Happy Birthday, Frances!

8:00 AMAnother weekend is in the books. It was Darla's Mom's 65th birthday this weekend and we all went out and celebrated Saturday night. Jennifer came in to town (she said she has to get used to driving to Sacramento every weekend while John is gone in Afghanistan) and Alicia, Darla, the boys and I all went to the local Italian restaurant, Pete's, for dinner. Darla fixed a nice Oreo ice cream cake for dessert and we enjoyed our visit. Earl and Frances just got back from Hawaii and a ten day visit with Darla's brother, Steve. They enjoyed the tour of the islands and their visit.

Jennifer and I were able to get the exterior outlet fixed. It turns out that the problem we had was in putting two GFCI outlets on the same line. We disconnected the outside outlet and replaced it with a 15 amp outlet and everything is working great. I knew that I needed a GFCI outlet for outdoors, but if there is a GFCI outlet anywhere on the line, the circuit will automatically trip. The line we were tying into includes the kitchen outlets and already had a GFCI outlet installed. The GFCI will trip the second the line goes to ground. Supposedly, you would be able to jump into the swimming pool with a hair dryer in your hand and the circuit would trip before the electricity hit the water. I was able to hook up the two lights on the side of the house and in the garage (I bought a new garage light) and the entire day long job from last week is complete and everything is working as it should. Jennifer did a great job, it just took us longer than we had planned because of the problem withthe wall.

Jennifer stayed over on Saturday night and we all went to church on Sunday and then out to breakfast at the new Original Pancake House in Roseville. Darla and David walked from church to the restaurant and met Jennifer and I there. There was a huge accident on the main drag into church Sunday morning and the road was still closed at 10:15 AM when church was over. I don't know what happened, but it was BIG.

I am at home this morning waiting for Premier to come out and do an orientation on the pool and equipment, etc. I would have had Darla handle it, but the equipment is a little different this time around (It's been 17 years since I've owned a pool). So I'm working on this now and will probably finish it up at lunch today in the office.

12:05 PM The orientation came and went. The guy actually showed up at 8:30 AM and then went about straightening up the pool, brushing, cutting the waterfall outlets to give a better stream of water, etc. I had a couple of items that I wanted them to fix, including the transition path of flagstone from the deep end. This is the area where they had the stone stop in the middle of the dirt instead of carrying it to the stamped concrete. Well, when they came out and continued the path to the concrete, they left a two-inch gap from the flagstone up to the concrete deck. On the shallow end the flagstone and deck are at the same level. What he found was that there is a leak behind the waterfalls that need to be repaired, there is a leak in the filter housing and it will likely be replaced, and the pool sweep was broken and needs to be replaced. He was going to install the sweep and show us how it operates.

I am sitting and enjoying the remnants of Jennifer's Hawaiian Luau pizza from Saturday night. She left it in the fridge when she headed home last night. It was supposed to be her dinner last night, but I have to say, it made a very tasty lunch today.

I am flying out to Phoenix tomorrow afternoon. I was invited out to play golf with Emery Jensen, my old boss from Republic Western. Emery is now the Pacific Division Director for Scottsdale, our largest carrier. My branch had the single largest increase in premium (percentage wise) in 2006, so Emery is opening the corporate wallet and we will play golf at one of Scottsdale's golf resorts. Thursday I will visit with our Phoenix office personnel, visit the Colony Insurance company branch office and then be Colony's guest to the opening round of the Phoenix Open professional golf tournament. I'm bringing Pete Morrison with me and he will also taste the fruits of our labors in Scottsdale. I will not bring my clubs, but rent a set in Scottsdale. The Scottsdale resorts all rent brand new Callaway clubs. This way I get to try out the new Big Bertha line and have a built in excuse if I don't play well.

I did play this weekend and it was a chance to exorcise some golf demons. Unfortunately, I still struggled on the front nine with a triple bogey and a double bogey for 46. I salvaged some respect and pride with a 38 on the back side for an 84.

Bob Pando and I will play in the first NCGA qualifier of the year this coming weekend. We will play two days of best ball golf for a chance to go directly to Spyglass. Bob and I need to play good, consistent golf with no blowups on the same holes to win. It usually takes 20 under to win this two day event. Bob warmed up for it Saturday with a 78 which included a chip-in for eagle on number 10. I wish he could have saved that as it was a stroke hole for him and would be worth a double eagle in the tournament. I'll let you know how it goes next week.

