Archive for "Hobbies"
Chicken N Pickle League Recap
Posted on June 18, 2021 by Ching under Hobbies.
This has probably been the most uneventful league session I’ve ever had. Not enough people want to play singles so they stopped the singles league at Chicken N Pickle. I only had one league this session, Mixed Advanced (which is a step down from the Mixed Competitive league that I normally play in). Chris Wilson and I were playing together to practice for the Middle States Regional Championships tournament in St. Louis and he couldn’t play in the later league because he gets up super early everyday. However, it was clearly the wrong skill level for us because we never went to a third set and we gave up very few points.
Anyway, we really should have won that league but Chris was out on tournament night (vacationing in Minnesota) so I had to get a sub. The downside of getting a sub is you’re not allowed to get anyone better than your partner and, even when you try to get someone equivalent to your partner skill-wise, they’re never going to be as good because you haven’t been playing with them all session as you have your normal partner. I usually try not to drink while I’m playing in a tournament but I was drinking that night so you can tell how seriously I was taking things. LOL.
Obviously, I hoped that we would win but I didn’t really care one way or the other. I just wanted to have fun playing and Bryant was the perfect sub. He can be hard on himself sometimes but he is so fun to play with.
The one thing I learned that night is that doubles is truly a team effort and that I am not as good without Chris. Just as my some of my shots set up my mixed partner for put-aways, Chris’ shots put me in a better position to make my shots. I feel like, having played together for some time now, he knows what why weaknesses are and he does what he can to protect me from making these shots.
This past Tuesday night was the Mixed Competitive league tournament. Jen T hurt her knee so Steve asked me to fill in. I took advantage of the opportunity to wear my “Vetter Luck Next Time” headband from last year. LOL.
We ended up finishing in third place. The Conrads (Matt and his daughter Lauren) ended up second, and the Lesperances (Tiffany and Donnie) took first place. I think Steve is hands down the best male player in that league but he was a victim of the whole sub situation. It’s so hard to play with a sub on tournament night and I feel like we have absolutely zero chemistry on the pickleball court.
I have never been one to stick to one doubles partner but I’m starting to rethink my whole stance on this. There is a huge advantage to playing with the same partner on a regular basis because they know your strengths and weakness and you have plays and strategies that you can use in various situations and it is so hard to do this on the fly. And, I’m not very good at adjusting and being spontaneous. I can’t just do things without practicing it repeatedly first.
Anyway, I might take a break from league play this coming session. None of the other leagues fit my schedule and the Mixed Advanced league was not as fun for me. Mixed Competitive would work but Chris can’t do an 8:00 PM start. It’s just way too late. But it’s all good because I prefer playing in the mornings anyway so it’s not ideal to be up late when I’m trying to pay at 5 AM the next day.
That is all for now. Until next time. GNG.
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Fun Times with Pickleball Friends
Posted on June 11, 2021 by Ching under Hobbies.
A bunch of us went to lunch after pickleball play on Memorial Day. Debbie had a group playing at Riverside Tennis Center, while Kimberly, Tiffany, Karen and I played at Nahola. However, we all got together at the downtown Old Chicago after.
Some days later I snapped this pic of Dan Leddy (in red), Craig Clark (middle), and Lonnie Lollar (right) at Chicken N Pickle. These guys are so fun!
Here’s me with Michael, showing off our new Chicken N Pickle “Pride Month” shirts. I love how soft this shirt is!
Finally, here are some pictures that I took at the Port of Wichita on Saturday when a bunch of pickleball peeps got together for an “Epic” night there. Epic is the name of the cover band performing that night.
Donnie with his ladies.
With Vicky, Robert and Janelle in the background.
Robert and Bruce.
Dave and Debbie.
Credit goes to Debbie for reserving a bunch of tables for us on the dance floor.
Then this was the next day at Seneca Park. It was a crazy day. I started by playing at Edgemoor at 6 AM, then went to Seneca Park before going to Nahola for the noon open play. It’s been a while since I’ve played this much pickleball and spend so much time with my pickleball buddies in one weekend. I love it!
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Middle States Regional Championships
Posted on June 7, 2021 by Ching under Hobbies, Travel.
About thirty players from our #ICTpickleball family traveled to St. Louis last week to compete in the 2021 USA Pickleball Middle States Regional Championships. My friend Karen Fox rode with Brian and me. We left Wichita first thing in the morning and arrived in St. Louis around three in the afternoon. When we arrived, Dave New had already scoped out the location and grabbed the perfect spot for our crew.
