It is a dreary, overcast day and my thoughts are already turning to Spring. It has been a mild winter in Northern California and while the rest of the country remains in a frozen state, we have yet to see the temperature dip below freezing this winter. We had 27 days in the 20's and 30's at this time last year and only five so far this year and none below 35 degrees. I have nothing to complain about and it is sixty degrees today as the sun struggles to part the haze and improve the mood of the community.
Super Bowl has come and gone and I was happy to see Tampa Bay put a whoopin' on the Raiders. I was sad to see Gannon have a record setting poor performance in the Super Bowl with his five interceptions (three returned for touchdowns). He is a class act and gives hope to all of us old guys. Darla and I spent the Super Bowl at a party in Rocklin. The host is a friend of a friend, who I play golf with once a month. He is sixty years-old and retired from UAL. (He got out and sold his airline stock when it was $85 a share). He moved here from the Bay Area and sold his little track home for $740,000 and bought a small mansion in Rocklin. His home is five bedrooms and 4400 square feet. He said he bought the nicest house he could find to take the sting out of moving out of the Bay Area. That hurts us locals as we wouldn't dream of moving into the congestion and smog of the Bay Area. He plans on installing a putting green in his back yard, so I may become better friends with him yet. I just got him to join our golf club. He and his wife put on a spectacular party and it was fun to watch the Super Bowl on HDTV. Darla and I won the third quarter of the pool that he had and took home $25...that, of course, was after buying 22 squares at a buck a piece.
My friend, Mark Konrad, who is the webmaster at our golf club had a lung collapse last week. He is 38 years-old and apparently the affliction affects tall, slender white males. I was concerned for myself until Darla pointed out that I'm neither tall nor slender. Nice to have a wife who will tell it like it is. It's like being married to Howard Cosell. Well,..... not really. Mark had a buildup of air in his chest cavity and had been complaining of having pulled a muscle in his side. Finally, when he had trouble breathing, his wife, Pamela, took him to Emergency and they had to install a stent in his chest. He was at the party, but was not doing well. I saw him drink a Buckhalter, which is a non-alcoholic beer. He was partying in his own way. Mark was supposed to have the stent removed yesterday.
We had our Super Bowl golf tournament on Saturday and had over 100 golfers. I played like a hack and shot 43-45=88 and finished out of the money. I went to the course this morning and entered all of the scores from the tournament and transmitted them to the NCGA. Today is the cutoff for scores for the February indexes. I also played Turkey Creek, a tough course in Lincoln, yesterday and shot 87. I played with two guys who shot 106 and 107 respectively, so my 87 was pretty good considering the fact that I spent a lot of time looking for their lost balls and waiting while they duffed their way around the course. Nice guys, but try bowling..or a lesson. Jeesh.
I will be off to Monterey and Phoenix next week as I finally get over to Monterey to close out the storage unit. They wanted me to do this a couple of weeks ago, but couldn't get out of their own way. I need to meet with my boss to go over some planning issues for 2003 as well as let him do an annual review on my performance, so I'll wrap it all into one trip. I leave on Monday and will fly home from Phoenix on Friday. It will be an exhausting trip, but I am hiring a worker to help me load the truck in Monterey and will take my time driving to Phoenix. It is a good 14-hour drive from Monterey and I will break it up into two days. I will see Dad and Shirley while I'm there, but will miss Jennifer. I had hoped to stay the weekend, but I have a qualifier golf tournament on the 8th and 15th of February and have a partner, so I have to fly home. Oy.
Jennifer will visit with Dad in Phoenix this weekend. I'm happy for both of them, but wish that I could be there.
Well, that's it for this epistle. Keep your head up.....unless your playing golf. Ciao.
Tuesday, January 28, 2003
Monday, January 20, 2003
Another Monday, another work week. Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day here in the United States and only federal and state workers and a few corporate entities recognize this day as a true holiday. Several companies dropped Good Friday, an absolute Christian holiday, and replaced it with MLK Day when Congress passed the resolution making the Monday after January 15th a federal holiday. Darla (the good social worker) is lounging on the sofa watching cooking shows on one of her umpteen days off and I try to stay focused here in my office, finally stealing away to the comfort of my blog to while away a piece of my day. Most of my agents are working today, but when you live in the vicinity of a State Capitol on a state and federal holiday, it is hard to get motivated in a work sense.
