Hi all, my name is Mike and I just thought I'd introduce myself. My wife and I have had an Intex 16' pool since 2003 and have thoroughly enjoyed it, however we had a son in 2005 and another son in 2008 and last year the pool started to seem crowded so we decided to put in an oval, we had the perfect nook in our backyard between the garage and our bar-b-q deck to fit a 15x30. So once the size was settled, I began online shopping, I ended up ordering a Fijian from http://www.familypoolfun.com, a great company to do business with by the way. I devoured all the install information I could find online and decided that I had to have my ground perfectly. I borrowed a friend's tractor and box blade and bought a transit. I got the ground to within less that 1-1/2 inches of level with the tractor, I used the dirt to build a berm the length of the pool to drain water away from it and the I crowned my garden with the remaining dirt. Now out came the 8 foot 2x4, 4 foot level and square billed shovel. I obsessed over this for some time, the wife was a trooper dropping whatever she was doing to hold the grade stick. I got the ground to +/- 1/4" with a shovel, got my pavers planted, I decided to add extras too, 1/2 way between each upright. I also got the buttresses planted. At this point I was stressed to the max and didn't have enough extra manpower to roll out the wall and drop the liner. I called a local installer who was very nice, he said he'd finish the job for $450, I looked at it as tuition so I could do it myself in the future, He came out, checked my work, then offered me a job which I declined. Anyway, the wall went up like I figured, but I really got an education on liner installs, I had a J-hook that was a little tight. Once it was hung, Mark said put about 5" of water in and let it sit, we'll come back in the morning and cut in the skimmer. Well, they showed up bright and early Friday morning and Mark wasn't satisfied at how the liner looked after "settling" so he asked if it would be ok to come back the following Tuesday and pump out the water and rehang the liner. I said thats fine with me and thanked him for not just saying that's good enough or blaming me for what I'd done before he got there. Besides it was great opportunity to let the boys use it as a giant slip and slide. Anyway, the next Tuesday, they showed up got the liner perfect and cut in the skimmer and return. I the preceded to destroy my skimmer, return and old sand filter by over tightening my threaded PVC fittings into them, I guess brawn isn't always an asset. Anyway, I got a Hayward 24" sandfilter, thanks to advice recieved here, to replace the old Waterway 19" I had so it wasn't the end of the world. Man is that thing HUGE compared to the Waterway. Oh well, here some pics, I'll post 3 at a time.