Monday, April 24, 2006
An Excellent Weekend in the Books
It was GREAT seeing Dad and Shirley this week. They got in about 5:30 PM on Wednesday night and had a nice dinner with us. Daniel is working at K-LOVE, the Christian radio station during their pledge drive, and had to work that night, so he missed dinner. As a matter of fact, you can see Daniel eating dinner in one of the pictures I'm adding to the blog and Dad and David visiting with him. He got home about 9:30 and we played pool and had a great visit. It was nice to have a guest room finally set up where we could have Dad and Shirley spend the night with us. In the past, they have always had a hotel. Dad was wearing sweats when he got in and we had a nice 75 degree day. He was quick to change into shorts and, of course, wash his Cadillac. People who think I'm a bit anal, just need to spend a few minutes with Dad and they see where I get it. We had a nice dinner of barbecued New York steaks and talked about Dad's childhood and mine. Dad and Shirley are off to the Lawrence Welk resort in San Diego for a week of sun and golf and then they head to Vegas for a week. Dad sort of off-handedly invited us to join them in Vegas and left us their numbers in San Diego and Vegas in case we could make it. They were barely on the road to Fresno and a visit with their friends, Ed and Brenda, before I'd decided to go to Vegas and I already had a tee time set up at the Desert Rose golf course for Saturday morning. Work has been unduly stressful lately and I need a break. I'm taking Friday and Monday off and Darla and I will drive down to Vegas. It is about a ten-hour car ride and I'd prefer to fly, but with short notice the cheapest flight we could find was $500 for two of us. it would normally cost $356 with a 21 day reservation. This way, we have wheels and I can bring my golf clubs and some snacks and drinks for the road. Darla and I will drive down on Friday and probably drive halfway back on Sunday night, stopping in Tonapah, Nevada. I opted out of the Roseville City Amateur in order to make the Vegas trip.
The computer and the blogger website is really slow this morning. I hope that I don't spend part of my morning updating the blog to find that I lose it all in cyberspace. I've been trying to upload some photos, so far to no avail.
I finally had some luck in a golf tournament this weekend. I didn't shoot lights out, in fact, I shot a "same old" 43+41=84, but it was a two-man best ball NCGA qualifier and my partner, Steve Matthews (a 14 handicapper) shot a 78 and we managed a team score of 61 to win a spot in the regional qualifier against 22 other clubs for a chance to advance to Poppy Hills in September. We will play in the regional tournament on August 3rd, a Thursday, and hopefully play well enough to qualify to move on to the finals in Pebble Beach. Steve had a heart attack in November and has come back from that episode with an improved golf game. In fact, he and his partner qualified for a two-man event at Spyglass Hills in August. I knew he was playing well and sought him out for this tournament. They took two teams and we had the low score at 61. The other team shot a 63. There was also a Senior division and the two teams that qualified shot 63 and 66. There were a total of 44 teams playing with 4 spots up for grabs. Not bad.
Work continues to be a source of some stress as well as some source of accomplishment. We may hire a new broker for my office today. My candidate is in San Francisco today meeting with Harvey and his brokerage staff. If indeed, it is a good fit, we will bring her aboard and she will open a brokerage unit for this office. My underwriters are all just that. We do both brokerage business and contract (underwriting) business. Most of the big brokerage markets require that we have a full-time broker assigned to them and we have not had access to the brokerage accounts because of that. I made it a priority this year, in my budget, to add a brokerage presence to this office in order to move us up and ahead of the curve. Katherine is a very good broker, but only has about three years of experience on the brokerage side. She would not be a good candidate for San Francisco, but would be a great fit for Sacramento.
I agreed to lead the Life group tonight and we generally follow the scripture from the sermon at church the day before. Well, just my luck, yesterday was Baptism Sunday and there was no message. I will be feverishly looking up scripture on baptism over lunch today to have some material for tonight. Our pastor of senior adults led the offering yesterday and he always has a story infused with dry humor to go along with his prayers. He told the story of a church in the midwest that was struggling financially. The pastor got up and gave an impassioned sermon about the duty of Christians to support their church financially and with their prayers. He stressed that ALL church members had an obligation to give an offering to the church. When the plate was passed, little Johnny reached up and plucked off his clip-on tie and put it in the basket. Later, when his Mom asked him why he'd put his tie in the offering, Johhny said, "I really like that pastor and he said to put our ties and offerings in the collection plate."
All is well in our little corner of the world. The boys are doing well. Daniel has worked it out with his father, that Steve owns the Ford F150 with the camper shell and Daniel can continue to look for a more suitable truck and buy it with the $4000 that his Grandmother has pledged toward a car. In the meantime, Dan is driving that beast. Somehow, he managed to pop a tire this past week when he hit the median of the road when he was driving. Teenage drivers...jeesh.
