Miami is warm. Almost too warm, for March. Its forbodingly warm, that's what it is - you can tell that its going to be just plain nasty when June rolls around - I mean like your glasses are going to fog up just walking from the car to the office. Yuck. I can handle the heat - it’s the humidity that does me in.

Haven't had a real day off in well over a week at this point - last Saturday was waking up and heading straight to the church offices to start setting up for 30 Hour Famine activities. From there we went to the World Vision warehouse in the Bronx - getting 25 kids and 5 leaders on and off the right subway cars can be an interesting experience. I took off in the evening when we got back to the offices so I could go home and pack for the week, and that evening there was poker at Joel's - Peter, Dave (Keller), Dave (Negrin - Keller's buddy), myself, and Joel. Matt played early, lost, and left. Negrin went huge, cleaned out Peter and Joel a couple times over, Keller once too. In the end, he left up big, I more than doubled up - normally a great night but not when someone else quadruples.

Sunday morning Cregan, Mindi, Titus, and Naomi - not sure I introduced her on the blog yet, she's their newest addition and about 2 months old now (will try to get a picture) - anyhow they gave me a ride to Penn Station where I left my luggage in their car and hopped a train out to Islip, Long Island. See, they only have one extra seat in the car now, and they needed to drive both Amber and myself out to the airport, so I just caught the train. They met me a couple hours later out in Islip and we all hopped on the flight to Chicago. Traveling with friends with kids can be a little taxing, you really get to appreciate boarding the plane ahead of everyone else, but you realize why it is that people with kids get to do that.

Sunday afternoon Amber and I bummed around downtown Chicago, where it was plenty cold, but not nearly as bad as Chicago's known to get. Saw my Nighthawks, snuck a picture of it as the museum was closing, even. Yes, its my Nighthawks, I'm just letting them keep it til I have a place big enough to justify hanging it up. Then I got a real Chicago dog at a great place - Portillo's, and from there we hopped the train out to the suburbs, where were picked up by Mindi's dad, as we were staying at her parent's house during the conference.

Conference didn't begin til about noon on Monday, so we lazed around then headed over for that. The speakers really were quite phenomenal - Gordon MacDonald and Jack Groppel, and the worship sessions were led by David Crowder - ok, but a little loud for my old man tastes. That night was a Third Day worship concert (worshipping God, not Third Day, for clarity's sake). Good set-list, but they STILL didn't do Love Song. How much money do I have to pay these guys to hear that song live, seriously? This is getting ridiculous.

Tuesday was more conferencing - Bo Boshers and Kristin Bennet, with some breakout sessions - the first one I picked was about teaching students as a storyteller - and it was great, the second one was about creating a new kind of youth ministry for an emerging generation - Cregan and I were both in it and it was pretty much the opposite of great, but you can't win them all.

Instead of a sedan they sent a limo for me, so I had a nice ride to the airport, where I waited for a delayed flight.

Got into Miami around midnight and Avis did me the courtesy of giving me directions to the wrong hotel, and their map was useless. Finally found the right place around 2, and I still hadn't eaten at that point. Ugh.

So warm here. Worked 8 to 9 the first day then crashed. Thursday we got out around 8 for a happy hour with sushi that basically turned into dinner. And today I left at 1 to catch a 3pm flight. And now its 4pm. And we're still not on the plane. Freakin Jerz.

If it weren't for the fact that I have to have a medical exam tomorrow morning and teach youth group on Sunday, I might just have stayed in my suite - for some reason they bumped me up to a condo - living room, full kitchen, massive bath, walk in closets…no idea what I did right to get that.

Later...

Sudoku holds no interest for me. I'm not a numbers guy so much as a words and letters guy - at least that's the way my brain works, I think - whether or not I'm actually good at the latter is, well - up to you.

Anyway, apologies for the complete lack of bloggery last week. I'll try to do a better job going forward. But...for now, I need to pack and get to bed. I've got a early flight in the morning.