Brian’s First Time at Station 8 BBQ
Posted on November 1, 2023 by Ching under Food and Drink.
Brian has been eating mostly Hog Wild by his office and so I decided to expand his horizons by taking him to Station 8 BBQ. I think it’s possibly the best BBQ in Wichita. It is located in an old fire station. Thus, the name Station 8.
I took a bunch of pics to commemorate Brian’s first time there.
I got there first and the line wasn’t bad but it was much longer by the time Brian arrived. When Brian showed up, the line was literally out the door past the wooden Station 8 planter sign out front.
The nice thing about Station 8 is that you don’t have to wait for your food. You wait in line to order but you get your food when you pay so all of the waiting is up front. Once you’ve paid, you get to chow down and enjoy the delicious BBQ.
Here are some pictures of our food.
Brian enjoyed it so much we even got him to smile!
Until next time, GNG.
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Bartlesville Tournament Weekend Recap
Posted on October 30, 2023 by Ching under Pickleball, Travel.
I played in the Bartlesville Pickleball Classic tournament again this year. As far as tournaments go, it’s just the best.
- It is organized and well-run.
- The tournament fee is reasonable — one fee for all events.
- You get an awesome free shirt.
- Lunch is provided for players.
- You can make extra money for reffing matches.
- The competition is pretty darn good.
When friends ask me what tournaments they should do, I always tell them to put this one on their list because they will not be disappointed. Of course, it does help that my wonderful friend Deana Holman lets me stay with her. And, as an added bonus, I get to love on her sweet dog Stella.
My partners this year were Chris Wilson (for Intermediate 50/50 and 4.5 Mixed Doubles) and Susie Ternes (for 4.0 Women’s Doubles). My schedule was 50/50 on Friday, Women’s Doubles on Saturday, and Mixed Doubles on Sunday. Since Chris and I were starting and ending at the same time, it made sense just to carpool. As luck would have it, Deana had a couple of extra rooms so I offered them up to both of my partners. Susie had several people staying with her in her giant Airbnb so she couldn’t take advantage of the free room at Deana’s. Chris was able to cancel his hotel reservation and stay at Deana’s instead, though. It worked out perfect since we were traveling together.
Originally, when I saw Kumar Krishnan at the Shangri-la tournament, he told me we would start at 8 AM on Friday so Chris and I planned on driving down on Thursday night. However, when the tournament schedule was published, our start time wasn’t until after 1 PM so Chris and I decided to drive down on Friday morning instead.
The Bartlesville tournament is very popular with the Wichita players so it wasn’t a surprise that Wichita swept the Intermediate 50/50 podium.
- First Place – Ian Carr and Tiffany Lesperance
- Second Place – Brady Randall and Michelle Belew
- Third Place – Chris Wilson and me
Susie and I played together the next day. Although, she wasn’t my original partner. I was actually signed up to play with Stacy Lyon but Stacy ended up withdrawing due to a family vacation. When I was looking for someone to take her place, I knew Susie and I had several matching outfits and had talked about playing together at some point so we can wear our matching outfits and so it was a no-brainer. I am so glad she was available to play because, not only did we look great in our team uniforms, but it was so much fun!
I really enjoyed Susie’s positive energy and she just has a good time no matter what. We actually lost our very first match so we had to take the long way (or, as I like to call it, the “scenic route”) back to the podium. We had to play against some Wichita friends in the backdraw and then we met up with Roxy Schlatter and Laura Cramer, the team that put us in the backdraw initially, again. This time we were playing for medals so it was best 2 out of 3 games to 11, win by 2. We lost to them in the main bracket 6-11, 11-9, 5-11 but we were more prepared for their tricks (a lot of lobs, a lot of drive, and lob-drive combos) the second time around and we won pretty decisively, 11-3 and 11-4.
We then advanced to play in the championship match against the undefeated team of Jolinda Holt and Vanessa Palmeri. I had never played against either of these ladies before so I didn’t really know what to expect and, as always, it takes me a while to make adjustments. We went 3 games but couldn’t pull off the win. I’m not complaining, though. I had an absolute blast playing with Susie and Silver in 4.0 Women’s Doubles is nothing to be ashamed of considering it was our first time playing together.
After we were done playing, I made an extra $15 by reffing some matches. I reffed 3 and got $5 each. You actually make more if you are a trained/certified ref, which I am not. I was happy to make $15, though, and it was a great experience. I would totally go back next year and just ref. LOL.
Sunday was a quick day for us because Chris and I ended up signing up for a much higher level than we intended. I was originally signed up for 4.0 Mixed but then Chris told me to change it to 4.5 because it was labeled as “4.0 and Below” which really meant 3.5 and up. Anyway, they fixed the labels by removing the “and Below” designation but by then it was too late to move back to 4.0 division. Anyway, I didn’t make much of an effort to change it because I really didn’t mind the challenge but it was a tough group and an even tougher draw. As per usual, I ended up having to play against one of my former partners in the first round. We ended up losing to Dustin Herman (who I played with in ICT Classic earlier this year) and Fong Witte. In the backdraw, we ended up losing to Mitch Spencer and Greta Siemens. Although, I wasn’t too upset because we actually played much better this time than we did during the Backyard Pickleball Invitational (which we lost to them in that one too). I think the most disappointing part of the day was that we only got to play Wichita teams. So we traveled all the way to Bartlesville to play against people we normally play with/against at home. Again, I’m not complaining because the entire weekend was fabulous. It’s always wonderful to see, compete, and hang out with Oklahoma friends. They are good people!
