Rotary Club Changes, Events, Etc.
Posted on August 24, 2021 by Ching under Community.
The Andover Rotary Club board put me in charge of putting together our programs this cycle so I hit up some friends to come visit and present to the club. Matt Mayfield came out last month to talk about the Senior Services of Wichita.
I’ve also hit up some old friends from the Twitter days to come and speak. Last month we had Suzanne Perez (KMUW) talk about the annual #ReadICT reading challenge and then last week we had Denise Neil (Wichita Eagle) come out to promote her new book “Classic Restaurants of Wichita.”
One of the major changes for this year is relocating our meetings to Butler Community College. For as long as I’ve been a member (about seven years), we’ve always met at Terradyne Country Club. I was told that the meetings have always been there since the club’s founding in 2003. Anyway, there were several factors that led to the move and it took months of deliberation. However, as of August 2021 and, for the foreseeable future, our meetings are officially at Butler Community College. I made all the updates I could make to both our club website and also our Facebook page. It’s not perfect but all references to meetings at Terradyne Country Club have been, for the most part, removed.
Despite this major change, some things remain the same. Haus of Brews will still be our premier fundraising event and it’s back this year! We couldn’t have it last year because of the pandemic and everyone missed it. This year we are having the event on September 25 at Treescapes (same venue as always). I feel like everyone is excited and ready to have this event again. In fact, we have already sold a few tickets. Early bird tickets are available online for $35 through September 10. After September 10, tickets will be $50 each. If you buy yours online, put “Ching Brubaker” in the member referral box so I get credit for the ticket sale. Hope to see you all then!
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Sunday Fun-Day at the Belmont
Posted on August 23, 2021 by Ching under Food and Drink.
The Belmont is hands-down our current favorite happy hour destination. They have this drink there called “rackhouse” that is like an old fashioned and Brian absolutely loves it.
I sometimes wish he would look at me like he’s looking at this this drink. =P
No happy hour trip to the Belmont is ever complete without the cheese course.
I have tried all of the specialty cocktails they make at the Belmont and they are all very good. The “calumet” is my favorite but I also like the “violets femmes” (pictured above without the signature flower). I know the flower is just for decoration but this drink is never as good without it.
We decided to get dessert this time which was a shortbread cookie with chocolate mouse and strawberries. It was good but I think I would have preferred an actual strawberry shortcake and had this on a moist sponge cake (pound cake?). If only I knew how (or had a desire) to make my own stuff then we wouldn’t have to go out and rely on the food that others make. Until next time, GNG.
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Nineteen Years and Counting
Posted on August 19, 2021 by Ching under Relationship.
We didn’t have any major plans for our 19th wedding anniversary — just dinner and a ball game. We went to Carrabba’s, our “go to” place for celebratory dinners.
We ordered our usual meatball starter. It’s really good there.
Don’t mind the less than enthusiastic look on Brian’s face. He always looks this way no matter how thrilled he is on the inside.
I’m so glad they finally added the chicken piccata on the the menu. They offered it as a takeout entree during the pandemic but it wasn’t on the dine in menu so you couldn’t order it at the restaurant. Now I can finally get it there. Hurrah for that!
After dinner we went to catch a baseball game at Riverfront Stadium. It was our first time in the Evergy suite.
I’m glad we skipped dessert at the restaurant because they had these delicious brownies there. Actually, had I known there would be food in the suite, we could have skipped our dinner plans altogether.
The stadium is beautiful but I don’t think that many people are into baseball these days. Here are a few more pics that I snapped while there. It seemed pretty dead for a Saturday night.
The company in the suite was pretty good, though. (With the lovely Caroline and Chet Kelley in the pic below.)
This anniversary weekend was super uneventful, which is probably a good thing. It’s a far cry from our 9th wedding anniversary celebration ten years ago. That was a little nuts. Anyway, I’m looking forward to a fabulous year of traveling — now that Brian is finally fully vaccinated (best anniversary present ever) — starting with a trip to Jamaica in January. Details are listed below. Hope you all can join us!
P.S. When you book, tell Jay or Becca that Ching sent you so I can get referral credit. LOL. Until next time, GNG.
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Charity Tournament at Chicken N Pickle
Posted on August 17, 2021 by Ching under Community, Hobbies.
The Downtown Wichita Y’s Men’s Club held a super fun charity tournament at Chicken N Pickle on Saturday. It was a full day affair with competitive teams in the morning and social teams in the afternoon.
Erica and I reversed matched with our Electrum tanks.
Here are some pictures from that day. Above pic is with my partner Chris Wilson and Karen Fox. Karen played in the social but came early to hang out and watch.
