The Shrine

Friday and Saturday wasnt so bad, but today i walked down to the Lincoln Memorial to try and see the free concert they were putting on (Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Renee Fleming, Josh Groban, Herbie Hancock, Heather Headley, John Legend, Jennifer Nettles, John Mellencamp, Usher Raymond IV, Shakira, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, will.i.am, and Stevie Wonder. Among those reading historical passages will be Jamie Foxx, Martin Luther King III, Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington) and it was the biggest cluster fuck i had ever seen. The security tent entrances slowed everything and lines were winding around forever. Me and a friend of mine were supposed to meet up with other people we knew, but we couldnt find them and both our cell phones wouldnt get reception in the crowd. We ended up bailing.

If this is any indication as to how the inaugural address will be then i dont think i can do it, which is a shame, because i was looking forward to it. Maybe instead of being an hour and a half early, like i was for the concert, i need to be 3 hours early, but thats just insane with the cold. I hope nothing happens that will cause riots, because DC cant handle 5x the population it has!

Flip wrote:Friday and Saturday wasnt so bad, but today i walked down to the Lincoln Memorial to try and see the free concert they were putting on (Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Renee Fleming, Josh Groban, Herbie Hancock, Heather Headley, John Legend, Jennifer Nettles, John Mellencamp, Usher Raymond IV, Shakira, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, will.i.am, and Stevie Wonder. Among those reading historical passages will be Jamie Foxx, Martin Luther King III, Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington) and it was the biggest cluster fuck i had ever seen. The security tent entrances slowed everything and lines were winding around forever. Me and a friend of mine were supposed to meet up with other people we knew, but we couldnt find them and both our cell phones wouldnt get reception in the crowd. We ended up bailing.

If this is any indication as to how the inaugural address will be then i dont think i can do it, which is a shame, because i was looking forward to it. Maybe instead of being an hour and a half early, like i was for the concert, i need to be 3 hours early, but thats just insane with the cold. I hope nothing happens that will cause riots, because DC cant handle 5x the population it has!

$20 says that they have Cellphone jammers in place so people can't use their phone for "nefarious purposes".

Ah, thats a good point. The friends i was supposed to meet up with ended up waiting in the security line for 2 hours, then they shut it down and wouldnt let anyone else in. They ended up going to 'Americas front yard' the lawn and watched the concert on a jumbotron. Wish i had thought of that, too, oh well.

More likely it was the sheer # of people that caused shitty cell reception. Cell phone jammers are illegal for any purpose as per FCC. Some state jails are trying to petition for an exception to that but it doesn't look like they'll even get it.

Yeah, any company making a device that jams a 911 call will have some SERIOUS problems from the federal govt.

I wonder if the address will rival any million man march we've in the past.

From what i read, even THE million man march only hit 600K or so. The expected number of visitors to the city is 3 million (normal population of about 600k). Granted they wont all go, but considering them and the people who live in the DC metro area, MD and VA, i think it will the biggest collection of people ever.

http://gigapan.org/viewGigapanFullscree ... 2b4b06233c

1400 megapixel panoramic of inauguration! Awesome, you can zoom in and everything.

Flip wrote:http://gigapan.org/viewGigapanFullscree ... 2b4b06233c

1400 megapixel panoramic of inauguration! Awesome, you can zoom in and everything.

Wow, that woulda been dangerous technology in university :-)