Thursday, June 29, 2006
Monday, June 26, 2006
We got Anthony all Married Up
Wow, what a busy weekend. The heat was on in the valley with temperatures exceeding record levels for most of the weekend. The mean high temperature for the weekend was 108 degrees...and it was mean. Darla and I were handling video chores at Anthony and Erin's wedding on Saturday. We drove up early Saturday morning to the small town of Willows where Erin was born and raised, stopping in the larger town of Williams for breakfast at Denny's. Anthony asked me to be at the wedding site by noon for pictures. We arrived at 12:30 PM and I had Darla take still pictures, both digital and photos, but couldn't bring myself to film a photographer at work. Would there be any video more boring than watching a photographer work? I think watching paint dry on growing grass would hold more drama.
Anthony asked that I film the ceremony and told me that he'd have a tripod available. I was using his Sony Handicam and alas, on the day of the wedding, no tripod was proferred so I had to film the wedding freehand. The church has a small half-attic alcove space above the church and to the rear of the sanctuary. The room has a window and that is where I chose to film the wedding. It was a good venue, but the room is not air conditioned and did I mention the record heat we were having? The room has the window set at about waist level and I thought about shedding my pants and filming the proceedings in a state of Half-Monty as the temperature rose and my back began to sweat. The air conditioning from the church worked its way into the room via the window, but the room is used as storage for Christmas decorations and other bric-a-brac that piles up over time in a church. The room is accessible by a set of attic stairs that are located right above the entrance to the church and has to be pulled down by use of a pole and hook. Once I was in place, I was there for the duration. A simple bottle of water would have been nice, but I wasn't thinking when I mounted the stairs and the pastor closed the door behind me.
The ceremony was blessedly short and sweet and then Anthony and Erin had all of their guests gather around the altar and the photographer traded places with me and took a group photo of all of the wedding party and guests gathered at the altar. I told her it was really warm in the attic, and she said she'd be fine that she was raised up here. I assume she meant Willows, but perhaps she was raised in the church attic. The group picture was unique and genuine and could only be done because of the vicinity of the small half-attic at the rear of the church.
We all changed clothes into shorts and more comfortable attire and drove out twenty minutes into the foothills of Willows to Erin's parents' ranch where a large tent was set up on the side yard of the house with a large swamp cooler and misters. We drank lemonade, iced tea and Pepsi and Darla took the video camera (at my urging) and went to each table and got individual blessings and well wishes to the bride and groom from literally every guest at the reception. It was my job to do the video work, but Darla frankly has the personality to pull off that task as she cajoled everyone into giving a wish. Several said they had nothing to say or couldn't think of anything and Darla told them to give it some thought and she'd be back. True to her word, she was and got everyone to give some message to the bride and groom.
Our ex-boss, Bill Sousa, had found Anthony and Erin's wedding website and had RSVP'd to the wedding. He wasn't invited. Anthony and Erin were both upset and figured it was a joke, but right on time and in all his glory, Bill and his wife, Storma, arrived at the wedding. They sat with Darla during the service and I caught up with them after my stint in the attic. Bill kept asking about directions to the reception and I finally told him that it came with the "Wedding Invitation". He still didn't get the hint that he was crashing the wedding. In fact he made a comment about some neighbors who came to the reception late and joked that they weren't invited, but just smelled the food. I kicked Darla under the table and we shared a laugh.
Anthony and Erin are off to their honeymoon just outside of Cancun, Mexico for five days. I am exceedingly happy for both of them. The maid of honor told the story of how Anthony and Erin met. They discovered each other online at a social networking site and communicated online for about three months before they finally met. Erin brought her cousin with her on the night that she finally met Anthony at an ice skating rink in Sacramento. Her cousin was there in case Anthony was some predator or weirdo. She met him, shook hands and waved her cousin off. It was definitely a good first meeting and they were able to get to know all about each other's lives before they ever met face-to-face.
Darla and I went to dinner Friday night, saw a video, went to the wedding on Saturday, stopped at a casino on the way home and won $50 in about 90 minutes of playing video poker, went to church Sunday, went to the beach after church, and Darla had a Silpada jewelry party Sunday afternoon at 4 PM, and we watched another video (The Good Girl) last night. It was a jam packed weekend and I'm a bit tired now that it is all over. I finally opened my new water pressure unit Sunday afternoon and completely sprayed down the backyard stamped concrete, front walkway and washed both cars. I also sprayed down Buddy's Igloo doghouse on the side yard and realized why they call it an igloo as it is actually white under the years of dirt and grime built up on it.
