RANDOM WORDS

Pools guys dislike wind. It makes us look bad. If you reside in Phoenix, you've undoubtedly felt the effects of our abnormally windy days... especially if you own a swimming pool.

The temps haven't really reached 100 degrees... 1 day so far this year and it's mid-May. Not bad. But, Service Technicians across the Valley are getting a good workout and stronger forearms.

The high winds deliver all the pretty foliage into the pool, which knocks out chlorine, which turns pools green,  which causes headaches.

Phosphate levels have been uncharacteristically high across all parts of the Valley. Phosphates are delivered into the pool water via a variety of ways (thanks, wind), some of which is tree foliage and pollen. In a nutshell, phosphates are algae food. Keeping phosphates at a manageable level, eliminates the food source, which can reduce algae-blooms and the use of extra chemicals to combat the algae.

With winds like this, our job is to make sure filters are clean, equipment is working, and chemical levels that can withstand rapid chlorine loss. And to follow-up as quickly as possible with any issues with water and equipment.

Let's get on with the 115 degree temps and leave the windy days to Chicago.

Our email system went down all last week.  Our web site, too.  Wow, this kept me up at night all week trying to figure out what to do.  We were stuck.  Our business was in severe jeopardy of not communicating with our customers! Any small business owner can relate... it wasn't pretty.

We simply switched web site domain servers away from Yahoo.  We then cancelled our services with Yahoo... which created the FIRESTORM of lost hope!  Apparently, Yahoo defaulted to it's own name and email servers once we cancelled.  The problem was that we couldn't get in touch with Yahoo to reverse this action.  Nope.  A billion $ company had nary a voice to be heard.  We called the only phone # we found, put on hold for 10-30 minutes, then a hang up.  Everyday for 5 days.  Multiple times per day.

We needed Yahoo to help us get through the issue and reactivate our service.  This didn't happen and we were left scrambling to fend for ourselves.  We registered our .net and .biz addresses, changed domain name servers, transferred our domain (which is another snag with Yahoo).  Yahoo "locks" your domain!  To unlock it, you need to be able to get into your Yahoo account.  With no account, the domain remained locked.  How were we going to get into our account if we couldn't talk with anybody?  Try calling the 1-800-318-0612 and see what happens... painful recordings.  No email.  No nothing.

While laying in bed Saturday morning around 4:00 AM I thought I 'd check Yahoo Domains once again.  I tyoed in lovepoolcare.com to see if it was available.  Remarkably, it was!  Not sure why all of a sudden after hundreds of attempts, but there it was.  I immediately punched in our correct web site and Google MX email records... and the wandering emails started flowing in  and our web site was reachable again!  I can't describe the relief of hearing the emails ring in on our computer and phones.

To make a long story short, I haven't touched a thing.  We're still with Yahoo.  Our domain transfer remains in limbo because I'm too afraid to unlock our Yahoo domain.

All of this is WAYYY over my head.  I enjoy tech stuff, but not to this extent.  This was life and death.  It needed to be corrected.  If you're our customer or potential customer.... we sincerely apologize.  All is back to normal now!