2014 USBC Open Championships in Reno

This year I participated in the USBC Open Championships in Reno for my first time.  I went with a big group of bowlers from the IBM bowling league here in Tucson, several of us touting 190+ averages in our house league.  My teammate Chris and I drove to Phoenix to get a cheaper and direct flight to Reno, but our flight was delayed a couple hours (Southwest has been pretty bad lately!), so by the time we made it to the Silver Legacy in Reno, it was 2am and late enough to cash in right away...a big weekend was ahead of me.

On Friday morning, Chris and I walked the city a little, grabbed lunch at Hash House A Go Go and got worked at the Craps and Blackjack tables at Harrah's.  By 1pm we were ready to go to the National Bowling Center, check-in, get our equipment checked.  There was a good amount of down time before we were ready to bowl at 3pm, but the bowling center was pretty cool to check out.  They built this center just for USBC Championships anyway.

At 3pm, we marched onto the lanes, which was definitely one of the highlights of the trip!  Everyone lines up inside the orientation room based on their lane assignment and we march through the tunnel down the center of the lanes in 2 single-file lanes.  As you walk out onto the lanes, there is a big spotlight shining at you, music playing, and everyone is clapping to the beat of the song lol.  A TV overhangs from above the tunnel showing everyone who is walking through.  It actually made me feel like a semi-pro!

It was on to the bowling event.  Friday was our Team Event and we had two 5-player teams from Tucson.  I was on the Red Team (we did Blue and Red and represented U of A), which had some pretty legit bowlers on it.  The lane conditions were really tough as expected.  I ended up bowling a 130 my first game, a 178 my second, and a 138 my last.  Everyone struggled however, as these lanes were just that tough.  If you even made the slightest mistake in your approach or delivery, your ball would take off and just not end up anywhere where you wanted it to.  I definitely have more respect for professional bowlers I see on TV, knowing it's not easy to bowl some of these harsh lane conditions that change very rapidly.

It was interesting to see that most of the people participating were much older and I'd say the average age was around 50.  There definitely weren't many people my age bowling in this event.  One of my teammates feels like bowling is a lost sport that will continue to go downhill as generations pass.  I really hope not, because I do love bowling...

That evening, most of us got together to have dinner at Brew Brothers inside Silver Legacy.  Chris and I signed up for the players club to get coupons for buy-one-get-one-free pizza and wings.  I ended up eating a ton of food, polishing off a full medium pizza, a dozen wings, and two 22-pint beers LOL.  Vacation stomach strikes again!  That night, we spent some time gambling, playing Pai Gow Poker and Blackjack, but called it a night at 11:30pm since we had to be at the bowling center very early in the morning... UGH.

On Saturday we were scheduled to bowl our Doubles AND Singles event...and at a 7am start time! :/ Unfortunately this slot was the only time available during registration months ago.  Nonetheless, we proceeded with the events starting with Doubles where Chris was my partner.  I started off with a bang, bowling a 181 game, but struggled afterwards to keep it up, ending up with 130 and 127. :( Immediately after bowling the 3 games for Doubles, we started the Singles Event to bowl 3 more games.  Chris told me that the Team Event is all about focus while the Double and Singles are all about endurance.  Fortunately, I woke up a little for the Singles event, stringing together my best series: 158, 190, and 167.  I was able to break 500 in one of my series, which was my weekend goal!

That pretty much concluded the Open Championships for us.  Chris and I grabbed the buffet lunch at El Dorado before heading back to Phoenix that afternoon.  This experience was a lot of fun for me.  I like traveling for competition; it's a nice change as opposed to traveling for weddings, bachelor and birthday parties, or just to visit friends.  It is definitely something I would consider trying again.

I'm also thinking of purchasing a new bowling ball before the 2014-15 season.  I think it's about time, since I've had my Storm Gravity Shift for over 5 years now.  Woohoo, I love bowling!

Andy Lin's Lickity List (Amazing $10 Authentic Meals in Tucson)

As the Andy Lin's Lickity List continues to grow, I appreciate the feedback from friends and strangers on how I can improve my reviews.  I don't want to be interpreted as a food connoisseur however.  The list contains places I personally go back to often and I almost always will get the same item.  I guess that's how I operate sometimes.  If I find something I love at a certain place and I go back to that place just for that dish I love!

This list will be a running log that I will update whenever I go to one of my several favorite restaurants in Tucson, so be sure to check back for my latest recommendations via the link under my Hot Topics section!

Andy Lin's Lickity List
Amazing $10 Authentic Meals in Tucson

Saing Thai Cuisine
9136 E Valencia Rd
Tucson, AZ 85747
Date Visited: June 19, 2014
Style: Thai
Go-To-Lick: Pad Kee Mao
Price: $8.59 including tax

Raves: There's not a whole lot of authentic choices around the IBM Tucson office as most of the restaurants near Rita Ranch are fast food chains.  However, there is a one gem at the corner of Nexus and Valencia that everyone knows about: Saing Thai.  I usually pack my lunch and eat at the office, but occasionally when a co-worker or client wants to grab lunch, I will recommend Saing Thai first.  I only come here for lunch, so the price I'm quoting above is the Lunch special  (I think the dinner price is $9.95).

