November 11-13, 1994: A Weekend Trip to Austin
	October 26-30, 1994: A Fall Trip to New Mexico
	Return to the Index for 1994

On Saturday, November 5th, my good friend Greg invited Fred and I, Ron and Chris and Ron and Lowery to come over to his house for a pool party. Greg is living in Dallas now, after moving up from Austin, and he has a house that is only about four blocks south of me. He bought it for a really good price, and is thinking of expanding it.

It is on a huge double lot (as are many of the homes along my street) and has a pool around which the house is built. It is newly renovated and just the right size for Greg, but Greg has been working with an architect to draw up plans for a large addition to the house that will make it basically surround the pool.

Shortly after he bought the house last spring a year ago, Fred and I went down the street for a visit, and Fred had his panoramic camera with him. Here is the picture he took of Greg out front of his house:

Greg put in the pool after he bought the house. That was quite a story. When they put in Greg's pool, they also put in a pavestone deck all around it. It was fine all summer, but that Fall we had a lot of rain and all the stone raised up about an inch. We tried to caulk it last November, but that didn't help and it kept getting worse. The pool company said that they didn't guarantee the decking, and finally Greg threatened to sue. They settled right away and this past Spring the new decking was installed. You can see what the new area looks like in the panoramic picture Fred took today:

It's actually a lot nicer, and Greg put in a bit more money to get the flagstone that you can see in today's pictures. Incidentally, even though it is early November, the weather today was quite warm- a little bit north of 80° as I recall. It was ideal weather for the pool (which was heated anyway).

Since I am creating this page in early 2016, I have knowledge of what has transpired since this pool party. Greg did have his plans drawn up; they would have more than doubled the size of the house. But he never got around to building, as he moved from Dallas a year or so later to take a multi-year assignment for a company headquartered in Europe. When he moved, he sold the house and he gave the plans to the new owners, since he of course had no more use for them. As it turned out, the new owners expanded the plans even further and built an addition that must have almost tripled the size of the house. The house you see in the aerial view above is this new house, which has been on that lot now for fifteen years or so.

Anyway, let's take a look at the pictures from the pool party.

Me in Greg's Pool Playing Water Polo

Ron Mathis and I

Fred and Ron Drew

Lowery

Lowery, of course, is Ron Drew's friend. Grant and I had met Lowery about six years ago at the Trestle; we liked him for a friend and the feeling was mutual, so we stayed in touch and he became one of our closest friends. He was quite a help to me when Grant died, and I have continued to see him and Ron frequently.

The only person who didn't go in the pool was Ron Mathis' friend Chris Young. Since they got together, Ron moved out of the condominium he was renting on Royal Lane, and he has bought a house up in Plano. It's more convenient for Chris, who works at Texas Instruments up in Sherman, and it will be more convenient for Ron, too, when his own component of Texas Instruments moves to McKinney. It's a nice house, just big enough for them, with a swimming pool about the size of Greg's instead of a back yard. Chris has had skin cancer before, and he has to stay out of the sun as much as possible.

We all had a great time, and Greg had drinks and snacks for us after we'd had our fill of splashing around in the water.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	November 11-13, 1994: A Weekend Trip to Austin
	October 26-30, 1994: A Fall Trip to New Mexico
	Return to the Index for 1994