Ben & Gwen

The Democratic National Convention brought with it a whole bunch of random excitement here in the Mile High City. I'm gonna leave ya'll hangin' on the Ben Affleck piece for now. Our little fam drove downtown the Sunday before the DNC officially started with adventurous friends Josh and Jen to check out the scene. Everyone else thought we were crazy.

Between black SUV's stocked full of men in ear pieces or exteriorly loaded with police/FBI forces ready for a nuclear war, vehicles you might find in a monster truck show spray painted with language depicting Barac Obama as the anti-christ, photographers hiding around corners, masses of people walking around just to see if you might be someone with an ounce of celebrity status, Obama hooplah on every corner and in-between every corner and most importantly, the Rednecks for Obama group, lead by the one armed gentleman, we thoroughly enjoyed our sightseeing tour of our city. The dude had a gay ole' time as well. Especially when a young kid gifted him with a freaky lookin gingerbread doll. Dude hugged it and laughed and when he wasn't looking, we quickly disposed of it in a garbage can adorned with Obama signs.

Our mayor went so far as to offer "Venice-like" (I stress the "like" in that phrase) boat rides down the muddied river that runs through downtown, complete with a little Hispanic man offering details about the history of the brand new buildings they pass along the way. Spray painted buildings were cleverly painted over in colors not even close to the color of the buildings, so that looked natural. All sarcasm aside, it was a pretty cool time for our city. We (as if I had anything to do with it) did a great job of hosting a rather ginormous group of Democrats and only had to mace and attack a few people trying to mess it all up.

Now for the entrance of Mr. Ben Affleck. I work at a large Food Bank, which happened to be a volunteer spot for Mrs. Obama's day of service. We were graced with the presence of Ben, Justin Bartha (nerdy guy in National Treasure...very cool in person), Alicia Witt and a couple other celebs, as well as Senator Durbin and McGovern. They boxed a bunch of food in a game of sorts, interviewed with about 75 members of national media and called it a day. We got up close (not very personal) with all of them, so it was a day worth talkin' about at Food Bank. Ben looked my direction once (probably because I had my zoom lens in his face), so that was my brush with fame. The end.

Donna, Justin Bartha, Janie, Director Ben Younger, me, Alicia Witt & Kimmy