The blog will be late next week as we will be in Vegas. I likely won't have much to say about our trip as "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas". I hope you are all well and living in the grace and light of our LORD and SAVIOUR. Ciao.
The computer and the blogger website is really slow this morning. I hope that I don't spend part of my morning updating the blog to find that I lose it all in cyberspace. I've been trying to upload some photos, so far to no avail.
I finally had some luck in a golf tournament this weekend. I didn't shoot lights out, in fact, I shot a "same old" 43+41=84, but it was a two-man best ball NCGA qualifier and my partner, Steve Matthews (a 14 handicapper) shot a 78 and we managed a team score of 61 to win a spot in the regional qualifier against 22 other clubs for a chance to advance to Poppy Hills in September. We will play in the regional tournament on August 3rd, a Thursday, and hopefully play well enough to qualify to move on to the finals in Pebble Beach. Steve had a heart attack in November and has come back from that episode with an improved golf game. In fact, he and his partner qualified for a two-man event at Spyglass Hills in August. I knew he was playing well and sought him out for this tournament. They took two teams and we had the low score at 61. The other team shot a 63. There was also a Senior division and the two teams that qualified shot 63 and 66. There were a total of 44 teams playing with 4 spots up for grabs. Not bad.
Work continues to be a source of some stress as well as some source of accomplishment. We may hire a new broker for my office today. My candidate is in San Francisco today meeting with Harvey and his brokerage staff. If indeed, it is a good fit, we will bring her aboard and she will open a brokerage unit for this office. My underwriters are all just that. We do both brokerage business and contract (underwriting) business. Most of the big brokerage markets require that we have a full-time broker assigned to them and we have not had access to the brokerage accounts because of that. I made it a priority this year, in my budget, to add a brokerage presence to this office in order to move us up and ahead of the curve. Katherine is a very good broker, but only has about three years of experience on the brokerage side. She would not be a good candidate for San Francisco, but would be a great fit for Sacramento.
I agreed to lead the Life group tonight and we generally follow the scripture from the sermon at church the day before. Well, just my luck, yesterday was Baptism Sunday and there was no message. I will be feverishly looking up scripture on baptism over lunch today to have some material for tonight. Our pastor of senior adults led the offering yesterday and he always has a story infused with dry humor to go along with his prayers. He told the story of a church in the midwest that was struggling financially. The pastor got up and gave an impassioned sermon about the duty of Christians to support their church financially and with their prayers. He stressed that ALL church members had an obligation to give an offering to the church. When the plate was passed, little Johnny reached up and plucked off his clip-on tie and put it in the basket. Later, when his Mom asked him why he'd put his tie in the offering, Johhny said, "I really like that pastor and he said to put our ties and offerings in the collection plate."
All is well in our little corner of the world. The boys are doing well. Daniel has worked it out with his father, that Steve owns the Ford F150 with the camper shell and Daniel can continue to look for a more suitable truck and buy it with the $4000 that his Grandmother has pledged toward a car. In the meantime, Dan is driving that beast. Somehow, he managed to pop a tire this past week when he hit the median of the road when he was driving. Teenage drivers...jeesh.
The blog will be late next week as we will be in Vegas. I likely won't have much to say about our trip as "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas". I hope you are all well and living in the grace and light of our LORD and SAVIOUR. Ciao.
Monday, April 17, 2006
Resurrection Day has come and HE IS RISEN!
Yes. Another Easter Sunday is in the books and Spring is finally here. After a stormy and rain-filled Sunday, the sun has returned to Northern California in all of it's requisite glory. The sky is as blue as it can get and the sun is slowly awakening from it's hibernation to warm the denizens of Sacramento. Finally, we have some clearing and a week that is expected to see temperatures consistently in the 70-75 degree range. The fear here in Sacramento is that we would go from 50 degrees and rain to 90 degrees and oppressive heat, but it looks like we may get some Spring yet. Darryl sent a note to me last week showing Austin at 90 degrees and sort of mugging that he had warm weather. Frankly, 90 degrees is a little warm for me. This 72 and a light breeze is about perfect for me.
Darla returned home from her mission in Mexico tired and a bit sore and carrying some kind of creepy crud malady that sees her taking the day off from work today. Nothing like a day off to get over your week long vacation. The Mexico trip was a huge success and her group built one of two homes on a lot for a family that was burned out of their home. Darla's group built the home for Mom and Dad and another group built the home for the parent's pregnant daughter and her husband next door. I'd guess everyone was grateful except the son-in-law, but that's my sense of humor. In total the group built 5 homes and there were about 18 people on each crew. Darla was sick one day and had to stay back at camp and they had a flu bug go through the entire group that made it pretty tough on everybody. Daniel managed to avoid the plague and made it through the week relatively unfazed. It is really good to have Darla home. The laundry was beginning to pile up. J/K.
