Morning ladies...................rainy and overcast here today, thunderstorms called for this afternoon.................so I'm taking the day off and not doing a damn thing today. Not sure if it's the shot wearing off or that I attempted too much last week, but my leg and hip are throbbing again...........yesterday and today have had to pull out the cane again and any exertion or walking on it leaves it throbbing and me wanting that Vicodin. This sucks, if it keeps up this way there will be a return visit to the Orthopedic office quickly.

Olldcan... you're comment about Mary Poppins brought back some memories. My first year in college, I put off going to the U of Oklahoma for one year (thought I was in love with the girl that would eventually become my wife the next year................wasn't love just lust, but what the hell did I know, I was 19).........anyways, that summer and the next school year, I worked at Walt Disney World as a Lifeguard behind the Contemporary Hotel (big A frame building with the monorail going through it - Disney Hotel). Because I had some pretty good skills water skiing, I was assigned to driving a ski boat and giving lessons to quest ( what a job, get paid to be on the water and all the free skiing I wanted).............anyways, all around the pool and dock patio behind the building were dozens of tables and 10' diameter canvas umbrellas....probably 50-60 of the things.........took a little over an hour each morning putting them out and another at night taking them down with 2 guards working at it.

Another thing about central Florida is that you get thunder storms coming in from the Gulf side and the Atlantic side of the state..........when the conditions are just right you get them meeting over Central Florida resulting in some really awesome thunderstorms with lost of lightening ( lightening capital of the world) and lots of winds. I'm talking about tree toppling, ripping off roofs type wind blast. Interest thing about the shape of the Contemporary Hotel is that it tends to act as a huge wind tunnel at times.......one summer storm was particular awesome with lots of lightening, rain, hail and lots of wind..............you can see where this is going. It hit with such suddenness that there was no time to take down the umbrellas...........a micro burst down draft hit the lake edge and patio area..........flipped boats, put chase lunge chairs on the beach in the lake, toppled a couple of big Magnolias in the planters and actually blasted about 8" of water out of the pool. As the downdraft hit the patio it went horizontal along the surface hit the building and shot straight upward taking with it every umbrella with it...........looked like something straight out of Mary Poppins..........50-60 bright red. 10' diameter umbrellas shooting straight up in the air..........they even found about a dozen umbrellas that went up and over the hotel in the front parking area as well as on the roof (this is a 12 story building)...............some were on balconies, more than few ended up in the pool or on the beach when they floated back down............it was a mess.

Just before the storm hit, one of the guest shuttle launches had just dropped off a full boat load of guest coming back from the park who took refuge under the service pavilion about half way between the dock landing and the hotel...........this was where our offices were that we worked out of. Standing there making sure the guest were safely between the 2 blocks of offices and sales windows, I don't know how many comments I heard from the guest about the umbrellas being just another one of the "Disney" shows. One little old lady asked me when the next show was ................she wanted to make sure her granddaughter got to see the next one, that she just loved Mary Poppins....................(SMH).............