Back to the streets again for the Parade. Friday night is definitely busier than Thursday. The streets filled up pretty quickly, you can tell that this photo is from before the parade because the lights are still on. Just before the parade begins, they cut the street lights and the bus shelter lights, but the Christmas lights on the trees stay on.

It’s very different with the lights on, the lights on the big buildings light up the low clouds so it almost feels like you are indoors on Nicollet, ‘cept of course for the bitter cold.

Sarah’s book signing was scheduled for from noon to four, but she arrived twenty minutes early, got right up on stage and started signing books. My gang of photographers (Dusty, Dan, Mickey) and I camped out a good location and then security booted us just before she got there. This was shot with a 300mmVR from the third floor between the escalators on the far side of the atrium: f5 and 1/15th of a second ISO 1600.

The line wound all around Nickelodeon Universe, we stopped and talked to a few people, everyone was pleasant and surprised by the turnout and all the media. TLC’s show Mall Cops was filming all the skuffles with the mall cops. They really didn’t like us taking pictures of them, so, um, we didn’t.

The closest I’ve ever gotten to  eagle. It’s ok, he was on a leash, at the Minnesota Raptor Center release event. By using a long lens and large aperture, I was able to focus on the eye and throw the beak out of focus.

Hundreds of kites filled the crisp winter air as little kids and big kids alike enjoyed this winter kite festival held on Lake Harriet in South Minneapolis.  Winter in Minnesota is an interesting thing. While many would elect to stay inside where it’s warm; true Minnesotans have so many things to choose from: kite festivals on  frozen lakes, winter carnivals, ice carving contests, cross-country ski races and pond hockey tournaments!

Check back for more kite and snow photos this week.

Endless entertainment abounds in the big city. Saturday night I went to see the Northstar Girls Roller Derby. This is Pippi Van Whalen, Number 84. Lots of photo opportunities, they skate at the Convention Center in Minneapolis and you can stand right up against the track to take pics. It’s a fun atmosphere, it’s got that Rocky Horror Picture Show / local bowling alley feel. Fun for the whole family. I’m definitely going back with a brighter lens and a flash. The low light was hard to work with.

Alas, all is back to normal here in river city. It’s been tough on this great city to be essentially cut in half for just over a year. What was so shocking for all of us who didn’t lose anyone in the collapse is that everyone either crossed the bridge regularly or knew someone who did — 140,000 vehicles a day passed over the old bridge.

This first photo was taken from the Washington entrance ramp going North, ten minutes before the bridge opened. You can see the blue glow of the LED lights on the bridge.

A parade of vehicles began a slow procession across the bridge, a row of troopers, a row of construction trucks and then the crowd that had assembled behind them, honking and hooting!

Here you can see the row of trucks and traffic coming from the University side.

And there they go! It was fun to see all these cheery, happy people honking and waving. A large group of motorcycles came up over Washington and circled back onto the bridge.

If you showed up at this moment and had no idea what was going on, it would seem pretty odd, all these people beaming with joy to drive over an interstate bridge; a crowd assembled to watch normal traffic flow at 5:10am on a Thursday.

After crossing the bridge, I turned around on 4th and stopped to look from the west bank. Unfortunately I shot this from out the window of my idling Jeep, so it’s a little blurry. You can see the 30-foot tall sculptures in the median. They represent the shape of the Mississippi river as it passes through Minneapolis.

A little non documentary treat.

Here’s a photomontage of my adventures Thursday Night in Downtown St. Paul during the Republican Convention. The oddest thing about the experience was that despite the apparent tension expressed in the photos, everyone was really calm and civil. It was just a few agitators that made it a problem. The cops were really cool about everything and not antagonistic at all. I was joined by Snapshutter and Slinger. Check out their sites, they have some great photos and Slinger has a full account of our day, so I don’t have to repeat it. Thanks guys, I had a great time! My only regret at the end of the day was that we didn’t go back to check out the protesters one more time before we left. Now I’m glad we didn’t the police got sick of them at around nine. They were driven into the Sears parking lot and arrested. I didn’t get and photos of that, but I did get to sleep in my own bed.

That’s OK, I didn’t want to go that way anyhow. Really.

Key kids, stay in the museum, reality is just too interesting right now.

