~ The Man Report ~~~~~~~~~~~~2007~~~~~~~~~~~~~Lin vs. The Rabid Duck~~~~~~
There are a couple of things you all need to know about for our first day’s adventure in the swimming pool at our resort.
1). Linnie The Pooh hates all birds. She’s afraid to death of them.
2). A duck is a bird.
We head back to our hotel after a good 1st day start at Epcot (yes, rides were broken, but the kegs still worked), toss on our bathing suits, and hit the swimming pool which is right outside our back door.
Have you ever seen the movie Caddyshack? Remember when all the caddies show up at the pool all of a sudden and the golf club members are all horrified? That’s what it was like as Clan Mills rolled in.
Now, mind you, this is a resort community similar to DVC in that most of the people present are owners, not renters. However, it’s a different crowd than we’re used to. Most of the people around the pool are retired and reading books. There wasn’t a single child present. These weren’t the types who visited theme parks. We might as well have been at
Pool #9 of the Del Boca Vista Retirement Community.
We stroll in: I got three beers left on a six-pack holder dangling from my finger, my shades on, gut hanging out, and a little strut going. I’m feeling good.

Loud Girl yells “Ungowa” prior to diving in the pool right next to the “No Diving” sign and splashing the 80 year old couple playing cribbage.

We’ve got a bunch of old pool toys that we toss directly in the pool and our kids are wearing life jackets as we’ve never bothered to teach them how to swim. Moan Boy is squealing & hollering gibberish and mom’s got a bright red face. Not one of her prouder family moments.
I locate the only empty table and chairs among the crowd, drag it out into the sun right next to the sun burned couple who have the oxygen tubes hooked up, and set up camp.
I take a long pull off my Bud, remove my shades, yell “Cannonball!!!” …then all 200 pounds of me takes off like a shot, leaps into the air, grabs one leg then proceeds to empty 1/3 of the pool water onto the cement surroundings.
The Mills’ have entered the pool area… with authority I might add.
I might also add that the once packed house of the swimming pool area slowly disintegrated until we were one of the only ones there. This happens to us a lot.
Pretty soon, I spot a rather large duck up in the sky circling the area. He looks more like a Hawk than a duck. He’s all alone which strikes me as odd. What’s even odder is when he starts his nose dive towards the pool aimed directly for my wife.
I really can’t believe my eyes as he zeros in on the one
Duck-Hater in the area and swoops down 100’ to within inches of her head and lands neatly in the water and gives her a nice “glare”.
Pooh is just plain freaking out by this time and out of the water as if someone yelled “Shark”!!! The kids & I are laughing uncontrollably and the duck is still staring down my wife. This is one mean duck, let me tell you.
When he splashed down in the water only feet from Pooh, he made quite the little splash and foaming water was all over his body. He really looked like Rabid Duck at this point.
I sort of felt sorry for the bird. He’d probably lost his mate and was now deranged and taking it out on all female duck haters around the globe… starting with Pooh-head.
This duck obviously held all rules or laws with total disdain as he simply ignored the sign next to “No Diving” which also said, “No Animals”. Maybe he was somehow related to us?
Turns out though that this was just a playful duck. Not mean or spiteful at all. Moan Boy and I chased him around the pool for an hour. He never left the water once. When we got too close, he just swam a little faster. It’s amazing how fast a duck can swim. He was obviously just playing with us and killing some time. I think he had as much fun as we did.
That was a great couple of hours in the pool. We had a blast! The duck finally just flew off so we toweled off and got ready for dinner. Luckily, we got some pictures of the cute little guy which I’ll post later.
Once again, I’m going to PLUG one of our favorite off-site restaurants. You guys have to try this place sometime. It’s called
Giordano’s 
and they have two locations around Disneyworld. Once is near the Crossroads area and the other off 192. Both are great.
Usually the service isn’t that good but this time it was excellent. In fact, I’d have to say the Crossroads Giordano’s was better than the other one. Newer, nicer, better service, etc… As always, we ordered the XL thin crust with just Cheese on side and Canadian Bacon w/ Pineapple on the other. Mmmmmmmmmmmm….
After dinner we hit the Wall-Mart and purchased all our weekly needs along with a lot of our weekly “wants”.
That evening, when we got back to the hotel, I went into
full vacation mode as I attempted to execute
Secret Experiment #1. I ate Peanut M&M’s, potato chips, a donut, leftover Pizza, popcorn, a large Sugar Cookie, many Oreos, Fritos with bean dip, two glasses of wine and two Crown Royals on ice.
I was in full
slob mode also. You could literally follow me around the condo by just looking for the droppings of food as they fell from my mouth. I was more Cookie Monster than “man”. I couldn’t help myself. It was all so lurpin’.
By the end of the evening, I was a huge mess of a man, lying on the couch, bloated and cross-eyed, trying to watch an old Seinfeld rerun. This is usually how I look on the last day of vacation, not the first!
Eventually, we all headed towards our beds and fell asleep.
Only to be awakened by the rowdy college-types partying at midnight in the hot tub right outside our room! By this time I was in total agony. My stomach hurt for some reason, my head was pounding a little, I was burping up bean dip, and now these pre-adults were annoying me with their drunken fun.
I got a glass of water and two Tums, called security, and 20 minutes later they had left. That hour after the party was broken up was pure agony for me. I was very sick (must have been a flu bug)

and it took all my concentration and will power to keep from regurgitating. Somehow, I finally got over feeling ill and went to sleep. Must have been one of those 2 hour flu bugs you’re always hearing about.
Next up: King of GAT