I can’t wait until the next time. Until then, GNG.
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Senor Salsa in Bartlesville
Posted on October 26, 2023 by Ching under Food and Drink, Travel.
I am quite disappointed with myself as I was not very good at taking pictures of my food/dinners this last trip to Bartlesville. We ate at Hideaway Pizza on Friday night but I have zero pictures from that dinner. Ugh.
After playing on Saturday night, Chris Wilson and I had dinner with Tiffany and Donnie Lesperance so naturally we ended up at a Mexican restaurant. Saying those two love Mexican food would be an understatement. They will literally eat Mexican food every single day if it were just the two of them. Actually, there were a few of us who traveled together in St. Louis for one of the regional tournaments a couple of years ago and we did just that – eat Mexican food every single day. I was impressed that they managed to find a different one for each meal but I guess there are a ton of Mexican restaurants everywhere because Americans love their Mexican food, authentic or otherwise.
The food was pretty good and I enjoyed my dinner. But you never can go wrong with Mexican food really. I think that’s why it’s the go-to cuisine of the Lesperances. LOL. More about the Bartlesville tournament/trip next post. Until then, GNG.
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First Minor League Pickleball Team Tournament in Wichita
Posted on October 23, 2023 by Ching under Events, Pickleball.
I was fortunate to be part of bringing the first ever Minor League Pickleball team tournament to Wichita earlier this month. The iPickle Nation team has been hosting these in the Kansas City area but this was our first one in Wichita.
We had quite a few hurdles to overcome but, overall, I think we had a pretty successful first event. The first hurdle was finding a suitable venue. Riverside Tennis Center had various events going on and was limited on dates that they would be willing to allow us to have. Besides that, we had to dodge a bunch of other tournaments in the region that were happening at the same time and we were running out of warm weather days. In the end, we ended up going with Crestview Country Club because Riverside was going to be too expensive (there was no way we were going to be able to have the event at Riverside and not lose money) and the rate we were able to negotiate with Crestview was much more reasonable.
We ended up with 8 teams each in DUPR 16 and 18 and 4 teams each in DUPR 14 and 20, which was perfect for the number of courts we had. Crestview has six painted pickleball courts and we taped up six additional courts for a total of 12 on event day. We taped up courts and set up nets on Saturday night and were all set to go first thing on Sunday morning.
Visit Wichita, our local visitors’ bureau, was a huge help as well. They set up group rates at a couple of nearby hotels for our out of town players. It worked out great.
I did host three players from a DUPR 18 team that I helped put together (Genevieve Eskridge from Tulsa, Craig Morford from Kansas City, and Gloria Knoles from Nebraska teamed up with Chris Wilson and formed “Strangers with Candy” team) and helped find housing for some others but for those players who we couldn’t find free housing for, Spring Hill Suites and Tru next to Chicken N Pickle offered really good rates for our group. It was perfect too because those who stayed there could easily walk over to Chicken N Pickle.
I always get super cranky and stressed out but thankfully I have Brian who is always such a huge help. He helped us set up on Saturday and Sunday and, although he left for part of the event to take care of some chores and honey-dos, he came back to help tear down after. He is the best!
Anyway, I dream of having many of these types of events here in the future. I feel like Wichita is the perfect location to bring players from all over — Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, and so forth — to compete with one another. I can’t wait to see what the future holds!
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iPickle Nation Dinner at P.F. Chang’s
Posted on October 19, 2023 by Ching under Food and Drink.
The Kansas City iPickle Nation team came down to Wichita a couple of weekends ago for the first Minor League Pickleball event of our city. Rick Fortuna, the owner, along with Duane Christian and Michael Cobb came down. Our local team has grown considerably since summer and now consists of me, Fernando Martinez, Amanda Ades, Angie Meyer, and Brian. Mike and Duane had met Fernando and Amanda before from playing in MiLPs and iPN tournaments in Kansas City but they’d never met Brian nor Angie before. It was the perfect opportunity for the Wichita and Kansas City teams to meet face to face.
I made an 8 PM reservation for us because I wasn’t sure what time we would finish taping the courts at Crestview Country Club (there were already six painted pickleball courts at the venue but we needed to tape up six more to make twelve courts total) and also the rest of the team was still playing at the charity event at Edgemoor Park which was running long, so I wasn’t sure when they would finish either. Everyone made it to dinner and it was great having everyone together. I was remiss in taking a group photo. I am always so much more focused on taking food pictures and often forget about the people. We really should have taken a group pic because I don’t know when we will have everyone together again.
We were all starving from having set up courts and signage and other things at the venue. We scarfed up some of the food before I remembered to take photos so I only managed to get pictures of a few of the dishes.
I had one drink that night, which I felt was very much earned because I was the only Wichita team member who actually helped with set up. Well, Brian helped a little bit but left as soon as he was told he was free to go.
The rest of the team was at the other tournament. Duane had the foresight to recruit Raven Peer’s assistance. I guess Raven has helped them with set up and tear down at previous events. We did have a few of the players help also but they had an ulterior motive. They want to get some practice games in after, which was totally fine. We appreciated the extra bodies.
We had a wonderful team dinner. Food was great. The only thing that could have made it better is if I remembered to take a group pic. Maybe next time.
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