Here’s another picture of the three of us with Lesli Toubassi.
Here are some action shots of one of my favorite pickleball couples, Tiffany and Donnie Lesperance.
Here are some action shots of Greta Siemens and Ramon Lozano.
Here are some action shots of Hanbeen You and Kim Knotts.
Here are some action shots of Lori and Dave Belew.
Lesli, Jenny Cole, Scott Wolford, and Tiffany.
Even after we were eliminated from the tournament, we hung around and watch all of the awesome matches. Here’s Chris with Dave Belew (and his wife Lori Belew in background, deeply concentrating on something).
Many of us stayed to watch the championship match.
Scott did a great job of recruiting teams. Lots of really good pickleball players came out to play in this charity tournament which is not usually the case. It’s pretty rare that benefit tournaments attract real pickleball players. You usually end up playing with mostly beginners and maybe a couple of teams who know how to play. I think that’s why the matches were so fun to watch.
I didn’t end up staying for the afternoon portion because Brian and I had plans that night (dinner and baseball) so I didn’t get to watch Karen and her partner Ian Carr take down the championship of the social (drink in hand) tournament. Janelle Lindeman and her partner Devin Hansen took second.
I think everyone had a great time overall. Kudos to the Downtown Wichita Y’s Men’s Club for putting on such a wonderful event. I would totally do this again. Until next time. GNG.
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Friday Night Fun
Posted on August 16, 2021 by Ching under Community, Hobbies.
I know my definition of fun is probably way different than most. Brian likes to play video games for fun. Some people like to drink for fun. As for me, I just want to play pickleball. And so that’s exactly what I do on Friday nights every weekend.
I keep a pretty predictable schedule. Every Friday I try to hit the open play at Nahola before our 7 PM private group reservation that way I can get almost four solid hours of play on the weekends.
This past Friday, my friend Ramon was in town. There were also several others who don’t normally come who played. It was a busy night for open play.
I didn’t mind it too much because I knew that I would have my two hours after open play when it’s just our group of ten. I like this format because, even though we have two players waiting, the wait is never too long. And when I’m winning, I never have to wait because winners always stay and split. I’ve been playing pretty well the last few months to where I rarely ever lose. Most times I win and only lose when certain match ups happen. I can even win with Eric sometimes, which a year ago would never have happened.
I haven’t had any pickleball lessons in months but I have been playing a lot and since I’ve been playing with various people I’ve often found myself just standing around and not getting hit the ball. This used to frustrate the heck out of me before I knew how to help my partner. Over time I started to figure out what to do to ensure that I also get the ball sometimes.
It used to be I would just give up and hope that the game would end as quickly as possible, which was never any fun. With my new approach, I actually get to play some and even win some games too despite being on the weaker team.
So what am I doing differently? I’m sure you’re wondering. Amazingly enough, all I’ve changed is where I position myself on the court. If my partner is getting 80-90% of the balls, then I start putting myself smack dab in the middle at T. Believe it or not, this makes a huge difference because then it considerably shrinks the other team’s target. Now, instead of having half of the court as their target, their target has diminished to a third or a quarter of the court. This helps me and my team because then I get more of the court so balls will actually come my way sometimes and I can get be part of the rally. And, if they do force the issue and continue to target my partner, since their target is much smaller they are more likely to hit the ball out which earns my team either a point or a sideout.
This new strategy has been super effective and I’m actually winning more on Friday nights. Whereas before, whenever I would get paired up with certain people then I would just rollover and take the loss and wait for the next game. Now, the games are way closer and sometimes my team even wins!
The only downside of getting used to playing this way is sometimes I forget to switch back to normal mode when I’m actually paired up with someone good and I’m taking up too much of the court when I should be. LOL. Now that I know what to do when playing with a weaker partner, I just need to learn to adjust when I’m with a strong partner. Rec is always hard because you’re constantly playing with different people. I like it when I get to play with the same people on a regular basis because then I can get used to how they play and they can get used to how I play and we begin to build that rapport and chemistry on the court. There are some people I just cannot play with, though. Like, that chemistry isn’t happening, no matter what. Thankfully, none of those people are in my regular play groups.
This past weekend was special because my friend Ramon came to visit. It’s kind of a bummer that he didn’t get to play in Rocky Mountain Championships but that was good news for me because then he got to spend time in Wichita. He played in the Nahola open play and then hung out and joined us for dinner after.
I don’t usually go out to dinner with the Friday night crew because I have to teach Aqua Zumba on Saturday mornings but I made an exception this time around. It’s okay to deviate from routines sometimes, specially when friends come to visit.
This is all for now but stay tuned for a few more posts from this weekend. GNG.
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