My weekend was tremendous as usual and made even better by a rare victory at work on Friday. As I've mentioned in previous postings to this journal, the Underwriting side of my company has been turned over to a woman with whom I have a very diverse underwriting philosophy. We have tangled more than a few times on work related issues and the largest has had to do with a very large agent that we have in Southern California. He represents about 8% of our total policy writings and has a life-to-date loss ratio of 114%. Another way to describe that would be to say that for every $1 that we've collected from this agent we have paid out $1.14 in losses. That does not take into account the commissions that we pay this agent nor the cost of business associated with issuing policies and servicing those policy holders. This agent also is a very poor paying agent and represents about 80% of our past due premiums. In other words, the agent is in violation of his contract and, worse yet, a blight on our profit picture. As the head of the Agency Management department of our company, I have lobbied for the better part of a year to have this agent terminated due to the obvious profitability concerns that this agent poses as a stand alone entity and as an excellerant on the downside to our overall profit picture as a company. Time and again, I've been rebuffed by our AVP in my efforts to have this agent held accountable for his results. She personally took over the underwriting, marketing and accounting functions for this agent. That alone is a violation of every tenant of an insurance company. Checks and balances are put in place to guard against the same person who is writing the business from collecting premiums and handling marketing responsibilities. It is a system of checks and balances that prevents collusion and ensures that the entire system works free from any dishonesty or fraud. I finally convinced the CFO and Underwriting Vice President to allow me to approach this agent and give them a "drop dead" date for sending us the $450,000 in late premiums that are due us. (The AVP was allowing the agent to pay last year's premiums with current year commissions, a violation that is unheard of in any insurance company that I've ever been associated with). The CFO was not aware that this had been going on and endorsed my plan. I met with the agent in early December and gave him until December 20th to pay us. To make a long story short, the AVP stepped in after December 20th when we did not receive a check and held off the termination. The CFO came down on her HARD and said that we cannot give an agent a deadline and look the other way when he does not meet the deadline. She continued to argue and I FINALLY got a call last week and was told to cut the agent's throat. I contacted him on Friday and he is history. Wow. Victories have been hard to come by lately and I will savor this one for awhile. Truth and justice does still win in the end.
I played poker on Friday night and brought a bottle of Bacardi Rum with me to celebrate. I found that I felt much better on Saturday morning after drinking Rum and Coke versus beer, which I normally drink. I'm not in any way a heavy drinker, in fact, since marrying Darla who does not drink, I drink very little at all. Beer sits in my refrigerator for months on end. I tend to occasionally drink after golf games...a pitcher of beer and a large basket of french fries for $9 at the clubhouse is a deal hard to pass up. I about broke even at poker, actually turning some of my $60 in change into paper money in the process.
Darla was good enough to give me the nod to play golf on Sunday morning. Mark Konrad, our webmaster at the golf club and a friend had a 7:24 tee time which would allow us to play golf and have the afternoon free to watch football. I had to miss church, which is not something taken lightly in our household. It was a wet, cold and foggy morning, but I brought my game and shot 39-41=80 with ten pars and eight bogeys. Not stellar golf, but certainly consistent and good enough to beat my rivals. Mark shot 86, Bjorn shot 89 and Victor, who is a 9 to my 10, also shot 80. I enjoyed the football yesterday and look forward to seeing Jon Gruden and Tampa Bay take on his old team, the Raiders. I will be rooting for Tampa Bay, as I'm a died in the wool NFC fan (unless the Niners are in it and then I pull for anyone to beat them.) My favorite image in the playoffs so far this year was watching the Bucs dismantle the Niners and shutting up Terrel Owens.
Well, that's it for this week. Be good to yourselves and cherish your friends and family.
