The RNC was supposed to start tomorrow, but because of Gustav and New Orleans, things will be on hold.  Never the less, I hopped on my trusty scooter and went downtown to see what's what.  Things are pretty quiet.  A jogger I talked with said she'd run into a lot of closed streets, and tons of police.  I headed down towards the convention center and ran into this:



That's the Xcel Energy Center in the back, and in front is The Perimeter.  I don't know if its set up this way all the way around, but it probably is.  I talked with an officer down the road a bit, and she said that nothing was happening.  There was, though, a BIG police staging area down there.

I rode down to the river bottoms and saw not one, but two, "classic" trains.  Calling on my buddy Doug, he said the silver one was the BNSF "Business train".  Sort of a corporate perk.  Up on top was a Northern Pacific train with a traveling history show.  I talked, from a distance, with a couple of obvious secret-service guys.  I guess they really didn't like that I drove right past the "Post office vehicles only" sign.  The risks I take for my blog!

Zipping around down town I crossed the Mississippi and headed up the bluff on the south side of the river.


Great view... so great that NBC's set up to do reporting from the edge:


Watch for "what's happened today" broadcasts from up here.  Good talent... he buys his crew take out dinner from Cosetta's down by the convention center.  Behind the scenes...


Enough of the fluff.  I talked with some interesting people up there by the NBC guy.

First off was a twenty-something bicyclist. Big Time Paranoid.  This guy was sure that the military was going to have "guys dressed like protestors" to forment riots so that the police could wade in a make mass arrests.  Talk about agent provocateur.  I asked him about the "buckets of urine" that were found at a protester's house.  He said he actually lived there and that it was part of a composting toilet.  Hmmm... I don't seem to remember seeing any composting toilet I knew about working that way.  I wanted to say to him "Do you really think that the REAL anarchists are going to be the RNC Welcoming Committee?  A public web page??"  He should read The Man Who Was Thursday by Chesterton.  The real threat are the guys you don't see.  Amateurs. 

A woman then walked by and the cameraman asked her what she though about McCain's new running mate.  She rolled her eyes and said the the woman was a joke.  "No experience...and a heartbeat away from the President". When I asked her if she thought Hillary supporters would go over to her she said "Of course not".  The cameraman countered with "I met a Hillary supporter that said, in spite of not liking McCain, was going to vote for him just because his running mate was a woman."  Scarry. 

The cameraman was an interesting guy.  A New Yorker who didn't take any pains to hide his pro-Obama feelings.  He hates the Clintons.  Hated them for NAFTA and hated Hillary for not voting against the war.  "I was in New York at the UN when everyone was saying there Were No Weapons.  It's ridiculous to think that those Congressmen could say 'I didn't know'".

Well, that's it for RNC, day minus one (or two, depending...).  If there's something you like me to ask folks here in the Twin Cities, let me know.