Archive for "Community"
Christie Pink in Wichita
Posted on August 19, 2024 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
This post is dedicated to my friend Christie Pink who I first met over three years ago when Erica Case (then Lopez/Davis) played in the Middle States regional pickleball tournament. I think, at the time, this was my first every regional tournament experience.
That tournament was in May 2021 and then I saw her again in January 2022 when I traveled to St. Louis for the Dink In the New Year pickleball tournament with Tiffany and Donnie Lesperance. I played women’s doubles with Tiffany and mixed doubles with Devon Fuller. We arrived a day before the tournament and we ended up connecting with Christie and her crew at Missouri Pickleball Club.
My next notable Christie sighting was at the Minto US Open in April 2022. It was my very first US Open experience.
I got to play against Christie again in the 2022 Middle States Regional, and I think we’ve been at the same tournaments a few more times during the two years that I was playing a ton of tournaments. She was a skill level above me in women’s so, except for that first year, I hadn’t really had to face off against her in women’s but I tended to “play up” a division in mixed so I was more likely to run into her there.
Fast forward a couple of years later, she ends up going to Wichita on a business trip and reaches out to me out of the blue. She was so gracious to let Tiff, Donnie, and I play with her and her friends at MPC all those years ago so this was my turn to return the favor. She arrived on Sunday and, to make the most of her visit last month, I arranged for a couple of play sessions for us.
Our first stop was Chicken N Pickle for mixed doubles with Ramon Lozano and Ryan Kellenbarger.
I purposely chose Ramon because they had met before at the 2022 Middle States Regional. He was my partner when we played against Christie and her partner in that tournament, and so I figured they would remember each other. I invited Ryan because I needed someone who would be fun and balance Ramon.
Our next stop was open play at the Pickle Club from 5 to 7 PM with Susie Ternes and Greta Siemens. Neither of them had met Christie before but I thought they would be a good fit, and they both just happened to be available. Schedules can be difficult to coordinate sometimes.
A couple of weeks ago, when Christie was back on another work trip, her visit coincided with PickleCon, PPA Kansas City Open, OKC Picklemania so the folks that I got to play with us on her first visit were all out of town but the nice thing about Wichita is that we have an abundance of fun pickleball players so it’s pretty easy to put together a great group.
Not to be left out, Karen Fox decided she would host her own PickleCon at the Pickle Club. LOL. Our group that day consisted of Chris Wilson, Mark Armstrong, Donnie Lesperance, Tami Racine, Kimberly Howe, Tiffany Lesperance, Karen Fox, and Janelle Lindeman.
Brian brought us some Wichita Brewing Co. pizzas and a cooler of bevvies so we ended up hanging out and having a little picnic afterward which was a nice end to the evening and play session.
The next day, Christie and I had a mixed doubles session at CNP with Dustin Herman and Noi Sourinthone. For dinner that night, Brian and I took Christie to Stearman Field in Benton (sounds far but it’s really not that far from Wichita) and then we drove out to the Keeper for the Plains for iconic Wichita photo ops.
It’s been such a pleasure entertaining Christie on these two visits. I can’t wait for her return trip!
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2024 Wichita Heart Walk
Posted on August 13, 2024 by Ching under Community.
I got invited to do the warm up for the Wichita Heart Walk this year. I remember doing the warm up for them over ten years ago so I was excited to do it again. There was a bit of miscommunication because the warm up wasn’t on the script. They had the walkers preemptively line up so we didn’t have a lot of participants but KAKE News’ Deb Farris and Jay Prater were good sports and did the warm up with me.
The best sport of all was Brian. He is the real MVP. He took me to the ballpark so I wouldn’t have to worry about finding parking. For his good deed, I took him to his favorite breakfast place. We had brunch at HomeGrown after.
Here are some pictures of our breakfast that day.
I think I got a little drunk on my breakfast beverage because I talked Brian into taking a photo of me with the Naftzger Park sign. I couldn’t help it because my outfit matched!
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2024 Picklepalooza
Posted on August 13, 2024 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
Pictures from this year’s Picklepalooza charity event benefiting Senior Services of Wichita. This year we had me, Chris Wilson, and Jeff and Anita Harris (as usual), and we had some new participants — Margie Happy, Ian Bosmeier, and Michael and Tish Habbart. I didn’t get photos of everyone but I did get a few.
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Adaptable is My Middle Name
Posted on July 12, 2024 by Ching under Community, Family.
Several weeks ago, I was chatting with my friend Jenny Marcos. She’s the resident pickleball pro at Rose Creek Golf Club, a fancy schmancy country club in Edmond, Oklahoma. Anyway, I found out that she leads cardio pickleball on Saturday mornings. I’ve actually been asked to lead cardio pickleball before, but not having participated in one, I wasn’t really comfortable saying yes. I’ve attended cardio tennis at Genesis Health Clubs. I’m sure it’s similar but I really would rather not take on something, I know little about and have zero experience. When she told me about her class, I naturally asked if I could attend so I could learn more about it and perhaps take some notes so I can facilitate a similar class in the future.