Ken
My weekend was tremendous as usual and made even better by a rare victory at work on Friday. As I've mentioned in previous postings to this journal, the Underwriting side of my company has been turned over to a woman with whom I have a very diverse underwriting philosophy. We have tangled more than a few times on work related issues and the largest has had to do with a very large agent that we have in Southern California. He represents about 8% of our total policy writings and has a life-to-date loss ratio of 114%. Another way to describe that would be to say that for every $1 that we've collected from this agent we have paid out $1.14 in losses. That does not take into account the commissions that we pay this agent nor the cost of business associated with issuing policies and servicing those policy holders. This agent also is a very poor paying agent and represents about 80% of our past due premiums. In other words, the agent is in violation of his contract and, worse yet, a blight on our profit picture. As the head of the Agency Management department of our company, I have lobbied for the better part of a year to have this agent terminated due to the obvious profitability concerns that this agent poses as a stand alone entity and as an excellerant on the downside to our overall profit picture as a company. Time and again, I've been rebuffed by our AVP in my efforts to have this agent held accountable for his results. She personally took over the underwriting, marketing and accounting functions for this agent. That alone is a violation of every tenant of an insurance company. Checks and balances are put in place to guard against the same person who is writing the business from collecting premiums and handling marketing responsibilities. It is a system of checks and balances that prevents collusion and ensures that the entire system works free from any dishonesty or fraud. I finally convinced the CFO and Underwriting Vice President to allow me to approach this agent and give them a "drop dead" date for sending us the $450,000 in late premiums that are due us. (The AVP was allowing the agent to pay last year's premiums with current year commissions, a violation that is unheard of in any insurance company that I've ever been associated with). The CFO was not aware that this had been going on and endorsed my plan. I met with the agent in early December and gave him until December 20th to pay us. To make a long story short, the AVP stepped in after December 20th when we did not receive a check and held off the termination. The CFO came down on her HARD and said that we cannot give an agent a deadline and look the other way when he does not meet the deadline. She continued to argue and I FINALLY got a call last week and was told to cut the agent's throat. I contacted him on Friday and he is history. Wow. Victories have been hard to come by lately and I will savor this one for awhile. Truth and justice does still win in the end.
I played poker on Friday night and brought a bottle of Bacardi Rum with me to celebrate. I found that I felt much better on Saturday morning after drinking Rum and Coke versus beer, which I normally drink. I'm not in any way a heavy drinker, in fact, since marrying Darla who does not drink, I drink very little at all. Beer sits in my refrigerator for months on end. I tend to occasionally drink after golf games...a pitcher of beer and a large basket of french fries for $9 at the clubhouse is a deal hard to pass up. I about broke even at poker, actually turning some of my $60 in change into paper money in the process.
Darla was good enough to give me the nod to play golf on Sunday morning. Mark Konrad, our webmaster at the golf club and a friend had a 7:24 tee time which would allow us to play golf and have the afternoon free to watch football. I had to miss church, which is not something taken lightly in our household. It was a wet, cold and foggy morning, but I brought my game and shot 39-41=80 with ten pars and eight bogeys. Not stellar golf, but certainly consistent and good enough to beat my rivals. Mark shot 86, Bjorn shot 89 and Victor, who is a 9 to my 10, also shot 80. I enjoyed the football yesterday and look forward to seeing Jon Gruden and Tampa Bay take on his old team, the Raiders. I will be rooting for Tampa Bay, as I'm a died in the wool NFC fan (unless the Niners are in it and then I pull for anyone to beat them.) My favorite image in the playoffs so far this year was watching the Bucs dismantle the Niners and shutting up Terrel Owens.
Well, that's it for this week. Be good to yourselves and cherish your friends and family.
Ken
Monday, January 13, 2003
Hello again. Another glorious weekend (and aren't they all glorious?) has passed into memory and a new work week stretches out in front of us. Unless, of course, you are retired and reading this and then those of us working stiffs salute you (use your imagination on the manner of salute that we might give). The day shows promise here in Northern California as the sun does battle with a light cloud cover and gives every indication of breaking through and claiming victory.
