More Snow Ball

This time it was 6 who showed up for play in the 30 degree temps and falling snow...George, Dave, Scott, Kurt, JohnV, and Chris.


George...


Chris...


Kurt...


John and Chris...


John roofing George...


John slamming crosscourt

Now some video clips. First, Kurt hits middle...just out of Scott's reach


Next Kurt pounds line on a beautiful set from George but violates Gregg's rule #1 by calling his own net.


JohnV can hit weakside, too...


George gators off camera...

Snow? No worries!

Dave, George, Kurt, and Eric kept the string intact for consecutive weeks played on new courts, despite frigid 20 degree weather.


Dave, the 2-D Santa pounds middle...


Eric gets into the action...


We're all tired of seeing Kurt's week side chippy...


George overcomes gravity and 10 pound boots to smack another...


The sand was lumpy and hard (imagine that!) but softened with play. Dave wastes a perfect set from Eric.


I love how this one ends with Kurt and George hand-slapping while Eric pounds the snow on his knees.

Play continues through the winter

Despite a failing hillside, frigid temperatures, and even snow, you'll find folks playing on the courts at least once a week. Discovery of windsurfing booties at the local Ship & Shore store was a key find, as these are tougher and warmer than the standard sand volleyball socks.

After watching the UW Women take out Utah on Friday night, it was time to play, so Dave sent a broadcast text msg plea and later met George, Kurt, and John at the courts on Saturday afternoon. Braving the 40 degree temps, they played 3 hard-fought games before the sun went down.


Only a poor set could cause acrobatics like this from Dave.


Johnny waits ready for an overhand dig behind George's pathetic kong block. Note the pair of kids playing on the other courts. The word is out about these courts, and we continue to see more people using them...even in the winter.


John finishes with a cross-court hit past Dave after a long, accurate set from George.

It's Bad Yuh Know

Erosion and drainage problems surfaced during a long week of hard rain. We're working with PenMet Parks to somehow get the swamp on the south end of the courts properly drained.

George says you'll sink to your knees if you venture out into this area.


Meanwhile worse problems on the northwest corner where the City placed lots of fill dirt and left a steep bank...uh oh, signs of a potential landslide.

City comes through with beautiful fence

The City has surrounded two sides of the court area with a beautiful wood fence that keeps people from falling down the steep slope on the West side and also reduces the number of times we need to chase down an errant dig.


Stephan and Kurt await the next game. The fence has extra rails to keep the ball from leaking through. Kurt is next to the net pole pads that would be installed later in the evening. No sense wasting daylight when there are games to play.



George approaches in expectation of a good set from Mike...is he already checking out holes in the defense?


The Dave-hauser in mid-set...

Play Resumes!

No photos or videos, but on one of the stormiest days of the year, Dave, George, John, Jason, and Kurt moved 8 logs, cleaned up the remainder of the construction mess, and played three games in the wind and rain. Marco came by to remove the caution tape, give us the approval to play, and later he installed temporary pole pads that will serve us until we receive the fancy yellow ones in a couple weeks.

We've now settled on noon October 18th for the grand opening ceremony.

What the heck is going on!!!?

As you can see from these photos, either we've been vandalized or run into a snag with the City.


When we last met with City representatives, one had suggested that there may be safety issues, so we were suspicious that this is his method of informing us of a problem. Sure enough, concern over the net standards (poles) not being padded is the issue.

Although we've seen no documentation that padding is truly required and we know of many courts that also don't have pole padding we already have some nice pads on order, so hopefully this will put only a temporary halt to our fun. Those of us unable to play due to injuries really don't find this hold-up too concerning.

We may not be able to play, but another work party scheduled for tomorrow in the rain is sure to achieve even more beautification.

October 1st Work Party

Dave, Chris, George, and Gregg were joined by Stephan, Jerry, Cliff, and Willie for a fun evening of digging and log moving. Half the logs are in place, but I have no pictures of the finished product because it was too dark for photos.

The guys worked hard, but enjoyed the camaraderie of a team project. Willie and Jerry showed up for the first time. Their initiative, strength (and youth), and effort was a big factor in the evening's success.

