Roseyland

Hello, this is the post where I blog about the same thing that everybody else has already blogged about. I would have posted this sooner, but I went out and bought one of the new MacBooks. I’ve been spending all my time importing stuff from my PC to the MacBook. I might blog about the whole switching to Mac thing someday, but not today. I will say that my MacBook is pretty, and I do like pretty. Also, this is the first blog post I have written on the MacBook, and the first post I have written on my couch in my living room. Let me know if you can tell the difference.

Why am I here again? Oh yeah, I went to the Obama Rally on Saturday. It was amazing. You can see me in the picture above. I am the guy in the dark gray jacket, 117 rows from the top, 65 people from the right. I think it’s one of the better pictures of me.

I debated for a long time whether or not to go to the rally. I had never been to a political rally before, and I didn’t really have anybody to go with. Still, I knew that I liked Obama, and I knew that this could be a historic event. So I got up early on Saturday and drove to the nearest MetroLink station. The MetroLink station wasn’t too crowded, but there were Obama supporters there already. There was an elderly couple, a group of women, and a young family. The young family had a young daughter that kept asking questions about Obama. That was cute. The train wasn’t too crowded when I got on, but within two stations it was, and by the time we made it downtown, it was packed. After I got off the train, I started walking towards the end of the line, it was a LONG line.

After standing in line, I didn’t think I was going to get in. Once the area close to the stage was full though, they let everyone in without going through security, and that made the line move a lot faster. I ended up at the top of the hill, not a bad view once I knew where to look. This is what I saw. I wish you could see the arch in the picture. It was awesome to look up and see the huge arch above a huge crowd of people.

The next picture is Obama right after coming on stage. He is wearing a white shirt and is below and to the left of the spotlights.

This is a cropped version of the picture above. It’s easier to see Obama this way.

This is the picture above zoomed in on Obama. I had to do this, so that I would know that I was actually looking at Obama, and that I even managed to take a picture of him.

Hey look, even Jesus supports Obama. I love taking pictures of slightly crazy religious people. Although to be fair, this guy seemed pretty nice. Right behind him were other protesters with pictures of aborted fetuses. I prefer patriotic Jesus dude.

This is a picture of people leaving the rally with the arch in the background.

Here is the line of people waiting to get back on the MetroLink. I hung out downtown for few hours hoping that the MetroLink would clear up, it didn’t work. If you look close, there is a guy playing the saxophone. I love street musicians.

The picture below is Laclede’s Landing a hour or so after the rally. Downtown was filled with Obama supporters long after the rally was over. It was cool. The energy just kind of hung around.

I’m so glad that I went to the rally. It is definitely something I will remember for a long time. It’s hard for me to put into words what the atmosphere was like. What I remember most is the people. It was an incredibly diverse group, different races, religions, sexual orientation, style of dress, etc.. They were all there. For some reason, I feel a million times more comfortable in a diverse group people. This does not really make sense, because I’m just your average boring straight white guy. I think it’s mostly because I’m a pretty independent guy. It’s important for me to feel free to be my own person. When everybody around me is the same, I feel pressured to conform or something. This is also why I like to shop at the Target in the city.

I knew that I was going to vote for Obama long before this rally, so it’s not like it swayed my vote or anything. I will say that I feel more invested in this election now. Before the rally, I wanted Barack Obama to win, but it was just a personal thing. Now I want Obama to win for all of the people in that crowd. While I like Obama a lot, to many people in that crowd, Obama means more than I can imagine. Now I want this election for them. I agree with Colin Powell. Obama is a transformational figure. He is electrifying. He definitely has style, but he also has the depth and substance to back it up. You don’t see that often in this life, I hope we don’t miss out on the opportunity to see it for the next four years.

Here is my Flickr set from the rally.