Well I live in MD now, and had a friend fly up to see me who had gotten a couple of tickets (through Congressman Wexler, D-FL) to see Barry sworn in on the 20th. It was something that I might never do again but after the pain in my legs and body have subsided, I'm truly happy that I did. These are the pics of the day that began at 3:30 in the morning...enjoy! (VIDEO all the way at the bottom)

We picked up the tickets at the Rayburn office Building the day before. Here was the tickets package: 2 tickets, a Program, photos and directions to the ceremony



Point A: The line for the BWI Shuttle Bus to the Green Belt Metro Station


Point B: The throngs of people once finally at Green Belt Metro Station. Slammed at 5:00 am


Riding on the Metro


Point C: Finally in D.C. The mass exodus begins


Daylight. Moving at about 1 step/ second


This sign was about as much direction and guidance as you were ever going to get today.


The Silver Ticket line on 3rd Street and Maryland Avenue. That greenhouse looking thing obstructing the veiw of Capitol Hill is the D.C. Botanical Center. We were moving from right to left at a pace slower than anything I've ever experienced. Every 4 minutes we would move 5 feet.
The building on the far right in the distance peeking out from under the concrete in the foreground was the Rayburn Office Building where we picked up our tickets the day before. It looked like Secret Service had set up camp on the roof.


From here to there (the Silver gate) took an hour.


Hold up you f'in tickets!



Through the Silver Gate now at about 9:00 am. It was all waiting now to get to our viewing area in the midst of what seemed like a million people even though there were only about 220,000 ticket holders.


The National Museum of the American Indian will be engraved in my dreams. It seemed like we were walking by this building for hours.....oh wait.
A camera crew and 5-10 scouts and snipers on the roof as well.


Almost a million people behind us compared to about 150,000 in front of us. A good spot.


Our view.


The Greatest of All Time
The crowd swelled to chanting his name: Ali! Ali! Ali! Ali!






Michelle


The 1st kids...


The infamous 'monkey face.' Perhaps the greatest moment of the ceremony was when the entire crowd began chanting, "Nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey! GOODBYE!!'
Bush leaves with a historic 22% approval rating.


We were just across the reflecting pool at the first Jumbotron. Dead center.


Joey B taking his Oath


Joe again


Barry giving his Address




And here is video of Barry taking the Oath of office. I was zoomed in on the Jumbotron so you may get a little dizzy...

 

the poem was horrendous

 

Among many other things. Justice Roberts screwing up the Presidential Oath, the cold, and the complete mass-disorganization of that city. The Ceremony itself was a 2 hour long dream in the midst of a nightmare that seemed to last all day. The only other thing I've ever experienced like that was New Year's Eve in Times Square NYC in 2003. You waited in a throng of people for an hour and a half to enter the area. But this was insane, if you wanted to go anywhere in the city, you had to experience that. We did at least 5 or 6 times.

We left the house for DC at 4am and didn't get back to our car at the airport until 5pm. We didn't waste anytime doing anything (eating, buying nicknacks, watching the parade, even to take a ____) and it took us 5 hours to get out of there. Certain major metro stations were closed, no visual signs directing people toward anything of importance, hardly any cops unless at major checkpoints, and even fewer people in uniform that knew anything. Most were flown in from other states! I asked an ambulance driver how to get to a certain major Metro Hub and an said, "I've got no idea man." In fact the entire day I only heard one person in uniform with a megaphone.

I'm 26, strong like bull and in perfect health, and I left that thing hurting.....and hurting bad. I saw infants, handicapped, and elderly there and wondered if they'd even survive the day. At 8 pm there were probably some people still trapped in that city.

It was real obvious that this was the last event planned by, and the last hurrah of the outgoing Administration. Would I do it again? No. Am I glad I did? Yes.