Caution, Dude Crossing

Note:  The video is an ad piece from the iRobot web site.  It is quite loud, so you'll probably rush to turn down the volume like I did.  But there is sweet action footage of the 'bot in action - one of Dude's kin.

"I'm The Dude. So that's what you call me, you know.  That, or, ahhhh....."

The pool at Hawksbill Cabin was the one thing that gave us second thoughts about buying the place. Relatives of ours have had pools, and they always reported mixed feelings about them – about the amount of work that it took to keep them up, about how much money it costs to have them, etc. And then I worried about the risk of trespassers, and the challenges with chemicals, etc. All of that, and it was clear that the previous owners, in their charming “do it yourself, on the cheap, and without really knowing what you’re doing” way might have actually damaged the pool beyond repair.

That’s a long story I’ve written about before. Eventually we met up with the folks at Uncle D’s Pools and Spas, and we’ve had a great experience with the pool – so that pool season is, indeed, something to look forward to every year. One thing about our set up that Uncle D, himself, commented on was the pool robot we discovered buried under some clutter in the cabana.

It’s an iRobot 300 – it vacuums and jets water around that pool like a professional. And after watching it a few times, I remembered that Uncle D told me that my ‘bot was going to need a name. And then we had the poll, and the people spoke, choosing the name, “Dude.” Our new pool guy, the Dude.

Dude is part of the opening and closing ritual every year – and I guess he probably saves me about 10 hours of cleaning after opening. Then each weekend, he’s there to pitch in on Saturday mornings to get things going for us. Many is the morning I have sat and watched the machine at work from the brick terrace, enjoying my coffee, only to be interrupted by a pileated woodpecker or a hummingbird flying over.

We’re really lucky to have Dude. And with all of that, they had bought him new and just buried him away in the cabana. For myself, I don’t know what I’d do without him. Except for maybe, fill in the dang pool.


http://store.irobot.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3024775&cp=2804605.2662061&view=compare&s=D-StorePrice-IRBT&parentPage=family