I HATE ORLANDO, but not in a mean way.

When I was 8, my uncle, cousins, sister, and I took a trip to Disney World. We stayed in the Polynesian Resort, a rather cheesy if not completely tasteless place with flowered wallpaper, bellhops in straw hats and boas, and even the odd hula dance. I remember it being scorchingly hot, sticky, and altogether uncomfortable. I also remember the mickey waffles I ate on our third day there which ushered in the most violent and conquering stomach flu I've ever had in my life. I don't know if I actually got it from the waffles, but from that day forward I became incapable of eating, talking about, or even looking at waffles for the next five years. The flu gripped me for the duration of our stay at the Polynesian, forcing me into a diet of water and crackers for the next week and a half. I didn't even get to check out the epcot center! All told, I think I lost about 10 pounds because of it, and the entire experience pretty much soured my taste for anything disney-related. Needless to say, this was a bad first impression of the city of Orlando.

After having three solid days off here, I can say without question that my first impression was spot-on. We drove here on Thursday from Knoxville Tennesse, a trek that took a total of 11 hours. Shara had left for Cincinnati to play with the string quartet formation of the Diamond in the Music Now festival, so we boys had the van to ourselves. Unfortunately, James had fallen ill a couple days before, so the driving was left up to Bri-guy and I. We arrived at the resort around 11 pm, and immediately unloaded our most fragile and important gear (or as we call it, GuRRRR) onto two carts. In the lobby, the scene was an ugly one. Around the ceiling were neon purple beams which resembled UV lights in tanning booths, and sunburned, exhausted, miserable looking people filled the puke-green arm chairs scattered around the ground floor. Awkward middle school spring breakers held hands and played on each other's laps while frantic, fat, dejected parents scampered around attempting to tame their wild, disney-mad children. As I said, the scene was UGLY.

We checked in and received our two complimentary cookies, quickly taking all of our stuff up to our rooms in an attempt to escape the mayhem of the "Double Tree" lobby. After the long drive, I was exhausted. I wanted to do nothing more than fall asleep in my not-so-tastefully decorated bed. Unfortunately for Brian, he had to drive all the way out to the Orlando airport to pick up his wife Noelle, whose flight had been delayed a handful of hours due to a security breach at JFK. And although I pitied his task after our 11 hour trek, it didn't prevent me from passing out after a glass of wine and a brief update to my facebook status (NUURRRD).

The next day, James and I awakened at around noon, happily sleeping in on the first of two true days off. On our agenda for the day was one thing and one thing only: JETSKIS. James had been looking forward to the prospect of some motorized recreation for at least a week leading up to our stay in Orlando. He had done the research, and gotten me quite psyched on the idea. For all of his cool demeanor and totally P R O approach to these two tours of duty, James does love to go fast on things with motors. If you read the blog from Europe, you'll know that one of our highlights was a product of James' speed-lust, as he led us into the French Alps to zoom around on snowmobiles. On this day, I would again follow his instincts, which this time brought us to Brian Lake. Only about five minutes from the hotel, this "lake" must have been man made, because it served the purposes of aquatic fun perfectly. It was large, circular, and had orange markers outlining the jetski path. The instructor was a true dude's dude with tattoos, shades, flip flops, and a cigarette in his ear, mumbling obvious guidelines and saftey directions to us in his smoky, unenthusiastic voice. Feeling safe and confident enough to not destroy ourselves, James and I took off onto the lake. I followed James out, watching him zig and zag and bank to test the handling of these righteous machines. For me, it was all about speed. None of this turning and veering stuff. I just wanted to go fast. I basically just held the throttle down and went in huge, sweeping circles for a good twenty minutes. I must have been quite a sight to see, too, because that's literally all I did for our entire session. At one point, my $6 blue blocker sunglasses flew off and were gone forever, but I didn't care. I was at the mercy of the machine. Our half hour ended quickly, but was well worth the $50 fee. James, too, had lost his shades, and both of us suffered from some serious speeed hair (picture David Bowie in the movie "The Labyrinth"). Having satisfied our need for speed, James and I headed back to the hotel with smiles on our faces.

