Jennifer with her friend Sara at the airport

Jennifer made it home after a grueling set of flights that took her from Kuwait to Shannon, Ireland and then on to Dallas, Texas and finally home to Sacramento. She is thrilled to be back and ready to relax and renew some friendships and spend time with family. The highlight of her trip was when the locals in Dallas met the plane on the tarmac with two fire engines spraying water over the plane and a small band greeting the soldiers as they exited the aircraft. There was a group on hand waving flags and applauding the soldiers and several restaurants had water and muffins for the returning soldiers. Jennifer was able to catch up with Randy, who made a special point of flying home early from Philadelphia to see Jennifer. He and Cake took Jennifer and a lieutenant that she met on the plane out to breakfast off the airport site. Jennifer was amazed at the welcome she received from the people of Texas, as several approached their table and welcomed her home and thanked her for her service. The restaurant manager greeted them at the table and paid for their breakfast. It was a nice homecoming and says as much about the patriotism and hospitality of the Texas people as anything. As the lieutenant from Orange County said, we won't get this reception in California!

It was a great gesture by Randy to meet with Jennifer and help welcome her home and I appreciate it. He hopes to see her on the return trip as well. It will be a great couple of weeks with her home. We are taking the jet ski out tomorrow afternoon. That's it for now. Ciao.

Jennifer home after 22 hours in the air

The Prodigal Soldier Returns!

Yes. Jennifer will be home this week. She may even be on her way as I write this as she had to fly from Kuwait City to Germany and then catch a flight from Germany to Dallas, Tx. From there she takes an American Airlines flight to Sacramento. I've talked to her a couple of times in the last week and she is beyond homesick and ready for the two weeks of R&R. She called last night in the middle of the night and left a message that she will get in to Sacramento at 1:30 tomorrow afternoon. It has been so HOT in Kuwait and the days are so long, she can't wait to get back to Sacramento. We will have 104 degrees to greet her tomorrow, but it will seem cool to her after 122 degrees. I will take a few afternoons off to go to the lake with Jennifer and hope to get a day or two off to go up to Reno if I can squeeze into Jennifer's busy schedule.

I was able to talk to both Darryl and Randy yesterday. Randy is busy globetrotting for his job and it sounds like he is doing well. I talked to him while he was in Philadelphia and preparing for a meeting today. I don't think I'd enjoy the amount of travel that he does, but it gives him great perks in airline miles and hotel upgrades and car rental upgrades when he travels for pleasure. It also sounds like his company is doing really well and he is sharing in the increased profits, which is the whole point, eh? Darryl is just back from a trip to Canada and a quick visit with Dad and Shirley. They were able to golf a few times and Darryl helped Dad with a car show in Washington state. Darryl said that Dad won another first place prize for Best Canadian. I assume his car won too.

Work here continues at a frenetic pace and trying to carve some time out to spend with Jenn will be a challenge (and one that I'm up to by the way). I am in the office by seven most days and out by six pm and those fifty hour weeks take a toll after awhile. I'm having a very good month in July and August is shaping up to be even better. We made a nice profit last month even with my extended absence due to vacation and this month appears to be tracking just as well in spite of the loss of Gail to surgery and the subsequent rehabilitation and medical leave. All three of the new underwriters are excelling and each will earn a nice quarterly bonus. The bonus money should serve as a nice incentive going forward and their success is my success, so it's all good.

Darla and the boys returned from a week in Almanor, tired, spent, but happy. We had planned on taking the jet ski out yesterday, but the boy's friends all bailed and just Darla and I ended up at the beach at Granite Bay yesterday. The boys needed some down time. Darla did too, but I needed a trip to the lake. We left the jet ski at home, but took the air mattresses and floated out on the lake in the 103 degree heat. The lake water is so warm right now. I ended up with a light burn from the intensity of the sun. I didn't reapply sunscreen after being in the water and I paid for it. The beach was not as crowded as normal for whatever reason and it was a nice day spent just relaxing at the beach.

