Overcast and Dreary Monday

This is strange weather for Northern California. We went from 104 degrees on Saturday to 78 degrees yesterday, a drop of 26 degrees which is unprecedented in our area. Today is overcast, but there is not a chance for rain. We are lucky if we get a half inch of rain during the Summer months. I notice that Austin, TX for instance has had almost six inches of rain since July 1st. That is pretty much our rainy season in Northern California.



Speaking of Austin, Darla and I booked our flights for Jesse's wedding in September last week. I found some $198 round trip flights on US Airways and went ahead and booked the flight. We fly in Friday night September 28th and return on Monday October 1st. The wedding is Sunday for some reason and we decided to stay over until Monday so as not to be rushed. I look forward to seeing the family. This will be the family reunion that Dad's 70th was supposed to be.



My golf index (handicap) dropped to 9.6 this month and now I have to try to live up to being a single digit golfer. I played four straight days this week and shot 41 on Thursday in my twilight league, 80 on Friday at Cherry Island in Elverta, 83 on Saturday at Diamond Oaks and 86 yesterday at The Reserve at Spanos park in Stockton. I played golf with Jerry Tuel yesterday and Jerry and I both realized that we hadn't seen each other in two years. The last time we got together was in March of 2005 and that was the day that Jerry got into his DUI accident, where he went off the road and rolled his car into a barbed wire fence. It was great to get caught up and we played with his two brothers, Houston and Bob. Jerry struggled with his game and shot 93 while his brothers were both in the 100's. It was a windy day with gusts upwards of 35 MPH. There were a few holes that were downright miserable and it was an exercise in patience and fortitude to get through the round. I actually shot one stroke better on the back nine when the weather turned on us as I lived the old adage "when it's breezy, swing easy." It works and often keeps spin off the ball and keeps your ball lower in the wind. Tami and Jerry now own a vacation home up in Lake Tahoe and ten acres on a lake in Durant, Oklahoma. It is a master planned community with a 350 acre man made lake and sub dividable lots. Tami and Jerry bought ten one acre parcels for development. Their plan is to develop their own retirement home on the lake and sell off the other lots as the community takes shape. Jerry is 61 now and Tami turns 50 in October. Their daughter, Natalie, turns 21 in two weeks.



I have set up our golf weekend next week and have eight players for Saddle Creek in Copperopolis for Saturday. We will stay up in Plymouth, California at the Shenandoah Inn and then go wine tasting with the gang on Sunday. We actually have two couples that couldn't make the golf coming up Saturday night just for dinner and the wine tasting on Sunday. The women, of course, will go to lunch on Saturday and shop. They will check into the hotel and we will meet them afterward to shower and get ready for dinner. I have 4 relatively low index players and four high handicappers playing and I will set up a blind draw, two man best ball tournament with full handicaps. Each player will throw in $10 and the first place team will win $50 and the second place team $30. We won't know who our partner is until after the round and I draw the names. Each player will keep a net score for each hole and then we will determine the team score after the names are drawn. I will put four low and four high names in two hats and match the players up in that manner. It should be fun. I look forward to playing Saddle Creek, which is a championship venue in Northern California and rated number 8 in public access courses in California. It must be good, because those courses would include Pebble Beach, Spyglass, Spanish Bay, Poppy Hills, Harding Park, and Torrey Pines.

Darla had a "retirement party" on Saturday. This is the retired jewelry from Silpada designs that she clears out of her inventory every year and sells to her hostesses for 50% off of retail price. Darla then takes the proceeds and buys the new designs at 50% to restock her sample table. Unfortunately, the city of Roseville decided to host a major youth soccer tournament at the park across the street from our house the same day. Darla ended up putting chairs in front of our house to save parking spots for her guests. To say that Darla was irritated would be an understatement. One of our neighbors was also having a garage sale that complicated matters. It must have been a lame garage sale, because I left for golf at 7:30 and they hadn't even set up for it when I left. Darla did very well on her sales and will be able to completely restock her sample table.

We talked to Jennifer last night and her pregnancy continues to go well. She will have an Ultrasound on August 14th and be able to see the baby and how she is progressing. She is growing and can no longer fit in her clothes. She can feel the baby kicking and is really beginning to show. She is about halfway through her pregnancy and all is smooth sailing so far.

The office is doing very well. I was able to renew our largest account, a custom home builder that will bring in about $400,000 in premium this year. It was a struggle and I sincerely don't know how the big brokers handle these large accounts. I was completely in suspense for about two weeks waiting to hear if we retained the account. We had a competitor that actually came in about $30,000 in premium below us, but their form is more restrictive and we were able to be a little more creative on tiered rates and it saved us the account. It was an August 1st renewal so our month is in good shape. I took the retailer out for a celebration lunch last week and we drank mojitos and enjoyed some fine Italian food. I actually plan to take them to dinner with Darla later this month to Ruth Chris steak house as a thank you.

Well, work awaits and the sound of laughter floats out from the staff as they prepare for a Monday. I will take the staff out to lunch on Thursday to celebrate our largest month ever. We wrote $1,450,000 in premium in July with over $200,000 in net retained to our branch. We finished July up 26% from 2006 and a good leg up on the sales contest. Be well and stay grounded in the Lord, our Savior. Ciao.