WaterShapes World
Before I write my end-of-year blogs, it's generally been my habit to take a look at my last year-ending thoughts to get a sense of how on (or off) target I was and figure out what I need to do to refine my prognostications for the current version. For the most part, I usually don't find anything dramatic, but this year was
These last few weeks have been a whirlwind: Unusually frequent texts, emails and phone conversations. Urgent messages to accountants, attorneys, board members and stakeholders. Logistics and practicalities to consider. Contracts to sign. I recall this sort of tumult from 1996, when I founded my company - although with some nostalgia I don't recall
Before I headed to New Orleans early in November, I contacted Bill Drakeley and Dave Peterson to see if they were available for dinner on Sunday night before the show opened. They were, and we met in a little bistro near the hotel where they were staying. I wanted more information about their new Watershape University, its relationships with other organizations and its ambitions moving forward. I had no inkling that, within days after the show concluded, they'd suggest
In uploading this set of newsletter articles to the WaterShapes database, I was struck by the fact that two of them involve large measures of cross-disciplinary collaboration - in one case between a designer and two skilled contractors, in the other between a pool designer, a home designer and a skilled contractor. As I've spent time these past few weeks thinking about what's happened in the
I'm almost ready to board a plane for my trip to New Orleans and the 2019 International Pool|Spa|Patio Expo, and I have to say I haven't been this curious about what's going to happen at a trade show for many, many years. Change is definitely in the wind these days - with
My last blog - the one about the emergence of Ask the Masters and Watershape University as evolutionary extensions of the Genesis movement - was written when I had no inkling there would be more big news coming. But come it did, when Skip Phillips announced late in September that he was
As I'm certain was the case when many of us heard the news, I was caught off guard by the announcement in August of the formation of Watershape University. The fact that it was happening beyond the bounds of the Genesis organization and followed so soon after the emergence of the also-independent
As I mentioned a couple months back, we've been remodeling, and the end is in sight. After a delay of some weeks caused by issues with kitchen cabinets (one tall unit came in the wrong color, two small ones were damaged in cross-country transit), we appear to be on the home stretch and could even be done within a few weeks - which may be enough time for me to internalize a valuable
For more than 20 years now, both as a printed magazine and as the WaterShapes web site, we've focused more or less exclusively on custom, high-end, full-featured projects, the thought always being that by offering a steady diet of
I'm finally at work again, more or less on a full-time basis - and grateful to report that things are going well: My lower back has stabilized and strengthened, I am mostly pain-free and, although I've been slowed by the four-week hiatus, I am back to my work and workout routines and