It was a grand week just passed in that I had NO plumbing emergencies. The boys were with their Dad and therefore chose not to attempt to flush a torn sock or some other oddity known only to them. I did have some clogged downspouts that were overrun with leaves, sticks and other debris. It caught me a bit off guard in that I had placed gutter guards over the entire guttering system around the house last fall in anticipation of the downdraft of leaves from the 21 trees on our property, not to mention the grove of trees at the park across the street. Apparently, some of the smaller buds, needles and sticks had lodged in several of the downspouts and caused the gutters to overflow during the last heavy rainstorm that pelted us. I took down three of the downspouts and hosed them out and reinstalled them. The grates worked well in keeping the larger leaves out of the drains and the gutters and I think I sprayed some debris that was in there from before I moved into the house, so we should be good to go for awhile.
I got the Explorer back on Thursday and it is whole again. My wallet has a little dent in it now and it will be interesting to see if my auto insurance premium is affected. Whatever, we'll take a BIG hit when David gets his license in May. Teenagers. Ouch.
Darla and I have made reservations for Hawaii in November. We are joining Dave Armijo (my golf playing partner at the club) and his wife, Marilyn, at their condo at the Princeville resort on the island of Kawaii. We will fly over on November 2nd and stay until the 9th. I'll play golf twice and promised Darla that she won't be a golf widow in Paradise...although if you have to be a golf widow, what better place to be one? Those of you who know me, know that I'm...well, let's call it frugal, although some of you might use other words to describe it. We are staying at our friend's condo, flying over on air miles that I've collected and the golf is a bit pricey on the islands, so twice will likely be it for golf. We will spend time with Dave and Marilyn, but will also find time for just the two of us as well. We have both been to Hawaii, but we were both 17 and not together at the time. We look forward to the chance to make some memories in Hawaii together. It is a long way off, but I have the tickets sitting in my desk as a marker for November.
David's basketball team continues to excel. They are now 12-3 on the season and have been dominant in most of the games. David has struggled with his shot, but plays ferocious defense and handles the ball as well as a guard. He finally found his touch on Thursday last week and scored 11 points on 5-of- 6 shooting and 1-of-2 free throws. We were concerned that he might lose his starting small forward position as his backup is averaging about 9 points a game, but the coach told David to keep shooting and he is the starter because of his court presence and defense and that is still without peer on the team. Darla and I have really enjoyed the season so far and look forward to the games each week.
I did NOT make it to Phoenix last week, because I made the mistake of going through channels in Home Office. They wanted to get me a corporate rental where UHaul would waive the charges. They were supposed to get back to me on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and I never heard from anyone. Finally, when I was out on Thursday doing inspections, I checked the messages on my cell phone and had a call from Tuesday night from a Uhaul operations manager who was trying to reach me. I use my cell phone as a car phone and hadn't had it on that week as I was in the office all week. How he got my cell number is a mystery. I still have to get to Monterey and clear out that storage unit in the next couple of weeks.
My POKER group starts up for the new year on Friday night. I haven't seen the guys in about five months as we didn't play during David's football season, so it will be good to renew acquaintances. We have been playing a regular poker game since about 1988 and there are five regulars and two semi-regulars.
Hope all is well with all of you. Stay firm in the Lord and HE will direct your path.
It was a grand week just passed in that I had NO plumbing emergencies. The boys were with their Dad and therefore chose not to attempt to flush a torn sock or some other oddity known only to them. I did have some clogged downspouts that were overrun with leaves, sticks and other debris. It caught me a bit off guard in that I had placed gutter guards over the entire guttering system around the house last fall in anticipation of the downdraft of leaves from the 21 trees on our property, not to mention the grove of trees at the park across the street. Apparently, some of the smaller buds, needles and sticks had lodged in several of the downspouts and caused the gutters to overflow during the last heavy rainstorm that pelted us. I took down three of the downspouts and hosed them out and reinstalled them. The grates worked well in keeping the larger leaves out of the drains and the gutters and I think I sprayed some debris that was in there from before I moved into the house, so we should be good to go for awhile.
I got the Explorer back on Thursday and it is whole again. My wallet has a little dent in it now and it will be interesting to see if my auto insurance premium is affected. Whatever, we'll take a BIG hit when David gets his license in May. Teenagers. Ouch.
