I know it was awesome to see the penn avenue bike lanes in the motorcade but I also thought it would be nice if the buildings along the parade route were twice as tall.

by Drumz on Jan 21, 2013 12:25 pm • link • report

Obama gave a great speach. His straight forward advocacy of liberal values was refreshing. I especially like how he called out the government's role in building our infrastructure such as rail and the consequent economic benefits to all. Hopefully he will put his/our money where his mouth is.

by Thayer-D on Jan 21, 2013 2:13 pm • link • report

Loving those bike lanes! Hope we get some here in Tysons one day soon.

by Little Red on Jan 21, 2013 3:57 pm • link • report

Crowds were manageable, but jumbo trons were a disaster this time. 0/2

by Alan B. on Jan 22, 2013 9:14 am • link • report

I second @Alan B. about Jumbotrons. I ended up in the section next to the Washington Monument, just west of 15th St, with a great view of the one Jumbotron in this section. The preamble was great, but as soon as Sen. Shumer started the ceremony, the signal became VERY bad. The video started flickering and cutting out, and then the audio did the same thing. The thousands of people in this section were only able to hear about every third word, and the music was very distorted, particularly the Choir and James Taylor's songs.

Eventually, just before Obama's speech, they switched the video over to a TV stream, which worked MUCH better but was about 20 seconds behind the audio. But they never switched the audio over to match it, so the audio kept cutting out.

My section grew increasingly restless and agitated, and large numbers of people, including my group, left before Obama had a chance to finish his speech. It was very disappointing, and we left without any of the feel-good energy that the crowd had for years ago.

The only upside was that Farragut North station was still mostly empty by the time we got there to go home.

by Andrew M. on Jan 22, 2013 1:55 pm • link • report