1. Adam and I will be heading to Denver on Friday/Saturday.
2. We'll arrive in Denver sometime Saturday night.
3. We're staying at the home of a friend of Adam's with a couple other out-of-towners who we hope to introduce to you while we're in Denver.
4. We've been approached (out of nowhere) by a real newspaper (i.e. one that publishes more than one story by a local writer in their "A" section) and been invited to "pitch" a couple stories to them. Story pitched. We'll see how that goes.
5.We/I have received a couple of sponsorships from some North Dakota folks and organizations who we'll eventually thank in one way or another (THANK YOU!!!). They're helping us cover some of our costs for this trip. We're still looking for more sponsorships. We're full of gratitude for what we have, but would appreciate any help any more of you folks can provide. We're both taking a week off from work AND expect to cover our costs on our own AND spend the whole time providing information and entertainment for y'all. Every little bit helps. Contact me at northdecoder (at) gmail (dot) com, or just drop off a check or a pile of money, or use the "Make a Donation" button in the right-side column.
6. I've had a conversation with an independent film producer. He's looking for some video from the convention. I'm not sure how much I can tell you about the project because I have no idea whether it's going to go anywhere. The project has a very interesting website.
7. I'm working the back-channels for tickets to The Daily Show. I'm not holding my breath.
8. The North Dakota delegates have had conference calls leading up to the convention. We've been allowed to participate in those calls, getting the inside scoop on what's coming up. There's a lot of excitement.
9. We're getting lots of invitations to events and breakfasts and luncheons. It's sometimes frustrating, as many of the events overlap. I'm trying to get tickets/credentials/accreditations to go to everything possible. I'll sort it all out when I get there.
10. There's a show on Sunday night that I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to get to. Here's the skinny from a media advisory:
The Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee will present an official welcoming concert event for invited guests to celebrate the City's greening efforts around the 2008 Democratic National Convention, as well as to raise environmental awareness. "Green Sunday At Red Rocks," an opening act to Denver's hosting of the Convention, will feature performances by recording artists and environmental advocates including Dave Matthews with Tim Reynolds, Sheryl Crow and Sugarland.
The event also will feature addresses by Laurie David, global warming activist and producer of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth"; Van Jones, founder and president of Green For All; Bill McDonough, architect and sustainable living pioneer; and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., senior attorney for NRDC and chairman of Waterkeeper Alliance.
Executive hosts for the event will be Gov. Bill Ritter Jr., Mayor John Hickenlooper and U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar. Congresswoman Diana DeGette and Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia also will appear.
The event is made possible by donations from BNSF Railroad, MolsonCoors, Xcel Energy, Level 3, Diageo, and Liberty Media.
11. I've made attempts to get North Dakota's bigger newspapers interested in syndicating some of our writings from Denver. So far they're not really responding to my inquiries. Maybe there's just no perceived interest in these conventions. Or maybe they're just still thinking about it.
12. I've gotten a couple contacts from local TV news. If they interview me, you might see my mug on the TV at 6:00 (or whatever time local news is on) some night.
13. Did I mention we're still looking for sponsors to help us pay expenses for this trip? If you're a business, we might even wear your hats or shirts. Or put a little "sponsored by..." thing on the front page. Or something. If you can help out, shoot me a note at northdecoder (at) gmail (dot) com. We'll make it worth your while.
14. I should set up a Picasa page for easy upload of photos (even crappy, blurry ones) from Denver, shouldn't I? (Thinking out loud here.)
15. We have biography pages set up for many of the delegates. I've got "comments" turned on at the bottom of all the biographies. We're hoping delegates will use the comments below their biographies to post anecdotes about the convention, etc., and for you folks to communicate with them there. I have no idea how that is going to play out.
16. The State Blogger Corps is planning all kinds of things in Denver. We're having a BBQ with Howard Dean one afternoon. We're planning meet-ups at various times. Some of us will be at the Big Tent.
17. Speaking of the Big Tent, information is trickling in about who the panel speakers will be at the Big Tent. I'm looking forward to getting to some of those events. For those of you interested in this stuff, click here to see the agenda as of now. There are some panelists I'm really hoping to catch if I can. Did I mention the Big Tent is sponsored, in part, by New Belgium Brewery?
18. The people who make up the State Blogger Corps have been communicating with each other quite a bit. The "Rootswire" aggregation of all the blogger corps content is one thing one guy put together, but there's other stuff too. I hope to share that stuff with you if and when it's ready and when it makes sense to do so.
19. We're really getting overwhelmed with information. I must get 4 or 5 press releases, media advisories, blogger corps informational memos, delegation informational memos and invitations per hour. It's hard to keep up. So I don't.
[UPDATE #1: 20. Adam and I each will have the ability to stream video from our laptops in Denver (I think). Adam might be in the convention hall streaming video of someone speaking from the podium while I stream video from a panel discussion in the Big Tent. We don't really have a schedule of when we're going to be streaming live, so you'll just have to stop in as often as you can. We may also be uploading video files to the media server so you can stream stuff we've recorded earlier. Again, I'm not sure how that's going to work as we are going to be at the mercy of a lot of other peoples' technology infrastructure. I'm also not all that sure how good the video quality is going to be. This is all new to us.
21. We've been told access to power outlets is going to be at a premium AND that we should expect to experience "brownouts" while we're in Denver. I've ordered a back-up laptop battery (Thank you Tom the sponsor!!! Not here yet.) -- something for which I really have no other use -- and I think Adam has too. I've also gotten 2 extra cell phone batteries. We may end up relying on cell phone EVDO internet connections for internet access at times, and that draws down cell phone batteries really quickly. I think Adam has also arranged for internet via cell phone, if that becomes necessary (but I'm not sure). We'll have access to media and blogger areas in the Pepsi Center where we should have power and wired internet, but where we won't likely have anything worthwhile to stream as video. We're told we will have a wired internet connection and electricity at our seat with the North Dakota delegation on the convention floor. We might get some fun stuff out of that. Maybe some live, on the scene, interviews of our North Dakota delegates and some of the nuts around us.
22. Oh yeah. And I'm going to be interviewed by one of the local news guys in 20 minutes.]
[UPDATE #2: 23. We just found out (thursday) that one of the Big Tent speakers, Phil Donahue, had to cancel because of complications from his knee surgery. The best they could do as a replacement is Dan Rather. Bummer [he said jokingly]]
That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure I'll think of more. [I did. See ##s 20 - 22, above.]
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