My front desk guy, Ben, and I are off this morning to our storage unit to pick up two cherrywood desks and file cabinets to put into the office next to mine. We have been using the office as the underwriting library, but I combined the underwriting conference room and libraries and we will put both desks into this office and my accounting guy will move into this office. The second desk will be used as a spot for visitors to use a telpehone and computer while they are at our office. We get auditors and home office personnel as well as my Modesto underwriter who visit regularly. These desks have been sitting in storage for two years (unbeknownst to me) at a cost of $65 per month. I have decided to put them to work for us in a virtually empty office. Unbelievable. The billing on the storage unit was going directly to home office.
I did play golf last Thursday afternoon at 3:20 PM. Little did I know when I made the reservation that it would be 107 degrees on the day we hit the links. I shot 41+41=82 in the heat, finishing my round with a triple bogey 7 to leave a little blood on the course. It was unbelievably hot and I drank about two gallons of water while I was out there.
I hope you all have a good week. Check out Jennifer's new blog at the link below. I love you all. Ciao.
Anthony asked that I film the ceremony and told me that he'd have a tripod available. I was using his Sony Handicam and alas, on the day of the wedding, no tripod was proferred so I had to film the wedding freehand. The church has a small half-attic alcove space above the church and to the rear of the sanctuary. The room has a window and that is where I chose to film the wedding. It was a good venue, but the room is not air conditioned and did I mention the record heat we were having? The room has the window set at about waist level and I thought about shedding my pants and filming the proceedings in a state of Half-Monty as the temperature rose and my back began to sweat. The air conditioning from the church worked its way into the room via the window, but the room is used as storage for Christmas decorations and other bric-a-brac that piles up over time in a church. The room is accessible by a set of attic stairs that are located right above the entrance to the church and has to be pulled down by use of a pole and hook. Once I was in place, I was there for the duration. A simple bottle of water would have been nice, but I wasn't thinking when I mounted the stairs and the pastor closed the door behind me.
The ceremony was blessedly short and sweet and then Anthony and Erin had all of their guests gather around the altar and the photographer traded places with me and took a group photo of all of the wedding party and guests gathered at the altar. I told her it was really warm in the attic, and she said she'd be fine that she was raised up here. I assume she meant Willows, but perhaps she was raised in the church attic. The group picture was unique and genuine and could only be done because of the vicinity of the small half-attic at the rear of the church.
We all changed clothes into shorts and more comfortable attire and drove out twenty minutes into the foothills of Willows to Erin's parents' ranch where a large tent was set up on the side yard of the house with a large swamp cooler and misters. We drank lemonade, iced tea and Pepsi and Darla took the video camera (at my urging) and went to each table and got individual blessings and well wishes to the bride and groom from literally every guest at the reception. It was my job to do the video work, but Darla frankly has the personality to pull off that task as she cajoled everyone into giving a wish. Several said they had nothing to say or couldn't think of anything and Darla told them to give it some thought and she'd be back. True to her word, she was and got everyone to give some message to the bride and groom.
Our ex-boss, Bill Sousa, had found Anthony and Erin's wedding website and had RSVP'd to the wedding. He wasn't invited. Anthony and Erin were both upset and figured it was a joke, but right on time and in all his glory, Bill and his wife, Storma, arrived at the wedding. They sat with Darla during the service and I caught up with them after my stint in the attic. Bill kept asking about directions to the reception and I finally told him that it came with the "Wedding Invitation". He still didn't get the hint that he was crashing the wedding. In fact he made a comment about some neighbors who came to the reception late and joked that they weren't invited, but just smelled the food. I kicked Darla under the table and we shared a laugh.
Anthony and Erin are off to their honeymoon just outside of Cancun, Mexico for five days. I am exceedingly happy for both of them. The maid of honor told the story of how Anthony and Erin met. They discovered each other online at a social networking site and communicated online for about three months before they finally met. Erin brought her cousin with her on the night that she finally met Anthony at an ice skating rink in Sacramento. Her cousin was there in case Anthony was some predator or weirdo. She met him, shook hands and waved her cousin off. It was definitely a good first meeting and they were able to get to know all about each other's lives before they ever met face-to-face.
