Breaking The Dress Code

Day 17: Plumbing

As promised the plumbers dug the whole thing up again. But to their credit they left it very neat again.

 

Pool Building Day 15: Making The Grade

Not a lot to report today. The digging crew came back and removed the forms from around the pool and re-graded all the dirt so that it’s ready for the plumbers to come and mess up again.

I must admit it’s a bit of a relief to look out and not see great big mounding piles of dirt. I’ve been warned by the lady at the pool place though it won’t last. Bless Her Heart.

So you want to see the most important view… I present, the view from Mama’s Sun Shelf Spot. Make no mistake, no one is allowed in Mama’s Spot but Mama. Period.

And of course then these two had to get in on it.

Blame Miley Cirus (again)

I recorded the American Idol elimination show and we watched Miley Cirus screech out whatever that was she was screeching… was that supposed to be a song? And what was up with all the full body hair flipping.

Then this showed up on Puddin’s nose.

I was just all “Whatever” – Miley is clearly on her way out anyway if that performance was any indication.

Pool Building Day 14: The Cement Pond

This is the day we kept hearing about. The Gunite Day. The men at the pool company evidently LUVVV the Gunite day. “Get your video camera ready,”  they told us. We were very excited that it has finally arrived.

After a few minutes of watching it I was all, “Meh.” It’s kind of like watching paint dry.

So here is what happens… These guys park their truck of sand like substance out on the street. It’s dumped out the back and shifted like you would flour then the sand like substance is pumped through a great big hose.

    

This guy is on the other end of the hose which you can see also has a water hose (red) attached to it. The water is combined with the sand like substance right there at the end and some scary I-Don’t-really-want-to-know-the-details-it-can’t-be-safe chemical reaction occurs in about the nano-second it takes the stuff to fly out the end of the hose and it’s magically concrete.

And someone comes behind him and smoothes it all out with a flat edge.

Meanwhile these two guys stand around and talk about what to eat for lunch

You think I’m kidding? Check out the Gunite Shooting Video

So at the end of the day we ended up with this …

Pool Building Day 13: Rebarb Fail

Well 13 wasn’t so lucky today – the rebarb failed inspection. Actually to more correct the foreman and the inspector have a different interpretation of the code. Our pool is going to be 7 feet deep so it has to have more reinforcement that most pools. The extra rebarb is built into the engineering plan but the inspector disagreed with the way they did it. Compromises were made more will be added in the morning before the Gunite trucks arrive.

Finally Justice For Somer

It’s 158 days since Somer Thompson was snatched off the street walking home from school just a few miles down the road from here. She had been walking with her siblings and friends, gotten mad, walked ahead of them, and was suddenly and forever gone.

Today the Clay County Sheriff finally made an arrest. They are confident that Jarred Harrell did this terrible awful thing.  They have been slow and we hope very careful in how they have handled this case. We have hoped that the delay and lack of information was all about crossing every T and dotting every I so that it was air tight. It’s been frustrating as a parent, but we were hopeful.

What still has me upset though is how very preventable this all was. Harrell’s roommates found child porn on his computer last summer and turned it into police in August. The computer didn’t even make it to the state crime lab until September 25, the warrant wasn’t ready until Oct 9 and testing wasn’t completed until November 10. In the meantime on Oct 19th Somer was kidnapped and murdered by a man who should have already been put in jail.

It shouldn’t take this long for our state to act on this kind of thing. And it makes me wonder if being without his computer is what drove him to act in reality. How long can you let someone with those thoughts wander in the community and not worry about what he’s going to do next? I know you have to follow procedure but some things just deserve to be expedited. Had the police, district attorneys, and crime labs moved faster, she would be alive today.

Rest in peace Somer. Your murderer has been found. And here’s hoping we all find a little more peace and security knowing the monster has been caught and is off our streets.

Pool Building Day 12 – Laying Low

More rebarb today. But first I should note there was so much water overnight that the rebarb guys called the digging guys to come back out and put more gravel down.

