Tuesday, bloody Tuesday!

I got here at 6:45 this morning and quickly realized that I have no muffins for breakfast, the coffee was not made (which is really a Monday thing), and I left my glasses at home and have to use the Ben Franklin readers that I keep for my Alzheimer days. Nice start to a short week...But, I had a nice binder waiting for me and a phone message from Bill McCord, the Underwriting Vice-President congratulating me and the staff on a great month. We hit $1,000,000 in written premium and had net income over $150,000 so all is not dismal. I have my health, a good job, a great family and I don't live anywhere near the hurricane where suffering is ripe and where despair is very real.

It was a nice Holiday weekend, spent golfing, boating and at the beach. I played in the Labor Day tournament on Saturday and again suffered through a horrific round of golf shooting 49+42=91. I felt like a complete hacker and it is a concern with the club championship starting on Sunday. The thing about golf is that it comes and goes and the club championship is a match play affair, so anything can happen. I can't say that I'm imbued with confidence, but I have as much chance of winning my flight as anyone. My driving has been excellent lately, I've been hitting the ball long and straight, so I just need to button up my iron play and work on my putting. I'll let you know how I did next week.

Jennifer has been updating her blog at a regular clip since returning to Kuwait and I suggest you check it out. There is a link at the bottom of this page for doing just that. She continues to have to commute daily back to Camp Doha to work at the armory and it is an hour bus ride each way. Sounds brutal. Glad to see that Jennifer is starting to send out resumes and plan for her return in November.

Darla, Alicia and I went up and spent the night in Paradise on Saturday night with Darla's parents. They have their new home completely furnished and have some new furniture and window coverings as well as all new sculptured carpet throughout the house. It is very nice and we enjoyed our stay. We took the boat out on Sunday to Lake Oroville and toured the lake. We considered bringing the jet ski, but opted not to with gas prices approaching $3.00 here in NorCal. We will take the boys out on Saturday and enjoy Folsom Lake. Oroville is nice, but not a great lake for jet skiing as there isn't any beach area along the lake. The sides of the lake are pretty steep. We are pretty spoiled with Folsom as the lake has plenty on inlets and beach area to relax. Darla and I went to the lake yesterday and drove out into the back side of the lake and went off road and found a nice quiet inlet where we set up our blanket and umbrella and took our books to read. I read about a chapter and set the book aside to rest my eyes for a few nminutes and woke up about an hour later. It was great day right up to the point when two SUVs pulled up and disgorged a carload of screaming kids to invade our day. We quickly broke camp and headed back to the homestead before our neighbors were even set up. I worked on the yard, cutting back the crepe myrtle in the front of the house that had started to infringe on the roof and was clogging the gutter guards with discarded petals. Darla didn't want me to cut back the blooms, but the tree was out of control and I needed to do so for my own peace of mind.

I had turned on the back sprinklers on Saturday after golf to water the back lawn and the grass seed that I'd sewn in some of the bare spots and we left for Paradise with the sprinklers still running. It dawned on me within about fifteen minutes, but we couldn't get hold of the boys who were with their Dad. Darla left several messages and finally got hold of Daniel after about an hour. David and he drove over to the house and had to siphon out some of the water from the back yard as it was flooded.

We are still playing with the home improvement project and hope to get a quote from Brian on the tile work today or tomorrow. We have had two quotes on the granite countertops, one was high and the other was the granite transformations group and Darla is not sold on the quality or look of the granite composite that goes on over the existing tile. We are having Brian quote us the job with Granite tile and a marble backsplash. This project is taking forever to just get off the ground. We had dinner on Sunday night at a friend's house who had a handyman install floor tile in their home. The job is definitely second rate and he made a lot of mistakes and took twice as long to finish the job as he estimated. The handyman of course was not licensed and it solidifies our decision to stick with a licensed contractor.

We were able to go to church with Darla's parents up in Paradise and they belong to a nice church. The people seem really friendly and the pastor gave an inspired message about questions that a disaster like Katrina brings up. The pastor is very laid back and is more of a teacher than a preacher. Earl is still getting used to his style, but I was impressed with the depth of his preparation for the message and his insightful sermon. Alicia slept in and missed church.

Daniel has his first football game this Friday as a member of the varsity. He is starting on the special teams and is a backup offensive lineman. Again it surprised us that at 6'2" and 235 pounds that he'd be a backup, but they have a new coach and he is starting almost all Seniors. I expect Daniel will be starting before long because he is so hard to handle at his size. The guy in front of him is 6'0" and 285 pounds, a handful, but also a load that will quickly tire out.

Well, have a great week and continue to draw closer to our Lord. There will be many people who turn to our Savior through the tragedy in the Gulf states, but unfortunately the devil is working hard as well and there will be some souls lost. Pray for understanding, relief and for the power of our Lord to overcome in that part of our country so ravaged by pain and sadness. Ciao.