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Top Comments: Notebook #81: Netroots Nation Diary: The Tornado Dinner [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-07-14

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Netroots Nation 2023 is here in Chicago and I began writing this diary at 1:24pm on Bastille Day in the basement of the Hilton Chicago on a break between sessions and the rain (although the rain that was forecast for this afternoon never came...so it turned out to be hot and humid).

(I was banned from even entering the Hilton Chicago for reasons that will remain in the over-30 year old time-space cosmic ether.)

Opening night here— because Wednesday is the real opening night of Netroots and Thursday is simply the day the sessions, workshops, and speakers begin— a group of us from Daily Kos met for dinner and were greeted with tornado alerts throughout the meal which was, needless to stay, disturbing at the very least.

But prior to the Tornado Dinner I volunteered to assist in setting up swag bags (as I’ve always done when I attend Netroots only there were no swag bags to set up. This year, people were allowed to pretty much fill swag bags as they wish, with the swag table filled with only NN23 t-shirts, a couple of magazines. So my first volunteer shift consisted of unraveling and then semi-folding all of the t-shirts which ranged in size from XS to 3XL. with the team that we had, we finished in about 45 minutes.

We finished so early that had to actually wait around for an opening night dinner at Exchequer Pub; a place that I don’t recall ever eating.

I live in Evanston, so it’s not like I could go home and come back. One thing I’d like to do differently for, say, the Democratic National Convention next year is to actually pay for a hotel near all of the action but that, of course, will probably not be financially possible.

I also felt a bit lonely, in spite of of having met a few Kossacks (including two (and eventually three of the diarists of Top Comments) but I did and do miss the presence of my Black Kos crew, to be honest. I mean, I knew that most of them wouldn’t be here, so it wasn’t unexpected but still...

So I walked all the way to The Bean in Grant Park and took in Grant Park as it exists now and recalled Grant Park as it existed over thirty years ago, when I first came to Chicago. Then, Grant Park still attracted its share of visitors but nothing like nowadays.

So I walked back to the Exchequer Pub where we a group of mostly people that I knew had rented out a room with seating for 20(?).

Those of of there were waiting for everyone to arrive so that we could order. There were three or four people there when I arrived and then a steady stream of fellow diners arrived about 10 minutes apart. That stopped when the first tornado alert came in over all of our phones and everyone got a somewhat puzzled look over their face. The sky had noticeably darkened but it really never started raining. In the meantime, we all hurriedly checked the radar and observed yellow splotches moving from west to east and over EVANSTON(!).

Some people canceled out because of the warnings. Considering what the radar showed, I did not want to go home, to be sure. Ultimately, we figured that we would be relatively safe where we were even though there were windows. If the windows shattered, we could always go to the inner room where there were no windows.

Two more tornado alerts went off and yet the rain, for the most part, stayed the away; maybe a few sprinkles but no downpour. We ordered our meals. We ate and talked (I forgot to take food pRon pics but I know that someone did). We went home.

I got back home to Evanston around 9:30. No trees or tree limbs on the ground. No big puddles of water in the street. All seemed calm. (Of course, it wasn’t for everyone to the north and west of Chicago; a tornado did touchdown near O’Hare.).

And another Netroots Nation begins.

Part 2 (the meat and potatoes of Netroots) next week.

Comments below the fold.

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