Ladies and Gentleman... The President of the United States

by: Andrew C. White

Mon Sep 21, 2009 at 15:35:19 PM EDT

I parked off campus and walked a few blocks to get there. Williams Rd along the south side was blocked off. Rt. 4 along the front was moving along slowly. Police presence was obvious but not overwhelming.

Lining up along both roads were plenty of pink t-shirts and more than a few friendly faces I know in the area. Only as I entered the campus did I see one obvious teabagger wearing a "Tyranny Response Team" jacket and carrying some sort of banner not yet unfurled.

Approaching closer HVCC personnel handled directions and screening. Made it through the first checkpoint as blogger for The Albany Project.

Proceeding further the line wound around the building. Plenty of suits and ties and more and more security looking people in the area.

Arrived at the check-in table for Press to discover that they had run out of Press passes and were waiting on the Secret Service to come back with more. They appeared to be about 15 short.

Drat! No cool "White House Press Pool" souvenir tag for me. Very friendly Secret Service man explained the situation and worked with the HVCC check-in folks to work out a method to allow us in. Through the metal detector and then another check-point where a few of us were denied access to the press pool area. Friendly Secret Service man came over and said to then HVCC folks, "just to make your lives more complicated..." and explained the situation about lack of press tags. He asked me if I had my normal press id and I explained "I'm a blogger we aren't that formal and organized." No problem. Into the press section I went.

Chatted with Liz B. as she typed up her posts for The Daily News. Watched the crowd gather. Lots of political hand shaking going on. It was a little after 10 and the room was mostly full.

Williams Hall is really an oversized garage. It is the automotive training center for the school. Half of it was blocked off with blue curtains and in front of that were mock-ups of computer innards and robotics. Off to one side was a solar panel display next to a small grandstand where the HVCC class sat.

Regretted not having a video camera to record the event but then I saw a young lady across the press pool holding her laptop up over her head so that she could slowly turn around and use the webcam to scan the crowd.

Always nice to have a good chuckle to start the day.