This evening, I recorded 2 1/4 hours of the funeral procession and state funeral for Ronald Reagan. These were historic moments-- the first state funeral since the death of President Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1973. It was also, obviously, the first state funeral to take place in the TiVo era. So, I used my TiVo to record the events while I was out to dinner with my wife.

There were so many impressive aspects of this event that I can't possibly list them. The outporing of love and respect for President Reagan, his wife, and family surprised me. I expected the route of the procession to be lined by thousands of people, but I didn't expect the crowd to be silent when the caisson passed. I had begun to believe the idea suggested by some in the media-- that because 10 years had passed since President Reagan announced that he had Alzheimer's Disease and he lived a full life, that the intensity of the moment would be less than it actually was.

It was possibly the most precisely-timed public event I've ever seen. The last words of Vice President Dick Cheney's eulogy were delivered almost exactly two hours from the moment that President Reagan's casket was transferred from the hearse to the caisson. This made the procession and state funeral ceremony one of the most TiVo-friendly live events in recent memory.

Speaking of Vice President Cheney's eulogy, if you haven't seen or heard this 7 1/2 minute speech in its entirety, it is well worth taking in. This may have been the best speech he has ever given, and was a worthy tribute to President Reagan.

In choosing how best to record this, I consulted the Outline of Funeral Events published on the website of the Reagan Presidential Library. Since the schedule said that the formal funeral procession would begin at 6:00pm, followed by the state funeral ceremony at 7:00, and the beginning of the lying in state at 8:30, I decided to set the TiVo to record the Fox News Channel from 6:00 to 8:00pm. This turned out to be just about enough, because the last eulogy ended seconds before 8:00.

My manual recording ended just before the U.S. Air Force choir sang. I arrived back home a few minutes after the TiVo stopped recording. I saw that Fox News' coverage was just ending, so I pressed the "Record" button on my TiVo's remote to capture what was in the cache. As a result, I got the U.S. Air Force choir singing "America the Beautiful", the benediction, and the moment where Nancy Reagan approached the coffin and touched it. These were all moments I would have been sorry I missed.

I'm glad I recorded the procession and the state funeral. It's something I really wanted to see, because I will be unable to travel to Washington to personally witness any of the events. I will make a VHS tape so that I can show parts of it to some relatives who didn't watch it, and refer back to some of the speeches in the future.

This is another televised event that made me glad I own a TiVo. There's no doubt I am a better, more informed citizen as a result.