Every lunch special starts out with their hot and sour soup.  Then you have a bunch of specials to pick from.  My Go-To-Lick is the Pad Kee-Mao (L16).  Once you pick your dish, you get to choose if your main meat ingredient (pork, beef, or chicken) or a meatless option.  I always go for the pork, but my friends say the beef or chicken are just as good.  Pad Kee-Mao is a somewhat spicy dish (3 out of 3 peppers on the menu), a pan-fried "drunken" noodle dish cooked in their special roasted chili sauce.  I always ask them to bring me a spice rack so that I can personally kick the spicyness up a notch (4 out of 3 peppers haha).

The dish comes served with white rice and a spring roll.  After finishing the spring roll, I mix the rice and noodles together and then it all goes down the hatch pretty quickly. :)

My friends have tried L13 (aromatic curry), and I hear L12 and L14 are classic favorites as well (my apologies for not remembering the actual dish names; since I only get one thing here I don't really look at other items that often).  The curries come in a bowl and are more liquidy than your Indian curries, so just be ready what to expect.  I don't think you can ever go wrong with noodles here though.  Enjoy!!!

Frog & Firkin
874 East University Blvd
Tucson, AZ 85719

Date Visited: May 12, 2014
Style: English Pub
Go-To-Lick: The Firkin Burger with Cheese
Price: $9.13 including tax

Read this Review.

El Guero Canelo
2480 North Oracle Road
Tucson, AZ 85705 

Date Visited: May 3, 2014
Style: Sonora Mexican
Go-To-Lick: 2x Carne Asada Burro Jr. with Extra Cheese
Price: $9.27 including tax

Read this Review.

Andy Lin is your typical Tucson resident and is a not food connoisseur.  He is simply a man who knows what pleases his tastebuds and belly.   Special thanks to Nate M. and Matt H. for help with coming up with a title for this list.

APA 2014 City Tournament

NEW UPDATE!

This weekend is the City Tournament for 8-Ball APA in Tucson.  Last year, we got knocked out in the semifinals, having to play our way through the losers bracket to get there.  A lot has changed since then and I think my team's roster has improved since last year, but unfortunately a couple key players are missing (Tyler is missing all weekend and Dustin cannot be there for a lot of Saturday).  Nonetheless, we have to just show up and play our best.  Wish us luck!

FYI we are "Cereal Killers" listed below.  I still don't know how they pick which teams receive byes or not...

TOURNAMENT RESULTS:

On Friday night we played "That's What She Said" but unfortunately we got worked.  The key trio of Anthony, Chris, and myself all lost, losing the match 0-7.  OUCH!  We argue that if one of the "big three" loses, it will be a struggle to win the match.  It would've helped to have Dustin there earlier that night, but unfortunately he had work and by the time he made it, the match was over.

On Saturday afternoon we played South Tucson Deadstrokes.  This is the same team we played last year (where I beat their 5 in the 3rd match and they were forced to forfeit the remaining 2).  It ended up being a very close match that came down to sudden death between two 6'es: Dustin from my team (61% win-percentage) versus this other 6 with a 72% win-percentage.  It was super exciting and you could tell both players were a little nervous, missing shots that they wouldn't normally miss.  Dustin was able to close it out in an exciting finish and we advanced the the next round!

The next match on Saturday night would be against a fellow team from Fox and the Hound: Pog Mo Thoin.  We have played them several times and beat them in playoffs.  However, they were the better team that night, getting key victories against myself and Dustin, which basically put them on top.  We were eliminated after that point.

I personally didn't play as well as I would've liked to, struggling to close out games and letting my opponent have a chance to run out the table.  It was very important to our team that I play well, being the lone 4 in the lineup. Oh well, it's still a fun event to play in and there'll be future tries!

Friend-Seeing in San Francisco

Some people like to go sight-seeing when they travel to a new city.  I for one am a different type of traveler: the friend-seer.

I planned my most recent trip to San Francisco to see a bunch of friends of mine that live out in the bay area.  I have been to San Francisco before, but usually I stay in Redwood City with my parents while visiting my grandparents and I rarely actually get to experience anything fun in San Fran.  So this time around I decided to make it a trip where I go to the city, get a hotel and not have to cater to someone else's schedule, and just do whatever it was that I wanted to do...and I did exactly that!