Darla and I went to dinner Friday night, saw a video, went to the wedding on Saturday, stopped at a casino on the way home and won $50 in about 90 minutes of playing video poker, went to church Sunday, went to the beach after church, and Darla had a Silpada jewelry party Sunday afternoon at 4 PM, and we watched another video (The Good Girl) last night. It was a jam packed weekend and I'm a bit tired now that it is all over. I finally opened my new water pressure unit Sunday afternoon and completely sprayed down the backyard stamped concrete, front walkway and washed both cars. I also sprayed down Buddy's Igloo doghouse on the side yard and realized why they call it an igloo as it is actually white under the years of dirt and grime built up on it.
My front desk guy, Ben, and I are off this morning to our storage unit to pick up two cherrywood desks and file cabinets to put into the office next to mine. We have been using the office as the underwriting library, but I combined the underwriting conference room and libraries and we will put both desks into this office and my accounting guy will move into this office. The second desk will be used as a spot for visitors to use a telpehone and computer while they are at our office. We get auditors and home office personnel as well as my Modesto underwriter who visit regularly. These desks have been sitting in storage for two years (unbeknownst to me) at a cost of $65 per month. I have decided to put them to work for us in a virtually empty office. Unbelievable. The billing on the storage unit was going directly to home office.
I did play golf last Thursday afternoon at 3:20 PM. Little did I know when I made the reservation that it would be 107 degrees on the day we hit the links. I shot 41+41=82 in the heat, finishing my round with a triple bogey 7 to leave a little blood on the course. It was unbelievably hot and I drank about two gallons of water while I was out there.
I hope you all have a good week. Check out Jennifer's new blog at the link below. I love you all. Ciao.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Father's Day Meanderings
A great weekend is in the books. Father's day is a day without kids for me, which is perhaps backwards in the scheme of things, but the way it works when divorce is part of the equation. The boys joined us for church and a great sermon on the role of women in Christianity as the pastor continues to debunk the myths and half truths portrayed in the DaVinci Code. The book, by the way, is a world-wide phenomenon which shows how far this world has come from a world of intellect and common sense to a world basically run by celebrity and cattle drive mentality. I've heard that many of the DaVinci Code movie goers have been heard "mooing" as they stand in line to get in to see one of the world's great farces played out. Dan Brown has reached the pinnacle of celebrity, but likely will face his eternity in a hot dungeon if he believes half of the nonsense that he writes. As to his premise that the early church was a religion that believed that God was a woman. Frankly, the Old Testament does not give God a gender. The only time that God receives a gender is after Christ is born and he refers to himself as the Father and Christ as his son. As to the notion that Mary Magdalene was Christ's wife, look at the Bible. The disciples were perplexed as to why Jesus was so affectionate with Mary Magdalene. If indeed, he was married to her, would the disciples wonder why Jesus and Mary were so close? No. It is again a myth that Brown has thrown onto the guileless public, whose brains have turned to mush in this celebrity driven world. Father's Day is to me a time to thank my earthly father for the guidance and love and support that he has always shown me, but more so to celebrate the fact that God accepted me into his family through the death and life of Jesus Christ. Praise God.
The boys did head over to their Dad's house after church and Darla and I packed up and headed to the Lake. We did NOT bring the jet ski, but simply spent a relaxing afternoon on the beach with a good book, some drinks and a Subway sandwich lunch. The lake continues to be full and there is only a small strip of beach. We were bombarded by frisbees and footballs and even the volleyball from a game going on down the beach. The weekend saw temperatures in the mid and upper-nineties and Summer is in full throttle although it doesn't officially start for two more days.
I went out to the Thunder Valley casino on Saturday night for Anthony's bachelor party. Anthony was my assistant until I promoted him to an underwriter position last Spring. I have pictures of he and his betrothed, Erin, on the blog a few weeks ago. His brother set up a golf day followed by dinner at Austin's steakhouse in the casino and then a round of gambling. I had a qualifier tournament at my club on Saturday (I shot 84, ho hum) so begged out of the golf, but told them that I'd meet them at the casino for dinner. Austins' was awesome and I had their signature prime rib dinner which is a 26 oz prime rib, bone in, with a thickness of about three inches. It was huge and delicious and Buddy certainly enjoyed the leftovers as I had the bone and about 8 ounces of meat left for him to gnaw on. The restaurant is very nice and I'd like to take Darla there soon. I know that we can share a Prime Rib or one of their Filet Mignons as the portions are enormous. It cost $270 for five of us. There were ten at the casino, but half of the guys kept gambling and wouldn't join us for dinner. Perhaps they were confuased on the concept of a bachelor party. These guys are all in their mid to late twenties and the concept of "me first" apparently rules their lives. Anthony wanted to get the group together to play blackjack after dinner, but I begged off as the tables are all minimum $25 at Thunder Valley and you pay for the cocktails on top of that. My gambling chit was about $100 and I didn't want to spend it all on four hands of blackjack. I played nickle slots and got hammered pretty good by the casino, but finally hit four aces with a three on a double-double poker machine for a $100 payout on a 25 cent bet and walked away. I was able to pay for dinner and bring home about $60 of my $100 stake. I left the gang about 11:15 and headed home as Darla and the boys were back from Almanor.