They converted the Dwight Davis Tennis Center into 40 pickleball courts and we set up our #ICTpickleball base camp in the grassy area right by court 27. We really had the best spot there because it had great access to all of the courts and was pretty much the only grassy area available. We also grabbed one of the picnic tables tucked under the bleachers and moved it to Dave’s tent canopy, and claimed it as seating for those in our group who flew to St. Louis (instead of driving up) and couldn’t bring their lawn chairs.
Here’s a picture of the early crew. Besides claiming a spot for Dave’s canopy, we also decided to play a few practice games.
After playing some games with my #ICTpickleball fam, Brian and I went to meet “my friend I hadn’t met yet” Kat Tomlin at Des Peres Park. The park only has three pickleball courts but they are lighted and beautiful. The park itself is expansive and amazing and is a real neighborhood gem. The park is so nice that if I were looking for a house to buy in St. Louis, I would totally pick that area.
I made all sorts of new friends on this trip. This is Bob Myers, a pickleball player from Texas who also knows my friend Rodel Chiu who is another friend who falls under the “friend I haven’t met yet” category.
Here’s a picture of me and my friend Tiffany Lesperance on singles day.
These are Ramon Lozano and Kyle Starkel (aka Nick Soapdish). Ramon is from Hays but we claim him as part of our extended #ICTpickleball family.
My friend Kat and I decided to wear our navy Lucy Kovalova FILA pickleball outfits and be matchy matchy on singles day. It’s still fun to twin even though we weren’t actually playing together.
They had a roving professional photographer at the tournament who snapped this picture of me while I was playing one of my matches. I thought it was cool that you could see Kat in her matching outfit in the background.
This is the Women’s Singles 3.5 50+ podium picture with Karen taking Gold and Tiffany taking Bronze. Singles was a good day for our group, despite the afternoon portion of the tournament being pushed to the next day due to sudden torrential downpour. We took home ten medals altogether — 4 Gold medals, 3 Silver medals, and 3 Bronze medals. You can see the full results tally here.
Anyway, because of the rain, they canceled all of the matches for the rest of the day so Erica and I didn’t get our singles medals until the next day. Since the rain put a damper on things (literally, no one could play pickleball because it was pouring outside and the courts were wet), a bunch of us decided to get some BBQ instead.
Friday was Women’s Doubles day and our group did pretty decent. Karen and Jenny (Cole) took Bronze in 3.5 35+ division.
Jen Reifschneider and Jennifer Tiano (together they are known as “The Jens”) took Silver in 3.5 19+ division.
Laurie Newton and her partner Karen Fielding took Bronze in 3.5 50+ division.
While Erica and I took Bronze in the 3.0 35+ division. I thought it worked out great that all the ladies played in different divisions so we weren’t all competing for the same medals. We all had an opportunity to reach the podium in our respective groups without having to fight one of our friends for it.
I really liked their magnet board where you could tell which referee is assigned to which court and which refs are available or on break at a given moment.
Saturday was Mixed Doubles day. The roving photographer got some pictures of me and my partner Chris Wilson.
We marked our spot with a Wichita flag to make our group easy to find for #ICTpickleball players arriving later that week. I love this pic because the ladies were all sporting their Chicken N Pickle gear.
We were more spread out early in the day but then we had to move everything (and everyone) under the canopy when it started raining.
Just some of our group trying to stay dry.
Picture of me with Erica and Karen.
Friday was a cold and wet women’s doubles day.
Brian, pretty much the entire time we were there. LOL.
Saturday was mixed doubles day. Here’s a pic of Tiffany and Donnie. They earned Gold in mixed 3.5 50+ division. You can see the full results tally here.
This was such a fun trip. We get to do it all again when we go to the Great Plains Regional Championships in Colorado in a few weeks. Stay tuned for pics from that. Until then, GNG.
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Making Lemonade Out of Lemons
Posted on May 19, 2021 by Ching under Food and Drink, Hobbies.
The weather decided to rain on our parade this past weekend. We were gearing up for a super awesome tournament — the first one for our Rotary club — on Saturday, May 15, but the weather report called for rain all weekend so we ended up moving Picklemania MMXXI to June 19 instead.
I was supposed to play in the afternoon group so then I had nothing to do. Thankfully my friend Seth organized mixed play at Riverside Tennis Center and invited me so I at least got some pickleball play in that day. We played inside the bubble because it was supposed to rain all day but the courts had dried for the most part and the weather was beautiful so we could have totally played outside. Looking back, I was thinking we could have totally still had the tournament and simply pushed everything back a couple of hours but we had no idea that it would be as dry as it was. The forecast for the day was scattered showers all day long so we were afraid that we would be starting and stopping games.
