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Lynn Calvin

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I guess he can't really take the Metra electric anymore [Nov. 21st, 2008|02:32 pm]
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[mood | amused]

So, I left work a few minutes early, and might have just made the 5:26 train.  Except someone else was leaving the office too.

As I'm coming out of the building, I see blue lights and there are police cars everywhere (which there have been this week and last week.)  Both Chicago police and Federal Protective Service cars have been around since the Obama transition office moved in (I didn't even realize that FPS had that many cars.)  It's across the street and up about 27 floors from my office.  I used to work in that building.  I'm kind of glad I don't right now, I bet security is fierce.

Jackson and Clark (both one way) are blocked off, Clark one block north at Adams, so that no traffic can come by where the parking exit is for the Kluczynski Building.  It's on Clark.  My office in the Metcalfe building is across Jackson..  (Part of becoming a Chicago resident is that you learn to spell names like Kluczynski.)

Jackson is blocked at Clark so that traffic can't cross Clark, blocked by a parked police car.  And the Chicago police, in the checked caps, aren't letting pedestrians cross at all.  It was kind of funny, because there's heavy pedestrian traffic and people kept arriving and glancing around and starting to cross and the police officers kept shooing them back.     Chicago pedestrians don't pay a lot of attention to cops or lights normally.   If they aren't in immediate danger of being run over, they cross.  (And sometimes there's a pretty flexible definition of immediate.)

There was some grumbling and some Type A types took off to the  south to be able to go around (north was a non-starter, because you'd have had to go back and around, adding up to quite a hike.

One bicycle going the wrong way crossed at fairly high speed on Jackson, and one of the officers yelled after him and then said something into a radio - I can't help wondering what the result was.

After a couple of minutes two of the police cars with lights on just north of the building suddenly moved out and five (?) SUVs came out of the garage at a pretty good clip followed by some more police and off they went.

So there wasn't really anything to see, but people kind of cheered and waved anyway, on the principle that Obama  was in one of the SUVs...

There was some grumbling, fairly goodnatured.  A couple of people had already been caught by this coming or going before, and were saying that he was leaving early tonight....   I did miss the 5:26, but I made the 5:49.  If I was pressed for time, or if it happened a lot it might get irritating.

I'm not sure why I'm pleased, it was mostly just a pleasant "That's the President-elect's car I saw, I guess."

Oh, yes - and for the record

SQUEEE!!!!
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Comments:
[User Picture]From: [info]jrittenhouse
2008-11-21 09:46 pm (UTC)

(Link)

*snicker* I sorta wish I could see that. Susan has been saying that the Union League Club has been blocked off a lot.

I saw Obama in person a while back - when the Daily Kos people had their convention at McCormick Place a year or so ago - along with the other Democratic candidates. Back then, I was a red-hot Edwards person, but I got good looks at everyone, especially Richardson.