I am not a member of an organized party...I am a Democrat!!!!!!

11:00 AM:

We didn't pull out of Anchorage until 8:45 pm Friday night so we went straight to Ross and Paula's house for a nighttime barbecue snack, some visiting and bed time.

At 7:45 AM, I joined the morning crowd of locals and tourists for a nice breakfast at the Noisy Goose (where the cute waitresses sit down and chat with the guys before they go fishing...kinda the Alaska small-town version of Hooters) and then crossed the road to the Alaska State Fairgrounds for the Convention.

Things I've learned:

- No matter what the radio or T.V. ads say, always, ALWAYS register the day of the Convention or you may end up doing it twice.

- WiFi is usually one of the "problem issues" - however, there will always be a computer guy that will work miracles

- Vista sucks

- While AK politicos are nicer to bloggers than many, expect to move over for mainstream media

- Vista sucks

- The delegate fan out is the most insane, unorganized, uncoordinated, coolest, most fabulous piece of Democracy-in-action that anyone can ever experience.

- Did I mention that Vista sucks?

My 10-year-old took all the pictures I'll be posting today and tomorrow - cool, huh?

Stay tuned...

8:22 PM Wow...late, late, late...

No one could have predicted that the Fan-Out/Delegate voting process would go so long that they were still setting up for dinner now (dinner was supposed to be at 7:30).

Oh wait...I predicted that this morning...except that they actually finished before I thought.

This Convention is exciting because of the huge amount of participation. The Obama and Clinton delegate candidate speeches were occasionally punctuated with poetry, with loud cheerleading, even with song.

I have tons of stuff to write about over the next few days few days...including the candidate speeches as well as an excellent keynote from Mr. John Dean.