March to Miami: Super Bowl or Bust!

One of the advantages of working the morning shift is you get off at 1pm. Yesterday since it was the last night I’ll be in Miami I decided to become a tourist. But knowing how crazy the city is becoming with so much going on (plus $40 or more to park) I headed south. My trip took me down to the Florida Keys. 90 minutes later I found myself in an entirely different world. Standing on a beach I could see the Atlantic Ocean on my left and the Gulf of Mexico on my right. Only 70 more miles and I could have made it to Key West. If I was a few years younger I might have gone for it and just drove in to work in the morning. But I don’t bounce back as well at 40-something. I ended up at the Island Grill and was rewarded with a beautiful sunset. Why not, my day started off that way, might as well end it that way as well. The trip back took 2 hours, but I could have spent that much time in Miami looking for a place to park. I still made it to bed by 10pm. The Who Dats made it on our Noon show yesterday. The Hotel where the Saints are staying, next to where our setup is, is getting crazy. Not that it was tame on Monday. The fans are finding their way down here and more and more we hear “WHO DAT!!” Everyone of them is as excited as a child going to Disneyworld. I’m not sure this city is really ready for Saints fans.

Bobby May, Senior Director

Hello all. It's Thursday, I think. I just returned from South Beach. There's a massive party along Ocean Dr. The traffic was so bad I had to drop off the news crew. Cheryl Mercedes and photographer James deGraauw ran into a lot of Saints fans. Meanwhile, I drove up and down the back streets until they were done. Parking lots were full or too far and price were outrages. I drove past the same parking lot we parked in earlier today and it was up to $40 from $30. Wednesday it was $20. Maybe by tomorrow it will be up to $50. More fans should be here tomorrow. Can you believe it, in 2 days the Saints will hit the field for Super Bowl XLIV? Who Dat?

Angelle Dupre

Senior Producer

Who Dat say dey got Culture?

Another day in Miami. Spent a little time down along Ocean Drive today. It's kind of like Bourbon Street, but with a beach. Plenty of activity, and restaurants and bars as far as the eye can see. The culture in this city is incredible. All the different faces, accents, backgrounds, it is beautiful. It's part of what makes this city so great. If you tune in Friday for the morning show, I'll give you a little taste of what I'm talking about. I'll also show you that not everybody here really cares about the Super Bowl. It's kind of like living in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, some people just want to get out of the way.
I'm going on my 12th straight hour of work with a few more still to go, the only thing I've eaten all day is a granola bar at about 4:30 this morning, and I can't wait to do it all over again tomorrow. Honestly. It's crazy exhausting, and I'll be tired for a month, but this city is electric. Miami and New Orleans should just take turns hosting this thing. No two better cities in the county to do it. Probably why each has hosted the Super Bowl 9 times. Miami hosts their 10th on Sunday. Back to work.

Matt Williams

On the hunt...

We're on the hunt for a good story to bring you on tonight's shows. We left the Media Center in Ft. Lauderdale a while ago where we attended a press conference addressing the issue of counterfeiting. The press conference itself wasn't much, but I did spot a few celebrities. I walked past ESPN's Chris Mortensen chatting with former Cowboys wideout Michael Irving. I spotted another former Cowboy-turned-broadcaster in Daryl "Moose" Johnston. And New Orleans native Michael Smith - who can be seen on a number of ESPN shows - was at the press conference.

We're now rolling back into South Beach...tune in tonight to see what we find!

- Steve Caparotta
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

This makes getting up early worth it!

We had an excellent day yesterday. The weather couldn’t have been better. It made up for the first day and then some. I wanted to do some running around after work but getting up at 4am to be here each morning takes a lot of spring out of your step. So I stuck close to the hotel. Our hotel is about a 20 min drive in at 4:30am. But at 2pm it turns into a 1hour long trip with traffic. The traffic around Miami is crazy. I think this city has about 1 million too many people living in this small area. The traffic almost, almost reminds me of Hanoi in Vietnam. Just so many people sharing one chunk of ground. With that comes aggressive drivers. This city is not worse than others, but I can’t wait until you add a 20 or 30 thousands “Who Dats” in the mix. Miami drivers love to use their horns. Wonder what’s going to happen when the discover “Yats” love to use their fingers! Today after work I plan to drive down to Key Largo. It’s about a 90 min trip down. I’d love to see Key West, but that’s another 90 minutes, that’s just a little too far for me. Should be fun, and if I play all day and don’t get much sleep tonight I only have one morning show left on Friday.

Bobby May

Beaches Don't Always Equal Vacation

So I was up and out the door this morning long before the sun came up.  4:30 am to be exact.  Matt and I drove out to the stadium where I got my first glimpse of where the Saints are gonna lay down a whoopin on the Colts.  Man-oh-man, I have never seen such an orchestrated event in my life.  Media trucks, platforms, satellite dishes, microwave antennas.  I guess it's kind of a big deal.  Once we knocked out Matt's morning show live shots, I traded over to Steve Caparotta so we could go around and see how Miamians (?) felt about taking a crack at some n'awlins expressions (wait til you see what they do with Tchoupitoulas).  We decided we'd go to the best place to find Miamians hangin' out--South Beach.  Bikinis, speedos, and suntan lotion, oh my!  We found quite a few good sports in the bunch, and even a couple Colts fans (booooo). Flip over to Channel 9 tonight and see how they did.

Josh Meeks

Photojournalist

What Credentials?!?

I just got done shooting a fun pair of stories you'll see tomorrow morning on the morning show. One is about the media circus that has swarmed this place. We'll go anywhere if there's free food involved, the heck with showing up because there's a football game. The second, a story on all the security around the stadium. Where do my credentials get me, where not, and how long did I spend in jail because I was where I wasn't supposed to be? They don't play around with security, and they shouldn't, there's a lot going on down here. Should be two interesting stories, a lot of fun. Now I just need to find a place to edit them. Back to work.

Matt Williams

Time to make the donuts

Borrowing from the sentiment behind that famous Dunkin' Donuts commercial, it's time for us to get to work.

What a difference a night's sleep makes! After essentially being awake for 28 hours straight, a full night of sleep has worked wonders. By the way, if you happened to catch Matt Williams this morning, he apparently had a shot of me catching a little shut-eye while stuck in traffic yesterday morning. All I can say is Matt better watch his back for the rest of the week!

I've got a couple different story ideas that I'll be working today. Both involve how Miami handles the 'unique' group known as the Who Dat Nation. All I can say is stay tuned for some 'Yat-speak' tonight!

Time to make the donuts...

Steve Caparotta

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

This is our first full morning in Miami (for most of the WAFB crew.) It is rainy but hopefully we'll be able to enjoy some of the South Florida sun later today. Yesterday, we arrived in Miami around 3 a.m. then went straight to Media Day at the Stadium. I have never witnesses such a crazy scene. We had to go through tight security... bomb sniffing dogs... metal detectors... etc. We were able to talk with Colts and Saints players. It was a mad house. To tell you the truth the Saints players seemed so much more excited then the Colts. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Colts players seemed as if it was business as usual. Over-all yesterday was insane. I have never been so tired in my life but the experience was awesome. I think the fact the Saints are in the Super Bowl really sunk in when I saw "Saints" painted in the in-zone. It's unbelieveable. Well, I'm off to South Beach with Steve Caparotta and photographer Josh Meeks. I will try to post more pictures on 9reports. Also, look for some great shots of the players and our crew from Media Day. Those should be up later today.
Angelle Dupre'

Senior Producer