SLAMming Confused: Deal w CYA First? What is “SLAM Level”?

PoolStored said:

Target slam level for cya 40.

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You, sir, are a task master.

Yes, Virginia, there is a drain at the bottom of your pool.

Need to add some h2o…

PoolStored said:

Oh yeah! Clean behind that light!

If you can see the bottom, it is safe to swim up to SLAM level.

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Wait, wut?? It’s safe to swim? I told my daughter end of the week probably.

But… she can swim this afternoon??

More soon! Thanks!

Guys. It’s been an amazing day. I have a story to tell. You’re one of the stars…

Monday had been exceedingly long.

I was up early monitoring and modifying our pool chemistry and working to get our back yard into shape after the long winter. Afterward,I’d spent many exhausting hours in my two apiaries, caring for seven hives of honeybees.

I was hot, dirty and tired, and I was on the way home from my last stop of the day – picking up 80 pounds of salt to add to the pool along with a couple of grocery items for my wife. I was running behind and I was tired. All I wanted to do was dump the salt, fire up the grill, pour a strong gin-and-tonic, eat a double cheeseburger and chill.

At five after seven a text came in from our next door neighbor. He and his wife have two boys, ages eight and five.

“Just ran into the Afghan family. Please say hello for us.”

I didn’t pay a lot of attention. I was driving, had no idea what he was talking about, and it didn’t’ sound urgent.

A few minutes later the phone rings. It’s our neighbor.

“Hey Porter and Everett want to know if they can come over and play with the Afghan boys.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, man. I’m not home.”

“Oh! Your Afghan family just drove up. They’re in the back yard. The boys want to say ‘hi.’”

Then it clicked. Back during the early winter of 2021 we hosted a family of Afghan refugees in our home for a few weeks – a mom, dad and four kids – all evacuated out of Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul in August ‘21. The father had worked as a local fixer for the allied forces.

It was an amazing experience. They had gone from living in a war zone to a US base in Germany to America and our house. They spoke only Pashtun (thought they didn’t read or write), adhered to their own Muslim practices, and did the best they could to adjust to a world different from the one they had left by orders of magnitude. They were with us until the local refugee center could secure a humble two bedroom apartment for them.

Eventually the kids enrolled in school, despite their lack of English skills, and the father took a job at a local factory. We visited them in their apartment a couple of times, and they had popped over to our place once before.

But here they were again, and the timing couldn’t have been better. Thanks to @PoolStored and the other generous members here, our pool was ready for our unexpected guests, and what I’d hope to be a chill night turned into quite a gathering that lasted late into the evening.

The kids swam, ate burgers and hot dogs, got warm by the fire, and – thanks to donations from Porter and Everett – got several bags of slightly used boys clothes that would’ve ended up at Goodwill anyway.

It was one of those nights you don’t want to end. And it wasn’t lost on me that as we remembered our fallen heroes in the U.S armed forces on Memorial Day, it was fully appropriate that we celebrated our friendship with one of the heroes of Afghanistan, among the many who risked – and some who gave – their lives to support what our own soldiers tried with for so many years to do: To give a people a better option in the pursuit of happiness.

Now at least one family has that.

Thank you for helping us help them enjoy their new lives in America.

It doesn’t appear that I can post videos here, so the link below will take you to a couple of vids. There’s one that for me set in stark relief the lives these kids will have here compared to what they’d have in Afghanistan. As you watch listen for the music playing in the background. The Taliban has banned music in Afghanistan, yet here was little Miriam, the youngest and the only girl – who by the way would never be allowed to attend school under the Taliban – enjoying a hot dog… and The Eagles.

Now back to the business at hand:

Going to scrub out behind that light today.

Ran the swg overnight. FC is 17 w a target of 16.

Would you suggest continuing the SWG to maintain, per normal ops, or use bleach until I get past the stable overnight hurdle?

Water continues to clear, btw.

Thanks again.

Behold…