This Democratic Convention is the 10th major party political convention that I have covered as a reporter.  One thing never changes, that being my personal desire to have it end immediately.

My workspace this year is in a giant media tent, with so-called "rod and curtain" separators for a variety of different organizations.  Our tent includes everything from PBS and the Lehrer News Hour to a number of major newspapers.

The Democrats have nicely provided a total of eight porta-johns for the hundreds and hundreds of credentialed reporters and technicians who are working in the parking lot outside the Pepsi Center.   On Saturday, one of them was already overflowing.

That's right, eight johns.  The best idea if you have to go is to walk inside the convention hall and find a bathroom in there.

At almost every single convention that I have covered, I have used ISDN lines to transmit my stories back to my stations and to do live reports as well.

And almost every time, there is a big technical problem that seems to keep the ISDN lines from working properly.

2008 in Denver is no different.  I spent most of Saturday doing nothing but fighting with Qwest repairmen who say my equipment is at fault or that AT&T is screwing up the long distance connections.

The first time I went through security here, they made us put all of our bags to the side, so the bomb sniffing dogs could go over them.

While we were waiting almost 20 minutes for that, the security people then decided not to make anyone else do the same thing, so dozens of people cleared security while a group of us waited and waited and waited.

That was after we arrived and were denied entrance into Parking Lot "B" even though we had a pass for Parking Lot "B."

"It's not open for you," said the Denver police officer.

That was because the Secret Service suddenly decided they needed Parking Lot "B" for their vehicles.  Even though that was never in the plans.

So now I get to park in Lot "M" - any guess as to which is close to the entrance and which is not?

Sunday morning I arrived just before 8am, and there was already a 25 minute line of people waiting to get in. 

Our food options are really fantastic.  You can get a corn dog from the carnival food vendor a few steps from my tent.   It's nothing like the great burrito cart that they had outside the Staples Center in Los Angeles in 2000.

Or the fantastic brats that we had in Chicago in 1996.

Hats off to the folks I work with every day from the Congressional Radio TV Galleries who did a great job organizing the handout of credentials this year.  It was completely painless.  Computers have done wonders for that.

As for where I get to nap every night, nothing will ever be as bad as Philadelphia in 2000, where I had to stay a 45 minute drive to the north of Philly, north of the Turnpike.  I should have just stayed in Baltimore.

This time, my hotel is about a 25 minute drive south of the center of Denver, not far off I-25.  It's fine, other than the fact that the bathtub drain doesn't work and the internet was out.  But other than that, they have a nice breakfast.

Unfortunately, I won't get to eat that again, as I will head into work around 3:30 am each day and hopefully get back to the hotel no later than 11pm.

There is one brand new headache that I've never encountered before at a convention.  The freight trains go by here and blow their whistles.  Doesn't sound good in the middle of a newscast.

Just four more days.  And then I get to repeat it all over again in St. Paul.