The Heat has finally ebbed..God, it was HOT!

No pictures this week, but I'll make up for that next entry when we return from our vacation to Lake Almanor. The blog and this blog writer will be on vacation next week. We leave Saturday for Almanor and will be gone until the following Saturday. The resort that we have visited for years (Lake Almanor Resort) has closed down and we are staying at a relatively new resort with boat docks, a ramp and new two bedroom cabins. I look forward to the week of rest. I will, of course, take my clubs up with me and I hope to get in two games of golf while I'm there.

This weekend was poker, golf and pool time. Friday night we played poker at Tom's house in Carmichael. Tom is 56 years old and pretty set in his ways. He and Steve Matthews have never seen eye to eye. Steve is an aggressive bettor and a serious card player. Most of us are pretty laid back and if a card accidentally gets dealt up instead of down, we give the receiver of the card the option to keep it or burn it. Steve believes that it is a mis-deal and we should start over. He's right, but none of us are professional card players, so we let it go. Steve and Tom are often at odds and like a couple of bulls, butt heads quite often. Tom had a brutal night of cards, getting cleaned out. At midnight, we always call the game and have one last round of dealing. As midnight hit at Tom's, he said, "that's it, let's wrap it up!" We started to deal the last round of cards and the first guy dealt his round and then the next person began to deal. Tom said, "Wait! We're done, right? Let's wrap it up . You guys need to leave." We all looked at him and shrugged him off and kept playing. Tom stood up and said, "Look, I'm the host and this game is over after this hand." He looked right at Steve and said, "Do you have a problem with that?" Steve stood up, folded his cards and started to clean up his quarters and get his things together. The rest of us played out the hand in silence and cleaned up ready to leave. I was walking out the door and set my cooler down on a table at his front door and walked back in to thank Tom for hosting. One of the other guys brushed by me and knocked my Tupperware box of about $100 in quarters loose from my hands. As I reached to stop it from falling on Tom's new hardwood floor, I bumped my 20 quart cooler off the table and it hit the floor with a loud BANG and spilled the empties, three bottles of beer, a plastic bottle of water, one coke and about three quarts of water and ice onto Tom's floor. I felt horrible and went about picking up the cooler, beers, empties and ice, while Tom ran for a towel and some paper towels. We mopped up the mess along with several clumps of dog hair that had gathered along the front of the house under the front picture window. Unbeknownst to me, Steve and his cousin, John, were on the front lawn rolling in laughter and hysterics. When I finally got the mess mopped up and said my "I'm sorrys and Goodbyes", John and Steve had already retreated to the truck and were waiting for me there. They were my ride home. They were in hysterics in the car, both crying in laughter. We had a good laugh over Tom's bad mood and my accident on his new hardwood floor.

Saturday, I played golf. You'll remember that I tweaked my back last Sunday at Folsom lake on the jet ski. I got a Bowen treatment on Monday, but my hips are out of alignment and I'm still pretty tender. We had a 9:09 tee time and I got to the course about 8:40 ready to stretch and warm up. As I'm walking from the car I hear the starter announce the "Lyon Four" on deck. I walked in to the pro shop and Robert said, "Hey, Ken, I had two cancellations in front of you so we moved you up. I hope that's okay." I didn't even get to swing a club. We got up on the first tee and set our bets and I hit second. As I took the club back I had a back spasm that caused me to take a step back and away from the ball. Unfortunately, I'm not Tiger Woods and couldn't stop my swing. I hit the ball dead left about twenty yards to the left of the first tee. There are no mulligans in golf and I headed into the trees and figured this would be a brutal day of golf. I was stiff and sore, but slowly worked the kinks out and after an opening double bogey, shot 39 on the front and 42 on the back for an 81.

I was sore after the round, but had to help one of the ladies in our life group move. We met at her house at 2 PM and had to move her from Rocklin to Fair Oaks. The truck didn't arrive until almost three and I had dinner plans with friends at 6:30 PM. One of the guys pulled up at 2:30 and hit a sewer grate as he did a U turn in front of the house and popped his tire. We helped him put his spare on, loaded his truck and got the UHaul loaded. We were at her new place by 4:15 and got the items unloaded and several other items in the truck to go to storage. At that point I had to go home to get ready for dinner. I slipped into the pool in the 100 degree heat and felt myself simmer. Dinner was nice and we enjoyed the company.

Yesterday was a relaxing day in the pool. I got the lawn mowed and some plants trimmed and then spent the day relaxing on the pool with a cold drink and a good book. The weather had cooled down to the upper nineties ( I think we just hit 100 degrees yesterday). It was HOT this week and, in fact, hotter than forecast. I played in my twilight league on Thursday night and it was 111 degrees. We all took carts and, like cattle, played from tree to tree trying to stay in the shade. Bob and I actually won our match for a change, but it was brutally HOT! The pool temperature peaked at 92 degrees on that day and has since settled back at 88 degrees. Several friends told me I was nuts not to put in solar heating, but so far, the pool is plenty warm and we were swimming in April this year and will likely swim into October.

I went Friday to see Boyd in the hospital. He never had got out after being admitted on June 26th with his colon swelling. They kept him in because of pain and because he was running a high fever. He was in good spirits when I saw him on Friday and got out on Saturday. In all, he was in 14 days and hadn't eaten any solid foods in two weeks. In spite of that, with all of the tubes and saline and protein being pumped in to him, he had gained 11 pounds of water weight. Thank God, he is doing better and is back home now.

I talked to Jennifer this morning. She is going into work today and will be leaving her job. The weather there is in the mid 110's and she has been pulling PVC and wires in attics for three weeks. Her body cannot take the heat and she is ready to look elsewhere for work. She has other news that I will report later in the week.

Well, work awaits. The gang has all arrived and I need to get on to my day. I will have more to say in a few days. Be well. Ciao.