I will start the landscaping in two weeks when the boys are back (weather permitting). I will rent a trencher and put in both the sprinklers and the drainage lines for the back yard. The boys aren't thrilled, but what can you do.

As you recall, Daniel was going to be a brushing wizard on the pool as he wanted the softest and smoothest plaster ever. Well, Daniel realized that that involved one of his least favorite four letter words, WORK. I was lucky to get him to brush it once a day and had to make sure I was out brushing it ever morning before work. Daniel needs to go out and get himself a job. He is 17 and has never worked a day in his life. Lying around watching TV is not a vocation last I checked.

Well, that is the news to the minute. I hope all are well. We talked to Dad yesterday and Vegas is booked and we are ready to go. I have also finally made my foursome for Pebble Beach. Funny how everyone was primed to go until it came time to dole out some CASH. I do have a foursome and Pebble actually made a mistake and has two rooms booked for the bargain price of $2080. They were supposed to simply change my reservation to two golfers for an extra $550 from the $1530 I'd already paid. The reservation shows that we are paid in full for two rooms and four rounds of golf. We'll see if they realize their mistake. If not, we'll have Bob and Debbie move over to Spanish Bay from the Holiday Inn or wherever they are staying. Ciao.

The pool is filled and now the fun begins in earnest!

The pool is indeed plastered and filled, although not without a few requisite problems. The new faucet that was installed by Premier Pools froze last week and I came home to a small geyser on the side of the house. The brass t-fitting above the faucet had a hairline crack in it that had frozen and become larger and finally erupted. Darla had noticed it a day before, but it was simply a drip at that time and she had thought that I'd left the faucet turned on slightly because of the freezing temperatures. That wouldn't make a lot of sense, but that comes from my perspective. I had to shut the water off to the house overnight and we brushed our teeth with bottled water. I did turn the water back on the next morning and Darla and I took hot showers before work and then I turned it back off for the day. The pool company came out and repaired the broken part and we were back to normal that night. It was a bit odd camping in our house for that one night. The toilets wouldn't flush and we couldn't run the dishwasher or make ice for the ice maker. In all it was a minor inconvenience.

The pool company was at the house at 7:00 AM on Friday to plaster the pool and, coincidentally, collect the final payment on the pool. I was off to work and they were done plastering and on their way by noon. They left the pool filling with the hose in the bottom of the pool with a small white towel taped around the end of the hose and a set of instructions on the door for filling the pool and then brushing the plaster. The note said that it would take about 24 hours for the pool to fill and under no circumstances were we to turn off the water as it would leave a line on the plaster. I was home by 4:30 to see the completed pool and to gauge the fill rate of the pool. The pool filled up from halfway up the first step to halfway up the second step in about five hours and I estimated that the pool would be full by about ten o'clock in the morning. I was up about five thirty to tend to my bladder and it looked as if the pool was about a foot from the tile line. I headed back to bed and woke at 8:15 AM to see the pool already filled up to the overflow in the pool. I was up and draining the pool of about three inches of water within fifteen minutes.

Jennifer came over to help me install two new lights, one for the new trash enclosure on the side of the house and the other a floodlight at the front of the house above the driveway. We also installed a new GFI outlet in the front of the house and that was where the adventure began. Jennifer wanted to install the outlet at the end of a circuit, so she could tie in to the end line. The problem was the end line at the front of the house is in the dining room and the outside wall is brick. We decided that instead of trying to drill through the brick and install an outlet on the brick that we would tie in to the existing outlet and feed the wire through the wall to a spot on the wood siding about 24 inches from the outlet. Great plan, but there was a stud in the wall about ten inches from the outlet and we had to drill through that and then feed the wire through the stud and over to the new hole where we would install the new outlet. Nice plan, the execution was a bit tougher. The biggest problem we had is that the electric tool industry has not designed a home 45 degree drill bit extension. We used a socket set flexible extension, but burned it out and it melted as we tried to cut through the 2x4 stud. I finally went out and bought a 16 inch long 1/2 inch bore bit and we were able to drill through the stud and push the wires through. I cut a second hole in the sheet rock below the new outlet and Jennifer was able to reach her Barbie sized hands into the hole and pull the wire through and then feed it to the new outlet and wire it up. It sounds fast when you write it, but it was an all day project as we attempted to use an electrician's fishing rod to get from one hole to the other. The problem is the small hole in the stud wouldn't allow the rod to turn up so we could reach it and the angle we cut the hole in the stud actually took the fishing line into the brick and past our level. We didn't want to cut another hole in the wall, but finally realized that we weren't going to get the job done without resorting to extreme measures.

