Sometimes a week is just a week. Last week at this time I was talking about a slight heat wave and the temperature was supposed to hover at 100 degrees. Well it did, and today is supposed to top out at 103 degrees. What a difference a week makes.

The Labor Day holiday has come and gone and we had a great time. We went up to Lake Almanor on Saturday and had a nice time enjoying the relatively cooler 89 degrees up at the lake. Jennifer and the boys went wake-boarding and knee boarding. Jennifer invited her ex-boyfriend, Jason, and he even wakeboarded in spite of a cast on his right arm from an ATV accident four weeks ago in which he broke his wrist in three places and had to have screws inserted into the bones to let them heal. He wrapped a garbage bag over the cast and had a go on the wake board. I'm not much of a boater and simply watched the proceedings from the comfort of a lounge chair and within arms length of a beverage and my book. Jennifer seemed to particularly enjoy herself and had a good time with David, who has become quite the wake board expert over the course of the summer. He is really getting some air on his jumps and has enjoyed himself immensely this summer. His Dad bought him a $200 wake board for his birthday in May and he's got good use out of it so far this Summer.

Jennifer celebrated her 23rd birthday on Thursday and the family joined Diane and Bill at their home in Folsom on Wednesday night to fete our daughter. Darla finally shared her surprise to Jennifer on her birthday. Darla has been keeping a scrapbook of Jennifer's Army experiences and included in the book are pictures and diplomas from basic training, AIT, and her tower school training. There are pictures from a visit we had with her in San Antonio and included in that was a trip we took to Darryl's home in Houston. Also included is a trip that Jennifer took from her base in Arizona to Dad and Shirley's home in Sun City West. Jennifer was really surprised. Darla was able to find a scrapbook that has the Army seal on it, is green and has the word ARMY on the front of it. Darla has made an Army theme of the book decorating the pages with US Flags and tanks, camouflage, etc. It is really nice and now that Jennifer knows about it, she can send Darla pictures and copies of her orders, etc to continue to add to the book. Jennifer will leave the book with Darla.

Well, I have used this blog to document my golf experiences and it seems that I've had nothing but tremendous success. Well, often reality hits hard. We had our Labor Day tournament on Sunday and I should have known something was out of whack when I lost my ball on the first hole on a drive that was right down the middle. We couldn't find the ball and after five minutes I had to skulk back to the first tee and hit another shot. I double-bogeyed the hole. I then shot two straight birdies and hung on during the front nine for a stellar 38, two over par. I should have headed to the parking lot and gone home then. I started the back nine by drilling a drive dead left into a tree and having the ball ricochet back behind me and by the number eighteen green. I flailed around the perimeter of the tenth hole and finally knocked the ball on in four and then rolled in a thirty foot putt for bogey. I had the shanks on the back side and flailed around the course, going 6 over on the two par threes and finishing with a 49 for a total of 87. This is by far the worst round of the year for me. I've scored worst but I have never gone from great golf to horrible golf from the front nine to the back nine before. The only saving grace on the day was that I won $39 in skin money because of the good front side and I picked up three strokes on my Eclectic score. Our Eclectic tournament runs the entire year and consists of our best scores on every hole on the course in selected tournaments. We have ten "eclectic eligible"events and we take the score for the entire year and subtract from that our index for November of 2003. So far, I have a gross score of 67, which would equate to a net score of 55 with my current index of 11.1. If you're confused, we have guys in the club that play in this year long tournment and they can't figure it out either.

Jennifer has really enjoyed her leave at home. She has been busy juggling her time with three ex-boyfriends, Kevin, Jason and David. I have to hand it to each of them for maintaining their friendships after the romance died. It was never something that I was very good at. Perhaps, as Seinfeld said, it was because I wasn't a good "breaker-upper". I think part of the secret with Jennifer is that two of the guys are still carrying a torch for her and she plays that for all it's worth. All three of the guys are quality people and would give their shirt off their back to help Jennifer. She is lucky to have them in her life.

Jenn is supposedly off on a road trip to San Francisco today. She was supposed to be up early and heading into the city to do some shopping and sight seeing. Darla offered to take the day off and go with her, but Jennifer wanted to go alone. That is one significant difference in Jennifer. She has more self-confidence and has developed something of a loner streak in her. In that, she has become more like her father. I still crave my time of solitude and it's one reason that I enjoy doing the lawn and shrubs. It's my time to decompress and think through things in my life.

Jennifer will get on that big bird and be winging back to Atlanta and her base in Augusta Georgia on Thursday. It's been a good visit. We've enjoyed our time with Jennifer, the boys enjoyer her time and I know that Jennifer really enjoyed getting away from the mundane Army life for 12 days.

Work continues to improve in dribs and brabs. I still worry like the basic control freak that I am, but basically I am slowly growing a base of business and learning the ropes as I go. I almost hit my draw last month and would have except that I closed a big deal right after the cutoff. The upside is that I'm sitting on over a grand in commssions and it's only the second of the month.

The boys start football for real this week as full pad scrimmages against opponents begin on Thursday and Daniel will play in a scrimmage on Saturday. The games begin in two weeks and every Thursday and Friday are reserved for football from then on. David is starting at Safety on defense and is their third quarterback and Daniel will start on both the offensive and defensive lines.

That's it. Be well and keep your feet on the ground and your eyes on the Lord and he will direct your path. Ciao.