We did so much today I’m just going to spell out as much as I can remember from start to finish and we’ll see where I end up alright? Ready… Let’s go.
courtesy Neal Goodson
We met up at 9:30 this morning and headed over to the Capitol. Once we got there we went straight to the Radio and TV Media Gallery for the House. We went into there “big studio” and heard all about what they do. (by the way the big studio is the same size as a normal dorm room, the small one is like the size of your closet.) The gallery is the place where the podium is where all of the speeches the congressmen and women give to the media. it was really cool. The book behind the podium are cut in half so they don’t fall over and one of them was a Bible but a representative noticed it and gave it to them because he felt it was desecrated. (The lady in charge took it to a priest cause she thought she was going to have to have it go through some holy process because of what they did to please the congressman and the priest looked at it and said ok and threw it in the trash. hahaha) The small studio is the one where they have the chairs that if you see them sit down with a reporter in front of a blue curtain that’s where that is. We then went and saw the House Chambers and saw the new studios that are being finished for the media gallery which is HUGE and high tech. (The podium goes up and down to adjust to a persons height so no more standing on boxes or anything!) No one wants to use it yet though because there is no cell phone service down there and they can’t do much about it yet cause the intel offices would be impacted if antennas are brought it so they are having to do so thinking and no reporter or politician wants to be with out cell service.
After we got done there we went and tried to hunt down Dana Bash, the
courtesy Neal Goodson
congressional correspondent for CNN. After much search and going through several buildings we found here in the Senate media gallery, which was much nicer than the houses by the way. But we got to hang out with the cameramen and sound guys who cover the hill and then talk to her for a few minutes and then we were ushered into the senate chambers to watch Paul Kirk take the oath of office to take Ted Kennedy’s senate seat. In the room was VP Biden, Nancy Pelosi, McCain, John Kerry, several of the Kennedy family members and several other big name senators.
We left there and tried to get out through the elevators but they were packed with all the people so we decided to go down the stairs and some people tried to follow us and they were stopped cause they didn’t have the clearance we had. That made me feel a little important and be with a group that had connections to get in places normal visitors can’t go. We walked through the rotunda and no one was in there. We think it was because they cleared it out since Biden was in the building and all of that. But none of the security or anybody questioned us. So cool to me. But we then got on the train cars congress members use to get from there office buildings to the capital, and went to talk to the chief of staff for Steve Kagen. Pretty cool guy that has been around for awhile and a big time guy who is working on a junior congressman’s staff and he is a former journalist.
We saw so much and got to experience so much today. I feel like I am leaving a lot out. I learned a lot about the behind the scenes stuff that is really really cool to know how it all goes down. I really wish I had a video camera I could take and show you all exactly we do but most of the places we go would say umm no. Just know the magic you see on tv is just that magic, and the politics you see anywhere is just… ummm… let me say not what you think is actually happening.
Pictures of it all are coming. I just have to wait till they are posted a little later. We did a lot today and I am worn out. We are heading out tonight to do some filming of places and more tomorrow as we try to get almost all of our footage done this weekend for our next project and I’ll post that next week when we finish it.
Neal Goodson's Blog 