There are non-Mcdonalds food options in the entrance of the Media Center. They appear to have cases upon cases of Red Bull. What is Red Bull, anyway? There are also salads, breakfast cereals, and what looks like fruit salad.

Here’s what I’ve found so far, here at the Fleet Center.

There’s a large temporary stucture beside the Fleet Center. You will know it by the yellow tubes running out the side and the snack bar at the front. This is the (or at least a) Media Center. Large news organizations — NBC, USA Today, AP, Reuters, NPR, and the like — have sectioned off areas here, filled with monitors, edit bays, and other tools. Other than the hallways, there doesn’t appear to be any “unassigned” space here. But there is plenty of WiFi. I post this, for example, using the open WiFi of the Washington Post (thanks!).

In the Fleet Center proper, the third level does, indeed, contain an “unassigned press filing center.” I peeked inside the door: it looks like the boiler room on the Queen Mary. There are desks and (it is said) wired Internet up for grabs here.

Way, way up on the seventh level (take the escalators, or the elevator), in section 320 (look for the signs over the doors), is the “blogger area.” There’s WiFi up there, but if you have a Mac you have to do a little voodoo to get it to work (the DHCP server doesn’t appear to work with Macs: manually assign yourself an IP address in the 10.128.21.* range and things might work; maybe Panther only). There’s also power. Which I’m going to need in 38 minutes or my iBook will die.

The bloggers are very friendly.

On the ground level there is a Mcdonalds and Dunkin Donuts.

Watch the elevators: if you get off on the wrong floor, you may get castigated by the Secret Service (I saw this happen).

I came downstairs to get something to eat so as to avoid collapse. And I found my brethern news service:

Here are the bloggers, doing their blogging. In the Fleet Center:

I have found the secret “blogger area” and because I have a digital camera around my neck, and a laptop on my lap, I am blending in and nobody seems to notice that I’m in the lower “news service” caste. With the help of a help fellow Mac user, I have tricked the WiFi device into getting me online.

I have not been so brazen, however, as to have taken one of the official blogger desks. So I’m sitting in a yellow arena seat, perched high above the convention floor.

Speaking of which: more light has been shed on the credentials vs. access issue. In formal convention terms, there is a “floor” of the convention. This is actually the floor of the Fleet Center. It is red carpeted, and labelled with the names of various state delegations.

While I have Hall credentials, I do not have Floor credentials. Although apparently I can enter some sort of lottery by which I might acquire 15 minutes of floor fame. I believe, however, that this would also require that I anchor the NBC Nightly News. I’m not ready for that yet.

So here I am. Covering. The Convention.

It’s mid-afternoon, and the band is going through their sound checks. There’s a whole lotta singing of the national anthem — proudly hailing, and so on. Right now it’s Miss Teen New Mexico’s turn. If the sound checks are any indication, the anthem will be sung many, many times tonight.

More as events develop.

PS: I have not eaten or had anything to drink since my 4:30 a.m. trip to Tim Hortons. I think maybe I should go and do that now (that is Catherine’s little voice in my head speaking).

I’ve made my way through the security check — nothing more than what you would see at a smalltown airport — and into the temporary building that’s been set up for the media. There is reputed to be “unassigned media filing space” here somewhere, but it is like the Holy Grail — I keep getting pointed along the hall.

So I have created my own space, here on a dolly beside the curtains surrounding the Associated Press. There is free Wifi — indeed it seems to be in abundance, as there are about 10 networks in evidence.

If you’ve found the “unassigned media filing space,” please let me know. I’m off to look some more… gotta file!

Here’s the view from the plane while landing at Logan this morning:

The new camera is working out great. Too many options to figure out all of them in this confined time, but I’m working on it.

If you sit on the floor in front of the store called “Lamonts,” just inside the “show your photo ID” table on the second floor of the Westin Copley Place (where, on the third floor, media need to come daily to pick up credentials), there is free WiFi, SSID is ‘wireless.’ Not sure where it’s coming from.

By the way, Credentials Guy says it’s busiest between 9:00 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., and tails off quickly after that.

If you’re trying to find me while I’m here at the DNC, you can send email to dnc@reinvented.net, you can reach me on AOL Instant Messenger as reinventedpei, or you can phone my cell phone at (902) 393-1763.

I made it (in plenty of time — the city flowed well for me) to the Westin Copley to pick up my credentials. And they were waiting for me. So far so good. I’m still an orphan, though: because I’m not one of the credentialled bloggers, and I’m not a daily newspaper, photographer, radio or TV or magazine, none of the press galleries claims me as their own.

I made a pilgrimage to each of the galleries, here on the 7th floor of the hotel. The question at each was “what are you credentialled for?” When I said “news service,” they all looked at me like I was from another planet. I think I have now discovered that there is, in fact, no such thing as a news service.

But I’m not complaining.

Here’s what “credentials” look like:

I’m heading over to the Fleet Centre now to take these credentials out for a ride. Perhaps I will find my brothers and sisters in the working “news service” press there. I’ll take them for a drink.