Madison Squash Workshop News

Final

2010-11-07T19:09:00.002-06:00

Shaun Le Roux def. Eddie Charlton 7-11, 11-6, 11-3, 4-11, 11-3

Fantastic match today to wrap up the 2010 Madison Open. Our two top seeds put on an incredible show of movement and ball control. Shaun Le Roux had previously lost only one set during the tournament and was obviously going in feeling pretty confident. Eddie Charlton had lost two sets to Jaymie Haycocks in a tight semi-final, but was also going in with some confidence.

The first game started with Shaun building up a 7-3 lead before Eddie won 11-7 in one hand. Not only had he come back to win the game, he successfully exposed Shaun's movement more than anyone else had previously. Shaun picked it up the next two games and was looking like he was going to run the table in four games, but Eddie came back in the fourth (with the magic knee-socks) and rolled to an easy 11-4 win.

The last game was all Shaun. Even for the first few points, but at 4-3, Shaun's confidence went up and was able to get to roll to an 11-3 victory. Best squash of the week.

Check out the MSW Facebook page for some photos...

Main Draw, First Round

2010-11-05T09:56:00.002-05:00

Great matches last night. Graham vs. Hedrick was epic. 90 minutes of exceptional stuff.

Eddie Charlton def. Lyall Paterson 10-12, 11-2, 7-6 ret.
Kamran Khan def. Fernando Lopez 11-4, 11-9, 11-6
Jaymie Haycocks def. Neil Cordell 11-5, 12-10, 11-4
Wade Johnstone def. Juan Pablo Roude 11-8, 11-7, 11-9
Anthony Graham def. Rex Hedrick 11-7, 4-11, 7-11, 11-7, 11-9 (89min)
Shaun LeRoux def. Aqeel Rehman 11-5, 11-3, 11-7
Karim a.g.a Samy def. Ben Coleman 11-4, 7-11, 12-10, 11-8
Peter Creed def. Jonas Laursen 11-5, 11-5, 11-6

Quarterfinals are tonight!

Wade Johnstone vs. Jaymie Haycocks, 5:00
Kamran Khan vs. Anthony Graham, 6:00
Peter Creed vs. Eddie Charlton, 7:00
Shaun Le Roux vs. Karim a.g.a. Samy, 8:00

See you tonight!

Qualifying Finals

2010-11-03T22:12:00.001-05:00

Neil Cordell def. Keith Pritchard 11-0, 11-1, 11-4
Fernando Lopez def. Daniel Sibley 11-7, 5-11, 11-4, 12-10
Anthony Graham def. Saqib Yousaf 11-8, 9-11, 11-7, 13-11
Lyall Paterson def Arshad Iqbal Burki 14-16, 11-9, 11-2, 11-10

Tomorrow the Main Draw. Starts at 5:00pm on two courts. Good stuff.

2010 Madison Open

2010-11-02T21:34:00.000-05:00

First Round Qualies in the books. No surprises. Turns out the pros are a LOT better than the local guys. Great fun though for the locals to play with these guys. Tomorrow the tournament begins in earnest.

Wednesday schedule is:

Burki vs. Paterson 6:00pm
Yousaf vs. Graham 6:00pm
Lopez vs. Sibley 7:00pm
Pritchard vs. Cordell 7:00pm

Madison Open Online Registration

2010-09-30T22:14:00.002-05:00

Thanks to those nifty folks at 5Nines Data, we've got us an online registration page! Pretty cool, eh?

2010 Madison Open

2010-09-24T15:15:00.001-05:00

The second annual Madison Open will take place from Nov. 2-7. Amateurs Nov. 5-7. We'll have online registration as well as snail mail versions available. All should be available by next week.

New Art!

2010-09-17T08:51:00.003-05:00

New artwork by Linda Kelen and Jamie Grunniwaldt.

A word about Jamie
I have been a visual artist as long as I can remember, as a child of a painter I considered it a birthright and eagerly took to the paintbrush. In the past I have been preferred people as a subject but have lately been drawn to include the urban and rural landscapes that we humans inhabit. This is undoubtedly a product of my idyllic country childhood meshing with a decade of urban living.

Warm up of the week

2010-07-27T08:20:00.002-05:00

As promised on the MSW Facebook page, I'll be sharing some of what I learned at Train to Play this summer. I'll kick it off with some simple things you can do to actually warm up before getting on court. Most of us tend to hold up a wall and pretend to stretch cold muscles. Frankly, without actually moving, you aren't going to prepare your body for what you are going to ask it to do on the squash court.

So, try some of this stuff. Ask me to demonstrate. I don't mind looking a little silly.

---------------------------

Foreward/backward skips. Travel the width of two courts, and make the trip a couple of times.

Foreward/backward lunge walk. Step the right foot out bend at the knee 90 degrees, don’t hunch your back, keep your left leg as straight as you can. For extra credit, reach across your right foot and touch the floor. Switch legs and repeat.

Foreward/backward Crossover skips. Pretend you are skipping on a line. Cross your leading foot over the line by swiveling your hips.

Foreward/backward crossover lunge walk. Same as the skip--cross your lead foot over the center line, lunge and reach across and touch the floor. As you come up from your lunge, balance on the lead leg.

Side-shuffle with big arm swings: Shuffle laterally and swing your arms up and back. This is really silly looking.

Carioca lunge walk. Cross a leg behind and lunge, Reach across and touch the ground. Balance and cross a leg in front. Reach across and touch the ground.

---------------------

Now you'll be sweating before you get on court. Enjoy!

New Artist: UCC Challenge: League Night

2010-06-21T14:09:00.005-05:00

I'm very pleased to introduce the new artist: Ann Rutecki. Some of you may know her husband Paul. As you will see, clearly Ann is Paul's better half. ;-) Her oil paintings will be up until some time in August.

In other news, we'll be hosting a team of players from the University Club of Chicago the weekend of July 10/11. Basically, it will work just like the Wednesday League--Many players from beginner to expert. Meet some new players and play as much as you'd like! We'll do some socializing later in the day with the Chicago team. Sunday the 12th will be more squash and then a World Cup Finals party at the club.

More information as the date come closer.

Speaking of League, the Wednesday Night league has resumed, so plan accordingly.

Results!

2010-02-22T09:30:00.003-06:00

A great time was had by all at the First Annual WinterFest Tournament. (We might have to come up with a better name for this...) Anyway, we had a small, but enthusiastic group of players including several from Milwaukee and Chicago.

In probably the largest SIZE difference ever to be seen on a squash court, Lara Vojnov (the short) defeated Geoff Garbacz (the very tall) in the 3.5 final. Both Lara's and Geoff's games are improving rapidly and I suspect we'll see them both contesting more matches in the 4.0 division next time.

Speaking of the 4.0 division, Nick Eugenio of Chicago took the 4.0 title from the very game Andrew Bayer of Oconomowoc. Nick, the young Chicagoan is getting back into squash after years of playing high school and college hockey. He's got tremendous fitness and speed and it proved too much for the experienced Bayer.

The 4.5 final was contested by ersatz Madisonian Jeff Hanson and another young Chicago player, Harry Goldstein. Harry did double duty in the 5.0 draw and the 4.5 and spent about 20 hours on court, but it didn't matter in the final here. Just too much speed and fitness for the wily veteran to contend with.