 

I arrived in San Francisco on Thursday night.  I booked 3 nights at the Hyatt at Fisherman's Wharf, which I felt was an ideal location in terms of walking distance to places I'd like to go.  It was also a really good deal for a Hyatt in San Francisco, largely due to my IBM discount (remember I used the same discount for my massive 30th birthday in Scottsdale last year).  On Thursday night, I met up with Ashley, her coworker Kelley, and my friend Brian for dinner at E Tutto Qua, a quaint Italian restaurant along Columbus Ave in North Beach.  I was able to catch some of the Heat - Spurs game there, sadly witnessing LeBron cramp up in the 4th quarter and the Heat would eventually lose game 1 of the 2014 Finals. :(  Most of Thursday night was spent bar hopping around the Mission area and I was very drunk by the end of the night. :D

I spent most of Friday afternoon (yes, I maintained my sleeping habits this trip and would wake up around 11am everyday) exploring the city on my own while my friends were working during the day.  I walked to Chinatown and grabbed fusion-styled lunch at The House, recommended to me by friend Tony.  The meal was alright, but I think I should've gotten the salmon roll appetizer instead of sashimi.  However, the grilled sea bass was amazing.  I don't think I've ever had such a flaky, tender, and juicy fillet of fish before.  I walked some more around the city looking for a jacket since I had stupidly forgotten to pack one and I knew I would want one at the Giants baseball game later that night.  Most of the shops around Fisherman's Wharf were tourist shops where all the jackets had a SF logo on it. :/ Fortunately, I found one shop called San Frantastique that sold jacket/hoodies that were logoless and perfect for my taste! WOOHOO!

Later that evening, I had some drinks in the Financial District during happy hour while I waited for dinnertime.  It was funny to see people all dressed up professionally in downtown and I felt a little out of place with my casual v-neck t-shirt and blue jeans.  For dinner, I met up with Brian at Hog Island Oyster Co. where we had a table along the bay and enjoyed 24 fresh raw oysters! :P

Food is a big thing for me.  I love trying food and will eat almost anything.  Unfortunately my interests don't always line up with my friends who have a less broad palette of tastes, so traveling alone is sometimes better so I can actually try everything I'd like to.  I'm glad Brian is a fan of raw oysters like myself. :) After dinner, Brian, James, and I went to the San Francisco Giants game where I treated my friends to the game.  I got us tickets on the lower deck behind the Giants' bullpen and the seats were great!  I also had Matt Cain pitching for one of my fantasy teams, which made cheering for the Giants even easier.

After the game, we got some drinks and then met up with some of Brian's friends.  Although I think I drank too much throughout the day and had to call it a night at 1am. UGH.  Maybe I'm getting old, or maybe it was too much food and drinking and not enough exercise.  *shrug*

On Saturday I grabbed lunch with Sam who lives in Los Gatos.  He drove up for the day to hang out and we did lunch at Tony's Pizza Napoletana.  My friend Matt had actually recommended this place and I stumbled upon it on Foursquare with it's high 9.6 rating.  We walked over at noon and waited in line shortly because we were okay with eating outside.  Funny, only in San Francisco will you have a table that's slanted while you eat, lol.  Sam and I share similar adventurous tastes, so we got the Guanciale pizza with quail eggs. :)

After lunch, Sam took me to one of his favorite little bars in Chinatown called Li Po Cocktails.  It's really something you would probably miss if you walked by, but they have really strong Mai-Tai's there that were delicious.  After a drink, I had plans to meet up with James and Mariana for dinner at Burma Superstar (yes, even after a full lunch I had a huge dinner just 4 hours later LOL).  Burma Superstar is famous for their Tea Leaf Salad, which I tried and was pleasantly satisfied.  I also got some spicy lamb curry and it was delicious.

Later that night, I had plans to meet up with Tony at Raven nightclub.  I got there just before 10pm while Brian and Tony had not arrived yet.  It was hilarious though.  There were 3 large bachelorette parties going on and for a short while I was the only guy near the dance floor with maybe 20 or 30 ladies going crazy.  You'll find a picture below.  I drank 4 A.M.F.s that night and didn't feel that drunk...maybe my tolerance is too high.

And so concluded my last night in San Francisco.  At this point I had seen 6 of the 9 friends I hoped to see (Ime was out of town, Vinh doesn't like going out, and Varian was too busy with family).  On Sunday, I walked over to Brian's place near Polk street, which was a mile away from the Hyatt.  I decided to take the scenic route though Lombard street on my hike over, which turned out to be a very challenging idea.  The whole neighborhood around Lombard is so steep, and trying to haul my luggage around up and down the steep slopes was a workout.  I ended up taking plenty of water breaks haha, and eventually I made it to his place after 30 minutes.  For lunch, we grabbed sandwiches at Blue Barn, one of his favorite places to eat around his apartment.  One thing I enjoy doing is visiting a friend, seeing how they live, and going to places they like to eat.  That to me is the way to go; this is friend-seeing travel anyway!  After lunch, my flight didn't leave for a few hours, so I did some work from Brian's apartment, played some PS3, and then left San Francisco in the evening.

This was a good trip for me since it was what I wanted to do and not so much what someone else wanted to do.  So many trips I travel are for weddings, bachelor parties, birthdays, etc.  And while that is all fun too, it's nice to be a little selfish when I can.  Seeing my friends out here made me happy, 'cause without friends I think the city would've been boring (I'm just not into sight-seeing).

Anyhoo, upcoming I have...
Jun 13-15: City Pool Tournament in Tucson
Jun 27-28: USBC Open Championships in Reno
July 4th: Visiting Mike in Washington DC
...so expect more blogging to come in the near future!!!

Oh and by the way, I just coined the term "friendseeing" on Urban Dictionary. :P