I've ordered two new ski vests (one for Darla and one for me) off the internet and a set of ski gloves for me. I found that the vibration of driving the ski at full throttle in rough water caused my hands to go numb on the yoke. We don't have cruise control, but as the guy that sold me the unit said, he'd throw in cruise control for an extra $50. He was holding a rubber band when he said that. Wise guy.
I've also ordered an owner's manual and I still want to get a dual gas tank holder for the trailer.

I played golf on Saturday and shot 45+42=87. Not my best by far. We teed off at 7:00 AM and beat the heat on Saturday. We were done by 11:00 AM and it was nice. I lost an 8 iron when I played in an insurance tournament two weeks ago and It never did turn up. I called Clubfinders, which is an internet based club replacement service. For $59.95 and $10 shipping, they replace a lost club out of a set. I have Wilson Deep Red II irons and they sent me a Wilson Deep Red 8 iron replacement. It doesn't match exactly, but has the modified fat shaft and a similar head design. I play in our annual three club tournament this weekend and will play with a driver, 8 iron and putter. Alot of the players will use three wood, a middle iron and putter and a few use their driver in place of a putter. As any good golfer knows, a five foot putt counts as much as a three hundred yard drive and I'd never play a round of golf without a putter. I'll let you know how I end up.

Again, it should be a great week or two with Jennifer home. I'll bring you up to date on her wanderings in the next epistle and even add a picture or two. I hope you all have a great week and continually give thanks to the Lord for all of the riches that he provides in your life. Be well. Ciao.

Our New Waverunner...David wondering why he let Daniel Drive!

David and Daniel off to have fun

David and Daniel on the Waverunner

A Waverunner surprise for the boys? NOT!

Just back from a relaxing and thoroughly enjoyable trip to Lake Almanor. It has not always been my favorite spot for Summer vacation, but this trip was great for a variety of reasons. First of all, the weather was hot and the lake water was WARM. Almanor is a mountain lake and is fed from the snowfall on Mt Lassen and to a lessor degree Mt Shasta. Although the lower lakes are also fed by snow runoff, the lower elevation lakes are in a hotter climate and warm up much better than Almanor. We have beeen stuck in a heat wave in the valley and it has taken hold in NorCal. Even Almanor at 4200 feet elevation has had daytime temps in the mid nineties and overnight lows in the sixties. We have stayed at Almanor years where we had the heaters blasting in our cabin and still we were freezing as the overnight lows dipped into the low forties and upper thirties. It would be hard for any lake to hold a decent temperature in those extremes.

As the title hints, Darla and I bought a Yamaha Waverunner, a 155 hp PWC with plenty of punch and a top end speed into the sixties. The boys have been busy with vacation with their Dad and off to church camp last week. They came home late on Saturday and ended up driving up to the lake on Sunday. We had an opportunity to buy the Waverunner at a good price, including the trailer and decided to jump on it with the lake vacation this week. We kept it a secret from the boys and concocted a plan to surprise them when they got to Almanor. The plan was that they would go out knee boarding on Earl's boat and I'd come riding up on the Waverunner. Darla was going to be on the boat with her camera to record the surprise. We waited Sunday for them to arrive and Darla and I made several runs across the lake to test out the craft. It is a 2001 Waverunner with a new motor (the old one conked out under warranty) that has just 40 hours on the water. The boys finally showed up at 4:30 and were raring to go. We talked to them for a bit down by the water and told them to go get changed into swim suits. We were ready to spring our surprise. They were gone for about fifteen minutes and came back and Daniel said, with a big grin, "Which one is ours?" We looked at him kind of funny and asked him what he was talking about. "The Jet Ski, which one is ours?" We again asked him what he was talking about and tried to play it cool until Frances blurted out, "OK, who told you?" We had told all of our friends at the resort that the ski was a surprise and to keep it on the q.t. It turns out that no one had told them. Daniel is a bright kid and just followed the clues.

