Cooler Temperatures Rule the Day

Relief arrived in the form of some cooler Delta breezes late last week and we set a record with twelve straight days of temperatures over 100 degrees. I remember living in Texas and enduring 22 straight days of 100 or more, so this was cake. The temperatures over the weekend cooled to the low nineties on Saturday and 87 degrees yesterday. Today is expected to top out at 85 degrees. Our overnight lows have dropped back into the low sixties and upper fifties and the sleeping weather has been ideal. The hot weather took a toll on some of my plants and trees as sun burned leaves and stressed plants are in evidence. I've been hand watering the plants and the lawn and will see the landscaping start to come back.

Darla and I went over to one of our neighbors' last night and looked at his pool. He sits a block behind us and has the same floor model as us and also is a corner house facing the same direction. His backyard is actually smaller than ours and he had a pool put in two years ago. Challo (his name, he's from Nicaragua) actually acted as his own contractor and had each of the subs individually contracted to dig, lay the iron, do plumbing, electrical, gunite, plaster and cement and deck work. He also had a pool design contractor. Doing the pool himself saved him almost half the cost of a pool company. There isn't a warranty on the pool and he had to make all of the calls and line up all of the contracts himself and pull all of the permits with the city, but his pool was finished in three weeks, start to finish and it's beautiful. I'm considering doing the contracting myself as well to save money and to have better control over the process.

Jennifer will be home next week and will be here until at least the 11th of September. She will finally get all of her gear and clothes out of storage in Travis AFB in Vacaville. She was going to move the boxes and footlockers into storage locally, but I told her to store it in my attic instead. It will be great to see her and spend some time with her. We hope to get her up to Almanor one weekend to see Darla's parents and to spend some time on the lake.

Unfortunately, Jennifer will be here until August 18th and then she will fly to Las Vegas to spend time with her boyfriend, John, and his family. They will fly from there to San Diego and then back to Sacramento on September 1st. I say unfortunately as Dad and Shirley will be here from August 23rd until August 30th or 31st. Jennifer will just miss them. We've offered Dad and Shirley our home while we are in Puerto Vallarta and the use of our Explorer. Dad will have his '44 here for showing at the Pleasanton Car Show. We've encouraged them to stick around after the show and go and see Carmel/Monterey and the San Francisco area. Darla and I will be gone and Shirley said it had been years since she had been in San Francisco. Hopefully they take us up on the offer and even stay to the following weekend when we get back and they can see Jennifer. It will be the Labor Day weekend, so we will get a long weekend to enjoy with them. We'll see. They'll be gone from home starting on August 13th, so it will be a long time away from home. Dad is beginning to worry about driving the '44 as it doesn't have air conditioning and it tends to be pretty hot in Northern California in August. They will be here in Sacramento on August 23rd and we will visit with them and perhaps go out to dinner or just do a barbecue.

We are scheduled for a work barbecue a week from Saturday at Kathy Hardy's home in Rancho Murieta. She has a pool and a large backyard and offered it for a barbecue. The company will buy two large tri tip steaks to barbecue and each family will bring a salad, dessert or side dish to share. It should be fun.

I did play golf this weekend and it was one of the silly tournaments we play every year. It was the annual three club tournament where you have to choose three clubs and play the entire round with just those three clubs. I chose the driver, putter and eight iron. My biggest fear in the tournament is getting into a greenside bunker and sure enough, I not only found a greenside bunker, but the steepest bunker on the course, on hole number five. I was able to open the clubface and make a descending blow into the sand and get on the green for a sandy par. After a start of bogey, double-bogey, bogey, I went one over the last six holes to shoot 40 on the front. I followed that with a two double bogey backside, including a tough six on the final par 4 18th where my putt stopped on the uphill lip of the cup. My 82 was good for second place, but I would have won with an 81. The guys that cut the holes on our course are not golfers and often leave what we call a "volcano" effect, where they pull the dirt out of the green and leave the sides of the hole mounded, so a slow putt always falls away from the hole. It's frustrating, but it is what it is.

I will play in the four ball qualifier on Thursday at Turkey Creek. I have invited two agents to play golf with me tomorrow afternoon at Turkey Creek. This is a "marketing" outing that will also give me one last look at the course before we play on Thursday. The Thursday match will determine whether we move on to play two days at Spyglass Hill in Pebble Beach. It is so close, I can taste it. There are 72 teams playing and only 4 will move on to Spyglass Hill in September. There are 14 area qualifiying tournaments with four teams each that will qualify to play in the championship on Sept 14-15. There will be 54 teams or 108 golfers from Northern California.

They finally announced the qualifying date for this year's Rose Cup tournament and it is on August 26th. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your perspective) I will be on a flight to Puerto Vallarta that day and will not be able to compete. One of my golf goals every year is to qualify for the Rose Cup team. I did win one of the NCGA qualifiers this year so that trumps the Rose Cup team. I still have the Club Championship next month to look forward to.

Jesse is doing well on his recovery track. He has a lot of pain and is bored just sitting around. He still needs to have his shoulder fixed, but they can't do anything until his broken neck heals, so he is in alot of pain. He was so bored, he went out to the local Albertsons that is closing shop and got a close-up view of the local Texans fighting over the 80% off cigarettes and booze. He sat in one of the "Lark" type shopping carts for old folks who can't walk. I'd pay for a front row seat to watch that. Better than IFC Pride fighting.

Well that is the news. Daniel is home today and I have him re-sodding the back yard in preparation for our barbecue next Monday with our life group at our house. David is doing great, working like a fiend at the engineering firm and excelling all the while. His company came out with a new brochure and it features one of David's designs on the front cover. He's tickled. Be good and stay in lock step with the LORD. Ciao.