Dawn had not yet broken when I leaped out of bed.  Had to be ready for the day.  Showered, dressed, and grabbed a cab from the Gansevoort (not great) to the Loew's Hotel (better), where at least 50 people were already gathered on the second floor for our annual awards in advertising.  Soon the room filled to roughly 300 persons.  I spoke about trends in architecture and construction to the group of assembled advertisers, who are eager to hear the facts and opinions from the architects they are trying to reach.  But less me than our amazing publisher, Laura Viscusi, who wowed them with her repartee and the architects on the jury, who shared the intimate secrets on what makes a good ad.

From there, I high-tailed it to the convention center, where I met lots of people at our booth, the joined a group of five editors for a session called, "Say It in a Snap."  Building product manufacturers had three minutes to give the essence of their products to us, then the clock ran out on them. Like a reality tv show.

Then lunch in the press room, meeting with other editors, and back to the floor.

I wandered the floor, to see what was up with the manufacturers, then dropped by to look for the editor of Architect magazine, Ned Cramer, who I met on returning to my booth.  We hooted and howled and swore that we would have a lunch to discuss our upcoming changes in the publications.  Then back to the booth to meet what seemed like hundreds of friends.

I cabbed to the hotel, quickly changed into a bathing suit, jumped into the Atlantic, just prior to what promised to be a squall that never came, and after a 30-minute plunge, raced upstairs to judge an online, virtual internaitonal competition on kinetic architecture, which was due by 5 pm. I raced through the entrants, some of which were simply amazing, and phoned in my selections at the stroke of the hour. 

Again back to the cabs, joining my fellow editor Cliff Pearson to head to the Graves building, by none other than Michael Graves, whom we congratulated on winning the Topaz Medallion in his own Miami home.  From there to the amazing Bacardi building, to attend the reception and lecture and discussion on the occasion of the publication of Allen Shulman's book on Miami modernism.  Then over to Lincoln Avenue to a restaurant dedicated, almost completely, to the celebration of Larry Scarpa's award, in his hometown, for the AIA Architectural Firm.  

I'm back in my room, after seeing so many people that are important to my own world and worldview, then headed to the roof for dinner and a seabreeze.  Help!  A long day!