Wow. I went to the event to videoblog it and just check out the man and the scene, but because I happen to be wearing pirate regalia, I got a spot onstage. There was free wifi covering Ogawa Plaza here in front of city hall, but nobody else joined in live. Lots of media. I was connected by wifi and phone so I kept the updates flowing. Or at least tried to. UPDATE: Here's a better summary by FemLaw. But don't miss the fun comments down below here.
Rather than push through updates, I imagine I mostly used comments. See FemLaw's diary, linked above, for a good post-event summary and comments from others there in person.
It wasw hard to type onstage after it got started and also pay attention and also make a respectable attentive backdrop.
Consider this an interactive experiment, and a place for thoughts of the day on Obama, the campaign, and St. Patrick's Day.
Preliminary estimates were 10,000 people expected, hard to tell from up here, lots of folks are down below the sightline, outside the "bowl" designed for a few hundred
The Berkeley/East Bay for Obama MeetUp Thursday was inspirational... lots of attorneys.
There's George Lakoff! Trying to get a spot onstage, looks like.
Green shirts for volunteers, blue placards.
Ooh, Lakoff has a red ticket, he gets to go in the right-up-next-to-the-podium area.
They're passing out handwritten signs in addition to the printed blue ones. Yes, Virginia, not all handmade signs are made by the people waving them.
doors were at 3:00, it's now 3:50, crowd is ready
white tickets are general admission, blue are for volunteers to get up closer, gold is bleachers behind Obama, distributed mostly to people selected to make a diverse backdrop.
pix to follow.
Great to see my fellow Climate Project trainees here, including one from Seattle.