On Monday morning I said my last goodbye to my car. Because it would have been so costly to repair the car, it made more sense to sell it to my insurance company. I can't believe I would have such feelings for an inanimate object, but that last farewell was pretty sad.

More photos of our day at the Inauguration. President Obama spoke from the red curtained area.



Security:


Former President Bush and Laura Bush flying away:

At 11:19 a.m. we were still making our way through the crowd to get through security. I started to prepare myself to miss the Inaugural Oath and President Obama's speech, but when the crowd started taking on the form of a line my hopes were lifted. Before long, we were making our way through the metal detectors.



We were elated when we finally got to the Capitol.









More to come!

THE 44TH PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION
Tuesday was an unforgettable day. Among an estimated 1.6 million people, Ryan and I witnessed the Inauguration of Barack Obama. Moreover, we were part of a very fortunate group of people (240,000 total) who had tickets, placing us on the Capitol lawn for the event. And while the ceremony was momentous and unforgettable, so was the adventure of getting to the National Mall.

After spending the night at my office in downtown D.C., Ryan and I set off from 9th & G streets NW in an effort to make it to 1st & Independence SW. At 9:30 a.m. the security gates for those ticketed with Blue Tickets opened. We set out at 8:30 a.m.

Stepping out onto the street, we were astounded by the amount of people that had come into the city. Despite the media hype, there was no way to prepare for the millions of people that descended upon Washington, D.C. We were also a bit surprised at how difficult navigating the city on foot would be. I knew there would be many road closures, but I assumed that the roads would be closed to traffic, not pedestrians as well. At one point, we found ourselves in a very tight spot as we tried to cross a street that was jammed with hundreds of people vying for a position on the parade route. Once we hit hwy 395 (closed to traffic) we started to make progress.

The map below depicts our starting point, a bit of the back and forth downtown, and finally, the route to our destination. Click to enlarge.


As we emerged from the highway tunnel at 9:45 a.m., we heard the music being played at the Capitol and we thought we were home-free.

We were wrong.

Though we could see the gate for the Blue Ticket Holders, there were hundreds of people moving in one huge mass toward the security tents. There was nothing to do but join in and hope that the very slow shuffling would have us at the gates by the time President-Elect Obama took the oath to become President Barack Obama.



To be continued...

This weekend Someday, I plan to finish this slight redesign of A Document of Days. Those of you who have read my blog since I launched it have seen many redesigns. My tastes change too often to keep a consistent look (terrible for marketing, I know.) If I had more space in my apartment I would rearrange the furniture weekly. But as for the blog, I hope to find a look that will satisfy me for at least a year.

In addition to the design, I am thinking about how to revamp the blog contents. I would like to post more regularly than I do... entries come to me in spurts and I experience many prolonged periods where I have no idea what to post. I figure if I had more of a direction, or at least some sort of plan, it would be easier to maintain... we'll see what I come up with.

I suppose these are my New Year's resolutions for my blog.

As for personal resolutions, I'd rather not share... that way, when I fail, I will be the only one I disappoint. Ha. How do you like those high standards!?

Under Construction!