Daniel's father did come through on his promise of a truck for Daniel. Unfortunately, Daniel had absolutely no say in the vehicle purchased and Steve bought a 1993 Ford F-150 Super Cab with, of all things, a camper shell on it. Daniel is mortified that he has to drive what he referred to as a 50 year old man's fishing truck. Steve wants Daniel to put $1000 of his money into the truck and Daniel refuses. It could get interesting. These are two pretty bullheaded people and it will be interesting to see who wins this round. The truck could be salvageable if they take off the camper shell and fix it up with some new rims and a cd player in the cab. I guess Steve considered it a good buy, but Daniel had in mind a smaller truck like a Toyota or Nissan.
I did play golf this past weekend and the course continues to have soggy conditions and a lot of heavy rough. I shot 41+43=84 on Friday in a practice round and won $8 in skin money. Saturday was our second medal play tournament of the year and I shot 41+45=86, which was pitiful. I shot a 9 on number 16 by hitting two balls into the rough, neither of which we could find. The rough on that hole is about two and a half feet thick and the ball just buries. We play right to the letter of the law in our club and, despite the conditions, both balls were considered lost balls and I ended up hitting six from the spot of my second drive, seven onto the green and two putted for a nine. Ouch! I play in a two man best ball tournament on Saturday, an NCGA qualifier tournament and then have signed up for the Roseville City Amateur on the following weekend. That is where the real good amateur golfers come out and shoot 67 and 68 for two days of golf and take the trophy home. I'm playing for the $160 prize for my flight. Hopefully, the maintenance crews can get out to mow all of the fairways and rough over the next few days as the weather improves.
I was still continuing to struggle with managing the office and this young lady that doesn't like to work. She has continued to take sick days and miss a considerable amount of work even since I met with her two weeks ago. She called me one morning and said that her alarm didn't go off. She finally showed up at 11:00 AM, took a one hour lunch and went home at 4:30. I called her in the next morning and told her that under no circumstances could she continue to cause problems in the office and that she had to work a full day of work every day. She smiled and agreed and then left work at 1:00 to go to a doctor's appointment. Thursday of this last week, I took the morning and drove to our Modesto office to handle two salary reviews in that office. When I called in to check on the staff, my assistant told me that all hell was breaking loose. This model employee overheard two of the other assistants whispering. The topic of conversation was the pregnanacy of one of them and how the office would handle her maternity leave. The model employee "assumed" the whispering was about her and she had a meltdown, screaming and yelling and finally packing up her desk and leaving. She called the head of our Human Resources Department in Michigan to resign. I tried to calm everyone down and returned to work that afternoon.
On Friday, the staff presented me with a card and a $100 gift certificate to one of the fine restaurants in our area. They could feel my stress and wanted to give me a night out. I told them that my stress resigned on Thursday. Today I arrived to find the worker's compensation claim for a stress induced leave of absence. I've turned that over to Home Office. I don't quite see how you can resgn your position and then ask for worker's compensation, but this is California, the home of the weasly and the weird. We'll see how all of that pans out. In the interim, I have no one to handle my accounts receivables here in the office.
I am close to hiring a new broker for the office. She'll be here today to take a couple of personality tests and we are trying to iron out some salary issues. Harvey, my boss, was very excited about her as a candidate when he met her, but then he discussed her with one of her former employers and he started to get a little cool on hiring her. I disagreed and moved forward, so hopefully I don't get myself sideways with my boss, but on the other hand, I am charged with running this office. Harvey and I will talk today. While he was on vacation, I had Katherine do a telephone interview with Harvey's Boss, Bill McCord, and Bill is totally on board with hiring her. I need to get a broker presence in Sacramento and this lady is experienced and wants to work for us.
Jennifer and I missed each other a couple of times on the phone this weekend and I hope to touch base with her this week.
Dad and Shirley are driving to San Diego and a week at the Lawrence Welk resort for sun, fun and golf. They will be staying with us Wednesday night on their way to the resort and we will barbecue steaks and enjoy an evening with family. It will be good to see them as it has been over a year since we last saw them. I look forward to next year. We've talked about a reunion in Vegas, but I think a Mexico cruise would be fun.
Darla and I went to our church Saturday night and welcomed back our pastor, Rick, from his four-month sabbatical. He is refreshed and ready to work. It was great to hear his Easter message. Darla and I then went and met Darla's parents up in Paradise at their church and heard the Easter message presented by their pastor. It was a great weekend..and the sun is awesome today. I hope you are all well. HE is Risen. Ciao.
Darla returned home from her mission in Mexico tired and a bit sore and carrying some kind of creepy crud malady that sees her taking the day off from work today. Nothing like a day off to get over your week long vacation. The Mexico trip was a huge success and her group built one of two homes on a lot for a family that was burned out of their home. Darla's group built the home for Mom and Dad and another group built the home for the parent's pregnant daughter and her husband next door. I'd guess everyone was grateful except the son-in-law, but that's my sense of humor. In total the group built 5 homes and there were about 18 people on each crew. Darla was sick one day and had to stay back at camp and they had a flu bug go through the entire group that made it pretty tough on everybody. Daniel managed to avoid the plague and made it through the week relatively unfazed. It is really good to have Darla home. The laundry was beginning to pile up. J/K.
