Back from Lake Tahoe and a short vacation.

We only took one picture on our short week in Lake Tahoe which is odd for Darla, but we were both in a total relaxation mood. You can also see that I've added pictures of the "new" living room which is now a milk chocolate color and, strangely, I sit watching television and end up craving a Hershey's bar. Go figure. She also bought the new clock, cross and Italian banner to dress up the room and add some class to our home. The cross is huge and I'm concerned that we are now Greek Orthodox or something, but Darla says that crosses are very "in vogue" at the moment. If she left it up to me, I'd have the Three Stooges golf poster hanging above the fireplace. Note the new white mantle on the fireplace. Double click on the pictures to see a larger view.

Again, Tahoe was very relaxing and I really needed the downtime after the trip to Detroit. The weather was absolutely perfect with daytime highs in the mid seventies and overnight lows in the mid twenties. I actually ended up with a slight sunburn on Tuesday. Darla went out scouting out a couple of the local boutiques for a nail appointment on Wednesday and she wanted to be able to set up her Silpada jewelry at the spa for the day and sell some items. I relaxed at the resort and ended up down at the pool with my book and a towel. I called Darla as I left the room to head down to the pool and she said she was on her way. That was 12:15 PM and I read for a bit and finally shut my eyes and slept. Darla ended up back at the resort at 2:30 PM and I ended up with a sunburn. The rays in Lake Tahoe are so intense because of the elevation. I had called Darla to remind her to grab the sunscreen from my golf bag and bring it to the pool. Oops. We ended up playing tennis, eating out, gambling and relaxing during the week. I met Bob, my friend from church and the golf club, at the resort Wednesday morning and we drove in to Carson City to pick up one of his friends (Jim) and play golf at his country club in Washoe Valley near the Montreaux Country Club. His course was difficult (a 134 slope versus our club's 121). My 9 index netted me 11 strokes at his club and I shot 44+42=86 on the day. Bob also shot 86. It was a perfect day and I enjoyed Jim and the club. Jim came down to Roseville a couple of weeks ago and played in our Invitational with Bob and they played in a foursome with Pete and I. Pete is my number one underwriter from work.

We had an evacuation on Thursday morning as the fire alarm went off at about 9:30 AM. It turns out that one of the guests had poured hot grease from the stove into a basin of water in the sink and sparked a fire. It set off the alarms and we all met in the parking lot. We had met another couple the night before in the hot tub. The husband had apologized as he slipped out of his trunks after donning a robe. I was sitting in the tub at the time and told him I was glad he had on a long robe as he squirmed out of his wet trunks. He laughed and putting on a Swedish accent, said, "Ya, we're just Europeans." That morning he made his way over to Darla and I and said that they'd had a methane explosion in their suite after using the restroom that morning. Funny guy.

We returned home on Friday night as Darla wanted a chance to relax in her own bed after being away from home all week. She left this morning for Monterey and is at a home party for Silpada as I write this. Darla had some good luck at the casinos and hit a Royal Flush for $200 on the nickel machines on Friday night. It was good to see as I had little luck all week, finally hitting a Straight Flush at the Nugget in North Lake Tahoe on Friday afternoon for $32.60 on a 25 cent bet on the nickel video poker.

I have sent a request through the San Francisco Exchange Company for a week in Las Vegas over Thanksgiving. Jennifer has invited us up for Thanksgiving and we will drive up on Wednesday the 21st of November and stay until Sunday. We plan to ask Dad and Shirley if they want to join us as well, if they can get away so soon after the trip to Austin. In fact, they are still in Austin and will fly home to Canada on Tuesday. Jennifer gave me a couple of hotel choices and we will use those as a backup in case the exchange doesn't come through. I hope we can get in on the exchange as it will only cost us $129 with the exchange instead of $140 A NIGHT at the hotel.

I am writing the blog on Saturday night partly because I have the time, but mostly because I have one of the Senior VPs from Burns in on Monday along with Harvey. I actually worked pretty closely with Irene in Detroit as I was on her team in the sales training and we were in competition with eight other teams. Our team was made up of Branch Managers and I think the goal was to get us acquainted with Irene, who is in charge of Branch Development and has been on the job a little over a year. I had the crew clean up the office and had the office management company set up to have the floors cleaned and polished prior to the visit. Hopefully the office will show well as this is Irene's first visit to our office. Harvey's office is in the middle of converting to Imaging and she is out to work with San Francisco, but asked to come out and see Ken's office as well on her trip. C'est la vie.

