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.