Getting ready to check out of Pirate City ...

I flew in to Tampa with Wes Miller on Tuesday afternoon, checking in at the Hampton Inn in Ybor (pronounced e-bore) City, which has some sort of pirate-related history. Nearly everything in this area has a pirate, spanish-Cuban, Italian or other Meditrranean theme. It is really interesting, and the food is fantastic. We ate Greek on Tuesday night and Spanish-Cuban tonight.

After we arrived on Tuesday, Wes and I drove to Sarasota to have dinner with Layla. As we waited for her to get off of work, we strolled on the beach, picking up seashells for Wes to take to his girlfriend.

We had dinner with Layla and her boyfriend, Mike. Wish we could have spent more than an hour and a half, but we had to get some rest before engaging in fairly extenstive training. (The instructor called it "basic" training, but it seemed like Parris Island to me.)

The Publicus programming was a bit difficult for me to grasp. Wes, Dave Wiekel and Letisha Sparkman (our colleagues from Peninsula Daily News) had a bit more previous experience, so they grasped it somewhat quicker.

I'm just a bit more right-brained, I guess. Still, if I was adept at computer programming, I likely would have exited the newsroom some time ago.

We fly out on Thursday after about five more hours of training.

Grace and peace ...