The 5.0 draw was a round robin contested by Sid Singh, Mike West, Harry Goldstein, and yours truly. Sid and I met in the final pairing, with neither of us dropping game previously. In three hard fought games, I came out the winner, making up for my defeat handed to me by Sid the previous weekend.

Next on the calendar will be the Club Championships in April! I'd love to see every club member get involved in this event as we will have 4 full divisions. I'll get that on the calendar soon.

Tournament Time

2010-01-25T16:44:00.002-06:00

Hi All,
Tournament Time in Madison. Sign up for the Winterfest tournament, February 19th through 21st. We'll have a 6.0 Invitational Round Robin event. We should had 4 to 6 players in our top draw all playing each other in a round robin. Should be good.

Download the Entry Form here!

Group Art Show

2009-11-10T10:43:00.004-06:00

Our current exhibition features the artwork of Kyle Adams, Adrienne Applegate, David Dillinger, Chris Gritzmacher, Devon Hugdahl, Sam Johnson, Grace Lorentz, Stan Poffenberger, Rebecca Sadler, Linda Takaha, and Donald Topp.

The show will be up at the Club for the months of November and December 2009. Opening reception is tentatively set for December 11th.

Most of the artwork is for sale. Please contact Rebecca Sadler if you are interested in purchasing any of the art work. 608-628-0277.

Quarters/Semis/Finals

2009-10-31T11:17:00.002-05:00

Sorry to not fill you in on the rest of the tournament...

We've successfully closed the curtain on the inaugural Madison Open Squash Championships. We showed off some incredible squash and this should create some more buzz in the Madison squash community and beyond.

For the record:
We hosted 25 athletes from 13 countries.
Bernardo Samper of Columbia upset the seedings and beat our number one seed Gilly Lane from the US National Team.

We hosted 45 amateurs in 5 events over the weekend.

From the Quarterfinals on our bleachers, which hold 70 people, were completely packed and the bar area was filled with more people watching on close circuit TV.

We really do appreciate the financial and moral support we received from our many sponsors and patrons. It's a lot to ask people to back an event in a small club like ours that doesn't get a lot of press or public exposure. We're hoping to learn from this experience and get more exposure next time around.

Go to SquashSite to get the full write-up and see some cool photos by Tom McInvaille.

Round One

2009-10-23T12:32:00.001-05:00

The level of play went up a notch tonight in Madison.

The longest match of the night saw the young Englishmen Ben Coleman upsetting the higher ranked Bart Ravelli in a 73 minute marathon. Two fit guys, a bouncy ball and a hot court makes for a long match. Neither could tuck the ball away so the points went on and on until Ben finally was able to finish it off in four. They might be still playing had it gone to a fifth.

Contrast that match with the Amr Mansi-Fernando Lopez match that went 5 games and only 38 minutes. Some great retrieving, and a lot of attacking shotmaking that were either winners or tins.

Our other qualifiers ran into some stiff opposition. Anthony Graham, an extraordinarily fit player ran into Wade Johnstone which made for a very entertaining match. More than one person in the crowd tonight commented on how quick Wade's hands were and how clinical his shot placement was. It was a fun match to watch, but it seemed like only a matter of time before Johnstone simply wore Graham down with his precision and pace.

Ehimen Ehalen played Bernardo Samper and afterwards told me that he kept trying to slow Samper down, and just was not able to control the pace at all.

The Madison favourite Mark Heather played Chris Gordon and it looked like this match was going to be something special until an unintentional collision left Mark with a dead leg for most of the first and second game. He gamely played on and took the third, but Chris was able to close it out with some exceptional shotmaking and even more exceptional retrieving. He's not the prettiest mover in the game, but his court coverage is quite impressive.

Mike Corren was hampered by a quadriceps problem so was just not able to move well and lost to Legotla Mosope in three.

Peter Creed and Gilly Lane had routine wins over Wildcard Luke Butterworth and Keith Pritchard respectively.

Qualification Finals

2009-10-23T12:27:00.002-05:00

There were some upsets today in final qualifying as three Englishmen made the main draw.

First on court were Jonas Laursen (219), the amiable Dane, against Ehimen Joseph Ehalen (359) of Nigeria. Jonas is a
hard hitter and he came out firing against the rangy Nigerian. Some
errors put Laursen down 0-3, but he looked to be settling in until
something popped in the front of his lower leg. He managed to get to
7-5, but it was clear his movement was limited and he simply
couldn't change directions. Ehalen won the first 11-9. Laursen
returned to court for the second, and managed a respectable 9-11 by
hitting winners off Ehalen's serve, but it wasn't enough playing on
one leg, so he retired 3-7 in the 3rd.

Next on was Ben Coleman (383) and Tiago Cabral (250)
of Brazil. This would be Ben's first real test on the PSA tour and
he was put under a bit more pressure tonight than he was last night.
Ben had the first game ball, but was denied the game by a more
patient Cabral who finished it at 12-10. The second game was close
up until 6 all when Ben pulled away to 9-7. Again Cabral clawed his
way back into the game and tied the score at 10. It wasn't enough
this time as Ben was able to close out this game 12-10.

A great start by Ben in the 3rd had him at 4-1 and then 6-2 up and
it just didn't give Cabral enough time to work his way back into the
game. 11-6 to Ben. The fourth was a carbon copy of the 3rd with Ben
jumping to a 3-1 lead and then a 10-4 lead. Cabral staved off 4
match balls, but came up short in the end.

European Junior Champion Anthony Graham had another great
match today chopping Maxym Leclair in 20 minutes. Anthony
plays a very disciplined game and is extraordinarily quick. Maxym
could not get Anthony out of the front of the court and found
himself chasing the entire match.

Finally on court was PSA veteran Mark Heather vs. Paul
Mathieson (242). Paul told me after the match that he knew as
soon as saw the draw that he would have to play Mark, and as luck
would have it, that's who he got. Mark started exceptionally well
and dominated the centre of the court. Paul could not coax enough
depth to remove his more experienced opponent off the T and suffered
greatly for it. Paul said afterwards, "Even when I hit good length,
it didn't matter as Mark was able to handle it easily."

Qualification Round One

2009-10-21T10:24:00.002-05:00

The inaugural Madison Open and first stop of the Squash Design Tour kicked off with a bang with some exciting squash for the members and friends of this brand new facility in Madison, Wisconsin.

In his first PSA appearance, youngster Anthony Graham took the first win of the night against Ned Marks. Anthony looked sharp against the former Denison University player.

Next on court was British U19 standout Ben Coleman vs. MSW club owner and teaching pro Damon Bourne. Suffice it to say, that despite playing squash for longer than Ben has been alive, Damon considered it a victory by simply keeping Ben on court for 35 minutes without even stalling too much.

The last match of the day was the Head Squash Professional at the University Club of Chicago and not incidentally, former World No. 39, Mark Heather vs. Omar El-Kashef of Egypt. Mark managed to win the first 11-5, despite starting with some nerves. The guys traded the next two games and then things got serious in the fourth.

Omar went up 9-4 and looked to be cruising, but Mark settled down and played a bit more aggressively to bring the score up to 8-9. Things got bit messy with a lot of mid-court contact and more than a few tumbles by both guys, but Omar turned it up and played some great shots and closed out the game 11-8. In the decider, Mark had an excellent start and jumped to a 6-0 lead before Omar could get on the board. The Egyptian seemed a bit tired in this game after his efforts in the fourth, and the Englishman finished the match 11-3.

