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Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Sayson: Feeling the heat in Miami
By Homer Sayson
Secondovertime
MIAMI – “Bienvenido A Miami.” It was 4:55 p.m. when Delta flight 5111 touched down at this exotic city by the bay yesterday. The three-hour, 50-minute trip from Chicago via Cincinnati was rocky. At 35,000 feet, the airbus passed through a tropical depression, making the ride more turbulent than my first marriage.
As soon as I exited the airport’s sliding doors, it was evident that I was in some place tropical. Hot air from the nearby Atlantic Ocean slapped me, inducing more pain to my pressure headache, while the humidity was thicker than a politician’s hide.
I had a reservation for an SUV, but I canceled it here. I figured that since I’d spend more time in front of my Dell laptop computer and less behind the wheel, it wouldn’t be worth paying $79 a day plus gas for a four-wheeled contraption, even if it were a 2005 Chevy Blazer.
For $15 plus tips, I took a Super Shuttle to the Marriott Biscayne along Bay Shore Drive. The driver was a wiry black guy with a distinct New York accent. He was bald, bold and loquacious. And his mouth was as foul as a Florida swamp. His driving was just as bad.
He curled around Miami’s rush hour traffic with impressive ease, I confess. But he was recklessly heavy-footed, nonchalantly speeding past yellow caution lights, and he dangerously ignored some of the diagonal stop signs at bust intersections.
In other words, the dude was a little nuts or, as they say here, “loco en la cabesa.”
After 18 mortifying minutes inside a flying van, I arrived at the foot of Marriott Biscayne, the NBA Finals headquarter here. The place is a splendid full-service hotel with four stars. Like a cat-quick Dallas Mavericks guard, the driver unloaded my luggage.
He took my cash, and as he darted off to another pick-up, I heaved a grateful sigh of relief.
I took the escalators to the third floor and I picked up my credentials from my friend Atsushi Sugiyama. The laminated ID pass said, “NBA Finals 2006. ALL GAMES.” I also got an NBA Finals bag and cap. Across the hallway, I entered the media room, checked my e-mail and surfed at sunstar.com.ph.
It was nearing 7 p.m. when I called Steve Uy, a Cebuano from Sun Valley on V. Rama Ave. A Miami-based accountant, Steve e-mailed me days ago offering to show me around town. He is a fan of my columns, he said, and so is his mom Terter in Cebu.
I met Steve at the lobby. He came with his lovely wife Anna Ramiro, a statuesque beauty with an easy smile and gorgeous free-flowing hair. I thought she was a shampoo model, but she’s also an accountant. Anna is the first cousin of Sun.Star Cebu’s Charmaine Rodriguez and Christian Rodriguez, who used to write sports for this paper.
After driving around to ogle at some landmarks, we dined at Bayside, a popular tourist hangout where the yachts of the rich and famous gently swayed in the placid waters. Cuban food was our feast of choice. Anna ordered steak, Steve got shrimps, while I had chicken cooked Cuban-style with a mix of rice and red beans, plus fried planting (banana) on the side.
Steve and Anna destroyed the myth that accountants are dead people walking, boring as their calculators. The young couple was a joy to be around with. They shared their life experiences here and in Korea. And their laughs were infectious.
It was 10 p.m. when I got back to the hotel. I went straight to the media hospitality suite at the second floor. There was enough alcohol to make all Miami residents drunk, and three bartenders were anxious to serve it. I had six shots of rum and Coke and it hit me like the most powerful sleeping pill known to man.
At about 12:30 a.m., I took the elevator to the ninth floor. And as I wobbled toward the waiting cushy sheets, all I can remember were the soft words whispered to me by a young lady at the lobby: “Bienvenido A Miami. Bienvenido los NBA Finales.”
THANKS. My trip here wouldn’t be possible without the help of my sponsors. Today, allow me to acknowledge a few.
Thanks to Joy Roset-Polloso, marketing manager of the Commerce Center Business Group, Cebu Holdings Inc. I hope Ayala Center Cebu continues to be a partner in my NBA Finals and boxing coverages.
Thanks also to Bunny Pages, whom I might run into in this year’s US Open tennis championships at Flushing Meadows in New York. Bunny and son John, a fellow columnist, are coming for that huge tennis event in August.
Thanks also to Rick King of RDAK Transport. Rick, if you can send us a logo of your company, I’d be happy to place it in our next house ad touting my Finals coverage.
(homsay@hotmail.com)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (June 14, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
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