Daniel's father did come through on his promise of a truck for Daniel. Unfortunately, Daniel had absolutely no say in the vehicle purchased and Steve bought a 1993 Ford F-150 Super Cab with, of all things, a camper shell on it. Daniel is mortified that he has to drive what he referred to as a 50 year old man's fishing truck. Steve wants Daniel to put $1000 of his money into the truck and Daniel refuses. It could get interesting. These are two pretty bullheaded people and it will be interesting to see who wins this round. The truck could be salvageable if they take off the camper shell and fix it up with some new rims and a cd player in the cab. I guess Steve considered it a good buy, but Daniel had in mind a smaller truck like a Toyota or Nissan.
I did play golf this past weekend and the course continues to have soggy conditions and a lot of heavy rough. I shot 41+43=84 on Friday in a practice round and won $8 in skin money. Saturday was our second medal play tournament of the year and I shot 41+45=86, which was pitiful. I shot a 9 on number 16 by hitting two balls into the rough, neither of which we could find. The rough on that hole is about two and a half feet thick and the ball just buries. We play right to the letter of the law in our club and, despite the conditions, both balls were considered lost balls and I ended up hitting six from the spot of my second drive, seven onto the green and two putted for a nine. Ouch! I play in a two man best ball tournament on Saturday, an NCGA qualifier tournament and then have signed up for the Roseville City Amateur on the following weekend. That is where the real good amateur golfers come out and shoot 67 and 68 for two days of golf and take the trophy home. I'm playing for the $160 prize for my flight. Hopefully, the maintenance crews can get out to mow all of the fairways and rough over the next few days as the weather improves.
I was still continuing to struggle with managing the office and this young lady that doesn't like to work. She has continued to take sick days and miss a considerable amount of work even since I met with her two weeks ago. She called me one morning and said that her alarm didn't go off. She finally showed up at 11:00 AM, took a one hour lunch and went home at 4:30. I called her in the next morning and told her that under no circumstances could she continue to cause problems in the office and that she had to work a full day of work every day. She smiled and agreed and then left work at 1:00 to go to a doctor's appointment. Thursday of this last week, I took the morning and drove to our Modesto office to handle two salary reviews in that office. When I called in to check on the staff, my assistant told me that all hell was breaking loose. This model employee overheard two of the other assistants whispering. The topic of conversation was the pregnanacy of one of them and how the office would handle her maternity leave. The model employee "assumed" the whispering was about her and she had a meltdown, screaming and yelling and finally packing up her desk and leaving. She called the head of our Human Resources Department in Michigan to resign. I tried to calm everyone down and returned to work that afternoon.
On Friday, the staff presented me with a card and a $100 gift certificate to one of the fine restaurants in our area. They could feel my stress and wanted to give me a night out. I told them that my stress resigned on Thursday. Today I arrived to find the worker's compensation claim for a stress induced leave of absence. I've turned that over to Home Office. I don't quite see how you can resgn your position and then ask for worker's compensation, but this is California, the home of the weasly and the weird. We'll see how all of that pans out. In the interim, I have no one to handle my accounts receivables here in the office.
I am close to hiring a new broker for the office. She'll be here today to take a couple of personality tests and we are trying to iron out some salary issues. Harvey, my boss, was very excited about her as a candidate when he met her, but then he discussed her with one of her former employers and he started to get a little cool on hiring her. I disagreed and moved forward, so hopefully I don't get myself sideways with my boss, but on the other hand, I am charged with running this office. Harvey and I will talk today. While he was on vacation, I had Katherine do a telephone interview with Harvey's Boss, Bill McCord, and Bill is totally on board with hiring her. I need to get a broker presence in Sacramento and this lady is experienced and wants to work for us.
Jennifer and I missed each other a couple of times on the phone this weekend and I hope to touch base with her this week.
Dad and Shirley are driving to San Diego and a week at the Lawrence Welk resort for sun, fun and golf. They will be staying with us Wednesday night on their way to the resort and we will barbecue steaks and enjoy an evening with family. It will be good to see them as it has been over a year since we last saw them. I look forward to next year. We've talked about a reunion in Vegas, but I think a Mexico cruise would be fun.
Darla and I went to our church Saturday night and welcomed back our pastor, Rick, from his four-month sabbatical. He is refreshed and ready to work. It was great to hear his Easter message. Darla and I then went and met Darla's parents up in Paradise at their church and heard the Easter message presented by their pastor. It was a great weekend..and the sun is awesome today. I hope you are all well. HE is Risen. Ciao.