Darla and the boys had a cabin up at Almanor for Friday night and stayed over Saturday and wake boarded off of Earl's boat. I had my golf tournament and Anthony's bachelor party and stayed home to attend to those things. The weather was finally great at Almanor and they had a really good time. We have a reservation at Almanor over the July 4th holiday and will spend five days at the resort. We'll bring the jet ski and camp out for the long weekend. I have both July 3rd and 4th off and we'll stay over until July 4th. David may have to drive up himself and come back himself as he has to work on July 3rd. I may even bring my golf clubs and play golf on July 3rd. I will have to miss the Firecracker tournament on July 1st. In fact I'm missing two tournaments this weekend for the wedding. Who says that golf rules my life? We will not have a cabin over July 4th and will be dirt camping. I will survice that, but I can't say that I'm excited about the prospect of slumming it for a weekend. I think we evolved to building houses and having indoor plumbing for a reason.
Jennifer has started a new blog and I have the link at the bottom of this page. My blog is about the comings and goings of a middle class family in suburbia. Hers is the adventures of a generation X'R living the dream in the middle east. Her story of the climb of the mountain in Korea is good reading. Way to go, Jenn. You make your old man proud. Jennifer, by the way, bought me an eclectic group of gifts for Father's Day including a travel alarm clock/flashlight which is about the size and shape of a cigar cylinder. She also got me a chiller, which is a device that you hook up to the USB port of a computer and it keeps cans chilled to 45 degrees (cokes, etc.). The piece de resistance was a basket of home made root beer and snacks. I have waited to try the root beer as I wanted to get a half gallon of vanilla bean ice cream and make a root beer float. Thank you, Jenn.
Darla and the boys also bought me a set of golf shorts and shirts by Izod. Izod has the best golf shorts around with knitted stretch waist band and large pockets for tees, etc. It was a nice celebration for sure.
Well it is time to do payroll and I have to get at it. I hope you all have a great week and take the DaVinci Code for what it is, a piece of fiction and not a code of ethics. Ciao.
The boys did head over to their Dad's house after church and Darla and I packed up and headed to the Lake. We did NOT bring the jet ski, but simply spent a relaxing afternoon on the beach with a good book, some drinks and a Subway sandwich lunch. The lake continues to be full and there is only a small strip of beach. We were bombarded by frisbees and footballs and even the volleyball from a game going on down the beach. The weekend saw temperatures in the mid and upper-nineties and Summer is in full throttle although it doesn't officially start for two more days.
I went out to the Thunder Valley casino on Saturday night for Anthony's bachelor party. Anthony was my assistant until I promoted him to an underwriter position last Spring. I have pictures of he and his betrothed, Erin, on the blog a few weeks ago. His brother set up a golf day followed by dinner at Austin's steakhouse in the casino and then a round of gambling. I had a qualifier tournament at my club on Saturday (I shot 84, ho hum) so begged out of the golf, but told them that I'd meet them at the casino for dinner. Austins' was awesome and I had their signature prime rib dinner which is a 26 oz prime rib, bone in, with a thickness of about three inches. It was huge and delicious and Buddy certainly enjoyed the leftovers as I had the bone and about 8 ounces of meat left for him to gnaw on. The restaurant is very nice and I'd like to take Darla there soon. I know that we can share a Prime Rib or one of their Filet Mignons as the portions are enormous. It cost $270 for five of us. There were ten at the casino, but half of the guys kept gambling and wouldn't join us for dinner. Perhaps they were confuased on the concept of a bachelor party. These guys are all in their mid to late twenties and the concept of "me first" apparently rules their lives. Anthony wanted to get the group together to play blackjack after dinner, but I begged off as the tables are all minimum $25 at Thunder Valley and you pay for the cocktails on top of that. My gambling chit was about $100 and I didn't want to spend it all on four hands of blackjack. I played nickle slots and got hammered pretty good by the casino, but finally hit four aces with a three on a double-double poker machine for a $100 payout on a 25 cent bet and walked away. I was able to pay for dinner and bring home about $60 of my $100 stake. I left the gang about 11:15 and headed home as Darla and the boys were back from Almanor.
