Inauguration Day 4 Monday • Salt Run Productions

Inauguration  day 4 Monday

Today is what is known as a “light panty hose day”, meaning we only have one thing to do and hopefully no heavy lifting. 

We’ve been told that our set up at The Convention Center should be easy in that cable rats have already laid in the necessary audio and video run, which will terminate to the CNN truck that is pooling video from Center. 

I also just found out there will be 6 balls at the center.  Don’t know what makes one ball different from another other than you can’t fit thousands of people into one ball room, so I suspect The Convention Center will be more of the “peoples” event, divided by 6.

If all goes as planned, vendors have done the dirty work and we’ll just need to secure our designated “pool” spot, which will be right next to the White House camera, the only other camera allowed in.

You can never mount your own mic on any podium that has the official presidential seal on it…the White House always uses their own mics and runs that audio into the
 mult-box which then distributes the audio to whomever.

So, once we place our camera and determine that the satellite truck sees our picture and hears audio via the mult…we’re done.

Seems simple enough but Murphy’s Law is allows in place, so we’ll see.

Our only other major issue is just how do we actually get to the hall tomorrow.

Only official vehicles will be allowed into the District so it’s more than possible we’ll need to ride the METRO to the convention center.  Of course that means we’ll need to leave what we can at the center tonight and hump in the camera and basic stuff tomorrow via public transport.

We need to be OUT of the hall by 11p  because the Secret Service will spend the night sweeping and securing the entire facility and then locking it down.  We’ll not be able to get back into the building until between 4-6p tomorrow and then we’re there until the bitter end. It doesn’t seem like ABC can supply us any food or water so I guess we’ll be stopping at a Subway and bring in sandwiches!

That’ll be interesting.  I’m going to try and endear myself to the CNN truck operator and see if I can leave a camera and some batteries in his truck over night but I’m also hesitant about being away from my camera.

I’ll probably just leave the tripod and hump in the camera!!

Again, we’ll see!

As this is the day before the Inauguration, DC is really starting to get pumped.  Lots of people starting to hit town and no matter where you go, you see evidence of preparation for what is probably going to be the single biggest event Washington has EVER seen!

On the streets and in restaurants, every conversation is about the Inauguration and almost everybody I run into is part of the media. 

You can hardly walk anywhere without running into a camera crew or see a gathering of people who AREN’T in the media.  Media representatives from all over the planet are converging as, from what I gather, are large numbers of independents who are making films about the goings on.

No shortage of wannabes in this city!

I observed an interesting sight while walking from breakfast this morning.

I passed The Washington DC Hilton and noticed that it’s literally being turned into some sort of media center.  Huge HD video trucks, generators and exhibition trucks ring the hotel.  Police have blocked all entrances and lined the hotel with portable concrete barricades.  That tells me the Hilton may be the site of one of the official balls; but the most telling of all, to me anyways, was the missing trash cans. 

In Washington, like a lot of big cities, city trash containers are actually bolted to the sidewalk.  Then trashcans are placed inside.  I guess this keeps the receptacles from being knocked around and such.

For a block around the hotel these things have been unbolted which I’m guessing is a way of making sure some crazy doesn’t place a bomb in a can close to the hotel.

I notice that kind of stuff.

Another thing that seems to be popping up are signs promoting Statehood for Washington, DC. I know this has been a lot of discussion about this issue but it seems to be gaining more steam at this particular time.

Well off to lunch and the The Convention center setup.

Oh BTW…that big secret interview with Diane Sawyer was to have been with the USAir pilot.  I think The Today Show got him but I can’t tell because our $600 a day hotel has the worst TV reception ever, so we don’t even get NBC.  CBS seems to be breaking up and ABC goes digital.  Headline News and Fox come in fine but I haven’t seen anything about the interview so maybe it didn’t happen.

Mo Lata!