We dutifully watched the movies as youngsters...The Saturday Disney matinees at the local movie house were required viewing in our home and a break for Mom and Dad; dropping three, and then four kids off at the marquee with five bucks and instructions on how much candy, pop and popcorn we could have during the afternoon's movie fest...Snow White, Cinderella, Fantasia, Mickey, Goofy and the rest were all programmed into our young minds...Jiminy was, of course, that `little voice' in the back of your mind that issued words of occasional caution when faced with a moral dilemma...He was there on my shoulder all weekend...

I remember as a boy hearing on the radio the announcement of Disney's plans for Disneyworld...Building a huge commercial entertainment `city' in the middle of a swamp had everyone in the `real world' thinking Walt was not right in the head...That kind of capital investment was a financial risk even the boldest of Wall Street types could not comprehend undertaking...Mr. Disney had other ideas though; here, using mostly his own money, he could plan, build, and operate nearly unrestricted by any government interference...After all, the amount of money he was spending was enough to silence any and all critics of the undertaking...So he did...

Not that Disney did anything blatantly wrong in building his dream park, in the contrary; this was his chance to demonstrate to the world his `vision' of the future; and make money while doing so...Monorails, Tomorrowland, 360 theater, and his own on site hotel encapsulated the perfect family style entertainment vacation...All he needed next was infrastructure access...Orlando provided the perfect base of operations for the required necessary infrastructure to ensure a steady stream of visitors to his park...The airport and highway systems were built to accommodate Disneyworld...This is exactly what Jiminy was trying to tell me, from the moment we got off the plane, the atmosphere was "Welcome to Disneyworld"...I was already in "The Magic Kingdom"...

That brings us to Universal Studios, and the rest of this story...We were booked into the Portofino Bay hotel, a Loews Hotel chain operation with an Italian Villa motif...Universal took the Disneyworld model and duplicated it using the same `self contained'  vision of the guests vacation experience...AFP used the Loews hotels as their base of operations, with the Right Online group in the Portofino, and the Defending The Dream group in the Royal Pacific...Mind you, I'm not going to complain about an all expense paid weekend in a five star hotel, but it was discomforting the longer I was there and looked around...The feeling was the same one I had at the airport, "Welcome to Universal Studios"...We were staying in an artificial reality, and it kept nagging at me...Jiminy was now dancing on my shoulder, but I hadn't yet made the ultimate connection...

The conferences held my attention for most of Friday and Saturday, conservative speakers and  panelists from all over the country were difficult to sort out and choose from; so much important information presented at two locations simultaneously presented us with a problem that could only be resolved with a game plan of our own...We split up the programs to ensure we didn't duplicate our efforts to absorb as much as possible...Our room became simply a place to sleep and check e-mail, and plan our next events...During any breaks we had, I began exploring the hotel and grounds, observing everything I could about not only the hotel, but the complex that it was `contained' in...You could get anywhere you wished, free of charge, within the complex...Like Disneyworld, we were in another artificial reality...Jiminy was beating on the ear with his umbrella...

Friday evening was the "Party in the Park"...The Marvel Island theme park was closed down to accommodate the AFP convention folks for a night of awards, speeches, and partying on the park grounds; with free rides and a DJ blasting out dance tunes in front of the Spiderman exhibit hall...Michelle Malkin was the featured speaker of the evening, 2,500 people packed the arena, and were then turned loose in the park...Jiminy had finally made his point; we were all living in a comic book...I took this feeling back to the hotel with me, and looked around again with this thought in mind...

Saturday morning I had breakfast (a fruit plate and coffee) in the perfectly manicured courtyard outside the meeting rooms...The hotel staff was never far away, the plants and shrubbery all meticulously manicured and properly place and spaced for seclusion and quiet...Everything about the hotel and grounds `encapsulated' one in that particular moment...It was unnerving...I took it to the next level and revisited the hotel and grounds completely, each floor and courtyard gave me the same surreal feeling, it was `manufactured' reality...