I played golf today in the 3rd Diamond Tourney, It is a club within our club as there is a Diamond upgrade that buys us six free rounds, exclusive tournaments with industry vendors (today was Srixon), a hat, a windshirt and ten range tokens all for $50. It's a good deal. I met with Scott, our club pro before the round and he said that he is going to give me free golf next year for every tournament we have. it is a savings to the club of about $360 as they were going to pay my green fees in 12 events. Scott has agreed to pay for all of my golf this next year, so I'm very pleased with his generous offer. I shot 39+42=81, for a net 71 and third place in today's tournament. I played with Bob, Boyd and Robert (our pro shop starter). They shot, 79, 78 and 78 respectively, so my 81 was a reflection of the talent I was playing with.

Tomorrow, Darla will be home about 2 PM and we have a Halloween event to attend at the church tomorrow night. it is Trunk or Treat, where cars are dressed up and the trunk is full of candy for the kids and each car is part of a booth with games and fun. Darla and I will work an hour at one of the booths and hand out candy. It should be fun and is an outreach of our life group.

The church continues to struggle with the resignation of about half of our church leaders. They had asked our pastor to step down and he refused, leading to a mass exodus. Pastor Rick is being tutored by the dean of our local Christian college and being held accountable by two of the senior pastors in the church. The whole disagreement has to do with Rick's management style. Apparently, he is a bit of a micro-manager and the staff rebelled. It is a mess, but the dissenters are leaving and a new staff will emerge with an emboldened and chastened pastor, who is moving the church past this event and hopefully we will end up stronger through all of this. That is the prayer. The life group leaders, including Darla and I will meet with Rick next Sunday and I'm anxious to hear what he has to say.

Well, I have a movie waiting with my name on it, so i will bid you adieu. Ciao.

A Promotion at Work!

True. It is long overdue, but I was finally promoted at the annual Branch Manager's meeting from Assistant Branch Manager to Branch Manager of both the Sacramento and Modesto offices. I still don't know who I was supposed to be assisting, but that is water under the bridge. I was gratified to be the recipient of a long standing ovation as my name was announced and I went forward at the Awards Dinner to accept my new commission. I have been long suffering in my Underwriting Manager days and more recently with my days as an Assistant Manager as I dutifully showed up at the Branch Manager meetings (this was my fourth and first as a Branch Manager) and did all of the tasks and went to all of the meetings that the Branch Managers did, but was somehow not an equal to the rest of the Managers. There were three of us out of 8 Assistant Branch Managers that actually were the de facto Branch managers of our offices. The other ABMs all were "assisting" Branch Managers (what a concept!). All three of us were promoted to Branch Manager. There is one ABM who is still a de facto Branch Manager, but he joined us last January and has to put in his time, I guess. He is in the Houston Branch. I was thrilled to finally get the recognition as a full leader in the management of our $1 Billion company. The fact that my branch has grown from $6,300,000 to $14,000,000 since 2004 when I took over might have something to do with the promotion.

The fun and rewarding thing for me is that I will no longer be compensated on my own production, but now be rewarded on the strength and profitability of my two offices. The company has a lot of new and innovative ways to drive new business and a couple of initiatives with the underwriters to increase new business production in the last couple of months. It was a fun and informative meeting this year.

I came home to a new living room as Darla had painted the walls a soft brown color and painted the mantle on the fireplace white from the stained wood look it had before. It was a surprise, but frankly, I was so tired when I got home last night that I didn't even notice that she had painted the mantle as well. It looks really nice.

