Magical Miami
by Scott Hardie on February 11, 2018
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 »
The Revised Revised Revised Story
Last spring, This Modern World ran a great parody charting the decline of civil liberties in recent years, after the then-shocking revelation that the government was building a database of every call made in the country: (link) I was reminded of that over the weekend as the latest shocking revelation came out, that the FBI has vastly abused its new ability to request confidential information in the interest of national security (link), almost as if it was the next panel in the strip. Except I'm not laughing. Oh, what I'd have given to be the reporter at Alberto Gonzales's press conference this morning. Go »No News is Good News
Yesterday I spent eight hours in a hospital waiting room in Tampa while my mother underwent surgery for a torn rotator cuff. She's recovering well, but the harm inflicted on me by eight hours of cable news has yet to wear off. It happened to be Fox News Channel, but that's irrelevant; all news is boring when you're in the hospital and are stuck watching it at length, because the newscasters only repeat over and over the breathless update that they have nothing more to report and here are the things they don't know yet. Go »Unexpected Easter
This has been an unusual few days. Kelly's father had a stroke on Thursday, so we left town suddenly to see him, ultimately choosing to drive since we can't afford plane tickets on no notice. He's going to be fine; his vision was affected at first but he seems recovered now, pending another examination. Go »Pico de Greedo
On Friday, my company threw a part Mexican, part Star Wars party in celebration of Cinco de Mayo and Star Wars Day ("May the 4th be with you"). It was a weird combination but it worked, with games like a lightsaber piñata bash. Kelly made "lightsabers" (pretzel rods frosted with blue and red frosting), but she really got interested when I mentioned that the salsa contest offered three prizes and only had three teams on the signup sheet. Go »Flow Charts
Meet the marriage of rap music and Microsoft Office: (link) Why do I have the feeling Herbert Kornfeld made some of these? Thanks, Marlon. Go »