Monday, April 10, 2006
Back Home with Time to Spare
I left work a little early today (4:45PM) after a full day of work. So far, I've put a number of items up in the attic that I'll get in trouble for when Darla gets home. The nice thing is she won't need them for three or four months and won't realize that the box of scapbook supplies that's been sitting in the corner for four months has been put away. I've also thrown away some newspapers which is heresy around here. I'm running a couple of loads of wash as I get caught up on some piles of laundry that have been sitting in the laundry room for far too long. I'm not sure if it was clean or not, but with the dust that collects in a laundry room, it wasn't clean anymore. I was able to sweep the floor in the laundry room and I cleaned up a couple of the throw rugs that tend to collect dirt and aren't cleaned by sweeping or mopping. This is my own little slice of heaven. Cleaning is a task I enjoy, because the results are so dramatic when you finish. With two overly large and active teenagers, sometimes a full time worker with two extra part time jobs can't keep up.
Darla continues to work for Lighthouse, which is a foster agency and she works with several families. She also sells Silpada jewelry, her own jewelry and Creative Memories scrapbook supplies. She used to sell Pampered Chef, but has given that up now that she has all of their gadgets and supplies in her kitchen.
Darla did Not get the supervisor position and she took it kind of hard. In truth, all of the signs pointed to her working for this particular boss as heavily negative, but she is itching for additional challenges in her job. Take it from me that managing people will be one of the biggest undertakings she will ever try. I have five salary reviews and two Manager's reports to finish by the end of the week. I'm going to try to knock most of that out tomorrow as I have a massage planned for Wednesday afternoon at 4:30 PM. Darla ended up buying me a massage and I wanted to use it after a particularly hard day of work, which tomorrow will be. I have to tune out, close my office door, shut off the phone and just concentrate on doing the reports and salary paperwork. Darla will continue to seek additional challenges at work and will leave to go to work for another agency if need be. With the boys grown up, she is able to take on more at work.
Daniel's Dad is finally seeing the light and is ready to buy Dan a truck. He has his eye on a 2001 truck with 149,000 miles on it. The owner just installed a new transmission and Steve thinks its a bargain. Daniel was all bummed out as he wants to pick out the car and I counseled him about looking a gift horse in the mouth. If his Dad is ready to buy him a vehicle, shut up, sit down and enjoy having wheels. We'll see if Steve is blowing in the wind or whether he is really going to step up for his son.
I mentioned the link for Jennifer's Thailand pictures. It is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnswan81/sets/72057594098501362/
Well, I've prattled on enough and it sounds like the washer is ready to be unloaded. I probably have four loads of wash to do. The boys won't appreciate having their clothes folded and sitting on their beds as Darla usually hangs it up and puts it in their dressers, etc., but I'm more concerned about teaching these guys to be men and not boys. I'll write more, Same BAT time....etc. Ciao.
Darla continues to work for Lighthouse, which is a foster agency and she works with several families. She also sells Silpada jewelry, her own jewelry and Creative Memories scrapbook supplies. She used to sell Pampered Chef, but has given that up now that she has all of their gadgets and supplies in her kitchen.
Darla did Not get the supervisor position and she took it kind of hard. In truth, all of the signs pointed to her working for this particular boss as heavily negative, but she is itching for additional challenges in her job. Take it from me that managing people will be one of the biggest undertakings she will ever try. I have five salary reviews and two Manager's reports to finish by the end of the week. I'm going to try to knock most of that out tomorrow as I have a massage planned for Wednesday afternoon at 4:30 PM. Darla ended up buying me a massage and I wanted to use it after a particularly hard day of work, which tomorrow will be. I have to tune out, close my office door, shut off the phone and just concentrate on doing the reports and salary paperwork. Darla will continue to seek additional challenges at work and will leave to go to work for another agency if need be. With the boys grown up, she is able to take on more at work.
Daniel's Dad is finally seeing the light and is ready to buy Dan a truck. He has his eye on a 2001 truck with 149,000 miles on it. The owner just installed a new transmission and Steve thinks its a bargain. Daniel was all bummed out as he wants to pick out the car and I counseled him about looking a gift horse in the mouth. If his Dad is ready to buy him a vehicle, shut up, sit down and enjoy having wheels. We'll see if Steve is blowing in the wind or whether he is really going to step up for his son.
I mentioned the link for Jennifer's Thailand pictures. It is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnswan81/sets/72057594098501362/
Well, I've prattled on enough and it sounds like the washer is ready to be unloaded. I probably have four loads of wash to do. The boys won't appreciate having their clothes folded and sitting on their beds as Darla usually hangs it up and puts it in their dressers, etc., but I'm more concerned about teaching these guys to be men and not boys. I'll write more, Same BAT time....etc. Ciao.
Hey, what's new? It's RAINING!