With another group event to move the remainder of the logs, we'll have the borders finished well enough to enhance safety and visual appeal. Speaking of those subjects, we met with Dan from the City and Eric and Bill from PenMet Parks about site improvements around the courts. Proposals include extending the attractive wooden fence from 96th along the west and north sides of the court, regrading the banks on south and east sides to create a nice park setting, replacing the messy, ugly birch trees with something more appropriate for a nice park, and restoring the starting hill for the BMX riders.

First step was to do a little digging along the border to make a nice straight, level place for setting the logs.


Then it was time to start placing logs.

At first, our heros displayed great strength in hefting these monsters to their new home.

Later, the geniuses discovered a method that the Egyptians learned a couple milenium ago...

Ah...success at last as a log makes it to its final resting place.

Progress Slows due to too much play!

Progress has slowed now that the courts are suitable for play and the weather has been nice. Here's the extent of the crew (Dave) that showed up at 12:30 for the work party. But I heard 8 were planning to show for play at 3pm. Play first, work later...you gotta love the priorities of the typical volleyball bum. Actually, both George and Kurt were on the way to help Dave when I left about 1:30.


What still remains is installing the border logs that will make the courts look a lot more finished. Two out of the 32 logs are now in place.


We meet with the City tomorrow afternoon with hopes of coming to an agreement on needed fencing and additional landscaping.

Our grand opening ceremony still doesn't have a date. Too many key people will be gone on the Oct 11th weekend, so it might be Oct 4th or Oct 18th.

Play Begins on Court 1

Chris and George teamed up against Kurt and Dave in the inaugural doubles game on the new courts. Appropriately, the weather was a typical light drizzle. Grass would have been too slippery and dangerous to play. It was for days like this that we built these courts. Of course, we'll be out there when it's sunny, too.

It was a good game. Dave closed out the final point with with a roof.

Here, Chris pounds cross-court off of Dave's block for point.

Here, George casually digs Dave.

Chris had his jump serve going.

Dave was hitting well like usual.

Kurt shows off his patented cross-court pokie.


The guys gave the sand an A+ rating...clean, fine, and firm enough that they could get out of the sand to spike.

What remains before we can claim we're done...
1) Install power poles form the border around the sand.
2) Fencing around the south, west, and north sides of the court if the City allows. We'd like the City to provide the fencing. The slope on the west side is quite steep and potentially a safety issue. We'd like to have some of the fence post extended 15-20 feet in the air so that we can install a mesh netting to keep the balls contained.
3) Grass seeding on the steep slopes to keep the dirt in place.
4) Clean up the rip-rap construction entrance/exit and put the parking lot back in shape.

We're tentatively planning a grand opening celebration for Saturday, October 4th.

Net Systems Go In

The final step before play is to install the net systems and guy wires.

Scott and Eric pound away to bury guy wire anchors provided by Peninsula Light.

Thanks to precise calculations, all the net pole are close in height...ready for the nets.

Sand is Spread, Grading is Done

Bill finished spreading the final 6 loads of sand. He also "tuned up" the banks around the edges of the sand pit. Next we'll place the wood poles donated by Peninsula Light around the borders, and the dirt work will essentially be done.



The City plans to seed all the dirt banks with grass seed to control erosion, and they may add some more dirt along the west property line to reduce the slope on that bank.

At this point, there's nothing holding us up from installing the net systems and starting play. The first game should be Saturday afternoon.

We're almost there!

My last post was too many words and too few pictures, so this one will be the opposite.

Tomorrow (Friday), the last of the sand will get spread, and the log border installed. Bill Winchester, owner/operator of Wauna Tractor Services, will finish final grading and build some mounds for our BMX neighbors. Then on Saturday we plan to install the net systems, and get the first games going. There might be some final raking that folks can do while waiting to play.

We've seen an awesome week of progress, and it's hard to believe we're this far along only a week after we took over from the City. Bill has been amazing helping us solve problems as they're encountered. He truly lived up to his reputation as one of the best "dirt guys" in the area.

