barricades, only about 10 people wide.  You could look down Independence Ave. and see the Green gate, with the line stretching for hundreds of yards.  Remember, the oath happens at noon, and it's about 10 already.  It was pretty cool to see all the people coming out for it.
              We were surrounded by people in furs, suits/ties, patent leather shoes, and scarves. I, of course, in "Big Steve" tradition wore my hiking boots, long johns, jeans, arctic coat (that I've worked on the car in, so it's not super clean).  I felt mildly out of place.  As people got cold, however, they stopped looking at me funny.  Once we crossed onto the captial grounds, the fencing
kicked in, and we were herded up to a dividing point for the blue tickets, with certain sections going certain directions.  There were only two "ushers"
(military police) checking tickets for ALL the people in our section.  That was the 4th time our tickets were checked.  Almost like they didn't trust us!  The nerve!
              The ironic part was, as tightly as they controlled the tickets, you could find them for sale on EBay, so... why they tried to keep people out, I don't know.
Our seats were the third ring around the dias, section 13. Once you got to your section, you could sit in any open seats we were about 3/4 of the way up this section..  We finally got there at around 10:45.  It took a long time with the constant shuffle, swaying back and forth, only moving forward about 2-3" a minute.
       We had a jumbo tron right to the left of the stage where we could watch the TV feed, so we got to see people walking in.  Yes, John Kerry was booed.  People in our section were from many different politcal  points of view,
as evidenced by their commentary on crowd reaction.  Our point of view was below the dias, so we couldn't physically see anyone until they stepped to the podium.  The jumbo tron was nice.
   There was plenty of time for pictures.  Everyone was snapping shots, taking movies, and holding up their cameras to get pictures of the crowd.
When we got to our seats, they were small plastic folding chairs, and had been set up for several days.  There was a muddy, frozen puddle in each seat.  Luckily, I had brought wool socks to change into, and had my white ones in my pockets. (HOW GLAMOROUS, you're thinking...).  I sacrificed and used the socks to clean our seats.  Brian and
Adrienne were very appreciative.  We just talked and waited.  The marine band played, and we got to watch the jumbo tron while Congressmen and dignitaries filled the podium.  We actually had GREAT seats, as the public seating was beyond that snowy section (that was the tickted standing section.  There were trumpet fanfares for all past presidents in attendance.  Here are the Clintons...
The colors came in next, before any of the presidential party.  You can see in the right picture the location of  the congressional seating.
 families came next, with Cheney's daughters followed by George H.W. and Barbara.  Fanfares for them too.  Lots of applause. It was a pretty PRO Bush crowd. I took a video of Bush's entrance. (9.6 MB AVI)  It was pretty cool, as although we were outside, the crowd was very quiet while waiting.  It did NOT feel like a rock concert, which is kind of what I expected.
      It was very business like, and the actual swearing in was pretty quick.  I've altered the photos and circled the vice president for you.  Same thing for the President. That's as close as I could get with my 9x digital zoom.  I had 21X binoculars, and you could see their facial expressions with those.  The one time I could have used the zoom lens... Oh well, it's just the president, right?  Anyway. His inagural speech was next. 
I really enjoyed it.  In fact, the whole ceremony was very spiritual, with MANY references to God, and prayers for his protection and covering for our nation.  His speech was not much different than other presidents, and although it resonated with me due to the spiritual overtones,  the commentary on the news and NPR later that day tore it to shreds.  It was uplifting, convincing, and motivating!  I wanted to sign up!
                     After Bush finished speaking, it was like we were a flock of birds.  A couple people stood up and started to leave, and pretty soon old women in fur coats and dresses were pushing, climbing over the stone walls, rows of chairs, and yelling at people who were waiting for the crowds to leave.  I shot some video of the exodus.  (4.5 MB AVI).
                     It took us almost an hour to walk 300 yards back to the senate buildings.  I debated whether or not to try to take the Metro back immediately, as I had not planned on taking a day off work, and still had stuff to do before the weekend.  Union Station was going to be a nightmare, so Brian convinced me to go back to his office and get some free lunch at the Ohio inaugural reception.  Free food, right?  I was a little star-struck when I got there.   
                      The governor of Ohio, Bob Taft was there, and was an arms length away at one point.  He actually looked me in the eye and smiled, and I smiled back and didn't think to pull out the camera... Just froze.  He's a big man!  Brian just laughed and got me up to Sen. Voinavich for pictures.
Senator Mike Dewine was there as well, but I didn't get pictures of him either. It turned out to be worth it to hang out a little after the reception!  The ladies had rushed back and changed from their warm clothes into dressier stuff for this reception.  They would then take a dinner break and get into their ball gowns for the evening galas.  Jimi and Buffy went to one, which didn't start until 9 PM.  They didn't want to be out both early and late.  We kept their daughter, Georgia, for them overnight.  She puked all over herself, so Friday morning was interesting. 
                       I'll blog more about my observations, so you can go to the MUSINGS section of the  website to read if you choose.