Local WiFi 411
Posted on October 8, 2008 by Ching under Blog, Web.
Brian and I have a new web site! We started working on it last Sunday. It’s a community project, so please be sure to register and share any information you have. So far we only have a map of Wichita, but we should have more soon. Stay tuned!
Local WiFi 411
Things to do:
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Saturday Night Bowling Challenge
Posted on October 4, 2008 by Ching under Games, Life.
Brian, in a desperate attempt to cheer me up, took me to Thai Tradition for dinner tonight and challenged me to bowling. I have been extra crabby lately, and I didn’t even realize it until he pointed it out. Since I’m miserable and crabby, then he is too.
He said he was tired of me moping around so he wanted to take to dinner to a place we haven’t been in a really long time. We haven’t been to Thai Tradition in a really long time because he’s not really fond of the place, but he wanted to take me there because he figured it would make me happy. I will save the Thai Tradition comments for the Foodies blog, though. Let’s talk about bowling…
I’m hyper-competitive so everything is a contest. Naturally, we bowled to see who could score the highest. I am a better bowler than Brian so I knew I would come out on top. Brian has his moments though, and has beaten me in the past. I had gotten into a good groove in the first round so I was thinking that I would beat him in such a way that even my lowest score would be higher than his highest score. It didn’t quite turn out that way, but I did beat him two out of three games.
| ROUND 1: | GAME 1 | GAME 2 | GAME 3 | SERIES | AVERAGE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BRIAN | 132 | 134 | 141 | 407 | 136 |
| CHING | 133 | 193 | 134 | 460 | 153 |
Back when I used to bowl regularly, ten years ago or so, I used to bowl a 150 average so that was pretty much expected. The 193 was a surprise, though. Halfway through, it looked like I was about to bowl a 200 game. I would have broken 200, too, had I picked up my spare on the tenth frame. There were two pins and I clipped one and missed the other completely. It was an uncharacteristic miss. I felt robbed.
The next round started out rough, but then I started marking all over the place. Strikes and spares. There were hardly any open frames. At one point, I thought I would have three 200 games going. I fell short, but check out the results.
| ROUND 2: | GAME 1 | GAME 2 | GAME 3 | SERIES | AVERAGE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BRIAN | 136 | 125 | 116 | 377 | 126 |
| CHING | 170 | 190 | 173 | 533 | 178 |
Brian started to get tired halfway through our second round. He’s not really used to bowling more than three games. I was really excited about my 500+ series. When I used to bowl, I didn’t get a lot of 500 series games. I’d get pretty close, but it was hard to get three really good games. My main weakness was that I didn’t ever get enough strikes to score higher. I was really good at picking up spares and hardly ever missed so I would consistently mark on each frame. However, unless you have strikes to connect the marks, you don’t really end up with great scores. I had a pretty good night tonight, getting more strikes than I ever have.
I’m really rusty, though, so I missed several easy spares and had more open frames than I would have liked. My ball was like a guided missile that never missed so it’s a bummer when the ball misses its target. I was pretty inconsistent, too. There were several times that I threw the ball and halfway down the lane I knew that it would be a strike; at the same time, there were also several times that I threw the ball and missed my arrow completely and immediately I knew it would be horrible. I got lucky, though, because on these occasions they were easy spares to pick up. Although, I did have a few splits. I didn’t convert any of them at all.
Anyway, bowling tonight made me realize just how much I enjoy it. Maybe one of these days I can talk Brian into joining a mixed league with me. I would really love to start bowling regularly again so that I can get even better at it.
By the way, our little contest continues with racquetball tomorrow. Brian seems to think that he is going to beat me at racquetball. He won the last time we played, but with my recent bowling victory I think I’ve got momentum on my side. He thinks he will come out on top. For all we know Brian might forfeit tomorrow because he is all achy from bowling six games. We shall see.
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2008 Walk for Unity
Posted on October 3, 2008 by Ching under News.
Diversity Kansas is about people working together to build inclusive communities that are respectful of all races, religions and cultures. The future of Kansas depends upon how we work together, how we see each other and how we lift each other up.
Their mission is to assist in building inclusive communities, businesses and institutions through diversity training, advocacy, conflict resolution, interfaith collaboration, youth leadership training and community dialogue.
I am participating in the 2008 Walk for Unity fundraising event for Diversity Kansas on October 12, Sunday, at Central Riverside Park. This event generates funding for youth and community development initiatives, awareness and understanding of different cultures, and helps to build a more inclusive community. Please show your support for this wonderful cause by sponsoring me!
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It’s not everyday that you see gas at $3.19!
Posted on September 29, 2008 by Ching under Moblog.
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Our Honeymoon: Cruisin’ the Caribbean
Posted on September 28, 2008 by Ching under Travel.
With our next cruise less than a month away, I thought I would re-post our honeymoon adventures from six years ago here.
