Back from The Land of the Sun

Hey. I'm back from paradise and wondering how Dad and Shirley ever sold their place in Sun City. The temperatures were 79, 83 and 85 on the three days that I was in Scottsdale. Not too shabby and probably a little warmer than what Dad and Shirley are experiencing in Vancouver. I stayed at the Resort Suites in Scottsdale off Princess Avenue. It is the resort situated right next to the Fairmont Resort and the Fairmont makes anyplace else look like a dive. The Resort Suites was very nice and the rooms were about 900 square foot suites. The Miss Teen Arizona pageant was gearing up and the girls and their parents were checking in and fashion photo shoots were taking place outside my room. These girls are all adorable and it was a pedophile's delight as the 16-18 year olds lounged by the pool and walked around wearing tiaras and sashes all day long.

We started Wednesday night with a 30 minute bus ride out to Cave Creek, Arizona north of Scottsdale and went to a country restaurant and bar where they set us up in the rear yard with horseshoes, volleyball and six large fire pits surrounded by picnic tables. The grub was pulled pork, chicken, cowboy beans, corn on the cob and biscuits. The food was excellent and the music was very good with a rockabilly band with a lead singer who crooned in the Elvis Presley style. It was a fun night.

The underwriter in Modesto, Margaret, contracted tonsilitus from her kids and had to stay home. I caught the six am flight to Phoenix on Wednesday morning and rented an SUV when I arrived. I had a ten am meeting with Scottsdale Insurance and my Colony underwriter was trying to track me down and had three messages on my cell phone by the time I landed. She wanted to invite Anthony from our office to attend the seminar in Margaret's place. I talked to Anthony, he was caught up on his desk and could catch a Wednesday night flight to Phoenix in time to be at the seminar Thursday morning. I cleared it with our VP in San Francisco and Anthony was on a flight by the time we got to the dinner house in Cave Creek.

The trip was fun. They had a casino night on Thursday night and I opened and closed one of the Texas Hold'em tables. It was a lot of fun. We played golf Thursday afternoon and they put me with three complete non-golfers. We managed four over par which was amazing given that we used 17 of my drives and 90% of my other shots. I was playing really well and likely would have won if they'd given me even one golfer to play with. We had a good time and I got to know a couple of my Colony Underwriters better over the five hour course of the golf tournament.

The underwriters from my old firm, Richter Robb were there. That firm did about $36,000,000 in premium when I was with them. We hired away their top two underwriters last year and they finished 2005 with a little over $18,000,000 in writings. I expected to be treated as a pariah, but two of the three underwriters approached me about employment. I'm not looking to hire any more of their underwriters away, but it was funny to see the marketing that they each tried to do with me to sell themselves.

I returned from the sun and fun to a rainy Friday afternoon in Sacramento. I got in about 3:05 PM and was back in the office by 4:30 to clean up my e-mails and voice mails so I could get a fresh start this morning. I worked until about 7:30 PM. Darla had a site meeting with the kids from Adventure Christian Church in preparation for their Mexico trip. I figured that I could get more done at work, even though I was tired and needed to get caught up on sleep.

The Titleist golf tournament scheduled for Saturday was postponed due to inclement weather and rescheduled for April 8th. Darla will be out of town that weekend in Mexico and I plan to play golf both days. I did not play this past weekend, partly because of the weather, but mostly because I pulled a muscle in my back mowing the lawn Saturday afternoon. I reached down to pick up one of the spiny balls that fall from my trees and felt something snap. I have a call in to Harry for a Bowen Therapy appointment. I hope to get in this afternoon. If I stand in front of a mirror, I am listing to the left right now as my spine is out of alignment due to the muscle strain in my back. I was in agony last night and had trouble sleeping. The last time I did this, I had one Bowen session and was good to go after that. I'm done with chiropractors. They did little but lighten my wallet over the years.

I got an e-mail from Randy showing Chris' new truck, a beast of a Ram Quad cab. It is Cowboy blue and would require a step ladder for me to get into it. I was going to show Daniel the pictures, but Darla said not to. His father is still making him wait to get a car. We did our part and got David the Mustang when he turned sixteen. Daniel is so under his father's thumb that he cannot get a job and can't buy a car until they sell Steve's junker of a Jeep Cherokee. It has 270,000 miles on it and Steve wants $1,000 for it. I told Daniel to buy it and then sell it for $300 and buy a truck. He has $4,000 to put toward a truck, but has to put up with his Svengali father. In the meantime, I've added Daniel to our insurance at $1500 a year. I look forward to both kids hitting 18 and having a say in their own lives. Daniel is not allowed to get a part time job, because it would interfere with Steve's time with him. Frankly, I want the kid to get a job. He watches way too much television and lies around the house doing nothing. When he finally gets up some plans, he looks to us for money. I tell him to go see his Dad or get a job. It is immensely frustrating to me and I don't know how Daniel handles it. He will end up hating his Dad for being so controlling.

We had a guest speaker at church yesterday and he was a dynamic speaker who advocates getting out of our comfort zone and being an evangelist for Christ. He talked about how the vast majority of people live without any purpose...like a feather on the wind. He said that we need to take control of our lives by giving our lives to the Lord and letting him set our path. He called it making ripples and impacting others for Christ. It was convicting stuff. I hope that each of you can make a ripple and impact others. Ciao.