Written last night on the plane:

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About two years ago, Holly and I signed up for one of those time share deals, where you pay an absurdly low rate for a few nights at a vacation spot in exchange for sitting though their 2-hour timeshare presentation.

After re-scheduling about four times, we finally made it to the Hilton Grand Vacation Club in Orlando, Florida, where we spent the last four days. I am writing this at the "back of the bus" as we plow across the country. Did you know that United Airlines has a true steerage class at the back of the plane? We are sitting in it...if you want the normal-legroom economy seat, that will be another 50 bucks.

In Orlando, fresh off the red-eye Thursday morning, we went straight to Celebration, Florida, which is Disney's version of a master-planned community. As a real estate guy, I have been interested in seeing Celebration since it opened around 1996...turns out, the town is exactly as you would imagine a planned community by Disney.

Then, off to Disney's Magic Kingdom and to Epcot. The Kingdom was fairly old and tired and has essentially the same attractions as Disneyland.

Epcot was a tragedy. Some of the shows were offensively bad. Since Holly and I have great-grandparents from Norway, (not the same ones!) we were deeply disappointed in the Norway attraction. There was a almost-comically dated (from the 1980's) five-minute film on Norway and a sad and decrepit boat ride. For anyone who grew up in the 70's in Palo Alto/Mt. View, Epcot is a "Menu Tree" on steroids with some brutal attractions thrown in. Amazingly, people still pay admission to Epcot. (e.g., suckers like us.) The one worthwhile thing at Epcot was a group of excellent singers, who sang great on old American favorites a capella. Exceptionally talented, all.

Friday, we drove to Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center ("KSC"). Amazing place, and great history and science-space lessons that don't feel like lessons...and our extended facility tour was given by a guide who was a KSC employee of 30+ years, was a former engineer there, and had great stories. A must-do-see for anyone visiting Orlando. Side note: see the Astronaut Memorial Wall at KSC...a powerful piece...and, small world, it was designed by an architect in San Francisco who I have worked with.

Friday night we went into downtown Orlando and happened upon a couple of outstanding buskers. These guys rocked...their hook was that they were percussion-only, using *exclusively* kitchen gear--pots, pans, spoons, dish rack, etc., as instruments...they were unbelievably good...afterwards, Holly and I told them they need to go to Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, where they will knock the socks off some recording or TV industy executive who may pick them up...the buskers seemed very energized by the idea...or maybe in was just the money we dropped in their collection pot.

Saturday, it was the timeshare presentation ("Jay and Holly, tell me about your hopes and dreams"). We didn't buy. Then off to Disney-MGM studios (think cross between Universal Studios and Disney's California Adventure) and then back to Magic Kingdom at night to see the parade. We are old, so we left when the fireworks started. Then had remarkably good strip-mall sushi near where we were staying.

Today, we hit Disney's Animal Kingdom...the best attraction of Disney World by far. On a "safari", you get to see real animals, and not animatronics! Real birds in a great bird show. Real acrobats in an outstanding Lion King Show...at the huge Lion King Show, we sat in four sections of maybe about three hundred people each. We were in the elephant section, and a performer ran into the stands and grabbed me (randomly, I did NOT volunteer) to lead our section in making elephant sounds. So I went in front of the crowd and thoroughly embarrassed myself making lame efforts and sounding like an elephant. How in the world can a human sound like an elephant anyway? Most of us probably know it when we hear it (sort of a trumpeting sound), but how many humans can imitate that elephant sound? (vs. say, the roar of a lion, which at least most humans could try to imitate with a ROOAAAARR!!!!)

Anyway, Wild Kingdom was a brilliant theme park, and opens so many young eyes to conservation, habitat destruction, and the importance of treating animals well.

And now I await landing in our sardine can. As they say, take-offs are optional, landings are not. Or as my pop used to say, any landing you walk away from is a good one.