POTUS (OR TOTUS) In Los Angeles

POTUS (OR TOTUS) In Los Angeles

President Obama was in downtown Los Angeles today for his town hall meeting at the Miguel Contreras Learning Center on Lucas Ave. at Third Street.

I was working at the time and had to get to East Los Angeles from mid-Wilshire. I got into downtown from 6th Street and found Figueroa Street to be completely congested due to Obama's security precautions. I slowly made my way up Figueroa to the Harbor Freeway on-ramp near 5th Street and got on the freeway. It was much better than Figueroa Street, although it was also crowded with traffic.

Looking down from the freeway towards Figueroa St. (where the Bonaventure Hotel is), I noticed that the police had Figueroa St. and the 2nd Street tunnel blocked.

Since we had a number of units on the road (doing security field supervisory work), I notified the commander of the traffic situation so he could warn the others away from downtown.

Soon, text messages were going out: "Stay away from downtown in the Bonaventure/Figueroa St. area. POTUS is in town" and "Keep away from Figueroa near the Bonaventure. TOTUS is here!"

What's POTUS, you may ask? It stands for President of the United States. What's TOTUS? It stands for Telepromptor of the United States. Easy, eh?

Later, Obama made an appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Talk about frivolity!