Darla and the boys had a cabin up at Almanor for Friday night and stayed over Saturday and wake boarded off of Earl's boat. I had my golf tournament and Anthony's bachelor party and stayed home to attend to those things. The weather was finally great at Almanor and they had a really good time. We have a reservation at Almanor over the July 4th holiday and will spend five days at the resort. We'll bring the jet ski and camp out for the long weekend. I have both July 3rd and 4th off and we'll stay over until July 4th. David may have to drive up himself and come back himself as he has to work on July 3rd. I may even bring my golf clubs and play golf on July 3rd. I will have to miss the Firecracker tournament on July 1st. In fact I'm missing two tournaments this weekend for the wedding. Who says that golf rules my life? We will not have a cabin over July 4th and will be dirt camping. I will survice that, but I can't say that I'm excited about the prospect of slumming it for a weekend. I think we evolved to building houses and having indoor plumbing for a reason.
Jennifer has started a new blog and I have the link at the bottom of this page. My blog is about the comings and goings of a middle class family in suburbia. Hers is the adventures of a generation X'R living the dream in the middle east. Her story of the climb of the mountain in Korea is good reading. Way to go, Jenn. You make your old man proud. Jennifer, by the way, bought me an eclectic group of gifts for Father's Day including a travel alarm clock/flashlight which is about the size and shape of a cigar cylinder. She also got me a chiller, which is a device that you hook up to the USB port of a computer and it keeps cans chilled to 45 degrees (cokes, etc.). The piece de resistance was a basket of home made root beer and snacks. I have waited to try the root beer as I wanted to get a half gallon of vanilla bean ice cream and make a root beer float. Thank you, Jenn.
Darla and the boys also bought me a set of golf shorts and shirts by Izod. Izod has the best golf shorts around with knitted stretch waist band and large pockets for tees, etc. It was a nice celebration for sure.
Well it is time to do payroll and I have to get at it. I hope you all have a great week and take the DaVinci Code for what it is, a piece of fiction and not a code of ethics. Ciao.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Buddy's New Butch Summer Haircut
I'm showing the new and the old Buddy. We have a new dog. Darla called me last week laughing hysterically. She's taken Buddy in for a Summer cut and they shaved him down to the skin. He is now a white dog. We had seen a golden retreiver at the Lake a few weeks ago and thought that the shorter cut looked good. That dog had been cut to about two inches of hair and looked really cute. Apparently the groomer didn't understand or got carried away with the cut. What can you do?
77 degrees with high thin clouds
Sorry that the blog is late. I actually tried to work on it from home yesterday, but the site was having problems and I finally gave up. I stayed in Roseville yesterday as we had the Insurance Golf Day in the afternoon at Sierra View Country Club. The Roseville Golf Club also had our annual David Oxley Junior Golf tournament in the morning at Diamond Oaks and I went over to help out marshalling the under-11 9 holers. David Oxley was a junior golfer who also worked in the cart barn at Diamond Oaks. He was killled on a camping trip back in the 70's and we have had an annual tournament in his honor ever since. Diamond Oaks and Sierra View are virtually side-by-side in Roseville and I was able to help out with the junior tournament in the morning and make it over in plenty of time to warm up, eat lunch and play in the Insurance tourney.
The weather was awesome, a little overcast in the morning with a light breeze and a high temperature of 77 degrees. We are being blessed with some Spring-like temperatures here in the middle of June. We deserve it after all of the rain that we endured in the Winter months.
The kids at the junior golf tournament always amaze me at how accomplished they are. There are a few beginners that play, but there was one 11 year old, who drove the ball a mile. He actually played in the Roseville Amatuer and shot a 75 from the tips. I talked to his Dad and he said that he has him play with the top amateurs in the area, but also has him occasionally play with his own age group. He shot a 37 on the front nine.
