Some rain will dampen our area this week

Funny post header? Well, we just finished the driest January in history in Sacramento when we had an official reading of just .45" of rain. Right now since July 1st we have received 4.46" of rain and our average to date is 11.56". Global warming? Well, with all of the frost we've had, I'd argue against that, but el nino is definitely making herself known locally. It looks like we'll get rain on Wednesday and a better chance for hard rain over the weekend. I had planned to put Daniel and David to work on helping me put in the irrigation and drainage in the backyard, but I'm sure I can find some indoor projects for them as well. Darla did exchange the ski lodge faux wood flooring that I bought for the master bathroom and has some lino tiles that need to be installed. Our bathroom is about 75% carpeted, but we have a strip of linoleum that runs from the toilet along the tub and over to the shower enclosure. It is only about 30 square feet of floor area and If the rain comes in as promised, we will get to that project. I did NOT arrange for any golf next weekend as I wanted to work on the sprinklers.

I did spend three days in Phoenix and Scottsdale last week and it was a fast and furious few days. Pete and I flew in on Tuesday afternoon and stayed at the Gainey Suites Resort. The resort price this time of year is $479 for a two bedroom condo and we got the Scottsdale Insurance Company rate of $265. The rooms were nice and had special beds that are made for the resort by Sealy Posturepedic. You can actually arrange to have a bed made for you at the bargain price of $1,995 (shipping included!). Darla and I actually bought the Sealy Posturepedic Four Seasons bed when we replaced our mattress last year. It is like sleeping on a cloud..

We played golf on Wednesday at Eagle Mountain Resort in Fountain Valley (just outside of Scottsdale). The resort is first class with mountainous terrain and beautiful vistas from all over the course. There are million dollar home sites surrounding the course and I saw more "infinity" style pools than I've ever seen before. The problem we had is that this is one of the first times I've ever left Sacramento for Phoenix and had the weather colder in AZ than at home. We were stuck in a high pressure zone with temperatures in the upper sixties and Scottsdale had rain, wind and temperatures in the upper forties and low fifties. The weather was cloudy when we got to the course, but on the first tee Pete turned to me and said, "Ken, I think it's starting to rain." Pete was wrong, actually it had started to hail and we got a good downpour of hail for about five minutes. The front nine was actually fairly benign in terms of weather, it was just COLD. I shot 40 on the front side with rental clubs, but struggled to a 46 on the back side as the rain and wind moved in and made a mess of things. There were golfers packing up and heading in, including the foursome behind us who all had on shorts (probably guys from the east coast in for the PGA tournament and heard that AZ weather was great in January). We stayed the course and finished, partly because we are bullheaded and partly because I knew that Emery had paid $175 for the golf and another $60 for the rental clubs. It was being expensed through Scottsdale Insurance, but we were warriors and stayed the course. We were so cold when we finished playing that it hurt to wash my hands, it felt like my hands felt as a kid after a snowball fight, the warm water stung my hands as I started to thaw out. Emery took us to dinner at a local fine food establishment, where Pete ordered chicken livers and asked if they could deep fry them. This is my top producer in the office putting on his Okey bib and scarfing on liver. Thankfully, Emery knows him. We ate with Emery, his wife and college aged son. We had Emery and Steve (who also worked at Republic Western) over to the resort for Happy Hour, where they served drinks and appetizers. It was a great day.

Thursday, we were up early and headed in to the BW Arizona office and met with Dan Slawson, the Underwriting Manager and a member of the Burns and Wilcox Million Dollar Club. That club has an exclusive membership of five in the company and it is Pete's expressed goal to get there within three years. Our million dollar producers make about $250,000 a year in total compensation. Pete and Dan had a long conversation and Dan told Pete how he grew his book and how he directs a team of three assistants. Pete took copious notes and really engaged Dan in a pretty intense question and answer session.

From there we were off to the Colony Insurance offices to meet with our underwriting team. Scottsdale Insurance is our number one carrier and we had grown from $2,480,000 in '05 to $3,145,000 in '06. Our goal this year is $3.5 million. Colony is even more excited about our growth as we grew from $785,000 in 2005 to $1,575,675 in 2006. Our contract business grew from $533,000 to $1,056,500 in that same time period, so they really threw on the dog for us at Colony. We were taken into the General Manager's office and he fawned over us for awhile and then we sat in two VPs offices and went over the figures. It was great. Our underwriter, Synda Sallee, then took Pete and I to the FBR Open in Scottsdale where we spent the day watching the likes of Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, JB Holmes and Camillo Villegas play. We spent about two hours sitting in the bleachers of the 16th hole and it is the biggest party in golf. The coeds from ASU show up in force and I had never seen so much silicone and so many high heels on a golf course in my life. Why they go I have no idea, but they hoop and holler and drink and carouse like nobody's business. Many of the golfers DON'T like the party as it is loud and pretty obnoxious, but others of the pros, run up and down the fairway ropes slapping high fives and exhorting the crowd to even more noise. You can hear the roars all over the course.

We also walked the course and followed a few foursomes. We followed JB Holmes for awhile. JB is one of the longest drivers on tour and routinely hits the ball 320 yards. On one 418 yard par four, JB hit his drive to about 56 yard in ( a 362 yard drive). He then airmailed his lob wedge over the green where he hit an older woman in the shoulder and the ball bounced high off her up onto a hill behind the green. JB walked up and said, "Where is the lady that got hit?" She sheepishly raised her hand and he said with a smile, "Perhaps next time you could knock the ball forward TOWARD the green, eh?" The gallery got a kick out of that and the lady turned several shades of red.

Pete and I did fly back Thursday night and we were in the office on Friday. The flight was delayed about forty five minutes because an inbound plane from Cancun was delayed and we got home about 11:00 PM. It was nice to get caught up on Friday and able to hit the ground running today.

The Pebble Beach trip hit a snag this week when we realized that Darla would be in Mexico during the week that we were supposed to go to Pebble. The trip has been changed so that we arrive at the resort on Easter and play Pebble Monday at 10:30 and Spanish Bay on Tuesday at 8:40 AM. I really look forward to that.

Jennifer was in town this weekend and I got to see the offending tattoo that she was so concerned about. It is something that people of her generation do. I don't get it, but I turn 50 this year. I did explain to her that as she begins to get tattoos that are visible (she has one on her left bicep that is a "1/4 wrap tattoo" It wraps around her arm) she will begin to suffer some discrimination. I explained to her that I work in a very conservative industry and would not hire someone with a large visible tattoo. Insurance agencies are still owned and run by gray haired men and I have to be careful that my staff is not offensive to the men that ultimately pay the bills. Jennifer didn't like the tone of the conversation, but I think she needs to hear that from someone who hires people. I would deny it to the death, but I would choose someone without a tattoo over someone with a large visible tattoo. It is certainly silent discrimination, but it occurs all the time. I certainly have staff with small tattoos on their legs or arm, but the key word there is small. Jenn, keep the tattoos off your face and neck and hands. I love you unconditionally, but I just wouldn't hire you. Stay in a blue collar industry where you work installing the networking systems and you'll be fine.

The big tattoo that she has includes two hearts one with "Mom" and one with "Dad" in the middle of depictions of fire and wind and calamity all around them. This portrays her center in the storm of her life. It's very nice, but I would have liked it better if there was one heart in the middle and it said "Jesus".

That is it for this week. The Vegas reunion is right around the corner. Dad, send us the itinerary. Jennifer and John arrive on March 3rd and leave on the 11th. We will get there on March 8th and leave on the 12th. Ciao.