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.