Hello from South Florida

MIAMI -- More than the news conferences with Bears coach Lovie Smith and linebacker Brian Urlacher, the most memorable event for me Sunday, just an hour after arriving here, was driving past the Orange Bowl stadium on a media shuttle bus.

I remember, as a kid, watching televised Super Bowls from the Orange Bowl. A pair of Steelers-Cowboys games played there were especially memorable.

I always wondered what it would be like to live in a place where it was 70 degrees in January. I was out in the middle of nowhere, in north-central Illinois, within (frozen) spitting distance of the Wisconsin line. It was a place where there was nothing to stop the cold wind blowing from the northwest and Canada.

Back to the Orange Bowl and evidence I'm not in Cincinnati any more.

In this morning's edition of the Miami Herald, this story summary on the front page caught my eye: "CASTRO PARTY. Miami has planned a celebration at the Orange Bowl for when the ailing Cuban leader dies."

Inside, on the top of the Metro & State section, is the story. The headline reads, "When Castro dies, part's on." It accompanies a Miami Herald file photo from 1961 of President John F. Kennedy honoring the 1961 Bay of Pigs invaders at Miami's Orange Bowl, "a landmark for Cuban exiles."

More later.