Miami Diari, Day 1

I'm sitting here in a hotel in Miami, slightly nauseous from a combination of rum-and-Cokes with too much rum, chicken wings and God knows what else, working up the initiative to launch my "Diari" of this year's AAJA convention here, which opened today.

There's a lot of negativity swirling around me right now, so I'm a little pessimistic about this one living up to its two predecessors.

For one thing, I feel like I'm going to vomit.

For another, although I delight at the thought that I'm here with Marisa (um, yeah, no attempts to pick up chicks this year, guys, sorry), I also have to work the equivalent of a full day at my company's recruiting booth, which cuts down on the potential for misadventure. On top of that, I made the mistake of checking my work e-mail, and one message really sort of grated on me.

On top of all that, it's a little tough to follow the previous post, on the tragic death of a man, with lighthearted tales of misadventure in the Florida sun.

Not to mention the fact that Marisa is the one out having fun all day, so she'd probably be a better writer for this.

But all that negativity aside, here goes.

Today's actually Day 2, but as we just landed late Tuesday night, I figure I'll wrap that into today.

The flight from Newark was uneventful until the end, when the pilot decided we'd had a pleasant enough flight and bounced through the clouds like a jailbait hooker strutting into a bar.

Then Marisa and I got into a fight over some complete confusion at the rental car place. Hell of a way to start our first real trip together. (And for those of you thinking it's probably all my fault, let me tell you, you're only about 90% right. So nyah.)

Anyway, once everything got sorted out and we made up, we got to the hotel, where we got a truly nice room and, it being nearly time for things to close up, we hit the hotel restaurant for some truly mediocre food (appetizer: mangled; soup: too salty; entree: too bland).

After a beer and a whirl at the video games at the bar (Yay, Donkey Kong!), it was off to bed.

This morning, I was up bright and early to go to a full-day seminar at what used to be my grandparents' hometown paper, the Sun-Sentinel, on creating multimedia reports in journalism. Fascinating stuff, well worth the time, and the best part was, I learned some Flash. Not enough to put anything up here yet, but maybe soon.

Then it was back to the hotel, where I met up with M and we went off to the opening reception.


That was a load of fun, highlighted by some interesting drumming, which you can see via my cell-phone camera at the top, and a visit by Yul Kwon, the winner of "Survivor" a couple of seasons back. He was mingling with the crowd and seemed pretty down to earth.

The other highlight was some of the stiffest rum-and-Cokes I've ever had. Plus, stalking down some of the hors d'oeuvres servers to snag several of the lone vegetarian item for M. She went chasing after a tray, I went straight to the kitchen. Clevermunkee.

Anyway, after we got back, we hit the bar for some real food - well, if nachos and wings are real food - and then... off to bed.

Or at least, off to burp and blog.

Tomorrow, the regular part of the convention begins, as does my quest to recruit people for my paper. Hopefully, things will liven up, or I'll get M to post some of HER pictures. She went to the beach with an old friend. I sat in a classroom all day. So until I can get "My life as a popcorn kernel" online...

Hang in there, and I'll be back for more tomorrow! (Well, later today.)

On to the next part!