Wicked Brew Tour 2023
Posted on June 17, 2023 by Ching under Things to Do.
We were a little over eager and tried to start our brew tour on Memorial weekend. I thought I had seen something on social media but, upon reading it again, it was just telling people that the Wichita Wicked Brew Tour would be starting on June 2.
We realized our mistake before ordering but decided to stay because we were already there and we really like WBC food.
We must have been starving because we ordered a couple of apps, including the pretzel bites and the meatballs.
Not being particularly fond of pizza, there are only a handful of pizzas I will eat and their’s is one of them.
Anyway, we finally were able to start our brew tour. Here are the breweries we have visited so far (from left – River City Brewing Co, Nortons, Hopping Gnome, and Wichita Brewing Co):
We’ve also hit a few coffee shops including Cocoa Dolce and Churn & Burn.
We still have a few more stops (need 10 stamps on our Wichita Brew Tour passports) but we are well on our way to earning our shirts this year. Will post pics once we get them. Until then, GNG.
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Jenny Marcos and Mike Gates in Wichita
Posted on June 15, 2023 by Ching under Pickleball.
I had an absolute blast the weekend that senior pros Jenny Marcos and Mike Gates came to visit Wichita. I’m so glad that Kathy Moser, owner of the Pickle Club, invited me. It’s such a treat to be able to play with such amazing players.
We got some solo time with Jenny and Mike until about 1 PM when other players joined us. We had some players join from 1 to 3 PM and then some others join from 3 to 5 PM. There were some of us, hardcore picklers, who played all day.
I’m not kidding when I say “all day” because I started playing at Zach Nguyen’s house at 8 AM that Sunday morning. Erika Atkins was in town from Texas (my first time meeting her) and Zach set up a game for her. It was so much fun!
Immediately after that I was off to the Pickle Club to meet up with Jenny, Mike, and Kathy. We played a little bit and enjoyed some lunch. Jenny made a ton of delicious pancit. Besides feeding us pancit, she also brought her portable camping stove and a wok and fried up some fresh lumpia for us to enjoy.
I got some free pickleball and Filipino food. And, I didn’t even have to leave Wichita. It was the best weekend ever!
I invited Matt Nola to join us because he travels to Asia to promote pickleball and has been recruiting some Filipino pickleball players to join his team. Jenny was getting ready to travel down there (in fact, she’s in the Philippines right now) and so I wanted the two of them to connect. Anyway, he invited the out of towners to Mochinut after so Jenny, Mike, and Kathy stopped by on their way back home to Oklahoma. I think they liked it.
It was such a fun weekend. It was a pleasure meeting new people (Erika from Texas earlier that day and Mike who is from all over) and Jenny is not just an amazing pickleball player, she also feeds you which is icing on the cake. I cannot wait for her to be back from her trip so we can catch up. Until then, GNG.
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Jose Pepper’s – It’s Been a While
Posted on June 14, 2023 by Ching under Food and Drink.
It’s been a minute since I’ve eaten at Jose Pepper’s. And by minute, I mean a few years. LOL. I got invited to play pickleball at Crestview Country Club a few weeks ago and then some of us decided to grab dinner at Jose Pepper’s after. It’s not on my normal dining rotation and I’m actually not sure why because I don’t mind the food there. I think probably because Brian doesn’t like it as much.
Anyways, here are some pictures of dinner that night.
Some drinks were drank as well.
Pickleball and the dinner after was so much fun. I am grateful to Lesli Toubassi for the invitation. It’s always great to play with some of the fun peeps in town but John and Amanda Damiris from Arizona happened to be in Wichita and it’s always wonderful to see those two. Until next time, GNG.
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Picklemania MMXXIII
Posted on June 13, 2023 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
The pickleball tournament fundraiser for my Rotary club just keeps on growing. I remember the very first year we had it. We weren’t sure how successful it would be but we knew we needed to do something that spring because we couldn’t have our Haus of Brews fundraising event due to the COVID pandemic. We planned to have the tournament in May 2021 but then the weather didn’t cooperate so we had to move the tournament to June. It was so freakin’ hot!
We had much better weather the following year but it got really windy in the afternoon and one of the canopy tents flew into one of the courts. Thankfully, no one was hurt. Last year was the first year that we changed the event to a team format (instead of just a normal doubles pickleball tournament) but it was a completely made up team format that I came up with based on Wrestlemania. LOL. You could tag in and out in between points (not during because that would be way too crazy and completely unsafe). Anyway, it was weird but fun. We had 16 teams participate last year.
This year we ended up with 24 teams but we still only had 8 courts so I had to get seriously creative. We kept the team format but change it to MLPlay (rally scoring) because it takes less time and the match durations are more predictable. We also did games to 15 (instead of 21) to further reduce the amount of time to complete each match. We kept the dream breaker tie breaker round because it added a fun, unique element, but still kept the game to 15, win by 1.
