No matter what the outcome of the Blagojevich trial, here is what I learned the last seven weeks at Camp Blago:
- That you really can get used to getting up at 4 a.m. - especially if you discipline yourself to go to sleep by 8:30 or 9:00 p.m. My two mottoes of the summer: "4 a.m. is the new 7 a.m." and "hurry up and wait."
- That I never leave home without my extra Blackberry battery.
- That Twitter really is quite something - there may not be cameras in the courtroom but Susan Berger (Msjournalist), Natasha Korecki (natashakorecki) and Courtney Copenhagen (Ward_Room) are there.
- You can learn a lot about human nature waiting outside the Federal Building at 6:30 a.m.
- That there is no way you cannot like Sam Adam Jr. and his dad. Every morning of the trial they greeted all of us with big smiles and hellos. They were never too preoccupied to stop at some point during their day to give trial-watcher Jason Welge a big hello (Welge has cerebral palsy and is wheelchair-bound and has barely missed a day). I especially loved the day, at a mid-afternoon break on a day that was more than a little frustrating for the defense, Sam Adam Sr. went up to Welge, patted him on the shoulder and said, "Are you sure you still want to go to law school? And I liked too the times I overheard Sam Adam Jr. refer to his dad as "Pop."
- That the reporters - print, TV, radio and the producers are a talented bunch who were truly smart and fun to hang with. (My favorite comment last week- a group of reporters commiserating that we really know very little about what is going on in the world besides this trial and someone blurted out "I did hear something about a little oil leak.") And unlike the impression many have of reporters being a heartless, cut-throat bunch - that's simply not so. During the breaks, "group think" was commonplace -there is a true camaraderie - a willingness to share and confirm details.
- That Judge Zagel is one "no-nonsense, one-sidebar a day kind of guy" with a wicked sense of humor. ( For example, he dryly told Attorney Sheldon Sorosky "When i start speaking - it is one of the little rules I have - everyone has to stop."
- That one hour for lunch is never enough to get downstairs, find a table, stand in the food line, eat and file a story.
- That most of us never, ever want to see Oriental food in a cafeteria line again.
- That Rod Blagojevich never ceased to amaze or surprise us - just when we thought we had heard all of his lines - there would be one more zinger. And we all know that he never, ever, gets into his car at the end of the day without going back up and down the line just one more time to shake a few more hands.
- That if you really want to know what will happen - just ask Eric Zorn.
- That none of us have any clue when this verdict will come but even so - tomorrow we will all sit around and give our predictions.
Stay tuned to my Twitter page http://twitter.com/Msjournalist for updates.
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