Urban Renewal

It is Monday morning, the day after a good soaking rainstorm. The sun is out, the sky is blue, the grass is green and the trees are blooming. I have two fruitless cherry trees (a misnomer if there ever was one) that are in their pink and white glory right now. I drove into the office this morning albeit a bit late by my standards and the sun was already out and I had to use my sunglasses instead of my headlights. It is true that the dead of Winter is ready to give way to the hope and the beauty of Spring. I was just recently getting to work and leaving work in darkness and now I leave for work at sunrise and leave for home at sunset. Soon I will have sun on both ends of my day and I look forward to it. I have seen some awesome sunrises recently with the clouds on the horizon as well as some incredible sunsets with purples, reds and golds to light up the sky. Nice.

We had a great weekend with the boys. David's basketball team won their first round playoff game with an inspired effort. That win bought them the opportunity to play Natomas for a third time. They are the league champions and beat us twice in the regular season, although we had sizable leads in both games only to lose to a better coached and more athletic squad. This time was different, but we still lost. Natomas played solid basketball from the opening tip and lead almost the entire contest. They had a 7 point lead with just over five minutes left before Woodcreek went on a furious rally lead by a great defensive effort. We scored the next eight points to take a one point lead at 41-40 with under a minute left. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be and Natomas scored twice to win 44-41. Our center, Ike Okouye had a layup fall out that would have given us the lead. They stole an inbounds pass after they scored to go up 42-41 and hit both free throws. Our effort to tie with a three pointer at the end ended up short and the game ended and David's Senior season and high school career came to a sudden and abrupt end. There was a nice picture of David driving for a basket in the game in the local paper, but the online version doesn't include pictures. Here is the story: http://www.thepresstribune.com/articles/2005/02/26/sports/01third.txt

Darla and I took the boys to dinner at Buca Di Pepo on Saturday night. It is an Italian restaurant that serves family style. We enjoyed Chicken Marsala, Lasagna, and a medley of baked pasta dishes. We had a gift certificate that we won at the RGC Christmas party, so it was even better for me. Darla had a CPR class all day on Saturday and got home in time to go to dinner with us.

I, of course, played golf on Sunday. I won't say who I played with because of an incident that happened while we were playing. All of the guys that I played with are good friends and it was nice to get together again and play some golf. One of the guys had a stellar front nine and won most of the money....in fact he won skins on the first seven holes. Unfortunately, his day turned bad from there and he went on to have a horrendous round of golf. He shot 42 on the front and 52 on the back. He was pulling putts and on one hole he decelerated on a three- foot putt to win a skin and hit the ball about one foot. He was not happy and muttering to himself as he walked off the green. One of his best friends told him that he needed to stop "choking". The guy went off and started yelling at his buddy. I had to step between them. He said it was horrible to tell a guy that he was "choking" in the middle of the round and dropped a few expletives. Again, I told him to settle down, that we are all friends out for a fun round of golf. He asked me if I thought it was okay to tell someone they were choking in the middle. I'd about had it with him by then and told him that it was okay to say IF it was true and it was. He muddled his way throught the end of the round, three putting all three of the last holes. When it came time to settle up, he decided to go off on his friend again, literally screaming at him. It was embarassing to watch this guy melt down on the golf course. I stepped between them and put my arm around his back to move him away and he slapped at my hand. I got right in his face and told him to settle down. We've all had bad rounds and he needed to get over it. He didn't and I had to calm his friend down afterward. He was really upset over the way he was treated and needed to vent. We talked out in the parking lot for about ten minuts and left. I expect an apology from this guy this week. He was out of control and obviously has some anger control issues. His anger was misplaced at his friend, when he should have been upset with himself. I was fine, I birdied the last hole and won $16 in skin money from the group. I struggled on the front side with the wet conditions and shot 45, but pulled it together on the back and shot 41 for an 86. It's the third straight time I've shot 86 and I'm anxious to get that down closer to 80 in the near future.

I've had a sore muscle between my shoulder blades and running up to my neck for about a week. I first felt it last weekend when I played golf in the two day tournament. God forbid that my back problems return. It hasn't been too bad, but golf exacerbates the problem. I was so looking forward to the hot tub last night after golf, but the rains came in about 5:30 and by mid evening it was a torrent. Darla suggested that we go in the spa and take a golf umbrella and it took no arm twisting to get me out there. We no sooner got settled in the tub when a hard squall hit and we sat there under the Wilson umbrella trying to stay dry and keep our towels from getting soaked at the same time. I am blessed to have an adventuresome wife. We had a good laugh as the rain was pounding off the umbrella and we sat enjoying a good soak in the tub.

Work continues to be a source of stress, but also of some accomplishment. We close February today and we will again make a small profit this month. The home office is just closing a deal to bring two of the underwriters from Richter Robb over to Burns and Wilcox as a satellite office. I worked at Richter Robb for three months before jumping ship to Burns and Wilcox. Their office will be in Modesto and they will be a satellite office reporting to the Sacramento office. The two women that are coming over are the two main producers in the home office and handle over $19,000,000 in premium volume. I talked to Dad and he expects Richter Robb to counter, but I just talked to our Underwriting Vice President and he told me that the two women are primed to move. They have already picked out office space and will quit tomorrow. The kicker here is that the owner of Richter Robb has repeatedly lowballed these gals on both salary and income and they know what kind of money they can make here at BW.

I did talk to Dad and a big congratulations to him on taking 1st and 3rd place with his two cars at the Abbottsford Custom Car Show. He said he made a lot of rookie mistakes in setting up the cars and even in classifying the '39 in the modified category rather than in the stock division, but 1st and 3rd in a show that had over 300 cars, not bad. Like a hole in one in your first round of golf. He has been invited to bring his cars up to the Custom Car show in Spokane, Washington the end of March and will do so. The promoter of the show was in Abbottsford and wants Dad's cars for his show. Big props to the old man. Nice job, Dad. Shirley had helped decorate the cars putting a cooler of Cherry Cola and a bowl of plastic cherries in the trunk of the 39 for atmosphere. Funny, but Dad saw Noreen, our cousin and his niece at the show. She didn't know that Dad would be there and saw his name as the owner of the '39 and '46. They were able to catch up and she was with her husband, Brent and some friends, just out for a day at the car show. Small world.

I just checked Jennifer's blog and she passed the promotion board. You go, girl. We'll be soon calling her Sergeant Lyon. Iknow she's frustrated with her role as primary armorer, but it kept her out of Iraq. She volunteered to return to Iraq, but they turned her down as they need her on site to issue the weapons. Dad here is thrilled that they wouldn't let her return to the site of car bombings and insurgents trying to kill all Americans. Stay put there in Kuwait, Jen. In the sunshine and out of harms way. Congratulations, Jennifer. You are my hero.

Well, I've got to get on with my day. We close the books at noon today and I've got to see if I can get some more money booked before we close. I hope all is well with each of you. Give a thumbs up to the Lord. As they say, if you were born once, you'll die twice, but if you are born twice, you'll die but one time. Praise God. Ciao.