Miami Diari, Day 3 (the one with Tina Kim)

When last we left our intrepid and procrastinating-blogger hero...

It was Friday, Day 3 of the adventures in Miami.

For the curious, 'twas also my six-month anniversary with Marisa, who has finally posted some serious pictures. Check 'em out. They're much better than mine.

(Which isn't even mine, but one I ripped off Tina Kim's MySpace.)

Anyway, I spent the morning working the booth, the noontime hour mooching a free lunch at the Awards Luncheon and the afternoon in one fascinating seminar (online ethics) and one less-than-fascinating, but much prettier one (making your cover designs pop - aimed, regrettably, at page designers).

The excitement of the afternoon was the luncheon, and not just because I got two desserts. Which was a plus, but not quite so much a plus as my cracking up a professional comedienne.

Those of you who know me, of course, know I pride myself on my sense of humor. It's what I use to make people smile, and what I used to use to try and get girls, in lieu of big muscles and big paychecks.

Of course, I'm no longer trying to get girls, but that doesn't mean I can't bust out the ol' joke-a-minute riff once in a while.

Like at the luncheon, when one of my colleagues at the paper arrived with the aforementioned Ms. Kim. Now, bear in mind, at the gala tonight (Saturday, Day 4 - the one with the munkees) they auctioned off a seat at the table with Yul Kwon (see Day 1) and Tina Kim for money.

And I got to spend the luncheon with Tina Kim for free. My buddy took off partway through, my other colleague had already vacated, and after a few jokes with this journalist-turned-acerbic comedienne, me and my buddy from our local AAJA chapter got to spend a little time chatting with her over lunch.

I must've done well with my humor - she asked for my business card, after having to whisper the rest of our conversation in my ear as she vacated the luncheon during the awards presentation. (No, we weren't that rude, people were gabbing and wandering in-and-out through the whole thing.) And lest you think I just ended up on her mailing list, she didn't ask anyone else at the table for a business card, thank you very much.

So that was exciting.

Anyway, we skip past the aforementioned afternoon seminars and move on to the evening's festivities. As also aforementioned, it was M and I's sixth-month anniversary and also one year to the day of our wedding.


So we went out to celebrate. After our disastrous evening on South Beach, we decided to try something a little more mellow.

We headed for Coconut Grove, a different kind of touristy attraction.

After walking around a bit, and giving the comedy of Judah Friedlander a miss, we found ourselves sitting down for dinner in a place called Cafe Tu Tu Tango (get it? tu. tu. tango?).

The place is a tapas-style restaurant/bar, the food was pretty tasty and the sangria was nice and cold. But the best part was, the place is full of art and artists and stuff. There was a guy painting just a few feet away. Even better, there was one of the best balloon artists I've ever seen.

No lame hats and poodles for this guy. He made Goofy. He made a giant hat. A sceptre. A bunny.

And for us, as seen above, a munkee. Not just any monkey, but a whole palm tree, with coconuts and a munkee climbing it. A real work of art. I mean, M asked him to make a monkey and it took her about halfway through to realize he was working on her balloon.

Not only that, as you might expect, my ever-chipper lady made friends with the other women in line. Turns out one is a doctor starting a special ed school. Figures.

He capped off the evening by climbing into a giant balloon. Don't ask. I can't even begin to explain. But trust me, this made my inner child smile. And my not-so-inner child.


All in all, a great evening out for our special night. Plus, we got looks from EVERYBODY on the way home, carrying that thing around. (Marisa included in the above picture for scale. She's 5-foot-8.)

By the time I catch up with today (Saturday), you'll see a lot more munkees!

Today was our visit to Monkey Jungle!

But first, I have a gala to attend and Karaoke night to drink beer at.

On to the next part!

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!

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!