Wow, what a difference a week makes. It's called satirical comedy. The big change this past weekend was that although rain was forecast Saturday and Sunday, the rain spared us and didn't arrive until last night. The latest Canadian storm is expected to drop another inch on Sacramento, three inches in the foothills and up to 3 feet of snow in the Sierra. We may skip Spring altogether and just move from rain and 60 degrees to Sunny and 100 degrees. It was a nice respite from the rain over the weekend and I took full advantage with golf both Saturday and Sunday. The course was a full sponge as the fairways were wet and golf carts were restricted to the cart paths. If any cart rider was dumb enough to abandon the cart path and venture into the fairways, the carts would likely have gotten stuck in the mud. We had two days of sunshine on Thursday and Friday, but the grounds crew weren't able to get the mowers out onto the fairways because of the standing water. The greens had all been cut and the rough around the greens, but the rough along the fairways is US Open thick and the fairways are shaggy. Tough conditions. I shot 40+44=84 on Saturday and 40+45=85 on Sunday in the Titleist tournament. The back nine is wetter than the front and I hit the ball really high. I was getting no roll and several plugs in the fairway. It was frustrating, but overall (given the conditions) I was very happy with my play, especially on the front side.
Darla and Daniel headed off to Mexico and their annual mission trip to build houses for the homeless in Mexico on Saturday. Darla called me from San Diego on Saturday night where they were bedding down in a church for the night before heading across the border on Sunday. The trip had gone smoothly at that point and the weather in San Diego wqas nice. Hopefully they will get some good weather this year and be able to work and enjoy being in the sun.
Friday night I had my monthly poker game. Darla knew that I had a game that night and was going to meet with her friend, Joni, who was her maid of honor in our wedding. Those plans fell through and suddenly Darla wanted me to skip the poker game and stay home with her. I hemmed and hawed and we finally agreed that I would go, but would beg off early and be home by 11:00 PM. It was good seeing the guys as usual, but I got smoked on poker early on. It seemed that every time I had a flush, someone would pull a full house. Or if I had a full house, someone had a better full house. It was frustrating. By ten-thirty I was down about $30 and ready to head home. We played a three-card GUTS game that took a half-hour and I finally won the $80 pot. It was by far the biggest pot of the night and I felt like leaving right then would be bad manners, so I hung out until 11:30 and finally snuck out with $50 in winnings. Darla was not too happy with me when I rolled in at 11:35, but I was happy to have won the big hand and she got over it when I gave her some road money for her trip.
I plan to get a few projects done this week, touching up some paint around the house and cleaning the bathrooms and the tile floors throughout the house. Darla and I are both so busy and then we want to relax with each other at night. I'm batching it this week and can get some of my "To Do" list items cleared up.
I had to miss church yesterday with a 9:30 tee time in the tournament and really missed the weekly injection of faith and prespective that comes from drowning yourself in the Word. We used to have Saturday night service before we moved into the 3000 seat worship center and now it's Sunday only. I miss the intimate gatherings of Saturday night, but our regular service is 9:00 Sunday morning. It was just nice to have the option if I had golf on Sunday. Our church is a Bible teaching church and every sermon is based on the Word. The great news is that our pastor, Rick Steadman, returns from his four-month sabbatical on Easter Sunday. Praise God!
Jennifer called me when I was on the course yesterday. I hope to be able to talk to her this week. Jenn, call me at work, when you are home at night. I'm anxious to hear about her trip to Thailand. I will add the access to her pictures later this week. She sent it to me, but I only have it on my home computer. It looks like they had a great time.
This is short, but we were having network problems this morning and I have to do payroll by 9:00 AM local time. I'll add more later. Ciao.
Darla and Daniel headed off to Mexico and their annual mission trip to build houses for the homeless in Mexico on Saturday. Darla called me from San Diego on Saturday night where they were bedding down in a church for the night before heading across the border on Sunday. The trip had gone smoothly at that point and the weather in San Diego wqas nice. Hopefully they will get some good weather this year and be able to work and enjoy being in the sun.
Friday night I had my monthly poker game. Darla knew that I had a game that night and was going to meet with her friend, Joni, who was her maid of honor in our wedding. Those plans fell through and suddenly Darla wanted me to skip the poker game and stay home with her. I hemmed and hawed and we finally agreed that I would go, but would beg off early and be home by 11:00 PM. It was good seeing the guys as usual, but I got smoked on poker early on. It seemed that every time I had a flush, someone would pull a full house. Or if I had a full house, someone had a better full house. It was frustrating. By ten-thirty I was down about $30 and ready to head home. We played a three-card GUTS game that took a half-hour and I finally won the $80 pot. It was by far the biggest pot of the night and I felt like leaving right then would be bad manners, so I hung out until 11:30 and finally snuck out with $50 in winnings. Darla was not too happy with me when I rolled in at 11:35, but I was happy to have won the big hand and she got over it when I gave her some road money for her trip.
