I didn't know until I just visited there that Miami was nicknamed "the Magic City." That seems a little strange when another city in Florida is already associated with one kind of magic and another, but whatever.

I just spent the better part of a week in Miami for work travel. It was my first visit there since I was little, and we barely had time to see much of the city outside of work events (although I had a good view from my hotel room), but I'm still glad that i went.

I'll skip over the boring work stuff and focus on the next most important part, the food! We ate a total of five meals of Cuban food, if you count the lunch served during the conference. The first meal was at a low-key casual restaurant described on their menu as "abuelita-style," which is the first time I have heard that phrase not applied to my driving. I got the mahi mahi, which a coworker freaked out about upon mistaking it for dolphin. The second meal was guava BBQ chicken at the same restaurant, revisited when another coworker heard us raving about it. The third meal was an Elena Ruz sandwich, which is the comfort food that I didn't know I needed in my life until now. And the last was best: We went to Gloria Estefan's restaurant and I got some Cuban risotto, accurately described in that article, and enjoyed a live band playing fantastic Cuban music. What a great experience.

My Cuban coworker goes to Miami every few weekends to see family, and he loves the city. He's proud of his Cuban heritage, often sharing jokes about his people. I think I'll ask him to lunch at a Cuban restaurant in Bradenton to have some further guidance exploring the menu, because so far I can't get enough.


Logical Operator

The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »

Parking Lot Pun

Overheard from an elderly woman whose groceries were being lifted into her trunk by a teenaged boy: "When you're as old as I am, the world is your hoister." Go »

Scott's Pet Peeve #8431

Random strangers on Facebook are not exactly known for impressive displays of intellect, but with several of my friends in the hospital recently, I've been annoyed by one particular bad habit that their friends seem to have: 1) Someone posts that s/he is experiencing a certain medical problem and is going into the hospital. Friends reply with supportive words. 2) A few hours later, the OP posts an update describing what the doctors are doing. Go »

Det är inte så farligt

Yesterday, Kelly and I joined friends who had free passes to shop at the new Ikea store in Tampa before it opens to the public. It was our my first time in one of those stores, and it was every bit the harrowing shopping marathon I'd heard it was. For a store that boasts so frequently about how efficient everything is, having you proceed through the store in one long winding line for four hours sure doesn't feel that way, but every store has ways of getting you to buy more than you came for and Ikea has come up with a unique one. Go »

Mars Needs Kitties

Thanks to Lori for sending me this: That gets me thinking: Do you think if people hadn't had the idea for crop circles until a decade later that the fad would have even happened? In this decade we have the tools on personal computers to fake images like this with photo-perfect results, and hoaxers could just distribute photos with the click of a mouse. Photos have been doctored for decades, of course, but now your grandma can do it, you know? Go »

Illinois 2014

Kelly and I are home after a week on the road visiting family and friends in Illinois. I wish that we had more time to see more people, but I'm also glad that we got out of town before the sub-freezing temperatures returned. It was important to us to spend time with Kelly's father and brother since this was the first Christmas after her mother passed away, and most of the trip was spent just being a family. Go »

Gothic Conclusion

Gothic Earth was played for the last time on April 14, finally completing a long campaign that I was worried at times would wind up abandoned before we could finish it. You can read the entire storyline now. I'll leave the website online through August 31. Go »