We should have known better than to heed the weather forecast. Brian has this joke that he should have gone to school for meteorology. He said it’s the only job in the world where you can be wrong 100% of the time and not get fired.
Anyway, here is a video from Friday play. I actually did pretty well all things considered. I lost very few games. We were doing a “winners stay and split” format so I basically had to keep playing until I lost. I still hadn’t lost when I quit playing but decided I wanted to take a break so I gave up my spot.
I worked up an appetite playing pickleball and the rainy weather that really wasn’t somehow made me crave crab legs so I asked Brian to take me to Blue Hook Cajun on 21st and Webb. I really liked it when I went with my girlfriends from Leadership Wichita and I’ve been wanting to go back. I couldn’t get crab legs that time because I didn’t want to be messy in front of my sophisticated girlfriends but I didn’t mind getting dirty with Brian so I wanted to go back and get my crab legs fix.
My food came in a big plastic bag.
Here’s what it looked like after I dumped it in the pan. So much yummy goodness!
Of course Brian got chicken tenders. Who does that? I guess I should have known because he doesn’t really like seafood. Honestly, I don’t think he wanted to go to Blue Hook but he was mostly just humoring me. I mean, I did need cheering up after we couldn’t do our tournament thing that I’d been working so hard on for the past two months (at least). When we first talked about having the tournament I was worried about getting all of the player spots filled but when it came down to it, we actually exceeded our goal by one team. Our goal was to have 32 teams (16 in the morning and 16 in the afternoon) and basically have 8 teams per bracket and we filled all of our brackets and had 33 teams ready to go.
Anyway, I wish he would have gotten the crab cakes because I really wanted to get a picture of it (and also taste it). I guess we will just have to go back.
It never fails that you run into people you know when you look like absolute crap. I figured I would get messy from eating crab legs so I didn’t even bother to change from my pickleball clothes. We just went straight to dinner. I had no makeup, messy hair, dried sweat, and now buttery crab juice all over me (the bib they gave me helped a bit but I always end up wearing my food somehow whenever I eat crab legs – I knew I would have to shower after so I didn’t bother showering and changing before going to dinner) and guess who they seated at the table behind us.
Meader sends us a Facebook message with the above picture and the caption, “Who are these people?” Hilarious. They were all dressed nice in a double date with another couple. Brian and I looked like a couple of hoodlums in sweats and I was covered in butter and crab.
Story of my life. Until next time. GNG.
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Salsa Night at Enigma
Posted on May 10, 2021 by Ching under Hobbies.
Ever since we’ve met my friend Greg, who is both an avid dancer and pickleball player, has been inviting me to various dance lessons and events across town. Most recently he told me about free salsa lessons at Enigma, a new nightclub in Old Town. The have a free lesson from 8-9 pm followed by open social dancing on Sundays. It just so happened that the Wichita Explorers club was planning an outing there on May 1 also so I told Greg I would be there. I’d basically kill two birds with one stone.
Unfortunately, on the one night that we decided to go, the normal dance instructor had been injured and they could not find another instructor to take their place. There was no dance lesson that night but we managed to make the best of it.
Greg, who is a regular on Sundays, led us in a round of social dancing. Lucky for us, several people already knew the basics of bachata and salsa so we were able to take advantage of the space and the music and danced to a few songs. Brian danced a few songs and I got to dance with Greg too. Greg actually knows a bunch of combinations and is pretty good. Those lessons are definitely paying off!
Overall, I really liked the layout of the place. The square bar is in the middle of the floor, right as you enter. It’s much better than having it against the wall and then when it’s busy you can’t even got to it.
Beyond the bar is the dance floor. There was plenty of space for our group but, I imagine, it gets pretty crowded around 11 o’clock when everyone else shows up because the area is really not that big. Thankfully, Brian and I are never out that late. Back in the day, 11 or 11:30 was pretty much our cutoff. I’d expect these days we’d probably be on our way home by 10 o’clock if we did turn this into a regular, weekly thing like we used to back in our salsa dancing days.
The lounge chairs all around the perimeter of the dance floor is also a nice feature so it’s quite convenient if you want to be a wallflower and just people-watch. I had a very positive impression of the place and would love to go back for dancing another night. Perhaps I could even bring all my Zumba and pickleball friends together. So many ideas are already swirling in my head. I can’t wait. Until then, GNG.
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