Our honeymoon was such a blast! We didn’t miss any of our connecting flights and everything went smoothly.. Well, with the exception of my sinus problems. Every time it was time to land and the airplane would begin its descent, my head hurt so bad it felt like my eyeballs were going to pop out of their sockets and my head was about to explode splattering brain goo all over the cabin. That really didn’t happen, but I wanted you to be able to visualize how painful it was each time we were about to land.
We arrived in Miami with plenty of time to board our cruise ship, the MS Paradise (the only smoke-free cruise ship in the entire world at the time), but too late to get an upgrade. The ship was already full. It wasn’t that bad really. Although it would have been nice to have gotten the upgrade, our cabin was comfortable enough for us. The bathroom was actually quite roomy and allowed plenty of room for Brian and me (we usually take our showers together).
When we first boarded our main concern was sustenance because there wasn’t really much to eat on the plane and the airports didn’t offer anything delectable either. Brian and I were both thrilled to find that the lunch buffet was currently being served on the lido. Food was the first order of business. After that, we went to our room only to find that our bags had not yet been delivered. We couldn’t shower because we had nothing to change into. We did some exploration in the meantime and pretty soon the ship was starting to pull away from the port. We return to our room quite hopeful that our bags had been delivered at this point, they had not, and immediately I start flipping out. Had we been cruising before, we would not have been so alarmed. I was really thinking that our bags got left on the dock. They were actually already on the ship, but it usually takes a while for everyone’s bags to be delivered to their staterooms.
Our bags arrived eventually and we were able to take our shower and change into clean clothes for dinner. However, by the time we were ready to go to dinner we were too late for the early seating. We ended up sitting at the late dinner where we met Kevin and Kim. They were married on August 10 and were honeymooning also. He’s 30 years of age and she’s 25. The four of us got along really well and we actually spent quite a bit of time together.
The following night we attended the early dinner and met yet another honeymooning couple, Jamie and Jay. They were a bit younger than Brian and I. Jay is 25 and Jamie is 23. But they’ve been together for almost nine years. They were on the same deck as us and, actually, their room was just around the corner. We went on a couple of excursions with Jamie and Jay also. You’ll see some highlights of our cruise below..
The picture at the right was taken during the captain’s cocktail party. They served free hors d’ourves and cocktails. This was a real treat because the cocktails on the ship cost about five bucks a glass. Brian doesn’t drink, but we went to participate in the festivities anyway. We got to dance to a couple of swing numbers. We had a lot of fun!
Cozumel, Mexico was our first port of call. We spent about 12 hours there. It was our lengthiest stop. It was funny because Jamie, Jay, Kevin and Kim ended up on the exact same excursion as Brian and myself. There were actually two time slots, one at 8:00 AM and another at 10:00 AM. None of us wanted to wake up early enough for the 8:00 AM one so we all ended up taking the later horseback riding adventure. We had such a blast, but our glutes and thighs ached tremendously the next day. At least that was all I suffered. Brian had welts on his butt from the friction of his pants. Yet another disadvantage of not wearing underwear!
Our second excursion on Cozumel was a sail, snorkel and beach party adventure. Kevin and Kim were on a different tour that afternoon, but Jamie and Jay signed up for the same tour so the four of us got to hang out. Snorkeling wasn’t as fun as I anticipated. I guess it’s not really as fun the first time. Brian ended drinking gallons of sea water and I really couldn’t see much of anything because my goggles kept fogging up. Those were pretty minor compared to what happened to Jay, though. He ended up losing his wedding ring. It came off his finger when he jumped into the water and he and Jamie spent most of the time searching for his ring rather than enjoying the snorkeling segment of the excursion. They were totally bummed for the rest of the day. Even towards the close of the cruise, I don’t think they ever got over that mishap.
While in Grand Cayman, we visited the turtle farm, the Tortuga Rum Cake Factory (which was next door), the town of Hell and we fed the stingrays. The stingrays were actually pretty docile. They don’t have any teeth so they can’t really hurt you. They just suck the food from your had like a Hoover. It was a really neat experience.. Except for when one of them decided to attack me. I was scared at first, but it turned out to be pretty comical. Brian didn’t even get a chance to feed them because as one of the stingrays approached, he got scared and dropped squid that he was holding.
In Ocho Rios, Jamaica we got a chance to swim and play with the dolphins at Dolphin Cove and we climbed Dunn River Falls part of the way. It was a lot of fun swimming and playing with Mitch, the seven-year old dolphin that we were assigned. Mitch and his girlfriend Sugy also performed some tricks for our group. The experience was absolutely amazing and it was all captured on video! After the swimming with the dolphins, I got my hair braided. I’d never had my hair done that way before. Brian said it looked nice.
Dunn River Falls was beautiful, but the water was very cold and the current was really strong. It took a lot to keep your ground and not topple backwards to the bottom. After a few minutes of trying, Brian and I eventually just gave up. We were content to just watch the other people climb the rocky waterfall.
Pretty soon we were back in Maimi again. That was the end of our seven-day Western Caribbean adventure. We had been so pampered on the trip that we were both reluctant to return.. The only consolation we had was that we both agreed that we’ll get to do it all again in another few years!
Would you like to see more pictures from our trip? Follow this link..
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