Darla and I have made reservations for Hawaii in November. We are joining Dave Armijo (my golf playing partner at the club) and his wife, Marilyn, at their condo at the Princeville resort on the island of Kawaii. We will fly over on November 2nd and stay until the 9th. I'll play golf twice and promised Darla that she won't be a golf widow in Paradise...although if you have to be a golf widow, what better place to be one? Those of you who know me, know that I'm...well, let's call it frugal, although some of you might use other words to describe it. We are staying at our friend's condo, flying over on air miles that I've collected and the golf is a bit pricey on the islands, so twice will likely be it for golf. We will spend time with Dave and Marilyn, but will also find time for just the two of us as well. We have both been to Hawaii, but we were both 17 and not together at the time. We look forward to the chance to make some memories in Hawaii together. It is a long way off, but I have the tickets sitting in my desk as a marker for November.
David's basketball team continues to excel. They are now 12-3 on the season and have been dominant in most of the games. David has struggled with his shot, but plays ferocious defense and handles the ball as well as a guard. He finally found his touch on Thursday last week and scored 11 points on 5-of- 6 shooting and 1-of-2 free throws. We were concerned that he might lose his starting small forward position as his backup is averaging about 9 points a game, but the coach told David to keep shooting and he is the starter because of his court presence and defense and that is still without peer on the team. Darla and I have really enjoyed the season so far and look forward to the games each week.
I did NOT make it to Phoenix last week, because I made the mistake of going through channels in Home Office. They wanted to get me a corporate rental where UHaul would waive the charges. They were supposed to get back to me on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and I never heard from anyone. Finally, when I was out on Thursday doing inspections, I checked the messages on my cell phone and had a call from Tuesday night from a Uhaul operations manager who was trying to reach me. I use my cell phone as a car phone and hadn't had it on that week as I was in the office all week. How he got my cell number is a mystery. I still have to get to Monterey and clear out that storage unit in the next couple of weeks.
My POKER group starts up for the new year on Friday night. I haven't seen the guys in about five months as we didn't play during David's football season, so it will be good to renew acquaintances. We have been playing a regular poker game since about 1988 and there are five regulars and two semi-regulars.
Hope all is well with all of you. Stay firm in the Lord and HE will direct your path.
Monday, January 06, 2003
Happy New Year
Monday...glorious Monday. At least I'm trying to convince myself. The holiday season was great. I got out to play golf five times over the last two weeks and I played well in spite of the wet conditions. My worst round was an 87 in pouring rain and my best a 78 in decent conditions. It was nice to get out with friends and enjoy the sunshine.
Our weather has reverted to bright blue skies and sunshine after quite a rainy patch of weather. The sky today is as blue as they come and not a cloud mars the view. The mountains stand out in their snowcapped glory as we look to the east. Today started out foggy and Darla and I had some trouble jump-starting our morning. We both sleepwalked through our shower rituals and she met me at the body shop, where I dropped off the Explorer for it's repairs.
I am without a car until at least Thursday, but my boss wants me to drive to Monterey in a U-Haul truck, clear out the storage locker that we have there and drive on to Phoenix. We have about two hundred file boxes of insurance policies that date back to pre-1995 and are policies written by the company that we took over in 1995, American Sentinel. Their home office was in Monterey, CA and the files were stored there. We occasionally get a call for a file in storage due to an old claim being closed or reopened and they want those files transferred to Phoenix. My boss asked me to pack up the boxes and have them shipped to Phoenix, but they are file boxes with loose lids and I'd spend hours just getting the boxes ready to ship and then they'd have to take all of the tape off at the other end to shelve the files. I offered to pack the boxes in a U-Haul and drive them to Phoenix. I'm a glutton, because driving a U-Haul doesn't pay me mileage or anything extra for my time. I figure it helps the company and saves on expenses, so ....
Jennifer has arrived at the Army base in Fort Huatuca, about 55 miles southeast of Tuscon. The temperatures for Tuscon have been 77 and 76 degrees, so I'm sure she's happy. She is ready for the six weeks of training and is also looking forward to being deployed. Let's pray for a stint in Germany, where a blonde doesn't stick out like they do in, say, Korea. I don't know if I mentioned it or not, but Jennifer has cut off much of her beautiful auburn hair. She had kept it in a ponytail through the first year of her service and tired of having to wash her long hair and constantly have it in a ponytail. I haven't seen it, but it is above her collar and off her shoulders per Army regulations. She says it is about the same length as Darla's.
