We had never been to Miami before, so it was a real eye-opener as to the density of everything and much higher prices than we know.

I had always wanted to promote my pictorial book-printing to a larger audience of publishers, so I set up a booth at their trade show. It was a great opportunity to meet a lot of people in the business, and so far it appears the idea was a good one.

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We rented a car so that we could take little trips in the evenings and get a feel for the area.

The first excursion was South Beach and Miami Beach. Then it was on to Fort Lauderdale and finally the Florida Keys. In Key Largo, I flipped on the radio and on comes Jimmy Buffet.

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The convention was held at the Doral Golf Resort and Spa, which is a fabulous place. A publisher I know from Wisconsin said he played golf on the same course Tiger Woods tears up routinely in the PGA. The cost was only $185 for green fees and $85 for club rental, plus $15 for the shoes.

He never mentioned his score.

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One of the hazards of driving around in unfamiliar places is getting lost. I was too cheap to rent the GPS system at the car rental place, so one night we went in circles for about 30 minutes trying to get from A to B. Not to mention the traffic jams that extended for miles and miles.

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I can say I ate lunch with a woman from Buffalo, N.Y., who knows the guy who invented hot wings.

Hot wings were first served at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo when the owner needed to come up with something to put on the menu.

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If you have some odd jobs around the house, farm or business you have an opportunity to purchase four hours of labor from members of the Hillsboro HIgh School FFA. The organization is having a work auction this Saturday night at the high school commons.

I've always thought this was a good idea for a fund-raiser. You can also get ice cream and dessert starting at 7 p.m.

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It increasingly appears to me that our political system in the United States has failed us. No one party is more to blame. There's plenty of blame to spread around.

Nothing is getting fixed, such as health care, our national energy policy, Social Security, Medicare and on and on.

Two things we can count on, however: the members of the club are taking care of themselves quite well and getting reelected is their No. 1 priority.

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Because we had about a two-hour layover in Atlanta we got to see Amy and the boys for about an hour at the airport.

Going back through security was a pain, but it was most definitely worth it even for a few minutes.