First of all, when they got home from church camp (Darla and I were already up at Almanor), they found the Ford oval laying in the laundry room on top of my socket set. We bought the oval as a plug for the slide hitch housing. When they got up to Almanor and parked at the cabin, they saw the jet ski trailer parked on the side of the cabin. Finally, Daniel found the six bottles of Yamalube 2W oil behind the front door of the cabin. The surprise was ruined, but not the enjoyment and appreciation of the gift by the boys. They rode it hard yesterday and today and had already gone through a tank of gas (18.5 gallons) and three quarts of oil. The oil is injected into the gas as the engine is a two stroke engine and takes a combination of gas and oil. The high horsepower eats the gas and it could be an expensive week.

The jet ski will also come in handy next week when Jennifer returns from Kuwait for a twelve day vacation. I'm sure Jen and her friends will make good use of the ski during her time home. I'm really looking forward to seeing her and the jet ski is one reason that we finally talked. I left her a message that I had a Big Surprise for her when she came home and she was finally able to get ahold of me. Amazing.

We were able to go to church up at Almanor and this is our fourth Summer with the same Pastor. He is just starting a series on the Ten Commandments and started with number ten, which is "Though Shalt not covet." The pastor said that this commandment is the basis of all of the commandments, because if you break any of them, it will likely come back to the sin of coveting, whether it is stealing, killing or commiting adultery, the seed of the sin is coveting something that you did not have. It was an interesting sermon and it put a nice bow on my long weekend.

Darla came up to me today when I was finishing gassing up the jet ski and adding oil. She said that we had a problem in the bathroom at the cabin. I just assumed it was Daniel clogging the plumbing, but in fact the sink had fallen off the wall. It had glanced off of Darla's leg, but stopped short of smashing her feet as the hoses to the hot and cold water and the hose to the drain held it up. It turns out that the sink is attached to the pine wall of the bathroom and water had slowly worked it's way behind the sink and rotted out the wall. Whoever had installed the sink had used 3/4 inch stud screws and they came loose. Frank, the owner of the resort, and I reinstalled the sink using four 1 1/2 inch stud screws. Again Amazing.

We bought the jet ski as part of our proceeds from refinancing the house. I had to sign papers on Friday at four PM. Friday was my last day before a three day weekend and I had my senior underwriter, Gail out on medical leave. She has plumbing issues herself and will be out at least a month. Her agents all seemed to call me. I also got calls from a high number of my agents, several with immediate needs that I HAD to get to before COB (close of business). My Monday off turned into my Friday...meaning that my Friday was like the Monday from Hell. I didn't handle the pressure well and was close to losing it several times. I finally got out of the office at 3:55 PM and called the house to let them know I'd be late. I rushed out of there with the phone still ringing, but all of my promised tasks completed. I got home after a spate of bad traffic at 4:30 apologetic as all get out to the Notary , who had been visiting with Darla for half an hour and they were fast friends. My day soon became worse as I realized that my wallet was still in my desk drawer at work. The notary, of course, wanted proof that I was who I said I was. I showed her my just expired license, but she was all by the book and needed to see the current license. She offered to drive back to Rancho Cordova and to meet us at my office. I told her that it was my bonehead move and that, if she preferred, I'd just drop by her home and show her the ID. She agreed. So, Darla and I hightailed it back to my work and then over to the Notary's home in Fair Oaks. We got home about 7:30 and I again took Darla out to dinner (See last week's blog, same bonehead move). We were just relaxing watching the late night news after a marathon day, when the phone rang. We thought it might be the boys, but it was the Notary calling. She had triple-checked her papers and found a missing signature page. She wanted to make arrangements to meet the next morning to get the form signed. I had an eight o'clock tee time (41+41=82!!) and couldn't make it. With Darla going out of town for a week, we needed to do something. The Notary said it was her fault and she came over to our house at midnight where we signed the missing paper. A perfect end to a perfectly awful day.

