So I took it rather easy today.

Slept in � to 10 a.m. � and leisurly made my way over to the Phillies minor league complex. David actually called before I left and he hadn�t had breakfast yet, so I met him at McCabe�s and got a bite to eat before heading over to the Carpenter Complex. It was a cooler, windy, overcast day in the Tampa Bay area, and they had moved the minor league exhibition games up to get them in before the rain came. I stayed, talked to a few people I needed to talk to, and then left in the ninth of one of the games, just as the first raindrops began falling.

I noticed that the President was in Florida yesterday pushing his unrealistic tax plan. Dateline: Panama City. On spring break week. I mean, c'mon, you don't push a tax cut in Panama City during spring break. You go to Wisconsin and Minnesota and other places. Big party boy.

But I digress. I picked up a sandwich for lunch in the rain and brought it back to my hotel room; afterwards, I watched TV � �Who�s Line Is It Anyway?�, �Win Ben Stein�s Money,� �Magnum, P.I.,� � and fell asleep.

A phone call just after 6 p.m. woke me and I thought it might be Dave calling about dinner or something. It was my editor (for some reason, that spelling of �editor� looks weird in my drunk state). He informed me that the paper�s executive editor had handed him a printout from Expedia.com showing how I could go cover the Lakewood team�s season opener in North Carolina, staying only one night � a Thursday in April � for an airfare of $160 or so. I�m supposed to log onto Expedia, find that rate (which is from Philadelphia � not Newark � to Greensboro � not Charlotte) and book it. So I�m going to do that � billing my dial-in costs from Florida to my hotel room, which the paper is paying for anyway. There�s no guarantee that I�ll be able to find those rates anyway. Internet rates can change within hours. But we�ll see.

I just don�t see how I can respect � let alone work for � a paper that tries so hard and cares so much about the bottom line than about the quality of its content. Of course, it looks down on sports from a financial standpoint anyway, so this should be no surprise. But seriously, what�s the point of sending someone to cover a game in North Carolina for one night � I mean, they�re sending me down there for it, why not get a little more out of it and have me cover the series? But they don�t want to pay for the hotel and car through Sunday, which would help bring down the airfare with a Saturday night stay. Ah well, whatever.

The phone call woke me up, and I called Dave for dinner. First we stopped to pick up some of his prints at the local Ekardt�s (or however the drugstore chain spells it) and walking in, one of the cashier girls was walking out for a smoke or something. �How are you doing?� Dave asked as we walked in, catching her off guard. That�s one of the things I like about Dave: He means it when he asks, and at times he says things you wouldn�t expect, but he doesn�t care. The girl leaving the store on her break didn�t expect a customer walking in to ask how she was, and she almost stopped in her tracks when he asked. That�s why Dave has so many friends.

We went over to the Varsity Club, at a strip mall at the intersection of Sunset Pt. and U.S. 19 in Clearwater (I think). It was rather empty this Tuesday night, and we found a table close to the bar and in good view of the big screen TV and a couple of smaller screens. A woman had her feet up on a chair at our table, but we sat in two other chairs and spent the night conversing with Julie, Frank and the others at their table. Turns out Frank is an ND man, and they all live in Florida now, though Frank and his wife are looking to head back to North Carolina soon. They were playing the trivia game on the screens, and Dave and I helped Julie out with some of the questions; Frank still won. But we talked at length afterwards; Frank�s a big baseball fan and we talked Yankees, Mets, Rangers, umpires, commissioners � and some hockey as well. The Tampa nightlife came up, as well as Derek Jeter�s social life.

The Varsity Club gets my star of approval for their buffalo wings. Just as good as BW3, that midwest chain with a franchise in South Bend that we visited oh so often in college. The perfect level of flavor and spices, combined with my tall glass (three of them) of Amber Bock, and I was back in Thursday night South Bend. A trip to Senior Bar was all that was missing. Frank also talked about Jack Billy�s, a sports bar in Oldsmar north of the Bay owned by Yankees pitching coach (I think their roving pitching instructor or something) Billy Connors, where a lot of the team often hangs out. So we may hit it tomorrow night.

After chatting with a couple of the waitresses, Dave and I paid and called it a night. It was a short, uneventful day, but I needed a �day off� from my long days in the sun. This afternoon�s thunderstorm helped.

An interesting side note, though: after meeting Frank, who was born in North Jersey, I�ve run into someone each day with NJ connections � which isn�t all that big an accomplishment here in the Tampa Bay area. Heck, the Devil Rays draw better when the Yankees are in town. It�s sick, really. But our waitress has spent some time in Maine, as did Shannon Murphy last night at Flanigan�s, and it�s tough to find two people in two nights anywhere � let alone Florida � who have been to Maine.

So as I watch Pat Garrity (ND �98) and the Orlando Magic drain three-pointers against the Sacramento Kings on TBS, I look forward to tomorrow, my last day in Florida. Though I�ll be going back to the disorganized circus of the office, I�m ready to go back to 40- and 50-degree temperatures. I don�t want to become a snowbird, a Floridian. I need winter. And I�m looking forward to a fun day � after a morning of �work� at the ballpark � on the beach and at the bars before boarding that early Thursday morning flight to Newark.