It is late Monday and the shadows are growing longer as Autumn begins to take hold. We change the clocks on Saturday night to Fall back for daylight losing time. It's already getting dark around 6:45 pm. In fact it gets dark so early that I have to reset the timer on my backyard landscaping lights. The lights have already switched off by the time we go out to use the spa at eleven pm. The timer has the lights come on at dusk and stay on for five hours. The backyard is so shaded that the lights are coming on at 5:30 and going off at 10:30.

Darla had a speaking engagement last week at the Kiwanis Club. One of the parents of her clients is a member of Kiwanis and asked if Darla could come to a meeting and share what she does and the services that she provides disabled people. I know that I married Darla because of her humor and her vivaciousness and the plain fact that she is so much like my Mom. Darla enjoyed a nice meal and then was introduced to speak. As she was getting out of her chair, she got her foot stuck in her purse and almost lost her balance. As the applause droned on, she quickly was able to extract her foot and get on to her speech. Now does that sound like something Mom would have done? The only difference is that only Darla was aware of her faux paus. Mom would have shared her ordeal with the whole room and had a good laugh at herself.

Jennifer sent me a newspaper article that was done on her in the local Augusta paper. I passed it on to most of you, but it was nice to see Jennifer getting some accodaldes for the work that she is doing. I'm proud of her more than I can put into words. She is truly a soldier for the United States of America.

I played no golf this weekend, although I think the guys were missing each other so we had a get together at the local Joe's Crab Shack over at the water's edge in Old Sacramento. We had a great evening and there were about 24 of us in attendance, mostly board members and their spouses, but a few others. We had the waiter recognize two bogus birthdays (we only wanted to embarass the two guys) They had one dress up in a plastic chest armor and carry a sword and the other dress up with wings and a wand. I guess that would be a fairy, although that is a bit politically incorrect to say so in this state.

I was elected Vice President of the RGC golf club. I'm going from a paid volunteer position to an unpaid volunteer position. I received a yearly stipend of $300 as the handicap chairman and this was in recognition of all of the scores that I input after each tournament and the resolution of any handicapping problems that come up during the year. As VP, I get to do the dirty work of the President at no pay. The President receives free green fees at home tournaments, which is better than a stick in the eye and is worth more than $300, as we have 20 home dates, At $29 a pop, that works out to $780. I will be in charge of the newsletter, which I'm sure I'll enjoy and be in a learning mode as the VP steps up to President for the next election.

The boys' football games were played in El Dorado, CA, a small foothill town just west of Placerville off Highway 50. Daniel's team lost 24-22 on Thursday night and the Varsity worked themselves to the bone for ANOTHER tie, 21-21. We had a chance to go ahead in the game with five minutes left, but our coach elected to go for a touchdown from the four yard line on a fourth down play and we were stopped on the half yard line. We should have kicked the field goal and the fans were actually booing the decision to go for the touchdown. David had another great hit on a kickoff, when he slipped past the wedge and cut down the runner on the 14 yard line, basically knocking his feet out from under him with a vicious low tackle that had the stands oohing and aweing. Our record is now 1-3-2 and looks more like a good hole-by- hole miniature golf score.

Darla and I volunteered for some community service through our church this weekend. Our pastor is really pushing the concept of getting out into the community and making a difference. He wants us to wear Christian t-shirts and be seen doing good. Of course, the rest of the volunteers were mostly boy scouts and other churches, including LDS. We went to a public park at 8 am and put in a cedar fence around a newly planted and barked grove of trees. The fence was about 200 feet long and we spent about three hours cementing posts and notching and scewing in the stringers. The fence is two rail and about three feet high, more decorative than practical. It was a great day and Darla ended up sitting with a woman going through a divorce and talking to her as we worked. There were so many workers, we were tripping over each other. It felt good to give something back.

I have been contacted by Bill Souza at Burns and Wilcox and he is ready to hire me. I'll be meeting with him on Thursday to iron out the details. I have yet to hear back from Keenan and Associates, the school insurer, but perhaps God is pointing me to Burns and Wilcox. I'm definitley feeling led as this job combusts around me. Richter Robb had their open house for the new office in Lathrop on Friday. The problem is the office sits next door to a salvage yard and we could get a rather ripe smell wafting in the air as we sat out on the lawn and drank white wine and made small talk. There is a large "No Dumping" sign on the road leading to our office and it had a mattress, a small car engine and several boxes and other debris leaned up against it. Quite a professional site to behold on the way to our new office. I'll be happy to move on after our vacation in Kauai.

That's it for this week. Be good to each other. Ciao.