I hope your week is more like the boys': all fun, sun and happy times. Turn to the Lord and you will experience Mercy, Forgiveness and Peace, something that is very missing in the mass of humanity these days. Think about it. Ciao.

Summer Doldrums

Believe it or not, I've been sitting at work for close to an hour and finally realized that I needed to update the blog. That hasn't happened before and I can only blame it on the hot, hazy, lazy days of Summer. I did get to read the paper cover to cover and get caught up on the nasty doings in the world.

Darla and I had a nice, relaxing weekend, although it didn't start out that way. I forgot my wallet at work on Friday night and didn't realize it until I stopped for gas on my way home. What a bonehead move as work is a good half hour away from home. I called Darla and told her that I'd pick her up and take her to dinner. She was enthused until I mentioned that I had left my wallet at work and we'd eat in Rancho Cordova. The boys were just home from their vacation with their Dad and they were leaving again for a week at a Christian Camp in Viola in So Cal. They had wash to do and would see us about 8:30 PM. Darla and I drove all the way back to my work to pick up my wallet and then I took her to Samarai Sushi for dinner. Neither of us are overly keen on sushi, but they have a nice menu of cooked Japanese food and we settled on the shrimp tempura for Darla and I had the teriyaki chicken with tempura. It was good and Darla was a good sport given my boneheadedness.

The boys did meet us about nine-thirty as it turned out and we got caught up on their travels through the asphalt clogged cities of Washington, DC, Boston, Philadelphia and New York. Again, this isn't my idea of a Summer vacation, but I'm glad that Steve could show the kids some of the east coast. I'll show them Florida and the beaches of South Carolina some day. They were up early on Saturday to meet the SUVs at church for their trip to Southern California. They spent yesterday at Disneyland. Not a bad Summer for the guys so far, eh? They will get home on Saturday and leave Sunday for a week with Darla and her family at Lake Almanor. I will be there until Monday when I return to run the office here. Peter will be out next week and Gail starts her month medical leave on Monday as well. Darla would like me to go up some year and spend the whole week in Almanor, but until I get three weeks of vacation, I don't see it happening. The venue is nice, but it's a mountain lake and the water is freezing. Somehow, I prefer the oceans of Puerto Vallarta or Kauai, where the water temperature is 80 degrees.

I played golf on Saturday in the Buick Scramble with Mel, Steve Matthews and Boyd. We shot a ten under par 62, but lost out to the winners at 58. The team wasn't strong, but Boyd kept us in the match all day and we even managed two eagles on the front side, both on the par 5s. Our undoing were the par threes, where we parred each of them. Finally, we bogeyed the 17th hole of the day (Number 8 as we started on number 10), which was dumb, but it didn't hurt us as we were already out of the tournament. I had a good time, but it was expensive. It cost $65 a man to play, plus green fees and then we had to provide a scorer as well for another team. We paid Mel's son $32 to do the job. Jean Paulo was thrilled and at fifteen, it was his first paid job. The guys in front of us used Jean Paulo and they were supposed to let him ride in the cart. Somehow they talked him into hanging off the back of the cart and we saw him hanging on for dear life as they careened across the course.

Darla and I have bought a pass for Folsom Lake and we spent Sunday at the lake. We left straight from church and stopped at the local grocery store for sandwiches while I dashed into the Taco Bell to change into my swim suit. We got to the lake about 11:00AM and it was mostly deserted. One of the local Granite Bay churches has their worship service at the beach and they were there around the corner on the point. The lifeguards were just coming on and we set up our towel, chairs, umbrella and ice chest a short distance from the first lifeguard tower. We noticed that a horse had visited the beach early and had deposited an offering a ways down from our blanket. We were far enough from the offending nugget to have it not interfere with our enjoyment of the beach. As the day wore on, the little equine prize kept us from having neighbors too close as they would see the deposit and move on. Finally a couple with a small child set up camp within spitting distance of the roadie and Darla felt compelled to mention it to them. The wife looked at Darla and said, "yeah, we saw it." She seemed unconcerned, so we went back to our books. Several minutes later, their friends joined them and the woman took one look at the horse puck and began yelling, "Why are you sitting next to a turd? I'm not setting up by a turd. Did you see the turd? Bubba, it's a great big TURD!" Bubba turned out to be her brother and a more fitting name could not have been applied to this large, okefied man. His sister was also of a rather large frame. She ranted awhile longer about the TURD and finally grabbed her daughter's beach pail and shovel and scooped up the offending fecal matter and sent it flying up the beach. Why she didn't put it in the trash can is beyond me. Darla and I were howling with laughter by now and she walked by and muttered something about why a woman had to pick up the turd rather than the men. I told her, "yeah, that's a bunch of crap." She wasn't amused.

