From Tampa, Florida -
If there is one thing that is a common theme in the dozen major party political conventions I have covered over the years, it is that things change as easily as the breeze rustles the curtains over your bedroom windows.
Except sometimes there doesn't seem to be much rationale for why certain things happen.
On Sunday evening, I had discovered a great way to get into the convention center where the news media is working. It was a door that led to an x-ray machine staffed by TSA-type guards, avoiding a lengthy line at the front door.
It worked again early on Monday morning, allowing me to zip right into to my workspace.
But three hours later after a quick trip to one of my delegations, suddenly that shortcut was no longer available to members of the media, as a Secret Service guy just shook his head when asked why the option was off the table.
Instead of a quick entry, I then waited in line for 15 minutes.
Sometimes it's just like that at a convention.
Monday had its share of ups and downs. One of my radio stations just couldn't get me on the air - everything we tried just blew up. It was one of those days.
On the good side, I rushed out of the convention center around 8:40 am and zipped my way to the delegation breakfast being held by Oklahoma's GOP delegates - it couldn't have been any more different than my experience at the Georgia delegation on Sunday, where I was asked to leave the room before the Governor spoke.
Instead, the Oklahoma GOP chairman was not only happy to see me, but Matt Pinnell got up from his table and personally grabbed delegates for me to interview.
A totally open process in one hotel, a totally closed process in another.
Down the street at the Georgia delegation meeting, the doors were again closed to the press corps for a speech by another top state official, as the Lieutenant Governor spoke to delegates with no reporters on hand.
Something may have to give on the media front by Thursday when Speaker John Boehner is scheduled to speak to the Georgia delegation. We'll see.
After grabbing a few interviews at the Oklahoma delegation, I zipped back into town but quickly found myself going nowhere in a long line of cars trying to get access into the convention security zone.
Earlier in the morning at 5:45 am, there was no group of Secret Service agents with dogs checking out the cars that were arriving - but at 9:45 am, the dogs were slowly doing their work. (Were they just asleep four hours earlier? Aren't there bomb sniffing dogs that do the graveyard shift?)
Back inside, Radio Row was buzzing, as Neal Boortz and his colleagues were doing their shows while all kinds of familiar faces made the rounds on radio show after radio show.
I love hanging out on Radio Row because there always seems to be a member of the House and Senate that you can find for a quick interview, like Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, who told me it was "fifty-fifty" on whether Republicans would take charge of the Senate in November.
At one point, McConnell was doing one radio show, while just next to him was actor Jon Voight on another.
The biggest media rumble occurred when Herman Cain showed up on Radio Row; two or three times there was a media mob following him around like he was still a candidate for the White House.
Evidently my handshake with Herman made it on to the introduction trailer on ABC's Nightline Monday night.
By mid-afternoon, I left Radio Row and headed back down to the media filing center, where I had staked out a spot back on Saturday. Except when I got there, some young lady had established herself in my seat.
"Somebody took my seat," she explained in an aggravated tone when I asked if she had seen my business card and sign on the table where I had staked my claim.
I resisted the urge to say something like, "I covered my first convention before you were even born" or "Get off my lawn you damn kid!"
A few minutes later though, there was another rumble to deal with, as I was told that I needed to move because a reporter from Swiss Radio had been assigned to my seat.
While part of me wanted to throw a stubborn fit, I figured it wasn't worth it, so I just grabbed some new turf a few rows further back.
About 15 minutes later, suddenly some guy was making it clear he wanted to talk to me. What could this be about?
Instead of something bad, he wanted to know if I had used the audio system upstairs to get the audio from the convention floor.
I had, and I told him the quality sucked.
"Oh, no," he said, promising to have someone look at it. "We can't have that."
Put that one in the plus column.
Meanwhile, I was cranking out story after story for my six radio stations, and when I finally got ready to leave, a foreign TV reporter sitting next to me looked up, smiled and boiled everything down to three words:
"You almost done?" he asked in stilted English.
"Almost," I said with a smile, knowing full well there was still more to do back at the hotel room and more in coming days.
On the way out, I wondered what was next.
Well, when I got to the garage, I couldn't figure out where my car was parked for about 10 minutes.
All I could do was laugh and get ready for Tuesday.
