Saturday, July 20, 2002

Pool Clean Up

We finally made it to the 'clean up' phase of pool construction. The results pale in comparison with my heightened anticipation. I envisioned a more thorough clearing of the loose concrete and I certainly did not anticipate that they would leave behind hunks of dry board, especially not attached to the exterior pool walls. But there are 2 points that are truly sub par: They were foiled in their attempt to bury concrete and trash in the trenches they came to back fill, and they only minimally back filled, without compacting the soil. Both of these points reflect poor work ethic and very bad grading practices. Bone heads. Shall we specify that this is "Mission Pools" we have hired? No doubt they are 'better' than other companies, but they are consistently only as good as they have to be or as they are forced to be. This means that come Monday morning, I will have to call them on these points and then hear that 'it's standard practice,' or 'don't worry...we've built thousands of pools.' As though thousands of bad jobs justifies one more substandard accomplishment. Argghhh.

Deep breath...and release.

Landscaping is no less messy, but far more productive and skillfully executed. And all accomplished without baby sitting the workers. Excellent. Our home is large, and it is single story, so the footprint occupies significant area. Therefore the area surrounding the house that requires, drainage, irrigation, grading and green things that grow, is quite huge. Hugemongous, even. The network of plumbing and wires, valves and conduit is even huger. More huger. We are talking about a lot of work, and orchestration, and materials, and cold Pepsi.

The other night, as I was chatting with the 2 Leon brothers, the drainage pipes on either side of me reverberated, with laughter and banter bouncing through the pipes across the yard. The drainage system is a poor man's intercom, with connections throughout the yard, and even in to the neighbor's property, where it meets with their ditch. Advancements in telecommunications abound; they are all around us. But our 'home internet' provided more hours of entertainment, for young and old, than anything we've checked out in a long time. Max's stunned delight, when a pipe 'talked' to him, was perfect. He declared, happily, that "It's magi-coal!" We played a game of haunted "pipe-aphone," and John and Ann, the neighbors, gave us a call from their place. We can talk from any place in the yard, even down to the street. Very fun.

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