Denver, Day One

I can't say we had a very successful day on Monday, the first of the actual Convention, although we did stand in a long line and got ourselves registered. The most exciting event of the day was when the nice but desperately undertrained registration clerk looked up Roger's name and said "you're here to pick up a lot of passes?" We both shouted that we weren't since the big package is Theo's (himself, 12 staffers, 4 consultants and an army of volunteers. Roger says 80 volunteers; I think it may be as few as 60.) Anyway, we turned that down and took our single passes; we have to re-register every day but now we know to use my name.

After that we were given a special tour of the Convention Center by a very enthusiastic young man who's been working for the Convention for several months and seems to have fallen in love with the building. That was followed by a less satisfactory tour of the now-deserted offices of convention staff; we found Jenni's, as the sign shows, but the bubbly hostess there had no idea where Theo's was and kept showing us the wrong place. There was one other press logistics set of parents; we both came away a bit disappointed.

Roger had a volunteer assignment as a "driver" so he took himself off to the Pepsi Center where there were about 40 volunteers for two or three golf carts. After waiting for an hour or two he set off to our home base--couldn't find a shuttle bus so he walked to the free mall busses only to be told those were shut down. On the way he passed the demonstration that appeared to be the problem; more police than protesters--the police uniformly cheerful and agreeable. So he walked the whole way, arriving home exhausted and extremely reluctant to go back again to the Convention. So we stayed home and watched on television.

One of the nice moments for me was the song by John Legend--who was in Theo's class at Penn (he had a different last name) and is now quite a famous singer. I hope they got a chance to say hello. Two of Theo's three roommates from Penn are working as volunteers for him, handling traffic on the floor of the Convention. The third is busy being a doctor.

Today we will stand in the same line, pick up today's credentials, and go immediately to the Pepsi Center for a special tour which should be fascinating. Let's just hope the shuttles work well enough to get us there. We plan to take water, books and inflatable pillows and just stay put until the Convention begins. I'm not entirely sure I can last until Hillary but I can try. I was very sorry not to be there for Kennedy.