FLIP + CHING

New Drinks I Haven’t Drank

Posted on March 31, 2023 by Ching under Food and Drink.

Brian and I realized that it had been a while since we’ve been to the Belmont when we returned a few weeks ago and found some new drinks on the cocktail menu that we hadn’t tried. Now I’m on a new mission to drink all the drinks.

My favorite — Calumet — is still on there but there were several drinks I didn’t recognize. Here are some pics.

Plum Tucker

Stay Classy, Wichita

Rackhouse

Fits Like a Clove

These are our favorite starters.

The pork belly bahn mi is my new favorite sandwich there.

Brian’s favorite is the basic but not so basic ham and cheese.

The Belmont usually has a special dessert and on our last visit it was the S’mores Pie. It was amazing!

There are a couple more drinks I have yet to try so we’re due for another trip. My favorite day to go is Sunday because they have happy hour all day, which means instead of paying $10 per drink, the drinks are only $6 each so I can drink all the drinks I want without breaking the bank.

Stay tuned for food and drink pics from our next visit. Until then, GNG.

Comment on This

How Far Will You Drive to Pickle?

Posted on March 30, 2023 by Ching under Pickleball, Travel.

I answered this question recently when I drove six hours round trip to play some practice games with my friend Parker Ward. To be fair, Parker isn’t just “any” friend. He’s my Minto US Open Pickleball Championships mixed doubles partner, who I have never played with and it was important for us to get some court time together. We are playing Mixed Doubles Age 25+ on Tuesday, April 18, and Mixed Doubles Skill/Age 4.0 19+ on Friday, April 21.

I made the mistake of looking up all the other teams and there are some seriously skilled players, specially on Tuesday since it’s an open skill event. I really enjoyed playing with Parker and I felt like we had good on-court chemistry and communication (and I absolutely LOVE playing with lefties) so I am optimistic and have high hopes that we will do well together regardless of the tough adversaries we might face at the tournament.

Anyway, I honestly don’t make it a habit to drive several hours for recreational or practice play but Parker and I had originally signed up to play a DUPR Waterfall event that day. However, there were only two teams in our division so it got canceled. I could have played in the lower division but they wouldn’t allow Parker to play down and the whole point of it was for us to play some games together so we didn’t end up playing in the Waterfall but they did have an extra court for us to use for practice. That was nice.

I didn’t mind driving up because I had originally planned to be there anyway. Also, it gave me a chance to watch and cheer for some friends who were competing in the other levels. Also, I finally got to meet Carolina Mayorga-Perry who I am huge fan of — she is the cousin of one of our Wichita players, Diego Mayorga, and she happened to stop by to watch him play.

Here’s a pic of my “baby” partner, Parker. Funny thing is he showed up that morning with the same pickleball backpack as me. We didn’t realize it but we bought the exact same bag around the same time. We might be 20 years apart in age but we might have more in common than we realize. As they say, “Great minds think alike!” If this isn’t a sign of chemistry, I don’t know what is. Anyway, I’m taking it as a positive omen for a successful tournament next month.

Speaking of traveling far and wide, I drove almost three hours South this past weekend for another DUPR “Double Dip” — Caroline Luelf was hosting a special women’s doubles DUPR event at La Fortune (Tulsa) on Saturday and I knew that Tanner Rice usually had a Friday night DUPR at Hidden Trails (Oklahoma City). Tanner’s events are usually pretty flexible so I talked him into doing a mixed ladder so that me and my APP Cincinatti partner Eric Bunch could get some practice games together. He’s another player who I am playing with for the first time. It’s not quite a blind date because I’ve seen him at tournaments before and we’ve actually played against each other at least twice but we’ve never been on the same side of the net. Anyway, this is my life because I don’t have a set/permanent doubles partner for either mixed or gender.

There were some pretty good pickleball players who came out that night so we got some good games in. Overall, I think we performed as expected but I thought it was good considering it was our first time playing together. He was super nice, very patient, and he didn’t get mad at me. I think we communicated well with one another. I actually quite enjoyed playing with him and am adding him to my “Yes” list (should he ask me to team up in the future — though this is doubtful because he has at least two regular partners from his hometown: Mia Dunagan and Genevieve Eskridge — I just happened to luck out that neither were available for the tournament). I also lucked out that we had previously met at tournaments and had generally good rapport because he got hit up by at least four other women to partner up for the APP Cincinnati tournament. He said one even wrote a very lengthy email about how he should pick her if he wanted to win (complete with a listing of her many accomplishments). So now, besides my goal of earning my “golden ticket” at this tournament, I also have the added pressure of making sure that I deliver so that I can prove the he made the right choice.

I played with Eric on Friday night, spent the night in OKC, and then drove to Tulsa for Caroline’s DUPR event the next day. Caroline hosts these massive DUPR match sessions and this one was no exception. There were 56 women who participated, and I think 9 teams in our group. It was really good practice for me and my friend Katie Merrill who is my women’s doubles partner for the US Open. We are playing in Women’s Doubles Age 35+ on Monday, April 17, and Women’s Doubles Skill/Age 3.5 35+ on Thursday, April 20. I’ve know Katie a while but this is also our first tournament together.