Here’s a good summary of this year’s tournament format:
Anyway, the format worked out great. With 6-team pools in the round robin pool play, each team was able to play every other team in their pool. After pool play, the teams went on to 3 different brackets (Elite, Advanced, and Intermediate) based on their results. We started at 8 AM and wrapped up around 5 PM. We were right on schedule. Couldn’t have planned it better!
This is what the pool play schedule looked like with 24 teams and only 8 courts. We basically assigned 2 courts for each pool. This meant there were bye rounds but it worked out fine because it gave people an opportunity to visit, grab snacks/drinks, go to the restroom, etc.
Here’s a fun video that my friend Jonathan Thorne made using pictures and drone footage from the event. I feel like we really exceeded all expectations this year. So much work went into though, as it always does. I did get to salvage some signage that I made last year like these ones.
I’m glad I thought ahead and didn’t put a year on them so we can recycle them for use year after year.
An improvement we had this year is a bag sponsor. Our friends at Bodyworx Physical Therapy provided us with string bags and player swag (coozies and pens) along with sponsoring a team. It was great because then we had a bag to put the players’ tournament shirts and other swag (stickers, overgrips, etc.) in. Definitely a step up from the paper bags that I delivered everything in last year.
Here are some fun pics from the event…
I’m so glad we finally got to play with Tanner Rice (red-head on the left) because the times that Ramon (Lozano), Katie (Merrill), and I have played in team events we’ve had to pick up a different fourth team member because Tanner wasn’t available for one reason or another. Kyle Rinck played with us in the DUPR team event we did back in December in North Kansas City and Jared Smart played with us in the “One Last Dink” team event at the Pickle Club.
I am so grateful for Brian, who ran the tournament so I could play. Kyle Starkel came out in the afternoon and helped, too.
Our team missed making the Elite 8 bracket by one stinkin’ game! We were in a 3-way tie with Bodyworx (Jen Tiano, Mike Ellison, and David and Lori Belew) and Mid-Court Crisis (Ling Wei Kong, Natalie Lubbers, Noi Sourinthone, and Scott Wolford) in our pool. We each had one loss (4-1 tied record for all 3 teams) and they were to one another so we had to count games won. Mid-Court Crisis won 16 total games. Bodyworx won 15 total games. We won 14 games. Only the top 2 teams of each pool went on to Elite 8. Middle 2 teams went to Advanced bracket. And the bottom 2 teams went to the Intermediate bracket.
We ended up winning the Advanced (middle) bracket, but pretty whichever team in our pool didn’t advance to Elite 8 was going to win that middle bracket no matter what because the matchups were sooo close. We had an amazing team!
These were the pool play groups. In each of the groups, the first 2 teams listed advanced to the Elite 8 bracket. Except for in our group, which had a 3-way tie (Bodyworx and Mix-Court Crisis ended up advancing). In pool C, Team Equilibrium and FORVIS both had a tied record going into their final match so the winner of that ended up advancing to Elite 8. Equilibrium prevailed. FORVIS ended up in the Advanced bracket with us.
These were the other medalists:
Intermediate – Drop It Like Itz Hot
Frank and Kim McCormick, Tiffany and Donnie Lesperance
Elite 8 – Chicken N Pickle (No surprise!)
Michael Harris, Kim Blackman, Jack Oxler, Lindsey Vermillion
You can read more about this year’s Picklemania tournament here. More pictures here. That’s all for now. Until next year, GNG.
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1400 by Elderslie
Posted on June 9, 2023 by Ching under Food and Drink.
My friend Chris Townley and I went to check out 1400 by Elderslie at the Wichita Art Museum a few weeks ago. It is a pretty unique dining experience. You don’t just walk in. You have to make reservations in advance.
Their hours are pretty limited. They’re closed on Mondays and Tuesdays and all holidays. They’re not open past 5 pm, except for on Fridays. So, if you want to go, you kind of have to plan ahead and really schedule it.
We tried to go the first time but then I ended up getting invited to some meetings around lunch time. We didn’t really know how long lunch there would take. It seemed like a leisurely kind of place so we ended up having to cancel that first reservation. We did finally get a chance to go and it was totally worth it.
First of all, the lighting in there is simply phenomenal. Because the wall is all glass, the natural light that comes in to the restaurant is simply amazing. It’s perfect for taking food pics.
Here’s a pic of Chris in the fabulous lighting.
Here’s a couple of snaps of the menu.
Here are some pics of our food.
Chris had the egg tartine.
I had the herby chicken salad.
I also had their blackberry lemonade, which I thought was deliciously refreshing and I wish I could have gotten some free refills. Anyway, despite the limited hours, this restaurant is not to be missed because the food is fantastic and it’s a truly memorable dining experience. Until next time, GNG.
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