We returned hom in the late afternoon after spending an hour at Alicia's fixing her sprinklers, which were alternately geysers or completely buried in the lawn. I had to locate three heads that were overgrown in the grass and when I showed Alicia, her comment was, "I didn't know I had sprinklers on that side of the lawn." I need to work with David to make sure that I get him to trim back the grass around the sprinkler heads. I installed 8 more solar lights along the walkway at the front of the house and I'm pleased with the result. The solar landscape lights are amber in color and let off less light than their wired brethren. It is a nice soft light that marks the brick and cement walkway leading to our front door.

Our pastor, Rick, spoke on the subject of War and Pacifism yesterday and how the Bible teaches us about this subject. It was enlightening and somewhat controversial, but I agreed with him when he said that War is preferable to the the advance of evil in society. The Iraq War is not popular, but it is much less brutal in terms of loss of life than any other war we've been involved in based on the size of our population and the loss of life as a percentage of same. We hate to lose even one life to a war, but I think we are doing the right thing. We need to defeat the enemy and get out of that country.

Well, not much news to report. The blog will be a day late next week as I'll be in Almanor. Stay well, keep your sunscreen on (SPF 30 or higher) and keep your nose in the Bible. It is the instruction manual for life. Ciao.

David Surfing

Daniel Surfing

Ken and Darla at Luau

Ken and David at Luau

Dan and Darla at Luau

4th of July begets the 5th of July

Happy Tuesday. You have to revel in three day weekends, especially when the vacation hangover is still in place and I'm fighting to get my work focus back. We just closed June and although I had a down month (vacations will eat into your production), the branch made money and I receved a congratulatory call from the Underwriting VP on Friday. The Modesto office is ramping up and Gail had a solid month here in Sacramento.

I was listening to a national radio show yesterday on the way back from Folsom Lake and heard a sports announcer say that the Toronto Blue Jays did not have a game on July 4th and that was because Canadians do not have a 4th of July. Somehow, I thought we were all on the same calendar, but apparently not. Do Canadians have a July 32nd for skipping July 4th? Interesting bit of trivia or simply an act of a bufoon?

Darla and I had a nice long weekend. The boys are still on the east coast with their Dad, I believe somewhere in Washington, DC and Darla and I had to make do with just each other. We started the weekend by going out to Folsom Lake Friday night and enjoying a picnic on the beach. I let the staff go at 3 PM as it was DEAD and most of the companies and agents closed down at noon. I stayed until 4:30 and then met Darla at a parking lot close to the beach entrance. We parked my Mustang, bought some sandwiches and Darla brought drinks from home. We sat in the 100 degree heat, reading books and looking out over the lake and contemplating the free three days ahead. It was a nice start to a good holiday weekend.

I played golf in the Firecracker tournament on Saturday. We played a modified Stableford scoring system with positive points for Pars, birdies and eagles and negative points for double bogey or higher. I shot a 41+45=86 and scored 19 points. I was in the first group off and left right away as Darla and I were off to spend the night in Paradise at Darla's parent's new home. I'm guessing that my 19 points will place me in the middle of the pack. I hadn't played golf in three weeks and was rusty. My short game suffered the most, although my putter was hot. I rolled in three putts of over fifty feet, all of them for par and all on the front side. I easily could have shot 90 if not for a smoking putter.

