Archive for "Life"
Low Key Birthday Weekend
Posted on November 4, 2021 by Ching under Confessions, Life, Movies.
I’ve been feeling a bit down lately and so I haven’t really been my usual jubilant self. This translated into a pretty low key birthday — unlike previous years when I’m celebrating my birthday every single day of the month for three months straight until the end of the year. It’s just weird. Maybe this is what a mid-life crisis feels like? Anyway, I’m trying to be as normal as possible despite not feeling completely like myself. It might be time for therapy again. I haven’t done anything because it’s not really negatively impacting my health and those around me but I do feel strange so perhaps I should do something about it?
But I digress, in an effort to be normal, we decided to have people over last weekend. As you know, my birthday usually falls on Halloween weekend so, whenever we have a get together around the time of my birthday, costumes are usually encouraged. I love costumes but I’m not one to go all out either so I try to keep things as simple as possible while still trying to be clever. One year I was little too clever with my “domestic goddess” costume idea I kept having to explain to people what I was dressed as all evening.
This year, no one understood what I was — yet again — so I ended up renting 13 Going On 30 for $4 just so people would see “the dress.” I was supposed to be Jenna Rink (Jennifer Garner) and Brian was supposed to be Mattie (Mark Ruffalo), which is a super easy costume for him since it’s just jeans and a button-down shirt. Brian has outgrown the whole costume thing and doesn’t really like dressing up for Halloween anymore. Not sure he ever really enjoyed it, though he seemed to a long, long time ago. Maybe we are just old and not fun anymore?
Speaking of the movie, I rented it so I actually sat there and watched some of it. It came out almost 20 years ago (2004) so I didn’t remember much of it except for the iconic scenes. I really enjoyed watching it again and it even made me cry in parts. And, no, it’s not because I’m depressed. Movies have always made me cry — even the ones that are supposed to be funny. I’m not exactly sure why.
Here’s a preview of the movie for those of you who have never seen it.
So yeah, it’s a romcom (aka romantic comedy) and not a drama but I still cried. But There’s Something About Mary made me cry too; as did Shrek and a bunch of other movies. I think I’ve yet to watch a movie that didn’t make me cry or move me in some way. Even stupid movies make me cry. Maybe in those situations it’s because I’ve lost two hours of my life I will never get back. I don’t know. I’ll pay better attention next time and try to figure out exactly what is going on and why my face is suddenly wet with teardrops.
At the risk of ruining the movie for you, it’s a happy ending. She comes to her senses, rewrites her future, and marries her best friend. I actually really like this movie. It had enough funny parts to keep me entertained. It’s cute and, even though I’d seen it before, it still made me cry. Happy endings always make me cry.
I sometimes wonder if happy endings make me cry because I don’t understand how it’s always the most mundane things that supposedly bring people happiness. The ending showed them moving into a pink house in the suburbs and it looked like she might have turned out to be a school teacher or maybe a housewife and not a big time magazine editor with a fancy New York apartment. Maybe I cried because even though she had everything she’d ever wanted in her alternate life, she ended up hating herself and wasn’t happy? Once she realized what she had become, she decided she didn’t like herself very much, and I guess I didn’t understand it. I mean, it’s entirely possible to have everything you want and not hate yourself. Why couldn’t she be a big time magazine editor with a fancy New York apartment AND still marry her best friend? I guess that wouldn’t make for a very dramatic movie but it makes me sad that you can’t have both.
Anyway, I forgot that the whole alternate future thing happens while she’s in the closet at her birthday party so I thought it was perfect that I watched the movie on my actual birthday. Maybe it’ll start an annual tradition of watching it every year on my birthday just to remind myself of what happiness looks like because I tend to forget sometimes. Until next time, GNG.
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World Pickleball Day Weekend
Posted on October 16, 2021 by Ching under Life.
October 10 is World Pickleball Day so naturally I spent the entire weekend playing pickleball. We started with a fun cookout at Rolling Hills on Saturday night, the eve of World Pickleball Day.
Brian took one for the team and served as our grill-master that night. Here are a few pictures from our cookout that night.
The next day we hung out at Chicken N Pickle to celebrate World Pickleball Day and raise money to build courts for the Boys & Girls Club.
Queen of the APP Tour, Lauren Stratman, happened to be in town.
