FLIP + CHING

This Blog is So Far Behind

Posted on July 18, 2022 by Ching under Pickleball.

I’m going to attempt to catch this blog up.. maybe.

Here are a couple of pictures from the Memorial Day cookout/gathering at Seneca Park. I wasn’t part of the planning/organizing because I was out of town for the Middle States Diamond Regional pickleball tournament in St. Louis but I did get back in time and was able to swing by. It looked like there was a great turnout and everyone had a ton of fun!

It was a super windy day but people made the best of it.

I think the best part was that #TeamModel #TeamEurope Jocelyn Devilliers and Patrick Smith (two of our local pickleball pros) came by and played some rec games. It’s always so special when they come around.

These two amazing guys, Jay and Pat, held a clinic at Chicken N Pickle the next day (Tuesday, May 31). I couldn’t go to it since I had already taken time off work the prior week to play in the regional tournament in St. Louis so I felt bad about taking off another day.

It looks like everyone who attended had a great time, though.

The weekend after that was the ICT Classic Pickleball Tournament, which seems like so long ago now that registration for the ICT Fall-out is open. The ICT tournaments are great for pushing your limits. At least for me, I don’t feel significant pressure to medal so I can just play and enjoy myself.

I played 3.5 singles, 4.0 women’s, and 5.0 mixed (don’t ask – lol). I was supposed to play with Judy Nola for women’s and Matt Nola for mixed, so I got both wife and husband; however, Judy had wedding obligations and couldn’t play on Saturday. I picked up Jenny Pinkston who I had met at Chicken N Pickle. She happened to be playing in the Riverside league I was in the day Judy canceled so I asked her and she agreed. I thought we played pretty well together overall. The other teams just played better and cleaner.

Playing 5.0 in mixed was a huge stretch but that’s what Matt wanted to play and I wanted to play with him so I just had to roll with it. Admittedly, it wasn’t terrible. Even though it was my very first tournament at 5.0 level (I think it might have been Matt’s first also), we didn’t feel completely out of place. Also, Matt is super nice and chill and didn’t make me feel bad for not being quite up to that level.

My takeaways from that tournament (and this is actually an observation that I’ve made about myself and pickleball in general):

I find that we rise to the occasion. No matter what skill level I end up in, I find that I play at that exact level. So if I’m in 3.0 division, I play just like a 3.0. If I play in 4.0, I play just like a 4.0. When I played 5.0 with Matt, I played my best possible self. Given this, it really doesn’t make sense to play down in skill because it doesn’t bring out your best self. The only way you’ll discover how great you can possibly be is by playing up in skill level. I think others came to this conclusion much faster than me. And, even after knowing this, I still don’t want to skip any steps. I have it in my mind that I need X number of medals (podium finishes) at a certain skill level before I feel like I can move up. I don’t know why my brain works this way (I wish it didn’t), but it just does.

At any given skill division, with a very competitive bracket where everyone is of similar skill, it’s ultimately the team that makes the least number of errors that prevails. Granted, there are those times when there are some teams that are leaps and bounds better than the rest of the field — but, removing those outliers — if everyone is entered in the appropriate skill level, it really is anyone’s game and the team that wins is the team that makes the least mistakes that given day. It’s this type of mentality that helps me sleep at night and not take my losses so harshly. You win some, and you lose some, and that’s just the way it goes. I’ll keep working at becoming more consistent but it’s not the end of the world if I don’t medal in my events.

We wore blue that day and, although we went 0 and 2 in our division (which is not a good thing), I wasn’t blue. I was happy for the opportunity to play with my friend Matt (who is always so much fun to play with) and I am eternally grateful to him for believing in me enough to invite me to “play up” with him.

I feel like I’m either winning or I’m learning. And lately it seems I’ve been doing a lot more of the latter but, as a life-long learner who always wants to be better than I was yesterday, I would not have it any other way. It’s helpful when you surround yourself with positive people who believe in you and push you to be the very best you can possibly be. You can keep on “learning” without feeling down or discouraged or doubting yourself.

Winning is fun but getting better is funner – lol, I know it’s supposed to be “more fun” but saying/writing funner is “more fun” to me.

I know I want to catch this blog up and I didn’t get very far this time but, honestly, there’s not enough time in the day. I guess I will have to save the rest of the updates for tomorrow. Until next time, GNG.

Comment on This

Last Meal in St. Louis

Posted on July 14, 2022 by Ching under Food and Drink, Travel.

Brian and I hit Einstein Bros. for breakfast before starting our drive home. It was my first time eating one of their breakfast sandwiches and it was quite good, actually. Check out some sandwich pics below.

I kinda wish we had an Einstein Bros. here in Wichita.

Comment on This

Padrinos Mexican Restaurant

Posted on July 13, 2022 by Ching under Food and Drink, Travel.

Padrinos is good stuff! Donnie and Tiffany Lesperance ate there earlier that week and really liked it so we decided to bring our group over there and hoped that they would join us. They decided to eat dinner with their housemates though, so we ended up going without them. That meant they did not have Mexican food two days in a row, which is completely unheard of!

Clockwise from left: Bo Tolbert, Ryan Kellenbarger, Chris Wilson, me, Ramon Lozano, Kendra Wicks, and Brian.

They put a “Reserved” sign at our table and everything.

Brian always gets a super basic bean and cheese burrito.

Here are some pics of the rest of our food.

My sangria was pretty good.

Ramon enjoyed his drink, too.

Anyway, this place was pretty good. I liked it even better than the other place we went to – El Burro Loco. I highly recommend it. Until next time, GNG.

Comment on This

Mack’s Bar and Grill

Posted on July 12, 2022 by Ching under Food and Drink, Travel.

It was a miracle of miracles. We managed to pry our friends Donnie and Tiffany Lesperance away from eating Mexican food. That’s all they ever eat. Well, that and Texas Roadhouse. LOL.

We managed to convince them to go with us to Mack’s Bar and Grill because (a) it was close to the tournament venue, (b) it was known for good pizza, and (c) had great reviews. Brian is kind of big of the reviews and usually stays away from any place with less than four stars. It’s just one of his quirks.

The restaurant serves other food too, besides just pizza. Here are some pics of the other food our group ordered.

Anyway, the food was pretty good and the service was great. Overall, it lived up to the online reviews and I wouldn’t mind going there again if I’m back in the area.

1 Comment

Pictures from Our Dinner at Salt + Smoke

Posted on July 11, 2022 by Ching under Food and Drink, Travel.

We had such a great experience on our last visit to Salt + Smoke that we decided to go back. Unbeknownst to us, there are multiple Salt + Smoke locations in St. Louis. Anyway, we ended up at a different one and it wasn’t as good as the first one that we tried the year before.

The food was decent but not as good as I remembered. The popovers, which I loved on that first visit, were just okay. Probably because these weren’t as fresh. We were the only table in the entire restaurant for a long time but service was slow and not as friendly as it was at the other place. Despite being the only ones there, the server hardly checked on us or refilled our drinks.

The menu items and the sauces were the same but, even though it was the same food, the experience really wasn’t as good. Bottom line? Not all Salt + Smokes are created equal and, if you find one that you like, you’ll probably have better luck if you go to that same one rather than going to the “closest” one as we had done.