Anyway, I didn’t want to drive home at night and Katie graciously let me spend the night at her house on Saturday so I got bonus play with Will Chiang (aka Pickleball Will) and his friend Carlos Vreeland at the Tulsan Athletic Club the next morning.

I have been a huge fan of Will’s since I first met him almost two years ago so this has got to be the highlight of the trip. I watch the Pickleball Studio all the time on YouTube and Brian was surprised to see him in the pics. I explained that he is good friends with Katie and I just lucked out that morning that they needed people to play with. I got to be their 4th!

Sometimes it pays to be at the right place at the right time. As for me, I think I am exactly where I’m meant to be, playing pickleball, and making new friends.

Until next time, GNG.

1 Comment

Felipe’s Jr.

Posted on March 20, 2023 by Ching under Food and Drink.

Pictures of our lunch at Felipe’s Jr. after pickleball at the Sandbox. They wanted something close to the house so that the out of towners could shower and freshen up before heading home.

I had my normal rice and chile verde.

It’s been a while so I really don’t know who all got what food but these are the pics. It’s been a while since I’d been to Felipe’s Jr. so I figured these would be worth sharing. Enjoy!

Comment on This

Dinner at Doma — Food Pics

Posted on March 17, 2023 by Ching under Food and Drink.

I didn’t get pictures of all the food, just the ones close to me.

Comment on This

Katie’s Birthday Weekend

Posted on March 17, 2023 by Ching under Events.

My friend Katie Merrill decided to celebrate her birthday weekend in Wichita this year. We started the weekend with an awesome two-hour lesson with Chris Heck.

I had initially booked the lesson just for me and Katie but our friend Genevieve Eskridge spent the weekend in Wichita too and Chris was nice enough to let us make it a trio. Thanks to Genevieve for these pics.

After our lesson, Katie planned to take a nap but we ended up learning line dances from our other friend Josh McAllister instead. He came up to Wichita to spend the weekend and celebrate with us, too.

Genevieve, Katie, and Josh

Genevieve and Katie both live in Tulsa. Josh lives in Oklahoma City. We also have another friend Ramon Lozano from Hays who spent the weekend as well.

Wichita actually turned out to be the perfect location to celebrate because it’s centrally located and an easy drive for everyone. The funny thing is, we had more people staying with us than we had rooms so, earlier in the week, I tried to figure out when everyone would arrive on Saturday. I told them the last person to arrive would get the couch. Ramon was like, “I’m coming on Friday.” LOL. He didn’t want us to give his room away.

Here are a few more pictures from dinner…

Colby Fugit, Jenny Cole, and Chris Heck

Jenny and Austin Corley

with Jenny and Colby

Ryan Kellenbarger, Ed Egan, and Ramon Lozano

Brandi and Ty Richardson

with Josh McAllister and Cindy Egan

We had a lovely group gather for dinner at Doma to celebrate Katie. I will post pictures of food next post. For now, we are going to continue with birthday weekend festivities.

After dinner, several of us went to Club Rodeo for some dancing.

These guys are wild. Genevieve, Brian, and I didn’t stay late.

I think we left around midnight. The rest of them stayed and shut the bar down. I know Brian, who is kind of a worry wart, stayed up waiting for everyone to come home. I was tired and just went to sleep. I was half asleep and half awake around 2:30 AM and he was like, “Your friends still aren’t home.” I’m pretty sure I mumbled something like, “They can get in through the garage,” and rolled over and went back to sleep.

Brian, the responsible person that he is, stayed up and when he heard the garage door open sometime after 3 AM, was like “Your friends are back. Ryan is here too.” He went down to check on them because he said Josh didn’t look too good. He must have had too much to drink. I’m glad they had enough sense to just come to our house and people didn’t drive home drunk.

Genevieve had her room upstairs. Katie and Ramon each had their rooms in the basement. We put Josh in the living room because he said he didn’t mind sleeping on the couch. Ryan spent the night instead of going home. They all looked pretty rough the next day.

Josh ended up crashing on the Xorbee chair, while Ryan took the couch.

They were like, “Whose idea was it to play pickleball this morning?” LOL. Hey, that’s what Katie wanted to do. I guess next time, the plan will be to play pickleball and then go to dinner and dancing, and not the other way around.

Even with staying up late the night before to make sure everyone was okay, Brian got up early to make breakfast. Papa Brian did such a great job of taking care of us all that weekend.

Everyone looked so rough. You can tell the people who stayed out way too late.

We all met up at the Sandbox in Derby for some birthday pickleball. Katie has a lot of friends in Wichita but also had some friends come up from Oklahoma (Kali Wilson and Tanner Rice) and western Kansas (Cory Sager) for the day — in addition to those who spent the weekend in Wichita to celebrate.

Anyway, I was working on a website for Katie for her birthday (ktpickleball.com) which I tried to finish in time for her birthday weekend but didn’t through no fault of my own. However, Tanner did come through for me on the “bag of dicks” gag gift for Katie. I had joked I was going to get her a “bag of dicks” for her birthday. Tanner got a good deal on them from his rock lady so all the ladies at pickleball that day got a mini penis as a party favor. LOL.

Anyway, it was such a fun weekend. I had a great time and hope that Katie did too. Here’s a fun video montage I made of all of the adventures and birthday festivities that weekend. Next year Katie will be turning 40 so I think we are all planning to go to Hawaii. I cannot wait!