The time that it took to complete the outlet left us working in dusk to install the two lights. I re-installed the old light back up on the side of the house and Jennifer installed the new light by the trash enclosure, running a three wire line from the first light through the garage to the new light. Finally, we installed the new floodlight by running wire from the inside garage light along the top of the garage ceiling to the front of the garage. We got it all done and turned the power on and only the new outlets were working. The original lights were dark and the new lights working like a charm. We then checked the front outlet and it wasn't working and the power was out completely to that line. We couldn't figure it out as the whole line was dead. We checked the GFI and it was not tripped. Finally, Jennifer found a GFI in the kitchen that was tripped and kept tripping. We finally disconnected the new outlet and the power stayed on and the GFI in the kitchen didn't trip. Jennifer was tremendously frustrated and wanted to come back on Sunday and fix the problem. I had golf yesterday and told her that I'd talk to one of my buddies who is an electrician and find out what was wrong. I did and it turns out that I'd pulled one of the wires loose from the side garage light. That was an easy fix and it is working fine. The inside garage light is a halogen light and the bulb was blown. I am replacing that light today as the halogen bulbs are just too expensive and the light in the garage was a little harsh. As to the outlet in front, I'd bought a 20 amp outlet and the line has all 15 amp outlets on it. The extra amperage is not the problem as the line is on a 20 amp circuit, what Charlie thinks happened is one of the wires on the new outlet is touching the metal casing and causing the line to go to ground, which trips the GFI. I will look into that this weekend and get the new outlet hooked up. The hard part is done and Jennifer was thrilled to hear the problems are simple. It was great working with her. She is a little bruised up as she totally got in to the project and was up to her elbows in the wall pulling the wire through. It is impressive to see the things that she has learned and can do. It will serve her well when she gets her own house.

Darla and I then took Jennifer out to a lavish dinner at the Elephant Bar to thank her for all of her hard work on the house. We had drinks and appetizers at the bar while we waited for our table and then had dinner. Our waitress had either body odor or was a smoker, because she was covering something up with a perfume that would normally be found only in a strip joint or brothel. It was overwhelming. Jennifer will write about it in her blog, I'm sure. We held our breath every time "stinky" came by the table. We had a ball.

My reference to "Now the fun begins" is that I will be trenching for both sprinklers and drainage lines for the backyard. There were nice drainage lines in the yard that got demolished when the pool was dug. I will pull out about a foot of dirt in the flowerbeds and fill the raised bed behind the waterfalls. I will then bring in 5 to 8 yards of topsoil to give my plantings a fresh bed of dirt when we put in the gardens this Spring. I will build a trellis wall in front of the shed to shield the yard from the shed and put in a climbing vine on the trellis. We will then have a concrete flatwork contractor come in and pour the driveway for the jet ski and put in a stamped concrete sun deck behind the shallow end of the pool that will tie in with the stamped concrete deck that is already there. I will have to pull out the walkway and sidewalk that Dad and I put in when the shed was built and have it all tie in to the new concrete. It will be a lot of work, but I am really happy with the way that the pool turned out. We wanted an island pool and that's what we ended up with. Also, the Tahoe blue plaster is perfect and gives the pool water a great blue look. Once the flowerbeds get put in and the trees and plants are in, we'll have a nice oasis in the backyard.

Daniel came over on Saturday when Jennifer and I were working and was thrilled with the pool. He will be in charge of brushing the pool as he wants the smoothest plaster ever and he is determined to do a polar bear dive into the pool this weekend as he wants to be the first one in the pool. I have been doing the early morning brushing of the pool and will continue that, but Daniel will do an afternoon and evening brushing. They recommend brushing twice a day, but Daniel wants to do it three times. Darla and I kept at that pace this weekend and will let Daniel take over this week.

I usually rush to write about my golf experiences, but this weekend was one of the worst rounds I've had in a while. The wind was blowing about 45 miles an hour and everyone struggled. Boyd shot 82, Ed ( a 5 handicapper) shot 91, I had a 45+51=96 and Bob Pando ( a 9 handicap) shot 98. It wasn't golf, it was an exercise in survival. We played at Lincoln Hills in Lincoln and this was the first morning without a frost delay in three weeks. The wind ensured that the ground didn't freeze overnight. I would have preferred the frost. It was bitter cold. I played with two winter golf gloves, one on each hand.

