Beautiful Autumn Weather

75 degrees, a cloudless blue sky, not a puff of wind in the air. What do we call weather like this? Golf weather, of course. The dew is still clinging to the branches and limbs of the trees and the grass is still slick and there are footprints on the parking lot where employees have cut across the median on their way to their office. I see several people carrying steaming cups of coffee as they blindly make their way in to work on a Monday. There is caution tape and orange cones surrounding what is left of a tree that fell during last week's storm in the corner of the parking lot. There was a tree service out here last week cutting up the trunk of the tree and what is left is mostly branches and cut up portions of the trunk. I still don't know where the tree fell, but our complex is a block long and consists of nine buildings, so it could have come from anywhere and just been moved to the front of the complex.

The storm last week was the first rain that we've seen this year and although less than an inch fell, it was nice to see the change of seasons. The storm came with some heavy winds that left trees down around the area and storm drains clogged from the downed leaves and tree limbs. It took me over an hour to get home last Wednesday as the power was out on a main street near the office and the traffic was backed up all around us. I ended up taking a short cut around the congestion, only to find the street backed up in water. I was able to navigate my way through the water slowly only to have a guy in a pickup truck shoot through the water on the other side of the road and swamp my Mustang with a wall of water that shot over my drivers door and over the other side of the car. These California drivers don't know how to drive in weather of any kind. The number of accidents on that Wednesday was almost comical.

Daniel started his football game on Friday night and played most of the first series before being yanked by his offensive line coach. The reason was, according to the coach, that Daniel "stood up" in the middle of one runnning play rather than drive blocking. His replacement played most of the game, but what is odd is that Daniel was yanked after his team had driven the ball from the 20 to the other team's 14 yard line. His replacement immediately whiffed on a block and his man sacked the quarterback for a ten yard losss. We did not score on that possession and lost the game 48-7. Daniel knew that his days were numbered as the starter when he lead the quarterback sneak in the last game where the QB followed Daniel's block into the end zone from the three yard line. When the team came off the field, the O. Line coach high fived the qb, the center and the tackle next to Daniel and walked right by Dan. As I said, I don't know how he got sideways with his coach, but he did. One more game and my high school football watching days will be over, at least until my grandsons play or my grandaughter is a cheerleader.

It was a perfect weekend for golf and I played Saturday at Diamond Oaks with Boyd and Bob Pando. Bob is in my Monday night life group and just joined the club. He shot a 92 in the last tournament and was so upset. His wife had to kick him in the pants and get him over himself. It was his last tournament in the Peoria flight (the flight for golfers who don't have an established handicap). He ended up taking second in the flight (they throw out three holes and figure your score off of that) and won $35.00. I managed to win my flight and only won $48.00. Bob established a handicap for November and it came in at 9.9 (I have a 10.4). Bob had a spectacular round on Saturday and shot 37+37=74. Boyd shot 79 and I managed a 42+39=81. It was a great weekend for golf and we were off the course by noon.

I was able to get the lawn cleaned up and mowed and David raked the leaves over to the side of the house. Daniel had lost his wallet last week. He had cash in it as well as his drivers license, ATM card and pictures of a girl that he likes who is now in Africa on a religious retreat. As David was raking leaves he came across a heavy object that turned out to be Daniel's wallet laying in the street, wet and dirty. Daniel parks his truck on the side of the house when he is with us and must have dropped it Monday night when he was moving back to our house from his Dad's. It lay there obscured by the leaves all week and during the storm Tuesday and Wednesday.

I managed to get the spa disconnected from the electrical and the outlet and light in the yard disconnected. The demolition crew will be in tomorrow to take out the spa, steps, cut down the trees and take out the pond and raised concrete decking. I'm taking the day off to be there to make sure it all goes as planned. Hopefully the dig will commence either late this week or early next week. Darla and I went in and picked out the tile and flagstone for the pool. We picked out a "three rivers" flagstone which is tan and rust colors and a dolphin blue colored waterline tile that will go nicely with the Tahoe Blue dark bottom of the pool.

Darla was really pushing for a trip to Canada this Thanksgiving, but with the pool construction and the side yard being closed by a plastic fence, I really don't want to be gone. She wants to get back to Canada soon as we haven't visited with Dad and Shirley in years (we tend to meet them in Vegas which we will do in March) and she wants to see Glad and Jerry. I've committed to a week in Canada next year in addition to our vacation to Hawaii(??). It is Daniel's senior year and we are allowing him to have input into where we go. He is looking at Bermuda and Tahiti, but hopefuully we end up in Mexico or Hawaii. I'm putting out the offer to Dad and Shirley to join us again this year. This may be our last Family Vacation with both boys off to college next year. We'll keep you informed on where we are going and when.

Well, this is short, but the troops are arriving and I have a visitor from Home Office here again today and I have to do payroll as well. We had our best month ever in October and I will be taking the troops to lunch on Wednesday. We wrote over $1,400,000 in premium and brought in over $160,000 to the bottom line. It was a great month. Ciao.