We had a good New Years, although our sink in the kitchen decided to clog up late in the afternoon. It is a double sink with a garbage disposal on one side and a regular drain on the other. Our guests were our good friends from church, Rob and Cheryl, and Rob and I took a drive to the store and picked up some Drano. I poured the concoction into both drains as the water was running from one basin to the other when I plunged it. We let it sit for 45 minutes and played some games (New Years was game day with dice, cards, basketball, Risk and the ladies working on puzzles while they talked each other's ears off). The clog was severe as the water moved from one basin to the other and we had to hold the plugs down while I plunged or I'd get a volcano effect in the other drain. Rob could see that I was getting exercised and he said, "Let's pull the plumbing." I bailed the water into a bucket and finally cleared it out. I laid towels at the bottom of the sink and took the pipes apart at the slip mountings. The clog in the neck was unbelievable and I know now that garbage disposals are BAD for pipes and plumbing. There was all matter of debris in the neck of the drain (eggshells, rinds, grounds, etc) and I took the pipe out and hosed it out completely. It took five minutes to take it apart and five minutes to re-install it and it works like a charm. I'm turning in to a regular plumber, although I don't sport the "Norge" crack at the rear of my pants. My father-in-law, Earl, lives in the country and has a well and septic tank and refuses to install a garbage disposal because they are so bad for the plumbing pipes. I've realized that now and will make cleaning that pipe a regular maintenance item now. In fact, I went in and cleaned out the pipes on both sinks in the master bathroom and will likely do the other two bathrooms and the laundry room this weekend.
Darla and the boys went up skiing on January 2nd at Donner Ski Ranch. Donner is famous in my family for being the spot where I blew out a ligament in my knee on a senior ski trip in high school. I have never skiied since due to memories of the pain, the humiliation of being carted down the hill in a toboggan by the ski patrol, and a general dislike for cold, wet conditions. Darla and the boys had a ball, although Darla and Daniel started the day out in a bad way. They each transferred one rental boot from their rental to each other and when they were dressed and ready to ski, one ski wouldn't connect to one boot for each of them. They couldn't figure it out until they took it back to the rental counter and the guy at the counter looked at both of their blonde heads and pointed out their faux paus. That was an OOPS! David and his friend, Nick (who is Rob's stepson and Cheryl's son), got tired of waiting and left them behind to get in one additional run. Darla and the boys skiied, while Nick snowboarded. They had a great time and came back sore and tired.
We will be starting a bible study with Rob and Cheryl and two other couples next Wednesday. We will be studying from a text called, "Blended Families, Creating Harmony as You Begin A New Home Life." Each of the couples are remarried and have children from prior marriages. This will give us a chance to share some of our experiences and learn methods to deal with parenting someone else's children. We all look forward to the interaction. It should be fun, it should produce even closer friendships and it should allow us an opportunity to fellowship together on a topic that many people wouldn't understand.
Monday...glorious Monday. At least I'm trying to convince myself. The holiday season was great. I got out to play golf five times over the last two weeks and I played well in spite of the wet conditions. My worst round was an 87 in pouring rain and my best a 78 in decent conditions. It was nice to get out with friends and enjoy the sunshine.
Our weather has reverted to bright blue skies and sunshine after quite a rainy patch of weather. The sky today is as blue as they come and not a cloud mars the view. The mountains stand out in their snowcapped glory as we look to the east. Today started out foggy and Darla and I had some trouble jump-starting our morning. We both sleepwalked through our shower rituals and she met me at the body shop, where I dropped off the Explorer for it's repairs.
