Winter League Tournament
Posted on March 19, 2020 by Ching under Hobbies.
This is a picture of Bananas (left: Sammi and Tommy) and Bread & Butter (right: Kristina and Adam). They are the winners of the Monday night Intermediate Mixed Doubles league at Chicken N Pickle this season. Bread & Butter took first and Bananas took second. Cobra Kai (our team) unfortunately only took third despite a really great undefeated regular season. I guess you can’t win them all.
Our first match was against Carpe Dinkem. It was easy enough. However, our second match was against Bread & Butter and, even though we beat them in the regular season, Kristina and Adam both came to win and played very well.
Here’s a video of our match against Bread & Butter. What sucked about this match is it was only our second one and it sent us into the consolation/opportunity bracket (otherwise known as the losers’ bracket).
Here’s how the match against Bread & Butter ended.
The downside of the losers’ bracket is instead of playing best two out of three games to 11 points, win by 2; we then had to play only one game to 15. We had fewer games and much shorter matches.
Here are a few of the opportunity bracket matches we had as we tried to claw our way back up to the winner’s circle.
We finally defeated all of the other losers and had to battle it out with Bananas for the opportunity to duke it out with Bread & Butter one more time. This time for the championship. We had beaten Bananas before and are fully capable of beating them but they got the better of us that night and beat us 15-12.
It was a really disappointing finish to an otherwise stellar season. I badly wanted to win the tournament so that we could say we were undefeated in the regular season and also the winners of our league tournament but we just couldn’t pull it off. I must not have wanted it bad enough. We ended up finishing in third place. (Better number three than number two, I suppose.) Bananas went on to duke it out with Bread & Butter (#FoodFight – JK) and Bread & Butter came out on top to win the league tournament. They went completely undefeated that night.
In other news, the top two men’s doubles teams ended up battling it out for first place in the Competitive Men’s Doubles League on Wednesday night. Matt Conrad was out of town so his son Lakelin filled in for him. He was great too but Patrick Smith and Jamie Lynch ended up winning, which is what I predicted. I actually predicted the winner of every single match in the winner’s bracket and I only missed predicting the winner of three matches in the consolation/opportunity bracket. Needless to say, I smoked everyone in the bracket challenge. I even beat out Aaron Trost (the former league director) and Dan Leddy and they work there! LOL. The league winners each got $20 gift cards to Chicken N Pickle and my prize for winning the bracket challenge was a $50 gift card so I still felt like a winner. I would have liked to have won both (Intermediate Mixed and the bracket challenge). I knew my partner Renee and I had no chance in hell in Intermediate Women’s Doubles League so I’m not even talking about that one — LOL. It was a fun but sucky league season for me overall. I’m refraining from playing in any more leagues for the time being.
Anyway, let me leave with you three hours of amazing matches from the Competitive Men’s Doubles League. Enjoy!
Until next time. GNG.
Comment on This
Jenni and Adam’s Wedding
Posted on March 18, 2020 by Ching under Events, Family.
I’ve been a little bit scatterbrained lately because I am utterly consumed by my pickleball obsession. Anyway, we forgot to put Jenni’s wedding on the calendar and I thought it was on a Saturday — like most normal weddings. I found out two days before that it was on a Friday, which happened to be my favorite pickleball night because I get to play for four hours non stop at Nahola. I usually try to get there shortly after 5 PM for the competitive open play from 5 to 7 PM and then I stay for the private group that my friend Debbie sets up from 7 to 9 PM.
Needless to say, I was not too happy about missing Friday night pickleball. However, it’s not everyday that your sister gets married so Brian and I opted to attend the wedding. I’m really glad we did because it was a beautiful wedding and I would have regretted missing it. Here are some pics…
Oh, I did get my pickleball fix in on Thursday night thanks to my friend Mark. I whined on Facebook as soon as I found out I wouldn’t be able to play on Friday night because of the wedding and Mark booked a court on Thursday night. We got to play for a couple of hours at Chicken N Pickle.
