Postmodern Renaissance Culture Revolutionary

1971. The first time I was ever on Disney property. No. I don’t remember it. I don’t even have any pictures of being there. But that was the first time. I was less than a year old. We went to Disneyland. I have no clue if that imprinted on me the deep love that I have for Disney parks. But every trip in my memory (1984, 2003, 2006) has been one of powerful memories. Things that I wouldn’t trade anything for, even if I could. I’m not an overly emotional kind of person when it comes to warm, fuzzies. I’m a logic person. Emotions get in the way of logic. But when it comes to Disney trips, all that logic stuff takes a flying leap. I don’t feel like the same person when I’m there. I will do things and act in ways that aren’t normal for me. I become something more than the day to day Todd. Maybe even something better. I said earlier that there wasn’t much magical that happened on our trip. I meant that in a tangible way. There weren’t a lot of the little plusse...

While Lisa and the boys slept in the next morning, I wanted to get a few pictures of the Lodge. So I walked around with my coffeeish and got some nice shots. Then I headed back to see if everyone was up. We packed up the last items. We got our travel bags supplied. Checked the room. Threw away extra stuff. And then left our beautiful poolside Lodge room. We got down to the Canyon restaurant and had to wait a bit. The boys were really out of sorts this morning. We were all exhausted. They didn’t eat much of anything. We didn’t even have seconds on the skillets that Lisa and I ordered. We were just ready to leave. Lisa wanted to check on a few last minute items at the mercantile and pin cart. I wanted to see if it was possible to work some magic with our left over meal credits. The Disney Dining Plan was free, remember? Well, we took advantage of it. But not enough. Between the four of us and the meals we ate, we ended up with 0 snacks left (uncrustables we...

As soon as we got into the MK, we were fairly close to the time for the new Let’s Have a Ball show. This is a crowd interaction moment with a meet and greet with Aurora and Prince Philip. Now, for the longest time I have wondered why Disney didn’t do more with Aurora. And as I analyzed it, I realized that Disney has missed some prime capitalization property. Here’s why. Sleeping Beauty is the perfect Disney princess movie. First you have the beautiful princess to catch the girl market. Second, you have a classic fairy tale that gets the literary crowd. Third, the movie is very beautifully drawn and filmed which should win the artistic vote. Fourth is the villain. Maleficent is the quintessential villain. She is the embodiment of evil. So you have your villain lover’s covered. You have some great fight scenes between Philip and the minions of Maleficent as well as with the dragon. Boys love this part of the movie (we know this first hand). You have Flora, ...

We really did something stupid that next morning. Not chronically stupid. But it was stupid, nonetheless. We got up early. We were out late and Lisa and I didn’t crash until after 1:00. Then we were up early the next morning. We had to be. It was Maelstrom Meet day. Today was the day we would meet some more of our Maelstrom friends. And we were meeting at Animal Kingdom. To ride Expedition: Everest. We drug the boys out of bed and got them dressed. Lisa made plans to meet the first couple of friends who would be at AK first thing at the bus stop. So off we go to meet Ashclan and Mr. Ash. But someone was missing from our little crew. The newest member of the family didn’t make it out of the room. No, not #2S. Pal Mickey. #1S was in a tizzy because he forgot his Pal. And I wanted him to get every moments enjoyment out of that investment. So I hiked back to the room to get Pal Mickey while Lisa and the boys met our new friends. When I got back, I got to meet...

We got to the Magic Kingdom well in advance of the party. We were looking for supper. We decided to go to Cosmic Ray’s. I'm too sexy for this armor Nothing spectacular. It’s counter service. But I was itching to go do something. Oh, I did make one little kid cry. I walked by the window and just waved. I was friendly enough about it. But the kid was on the way to meltdown. I just pushed him over the edge. It’s wrong, but I got a little bit of a charge out of that. I know. Bad, bad, bad. We left Ray’s quickly after setting the child off. And set out to make the youngest of our party happy. We rode Peter Pan. This is the picture. Me as Hook (very unconvincing) and #2S as Pan riding together on Peter Pan. That was kind of fun. Then we went and did something he didn’t like. Just to maintain balance in the force. We rode Haunted Mansion. #2S no likey this ride. I covered his eyes while he covered his ears. After the Haunted Mansion, it was close to parade t...