It is, however, a fresh new week and I am off to write some new business. We are having a GREAT month and it is a nice start to the new year. Our CEO will visit us next month rather than this month, so it is all good. Take care. Ciao.

The pool is ready for plaster and those darn cats have taken over!!

It's Not CANADA, but it's still COLD

It has been an Arctic Blast the last few days with overnight lows in the low 20's and daytime highs barely getting into the mid forties. It has been dry and sunny, but COLD. I'm still fighting a head cold and Darla has been fighting it right along with me. I felt so bad this weekend, that I actually canceled a game of golf on Saturday to rest and get better. Well, that was the plan when I called Mel and told him that I was going to pass on golf. It wouldn't do for me to be out in the 38 degree weather hitting a small white ball around. So, instead, I slept in and then went to Home Depot where I bought two self closing gate springs, a bolt lock mechanism for the auto gate on the side yard, ten gallons of wood preservative for the fence, some linoleum tile for the master bathroom floor, a new leaf blower/vacuum, a canister sprayer for the wood preservative, two sliding door pool alarms (code in Roseville, CA), some replacement screen for the screen door where Buddy had a small fit one night when it was raining, a new side yard light for the new trash receptacle enclosure and a halogen two-light flood light set for the front of the house.

I was able to get the two gate springs installed and the bolt lock put on and then retired to the house with a cup of hot cocoa and a blanket. Sunday, Darla and I again slept in missing church and feeling a bit better when we finally rolled out of bed at 9:30. We had a hot breakfast and I went about the job of applying the wood preservative to the fence. I don't understand how people can spend $5,000 on a new fence and call it good. I got a clear Behr stain preservative and poured it into the gallon sprayer and set out to get the fence done. Unfortunately, the preservative was so thick that it came out of the sprayer like mustard out of a pump bottle. I ended up having to apply the stain by hand. Darla took pity on me after about three hours when I'd only covered the trash receptacle the two side gates and the fence on the side yard up to the inside gate of the back yard. She rolled up her sleeves, poured some of the stain into an empty Fresh Step cat litter bucket and began helping out. I went inside and asked David to help. He seemed somewhat non-plussed which I found out had to do with the fact that he wanted to watch the New England-San Diego NFL playoff game. I told him that I was Tivo'ing the game and he came out to lend a hand. Between the three of us, we were able to cover the area of the backyard up to the shed. I have the side yard fence and gate behind the shed left to do. The job really looks good and the stain really brought out the red in the redwood and the knots in the wood. It should last us 4-5 years. I know the neighbor on my left will also treat her fence, so that will retard the aging process even more.

It is Martin Luther King, Jr day today and this being a seat of state government, the commute this morning was more akin to an early Saturday morning than a Monday. The traffic control lights at the freeway on ramp were not even on when I passed through at 7:30 this morning. About two thirds of our office building are off today and I will likely send the staff home early today.

I just found out that our leader, Alan Kaufman will visit us in Sacramento in the next couple of weeks. He will be in California to buy a couple of new office buildings, one in Fresno and one in San Diego. His real estate holdings with Burns and Wilcox owned office buildings continues to grow now that prices have started to fall. He is a shrewd negotiator when it come to the acquisition of real estate. He had planned to come into Sacramento to appoint me to my new position, but it never worked out. Better late than never. The staff is nervous as our numbers are good, but not great. I actually look forward to him coming in and seeing the change in the office with a staff that is engaged in the process and working together to build something great.

Jennifer's boyfriend, John, has left the United States and arrived in Afghanistan. He is recording his adventures on he and Jennifer's website at www.jswanonline.com/afghanistan. The reading is fascinating with his discussion of the base that he is working on as well as the conditions of the city of Kabul and the locals in general. We are all hoping that John can make it home and come with us to the Lyon family reunion in Vegas in March. Jennifer will be there by hook or by crook, but she would be much happier if John can come as well.

Daniel has been busy helping his Aunt Alicia install a new kitchen and bathroom. Daniel and David did the demo on the old kitchen counter top and Daniel has been charged with getting the new sinks, garbage disposal and faucets put in. It was quite a job as they had to build-up the casement that the sink was installed in and then feed the faucets through the new granite and tighten the whole thing up and install it to the drain line. Daniel and his father ended up at Alicia's until almost 8:00 PM on Saturday and Dan was back yesterday finishing up. The job is done and Daniel has $300 for his efforts. Dan is supposed to get the two pool alarms installed today and we will then have the pre-plaster inspection done on Wednesday. We could have plaster as early as this weekend.

