ARTICLES Archives - Page 147 of 315

Ripples #55

Compiled and Written by Lenny Giteck Were the Dinosaurs Swimmers?Crawl, Butterfly or Backstroke? Ripples must admit that the question of whether dinosaurs could and did swim is not one that keeps him up

Starting Fresh

We’ve been in the pond business long enough that we’ve seen just about everything – the good, the bad and the ugly. But even we were bowled over by the pond we found in the yard on display in the four videos listed below: We ran up against so many problems all in one place that it made sense to us to record our efforts in renovating the watershape and

A Window Into Nature

Take the world’s most prolific consumer technology company on one hand and, on the other, its desire to augment its corporate headquarters with a natural exterior environment intended to capture geological processes that span millions of years: It’s a collision of

Crystalline Clarity (pdf version)

In conceptual terms, watershape filtration is about as simple as it gets: Water that picks up insoluble organic materials in the form of dirt, debris, dust and algae is drawn by the pump to pass through a filter medium of one type or another. The medium – whether sand, a cartridge or diatomaceous earth – traps these materials and lets only

The Sizzle of Fire and Water

When I want to work real magic into my designs, I play with fire – and do my best to find extraordinary ways to combine fire with water to express the full, captivating power of both of these natural elements. Picture flames dancing across the reflective stillness of a pool; or visualize them alongside an inviting walkway that leads you

Jumping In

A couple blogs back, I wrote about the National Swimming Pool Foundation’s Step Into Swim program (see “A Campaign Apart,” 10 October 2012). Since then, I’ve been following the program’s progress, digging into its background and getting more and more convinced of its significance. I’ve been around the industry long enough to know that

Gateway Grandeur

St. Louis is a great American city. My brother lived there for a time, and I have many friends who live within easy reach of that special point on the map where the Missouri River joins the Mississippi River as it flows to the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve passed through town on several occasions through the years and was able to play the serious tourist once while visiting in the Spring of 1998. In addition to the famous zoo, a few museums and the Busch brewery, I basked in the splendor of Eero Saarinen’s Gateway Arch (although I didn’t ride to the top until a later visit) and, for the first time ever, saw the Gateway Geyser put on its

Test Your Knowledge #43

University Drops Longstanding Student Swimming Requirement Note: >> Some Web sites may open behind…

Ripples #54

Compiled and Written by Lenny Giteck What with all the recent publicity about nudity and Britain’s royals — a naked Prince Harry cavorting at a party in Las Vegas, a topless Kate Middleton sunbathing in France — Ripples can only wonder, What’s next, photos of Queen Elizabeth “air drying” after