Which one of these guys should we Taze? Should I take a poll?

Note the riot cops on the left.

A Snow Plow in the summer. Huh. I wonder what else you can get off a bridge besides snow with one of these?

I wonder where this guy stands on the issues…

I don’t think he was born in the US, maybe he should try the Senate.

During the speech, Chris Matthews takes a break for dinner.

In spite of all the crazies, out-of-town trouble-makers and the invasion of the National Spotlight, St. Paul is still a beautiful place. Maybe we should invite all of them back in February for the Winter Carnival and show them how we have fun?

Just like Denver last week, my hometown is now on the armed camp of the national stage. It seems that nobody here is from here. I went downtown after the big protest march just to look around. It was in the high 80s and that’s pretty warm for us northerners. I wasn’t there for the big march, but I did get to watch a fun little low-key interplay last night. As I was walking around, I noticed this group of about 75 officers march out of the convention zone and over to the corner of Kellog and St. Peter.

I love the flourish-like zip-tie handcuffs on these dudes (and dudettes, there were quite a few female troops in the ranks as well). Here’s the set up, the officers marched out to this corner and just stood there for at least fifteen minutes. As far as I can tell, they were there to guard the Crown Plaza Hotel — as the evening wore on, several large motorcades came and went from the hotel. Boy, did these guys draw attention to themselves!

Sure as shoot, the code pink protesters that were on the St. Peter bridge hanging their banners for the benefit of the coast guard gunboats patrolling the Mississippi found out about it and came up the corner with their megaphone and banners. It was pretty entertaining, over a hundred police officers and several dozen photographers watched about ten loud protesters dance in the street.

Did I say a lot of police? I guess after the afternoon teargassing event, they weren’t taking chances. Now with only ten protesters, this seems ridiculous, but a lot of things didn’t happen. The 50,000 protest march of less than 10,000 went through town and then over the St. Peter bridge to Harriet Island (a festival ground across the Mississippi). President Bush was going to be speaking, but didn’t come to town because of the Hurricane. But the cops were still playing by the old schedule. I would imagine that Bush was going to be at the Crown Plaza (the Texas delegation was staying there) and security was expecting 50,000 protesters across the bridge (which the city had barricaded with four old dump trucks). In addition to the re-enforcements, the cops in the front row now have tear-gas launchers — note the green canisters on their chests.

OK, so back to the pictures. This guy had the oddest little sign he kept standing and holding at the police. I never figured out what it said. Hand-hold shooting by street-light requires a fuzzy-high ISO. Note to the protesters, I know it’s too much to ask for you to take a bath, but please don’t sing. I commented on the off-key singing to another photographer and he said that he offered a cop $20 to shoot the singer .  The cops were actually pleasant. I stepped behind them to take this picture and one of them looked over his shoulder at me. I said “I’m just taking pictures, I don’t want to surprise you”, to which he replied, “No, you don’t” and smiled.

After an hour of dancing and (ugh) singing, the protesters got bored and the one with a megaphone declared “let’s go this way” and they danced off. Remember the guy with the little sign? He stuck around for his 15 minutes. I’m glad he did, this was my favorite picture of the night.

Thanks to the protesters for an evening’s entertainment, but thanks especially to the cops for remaining calm and not minding us damn photographers walking all around them. It was still near 80 degrees out and I was warm wearing a t-shirt, I can’t imagine wearing riot gear.

Friday night was the last night before the RNC Republican National Convention begins to rev up, so I went down to walk around and see all the ruckus. This photo is from the MSNBC set in the middle of Rice Park. It’s pretty cool to be able to walk around a production like this, it’s the count down to The Countdown…

This photo shows the crews setting up the security fence around the Excel Energy Center. It’s exciting to have the national stage for a week, but all the protesters are going to be out in force as well. These fences are pretty scary; I think they’re brand new. Hopefully I can get down to the show next week and catch some Denver-style protesters.

Fox News has the corner lot right in front front of the Excel Center at 7th and Kellog. I talked to the security guards and they said that there’s not much going on Saturday morning, but that they would be broadcasting Sunday AM and real early every day next week. Check out the megatron on wheels! That giant screen folds in half and lowers down onto the truck. Cool toy.