Oh, boy...what a day and night.
We got on the road at 4PM (5EDT). We encountered a major traffic jam, due to an accident just past the Hagerstown, IN, exit. They had the road closed at that exit, and were detouring us off the road. We stopped to have a little dinner, since it was already 5:30/6:00. We finally got on the road, taking US 40 for about 8 miles. The sad thing is that by the time we'd actually travelled 113 miles, it was already 8PM (9EDT).
I had received a call on Tuesday, because some friends of ours, for whom I'd built a PC, were having trouble. They've got WinXP on that system, and (probably due to someone exploiting one of the numerous bugs in Windows NT/2K/XP) they couldn't actually get on the internet. Windows recognized the network cards, but wouldn't obtain an address from the cable modem.
So, we got to their house at 7AM EDT, and I spent the next 6 hours diagnosing/trying to fix the network connections, and eventually reinstalling Windows and Office, as well as downloading and installing all the available "Critical Updates". We left there around 1PM.
When we got here, the pool and yard needed more attention than we'd thought. Seems that, somehow, the pool pump's intake and output hoses got reversed...so all the DE filtrant that got put into the skimmer, to go into the filter, wound up in the pool. Also, with all the rain that the Philly region got, it looks like the weight of the water and sand on the saturated ground has caused some problems. There are dips and valleys in the ground below the pool, and now, the liner developed a hole at one end, near the top, has come off of the bead at a spot on the other end, and is stretched in all sorts of places. This can't be good.
Weeds have grown up through both patios (the brick one that was already in place by the pool, and the one we had built, a year or so ago, for the grill), there were all kinds of old pool stuff under the deck that needed to be thrown away, and the grass needs to be cut, but since there was a lot of rain in the area, recently, it's been too wet to do so.
We're going to have to do some major cleanup, here. We're probably going to sell the house, next year, as having 2 houses, especially one that's almost 700 miles away, is just too much upkeep for us. We'll have to get the yard cleared up, and then decide if we're going to tear down the pool and fill in the space with sod/seed, next year, or offer a credit on the sales agreement toward a new liner, and make sure that the buyer knows that the pool is near 15 years old, and that we can not offer any sort of guarantee/warranty on it.
And, of course, we're supposed to be leaving, tomorrow afternoon, to go camping.
Looks like we've really got our work cut out for us.