The Daniels and Fisher TowerHurry up and wait. Today was dominated by the call to action: hurry up and wait. I hurried to make sure I would be available for vendors to deliver office equipment– monitors, keyboards, televisions, printers– only to wait to learn they will arrive early tomorrow morning. I hurried to make sure our assignments from the Congressional press galleries in the press stands, the central camera stand and the digital darkroom were what we had requested and been allocated only to learn that some of the spots were either confused, missing, still under construction, or left off the construction plans. So I waited for the press galleries to straighten things out with the contractors. All of this was not as bad as I may be making it out to be. It allowed me some time to catch up with other bits of the project. I got to do some work on QoS policy writing, performance testing and connectivity testing.

Some of the more interesting moments today were the meals. For lunch one of the broadcast engineers from KWGN took us to the Paramount Cafe. As soon as I walked in I immediately recognized it from when I would come up to Denver and go to Wax Trax on Colfax to buy records and then come down onto the 16th Street Mall for lunch. That was twenty years ago. Today a startling wash of nostalgia came over me as I stepped inside and sat down.

Four more people arrived in Denver today from Tribune. One left. There are now nine of us in town doing setup work for the convention coverage. For dinner we went as one big group to dinner at The Buckhorn Exchange. In their own words:

Denver’s original steakhouse, The Buckhorn Exchange is located in the city’s oldest neighborhood. This National Historic Landmark and Western Museum has been serving the finest in Old West fare since 1893. Prime grade beef steaks, buffalo prime rib, elk, salmon, quail, game hen, and succulent baby-back pork ribs are just some of the marvelous offerings on the Buckhorn menu. Exotic appetizers such as alligator tail, rattlesnake and buffalo sausage are available, and no dinner is complete without the house specialty, Rocky Mountain Oysters.

To the best of my recollection, I had never been to the Buckhorn Exchange before. I had thought about bringing the camera along to dinner to maybe take some sunset shots of the city. Schedules with a large group have a way of stretching out and I lost the light and put away the camera before we’d made plans on where we were going to go. Now I wish I had taken my camera with me to get some pictures of the inside of the place. The Buckhorn Exchange holds Colorado liquour license Number One. Live musicians perform nightly. Its walls hold a rare 575-piece taxidermy collection and a 125-piece gun collection. Elk, deer, moose, bison, big horn sheep, mountain lion, Colt .45s, Winchesters, Derringers, and a 1889 Sharp’s sporting rifle– to name just a few highlights.

In convention news, we learned that the DNCC will reveal the stage on Friday, so I should be able to get in there and take some more pictures of what it looks like as well as publish some of the previous pictures I had taken during its construction. I also learned that my city mayor, Richard M. Daley will be speaking at the DNC convention on Wednesday, August 27th– not that Daley is a particularly inspiring public speaker, but it seemed slightly relevant at the time I learned it.

Tomorrow I am going to try and see if I can’t find a way to take a picture of the building outside the Pepsi Center CNN has taken over for the duration of the convention. CNN has completely repainted the outside of the historic brick building with sloganism and marketing. I find it fascinating in a slow-moving train wreck sort of way.