Final qualifying rounds on Wednesday night.

Round 2
Jonas Laursen (DEN) vs. Ehimen Ehalen (NGR)
Tiago Cabral (BRA) vs. Ben Coleman (ENG)
Anthony Graham (ENG) vs. Maxym Leclair (CAN)
Mark Heather (ENG) vs. Paul Mathieson (ITA)

Round 1
Anthony Graham def. Ned Marks: 11-6, 11-3, 11-5 30 min.
Ben Coleman def. Damon Bourne 11-8, 11-6, 11-3 35 min.
Mark Heather def. Omar El-Kashef 11-5, 7-11, 11-7, 8-11, 11-3 65 min.

Day one: 11:45am

2009-10-20T11:38:00.003-05:00

Tournament starts today with a few qualifying matches. We're down to 11 qualifies as one of our locals is sick. So, starting tonight we'll do the roll call, create the draw and begin play at 6:00 with each match on our show court. Should be fun.

Most of the qualifiers have arrived, though I'm still waiting to hear from our Brazilian, Tiago Cabral. He's supposed to be here today at some point.

Currently hitting on court are two very young players from England,18 year old Ben Coleman and 19 year old Anthony Grant. This is their first PSA tournament and they are pretty eager to get out there and play with with the senior players.

More later

Schedule of Events

2009-10-13T13:49:00.002-05:00

Here is the schedule for Tournament Week.
Pros go from Tuesday through Sunday. Everything but the finals on Sunday happens in the evenings.

Amateurs begin on Friday evening and go through Sunday.

Tuesday Oct. 20th, PSA Event:
5:00 pm Roll Call, Qualification Draw
Matches on Courts 3 and 4
6:00 pm 2 matches
6:50 pm 2 matches
7:40 pm 2 matches
8:30 pm 2 matches

Wednesday 21st, PSA Event:
6:00 pm 1 qualifier
6:50 pm 1 qualifier
7:40 pm 1 qualifier
8:30 pm 1 qualifier

Thursday 22nd:
PSA Event: 1st Round Main Draw Courts 3 and 4
5:00 pm 2 matches
6:00 pm 2 matches
7:00 pm 2 matches
8:00 pm 2 matches

Friday 23rd:
Amateur Event on courts 1-3
4:00 pm--9:00 pm

PSA Event Quarter Finals
Court 4
5:00 pm 1 Quarter
6:00 pm 2 Quarter
7:00 pm 3 Quarter
8:00 pm 4 Quarter

Saturday 24th:
Amateur Event:
8:00 am--5:00 pm

PSA Event Semi Finals
Court 4
5:00 pm Semi 1
6:00 pm Semi 2

Player Reception at the club. Finger foods. Chat with the pros. Hang out in our cool space.

Sunday 25th:
Amateur Finals
8:00--1:00 pm

PSA Event Final
2:00 pm

2009 Madison Open Update

2009-09-29T12:53:00.002-05:00

Things are progressing very nicely. The pro draw is available and we have a really strong draw for our pro tournament featuring two top US players as well as players from 14 other countries.

We're making headway with our Amateur tournament as well. Should be a great time. I spent some time in Chicago last weekend drumming up some interest in our tournament and I think we'll have a lot of folks coming up. I'm hoping to see some guys from the Twin Cities as well as Dayton, and maybe Cleveland. There was some talk of some folks coming from Washington D.C. as well.

For those of you traveling, we’ve been given a fantastic deal with the Quality Inn and Suites located 2 miles from the club. Rates are $89 a night for single, $99 for a double. Prices include hot breakfast buffet.

Mention our event to make sure you get this deal.
Quality Inn and Suites
2969 Cahill Main,
Fitchburg, WI 53711-7100
(608) 274-7200.

Professional Squash in Madison

2009-09-10T12:36:00.002-05:00

Things are hotting up here in Madison. We will be hosting a professional tournament the week of October 19th through 25th.

We got on the PSA calendar on Friday of last week and as of today we have 25 entrants ranging from 55 in the World to 399th. It's pretty fascinating. Anyway, we're scrambling to set up accommodation and an amateur tournament as well. I'll blog a little about it as we go.

The tournament will be a $6000--it's a just a pittance for guys who are traveling around the globe to play squash. Even so, I'm amazed at the demand this kind of event creates.

What the ?

2009-07-28T15:12:00.000-05:00

New Artist

2009-06-30T10:54:00.003-05:00

You may have noticed that we have a new artist displaying work at the Workshop. This is special because he is none other than our own (long-distance) member, Mike West. The show is entitled "On A Lonely Road" and will be on display for the next few months. Aside from being a fine squash player, Mike has been an water-colorist for many many years.

We'll have an artist opening on Saturday, August 1st. from 6:00 until 9:00. The opening will be in conjunction with an event down at our fine neighbors Yahara Bay Distillers. In addition to art work, there is going to be some sort of poetry slam and reading event by the cab drivers of one of the local cab companies. I'll get more details on that as it gets closer.

MSW/UCC Challenge Weekend

2009-06-29T09:36:00.003-05:00

Just coming off a really fun weekend at the Shop. A group of 8 players from the University Club of Chicago came up to Madison to play an inter-club challenge match. The UCC team arrived at 10:00am on Saturday and play commenced immediately and went on for over 3 hours. I was very happy to see squash played at all levels and everyone had a great time. A group later went out for 18 holes of golf at The Legend Of Bergamont, and then we met later for drinks and dinner at the Capital Brewery in Middleton.

I'd like to thank Mark Heather and the members of the UCC team for making the effort to come up to Madison for the weekend. I know that the Madison squash community really enjoyed your company and the friendly competition. I hope we can make this an annual event here in Madison, and that we can take a team down to the UClub to return the favor.

Spring League Wrap Up

2009-06-18T08:35:00.004-05:00

The MSA Spring League finished up last night at the club with the conclusion of our end-of-session tournament. Finalists Don "The Stork" Breckbill, and Len Widra playing out the final in front of a capacity* crowd on the show court. It looked as if Don was going to walk away with the championship in three games with his shot making and much improved court coverage. Impressive front court volley drops hurt his opponent, but Len wasn't helping himself at all with an impressive number and variety of tins. Not to be bull-dozed, staring down the barrel of three match-balls in the third, Len bravely dug in, tightened up his game, forced Don into the back corners to push the match into a fourth.

The fourth was all Don though. With a lot of hard work (and a lot of huffing and puffing by both players) Don was able to keep Len behind him, hit an incredible number of winners from impossible angles, and force enough errors from his opponent's racquet to take home the title and a fancy MSW T-Shirt for his efforts.

All players enjoyed pizza and local brews provided by the Madison Squash Association and otherwise had a great time.

All in all, the format of the league this time seemed to go over pretty well with the players. We'll take a few weeks off and kick off another session later in the summer.

In addition to our weekly league, coming soon to Madison Squash Workshop is a Box League. Players are placed in a box group of 5 or 6 players. You get a month to play all players in your group, The players with the best records move up a group, the worst records move down, and the people in the middle stay in their group. Not sure when we'll start that, but that's easy enough to coordinate and run just about any time. The key is participation at all levels so that appropriate matches happen week in and week out. We have enough members from beginner to expert that getting appropriate matches shouldn't be a problem.