Jennifer will be up next weekend to help me install the lights on the side yard and the floodlight above the garage door. She will also look into adding a GFI outlet at the front entry. Right now I have to plug the leaf blower or hedger way in the garage and run an extension cord from there. Jennifer has become quite handy in the electrical trade and I have to add outlet boxes and we have to "baby-chain" the two lights and other things that are well over my head. She will be in this weekend to help me and Darla and I will take her to dinner.

My efforts at picking out some flooring to replace the small bit of linoleum in the master bathroom fell flat. Darla took one look at the faux wood tiles that I bought and said the equivalent of "over my dead body this is going in my house." I thought it would make the bathroom look like a ski lodge (Seinfeld reference).

Well that is the news that is fit to share with you to the moment. I need to work on some new incentive bonus plans today and tomorrow and get them signed. I will set up my Pebble Beach golf trip this week for the first week in April. I hope you are all well and walking in step with the Lord. Ciao.

Holidays are over, traffic is back to normal

That is one really nice aspect of the holidays, that the traffic becomes so light and easy to maneuver. I've been getting into work in about 25 minutes during the holidays and that was back to about 40 minutes this morning as I slept in a little bit and didn't leave the house until 7:10 AM, arriving here at 7:50. This is Monday which is a telecommute day for many of the state workers, so it was lighter than normal. I will leave at 6:30 tomorrow to beat the traffic and be here in about 30 minutes. I live 16 miles door to door, but most of my commute is done on inner city streets, so I deal with traffic lights. I came in a bit later today as I have a golf meeting at 6:30 tonight and decided to just go straight to the meeting rather than drive home only to turn around and leave right away. Tonight's meeting, the first of the new board, will probably take a little longer than normal as we will deal with new committees and some new functions for some of the board members. It is also our life group night and depending on when we wrap up the golf meeting, I may or may not make it to Life Group.

Peter Morrison, my top underwriter, is back from his vacation and we will swap assistants today. I have had the number one assistant in the office over the past year and a half. I felt that as I was doing both production and running the administrative part of the office, that I needed the best assistant. As Pete's production has met and surpassed that of mine, I've realized that in order to see continued growth for him, I needed to give him the best assistant. Connie is taking ten of my agents with her as I've had her take over a select group of agents for full underwriting responsibilities. I will work with Dinda, who is part time (32 hours a week) and she is in the process right now of moving her desk to the spot just outside my office. Connie never moved down here as she wanted to be part of the bullpen of assistants where she could help train the newer assistants. I think it also had to do with the social aspect of the job. Hopefully, Pete will continue to grow his book and be the leader in new business production month in and month out.

Jennifer and John were in town this weekend. They came in on Friday night and stayed with Diane. Diane had them in to install a new plasma television over her fireplace. Jennifer and John were able to put in a new outlet behind the TV and run all of the wires through the wall to the speakers. It turned out really nice. They will come over to our place sometime this Spring and install a new GFI grounded outlet at my front porch. John will be leaving for Afghanistan on Wednesday of this week and may be stuck there until the end of March. He had put in for vacation the week that the Lyon Family Reunion is scheduled in Vegas, but his bosses are telling him there is a chance they will need him longer in Afghanistan. His current assignment should wrap up in late February, but there is a second assignment that starts about that time and his boss isn't sure he can fill it with someone else. As is, John is leaving January 10th with a return ticket of March 30th. He isn't happy, but realizes that his job comes first.

I'm growing out my beard and my wonderful daughter noticed and said, "Gee, Dad, it looks like your trying to grow out your beard?" Darla and I both jumped her on that comment and I said, "What am I, 16, Jen?" She said she didn't mean it that way. Her trip to Okinawa has been cancelled and she will have foot surgery on February 5th in San Francisco. She has a bunion problem that is forcing her toes to cross and it needs to be fixed. It is quite painful and she hopes to be up and around by the time we head to Las Vegas.