I was asked to marshall on the par five tenth hole. The hole has a crest where you scale a hill and then work down the hill to the green. You cannot tell if the landing area is clear from the tee box, so they had me stand out on the top of the hill and signal when it was clear to hit. These little kids really bomb the ball and were playing from the red tees. I picked out a spot behind the large oak tree on the left center of the fairway and would signal that they could tee off and then take shelter behind the tree. The problem was that there was an ant hill at the base of the tree that I couldn't see until I felt the ants working their way from my tennis shoes up my legs. When I finally realized that I was being used as a new ant hill, I did the fire dance in the fairway. It took me two hours to rid myself of ants. I had ants on my shirt, in my hair, on my hat and in other places that will go unmentioned. I was telling the story to our president when I came in from my duty and he said, "No shit." as he knocked several ants off my shoulders and hat.
I made it out to the Insurance golf tournament and continued to find ants crawling on me as well as a spider that my playing partner picked out of my hair. I was like Euell Gibbons, just living in nature and eating bark off of trees. Our team shot a respectable 60 in the scramble tournament which won us a hearty "attaboy" as the winners shot 53 and 48!! respectively. I was in the third to last group through hole number 12, which is a 185 yard par three. I hit a 4 iron that ran low and hit the ground about 20 yards short of the green but kept rolling up and onto the green and to about six feet of the hole. I was the closest of the day to that point at 6'8" and on tap to win the $250 gift certificate to a local golf shop. Unfortunately, Caleb Summerhays was behind me and put his tee shot 5'10" away to claim the only prize on the hole. Caleb has a cousin who plays on the PGA tour (Brad Summerhays) and an Uncle on the senior tour (Bruce Summerhays). His 17 year old sister has a golf scholarship to BYU and his brother just missed qualifying for the US Open by two shots. I played golf with Caleb last Wednesday and he "struggled" to a 75. I did manage to win a $50 gift certificate to Home Depot as well as a wind jacket from the pro shop in the raffle.
Daniel is up at the first of three football camps this Summer. This week he is up at the University of Nevada Reno until Thursday and next week he will be tent camping at Woodcreek from Monday until Wednesday and then be at a two-day camp in Sacramento. At least it is keeping him busy. I have a job for him when he gets back on Friday as I have to get some furniture out of storage for the office and I'll pay him $50 and buy him lunch to come down and move it into our office.
We will finally make it up to Almanor on the weekend of July 1st. I have both July 3rd and 4th off and we have a spot at the Almanor Resort and will bring our jet ski up for a long weekend. Darla is planning to be up at Almanor this weekend, but I have the Net Amateur tournament at Diamond Oaks.
I read today where a sunbather was killed yesterday on the beach in Oxnard, when two lifeguards accidentally drove their SUV over her head as they were patrolling the beach. And the concern is melanoma?
This is necessarily short today as I must get to work and get caught up on the mail, phone calls and minutia that pile up on a day out of the office. A Day out is never free. Take care. Ciao.
The weather was awesome, a little overcast in the morning with a light breeze and a high temperature of 77 degrees. We are being blessed with some Spring-like temperatures here in the middle of June. We deserve it after all of the rain that we endured in the Winter months.
The kids at the junior golf tournament always amaze me at how accomplished they are. There are a few beginners that play, but there was one 11 year old, who drove the ball a mile. He actually played in the Roseville Amatuer and shot a 75 from the tips. I talked to his Dad and he said that he has him play with the top amateurs in the area, but also has him occasionally play with his own age group. He shot a 37 on the front nine.
I was asked to marshall on the par five tenth hole. The hole has a crest where you scale a hill and then work down the hill to the green. You cannot tell if the landing area is clear from the tee box, so they had me stand out on the top of the hill and signal when it was clear to hit. These little kids really bomb the ball and were playing from the red tees. I picked out a spot behind the large oak tree on the left center of the fairway and would signal that they could tee off and then take shelter behind the tree. The problem was that there was an ant hill at the base of the tree that I couldn't see until I felt the ants working their way from my tennis shoes up my legs. When I finally realized that I was being used as a new ant hill, I did the fire dance in the fairway. It took me two hours to rid myself of ants. I had ants on my shirt, in my hair, on my hat and in other places that will go unmentioned. I was telling the story to our president when I came in from my duty and he said, "No shit." as he knocked several ants off my shoulders and hat.
