mattie g

It's not at all unusual...at least not IMBY.

We ended up with the same management company, but the yearly costs were significantly higher than when we last signed a contract (I believe five years ago). We put a vote out to the community to ask whether they would prefer we limit hours or not to keep the costs lower. In the end, the hours worked out fine, but there was plenty of grousing early on about the slightly increased registration fees. I think we have flexibility in terms of adjusting the open and close dates from year to year, but we'd need to coordinate that well in advance of the season opening. I don't think we were properly staffed with lifeguards yesterday. Lots of our lifeguards are already back with ports so they just weren't available, so those who were there got a little overtime.

First week of August in Huntsville. That's nuts.

And paying for them. The issue for us is that we reduced our hours slightly for the season in order to keep pool management costs down (we had a contract recompete this year). Extending the season by two weeks is a little tricky because the weather can either be pool-perfect or pretty crappy and you might be paying to keep the lights on and lifeguards compensated when people just won't be using the pool. Yesterday, some of us were discussing maybe keeping the pool closed for the weekdays during the first week or two of June and then staying open for an extra weekend at the end of the season. Seems logical!

Hell of a closing weekend at the pool. Place was mobbed yesterday, and was probably the most fun of any days we had all summer! Definitely a bummer to know we won't have any more long weekend days of just chilling with friends around the pool, but it does get us started on Friday happy hours on the cul-de-sac!

That looks awful. I definitely wouldn’t want to be your neighbor.

^ It was really thoughtful of the guy at 2:30 to put his blinker on when he turned into the parking lot.

It's going to kind of suck, but we know that these temps will followed pretty closely by more of what we're seeing today. I love summer and hot temps, but once the kids are back in school and the pool closes, I'm ready for 70/50.

Nice. Should still work out for you guys! Our pool stayed open for an extra weekend or two in 2021 (I think). From what I recall, the weather didn't cooperate, so no one really used it. Tough call when your pool is trying to cut some costs and the weather could either be nice and toasty or cloudy and cool. Hell...even the bright, sunny days can end with temps in the breezy 60s by a little after dinnertime and the sun going down behind the trees. Not the best swimming weather at that point!

Cool for the last week of pool season, then the heat arrives after the pool closes. Hate.

104 for days on end? If so, I need to get my AC fixed, pronto.

Yup...Burke is in serious need of some Manscaping.

We've had plenty of rain and are still losing some leaves. Just a normal process as the trees have been sucking up lots of water throughout the summer and shed some leaves to keep from becoming too dry. I'm sure places that have gotten less rain would lose more leaves, but it's not really a strange occurrence.

Hindsight is 20/20, but we had all kinds of folks on here stating that they didn't think NHC should have doubled down on their call for an above-average season. I didn't point it out at the time, but it always amazes me when people think they know so much better than experts. Experts can be wrong, of course, but it seemed pretty obvious that they were confident coming into mid-August despite the basin looking dead for a long time prior.

Folks still saying they know better than the NHC's calls for an active remainder of the season?

Definitely cleared out here in Burke. Awaiting my derecho.

Ah...I hadn't checked the Euro before I posted. The GFS has an area of unsettled weather in the southern Gulf around that time, so maybe there's something to it. Icon has similar...

Not that far out there, either. Of course, homebrew can spin up at a moment's notice, but we'd "want" to start seeing this pop up on other guidance relatively soon.

No doubt that we have very little wiggle room. I just choose not to get worked up over something that hasn't happened yet because...we just can't know. We've sucked so hard recently that having another sucky winter would result in a "Meh" from me. It would be annoying and I'd be really disappointed for my kids not getting to get some actual snow days and play in the snow, but I'd just move on and hope things were better next year!

We're not punting anything. FFS.

Jorts and Natty Light for Christmas.

I noped TF out of a rickety-ass enlisted barracks-turned office space on Andrews AFB. Tried standing in a doorway to start, and when that thing swayed like a reed in the wind I ran the hell outside.

I haven't done cucumbers in a couple years - been doing cantaloupe instead. H Mart has Kirby cucumbers at a good price, so I just get those for pickling. I'm hoping to make some smoked salsa this weekend. Tomatoes, jalapenos, and garlic from the garden form the base of probably 10-12 Ball jars of salsa. Made it for the first time two seasons ago and it turned out amazing!

I just planted lettuce, broccoli, spinach, and mache seeds yesterday. Seed garlic cloves will go into the ground around Halloween in preparation for harvest around the Fourth of July (give or take a week or two).