The pool work should commence again this week as they need to finish the pool lights and finish backfilling all of the trenches. We may have plaster and water in the pool as early as next week. Once that is done, I can get a concrete flatwork contractor out to pour the driveway on the side of the house as well as a sidewalk and patio behind the shallow end of the pool. I will wait until Spring to plant the trees and flowers in the back, but will do the sprinkler lines and risers before the concrete work is done. I also have to install a couple of new drain lines in the back as the demo crew messed that up pretty good. The fence guys still have to come out and take the last bit of bushes and debris (sprinkler pipes, drain line and concrete) from the back yard. Art will also build an enclosure for the trash containers on the side of the house. He will put in pavers for the floor and build enclosures back to back for our neighbor and us for $600.

I played golf on Saturday with Bob Pando and two other guys from the life group. I forgot what it is like to play golf with non-golfers and watched both of them duff their drives off the first tee. We had fun, but I again struggled with a 46+42=88. I had to really concentrate on the back just to break 90, but managed another birdie on the par 5 16th, so I had something to remember in a mostly forgettable round of golf. Bob shot 80 and Kim and Karl both shot 110 or higher.

Our pastor is a history buff and he was telling us the story of Andrew Jackson as President. Jackson was fiery and known as a salt of the earth President, who would always speak his mind. Jackson decided to attend a church in Washington that was run by a very charismatic preacher named James Pope. Pope was also very salt of the earth and was known for his loud and very direct sermons. His church board told him about Jackson coming to visit and urged him to tone down his message. On the morning of Jackson's arrival, Pope stood before the congregation and welcomed President Jackson to his church. He spoke about how his elders had urged him to tone down his message for the President. He then said the following, "If President Jackson doesn't repent of his sins, he will surely go to Hell!" He then went on to an eloquent sermon on the vagaries of sin and the only path to Heaven through the acceptance of Jesus Christ as your Saviour. Jackson approached Pope at the end of the service and said, "Sir, if I had 100 men with your passion and resolve, we could run the world!" Who do you know that needs to hear this message? I will add more later this week with maybe some pictures of the backyard. I hope you are all well and alive in the knowledge of the Lord. Ciao.

Cats!!

There are some things that I can't comprehend and one is how I ended up with Cats in my life. I have never liked cats, I see them as the devil incarnate with their beady eyes and whiskers and how they ignore everything and everyone. My nemesis, Jake, ended up with an incurable disease and had to be put down. Darla was tremendously sad over the end of her time with Jake and I had to box up the animal and take him to the vet to be put down on Friday. I walked in and had a tear in my eye and the vet said that I could stay and be there with Jake at the end. I quickly explained that I was sad over the impending vet bill that would come from the procedure. Darla's Dad, Earl, had told me that I needed to get Darla another cat soon after we put Jake down. I stopped at the SPCA on the way home from leaving Jake with the undertakers. They had a whole passel of cats that had been abandoned or picked up by animal control. I looked through all of the cats and what I saw was, well, a bunch of cats. There were big cats and long haired cats and weird looking cats and some kittens. Now kittens are cute, but I've found that they always tend to grow into cats. If I could get a kitten and have it stay a kitten, I'd be happy. The only cat that really caught my eye was a tabby named "Ricky Bobby" and I think that I just liked the name.

Darla came home from an outing with Alicia Friday afternoon and we went back to the shelter to look at the cats and see if she could tell the difference from one to another. She was completely confused and liked about six of the cats. They have sibling cats that they call "perfect pairs" that they only adopt out together and there was NO WAY I was getting two cats. We left to think it over.

I played golf on Saturday which I'll get to later while Darla entertained her two nieces from the Bay Area, Shea and Taylor. Darla's folks came into town and they all went to the new bowling alley in Rocklin. Steve Matthews played in my foursome on Saturday and I told him about the cat being put down and Darla's sadness. He offhandedly mentioned that his mother-in-law had two "snow point" cats that she was looking to give away. A snow point is a cat that is white with blue eyes and with marbled brown markings. I thought nothing about it, but mentioned it to Darla when I got home. Darla immediately went on the internet and looked up snow points and started to get excited. I suggested that perhaps we could take the baby cat (about a year and a half old) and Alicia could take the mother cat who is about four years old. Steve's mother-in-law was out of town for the holiday and would return home today. Darla called Steve and talked to him about the cats and asked if she could see them on Sunday. They arranged to meet us at noon after church at Brenda's mother's house in Sun City Roseville. Brenda had a key. So, Alicia, Darla and I all headed over to the house to see these cats. Darla really fell for the cats, calling them "Beautiful". And then like a slow motion accident, the cats were loaded up and both of them ended up at our house. I still don't know what happened, it was like a game of three card monty. One minute we were talking about Alicia taking the Mom cat and the next, I live with that weird cat lady that has a house full of cats and no friends.