This first photo is from the City crew's last day on Thursday the 11th. I want Kyle, the big guy, as my doubles partner.


And when we took over, there was that wet spot we needed to deal with...


Monday was gravel spreading day...6-8 inches of drain rock covering the entire area...



Looks pretty nice at this point...ready for the layer of drain fabric.


Inserts for fence posts were installed in concrete on Tuesday evening...these are the two center post awaiting a final yard of concrete before the sand goes on.


Unfortunately, we missed the deadline for obtaining the heavily discounted sand from Narrows Plaza Bowl. Imagine our surprise and elation, though, when we obtained that same sand from its new owner Walrath Trucking for $1500 less than we would have paid to purchase from Narrows Plaza and pay for trucking separately!!??

Spreading the sand on Wednesday...

We Will Succeed!

Wow...amazing progress is being made. And not without a boatload of extra effort.

Since the last post, we've finished installing all of the drainage...lay drain fabric at bottom and sides of trench, lay gravel base, add drain pipe, connect drain pipe to outlet, then fill trench with more gravel.

As it became clear that we'd be spreading gravel on Tuesday and perhaps sand on Wednesday, the necessity to dig the post holes before Tuesday morning pretty much told us what needed to be done Monday evening. Sounds simple enough...rent a 2-man power auger, stake out where the four 6 foot deep holes go, then let that auger do all the work before placing sonotubes in the resultant holes. Well, it might have been that simple if two of the poles didn't stake out on top of drain trenches. This meant a bunch of extra effort to dig the hole while safely keeping dirt out of the trench and gravel out of the hole. And of course, a 6 foot deep hole is WAY down there...especially when you keep running into rocks that keep stopping the bit and sending an explosive jerk up the shaft to the handles.

As darkness neared, Dave and George knew that they were up against more than they could deal with (much like they must have felt the last time they teamed up against Gregg and Kurt in grass doubles). A desperate plea for help brought proper responses from Janson, Sunia, and Kurt. With light from cars parked next to the work site, the fivesome finished the task a bit after midnight.

Someone owes those 5 guys (except Janson) a couple pitchers of beer for the evening's efforts. There's something satisfying about accepting a challenge, finding your team in a serious pickle, then pressing through to success with that "We will not fail!" attitude. I sincerely admire these guys and hope they tell the story of this fateful evening long into the future.

Left to right: Sunia, Janson, Kurt, and George try to show the machine who is boss. Based on the bermuda shorts and flip-flops, it appears that Kurt merely stepped in for the picture.
When the manufacturer named this machine a "Two-man power auger," it must not have considered how many Gig Harbor volleyball players it takes to match the strength of two normal men.


When the job called for serious heavy muscle, Sunia the Fijian Phenom met the challenge.

Cantorwood Crew to the Rescue!

Project leader Gregg tore his quadriceps loose from his right patella while playing grass volleyball on Saturday. He'll be out for 6 months, and won't be much help on court construction. George and Kurt and Dave were there to experience it with him. They, along with Chris Nelson, have stepped up to fill the huge void left by Gregg's absence.

Hopes for completing the courts in mid-September with discounted Narrows Plaza Bowl sand slowly slipped away as the City encountered various delays with the grading plan and extended the 3 day schedule to 8 days. This left us too little time for us to dig drainage ditches, install drain pipe, fill trenches with drain material and drain rock, and spread 6" of gravel before the September 15th sand deadline.

Dave and Eric ponder what to do next...


Here Dave carries a large rock he uncovered while re-digging the City's tight line pipe.


Now that the Sept 15th milestone is blown, we're trying to press for completion at a reasonable pace. On Friday the 12th, Kurt suggested that the Canterwood crew could provide some expert help installing the drainage system. They, along with Dave, Chris, George, and Eric worked most of the day to dig the trenches, lay perforated drain pipe, and tight line the standing water to the corner of the court where the water enters a large solid pipe that the City buried. Unfortunately, no pictures of the trench work yet, but the last report was that water was flowing.