Thanks for your help. To say i am frustrated is indeed an understatement. I have already used over 50 gallons of bleach. FC still dropping like crazy overnight and CC which was staying at about .8 during the day yesterday has been staying at about 2.0 since the sun went down yesterday. Decided to drain some water off today, but don't know how much I will be able to accomplish because the pump we use limits us to being able to only drain about 8 inches off, not to mention that i am scared to death of really messing things up with the liner if we drain too much off. So, with the bucket test thing I guess I am trying to create a mini version of my pool? I'm a little concerned about the time that will take in addition to the fact that i don't have an unlimited supply of testing reagents. At this point I guess I am inclined to just put the 8 inches of fresh water back in the pool and continue where I left off with the addition of chlorine. Am I wasting chlorine adding during the day? I thought I understood that it would be best to keep my FC at shock level for as long as it takes to get rid of the CC AND keep my FC from dropping overnight, so my goal at this point has been to keep my FC at between 15 and 20, checking every hour or so and adding whatever it needs to get back to that level. I can do that today - but i have to go back to work tomorrow! Most recent results (before we started draining the 8 inches off:
FC - 16
CC - 2.0
pH - 7.2
TA - 160 ( i have been checking this just once a day)
haven't rechecked CH - seems irrelevant at this point
CYA - 35 - 40 ( i did add some stabilized chlorine yesterday morning since when i woke up FC was down to about 2 and we were out of bleach - didn't want to lose FC while we were at church!)

Again, thanks for the input. Hind site is always 20/20, but in retrospect i should have been more concerned and diligent about figuring out what was going on when the pool started eating chlorine at the end of last season. Didn't have the CC issue then, though, just a bear of a time keeping FC in the pool at all. And a CYA of at least 100 makes me think that some bacteria was introduced at some point so that even though the pool was closed properly last season, the bacteria or whatever had several months of enjoying their CYA meal and "pooping" out ammonia. This is costing me not only with the money I am spending on chlorine and fresh water, but in time and frustration as well. Live and learn!