U.S.A.!!! U.S.A!!!

USA

Why wouldn't Barack Obama release his birth certificate? -- Because Hillary Clinton wouldn't give it back to him. Ha ha.

So... this is Cory, and I had a pretty cool experience I thought I would share. Monday my school (University of Colorado at Denver) announced that they would be hosting President Obama Wednesday the 26th. Students who wished to attend were to stand in line Tuesday morning and wait for a limited number of tickets. I decided what the heck? Lets give it a try.

My plan was to to get there plenty early but Peter was up during the night and so I had a tough time dragging myself out of bed. They starting giving out tickets a

t 9am and I didn't get there until almost 10. I figured that I wouldn't get a ticket, but I got in the long line anyway. After waiting for 2

5 min or so, some lady with a megaphone came out and said, "We're almost out of tickets, you probably won't get one." Some people got out of line but several, including me, stayed in line, much to her frustration. Well, the line kept moving and moving. As I approached the front of the line, my hopes were high but I was expecting to come just short. Despite my doubt I got to the window and was told, "That's it, you're the last one." Local news started snapping my picture. It was pretty funny.

This is the ticket and list of house rules.

Today I went. I had the luck of waiting outside in 25 degree snow for 2 hours. I did not dress warm enough. The line was long!!

Secret Service Security was like TSA on steroids

When I finally got inside it was a very different atmosphere than I was anticipating. There was a band playing and people were rowdy. I guess I was expecting it to be professional and respectful. I guess it was more of a "campaigning" atmosphere that Barack was going for. I ended up standing about 30 ft from the podium just off center.

Anticipation grew and the Secret Service was out in numbers,

even these guys peeking out the windows.

The band left and the Secret Service came and put the Presidential Seal on the podium. The crowd was ready to errupt.

A girl came out and sang the national anthem, a girl gave a brief speech introducing the topic and then . . .

Despite it being a college campus, he was speaking to a fairly stupid and biased audience. Preaching to the church choir is pretty easy. Everyone was eating it up.

Anyway...he introduced a program in which those with student loans would only be required to pay back a percentage (I thought he said like 10%) of their income towards those loans. He didn't talk about the details.

Though I am not an Obama fan, it was a pretty dang cool patriotic experience.