So far the cats are so skittish that they hide all day under the beds and venture out only infrequently to look at Buddy or jump up on the couch, look at us and then run away. Darla says this is just a phase, that they are getting used to us, but I'd like this to be the norm. It's like not really having cats, because they aren't underfoot all the time. The baby cat came home and hid for three hours. Darla was afraid that it had snuck out of the house, but like a bad smell it showed up after awhile and the Momma cat was able to relax. So there it is, I got rid of one cat and ended up with two, although I'd say the combined weight of these two cats is probably equal to the weight of Jake alone. Daniel said that we'd probably not even notice the fact that we have two cats in the cost of cat food as Jake ate like it was constantly his last meal. The baby is the first picture above and the Mom is the second picture. They have names, but the prior owner called them Baby and Momma and we are looking to rename them. I suggested Rory and Lorelai after the Gilmore girls, but was voted down. Well, they're not my cats, so who cares?

I did see the Bowen therapist last week and she managed to straighten me out at least temporarily. I walked out of the session standing straight and feeling good, but was hunched over by the time we drove the several miles back home. I felt better on Wednesday and still better on Thursday, but cancelled a game of golf I had scheduled for Friday. I thought, Why chance it? Saturday was our annual "stuffing party" for the golf league, where the first newsletter of the year is mailed out. We used to send out about 300 letters which had to be addressed and stamped for mailing, but now about 85% of the club receives the newsletter by e-mail. The tradition of the stuffing party is still intact, but it is more an excuse to play golf on the Saturday after Christmas. I set up two tee times and decided that I would not play and would fill the foursomes with other players. I quickly got six players to commit, lost one of those and filled two other spots with Bob Pando, my friend from life group that I was supposed to play with on Friday and Steve Matthews. I sent out four other invitations and decided to leave it to the golf gods as to whether I would play on Saturday. If someone responded, I would back out and let them play. If not, I'd give it a go. As fate would have it, no one else stepped up and I decided Saturday morning to hit a bucket of balls and see how my back held up. I was tentative and careful and decided to give it a try, but I took a cart and decided if I felt even a twinge, I'd shut it down. Unfortunately, I also got in a skins game with Bob and Steve. I was overly cautious, making sure not to swing too hard and ended up shooting 46 on the front side and fell way behind in skins. I threw caution to the wind on the backside and shot 37 (with a bogey on 18) to win the skin match and shoot 83. Bob shot 82 and Steve shot 79, but my chip-in birdie on 16 was worth $8.50 in skin money and that followed a three carryover greenie on 15 that was worth $2.50 with a poley putt for par.

My back was so good that I decided to do some work Sunday on the backyard and fix the mess that the fence guys had left me with. I disassembled the middle gate and rebuilt it and cemented two more posts behind the raised waterfall for the remaining retaining wall. Monday I finished the retaining wall and David helped me reinstall the gate. I then went out and added additional screws to all of the fence posts, refilled some of the dirt into the trenches on the side of the house and then sprayed down the deck from the sliding doors out to the pool area. It was alot of work, but I feel alot better about the backyard and how things look. Premier Pools showed up on Friday and installed the equipment on the side yard, hooked up the waterfalls and installed the lights in the pool. They also had the tile crew back out and they completed the decking on the deep end of the pool from the pool to the existing stamped concrete deck. It looks really good.

The fence guys did show up on Saturday while I was golfing and removed all of the old fence boards and posts, but didn't remove the sprinkler pipe and bushes that they told me they'd do. The adage, "you get what you pay for" has once again rung true. I don't expect to see them again. They were going to install an enclosure on the side yard for our trash cans, but I'm not holding my breath. David and Daniel and I will change the auto gate they installed on the side yard from a swinging gate to a sliding gate as the gate is ten feet wide and will put two much stress on the middle post. We were going to install a wheel after the driveway is poured, but decided that a sliding gate makes more sense. It also will allow me the opportunity to open the gate just enough to either walk through or bring the mower through. I will use the gate that they built, but install tracks and wheels and have it operate as a slider instead.

Well, this is wordy and long, but I'm full of energy in the new year and looking forward to seeing what the new year holds in store for all of us. Happy New Year. Ciao.