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I am a college student, if you use the box below I earn money to spend on Amazon to buy books. 1/27/2008
Iowa Caucus Trip 1/2/08 Part I
Let me take a minute and mention something I forgot about the previous day. When they advertised this experience one of the perqs was "meals provided." I thought this meant all meals. Not so much. I guess SOME meals provided, I should've read the fine print. On 1/1 we were responsible for our own breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was assumed that the campaigns would feed us during our volunteering on the first but no, this was not the case. I had the foresight to take a bag of goldfish and some mini 3 Musketeers to help out.
So let's start with 1/2. Breakfast was provided! It was actually pretty good--eggs, bacon, fruit, pastries. Everyone would be happy. I sat with a crowd of folks including Enthusiasm, a young man I wanted to slap the crap out of that morning. Between him and the skinny kid I shared a seat with on the bus I fear for the future.
I'm going to say a few things about this skinny bus mate. Let's call him Jaded. Kid had a nice MacBook Pro. He had an iPod Touch. He gets a phone call at some point and discussed his christmas which was "underwhelming. actually pretty lackluster." I guess life must be hard when you're that jaded before you can even drink alcohol. Oh, to be an undergrad again!
Organizer is not happy with some of the events that took place at our volunteer opportunity. She starts making phone calls and meanwhile we get on the bus with an uncertain future. We had heard rumor that he was going to put in an appearance at a call center so we headed over there to see what we could do. The person who greeted us was thoroughly confused. Of course they had no phones for us. They were being used by IOWANS to call other IOWANS. Every four years Iowans get the nation's focus and they are absolutely full of themselves during this time. We were told that no, they had no campaign materials and we should go online for that sort of thing. We left a little disgusted.
Some of the Obama folks agree to go to other campaigns, the rest of us wait to see what else there is to do. As people get dropped off Organizer finds out about an appearance Obama is making in a town a scant 90 minutes away. We get back to the hotel and decide to take a couple of rental cars to the event in Coralville.
The ride was uneventful. The backseat was packed with the Trouble Twins and Tagalong. The Trouble Twins were chronically late--more on them later. Tagalong was all right but seemed to be easily swayed by the Twins. The driver, Casino, tried to engage them in conversation but they were dismissive. I enjoyed talking to Casino as I could relate to her a little better. She was full time staff in the department that sponsored the trip and was also a part-time student. In fact, she gave me some great information about a non-trad scholarship for which my mother is going to apply. I kind of became her shadow over the next couple of days.
Eventually we're in Coralville. It wasn't easy as Organizer gave us some crappy directions. We ended up in the middle of a freakin neighborhood with the Marriott nowhere nearby! Turns out these weren't directions to the hotel itself, they were directions just generally to Coralville. We did make it to the hotel but were late. There was no room in the ballroom so we tried to stand at the press entrance (as seen above). We saw his hand and heard a little of his speech but were eventually shooed away to one of the overflow rooms.
After his speech he came to the overflow rooms! I got to shake his hand! A few of us got our books signed! It was great--the trip was definitely looking up and I wasn't in a mad dash to get home anymore. The ride home was a little more fun...the Twins and Tag were more involved in the conversation. Casino and I really wanted to stop at the Casino but after Organizer's admonition that the rental cars were only for official trip work we decided against it. Sigh.
- Flickr set
- Iowa Caucus Trip 1/1/08 Part I
- Iowa Caucus Trip 1/1/08 Part II
- Iowa Caucus Trip 1/2/08 Part II
- Iowa Caucus Trip 1/3/08 Part I
- Iowa Caucus Trip 1/3/08 Part II
- Iowa Caucus Trip 1/4/08
Let me take a minute and mention something I forgot about the previous day. When they advertised this experience one of the perqs was "meals provided." I thought this meant all meals. Not so much. I guess SOME meals provided, I should've read the fine print. On 1/1 we were responsible for our own breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was assumed that the campaigns would feed us during our volunteering on the first but no, this was not the case. I had the foresight to take a bag of goldfish and some mini 3 Musketeers to help out.
So let's start with 1/2. Breakfast was provided! It was actually pretty good--eggs, bacon, fruit, pastries. Everyone would be happy. I sat with a crowd of folks including Enthusiasm, a young man I wanted to slap the crap out of that morning. Between him and the skinny kid I shared a seat with on the bus I fear for the future.
I'm going to say a few things about this skinny bus mate. Let's call him Jaded. Kid had a nice MacBook Pro. He had an iPod Touch. He gets a phone call at some point and discussed his christmas which was "underwhelming. actually pretty lackluster." I guess life must be hard when you're that jaded before you can even drink alcohol. Oh, to be an undergrad again!
Organizer is not happy with some of the events that took place at our volunteer opportunity. She starts making phone calls and meanwhile we get on the bus with an uncertain future. We had heard rumor that he was going to put in an appearance at a call center so we headed over there to see what we could do. The person who greeted us was thoroughly confused. Of course they had no phones for us. They were being used by IOWANS to call other IOWANS. Every four years Iowans get the nation's focus and they are absolutely full of themselves during this time. We were told that no, they had no campaign materials and we should go online for that sort of thing. We left a little disgusted.
Some of the Obama folks agree to go to other campaigns, the rest of us wait to see what else there is to do. As people get dropped off Organizer finds out about an appearance Obama is making in a town a scant 90 minutes away. We get back to the hotel and decide to take a couple of rental cars to the event in Coralville.
The ride was uneventful. The backseat was packed with the Trouble Twins and Tagalong. The Trouble Twins were chronically late--more on them later. Tagalong was all right but seemed to be easily swayed by the Twins. The driver, Casino, tried to engage them in conversation but they were dismissive. I enjoyed talking to Casino as I could relate to her a little better. She was full time staff in the department that sponsored the trip and was also a part-time student. In fact, she gave me some great information about a non-trad scholarship for which my mother is going to apply. I kind of became her shadow over the next couple of days.
Eventually we're in Coralville. It wasn't easy as Organizer gave us some crappy directions. We ended up in the middle of a freakin neighborhood with the Marriott nowhere nearby! Turns out these weren't directions to the hotel itself, they were directions just generally to Coralville. We did make it to the hotel but were late. There was no room in the ballroom so we tried to stand at the press entrance (as seen above). We saw his hand and heard a little of his speech but were eventually shooed away to one of the overflow rooms.
After his speech he came to the overflow rooms! I got to shake his hand! A few of us got our books signed! It was great--the trip was definitely looking up and I wasn't in a mad dash to get home anymore. The ride home was a little more fun...the Twins and Tag were more involved in the conversation. Casino and I really wanted to stop at the Casino but after Organizer's admonition that the rental cars were only for official trip work we decided against it. Sigh.
posted by Leah at 1/27/2008 10:13:00 AM
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