I made it out to the Insurance golf tournament and continued to find ants crawling on me as well as a spider that my playing partner picked out of my hair. I was like Euell Gibbons, just living in nature and eating bark off of trees. Our team shot a respectable 60 in the scramble tournament which won us a hearty "attaboy" as the winners shot 53 and 48!! respectively. I was in the third to last group through hole number 12, which is a 185 yard par three. I hit a 4 iron that ran low and hit the ground about 20 yards short of the green but kept rolling up and onto the green and to about six feet of the hole. I was the closest of the day to that point at 6'8" and on tap to win the $250 gift certificate to a local golf shop. Unfortunately, Caleb Summerhays was behind me and put his tee shot 5'10" away to claim the only prize on the hole. Caleb has a cousin who plays on the PGA tour (Brad Summerhays) and an Uncle on the senior tour (Bruce Summerhays). His 17 year old sister has a golf scholarship to BYU and his brother just missed qualifying for the US Open by two shots. I played golf with Caleb last Wednesday and he "struggled" to a 75. I did manage to win a $50 gift certificate to Home Depot as well as a wind jacket from the pro shop in the raffle.
Daniel is up at the first of three football camps this Summer. This week he is up at the University of Nevada Reno until Thursday and next week he will be tent camping at Woodcreek from Monday until Wednesday and then be at a two-day camp in Sacramento. At least it is keeping him busy. I have a job for him when he gets back on Friday as I have to get some furniture out of storage for the office and I'll pay him $50 and buy him lunch to come down and move it into our office.
We will finally make it up to Almanor on the weekend of July 1st. I have both July 3rd and 4th off and we have a spot at the Almanor Resort and will bring our jet ski up for a long weekend. Darla is planning to be up at Almanor this weekend, but I have the Net Amateur tournament at Diamond Oaks.
I read today where a sunbather was killed yesterday on the beach in Oxnard, when two lifeguards accidentally drove their SUV over her head as they were patrolling the beach. And the concern is melanoma?
This is necessarily short today as I must get to work and get caught up on the mail, phone calls and minutia that pile up on a day out of the office. A Day out is never free. Take care. Ciao.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Summer is coming
The heat is on in Sacramento. Strangely, we were supposed to head up to Lake Almanor this weekend and the weather up in the mountains was cold, cloudy and unpredictable. We were all packed and set to load up the jet ski and head to Almanor Saturday morning and Darla's Dad called and said that it was overcast and cold and that we'd best stay home. That is two weeks in a row that Almanor has been a dud. It was, however, sunny and hot in the valley with temperatures near 95 degrees and Folsom Lake was packed. The water level is so high that many of the good beach access is under water. We ended up jammed on a small slip of land next to the boat ramps that the jet skiers use to launch their craft.
The ski held up well over the winter and I changed out the battery to be safe. The only problem we had is that some water ended up in the hull and some of the electrical sat in water all winter. I thought I had completely drained the hull, but some water must have been left in the engine and slowly worked its way out and into the bilge area. We hooked up the new battery on Saturday morning and got the engine to fire up. Unfortunately we were not as lucky at the lake as the engine would NOT start. Normally we fire it up while it is still on the trailer and then start it again after we get it in the water. The reason is that it is harder to start in the water as the engine has to turn the water as well. We finally got it going after about ten minutes of frustration and it ran really rough for the first ten minutes or so, but slowly as the water was forced out of the hull and the electrical dried out, it was back to its old self.
There is a great deal of dead wood in the water right now as well as large mounds of it that the parks department has already dredged from the water. We had to be a little careful manuevering around the trees and limbs in the water. Most of it has been removed, but there are still some sections that look like a boat wreck because of the piles of driftwood in the water.
David somehow managed to lose our Annual Pass to Folsom Lake. It is still good until the end of July and costs about $175 for day use and boat access. He borrowed it on Memorial Day to take a trip to the lake with his life group from church and lost it somewhere between his Dad's house and ours. He said that he remembers setting it out on the floor at his Dad's. The counter is too jammed with stuff and he didn't want it to get lost. He paid our way into the park ($15) on Sunday and we are giving him this week to see if he can find it. Both of the boys keep a really messy room and perhaps they will learn that when you lose something in your piles of crap, it's time to clean up the mess. Perhaps not. If David doesn't find the pass it will cost him about $50 to have us buy a replacement earlier than planned. Lesson learned I hope. More to Darla to not trust the boys with something like a pass to the lake. They won't be taking the ski out themselves anytime soon.
I did not play any golf this weekend as I planned to be up in Almanor with the family. They will want to go back up in a couple of weeks and I will likely stay home as I have golf tournaments planned over the next couple of weeks. I shot a 41 on Thursday night and have golf again this week on Wednesday (marketing trip with two agents), Thursday (twilight league) and Saturday and Sunday in a tournament. I did manage to get through the weekend without golf without too much withdrawal.
