Miami Diari, Day 2

Yeah, I know, I'm a day behind.

And also, let me refer you once again to Marisa's blog, as while I'm sitting in meeting rooms, she's petting baby alligators. And taking pictures.

Anyway, yesterday, which was Thursday, was the first "real" day of the convention.

Early on, after a quick bite with my sweetie and a brief chat with the convention's keynote speaker, a former colleague, I headed off to a seminar on the digital divide in newsrooms, both technologically and racially.

I know, you're waiting for me to get to the good stuff. Hang on.

After a quick, and free, sandwich lunch at the national meeting - complete with waiters! - it was time to work the company booth at the career fair, and that's what I did for the rest of the day.

Then, at last, it was off with M and her terrific sunburn to South Beach, which is everything we're not. Including trendy and Italian.

Yeah, I know, the city of Cuban immigrants in the state of retired Jews, and on the main drag of the hippest spot...

Italian restaurants.

Yeah, crowded as hell and you can't walk 10 feet without tripping over another Italian place. I mean, we must've checked out 25 restaurants looking for dinner and 20 of them were Italian. Which, of course, is where we ended up, since the others were either seafood or steakhouses, which ruled them out for M.

The only trouble was, we picked the place with a nice vegetarian section... and no air conditioning.

(No, no link. I can't remember the name. I mean, you look at 20 Italian restaurants in an hour and remember what one is called.)

Anyway, just about the time Medellin was going up 2-0 on Millonarios, M's heatstroke kicked in.

I mean, she went from beet red to pale white in about 0.3 seconds. Luckily, I scarfed down most of my steak (good, but not worth $27, damn tourist trap) while she was... indisposed, and then we fled with our doggie bags back to the hotel and the air conditioning.

She ate her food, but somewhere along the way, waiting for Barry Bonds to hit homer #755, I fell asleep.

Not quite the fun, nightlife-filled evening we anticipated, but then...

It's Miami. In August. It's fucking hot.

Stay tuned for tonight's almost-timely Day 3 update. Loads more interesting, free food... and Tina Kim!

On to the next part!