I introduced Lauren to my friend Erica Lopez. I shared some of the Electrum shirts that Lauren gave me with Erica so I figured the two of them should meet.
The four of us got a group picture together. From left: Erica Lopez, Karen Fox, Lauren Stratman and me.
Patrick Smith was there too.
We had a great time celebrating World Pickleball Day.
Can’t wait to do it all again next year. Until then. GNG.
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Life Happens
Posted on October 13, 2021 by Ching under Confessions, Life, Travel.
The other day I got an email from one of my hotel rewards accounts. I asked Brian about it because I wasn’t sure if it was a phishing scam. Something happened to my account but I hadn’t logged in and done anything. After Brian did some investigation, he found out that someone had hacked into my rewards account and redeemed some of my hotel points. They used my hard-earned points to book a room in China. This naturally pissed me off. I mean, I would like to visit China (not right now — but at some point) and I would like to be able to use my points. Scammers just make my blood boil.
Thankfully, Brian got it all sorted and they are giving me my points back. I haven’t checked yet but I’m hoping that my points will be there for me to use on a future stay. These points really do help to keep your travel costs down.
For instance, when I traveled to Arizona for a PPA tournament back in February, we stayed at the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa which is easily $500 a night. Our hotel costs would have been nearly $3000 if I didn’t have enough hotel points to cover most of it. Anyway, points are very important.
Speaking of shitty things happening… My websites also broke this week. First, www.ictpickleball.com broke. Then when that finally got fixed, this site broke. My host restored this site from backup but, in the meantime, I lost two blog posts that didn’t make the last backup. So much crap happens.
But there are good things that happened too… On Sunday, World Pickleball Day of all days, I finally beat my friend Karen Fox at singles. I have never ever beaten her, in the history of us playing singles against each other, ever. I usually get a handful of points at best. We played one game on Sunday and I beat her 13-11.
It reminded of the time that I played singles against my friend Donnie Lesperance a couple of months ago and almost beat him. He ended up beating me 12-10 because I couldn’t close the game. If I ever beat Donnie in a game of singles, I am throwing a huge party!
Here’s a group photo of those of us who played in the World Pickleball Day pickleball tournament at Chicken N Pickle in the afternoon. Not many teams competed but we had a ton of fun. We got food and drinks and even got goodie bags. Oh, and I won some silent auction items. So, while we didn’t win at pickleball, at least I won some things. LOL.
On Tuesday I received compliments about my pickleball game from a couple of pickleball players that I admire and respect. Melissa Youngers paid me a compliment on how I played in Monday night league and then later that evening Steve Vetter said I played “incredible” in our Tuesday night league in a group text with a couple of other friends. Two compliments from a couple of amazing pickleball players in the same day is pretty darn awesome.
There are some other crappy things that have happened to me of late that I don’t really want to talk about. It’s nice that there’s these occasional, little rays of sunshine to keep my mind off the negative stuff. Anytime I go through a rough patch, I always remind myself to count my blessings.
I have actually gotten out of practice but I think I’m going to start this again just to preserve my sanity. Every morning start my day with three key things I wish to accomplish and then, at the end of the day, think of three positive things that happened or three things I’m grateful for right before bed. I’m absolutely certain that if I commit to doing these things consistently each day things will start to change for the better and even more good things will come my way.
That’s all for now. I hope you all have a wonderful day. GNG.
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Reuniting with Old Friends/Coworkers
Posted on October 12, 2021 by Ching under Life.
Since my lunch with Alicia and Amie a couple of weeks ago, I’ve since bumped into some more current and former coworkers.
I saw Tammie Rhea at Haus of Brews. Tammie and I were on a work trip in Florida around this time five years ago when Hurricane Matthew struck and we ended up fleeing to Tampa together.
Then Brian and I ran into Cristie Rodriguez at the Society of 1895 luncheon. Cristie retired from Westar Energy several years ago. She actually hired me when I first started with the company in 2002.
Last weekend we went to dinner at Carrabba’s with Jan McGovern. Jan, who is also another Westar Energy retiree, was one of mentors and was like a work mom to me. It’s great to reunite and catch up with old friends. I feel like we sometimes allow too much time to pass between visits and we really should change that.
Until next time. GNG.
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Noi, Ron, and Royce Visit Wichita
Posted on September 25, 2021 by Ching under Hobbies, Life.
