Inside the Super Bowl

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SEEN AND HEARD AROUND HOUSTON

The rest of the free world may be having a tough time getting excited about this Super Bowl, but the good folks of Houston are downright giddy over the return of the big game to the Lone Star State. Everything in town this week has a Super Bowl theme, from the NFL Global Junior Championship to the Kraft Super Bowl Cook-Off to the NFL Breathe Right Snore-Off.

By far the most lavish event of the week, though, took place last night at Reliant Arena, where 5,000 locals forked over anywhere from $100 to $1,000 to attend "A Houston Salute" -- billed as an Olympics-style opening ceremony for Super Bowl week. Among the guests expected to attend the gala were Houston sports icons Nolan Ryan, Earl Campbell, Mary Lou Retton and Carl Lewis.

The event, dreamed up by last night's host, CBS Sports anchor Jim Nantz (a University of Houston alum), kicked off with a ceremony in which coaches John Fox and Bill Belichick, commissioner Paul Tagliabue and former President George H.W. Bush raised an NFL flag to the strains of (and we're not making this part up) Yanni and his 30-member orchestra.

Upon hearing that news, one Washington Times reporter wondered whether Mr. Yanni would be playing his world-famous pan flute. Uh, no, responded his writing partner: You're mistaking Yanni for Zamfir. You really should know your one-name, new-age musicians better. ...

The city has done a nice job setting up media accommodations -- the media center is in a convention center connected to the primary hotel. Of course, to get from your hotel room to the press workroom, you must show three forms of photo ID at four different checkpoints, have your laptop case searched with tooth and comb and provide blood and hair samples. ...

Then again, who are we to complain? When we stepped on the plane at Dulles yesterday morning, the temperature was 15 degrees and there were six new inches of snow on the ground. When we stepped off the plane at Houston's Bush Intercontinental, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the thermometer read 65 degrees.

And they pay us to do this for a living.