I am without a car until at least Thursday, but my boss wants me to drive to Monterey in a U-Haul truck, clear out the storage locker that we have there and drive on to Phoenix. We have about two hundred file boxes of insurance policies that date back to pre-1995 and are policies written by the company that we took over in 1995, American Sentinel. Their home office was in Monterey, CA and the files were stored there. We occasionally get a call for a file in storage due to an old claim being closed or reopened and they want those files transferred to Phoenix. My boss asked me to pack up the boxes and have them shipped to Phoenix, but they are file boxes with loose lids and I'd spend hours just getting the boxes ready to ship and then they'd have to take all of the tape off at the other end to shelve the files. I offered to pack the boxes in a U-Haul and drive them to Phoenix. I'm a glutton, because driving a U-Haul doesn't pay me mileage or anything extra for my time. I figure it helps the company and saves on expenses, so ....
Jennifer has arrived at the Army base in Fort Huatuca, about 55 miles southeast of Tuscon. The temperatures for Tuscon have been 77 and 76 degrees, so I'm sure she's happy. She is ready for the six weeks of training and is also looking forward to being deployed. Let's pray for a stint in Germany, where a blonde doesn't stick out like they do in, say, Korea. I don't know if I mentioned it or not, but Jennifer has cut off much of her beautiful auburn hair. She had kept it in a ponytail through the first year of her service and tired of having to wash her long hair and constantly have it in a ponytail. I haven't seen it, but it is above her collar and off her shoulders per Army regulations. She says it is about the same length as Darla's.
We had a good New Years, although our sink in the kitchen decided to clog up late in the afternoon. It is a double sink with a garbage disposal on one side and a regular drain on the other. Our guests were our good friends from church, Rob and Cheryl, and Rob and I took a drive to the store and picked up some Drano. I poured the concoction into both drains as the water was running from one basin to the other when I plunged it. We let it sit for 45 minutes and played some games (New Years was game day with dice, cards, basketball, Risk and the ladies working on puzzles while they talked each other's ears off). The clog was severe as the water moved from one basin to the other and we had to hold the plugs down while I plunged or I'd get a volcano effect in the other drain. Rob could see that I was getting exercised and he said, "Let's pull the plumbing." I bailed the water into a bucket and finally cleared it out. I laid towels at the bottom of the sink and took the pipes apart at the slip mountings. The clog in the neck was unbelievable and I know now that garbage disposals are BAD for pipes and plumbing. There was all matter of debris in the neck of the drain (eggshells, rinds, grounds, etc) and I took the pipe out and hosed it out completely. It took five minutes to take it apart and five minutes to re-install it and it works like a charm. I'm turning in to a regular plumber, although I don't sport the "Norge" crack at the rear of my pants. My father-in-law, Earl, lives in the country and has a well and septic tank and refuses to install a garbage disposal because they are so bad for the plumbing pipes. I've realized that now and will make cleaning that pipe a regular maintenance item now. In fact, I went in and cleaned out the pipes on both sinks in the master bathroom and will likely do the other two bathrooms and the laundry room this weekend.
Darla and the boys went up skiing on January 2nd at Donner Ski Ranch. Donner is famous in my family for being the spot where I blew out a ligament in my knee on a senior ski trip in high school. I have never skiied since due to memories of the pain, the humiliation of being carted down the hill in a toboggan by the ski patrol, and a general dislike for cold, wet conditions. Darla and the boys had a ball, although Darla and Daniel started the day out in a bad way. They each transferred one rental boot from their rental to each other and when they were dressed and ready to ski, one ski wouldn't connect to one boot for each of them. They couldn't figure it out until they took it back to the rental counter and the guy at the counter looked at both of their blonde heads and pointed out their faux paus. That was an OOPS! David and his friend, Nick (who is Rob's stepson and Cheryl's son), got tired of waiting and left them behind to get in one additional run. Darla and the boys skiied, while Nick snowboarded. They had a great time and came back sore and tired.
We will be starting a bible study with Rob and Cheryl and two other couples next Wednesday. We will be studying from a text called, "Blended Families, Creating Harmony as You Begin A New Home Life." Each of the couples are remarried and have children from prior marriages. This will give us a chance to share some of our experiences and learn methods to deal with parenting someone else's children. We all look forward to the interaction. It should be fun, it should produce even closer friendships and it should allow us an opportunity to fellowship together on a topic that many people wouldn't understand.
