More Sightseeing in Atlanta

While in Atlanta, we toured CNN, wandered around the Georgia Capitol, and had tickets to see Ben Bailey's (game show host of Cash Cab) stand up show.

The CNN tour started on the 8th floor - escalator up and stairs down. You can see it's a large building and the TV in the bottom quarter of the photo is showing the press conference President Obama had on Friday. We saw the studio where the newscasters were waiting to broadcast after the press conference ended. The area under the TV is a food court which had been taken over by Kentucky basketball fans. The Georgia Dome is around the corner from CNN and the SEC Championship games were played there. On the transit system train to get to CNN/Dome Station, we were surrounded by Kentucky fans that packed in standing shoulder to shoulder and shouting "WHITE!", "BLUE!". It was quite amusing.

The Georgia Capitol is in a less rowdy part of town.

The Senate had some activity going on and people about but by the time we got to the public viewing area, the room was empty. So we walked around to the House of Representatives.
The chamber was empty except for the Door Manager (I think that was her title). So she talked to us for a bit about the chamber and how it operates and some of the history and then let us wander around and take pictures.

I was able to stand behind the front podium but the others were roped off. The back windows on the right is the room for the newspaper media and the windows on the left are for television media.

John liked being able to see the "behind the scenes" view with phones and lap tops under the desks / podiums.

The representatives' desks had a diagram of the layout with who say where on top and the "dashboard" with a (?) beverage cup coaster; a speaker; buttons labeled RTS, RTF, YEA, PAGE, and NAY; and a microphone.

I found the desks quite interesting. They are the original desks (restored) and the desks used to be the representative's office also - you can see the mail slot on the front! (Had to take a photo of this desk since the name matches my blog name - but not a relation, as far as we know.).

When we were planning our trip, we discovered Ben Bailey was performing in an Atlanta suburb. We reserved tickets for his show at the Punch Line. I haven't laughed that hard at a comedian's stand up routine since I saw Jay Leno's performance in 1989. It took a day or so for my sides to stop aching from laughing so hard. If you are a fan of Ben, he has a special airing on May 21 (or 22) on Comedy Central. It's bound to be hilarious.