I love when things fall into place and I get to do everything without having to give anything up. Like the nights I can teach Zumba or Aqua Zumba and also play pickleball. This time, not only did I get to teach my Aqua Zumba class and then play pickleball after but I didn’t have to skip Jenni’s wedding the next day.
One of the best things about weddings is seeing friends you haven’t seen in forever. After that, we met up with Jay, Becca, Mama Dill, Tina and Justin at the Port. Jay, Becca, and Mama Dill were at the wedding with us but weren’t quite ready for the party to be over I guess. So we went to karaoke night. Everyone had fun except for Brian. He hates karaoke. LOL. Until next time. GNG.
Comment on This
Pickleball Lessons
Posted on March 17, 2020 by Ching under Hobbies.
As you know (or maybe you don’t), I started taking pickleball lessons from Chris Heck earlier this year. We’ve been meeting weekly since about mid-January and he’s been teaching me things I don’t know how to do or don’t do very well like defending, speed-ups, overheads, and most recently I learned how to set up and execute an erne. The lessons are really fun and I enjoy them almost more than actually playing. I look forward to it every week.
Our schedule has actually worked pretty well except for a few weeks ago when he went to Missouri for a tournament. While we didn’t get to train together that weekend, it was fun following his tournament progress online.
He played mixed with Lindsey Newman (right) at the tournament. In case you don’t already know of her, she is amazing and a big name in the professional pickleball circuit. She played in the Franklin Pickleball Masters invitational tournament at Chicken N Pickle last year. The tournament is so exclusive that you could only participate if you were invited. And, to be invited, you had to be really good. Anyway, she’s a big deal. And, as big of a deal as Chris is (because he’s also amazing in his own right), she is an even bigger deal so it was really awesome that he got to play with her as his partner.
Here’s a video of their gold medal match from that tournament. He and Lindsey won gold against Quinton Birkeness and Rachel Chai-Wise.
In addition to playing in mixed, he also played in men’s doubles with our friend Jon Maugans. Chris and Jon lost to Brad Tursky and Quinton Birkeness and ended taking silver in this event.
Anyway, it is such a privilege to take lessons from a pickleball player of Chris’ calibre. He is amazing not just as a pickleball player but also at teaching skills, techniques, and strategies. Our training sessions have helped me improve tremendously. At least I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback about my playing of late. I think it’s because of skills I’m learning in our training.
Besides training with Chris, I’ve also started training with others in our pickleball community. We are very lucky to have so many talented pros in Wichita who offer instruction. Kimberly and I have had a couple of partner sessions with Kayla Keuter (Nahola Pickleball Club) and Debbie and I have had some group sessions with Lucy Kovalova (Wichita Country Club).
Here are a couple of pics with Lucy from our group session this Sunday.
This past weekend, I actually had training with Chris on Saturday afternoon, Kayla on Sunday morning, and then Lucy on Sunday afternoon. As addicted as I am to pickleball, I think I’m now also addicted to pickleball training. I especially love my one on one time with Chris. It’s like therapy. Plus, everyone I’ve trained with has been so motivating. All three are great at providing constructive feedback that makes you come away feeling encouraged. You can’t help but feel totally positive and energized after.
Speaking of training, I was really bummed when Ansboury Academy was canceled. I was looking forward to traveling to Hilton Head Island next week and training with Sarah Ansboury. However, I understand that, given the current situation with the Corona Virus pandemic, everyone needs to buckle down and do their part. That means limiting all unnecessary social contact. Everyone needs to be in isolation so as not to spread the virus. At first it was just no gatherings of 250 people or more, then over 50, and now it’s down to 10. It’s gotten so serious that work has even mandated that everyone who can work remotely should work from home for at least the next two weeks. And poof, no more South Carolina trip just like that.