*By "capacity," I mean that the 10 people who watched the final had eaten pizza until capacity.

Random bits

2009-06-03T11:07:00.011-05:00

This Friday, June 5th, from 5:00pm until 9:00pm, we're going to have our art show featuring Mark Cullen. As mentioned earlier, this is a dual show with the folks over at Yahara Bay Distillers. They've got the distillery all cleaned up and artwork up on the walls. Our place is all ready to go as well. Should be a fun evening of art, distilled beverage, and squash!

Also in the news, we were featured in the Wisconsin State Journal a couple of weeks ago. In case you haven't seen the article it's right here. Interestingly, I haven't gotten any phone calls from locals looking to join the club, but I have had conversations with folks from Houston, Seattle, Stamford, and get this--Ireland! Squashsite put a link to the article and I've noticed a bit more international traffic on the website as a result of that.

In other news, we are finally getting our Solar Thermal panels put up on the roof. These panels are going to be the source for our water heat! the hold up has been getting approval from Focus on Energy so that we get some cash back. First, our plumber had to take a class to become a certified installer of solar panels, and second we had to fill out some paperwork and have the application approved. Anyway, all that is done and we can finally get that going.

Anyway, up until now our water heater is using gas. Despite the heater being very efficient, when you're heating 80 gallons of water to keep our showers hot, we end up using quite a bit of gas. I've got a couple of months of gas bills now as reference, so it'll be interesting to see how our gas usage drops after the panels go up. I'll keep you posted.

Finally, in cooperation with Yahara Bay Distillers, we had Madison Farmworks install a small urban garden in front of our building. Megan Cain and none other than White House Farmer Claire Strader, installed the garden. We're growing tomatos, dill, tarragon, basil, rhubarb, cucumbers, edamame, and of course several varieties of summer and winter squash! Nick, at Yahara Bay has always tried to use local produce to flavor his products, so he'll be using some of the produce to flavor some of his distilled goods. It doesn't get much more local than that.

Art Show

2009-04-27T09:24:00.003-05:00

Several people have commented on the wonderful artwork we have hanging at the Shop. Well, now you can meet the artist, Mark Cullen, at Madison Squash Workshop's first art gallery opening. In conjunction with Yahara Bay Distillers, We'll be hosting Mr. Cullen and artist Catherine Forde on Friday, June 5th in a dual art opening. In addition to our space, There is a gallery in the front of Yahara Bay Distillers where Catherine's work will be displayed. The details haven't been worked out yet, but it will be in the evening and there will be food and music and tours of the squash club and distillery. We'll have an exhibition match and probably be tasting some of the fine products of Yahara Bay. Mmmmmm.

Grand Opening

2009-03-30T10:58:00.004-05:00

What a success! We had probably 150 maybe 200 people come through over the weekend. A bunch of players from the twin-cities came as well as players from Milwaukee and Chicago. Our two guest pros, Mark Heather and Matt Jensen ran clinics all day Saturday and then played a very entertaining exhibition match for a packed house. I couldn't be happier with how things turned out!

Grand Opening Update

2009-03-16T09:30:00.003-05:00

Hi all,
Here's the latest on our Grand opening:

The weekend starts Friday night, March 27th with open squash from 6:00pm until 10:00ish in the evening. We will have some snack food and beverages. Saturday we'll have more open squash starting around 10:00am or so. From noon until 4 we'll have our two guest pros Mark Heather and Matt Jensen run some clinics with small groups on a couple of courts. We'll have sign up sheets at the club so you can book your time with the guys on the court. We'll try to group people of similar ability in each of the sessions.

The exhibition match will be at 5:00, NOT 6:00 as previously mentioned.

Below you will find a list of hotels in the area. The Sheraton is closest to the club. The Hilton and the Concourse are in very nice locations in the city. If I really had it together I would have gotten a group discount rate, but since I have now idea how many people are going to be here, I didn't!

If you haven't already, let me know if you think you might make it so we have enough gnoshy food for this weekend celebration of squash!

Oh, one other thing, some of you may or may not know but we share a building with Dane County's finest distiller of spirits, Yahara Bay Distillers, and owner Nick Quint will be on hand to give tours of his operation. It's pretty cool.

Doubletree Hotel Madison
525 West Johnson Street
(608) 251-5511

Hilton Madison Monona Terrace
9 East Wilson Street
(608) 255-5100

Sheraton Madison
706 John Nolen Drive
(608) 251-2300

Madison Concourse Hotel
1 West Dayton Street
(608) 257-6000

Crowne Plaza Hotel, Madison-East Town
4402 East Washington Avenue
(888) 444-0401

Grand Opening

2009-02-20T21:42:00.002-06:00

Before I tell you about our Grand Opening, let me tell you about our Soft Opening. We will likely be able to open our doors for business sometime during the week of February 23rd. We have a few building inspections to pass, namely plumbing, fire, and HVAC, before we're allowed to officially open for business. I'll let people know as soon as we can.

Our Grand Opening weekend will be March 27/28th. We have two pros coming in to do clinics and to have an exhibition match. The idea for the weekend is to get as many people in the place as possible to try the club, play on the courts, and get a preview as to what we're about. All Grand Opening events are free and open to the public. Bring your squash kit and knock it around.

Preliminary schedule looks something like this:

Friday, March 27th. Open House 6:00pm--9:00pm
Any and all welcome to come and play on our beautiful Anderson Armourcoat Plaster courts--provided, of course, that you have non-marking shoes and wear eye protection. There will be refreshments.

Saturday, March 28th. Open House 10:00am--5:30pm
Squash Clinics with the pros, Mark Heather and Matt Jensen 12:00-4:00. We're thinking the guys will do 50 minute sessions with as many as 6 on a court. We'll do a little sign up sheet for that ahead of time so you know when to come.

Exhibition at 6:00.
Come watch a couple of guys who REALLY know what they're doing play a little squash.

Email or call (608-277-0655) with questions.

Test Run

2009-02-16T08:47:00.004-06:00

Had fifteen people over yesterday morning to give the courts a test run. It was a blast. Everyone seemed to have a great time and were all very eager to play at the club on a regular basis. Three people on every court with three more waiting. We played for two and a half hours and everyone couldn't wait to come back.

A couple of notable quotes:
"...wow, that's what squash is."

"Thanks again for letting us play in the construction site - I can't
wait until the place is open for real."

"Absolutely loved the courts. brought back memories of
playing on international-size courts in Pakistan."

"...awesome."

The BAF

2009-02-13T19:37:00.004-06:00

The Big Ass Fan was installed this week and the boys turned it on. It's a piece of art, as far as industrial ceiling fans go. The point of it is to de-stratify the air in rooms with very high ceilings. It moves very slowly and pulls the warm air down from the ceiling. It's suppose to save us a bundle on our heating bills in the winter. It uses the equivalent energy of a 100W light bulb. Considering it's size, that's pretty efficient.

All the courts are finished. The paint is curing and will be ready to be played on in another day.

We're shooting for occupancy in one week. A few things have to happen in that time, namely getting our plumbing in, staining the concrete floors, installing bleachers, installing the counter tops, finishing the bar like area, and installing the carpet. James from Wyldewood Construction thinks it can happen this coming week. I'll keep you posted.

