Pepsi Center sound check

So I was in the Pepsi Center today while the band was warming up. The sound is booming, and it's pretty incredible when paired with the dozens of spotlights they can crisscross over the delegates' seating areas.
Gloria Estefan's "Turn the Beat Around" was among the songs it played.
I was in the press seating testing two phone jacks. I initially brought a phone into the hall only to realize that it didn't have batteries, so I had to go back and get some.
Then my supervisor called me at the Pepsi Center to test whether the phone could receive calls. It could.
Interestingly, it doesn't ring, just flashes red at the top-right corner.
There was apparently a bit of a snafu at the only entrance the media can access by foot — a protest blocked off access for a while.
I was walking to a light rail stop along the 16th Street Mall this afternoon and noticed just how busy it had become. It was already a popular place, and now it's just nuts. A couple of protesters wearing bandanas around their necks were yelling at a bunch of police, in riot gear, congregated around a vehicle in the median. They were chanting, "crush the police state," or something along those lines. The wife of one of the reporters I met today was told by a protester at the media entrance that her photo would be uploaded to Flickr, apparently trying to intimidate her.
I guess that's one use of new media I wasn't aware of — using the Internet as a way to shame others following a protest. But this woman wasn't a reporter, just an innocent bystander, so it didn't matter. She laughed and moved on.
People in Denver have been so friendly, and I hope people's spirits will remain high beginning Monday when the convention really gets under way. Everyone is under a lot of pressure, and I know it has to be tough.