I'm in Florida!

Greetings from Florida, where it's not quite warm enough to skinny-dip in the ocean, but it's an improvement over New Haven. After spending an evening in Brooklyn last night with my friend Kristin, I came into Sarasota this morning -- small world, but I ran into a first-year student from SOM in the Atlanta airport -- and am visiting one of my oldest and dearest friends, Carla, who like me is visiting family during a break from grad school. We've had much fun catching up and will be getting up bright and early to go to Disney World tomorrow morning.

It wasn't until today that I fully comprehended how long it's been since I've visited Disney World. I think the last time I went was during Spring Break of my junior year of college, which was in 2000. But that trip is a blur. Carla and I think we've visited Disney World together three times, and we've been using a paucity of unlabeled photographs to play detective. We've concluded that we went to Magic Kingdom in spring 1994, to Epcot in spring 1995 and to MGM (now Hollywood Studios) in spring 1996. It took us a long time to piece this together, and we're going to use our mommies as more reliable verification sources. All of this is to say we haven't been to Disney World together in about 14 years. Sometimes I can't believe I'm old enough to make such statements.

Now that I have a business education, and am 32 years old, I wonder how innocently and joyfully I can approach this trip! Will I get lost in the wonder, or will I be so fixated on operational efficiencies, pricing strategies, marketing endeavors and competitive trade-offs that I can't let in the magic? In fact, we did a case on Disney in my Competitive Strategy course, looking at how the different aspects of the business (films, parks, cable network, merchandise, etc.) tie together. So will insider knowledge spoil the fun, or enhance it?

Eh, whatevs. I'm thrilled to be here and certain these next few days will be a blast. Space Mountain, here I come.