Still a construction Site

2009-02-10T09:03:00.003-06:00

The place is still a construction site, despite being able to play on court one and having a chair to sit on. The Anderson guys will be finished with their work by the end of Wednesday, then we have to wait three days for the paint to dry on the floor lines. I know people are eager to play over there but it's still a construction site.

Finish work is progressing. Slowly. The tile in the restrooms is done, but now we wait for the concrete stain on the floors and then the plumbing fixtures. Maybe this week? The plumbers only want to come one more time to do their install.

Electricians are changing over the power today. That will effectively stop all other work for at least an hour today. Once that's finished we'll be able to turn all the lights on.

They have to build and finish the bar-like area and put in the counter-tops, but again, we're still waiting for some things to show up. Seems we're in waiting mode again. Reminds me of waiting for the concrete to be poured or the dang ceiling to be finished. A lot is going to get done in the next two weeks, but it's still really frustrating to wait.

Recently a friend told me a Buddhist expression that goes something like this: Good at the beginning, good in the middle, good at the end. I'm keeping that in mind as I try to wait patiently and not push the contractors to hurry up.

So, as you may have noticed in my last 3000-word post (since a picture is worth 1000) we did break in the first court. How does it feel, you might ask? Well, I gotta say, it's pretty incredible. I've played on plaster courts before, but probably not with the same amount of attention. I've spent the last 15 years or so playing on the wood courts at the venerable Nielsen Tennis Stadium. While a nice material, the walls have been painted many times so the ball tends to skid a little on the walls. They have recently sanded the floors down to an au natural finish which has been a HUGE improvement in predictable ball behavior, but still the ball will skid on the walls a bit.

Panel wall courts tend to be very loud and echoey, and the ball loses all it's texture within about 30 minutes so it just skids like crazy all over the place.

ASB courts are another sort of panel option, but the walls are seamless and filled with sand so that they have a very solid feel to them and a true bounce. There is some sort of paint on the walls with a little texture so balls bounce true and don't skid on the walls. A very nice court.

Which brings us to plaster. When Pete the Plasterer first finished a wall, I was pretty amazed at how glass-smooth the plaster is. From experience, I know that the balls don't skid on plaster, but I'm looking at this stuff thinking, how could this be? These walls are smooth as glass... Be that as it may, when the ball touches the plaster, the wall seems to grab the ball, slow it down, and kick it out into the middle of the court. I said a while ago in a post how good straight walls reward good play. You could also say, that they punish poor play. With sticky plaster walls, if you hit a ball that strikes the side wall at any angle at all, it's going to come out into the center of the court. That's not good.

A number of times over the last few days, I've hit what I thought was going to be fairly decent length, only to be a bit surprised that when my ball hit the side wall maybe a little short, then slowed down drastically and came off the wall so my opponent had all sorts of time to send me flailing away into a far corner. It's quite dramatic and will take getting used to.

Now that said, when you do hit good length that stays tight against the wall and you force a weak return, boy can punish the meatball that comes out into the middle of the court. It's brilliant, and that's what we mean by a court rewarding you for good play.

Anyway, the courts are great. They rank up there with the nicest I've played on. The floors are beautifully sprung, the lighting is excellent, and the sound of the ball striking the head wall is flat out brilliant. So satisfying.

Now if we can only get the rest of the contractors out of the place... Nice guys and all, but I'm ready for you to go!

Christening

2009-02-06T21:03:00.003-06:00

Court 1

2009-02-01T21:37:00.004-06:00

Court 1 is about finished. They were installing glass on Sunday, the line on the front wall, and the tin. They need to sand the floor, then paint the line. Probably do that tomorrow. They had to wait around a bit today because one of the other workers was creating a bit of dust and they didn't want to silicone the glass or paint the line because it would get all dusty. Anyway, after they pain the line it'll be a good 3 days for the paint to cure. Agonizing wait, to be sure.

In the mean time, they put up the net between courts one and two and began working on the sleepers for court two. They'll start getting those down tomorrow and maybe get some subfloor down as well.

Outside the court area, the Wyldewood boys put up the lyptus wall and it looks fantastic. Our lockers arrived as well and they installed those on Friday. Tile in the women's room is finished and they'll move on to the men's room this week.

We're still hung up a little bit with our electric. The guys have been operating on temporary power so the only lights that actually work are the lights over the courts. Electric One has to shut down power to the building for an hour or so to make some big changes, but then everything should work. I'm looking forward to it because most of the lighting is in and it'll be great see stuff actually work.

This power delay is becoming a bit of a problem too because apparently the floor sanding equipment uses some serious juice so they can't plug the sander into the temporary power supply. Jordan was a bit down in the mouth today because he wanted to get after that (among other things) but had to resort to working on the court sleepers. Dude, I feel your pain. I've been waiting on various aspects of this project since September.

Flooring

2009-01-25T20:42:00.007-06:00

The Anderson guys are really busting ass now. The plaster is done on two courts, and the flooring is pretty near finished on the first. After plastering, the guys worked on the flooring of court one. It's a pretty cool process. You may remember when we had the concrete floor put in, the concrete guys were told they have to be level within 1/8 inch over a 10 foot area. They did a pretty good job of it, but there are still some high and low spots.

The first thing the court guys do is shoot a grid of the entire court area. They put little dots every thirty inches and take a measurement on each dot to see how close they are to level. Each dot is assigned a measurement--0, 1, 2, or 3--which correspond with a certain thickness of rubber pad and shim.

After they get all the rubber pads figured out, they nail them to a section of wood and create a big lattice of wood on the floor, and then finally top it off with the top-grade maple, sand it with 40 grit paper to get a nice nap, paint the lines and we're good to go.

It's not the best description, but the point is, it's very time consuming, but the end result is a level floor that's nicely sprung.

Anyway, things are moving along really well with the courts. Apparently, our singer, Jordan, is hoping to be done with this job well in time for Valentine's day so he can head back to New York and to be with his sweetie. Isn't that nice?

Outside the courts, James, PJ and the Wyldewood crew are making great progress with the tiling, painting, and bar-like area behind the courts.

Plaster

2009-01-22T14:19:00.004-06:00

Two walls down. Ten to go.

Cool colors, eh? These are not your old man's squash courts.

By the way, that is not me singing in the background. It's Jordon, one of the Anderson Court guys. He'll be mortified to find out that I captured the dulcet tones of his voice.

Home Stretch

2009-01-20T17:54:00.005-06:00

I was away for a few days and haven't seen the progress since last Wednesday. I walked in this morning and my jaw about hit the floor. All the lighting over the courts is up and on and it's SOOO bright. Almost all the painting is done and the colors looks fantastic--thanks to Alyssa at Destree Design Architects for her good color sense!

The crew from Anderson Courts arrived on Monday and began shooting a grid on the floors. The plasterer from England arrived today and they begin doing walls tomorrow. They will start and finish one wall per day. It's a wet-on-wet plaster technique that is a very labor intensive and very fast. Once they finish one layer, they start with the next layer directly on top of the previous layer while it's still wet. According to their specs, they use 4 to 5 layers of plaster. Anyway, the head plasterer used to do two walls per day, but he's getting on in years and only does one per day now. After they finish the walls, it'll take the guys about two days to install the flooring, then another day to install the glass wall and paint the lines on the floor.