We killed the rest of the Friday by seeing "300" at the Universal Studios cineplex, a movie which was as disappointing as it was violent. There's only so much slow-motion death a person can watch before becoming totally exhausted. After the movie, James and I opted to eat at the TGIFriday's adjacent to our hotel. The choices we had were limited, so I don't feel too ashamed to admit it. There's only so much difference between Chili's, Olive Garden, TGIFriday's, and the other novelty dinner options anyways. I ordered the artichoke & spinach dip and the "sizzlin (yes, sizzlin') chicken and shrimp" entree, while James ordered the potstickers and the "famous fajitas". Incidentally, I had never heard of these fajitas; they couldn't have been THAT famous. The food was shit, and we actually had to send for another volley of tortillas from our waitress, Nina. She had a weird accent, which James thought was South-African but turned out to be Bulgarian. Go figure. All I could think was, "Nina, what in HELL are you doing in Orlando?"

I fell asleep watching reruns of Seinfeld. Happily. It was the episode with that guy Jimmy who talks in third person about himself. On Saturday, I had a day completely to myself. Brian and Noelle had gone to Disneyworld, and James had taken the van to go visit his sister a couple hours away. I slept in, showered, and played bass in the room for two hours before venturing into the world outside. Item number one on my agenda was food. Sadly, that turned into a Pizza Hut personal pan pizza in the hotel's food court downstairs. Suffice it to say the meal was neither delicious nor satisfying. Afterwards, at around 4, I headed across the boulevard into the gates of Universal Citywalk - just like the one in LA. Here, I found a land of dollars and cents, where family fun has a price, and every single material possession a child could ever covet has a price: Dippin dots, spiderman action figures, cartoon-themed sunglasses, cellphone and ipod accessories, and the rest. I can't be too cynical on this subject because I know money exists to be spent, but one can't help but feel uncomfortable witnessing the co-opting of fun on such a large scale. After a somewhat scientific, note-taking walkabout, I found myself buying a beer at the movie theatre and wandering into the Rodriguez/Tarantino wankfest, "Grindhouse." It tested my patience and my stomach, but proved enjoyable and highly entertaining. After dinner, I went back to TGIFriday's and ordered the exact thing I had ordered the night before. I think they must put drugs in the food, because I was drawn to the place like the zombies I had seen in "Grindhouse" just a handful of minutes earlier. I got to watch the 3rd period of the NCAA hockey final, which ended in victory the team in green (i don't remember the school) with a dramatic goal with 18 seconds left before the horn. Good times.

As Sunday rolled around, I was totally over the whole day off thing. I couldn't wait to play again. We loaded in somewhat early to the Hard Rock and didn't waste much time getting down to business. Our show was awesome, and it was great to have our fearless leader back with us. Shara had a great time in Cincinnati for the Music Now Festival, and brought regards from the strings of the Diamond, Rob, Marla, Maria, and Olivier. As for our performance, we rocked it. After we played our Nina Simone tune, some dude in the audience yelled out to Shara, "MAKE LOVE TO ME....." Her response was "I just did...." I don't think I've ever heard a slicker shoot-down of a heckle in my life, if you can consider that a heckle. After our set, I went to fetch my gear from the stage and fielded a couple "YOU'RE HAAWTs" from the adolescent girls in the crowd, to which I replied "Buy a CD!" I guess it worked, because we had our best merchandise sales night of the tour so far.

I rushed home after the show to catch the season premiere of Entourage, like a total LA dork. It was ok. All I can think about now is how happy I am to be back on schedule, doing 4 shows in a row before our next day off. I think I've found that I have trouble switching gears from relax mode to full on show-a-day mode, but we have only about a month left before we are home. And so, we keep on truckin' down that proverbial road.