RNC Setup: Day One

Today I crossed the aisle. Today marked the first day I had nothing to do with the Democratic National Convention in Denver and the first day that I focussed exclusively on the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. Today was a quiet, productive day. I got a lot of prepratory work completed. I finished building out our wide-area network back to Chicago. I started and finished building out the local-area network to support the RNC media workspace. I got one of our several Internet access locations working and confirmed that the others would be ready tomorrow– in plenty of time before the convention begins on Monday. Today was an uneventful, productive day.

At one point I wrote to the operations crew back in Denver to see how things were going there, and received word that the setup was operating smoothly and without problems. That was good. That made me happy.

Today also saw one more member of our team arrive. Tony came in late this afternoon from Chicago and joined us for the last couple hours of setup before we headed off to dinner together. Tony does desktop and application support for the editorial staff at Tribune Tower and is here through the duration of the RNC to provide that support to the remote bureau. I did not have any opportunity to walk around and shoot pictures other than one of him, so here it is.

The only other excitement to report in St. Paul is the weather. We had violent thunderstorms last night. One lightning strike hit within a block of my hotel and disrupted my otherwise restful sleep. Tonight the heavens opened up again while the setup team was out to dinner and provided a much-needed rainstorm. We tried to wait things out by watching baseball games and drinking beer but after three hours and no let-up in sight, we called it quits and grabbed a cab back to the hotel.

I have made a list of some places around St. Paul I would like to shoot. And if I get a chance tomorrow I’ll see if I can’t capture some frames of some of them.

Today marks the halfway point in this trip. So far the stress has been manageable, the work fulfilling, and the experience very worthwhile. If the second half continues with that trend, I will be a very happy man.