Battling high alkalinity in new pool

[MadCrammer]

Hello!

I've been reading these forums for quite some time now and I'd like to say they have been extremely helpful! I am a new pool owner; my fiancé and I bought a new home and acquired a pool and now *BAM* I need to become a chemist.

A little background and what the situation was a few weeks ago:
We live in Minnesota - the previous owners got foreclosed on and the old owner gave up on the pool last fall when the auto-cover went kaput. As you might imagine, the pool was an absolute swamp when we bought the house this spring and moved in about a month ago. We are talking a foot+ of leaves/algae on the bottom. I spent hours and hours with a trusty pole w/ leaf bag attachment. And it sucked.

We finally got someone to come open the pool correctly (that story is a post in itself). I starting looking online for how the heck to get a pool up and running as it was a green disaster. I found this forum, and it's been a godsend to say the least. I've now got both a taylor K2006 and K1000 test kit. I started on the BBB method of maintaining the pool. By BBB I mean bleach, bleach, and bleach. The pool is now *mostly* blue. There was still a lot of cloudiness in the deep and from the initial test results it seemed pretty obvious:

FC: 8ppm
CC: 1pmm
ph: 7.8
CYA: 35ppm
TA: 375ppm
CaHardness: 275

I decided to test the city tap water - its alkalinity was about 300ppm. Blech.

Now I can finally get to my questions revolving around lowering TA (yes, I've read the guide posted on these forums regarding lowering TA and now I know whey EVERYONE says it's a pain in the you-know-what).

I've been adding Muriatic Acid a couple times a day - about 48oz. at a time (20oz/10k gal) making sure to wait 6 hours or so between doses and also being sure that the ph wasn't under 7.2 when I added it. I've been doing this for 3 days and it does seems to be helping some - cloudiness is down and TA was down to 300ppm today. I'm concerned for when I do get below a ph of 7.0 ad it's been raining non-stop here and I think that has contributed to the aeration. That said.....

Question 1: I read on a different site that your pump should be off and water completely still when you add the acid to the deep end of the pool. (Link: Link removed by mod) Is this true? Seems the folks here are saying to add the acid with jets on, watch the ph and then aerate when ph is < 7.0. The link seems to think by adding the acid when the pool is still that it will change the TA without messing with the ph as much.

Question 2: Should I be adding/using borax to raise ph after adding Muriatic Acid? I haven't been able to find a definitive answer on this issue. Will borax help raise ph and have a minimal effect on re-raising the TA? I don't really have a good way to aerate the pool besides pointing the return jets upward. I've seen people mention cheap fountains but I'm clueless on how they work or which one to get. I honestly haven't searched the forums for fountain-related topics.

Question 3: I lied; this isn't a question - just a preemptive thanks for any responses!

Cheers!