Tonight was certainly one of the more random evenings I’ve had in a while.  I got back from an afternoon of golfing for work (I know, talk about a way to kick off a week) and decided to try and fit in a quick jog before having to pack for some extended time away from home and hitting the hay early.  While on my returning leg home on the Trolley Trail, I noticed some news vans, a few cop cars, and a small gathering of people across the street.  At first I thought maybe there was an accident or something but the crowd looked too large for it to be that.  I asked one of the news people what was going on, and he informed me that Barack Obama was spending time at the house on the corner tonight.  I was stunned.  Tonight was the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Denver so, naturally, I would have never dreamed Obama would be in KC, much less in my neighborhood.

Realizing this scenerio was a once in a lifetime opportunity, I walked over to the small crowd to wait around for the presidential candidate. While there, the crowd was gathering due, in large part, to the invention of cellular technology.  Half of the people there were kids in the neighborhood while the others were mostly middle-aged and either calling all their friends or texting them like crazy.  Before long, the crowd of approximately 250 swelled to close to 1,000 I would guess.  Meanwhile, cop cars were piling into the area one by one to join the secret service.  Upon talking to a cameraman from a local news station who was standing next to me, he told me that Obama’s people were making this visit secret and that they specifically told the media to stay away from the airport.  His visit tonight wasn’t reported prior to him showing up, either, and even the neighbor who lives across the street said that she wasn’t told of anything beforehand.

I’ll be honest that it was a little annoying to wait around for as long as I did.  In total, I probably waited close to two hours to see the guy.  It was interesting to learn new information about his visit tonight as time passed.  At first, no one knew any details aside from the fact that he was showing up.  Gradually, we learned that Barack is friends with the family and visited them, went to dinner with them, and was planning on filming a live segment via satellite after Michelle Obama finished speaking at the Convention.

Soon, the motorcade appeared, and an SUV pulled up with some people in it.  I never actually saw Obama enter the house, nor did anyone else who was standing there.  I heard from a cop that he wasn’t going to come out to speak at all and that the best chance of seeing him was to head back across Brookside Blvd. by where the SUV was parked to see him take off.  I moved my way over there and, after waiting another 25 minutes or so, finally saw him emerge from the house.  He basically just stood in the lawn waiving to everyone for about 30 seconds and was off.  Some people were upset that they’d waited so long and just saw him waive.  I, on the other hand, was pretty pumped that I had a chance to see him, especially considering I was just planning on jogging outside for a half hour or so.  The only unfortunate part was that, because I was running, I only had my mp3 player with me.  I didn’t have my phone to call friends and inform them of the “secret”, and I didn’t have a camera to take pictures.  It was still a great experience, and I really hope he is able to pull it off come November.