Amazing how much difference some light makes…
August 26, 2013, 10:59 PM
So today was the first day that my regular pool, Olney Indoor Swim Center, was open following the two week annual maintenance period. This maintenance period usually involves completely draining the pool and scrubbing it down and deep cleaning the building. They also tackle any other maintenance work that would be too disruptive to do while the pool is open, like lighting repairs, resurfacing the water umbrella in the kiddie pool, and welding some pieces back together on the pool that had come apart over the years. They also replaced all of the lane ropes, which introduced a touch of red into the pool (the previous ropes were blue and white – the new ones are red, white, and blue).
But by far, the most striking change was the lighting. For the past several months, the pool has looked like this:
This was taken the Thursday before the pool closed for annual maintenance, which was my last day before they closed. Kind of gloomy looking, eh? A lot of lights were out, and the pool looked worse for it.
Now fast forward to today:
This is the same facility, but now you can actually see really well inside. The difference is like night and day, and the new lane ropes add a nice touch of color to the pool. This is even brighter than I had come to expect as “normal” for Olney. Recall the photo feature from January 15, 2012, and how the pool looked in that photo. That was the normal lighting. Today’s lighting just blew the old “normal” out of the water.
The way it is now is really how it should always be. After all, if the lighting is nice and bright, the lifeguards can see you better. And I want the guards to be able to see me really well, because if, heaven forbid, I get into trouble in the water, I want the guards to be able to see really well to fish me back out.
And of course, after two weeks away, it’s good to be home. I swam at Germantown Indoor Swim Center and Montgomery Aquatic Center while Olney was closed, but it’s never the same as swimming in my regular pool. Don’t get me wrong – Germantown and Montgomery are very nice facilities (but I really hate the layout of the locker room at Montgomery Aquatic Center), and have some features that Olney doesn’t have, but Olney is where I feel most comfortable. Glad to be back, and glad to come back to a much brighter facility.