Away from the courts, some finish work has begun on the bathrooms. Some tile has gone in the showers and the primer/texture is on the walls as well. The tile is really beautiful stuff and we're happy to say is a green product as well. It's some sort of Engineered Stone that is produced with minimal environmental impact. I'll get the name of it and post a link later. In any case, it's really pretty.

Moving along

2009-01-08T20:53:00.005-06:00

The pace is picking up as the deadline for completion is looming. There is a lot of finish work to take place yet, but the work around the courts is progressing very well. HVAC stuff is nearly finished. The duct work mostly done over the courts save for cutting in a couple of vents. They also have some work left in the restroom and office area but other than that, HVAC is finished.

Anderson Courts sent their construction manager out today to take a look around before their crew arrives on the 19th. Everything looks good. He cleared up some questions in the shop drawings for the GC, took a bunch of measurements and checked for tolerances. This job site is a lot better than most. Thanks again to Wyldewood Construction, Feuling Concrete, and County Masonry for their good work.

If things continue to progress we'll likely be open by mid-February. More on that as we get closer.

Speaking of opening, we have a Grand Opening scheduled for the weekend of March 27. We've got a couple of teaching professionals, Brian O'Hora and Mark Heather, coming for clinics and an exhibition match. Brian, a strapping young man from Ireland, teaches squash at one of the premier junior programs in the United States at Results Gym in Washington D.C.. Mark Heather, of England, teaches squash at the University Club of Chicago and continues to play professionally on the PSA tour where he reached a high of no. 39 in the world as recently as 2006.

Both are great guys and good teachers. Mark your calendars. Come to the clinic. Watch the exhibition match. More details as we know them.

The Squashstine Chapel

2009-01-01T11:26:00.004-06:00

The ceiling is nearly done. While it's no Sistine Chapel, to me it's beautiful. The electricians are hanging the power lines for the lighting above the courts. HVAC guys are going hang the rest of their duct-work next week, and then next Friday we're scheduled to have the K-13 sprayed on the ceiling.

There's a crew there today hanging drywall in the office and durock in the changing rooms. That should be done by early next week and tiling will begin after that. The painter primed and painted the drywall above the court headwalls--this is the first official FINISHED item.

People, this is starting to look like something.

Ceiling, Plumbing, and Drywall, Oh My!

2008-12-26T16:50:00.011-06:00

I'm pretty pleased right now. Just got back from the building and there has been good progress on the ceiling. The guys will be there tomorrow as well so, by Monday, they will likely be well over three-quarters finished. It's hard, painstaking work and it takes time and muscle, and the finished product will look very good. Once they're done, the HVAC guys will probably put up some hangers for the ducts and the electricians will hang some wire for the lighting. It looks like that bit of the project will be done soon and we'll all be very, very happy.

Work in the changing rooms is moving along very quickly. The electric work is done and the rough plumbing looks like it's done as well. I think this week they'll start putting up walls and maybe even tiling a bit in there.

Drywall is up, taped, and mudded above the courts. I was VERY pleased to see that the guys covered the court walls with some plastic to make sure that no mud or other stuff is left on the bare CMU walls. The Anderson Court people said that the walls need to be perfectly clean so that the plaster can properly bond to the block. No paint. No joint compound, no mud, no tar, no bodily fluids, no nothing. I'm really happy with the care that our general contractor, Wyldewood Construction, is taking to make sure that these courts are pristine. So thanks to James, PJ, and the rest of their crew.

Framing, HVAC, and the Overall Aesthetic

2008-12-20T07:26:00.008-06:00

Now that the masons are finished with their interior work, PJ and his crew are able to get on with more framing. The changing rooms and shower stalls are framed out, as well as the office and the storage areas. You can really get a feel for how the place is going to look when there are actual walls. Starting next week, they'll be able to put up the Durock in the shower areas and sheetrock everywhere else, then begin tiling the bathrooms.

The biggest hold up now is the work being done up in the rafters. As you may have seen in some pictures, the building is an insulated steel building. From what I've heard, these buildings are inexpensive to build (relatively speaking, of course) and are pretty efficient in terms of their energy use. That said, these buildings are not the prettiest buildings inside or out. Thick plastic-backed insulation is squeezed under the z-girts and purlins so what you see on the inside is steel beams and white plastic insulation material.

I told you that so I could tell you this: we would like to keep the sound of the balls somewhat quiet by reducing the echo of the ball strike to a minimum. To do that, we are going to spray a sound-deadening material called K-13 on the ceiling of the building. Apparently this stuff sticks to just about anything, except of course, the plastic insulation-backing material used in steel buildings.

No problem, we'll just attach plywood to the ceiling first and spray the K-13 on to that. Great idea. Unfortunately, this process is taking a wee bit longer than we had anticipated. They were hoping to be done with hanging the plywood about two weeks ago. As it turns out, they aren't even half way through yet. That work has to be finished before they can spray the K-13 and also before the electricians hang their lights and the HVAC guys put up their duct work. Maybe by the end of this week that work will be done.

On a different note, I realize that this is going to be a squash club, a "fitness" center, if you will, but I'm really hoping that Madison Squash Works will be something more. The idea for the club has been brewing in my head for many years and is the result of visiting squash clubs and fitness centers around the US and Europe. I've taken into account things I've liked and disliked about various clubs and had the good things incorporated into our design and have avoided some of the bad elements. For example, at "Results: The Gym" in Washington D.C. one of the things I liked about it is that there is artwork everywhere: sculpture, painting, ceramics, you name it. I thought that was pretty cool. So, for our club I thought we needed to make sure that we had decent artwork on the walls because I think it's Important.

I was out at the site yesterday and noticed that the electrician had put a fire/strobe light right in the center of the wall where one might consider putting a piece of, you know, art work. Jeez Louise. I realize we have to take appropriate safety measures, but for Pete's sake do fire strobes and other ugly mechanical devices need to be placed in The Most Prominent Places?

I asked PJ if he could move this thing to a more discreet location.

You know, I'm just a jock at heart, but for crying out loud.

Squash Courts in the Raw

2008-12-15T14:27:00.003-06:00

I've been out of town for a few days. While I was gone, the masons finished the walls. The picture is what raw courts look like. Now they have to sit for 28 days for the mortar to completely dry out, or "cure," as the masons call it.

Some framing has been done and the HVAC guys are still hanging duct-work. Also, as you can see in the picture, the guys put up some drywall and the framing above the front of the courts.

Court Walls #2

2008-12-07T07:34:00.006-06:00

The big movement right now is still courtesy of the masons. The headwalls are done and now they've begun work on the side walls. Court 1 is 90% done, and by default half of court two is nearly finished since courts 1 and 2 share a wall. The masons plan to be finished with all the walls by the end of Tuesday.

Yesterday we pulled out the laser thingy again to check tolerances and I'm VERY happy to report that the wall we checked was within 1/16th of an inch over the entire length of the wall. You may recall that the tolerance for the walls must be 1/8th of an inch over a 10 foot area. We'll check the remaining walls as they go up.