I plan to get a few projects done this week, touching up some paint around the house and cleaning the bathrooms and the tile floors throughout the house. Darla and I are both so busy and then we want to relax with each other at night. I'm batching it this week and can get some of my "To Do" list items cleared up.
I had to miss church yesterday with a 9:30 tee time in the tournament and really missed the weekly injection of faith and prespective that comes from drowning yourself in the Word. We used to have Saturday night service before we moved into the 3000 seat worship center and now it's Sunday only. I miss the intimate gatherings of Saturday night, but our regular service is 9:00 Sunday morning. It was just nice to have the option if I had golf on Sunday. Our church is a Bible teaching church and every sermon is based on the Word. The great news is that our pastor, Rick Steadman, returns from his four-month sabbatical on Easter Sunday. Praise God!
Jennifer called me when I was on the course yesterday. I hope to be able to talk to her this week. Jenn, call me at work, when you are home at night. I'm anxious to hear about her trip to Thailand. I will add the access to her pictures later this week. She sent it to me, but I only have it on my home computer. It looks like they had a great time.
This is short, but we were having network problems this morning and I have to do payroll by 9:00 AM local time. I'll add more later. Ciao.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
I may lack "pinkie" class, but I've always got FAMILY
Those of you who know me well, know that I am a fairly frugal person. I tend to buy nice things for the house and for the family, but when it comes to buying myself things, I'll opt for the nice used car over a new one. Well, Jennifer knows me as well as anyone and she decided to splurge for my birthday. As she put it, she wanted to buy me something she knew I'd never buy myself. She bought me a Citizen Perpetual Calendar, Eco-Drive watch. It is silver and gold with a black face and it has the month, day, date and even the year on the face as well as military time to indicate AM or PM. Frankly, I had to have Daniel set the watch for me. If the alarm goes off in a meeting, I won't know how to turn it off. It is one of the nicest gifts I've ever received. So, to my wealthy daughter in Korea, THANK YOU, doll, for making your Dad so proud. I love you.
Monday, April 03, 2006
I woke up today in Vancouver!!
Funny, I remember going to the Sacramento Kings game last night at Arco Arena, driving home with Darla, watching a movie on disc and going to bed in Sacramento. The rain, it's all about the rain. Having just completed the rainiest March in 35 years in Sacramento, it is April 3rd and we will get up to an inch of rain out of the latest storm to darken our skies and darken our moods. I know why Seattle has the highest percentage of suicides in the country, constant rain is depressing. I was not able to play golf this weekend. The course was open, but had running water through several fairways and golf carts were not allowed on the course. I never play with a golf cart, but that answer to my query on Saturday morning was enough to keep me in bed at 6:45 AM, as my playing partners had already alerted the course that they were not going to show for our 7:20 AM tee time. Usually by this time of the year, we have had several stretches of weather in the eighty degree range, but so far it has had trouble sustaining stretches above 60 degrees. I look out on a slowly lightening sky that is overcast and raining. The dreaded time change hit yesterday and it was dark, raining and downright cold when I left the house at 6:15 AM this morning.
Darla and I did attend the Sacramento Kings vs Los Angeles Clippers game last night and had a great time. Our friends, Gary and Liz, couldn't make the game and are season ticket holders. We paid them the $66 face value for their two tickets and preferred parking and thoroughly enjoyed the game, which Sacramento won 106-96. I went to the game last week with Gary and really enjoyed it. I could tell Darla would like to go to a game, so when I got an e-mail from Gary that the tickets for the Sunday night game were for sale, we jumped on it.
Darla and Daniel leave Saturday for a week in Mexico building houses. We sincerely hope that the weather rains itself out and they end up with a dry and warm week. They endured torrential rains last year that required shifts where water was kept from building up on the sides of the large tents that the group stay in. It was muddy and miserable and they loved it last year. This year, Darla is praying for some sun.
Jennifer called me last Wednesday and told me that she had a few days of comp time and that she and her friend, John, were taking off and flying to Bangkok, Thailand for a few days of fun in the sun. The weather has been in the 90's in Bangkok at the beaches with overnight lows in the upper 70's. I haven't talked to her since her return, but I'm sure they had a ball. She's been freezing in Korea and was ready for some sun. Thailand is about a two-hour plane ride from Seoul, Korea. Frankly, Jenn has been doing nothing but minting money since she started this job. She had several 17 hour days of work leading up to the end of her project at the air base. They have a new project that starts today, but the air base had some sort of military process going on that precluded them from working last Wednesday through Sunday, so the call of the sand and sun was heeded. I'm jealous as I sit here bailing out the flower pots in front of my home, lest the Spring flowers die from root rot.
With Darla gone this weekend, the plan is for poker Friday night with golf on Saturday and Sunday. A look at the extended forecast shows rain ending by Wednesday afternoon with the next round of wet weather due in on Saturday. Naturally.