Darla's parents new home is nothing short of spectacular. It sits in a former Apple orchard in Paradise and is part of a group of custom homes all with at least one acre of land. Their home is a single story home with the garage below the main floor and loads of storage. There are two rooms below the main living area, both used as storage. One is perfect for a root cellar and the other houses the air conditioner unit, the water heater and all of the controls for the sprinklers. They also have a water softener. The back yard is immense and has room for the fifth wheel and a separate two car garage at the rear of the property that is being used as a shop. The garage has water and is plumbed for a toilet. If they finish the construction and add the toilet, Earl could live out there. That building looks fairly new and I'd guess is only a couple of years old.

We went up to help them paint the house and joined Alicia and Darla's brother, Steve, a the house on Saturday night. Earl kept telling me he had a "special" job for me. I'm not much for painting and couldn't really sink my teeth into spending a beautiful July 4th weekend inside painting walls. Earl read me like a book and turned me loose on the nine sprinkler zones over the acre of property. Most of the sprinkler system is drip line and the former owner had used her hoe to dig up weeds and destroyed a good portion of the sprinkler lines in the process. I spent most of the day repairing the broken lines between trips to the hardware store. The rest of the gang were inside painting up a storm and I was completely in my element out in the fresh air digging in the dirt. I ended up changing out two of the sprinkler control valves and moving several of the sprinkler heads to get better coverage. The main lawn has oscillating sprinkler heads and Earl and I moved a couple of the heads to get better coverage. He still has work to do on the sprinkler system, but when we left most of the ground was covered by sprinklers and they could leave the home without fear of dying plants.

Their home is three bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths with room for four cars under cover. The home has a formal dining room, a living room and a family room, a hot stove fireplace, a garbage disposal and an inside atrium off of the living room. The home is beautiful and surrounded by a lanai off the living room and master bedroom that looks down on the property. They have a dry creekbed that runs along the side of the property that will have water during the winter months. The property is large and will keep Earl busy during his retirement I'm sure.

Darla and I stayed over Saturday night on an air mattress and sleeping bags and drove home Sunday night after working all day. The home includes a jacuzzi in the master bathroom that Darla and I put through it's paces before bed. Earl and Frances are staying in the fifth wheel for right now. They are redecorating, adding paint, carpet, window coverings and some furniture prior to their move in August. The current carpet is a peach colored monstrosity and they are replacing ALL of it. The home itself is painted an almost peachlike color on the wood sided exterior and they plan on painting the exterior a more natural wood stain.

Darla and I spent the day yesterday relaxing at Folsom Lake on the beach. We bought a State parks pass for this year at $120. It is $7 per entry and the pass is good at all state parks. The lake up near Darla's parent's new home is a state park and we will get in there without paying additional entry as well. The pass is hung from the rear view mirror and David and Destanie can use the pass as well in his car. We had a very rainy winter and Folsom Lake is as full as it has been in ten years. The lake is at 94% capacity and there is very little beach left. Last year we had to drive down onto the old beach and another 300 yards down to the water. We sat yesterday under the shade of an umbrella and on our blanket reading and soaking up some sun between trips to the water to cool off. We watched the park police write up our closest neighbors on the beach for alcohol consumption. They had two gallon jugs of strawberry margaritas and the guy claimed he didn't know they had liquor in them. Usually the police just give a verbal warning and make them pour out the alcohol, but this guy bought himself a ticket for lying to the officer. We had a silent giggle over that. The group next door left shortly after their hootch was poured on the beach. Some people cannot enjoy themselves without drinking and the lake is one place that restricts alcohol. It is truly a family friendly destination as the rowdys stay away in droves. Nice.

Well, I have some pictures to add to the blog from our trip and will do that now. I hope all are well and looking to the Lord for direction in your lives. Remember, God does allow U-turns. Ciao.