Anyone going to the INAUGURATION...

[TheMercenary]

Well no matter what your party, that is one for the history books!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYA_w...1&f=5&t=818902

[glatt]

I went to the Inauguration, only I was a day late.

I just took these on my lunch hour.

Workers gathering up crowd control fences, right next to one of the many banks of porta potties. There were thousands of porta potties there.

[glatt]

The grass on the Mall took a real beating. What the crowds didn't trample, the trucks compacted for good measure.

[glatt]

The banners and flags were hung on the buildings with care...

[glatt]

Pennsylvania Ave was open to pedestrians again. This is right in front of the White House. To enter the president's review stand, you climb a stairway from the White House side that takes you over the wrought iron fence surrounding the White House. Then you come down the steps inside the presidential review stand.

It looks semi-heated. There were vents inside.

[Aliantha]

Interesting pics. Thanks glatt.

[classicman]

Those are awesome pics glatt - thanks.

[glatt]

Thanks!

They are a bit anticlimactic, but at least show the clean-up and give an idea of what it was like on the ground.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by glatt

Thanks!

They are a bit anticlimactic, but at least show the clean-up and give an idea of what it was like on the ground.

Not at all, they're great. The details of what we saw on TV... kind of like checking out the set of a movie we've seen. Thank you.

[glatt]

There's a big parking lot across the street from my office building. They had put up a big tent for some inaugural event there. Yesterday, they took the fabric off the tent, and I saw this!

[glatt]

So I looked it up.

This weekend, a plane will touch down in the center of Washington. Actually, it will be half a plane, a Boeing 727 replica of Air Force One that will be the highlight of InauguralFest, a week-long event from Jan. 16-24 in the parking lot of the old convention center in downtown Washington (1100 H Street NW).

...the Boeing used to operate as the campaign plane for John Kerry and John Edwards, the Democrats who lost in the 2004 presidential race. Warlick purchased the jet, sans engine and wings, for $250,000 last year, then repainted it and repurposed the inside to resemble Air Force One. (President George H.W. Bush upgraded to a 747, so Warlick says the smaller plane looks more like what Ronald Reagan used.)

[Aliantha]

You probably just need to worry about who was watching you taking pictures now glatt.

[TheMercenary]

Thought you guys might like this, pretty cool pic.

[classicman]

Awesome pic merc. The crowd formations are very cool. How they are apparently affected by the wind/weather and view. Very different perspective than the cameras from ground level.

[glatt]

I think the crowd formations have a lot to do with the placement of the jumbotrons and the side viewing angles to the jumbotrons. If you look at the front of each clump of people, you should see a jumbotron.

Also, there is a huge clump of pissed off people in the street below the Indian museum (The roughly triangular shaped building with a dome just to the upper left of the reflecting pool). They are all ticket holders who were refused entrance to their ticketed area (the nice sparsely populated area behind the reflecting pool.) They are stuck standing in the street behind a closed police checkpoint. Bit of a screw-up there. If I had gotten the tickets I had hoped for, that would have been me.