07 Jul 2004, 16:59, CHARLES ANGELICH (1:123/140), wrote to MATT MC_CARTHY:

Hi CHARLES.

 MM>> Hope everyone is well and just having a case of the summer
 MM>> doldrums, as I am. 

 CA> You _have_ been rather 'quiet' lately. :-) 

Just got too busy to take time to type, but been keeping up with the reading.  

Last Fall my younger daughter got fed up with the continual water loss from
her swimming pool and shut it down.  I had previously pressure tested all
the plumbing, and there were no leaks there, so it had to be the pool
itself.  By mid February when it warmed enough down here to do 'wet work'
we tore into the pool, discovered it was an old in-ground pool that had
deteriorated and previous owners had put a vinyl pool liner into.  The four
corners had completely separated, and in a dozen or more places tree and
plant roots had worked their way completely through the concrete and were
poking into the vinyl liner.  Wherever there had been long-time leakage,
the chlorinated water had literally dissolved the concrete.  When dry it
just crumbled and could be brushed away, when damp it had the consistency
of warm butter.  

I spent a good month pressure washing out all the rotten stuff, chiseling
out the edges of cracks and re-cementing the side walls, then we discovered
'considerable' rot on the decking all around the pool.  We 'lost' March and
most of April as we were getting 2" to 6" of rain per day, and it
was all I could do to merely keep the area pumped out.  

When we got to ripping up the decking we found all the bolts mounted in the
concrete walls of the pool had rusted off, so I had to drill another 50
holes to mount new 1/2" bolts and start over.  Once we had the base
bolted to the pool sides, she had a contracter build a new deck.  

While this was going on, my eldest daughter had a very minor fender bender,
but it so happened that she had _just_ removed the headliner from her car
to replace it, and a sharp edge on the roof caught her scalp peeling back a
flap about the size and shape of a male shoe heel.  She spent 25 hours in
the ER just getting the bleeding slowed enough so they could stitch it,
took 72 stitches.  

Of course, that means her car is here while I paint and install a new
fender and grille, and she has my car.  Once again, we're back to daily
rain, and I haven't been able to paint, and between the rains it's just
been too danged hot to work outside.  My 'backup car' which I've been
using, lost its computer last week and is running in 'limp home' mode;
takes a full three blocks to get to 30 MPH, and mileage has dropped a good
50%.  :-((  Four more days until the new computer arrives!

And then, I had promised the younger daughter that I'd cut her yard fence
and install a gate on the far side so she wouldn't have to drag the
lawnmower across the new deck to cut the lawn on that side of the yard, as
well as extending her pump shed to have a storage place for the lawnmower.

Ahhh!  Such a great feeling being retired and having NOTHING to do!  :-))

 CA> I moved 140 miles west across the state of Mich and then had to
 CA> travel back several times which put me on a laptop during those
 CA> trips. I hate laptops. :-\ 
.....................

 CA> I also noticed mention at SlashDot that the idea of the 'space
 CA> elevator' is alive and well (surprised me) and that the Navy is
 CA> talking about their new 'rail guns' that they intend to mount
 CA> on their ships some time in the future. 

I have noted brief news articles on both of those projects over the past
few months, and a 'somewhat decent' writeup on the Space Elevator in
Christian Science Monitor on the Web.  I've seen no mention however as to
what they plan on doing during Tornado season though, or what may happen
when the jet stream moves across that 'cable'...


     Good luck...  M.

--- Msged/386 TE 06 (pre)