We had the fruitless plum tree removed on the side of the house on Friday. The tree crew also trimmed up the valley scrub oak in the front of the house. It had never been trimmed and needed some major pruning. There is actually some light finding its way onto the front lawn again after having been cast in darkness for so long. I was really pleased with the job that they did, but even more so with the cleanup. They completely removed the tree down to the stump and removed all traces of the tree including leaves, branches, etc. I would use them again for sure.
I have two new employees starting today and I had another employee give notice on Friday. Margaret works in the Modesto satellite office and is leaving to work up in Seattle. She had told us that she wanted to move to Seattle and it was our goal to partner her with an experienced broker in the Seattle area, but we never found the right candidate. She tired of waiting and found another job. It is simply another hole to fill. I am finally fully staffed in Sacramento.
Well, this is short, but I was late getting in this morning. Some motorcyclist decided to plant himself on the roadway on my main access road to work and it took me an hour to get in today. I saw his bike when I passed and the handlebars were broken off. I assume he is in as bad of shape at the hospital. Motorcycles are a sure way to see Jesus sooner than later. I hope you all have a good week. Ciao.
The ski held up well over the winter and I changed out the battery to be safe. The only problem we had is that some water ended up in the hull and some of the electrical sat in water all winter. I thought I had completely drained the hull, but some water must have been left in the engine and slowly worked its way out and into the bilge area. We hooked up the new battery on Saturday morning and got the engine to fire up. Unfortunately we were not as lucky at the lake as the engine would NOT start. Normally we fire it up while it is still on the trailer and then start it again after we get it in the water. The reason is that it is harder to start in the water as the engine has to turn the water as well. We finally got it going after about ten minutes of frustration and it ran really rough for the first ten minutes or so, but slowly as the water was forced out of the hull and the electrical dried out, it was back to its old self.
There is a great deal of dead wood in the water right now as well as large mounds of it that the parks department has already dredged from the water. We had to be a little careful manuevering around the trees and limbs in the water. Most of it has been removed, but there are still some sections that look like a boat wreck because of the piles of driftwood in the water.
David somehow managed to lose our Annual Pass to Folsom Lake. It is still good until the end of July and costs about $175 for day use and boat access. He borrowed it on Memorial Day to take a trip to the lake with his life group from church and lost it somewhere between his Dad's house and ours. He said that he remembers setting it out on the floor at his Dad's. The counter is too jammed with stuff and he didn't want it to get lost. He paid our way into the park ($15) on Sunday and we are giving him this week to see if he can find it. Both of the boys keep a really messy room and perhaps they will learn that when you lose something in your piles of crap, it's time to clean up the mess. Perhaps not. If David doesn't find the pass it will cost him about $50 to have us buy a replacement earlier than planned. Lesson learned I hope. More to Darla to not trust the boys with something like a pass to the lake. They won't be taking the ski out themselves anytime soon.
I did not play any golf this weekend as I planned to be up in Almanor with the family. They will want to go back up in a couple of weeks and I will likely stay home as I have golf tournaments planned over the next couple of weeks. I shot a 41 on Thursday night and have golf again this week on Wednesday (marketing trip with two agents), Thursday (twilight league) and Saturday and Sunday in a tournament. I did manage to get through the weekend without golf without too much withdrawal.
We had the fruitless plum tree removed on the side of the house on Friday. The tree crew also trimmed up the valley scrub oak in the front of the house. It had never been trimmed and needed some major pruning. There is actually some light finding its way onto the front lawn again after having been cast in darkness for so long. I was really pleased with the job that they did, but even more so with the cleanup. They completely removed the tree down to the stump and removed all traces of the tree including leaves, branches, etc. I would use them again for sure.
I have two new employees starting today and I had another employee give notice on Friday. Margaret works in the Modesto satellite office and is leaving to work up in Seattle. She had told us that she wanted to move to Seattle and it was our goal to partner her with an experienced broker in the Seattle area, but we never found the right candidate. She tired of waiting and found another job. It is simply another hole to fill. I am finally fully staffed in Sacramento.
Well, this is short, but I was late getting in this morning. Some motorcyclist decided to plant himself on the roadway on my main access road to work and it took me an hour to get in today. I saw his bike when I passed and the handlebars were broken off. I assume he is in as bad of shape at the hospital. Motorcycles are a sure way to see Jesus sooner than later. I hope you all have a good week. Ciao.
