Day 3 ended up being a lot like Days 1 and 2:  Walk to the downtown area, eat lunch, head to the arena early for the evening shift.  Some of the street sights along the way included random street protesters.  Although the official area designated for protesters was a long way from the arena, a few individual or small group protesters were allowed along the sidewalk outside the hard zone.  Most of  them were the usual megaphone people you see at all street fairs, yelling about abortion or why we should all hate gays.  This particular guy (in the plaid shirt) had a unique angle, as he was from "Homophobes for Gay Marriage."  Is that something like Jews for Jesus?

Also seen was this sand sculpture of Obama that was really an advertisement for Myrtle Beach.  The heavy rains on Monday had erased Obama's face, but it was quickly repaired the next day.

The media was everywhere in downtown Charlotte.  There were reported to be 15,000 media people in town as compared to 6,000 delegates.  Many TV news personalities were seen along the streets,some of whom seemed to have their own cult following of fans.  This was the case for CNN's Roland Martin, who had trouble moving down the sidewalk because of all the requests for photos with his fans.

A lot of media were also roaming the halls of the convention center trying to interview delegates.  Some of the reporters carried signs saying they needed to interview delegates from particular states.  Just about any delegate that wanted to be interviewed could find someone to interview them.  Norris ran into Jordan Carlos, from the Colbert Report, interviewing delegates.  Norris and Cheryl have been watching Colbert's show lately, so Jordan was someone Norris recognized.

Up in the press box, it was usually pretty boring before the convention got started for the evening at 6pm.  Fortunately, the musical groups scheduled for that evening would show up mid-afternoon for sound checks and rehearsals, so that provided some entertainment.  Here the Foo Fighters are rehearsing and providing an ad hoc concert for the couple of hundred technicians and others who were working in the arena that afternoon.  The sound system in the arena was top notch and all the musical groups sounded great.

Here is a picture of James Taylor performing for the convention delegates.  He sounds just as good as he ever did.  He had some good one-liners for the audience too.  Too bad they didn't put him on television, as he put on a really good show.

During the course of the evening, all of the CNN wireless microphones were taken down by an inteferring transmitter somewhere on the floor.  When these things happened, the team would take their direction finding antennas and spectrum analyzers to the floor to track down the offender.  In this case, it was an Eastern European reporter who was sitting near the CNN area with a microphone that is not legal in the US.  Here Norris is seen with a team member using an antenna to get a fix on the source of the interference.  Once an offender was found, he usually had to deal with the FCC part of the team and face either voluntary surrender of his equipment or face a $10,000 federal fine.  The main sources of the problems were news teams from other countries that used frequencies that were legal in their countries, but not legal in the US.  The team tracked down several broadcasters who were transmitting right on top of the Charlotte Police and Fire channels.

After a number of warm up speeches, the main events got started.  Here Vice President Biden delivers his speech, as seen from the press box.

Followed by Pres Obama.  Michelle is sitting on the front row of the floor area.

And the big finale, with the confetti drop and the Obama family on stage.

As soon as the speech was over, Norris got a jump on the crowd and walked back to where his car was parked 6 blocks away.  After a couple of false starts on the way home due to some Interstate closures for the event, Norris finally got on the road and made it back home at 2:15am.  It was a long week, but also an interesting chance to see part of the American political process in action up close and personal.  Regardless of your politics, it was amazing opportunity, but not something Norris necessarily feels he needs to repeat anytime soon.