Elsewhere in the construction, we're doing a bit of waiting on the HVAC guys to finish (start really...) hanging their duct work. They have to do their work before the framers can frame out the changing rooms, office, and restrooms. They were supposed to be done last week, but there hasn't been a lot of movement on their part. One problem might be that there is a conflict over the lounge area behind the courts. As you may recall, we've got a 14ft diameter Big Ass Fan going up there, but the HVAC guys seemed to have designed their ducts to occupy the same airspace. Phone calls were made, accusations flew, sabers were rattled. The fan isn't going to move. HVAC guys are going to have to work around it somehow.

The electricians were in all week getting their rough stuff in. The plumbers have been waiting for the restroom framing so they haven't been in. Drywall guys have done a good bit of work, but they are at the mercy of the framers and again, it all points back to the HVAC guys getting their act together.

Outside of construction news, I've been talking to local printmaker, Mark Cullen, to put together a series of work to show at the club. We have a LOT of wallspace and I was thinking that we really can't afford to buy a ton of artwork, but we COULD use the space to feature local artists where they could sell their work. That way, we get a room full of art and we can change it out for new stuff every couple of months or so. If you know any artists who might be interested in showing their work, let me know. Have them write to me at info@madisonsquashworks.com.

Court Walls #1

2008-12-01T10:10:00.008-06:00

On Monday we had a meeting with the general contractor, the head mason, the site supervisor, and the architect. Mostly we wanted to make sure the mason was aware of the wall tolerances and answer any questions about the structural plans.

The head mason has been laying brick for over 30 years and has some seriously beefy and calloused hands. Usually when I'm around these guys, I keep my soft, pink hands in my pockets for fear I would be laughed off the job site. Anyway, I think we can trust this guy to meet our tolerances.

The first thing the masons are building is the headwall for all four courts. In our case, a single wall 84ft long and 15ft high with expansion joints every 21ft. Again the tolerances are very tight: 1/8inch of plumb and straight over a 10 foot area. By the end of the day, they got about 4ft up and when I arrived, PJ, the site supervisor, used this cool laser device that measures just how close to plumb and straight the wall really is. The first 21ft section was dead-on. The second 21ft section was off by just 1/16 of an inch. That dog'll hunt.

That's the good news. The bad news is the second delivery of CMU (Concrete Masonry Unit), or cinder block, arrived and 8 pallets are going to go back to the supply company. The court spec says that the block must come from manufacturer dry and be stored dry at all times, to prevent shrinkage when drying out. Eight pallets of block were wet all the way through and one pallet even had a bird's nest or two in some of the block. That block was most definitely not stored inside.

I went over today and the offending soaked block was taken away. I had a good chat with the head mason and he totally gets how important this part of the project is to us.

Framing #2

2008-11-25T08:38:00.004-06:00

The demising wall framing went up in an instant. After days of prep work, the guys put up the demising wall framing in one day. Yesterday the sprinkler guys were there lowering the existing sprinkler heads in the locker rooms, showers and office areas. Today, they worked on more framing, and a couple of hefty dudes were there putting up drywall. The space is really starting to be defined and I'm starting to get a good idea of how much room there is outside of the courts. Looks like we'll have plenty of room for lounging around after playing and be comfortable.

James, our General Contractor, finished the entire schedule of events so now I have something else to obsess over. They'll continue framing this week and next, work on stuff in the ceiling, and then get going with more electrical and plumbing work.

Framing

2008-11-21T09:49:00.007-06:00

The concrete is poured and now the framing begins. The first couple of days after the concrete was poured was spent lining out exactly where the walls are going to go. The guys took measurements to see how close the architectural drawings are to reality, and things were pretty close. However, they had to make a few small corrections here and there. Next thing to do is to install metal tracks that outline the walls and then insert the framing. Some of the tracks have to be attached to the ceiling as well. which requires the guys to work on a lift. All of this work is painstakingly slow for now, but once the tracks are in, the framing should go relatively quickly.

The other thing the guys did was "shoot a grid" of the slab where the courts are going to be. They used a combination of lasers and chalk lines to see just how close we are to being perfectly level. The plot points on the grid are put into some sort of computer program which then plots out exactly where the high and low spots are over the entire slab. To make a long story short, the bulk of the slab is within 1/8inch of level. A couple high spots will be leveled with some sort of concrete sander thing, and only one low spot will have to be shimmed by the flooring people. Considering that this slab alone is almost 3000 sq. ft., to be off by as little as they were is quite impressive. The General Contractor James, of Wyldewood Construction is pretty pleased with how close the concrete guys came to perfect.

So that's one big hurdle. The next one is the walls. These have to be straight and plumb within 1/8inch. That will be quite a challenge. I'm not sure when they are going to start their work, but probably in the next week or so.

Concrete #2

2008-11-13T11:02:00.004-06:00

Today they are pouring the base for the court floors. This is the most critical part of the project so far because the tolerances are very tight: It is supposed to be level within 1/8 of an inch over a 10 foot area. The reason for this is because the floors have to be perfectly level so that the ball bounce is true.

You hear a lot about the "trueness" of a court in squash circles. Are the walls straight? Is the floor level? Does the ball bounce true? Courts that play true are more fun to play on because the ball doesn't do unexpected things. It doesn't bounce funny off the wall, or do weird things in certain spots on the floors. True courts reward good play, and penalize bad play. If you hit a perfect rail (a shot that is tight to the wall) you expect that the ball won't come off the wall. Walls that bow or have other imperfections will kick the ball out away from the wall making it easier for your opponent to hit it. Doesn't seem fair when the court turns your good shot into a mediocre one, does it?

Anyway, the flooring people are able to make the wood floor level even if the concrete is not quite level, but it will take more time as they'll have to use shims. Generally, the fewer shims, the better the floor will stand up to years of use.

Next week, they'll start framing out the locker rooms and office of the club as well as do some work up in the ceiling. The masons will have to wait a week or so to put up the walls of the courts because the concrete has to cure for a while before it can bear the weight of the walls.

Oh, one funny thing, the concrete guys are a little shocked at how over built these floors are. The pad is 5 inches thick for the court floor and 12 inches thick for the walls. There is a ton of rebar and wire mesh to help prevent cracking and the concrete itself has a fibrous mesh in it as well. One guy said that the walls on this floor are NOT going to move and that this is way more reinforcement than they do on commercial jobs. I'm not exactly sure what he meant by commercial, because, well, this is a commercial job.

Concrete #1

2008-11-11T13:42:00.004-06:00

This week is concrete week. They've poured the first section which includes the locker rooms and showers, as well as part of the open area in the empty part of the building. Today, they continued prepping the second big section which they will pour tomorrow, then they'll do the court floors on Thursday. Friday will be some clean up work and they cut the saw marks so that the concrete cracks where we want it to, not where it wants to.

By the way, the un-paved area in the picture above has nothing to do with the squash club--it's where the restroom will be in the tenant space next to the club. It's left un-finished so that the tenant has some control over where the plumbing will go in that space.

Progess

2008-11-08T07:16:00.007-06:00

Progress is being made. We got our state approved plumbing drawings. The city inspector blessed the work, and now the concrete guys are beginning to form out the different sections of the space. The photo above is what will become court 1. They have dug some 1 foot deep channels where the walls will go. The guys were using a bobcat and shovels and it just stunk like diesel fuel in there.

The picture below is the formed out locker room area.