We picked a Saturday in June which turned out to be the same Saturday that we were driving down to Oklahoma to have lunch with Brian’s parents. We were coming down to celebrate Brian’s 50th birthday and his mom and dad’s 51st wedding anniversary. Cardio pickle is at 9 AM in Edmond so I figured we could hit it on the way down to Oklahoma City, then meet for lunch, before driving back home to Wichita. Easy peazy.
The Friday before, I texted Jenny to confirm that cardio pickle is still on and to remind her that I’m coming. That’s when I found out that they actually canceled cardio pickle for that day because she, along with several others, were competing in the USSP tournament at Life Time that weekend. I immediately told Brian the good news — that we could sleep in on Saturday morning. He was actually not too thrilled about having to get up early and driving down first thing in the morning so we could make the 9 AM class but he was being a good sport about it.
Brian told his dad who asked if we still wanted to come down for lunch. He was worried that it was a long drive just to have lunch. To which Brian responded, “I’m sure Ching has some other plans that she hasn’t told me yet. She’ll probably bring it up over lunch. She’ll go, while we are here —”
Brian shared this conversation with me when he got home from work on Friday night. I was like, “Funny you said that. I was going to ask you if we could swing by the pickleball tournament to say hello to friends and watch some matches after lunch. But I wasn’t going to wait until we were there. I had planned to ask you tonight — like right now — because the restaurant is in the same area. We would literally be two minutes away.”
If there is one thing that you should know about me by now, it is that I always have a “Plan B.” I guess another good thing to note about me is that I’m really good at flexing. Famous coach John Wooden once said, “Things turn out best for those who make the best of the way things turn out.” This describes me to a tee. My life is not without hardships but somehow, whenever negative things happen (or things just don’t work out the way I’d hoped), I am really good at convincing myself that this is good thing. Finding the silver lining in any situation is one of my many talents.
It was June 8 (I know the blog is super far behind). We didn’t have to get up early. Instead, we had a nice leisurely drive down to Oklahoma City. We met Brian’s parents at the P.F. Chang’s and had a lovely lunch. BTW, while we were there, we saw that they were building a Fogo De Chao (which is probably open now) so our next celebratory lunch or dinner will probably be there. I love the whole Brazilian churascaria thing but I just can’t justify going unless it’s a special occasion.
After lunch we went to Life Time to cheer for our Wichita pals. Also go to see some Oklahoma friends who I hadn’t seen in a long time because I’ve been on a tournament sabbatical. But I realized that, just because I’m not playing, doesn’t mean that I can’t come watch and cheer for friends. It was wonderful to see everyone. I even got to see Gene Click who moved to Texas from Oklahoma about two years ago. He just happened to be there as well.
Gene wasn’t the only surprise of the day. Famous pickleball pro Chris Haworth was also there watching friends play.
And, even though I didn’t get to do cardio pickle with Jenny, at least I got to see her and watch her play.
And I got to see some of my favorite Oklahomans — Kumar Krishnan, Josh McAllister, and his girlfriend Mackenzie Wood.
And Danny McAllister, patriarch of the McAllister pickleball dynasty.
And the lovely Deana Holman.
Sure, the day didn’t turn out as planned. It actually turned out better!
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Picklemania MMXXIV
Posted on June 10, 2024 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
I know this recap is very, very late but it always takes me a while to recover from Picklemania. It is such a relief when it’s all over!
A bunch of us met at the tournament on Friday afternoon to tape the courts, assemble the portable nets, and hang up signage. Since most of the volunteers were coming at 3 PM, and Brian couldn’t get off work until 3 o’clock, we decided to load up his car the night before so then he could come straight from work instead of driving home first and taking another 20 minutes to load the car. He had to go to work on Friday morning with his car like this.
It didn’t take long to get all the signs hung up.
Taping the courts went pretty smoothly also. Half of the courts were painted so we really only had to make six pickleball courts. And, the markings we left from the October Minor League Pickleball event were still there so the guys didn’t really have to do any measuring. That saved ton of time!
This is a little highlight video that I made of the entire day. Brian and I left the house around 6 AM to meet Devin at the venue at 6:30 AM so we could unload and assemble the Wichita Wagonmasters tent canopies. That was the only time that worked for him because he had another commitment that morning. The tournament technically didn’t start until 8:30 AM but there were some players who were there by 7 o’clock, before our check-in desk volunteers were even there and before we were completely set up. The one thing I can say about Wichita players, they are very enthusiastic and most of them show up an hour early to events. Early is always better than late but, if you’re not ready for them, it can be overwhelming.
We were worried about the weather leading up to the event and I had several people text me asking about our “weather contingency plan” but, other than being quite windy during parts of the day, the weather turned out perfect. We did run later than I expected but I think things went smoothly overall. The competition was intense in all divisions and our champions (we had 4 divisions of 8 teams each) really earned their medals.
I am so grateful to all the players, sponsors, and volunteers for making our annual pickleball tournament a huge success. Now off to planning next year’s event!
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