I flew to Miami on Continental to attend the Jupiter @travel
conference about the Internet's effect on the business.
Fortunately, I had a pretty good breakfast and a piece of carrot
cake at Newark Airport before boarding the flight. The three-hour
post-lunchtime run between EWR and MIA is beverage-only unless you
want to count a package of mini-pretzels as lunch.
The flight was smooth and while I did have another infant
seating in my row, the baby was adorable and didn't scream
once.
I checked into the Sheraton Biscayne Bay on Brickell Avenue
downtown and to my consternation discovered they didn't have TNT on
their cable system. That was the station carrying my beloved
Knicks' playoff game so off I went in search of a sports bar.
I found one a few blocks away in the Bayside shopping complex
near the new American Airlines arena and the Port of Miami but
could handle only a few minutes of the smoke-filled place. I'm not
going to get into my smoking rap because the last time I did that I
got a bunch of angry letters from smokers. If you want to smoke,
that's fine. I just need to be in a smoke-free environment because
I start coughing if there's smoke anywhere around. It's a sign of
age or something.
I came back to the hotel and checked the Regatta Bar but they
were showing a Cubs-Astros baseball game. So I retreated to my room
and decided to "watch" the game on the Internet. You can't exactly
watch it. At least I haven't figured our how to do that although I
suspect a high-tech person could instruct me on it.
But you can check into a sports site on the Web and get pretty
frequent updates.
Last time I looked the Knicks were down eleven so I logged off
and opened Microsoft Word to write to you. I can't stay here much
longer because I have to go back and get the sports update.
It must be fate because I came down here to go to an Internet
conference and here I am watching a basketball game on the Web.
Oh, I forgot to tell you. I met some conventioneers on my walk
over to theBayside complex They asked me directions and I suggested
they follow me.
They turned out to be a group of psychiatric nurses attending a
convention here. Considering that I was under a lot of stress about
where to see the game, that was a lucky break.