Greetings from Boston!

I’m sitting in the last row of Section 320 in the Fleet Center in Boston, the section of this area that has been designated as ‘Blogger Alley’ for the event we are all here to attend, The Democratic National Convention. So much as happened since getting here last Friday, it’s difficult to find the time to recount it all! (As I’m typing right now, my old boss, Senator Edward Kennedy, has just begun his speech, really).

I am here at my third Democratic Convention working in the Democratic News Service. Our mission, to help the candidates and elected officials that are here to reach their local news… television, radio, and Internet. My team’s focus is on the Internet. The Convention’s web team is doing a great job with the officlal Convention web site, that’s not what we’re doing from the DNS. We are working to help do some matchmaking between the politicians who use the DNS, and the online media and bloggers who are here to cover this event. And so far it’s going very well.

But I should back up a bit. The adventure began last Friday, when I arrived on got checked into my very nice dorm room at Northeastern University. Not quite the Four Seasons, but then again I am one of 30,000 or so visitors who have descended on Boston for the Convention, and having any place to rest your head is something to be thankful for, even a college dorm room with roomates (not somewhere I imagined to find myself again at 39). My good friend Neal Stillman accepted my invite to join the Internet team in the DNS, and we began the week eager to take in another event here in Boston… yes, the evil New York Yankees were coming to play the Red Sox at Fenway. We took in the Friday night game at a popular sports bar near Fenway, the Cask and Flagon. And though the Red Sox lost, I still took a bet from my Yankee friend Bobby that the Sox would win the series. Two days and many beers later, I won that bet. Go Sox!

The ball games were a welcome distraction, but we were plenty busy getting oriented with the Fleet Center, setting up our workspace, training our teams, and enjoying the buzz and parties of the big start on day one. Conventions are hectic by definition, and this one is no different, except for the fact that this is a ‘National Security Event’, and so the Fleet Center has been turned into a fortress, and the troops/police/security are everywhere in Boston. At least they’re not wearing Red Coats.

Stay tuned, more to come…