I was in San Francisco last Thursday night as one of my Contractor markets had an open house, followed by dinner in the city. We started the trip by visiting Harvey's office in San Francisco. I sat through a meeting with his brokers and then Harvey called me in to his office. One of my employees had called Home Office and complained of a hostile work environment. Supposedly, I expected her to work a full week, attend all meetings and help out in the office with tasks that she felt were beneath her. The final straw was when I told her that she could not get off at 3:30 in order to seek a part time job to help her pay bills. The nerve. I will be meeting with this mental giant late this morning to see if I can lessen her burden. I think a seat in the unemployment line should allow her plenty of time to seek additional sources of income.
The office continues to show momentum and I'm beginning to lose patience with running the office, but not being the Branch Manager. I interviewed with Unigard, a west coast company owned by a large Swiss conglomerate, last week for a Commercial Account Manager position. I was very intrigued with the job, which is a field underwriting position handling accounts in the $20,000-$150,000 range and really impressed with the Branch Manager of the Roseville office. The position would pay me more money and release me from the management aspect of the job. I would in essence be an entreprenuer, handling a book of about $6,000,000 in business and traveling about 25% of the time. My next step with Unigard would be a trip to the Home Office in Bellevue, Washington to meet with the CEO and upper level management. It would be nice if Burns and Wilcox would step to the plate, but it has been 18 months of doing the job without the recognition, pay and benefits of being the Branch Manager. After a while the promises ring a bit hollow.
Well, that is all the news that is fit to print. Be well, stay smiling and touch a life with a random act of kindness this week. Ciao.
Darla and I did attend the Sacramento Kings vs Los Angeles Clippers game last night and had a great time. Our friends, Gary and Liz, couldn't make the game and are season ticket holders. We paid them the $66 face value for their two tickets and preferred parking and thoroughly enjoyed the game, which Sacramento won 106-96. I went to the game last week with Gary and really enjoyed it. I could tell Darla would like to go to a game, so when I got an e-mail from Gary that the tickets for the Sunday night game were for sale, we jumped on it.
Darla and Daniel leave Saturday for a week in Mexico building houses. We sincerely hope that the weather rains itself out and they end up with a dry and warm week. They endured torrential rains last year that required shifts where water was kept from building up on the sides of the large tents that the group stay in. It was muddy and miserable and they loved it last year. This year, Darla is praying for some sun.
Jennifer called me last Wednesday and told me that she had a few days of comp time and that she and her friend, John, were taking off and flying to Bangkok, Thailand for a few days of fun in the sun. The weather has been in the 90's in Bangkok at the beaches with overnight lows in the upper 70's. I haven't talked to her since her return, but I'm sure they had a ball. She's been freezing in Korea and was ready for some sun. Thailand is about a two-hour plane ride from Seoul, Korea. Frankly, Jenn has been doing nothing but minting money since she started this job. She had several 17 hour days of work leading up to the end of her project at the air base. They have a new project that starts today, but the air base had some sort of military process going on that precluded them from working last Wednesday through Sunday, so the call of the sand and sun was heeded. I'm jealous as I sit here bailing out the flower pots in front of my home, lest the Spring flowers die from root rot.
With Darla gone this weekend, the plan is for poker Friday night with golf on Saturday and Sunday. A look at the extended forecast shows rain ending by Wednesday afternoon with the next round of wet weather due in on Saturday. Naturally.
I was in San Francisco last Thursday night as one of my Contractor markets had an open house, followed by dinner in the city. We started the trip by visiting Harvey's office in San Francisco. I sat through a meeting with his brokers and then Harvey called me in to his office. One of my employees had called Home Office and complained of a hostile work environment. Supposedly, I expected her to work a full week, attend all meetings and help out in the office with tasks that she felt were beneath her. The final straw was when I told her that she could not get off at 3:30 in order to seek a part time job to help her pay bills. The nerve. I will be meeting with this mental giant late this morning to see if I can lessen her burden. I think a seat in the unemployment line should allow her plenty of time to seek additional sources of income.
The office continues to show momentum and I'm beginning to lose patience with running the office, but not being the Branch Manager. I interviewed with Unigard, a west coast company owned by a large Swiss conglomerate, last week for a Commercial Account Manager position. I was very intrigued with the job, which is a field underwriting position handling accounts in the $20,000-$150,000 range and really impressed with the Branch Manager of the Roseville office. The position would pay me more money and release me from the management aspect of the job. I would in essence be an entreprenuer, handling a book of about $6,000,000 in business and traveling about 25% of the time. My next step with Unigard would be a trip to the Home Office in Bellevue, Washington to meet with the CEO and upper level management. It would be nice if Burns and Wilcox would step to the plate, but it has been 18 months of doing the job without the recognition, pay and benefits of being the Branch Manager. After a while the promises ring a bit hollow.
Well, that is all the news that is fit to print. Be well, stay smiling and touch a life with a random act of kindness this week. Ciao.
