Found PVC Gate Valves Locally (sort of)

So I found out that ACE hardware is able to ORDER gate valves. If you order by noon-ish on a Monday, it will arrive at the store by Wednesday. The best thing is that a 1.25" gate valve only cost $7.15! That is about half the price of anyplace I saw ONLINE and they don;t charge shipping so long as you go to the store to pick up. The only drawback is that they only carry threaded, but that is nothing that another 75 cents in adapters won't fix! Just thought I would share since I know there were people looking for some along with me!
EDITL I should add that I actually had to go in to order it (can probably do over the phone). There was no option to find the item online that I am aware of.

 

Well Ace already called me about the gate valve. That was fast! Apparently the $7.15 price quote I got was their price (what it costs them). It retails for $14.99, but since the person making the order actually wrote $7.15 on it, they gave it to me at that price. I didn't even have to ask other than saying "I thought it was seven bucks and change when I ordered". They were really nice and I think I will be going back there for plumbing and other hardware needs instead of Lowe's.

As far as the gate valve install is concerned, I can finally see what the fuss was all about. This thing lets you super fine tune your skimmer to produce the kind of skimmate you want. I have to admit I was skeptical and felt like this was going to be a waste of money, but I don't think it was. I redirected the output so that it is no longer doing any splashing and have the skimmer going fairly wet... I am going to try and do water changes using the skimmer. Something like a gallon every other day. We will see how fast this gets way too old for me!