Just a few pics from the Tennessee guys’ most recent trip to Wichita.
Noi was the first to arrive. He arrived late on Wednesday night. I usually play pickleball on Wednesday nights so Michael Cheung picked him up from the airport and brought him to the house.
I took Thursday and Friday off work so I could be available and also because Noi was originally going to arrive on Thursday instead of Wednesday night. It actually worked out that he arrived a day early because he was able to play with Chris Heck, Erik Rasmussen, and Tony Swantek at Seneca Park on Thursday morning.
I dropped him off before I went to run errands and attend my Rotary luncheon. After Rotary, I met up with Chris and Noi at Wichita Brewing Company. Chris was off to a lesson down the street and Noi and I went to meet Michael and Matt Nola at Edgemoor Park.
Matt and I unintentionally matched. Naturally, we had to take pic.
The four of us split up briefly but they were back at Edgemoor Park again later that day for even more pickleball. I had to go teach my 5:30 PM Aqua Zumba class so Matt picked Noi up from our house and took him to his house for snacks before meeting the rest of the gang at Edge. I went to play with them after class before taking Noi home. Michael came over and the four of us enjoyed a Filipino spaghetti dinner lovingly prepared by Brian.
Noi and I started the next day super early. We went and played pickleball at Edgemoor Park from 7:30 AM to 9:30 AM before heading to the airport to pick up Ron and Royce. We picked them up and after a quick stop at home met Trung Ho and Mark Narongvate for “Lunch and Bowl” at West Acres.
“Lunch and Bowl” is the best deal ever. For only $12, you got two hours of bowling, shoes (if you need them), food, and a drink. I’m so glad that Mark suggested it.
We tried to get two lanes so we could bowl cross lanes like in league play but they were too busy that day so the six of us had to settle for playing on one lane. It worked out okay and we still had a great time.
The reason why the bowling alley was so busy was because they had senior travel league that day. It only occurs every five weeks and that day just happened to be the week they were there so the only had the one lane available.
After bowling, we went to Chicken N Pickle to play pickleball and then Edgemoor Park again once it was cool enough. I did have to leave the guys because Friday night is my Nahola night but I left them in great hands.
After pickleball, they had dinner at Thai Tradition followed by games at Round One. The guys came home super late and then, on Saturday morning, we were back at it at Edgemoor Park for 7 AM play. Edgemoor was definitely our headquarters that weekend because we were there so much during the guys’ visit.
I played with them until about 8:30 AM when I had to go to teach my Aqua Zumba class down the street at VASA Woodlawn. I ran some errands (picked up our team shirts for Picklepalooza and stopped by the kick off event at Seneca Park to drop off some pickleball over grips and stickers for Patti to hand out) and then met up with the guys for lunch at Twin Peaks sponsored by our high roller friend Zach Nguyen.
Pictured from left: Zach, Michale, Trung, and Mark. Mark is always hiding from photos. Below, back to front: Noi, Royce, and Ron.
After lunch I dropped the guys off at Zach’s house to watch football and then they came back around 4 PM to get ready for Ron’s birthday celebration.
Here are some pictures of us hanging out on Saturday night.
I love birthdays because we get to have cake! Chocolate is our fave.
Zach and Lisa came by after the wedding. Michael attended the same wedding and came by after as well.
That was the night I learned how to play Vietnamese 13. Anyway, we didn’t stay up too late because we all had 7 AM pickleball play the next day, once again at Edgemoor. And once again, I had to leave to teach my morning Aqua Zumba class. This time at the VASA Harry/Georgetown location.
After my class and running some errands, I came back to Edgemoor just in time for everyone to wrap up. A few of us went to lunch around the corner at Yokohama Ramen Izakaya.
After lunch, a quick shower, and a nap it was time for Ron and Royce to fly out. Noi couldn’t get a flight out until the next day but he packed up anyway because he wanted to spend some more time with Mark on his last day in Wichita. Also, Mark offered to take him to the airport for his flight the next day. Since Mark lives on the West side of town, closer to the airport, it actually worked out better.
We went back to Edgemoor on Sunday night for one last play with Noi and that pretty much wraps up this most recent visit to Wichita. It was a fun filled weekend, loaded with lots of eating and playing and not much sleep. I can’t wait until these guys visit us again. Until next time, GNG.
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