I’ve canceled our hotel and Brian is working on canceling our flights. I have also reached out to Sarah Ansboury to begin the refund process. Once we have contacted everyone, it’s just a matter of waiting for all the refunds to come through but I’m less bummed about that than not having the opportunity to train with Sarah. Hopefully, an Ansboury Academy will be offered again later this year that fits my schedule and I’ll be able to attend at that point.
In the meantime, I’m stuck in Wichita which won’t really be too bad as long as I can still continue my training sessions with Chris and others locally. However, almost all the gyms have shut down so there may not be anywhere to train. If we really shut everything down and we are all stuck at home for several weeks, at least we have YouTube. Until next time. GNG.
Comment on This
My Tho with Teresa
Posted on March 14, 2020 by Ching under Reviews.
I met my friend Teresa at My Tho a couple of weeks ago. I have to say, even though it’s been over ten years since I’d last eaten there, not much has changed. They still don’t take cards. So take note, if you are eating at My Tho, remember to bring cash for payment.
I got a picture of the menu and the restaurant interior but forgot to take pics of our food. #FAIL We ordered the exact same thing (pho with pork) though, so the pics would not have been that exciting.
It was fun catching up with Teresa. I do not get to see her enough and we should catch up more often. Speaking of catching up, our friend Jason was supposed to join us but something came up at the last minute and he couldn’t make it.
I wouldn’t mind going back to My Tho. Their food is quite good. Perhaps next time we’ll have a full group with us.
Comment on This
Rotary Social at Dave & Buster’s
Posted on March 7, 2020 by Ching under Events.
Finally got around to checking out the Dave & Buster’s thanks to my Rotary club. The Andover Rotary Club decided to hold our final Thursday club social there last month. I have been wanting to check it out but, because of my crazy, jam-packed schedule, we have never had the time to do it. I’m not sure we would ever have another opportunity so, even though I teach Aqua Zumba on Thursday evenings, I told them I would just join them after class.
Brian was a trooper. He went about an hour ahead of me and ordered my food so it would be ready by the time I got there. I felt really bad because, when I finally arrived, everyone had moved on to playing games and Brian was sitting alone at the table. I quickly scarfed up my food — I was starving as I usually always am, specially after teaching a class — so we could also move on to playing games.
Norm got this pic of us while we were playing. In classing Brian fashion, his RBF makes him look grumpy even when he’s having fun. Trust me. He was having fun. He loves arcade games.
I, on the other hand, absolutely suck at them. However, I have fun doing everything — even the things I suck at. Also, I usually always look like I’m having fun even when I’m really not. Heck, I made my thyroidectomy look like a party. LOL. That’s just the way I am.
Anyway, that night reminded me of the time we spent the weekend in Kansas City thirteen years ago. It wasn’t our first time there because I found some older Dave & Buster’s pics on Flickr but it was one of the times I blogged about it. During the 2007-2011 span, we went a few times before we finally grew tired of it. It was kind of a fun thing to do within driving distance.
I think part of the reason it started to lose its appeal for us is that the Wichita landscape began to change about ten years ago. We started to get more fun things to do in Wichita so you really didn’t have to drive to Kansas City as much anymore. Also, there were other fun things to do like Top Golf. And we were started taking bigger trips so we didn’t do as many weekend road trips anymore.
Speaking of the Wichita landscape changing, besides finally getting a Dave & Buster’s here, we also have a Chicken N Pickle, which I think is even cooler. I spend a lot of time there because I’m completely addicted to pickleball. The next big thing Wichita is about to get is Top Golf. That is another fun place/activity that Brian and I have driven out of town to do. We even did an up and back for our wedding anniversary one year. I’m so excited that the one in Wichita will be less than ten minutes away from our house! Of course, the tricky part will be finding time to check it out when it finally does open.
Speaking of finding time — yes, I am blogging this at 4 AM. I just don’t have as much time to devote to blogging anymore but I know how important it is to keep grandma updated. Until next time. GNG.
Comment on This