Had I not had that Crazy Lady hissy fit about the hose yesterday they would not have been able to have come in without flooding the “lake” back into the pool area… thank you very much!

Having won that private moral victory I decided to ignore the pool as much as I could today in an effort to you know – not be crazy. The rebarb guys while friendly clearly aren’t that into me being out there.

And by not that into me being out there I mean I think one of them is in witness protection program. Seriously. He turns and runs if he sees me with my camera.

I am not joking.

You wouldn’t think someone who needed to fear cement shoes would work around well big holes and cement. Go figure.

I decided not to trap him in the hole with my camera since he still has work to do but when he comes back tomorrow to finish up the last part… I’m totally getting out my long lens.

On a side note the pool company says the tile we picked is not available. Craptastic. Now we’ve got to go pick out different tile. This has aggravated the Dr more than I thought it would. Seems he was in love with the tile.

Pool Building Day 11 – Going off the deep end

We officially got a deep end today.

And we officially hit water

The digging crew hit water which was sort of expected so a sump pump was installed in a hole in the bottom and then covered with gravel. The pump, will continue to run and pumps water up and out of the bottom of the whole. Issue: they left the hose in a pile of dirt, creating a potential muddy mess. I moved it 4 feet to the grass, it was all good.

But then the rebarb crew showed up and had to move the whole around to do their work. For some reason they felt like this was a good place to put it.

Therefore creating a lake of water that would shortly have turned into a muddy swamp and gators would have moved in.

I looked around for the crew and didn’t see them. So I called the foreman and left Crazy Lady message #1 on his voice mail.

Then surprise! Evidently they were just on  a break so I suggested that perhaps the big tractor tracks in the middle of the big piles of dirt were probably not the best place to leave the pump hose. And there was absolutely not any crazy-eyed large arm waving  movements or high pitched squealing involved. Not one bit.

They just smiled. Clearly they’ve dealt with Crazy Lady before. The sweetly offered to move the hose all the way out of the yard. Then promptly did it.

I called the foreman and left Crazy Lady message # 2 on his voice mail begging him to delete and forget message #1.

Then I went inside and shut up.

This, though, this is the part I’m trying to deny

Pool Building Day 10 – Finally a Hole

I’ve been going back and forth on whether to mention the name of the company who is building our pool.  I’m not sure what the right answer is, if I don’t then these posts are really just about the experience of building a pool. If I do then I’m afraid it’s going to end up as more of a commentary on how they build pools. Not sure which way I want to go with that.

I’ll start out by saying I’ve clearly entered the “Crazy Lady” phase of big project land. I’ve officially been patronized by the foreman. But he was very professional and nice in his patronizing.

Here are my extra inches that I went out loaded for bear to get:

 

He never would admit his math was wrong but he did make the changes I wanted so in the end we were all smiles and friendly.

Later in the day the crew showed up and formed out the pool based on the flags.

Then the heavy equipment arrived and the first official scoop of dirt was removed for the pool.

 

And not too much later the bus came and the site of the dump truck in the street brought the entire neighborhood running …

 

And it was declared that pool builder guys have the best jobs in the whole wide world.

Pool Building Day 9: Drawing and Marking the Plan

So today the foreman came and laid out the plan onto the yard and I had to sign off on it. I was a bit distracted because the Dr. was unsure of the placement. After much debate and discussion with the foreman I felt okay with the placement but ignored something else I later regretted. When I walked outside the foreman warned me that everyone always says it looks smaller than they imagined. Well it did.

And there is a reason. It’s smaller than what we drew. I didn’t question his measurements – because I always tend to cave rather than confront. But when The Dr. came home he insisted on getting out the measuring tape and it is in fact about 7 inches shorter and 2 inches narrower than what we drew and are paying for. Also the sun-shelf is not right I’ve decided.

So I called the foreman and he’s coming out early tomorrow to recheck everything before they start digging and I’m determined to be more assertive and to be satisfied.

Send me lots of stick to your guns vibes tomorrow people!!!