Introducing Grid Squid Coaching

With the Endless Pool installation completed (minus some cosmetic paneling around the outside), I am now ready to proceed with my dream:

To swim at my convenience at home, and to offer coaching to those who need help.  The thing is, I don't want to mess with insurance, a business license, etc...  So this will be FREE coaching, as long as I get a signed waiver.  The only thing I ask is that folks who feel the session was of value to them, that they become a member of Salt Lake Open Water (a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization).  

If you're interested in getting some coaching, whether it be for simply learning how to survive in water, or to make your stroke more efficient and faster, I can be of some help.

What you'll get:

• Individualized analysis of your stroke, in the endless pool, including video analysis that you will get a copy of.
• Review of your current training program in relation to your goals.
• Some actionable tasks for you to work on with a follow up visit if you like.

Some of my qualifications:

• Level 2 USMS Certified Coach
• I was a coach a few years ago for a USA Swimming club (Syracuse Rush Bluefins)
• Experienced open water swimmer
• I was WSI Certified and taught swimming lessons to kids from 5 to 15 when when I was in high-school and college.
• CPR/First-Aid certified, with an AED on premises. 😟

If you're interested, email me at: ggridley@gordongridley.us

DC Installs the liner

This morning at 7am DC arrived with his boy and they worked together all day. They worked hard and got an amazing amount of work done.  We filled up the pool to the level of the hydraulic hoses.  Finally he installed the security cover.

Tomorrow he comes early to install the hoses, and pipes and finalizing all the functional part.  He will show me how to do the insulation and skirting. I'm hoping that I'll be able to swim first thing Monday morning.

Even at 10 minutes, the time lapse of today is a bit long....

In comes DC to save the project

After having to undo/redo several parts of the wall construction due to various missed steps, I knew I was in big trouble with this thing. The wall construction is probably the easiest part and yet here I was having issues.  I found the DVD, and that is what made me actually find where I was doing things wrong.  So if you're stuck, check out the DVD, cause it actually shows you what to do.

Granted, I still had some room in my budget to have a professional help me.  So I called DC (Dave Christensen) and he came out to check out the pool parts and the configuration I had with the location of where it was going.  He seemed kind of excited to put it together which was encouraging.  He's a certified installer with Endless so he knows what he is doing. He's done this many times before.

His number is 801-347-0194. Here's some background on DC on the endlesspools website.

Anyway, this morning he came out and got started.  It rained quite a bit last night, so he just anchored the structure and did the coping.  He found that the shipment was missing a couple corners, so he's going to get in touch with them and get them to rush the missing parts so he can resume next week.  It's kind of like having a Real Estate Agent when you're desperate to find a home.  Can you find a home without an agent, Yes, but it's a major pain in the ass.

Having this guy take care of all the hard work for me already is worth it!

Here's some time lapse of the work he did this morning....

Endless Pool Shipment and skeleton installation

Last week the Endless Pool shipment came from ABF who where the freight company that transported it.  The main crate had some apparent damage and was strapped together to prevent further damage.

After taking the straps off and removing the side panel that was bowing out to look inside, everything looked intact and undamaged. The guy who unloaded also took pictures and marked the shipment as damaged just in case there was real damage to it.  He took the straps and I resumed removing the panels and exposing all the boxes inside.

I'd say that base is a little uneven.  All the supporting
bases need to be the same height, and distributed evenly.
And the forklift base I think should be as wide as
 the entire crate to avoid damage.

We then broke down the panel crate and started putting the skeleton together.

Notice the fat side down.  WRONG!
Dummy!

After we got all four corners put together I realized we had the thing upside down. So we took an hour to disassemble the panels and turn everything right side up.  Small side down, fat side up!

Then I realized that I missed putting in the California braces, so then I had to loosen things up a bit to get that in there.  At this point I found the manual in amongst the boxes in the original crate.  I was operating off of instructions that were emailed to me.  The binder in the crate is the way to go.  Don't bother with downloading and printing out instructions. Everything is in that nice binder and in the right order.


After completing full inventory of the damaged crate I discovered one of the turning vane assemblies had a broken part.

I called Endless Pools and they were very quick to respond and get a replacement part shipped out.

However the first day of assembling things, made me realize this is a bit over my head.  So I asked Cathi to get in touch with Tom, the guy who allowed me to do my test swim, and find out who helped him assemble his pool.


She found out he is a factory trained Endless Pool installer.  His name is DC (Dave Christensen).  He is coming over this afternoon to look at what we've got and see if we can make a deal.

The easiest part was the stairs going up on the outside of the pool. It looked like something Lifetime would make. It was super easy to install.

Anyway, I'm hopeful that with DC, I'll be able to get this thing put together sooner rather than later. But that will come at a price. And I'm hoping the price is something I can handle. Cause the pool itself was insanely expensive.