In spite of the cold and my consequent lack of a tan, I had a wonderful time in Miami. One highlight was the downtime with a wonderful group of GVOers (a picture is, clearly, worth a thousand words).

Another highlight was finally meeting Karen, whom I have known since my very first foray into blogging nearly seven years ago. She is now a professional photographer and was kind enough to take a series of me (warning: she is amazing, I am not photogenic; proceed with caution) after sharing a dinner of alligator and red.

As for the conference, I must openly admit that I was disappointed by the lack of diversity but learned quite a bit nonetheless (including why I need twitter) and made some interesting contacts. The highlight there, of course, was seeing all of the excitement surrounding Global Voices - it seemed like everyone I introduced myself to either already knew about it (and was excited) or was enthralled to learn more. Impressive.

All in all, a good week…tomorrow, back to the daily grind.