Before I get to some more notes on what’s been going down around here, a quick warning that I’m going to be doing some of my patented “jacking around with the blog” over the next few days. I’m hoping I can do it in a way that doesn’t prevent you from finding the site when you look for it. If not, my apologies and it should return soon.
Pool Troubles
After a year of pretty pain-free pool ownership, we finally ran into a hiccup. I believe the pool was closed most of last week; we may have swam on Monday but didn’t open the cover again until Friday evening. When the girls opened it up it was cloudy, beginning to turn greenish, and stinky.
Hoo-ray.
About all I ever do is give it the occasional chlorine shock, so I started researching online for possible causes and solutions. While the pressure gauge on our filter was fine, I did notice that the pressure from the jets in the pool was much lower than normal. Saturday morning I backwashed the filter for about ten minutes and then the pressure seemed to kick back up to normal. I took a water sample into a pool store and everything read as fine except for the chlorine. If there was a clog in a line somewhere that reduced the pressure, that would also prevent the filter from cleaning the water properly and sending it through the chlorine tab dispenser which stabilizes everything. Throw in a week of sun and warm temps, and you have a recipe for growing a small pond in your backyard.
We dropped a case of shock in on Saturday, added more each of the past two days, along with some clarifier, and are close to normal this morning. By Sunday the water was at least blue again, if still cloudy. Monday afternoon you could finally see the drains in the deep end. This morning I would say we were at 90% of normal.
Kind of concerning but a good reminder that we still have to keep an eye on the pool on the days we’re not using it.
Trips
Our trip to Hawaii is officially off. The state extended the travel restrictions through the end of July and our resort remains closed. We’re still working to get full refunds for everything, but with flights cancelled and the hotel shut down we anticipate everything working out.
We went ahead and booked a place on Captiva Island that same week, along with flights to Ft. Myers. If travel clamps down again, we can make that drive, although I swore I would never drive that far again after our last trip to Captiva. Hopefully we won’t go 0–3 on 2020 trips.
Golf
I’ve played golf twice in the last three weeks. Both times I played like shit.
When I was playing often last fall although I still sprayed the ball around, my tendency was to hook irons and slice woods. I played 15 holes last night (it got too dark to see on 16 so I walked in) and everything was going to the right. Irons were bending right and woods were big, majestic slices. It was very frustrating, as a slice was a part of my past shitty golfing life and I thought I had left it behind. Saturday I went to the driving range and it was borderline embarrassing how poorly I was making contact.
I videoed myself taking some swings at home over the weekend and that was super humbling. You think you have a mental image of your swing and then seeing it blows that all up. My coach is out of town for a couple weeks so I’m not sure I’ll get to meet with him before my brother-in-law from Colorado, who plays between a 4 and 5 index, visits and we head out together. I warned him that he may not want to play with me.
AFL
I accidentally came across some Australian Rules Football Saturday morning. I had no idea their season had re-started or that FS1 carries their games. I saw the final minute of the Port Adelaide-Adelaide rivalry match. I checked the program guide and saw there were matches on later Saturday night and early Sunday morning. I watched probably two-thirds of the evening match. As it was in the mid–80s, when ESPN turned it into a cult sport in America, Aussie rules footy remains awesome.