Barack, Michelle and the girls arrived here in Honolulu today. Here are some photos from the event at Ke'ehi Lagoon Beach Park. 4,000 happy people turned out to see our next President and native son. Quotes are from the Honolulu Advertiser article here.
UPDATE
Holy shit! The rec list! That is definitely a first for me. It has been an ugly day for news. Consider this a little break from all the crap...
At 12:30 when I arrived there was a long line snaking across the open field.
The line moved steadily and it wasn't too long before I was through security. The crowd was upbeat.
Local media was there in force.
First on stage was our Junior (believe it or not) Senator Daniel Akaka. Issues about effectiveness aside Dan Akaka has been a reliably liberal vote for years now. He also genuinely seems to be the nicest human being on earth.
Senator Akaka brought out Congressman Neil Abercrombie who was friendly with Barack's Mom and Dad at University of Hawaii all those years ago. The Senator led us in a Hawaiian style prayer (acceptable even to my non-believing ears).
Neil starts to fire up the crowd.
Abercrombie introduces the Mayor of Honolulu Mufi Hannemann who has the honor of the final introductions.
The crowd went pretty wild when Barack and Michelle hit the stage. It was hard to shoot through all the digicams and I really didn't get a great shot of our next First Lady. Here is what I captured.
Barack rolls into his speech
"I'm actually here on vacation. I'm going to get a plate lunch. I might go to Zippy's. I might go to Rainbow Drive-In. I haven't decided yet. Get some Zip Min. I'm going to go get some shave ice. I'm going to go do body surfing... I'm going to see my tutu, my grandma, and I'm going to watch my girls play on the beach and once in a while I might go into the water. But mostly I'm going to watch them."
He spoke of his grandfather the WWII veteran who is buried here at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl. He spoke of how the government at that time served his grandfather with the GI Bill and assistance in buying a house through a Federal Housing Authority loan.
"The is your government. This is the government of and by and for the people," he told the crowd. "This is a government of the single Mom, like my mother, when she was living here in Honolulu, who had to get food stamps sometimes but still was able to get me a good education and still was able to send me to college, that's what this government is."
(or you COULD have a vision of a government that you want to drown in a bathtub. You choose.)
Let's hope that Barack and his family get a real chance to relax and retool for the final grind to winning the White House.
Aloha
My wildlife, surf and landscape photography site is HERE