On Monday they'll pour the locker room area, Tuesday the courts, Wednesday through Friday the remaining areas in few separate pourings. The following week things will really start moving.

More waiting

2008-11-05T11:14:00.005-06:00

It seems that in construction there can be a lot of waiting. We finally got State Approved plumbing drawings and those have now been passed to the City Inspector. He's reviewing the plans and will inspect the site on Thursday. What's frustrating is that a week has gone by, nothing has happened, nothing will likely change from what the plumbers have already done, and we will have spent $3000 for the privelege of waiting.

In the mean time, we've got concrete guys who are waiting to backfill the plumbing trenches, and a bunch of carpenters and HVAC guys waiting around to get to work once the floor is in.

The HVAC guys are getting some work done. Yesterday they were cutting holes in the roof for the two units we'll be using to heat and cool the place.

Because we're building a squash club and will have a building full of sweaty, stinky people, we purposely over-designed the HVAC system to be very efficient in how we get fresh, non-stinky, air in the building, and to deal with excessive humidity. I don't know the right term, but we're getting some sort of heat-exchange on the units that dramatically reduces how hard they have to work to keep the temperature stable. When cold air comes in, it is pre-heated by the exhaust air. I hope it won't taint the "new" air with stinky-ness.

The concrete guys are going to pour the slab in two sections: the courts, and the rest. The slab for the court area will be 5 inches thick and where the actual court walls will be, the slab will be 12 inches thick with lots of steel reinforcement. In addition, that slab will be recessed three inches from the rest of the slab so that the playing surface will be flush with the finished area outside the courts. The court flooring is 3 inches of layered wood and rubber which provides a nice springy surface that's a bit easier on the legs when playing squash. The rest of the slab will be 4 inches thick. All of the concrete will sit on 2 inches of foam insulation and a vapor barrier as well.

Here's what 208 sheets of insulation looks like. Good thing we have a warehouse to store stuff.

Urinals and the State

2008-10-28T12:22:00.000-05:00

I went over to talk to the lead plumbing engineer at Erdman, a local design/build firm. We talked for about an hour about the merits of waterless urinals and extremely low-flow urinals. In terms of using environmentally friendly building choices, you would think it would be an easy decision to just go with the a waterless. Compared to the very low flow models (1/8 gallon per flush) and a no water model you have some trade-offs. The problem with waterless urinals is that they use a plastic cartridge that you fill with a oily chemical that serves as the smell barrier. After a number of uses, the cartridges have to be thrown out and replaced. Depending on the company, those cartridges are between $5 and $30. At Erdman, they replace their cartridges once a month throughout their building. Not only does that start adding up in terms of cost, you are throwing away a lot plastic.

With the 1/8 gallon per flush model you are using water, to be sure, but very very little and you aren't using chemicals or throwing away plastic cartridges every month. One thing I should also mention, a standard-flow urinal uses 1 gallon per flush--not that most men actually flush after they use the pisser.

I have decided to use the 1/8 gallon model. The problem there is that the plumber has to install a cold water source that they hadn't planned on installing. Better now than AFTER they pour the concrete.

Speaking of plumbing and concrete, we've run into a little snag. Because we have over 12 (or 14?) plumbing fixtures, the plans for the club must be approved by the State, rather than just the city. Until the plans are approved, we can't have our plumbing inspected and subsequently we can't pour the floor. And, of course, everything on the schedule depends on the floor.

We were planning on pouring the floor on Thursday, but that might not happen. That would be unfortunate since it's suppose to be warm. The space needs to be kept warm for the pour so that the concrete cures properly. It'd be nice not to have to turn the heat on in there if we didn't have to. The only heat source now are a couple of Hot Dawg heaters as seen in upper-right cornder of the picture above.

Electricians and Plumbers

2008-10-23T09:05:00.000-05:00

The electricians were in on Tuesday digging trenches and laying some cable. I was surprised that they were digging with a shovel and a mattock. I watched the guys work for a few minutes and it felt like I was watching a scene out of "Grapes of Wrath" where Tom Joad finally gets some work digging a ditch.

His pick arced up and drove down, and the earth cracked under it. The sweat rolled down his forehead and down the sides of his nose, and it glistened on his neck. "Damn it," he said," a pick is a nice tool (umph), if you don' fight it (umph). You an' the pick (umph) workin' together."

Anyway, the Plumbers came in on Wednesday with a mini-excavator. So much for romantic notions about the pick.

Speaking of plumbing, on the web page I noted that we'd be using waterless urinals. That has come into question as one of the local builders in town cautioned that they tend to smell like pit toilets at the state park on Memorial Day weekend. I'm not sure that's the ambiance we're after here at Madison Squash Works. On Monday I'm going to a building that has these toilets installed to give one a try. I'll be sure to have some asparagus the night before.

Construction Begins

2008-10-20T14:08:00.000-05:00

Construction has begun for Madison Squash Works. There is no floor in the building so an excavator guy is digging down a little and leveling the existing dirt. It's really soft gravel and dirt so it's going really quickly. Where the courts are going to be located, they are digging down a little bit further so that when all is said and done, the court floor will be level with the floor in the rest of the club. As an aside, the courts will have top-grade maple floors that will be left with a good bit of texture to them. The reason for this is that when we play on them we'll have plenty of grip and also the ball won't skid on the floor. These floors will lead to a few skinned knees but that's the price you pay for good floors.

Anyway, the excavator guy will be done today and the plumber and electrician start tomorrow with some rough work before they pour concrete next week. Cool, eh?

Oh, and while we're at it, we've launched the website today. Check it out here.

Pre-Construction

2008-10-16T21:15:00.000-05:00

So. We own a warehouse. Without going into too much detail, after several months of negotiating, a collapsed retaining wall, some mold, and a Certified Survey Map, we finally closed on our building on September 30th.

Now we have to turn it into a squash club. At least part of it. The building is 15,000 square feet and has one existing tenant, Yahara Bay Distillers. The fine folks at Yahara Bay make artisan gin, vodka, rum, apple brandy, and lemoncella. When the 90 gallon still is running, the whole area has a wonderful, heady aroma to it.

Madison Squash Works will be using about 6500 square feet of the building, or a little over half the remaining space in the building. The challenge now is to transform an empty, floorless shell of a building into the premier squash club in Wisconsin. Since it will be the only squash club in Wisconsin, being the premier club shouldn't be too hard. There are other places with courts, but this is going to be way better.

Today was the pre-construction meeting. The general contractor, James, and all the subs--plumber, mason, electrician, HVAC guy, sprinkler system guy, as well as the architect were there. We all stood around, kicked the dirt, looking at the ceilings, and talked about who was doing what and when and who needed to be out of the way before the next person starts. Turns out one of the biggest challenges is that the ceiling height is around 24 feet at one end of the building and 34 feet at the other. Seems like everyone but the plumber is going to have to be up on a lift half the time.

The plumber starts on Tuesday of next week along with an excavator. Plumber has to build some trenches and then stub out all the drains and stuff . The electrician is going to be doing some work alongside the plumber so he can share some of those same trenches.

Once those guys are done, the excavator has to lower the level of floor down a good bit before they can pour the concrete. The court area has to be on a 5-inch slab, and where the court walls are going to be, the concrete will be a full foot thick to be able to bear the weight. The things you learn when building a squash club.