Final Inauguration 2009 blog post ... See you in 2012.

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blogging:
Everybody had a camera. Everybody. No where did you go and not see hands stuck in the air recording everything and anything. Smile! Can I take your picture? Where are you from? Does this diminish the value of any prints out there or make the best ones more valuable? We will never see them all.

This #inaug09 was a full frontal New Media outing (again!). Caveat: It's level of interactivity was minimal - 20% citizen / candidate immersion at best. We witnessed very little contact (organization) with attending citizens on the ground (Citizen interaction was in small defined groups - no large demonstrations or gatherings were visible or audible.) Events appeared to be very much about pomp and the moment.

There was very little intrusion from law enforcement although obvious around an entire perimeter. Witnessed 1 military defensive action. People were cut off from food, water, security and on foot. Metro's were jammed and shut down (Metro Station) with little or no way to figure out what was true or which stations would be affected. People trusted "hearsay," "rumor", and good will. Their seemed to be much hearding going on as people would stand in lines for long amounts of time only to realize the line went no where. This is true everywhere we went. There were no Information booths for people to help you get around or understand what events were happening or when. No vendors of anything visible. No people on loudspeakers to lead. Nothing. Very minimal police / gov / "visible" presence.

update:
Cell phones must have been jammed on a "haphazard basis" as they would go up and down in terms of signal. It could not have just been capacity - their appeared to be no reason why a citizen would call at the same time unless you base it on speaker impact possibilities / potential. Some of the speakers would generate very little interest to begin with. As well, since there was "no" information available to people walking around, nobody knew anything unless they had a “connection” to the outside. The White House and surrounding Mall is on physical / technical lock down.

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ATT signal dropped for a full hour period (1:00pm) and txt messaging went down fully.
Update: ATT Service works again (- 2:22pm) and I was able to "phone" out of state.
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txt msg not working.

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Web access and in turn IM had been disrupted. It seemed blocked and sudden.


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Walking for hours to the farthest MEtro stop to exit Mall area.

Barack Hussein Obama Inauguration 2009 ... blogging

The drive from Philadelphia, PA USA was 2:40 minutes. We saw very little traffic on I95. We continued to Northern Virginia via the Chain bridge and saw large trucks with snow plows positioned off the roads and no traffic. We have been told that bridges would be blocked at 4AM. We arrived by 3:45 and and met up with our host, Washington Bureau Chief Alan Rosnenblatt who has briefed us.

Washington DC is on lock-down, cold, and very quite.

Expected attendance is 2 million and they will spill into the city all at once starting now via public transportation that will be no doubt very slow.

Ongoing.