Manufacturer and Actor Grant Hot Tub Wish
A 5-year-old boy with severe birth defects received a hot tub in December, courtesy of ThermoSpas and actor Dustin Diamond (Screech from “Saved By The Bell”). Sidney Bernabei of Dalzell, Ill., was born with frontal nasal dysplasia (nose split in two halves), an encepholocele (frontal brain lobe and surrounding membranes bulging through the nose) and numerous other problems. After many surgeries, the boy is able to move without a walker and attend kindergarten, but walking is difficult due to a stroke he suffered at age 2. His parents hope that hot tub
therapy will help him walk on his own and be more independent. Diamond and wife Jennifer formed the Dustin Diamond Foundation this spring and partnered with ThermoSpas’ Season of Giving program to help Sidney receive the hot tub, which has a specially designed child seat. ThermoSpas is a manufacturer based in Wallingford, Conn.
All Clear for a Cruise
Pool Water Products rewarded its 2005 All Clear Professional dealers with a Mediterranean Cruise Nov. 5-12, 2005. They visited various cities in Spain, Monaco, France and Italy. Retailers interested in the 2006 All Clear Color Action program should contact the company at 949-756-1666. PWP is a distributor of pool and spa products based in Irvine, Calif.
Paddock Opens New Locations
Paddock Pools, Patios & Spas, a pool builder and outdoor living retailer based in Scottsdale, Ariz., has opened a new location in Chandler, Ariz. The 15,000-square-foot outdoor living superstore opened Nov. 12, 2005. Then, on Nov. 26, the company opened a holiday season-only Magic of Christmas location in the Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall, which features Paddock holiday gift items.
Pool Alarm System Wins CES Award
AquaSonus, LLC, received the Consumer Electronics Association Innovations Design and Engineering Showcase Honoree Award in the software/embedded technology category for its passive-sonar pool alarm system. The company’s system will be showcased in the 2006 International Consumer Electronics Show Innovations Plus area. The show recognizes products that exemplify excellence in design and engineering. The alarm system was designed to help prevent child drownings in residential pools. AquaSonus, LLC, is an engineering design firm based in Lowell, Mass.
Spatex Operators Day Returns
Organizers of Spatex ’06, an exhibition for professionals in the pool, spa and sauna industry, have announced that they will again devote the final day of their show to managers of large and small commercial pool facilities. The 10th Annual Exhibition will take place at Hilton Brighton Metropole Exhibition Centre, Brighton, England, Feb. 5-7. For more information, visit www.spatex.co.uk.
Award-Winning Slime
The Ig Nobel award recently went to Ed Cussler, a chemical engineer and professor at University of Minnesota. His experiments, which had swimmers trying to navigate through “goo,” were reported by Pool & Spa News in the Jan. 17, 2005 issue, page 22. The Ig Nobel award highlights unusual and creative experiments in a funny way to get people interested in science, medicine and technology, and is announced at the same time as the Nobel Prize. For Cussler’s research, he and student Brian Gettelfinger filled a university pool with a mix of water and guar, a thickening agent, and asked people to swim through it to see if it would affect their speed. In the end, the researchers determined that thicker fluid does not slow a swimmer down. According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Cussler and Gettelfinger wore swimming attire to the award ceremony, which took place at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.
