It was a typical Monday at a major political convention, one this time which included grass, sidewalks and curbs, jersey walls and tall fences, media bigwigs and political hopes of everyday delegates.
The nice lady at the front desk of my hotel started Monday off the right way by setting my wake up call for 2:30 and saying, "Have a nice nap, Mr. Dupree."
Luckily I ate something before I got to the workspace out in the parking lot of the Pepsi Center, because other than the Carnival Corn Dog cart, there isn't any food for sale in the whole convention site until 2pm.
Nice planning, Democrats. That ranks right up there with four porta johns for hundreds and hundreds of journalists.
Even better was that my workspace temperature, which was colder than the 59 degrees outside in the early morning hours of Monday, as I battled train whistles and helicopters while going live with my stations.
And did I mention that I had to do my work in the dark? Yep, the Democrats built these huge tents for the media, and only put the lights down the middle. We are on the edge of the tent, and thus have almost no light.
They did finally come and fix that this evening, installing two lights at a cost of $350 each. I am not kidding.
I may be cold tomorrow morning, but at least I will be able to see.
So after finishing what we call "morning drive" in the radio business, I walked a number of blocks down the street to get a cab, so I could go visit some state delegation meetings.
A $27 cab ride later, I was over at the Georgia delegates meeting. They are sharing a hotel with the delegations from Alabama, along with North and South Dakota. Lots of activity, lots of excited people with the convention starting just a few hours later.
If there was any plot among those four delegations by supporters of Hillary Clinton, you couldn't tell in the hallways and breakfast bars.
One person that was seen there was the former Governor of Alabama Don Siegleman. If you know why that's significant, give yourself a current affairs pat on the back.
On the cab ride back, traffic was going nowhere, so I hopped out and started walking back to the Pepsi Center, the exact way that I had walked back on Sunday.
Major mistake. Overnight, huge fences and combination jersey walls had grown up like weeds, closing off streets that had been used by hundreds and hundreds of pedestrians the day before.
It took almost 20 minutes of extra walking to finally find the one spot that was open, so you could walk through, and then walk another ten minutes down to the media security entrance.
I detail all this for you to show that covering a convention is about a lot more than just interviewing delegates and politicians, and following stories.
Like when I ran out of the workspace to try to beat the traffic back to my hotel, where I'm writing this blog.
I got to my truck, parked in the parking lot where I have a permit to park. I got to the entrance and it was closed. As in 'not open.' Chained shut. Me and about 30 other cars were all locked in.
A quick survey showed they had the same parking pass. We were all parked in the right place. But someone obviously disagreed.
There were no police officers anywhere. Just a note under my wiper blade that said we could call a certain towing company to come get us out.
I looked around and sized up the situation. It was late. I hadn't eaten dinner. I still had work to do. I needed to get on the road.
I know from previous experience that rental vehicles always seem to have better traction than your own when it comes to climbing curbs, driving over grass embankments and using sidewalks as main thoroughfares.
We proved that again last night.
Who cares what happens news wise at the convention. I can't wait to see what Tuesday brings in terms of food, security and parking.
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