May You Live in Exciting Times

Just back from a few hours at the convention hotel in downtown Austin. I need to get into my nice clothes for the events this evening, but first I'll share some observations after the jump.

1. The SDEC meeting was in full swing when I arrived, and when I left I'm pretty sure it was still going on. Today's proceedings, by all accounts, lasted a long, long time. The general impression was that some of the questions and information requests from the floor were a method of passing time until the Credentials committee finished up their business. I jokingly suggested to one SDEC member that they could play a few hands of cards while they waited, and he looked at me hopefully as if I might produce a fresh deck of Bicycles and start dealing.
2. If people were a little bored by a very long SDEC meeting, they all do seem happy to be here. The media coverage of the event seems to center around when then knives will come out and the fighting between Clinton and Obama delegates will roll out into the streets, but I don't detect much of an undercurrent of tense (or violent) feelings...
3. ...yet. It is rather early, and I did see more than a few shirts carrying the slogan "ONLY Hillary Gets My Vote."
4. There's a guy with a backpack circling outside the SDEC meeting in an endless pattern of pacing that kind of looks like Josh Marshall.
5. A rumor had prevailed for a few days that Clinton would show up to the convention, maybe on Saturday. The news of her unity event with Obama in DC on Saturday seemed to have put that rumor to rest. Obama will have Virginia Governor Tim Kaine speaking on his behalf tomorrow night.
6. I am glad to see so many of my friends again. The information age and my caramel-coated baritone phone voice make it possible to stay connected even from several hundred miles away, but I forget what a pleasure it is to be around my Democra-pals.
7. (But not Max Lazer, who likes to stand around and act important. I'm just saying.)
8. Actually, Matt was talking at length about the scene at the convention center, which he's been helping to set up along with the other Austinites. Apparently, there are 14,000 chairs on the floor, and no one thinks that will be enough.
9. Did I mention there are a lot of people here?

More later.