Obamapalooza (3)

Is there anyone in the country who isn't watching the bliss-fest in DC? Every conversation I've had today in our little city of Middletown has come back -- again and again -- to this jubilant feeling of hope.

Down in DC, my family went to the reception for CT residents at Senator Chris Dodd's office. That's where they ran into Calvin Price -- the VP of community development for Middetown's own Liberty Bank.



They spent most of the day going to museums and concerts and milling around with a few hundred thousand other people in anticipation of tomorrow's events. They took in a concert at the National Museum of the Native American.




They checked out the preparations at the Mall: the Jumbotrons are working.




At the end of the afternoon, they went to a Connecticut-themed party at the Russell Senate Office Building -- and in a case of the "media reporting on the media", my teenagers were interviewed by the Hartford Courant's Washington reporter, Jesse Hamilton.




They plan to rise well before dawn and head to the Mall, since their tickets for the inauguration itself are first-come, first-served in the standing area.