I was exhausted by the time I got home at 10:40 PM last night, which happened to be 1:40 AM EST. Darla was understandably chatty and wanted to bring me up to date on what had been going on. I finally fell asleep about 12:15 AM and was up at 6:00 AM and in the office by 7:00 AM. I have to leave early today as I have my permanent crown put on for the tooth I cracked on the trip to Austin. Darla and I will leave tonight for Tahoe where we will spend the rest of the week at a timeshare at the Tahoe Beach and Ski resort. We, at one time, considered buying into the Tahoe Beach and Ski as we like it so much and is a great location in Tahoe, but with our two other time shares in Puerto Vallarta and Hawaii as well as our two weeks a year in Nuevo Vallarta, we have plenty of trading opportunities. This week is courtesy of our timeshare in Kauai. It will be nice to have some down time after the meetings. I flew in last Wednesday and it was nonstop from then on. Part of the true value of the meetings is the networking that the Managers do before and after work hours and unfortunately, they keep us busy until about 10 PM every night. Then, of course, the hospitality suite opens and getting to bed at a reasonable hour is a chore.

I flew through Las Vegas and had about an hour and forty-five minute layover. If it was longer, I would have met Jennifer for lunch, but I didn't want to go back through screening with such a tight window, so I just sat and lost money at the poker machines as I waited for the flight. I did call Jennifer and say "Hi. I'm in town." Darla and I will stay in Las Vegas for the Thanksgiving weekend and it will be good to visit with both Jennifer and John.

Well, this is short and I've actually been working on it all morning, but getting interrupted by staff and payroll, etc. I'll add some pictures next week of our trip to Tahoe. The weather looks great with highs here in the 80's and the 60's in Tahoe. Ciao.

Daniel Home for his 18th Birthday

The pictures are from Saturday night when we all went to Old Sacramento and had dinner at Fultons Underground. The restaurant is famous for their Prime Rib and we ate well. Daniel is now 18 and I no longer live in fear of what he may have done. He is his own adult now and my liability is secure. The pictures were taken at the ramp in Old Sacramento that David designed with his engineering firm. It is an access ramp for the public down to the docks at Old Sacramento. The ramps sit on a barge that floats and the ramps descend at low tide about fifty feet to the water line. The ramps are metal and obviously move with the shifting tide up and down. He also built in a storage building at the base of the ramps and it is a pretty impressive site. I'm sure the Old Sacramento Merchants Association weren't aware that the ramp was designed by a (at the time ) 19 year old boy.

I have suffered all weekend from a cold. I picked up a sore throat on Thursday and made it all the more worse by getting caught in a rainstorm on Friday at Castlewood Country Club in Pleasanton. Our Golf Association, The Northern California Golf Association, had their annual meeting last Friday at Castlewood Country Club followed by golf afterward. We had rain Thursday night, but it had tapered off Friday to partly cloudy skies by the time we teed off at 12:30 PM. We got in the first four holes and a slight drizzle started. By the time we finished the fifth hole, the skies opened up and there were rivers of water covering the greens and I was soaked to the skin. Neil, our President, and I hightailed it back to the clubhouse and found some hot soup to soothe our cold. The effect of the soaking was felt all weekend as my throat got sore and then croaky, where it sounds bad, but feels better. Yesterday I was all plugged up and my sinuses were causing me major discomfort. I had aches and pains in my joints. Today, I am much better, but still have a cough and some residual sinus blockage. Hopefully, I'm better by the time I fly to Detroit Wednesday afternoon.

The Managers meeting is on this week and I couldn't have picked a better time to go. My office just completed a quarter where we won the sales contest for the third quarter with a 15% in net retained income for the quarter. Our office for the year is up 21.6% in premium and 17.94% in net retained income. I'm almost looking forward to my meeting with the CEO of our company this year. It is a good story and we continue to thrive in a tough market.

I did play golf this weekend and suffered through a foggy, cold start to the round on Saturday. I wasn't feeling well and managed a 45 on the front side, but was able to pull my game out of dry dock and shoot a 38 on the back for 83. My index has dropped to 9.0 and have little room for error in my game right now. i lost $5 to Mark on a straight up bet, but won $5 in the match play to break even.

The golf club had elections on Thursday and although I ran for President unopposed, I still managed to win the office. We have a good board for 2008 and I will appoint several positions in December. I will have my Friend, Bob Pando, appointed to the board as a member-at-large. Bob will be mirroring our Tournament Bookkeeper and will take over that position in 2009. My proposed new By-Laws were also voted in and we are no longer paying members of the board a salary, but will be paying for green fees in 2009. This is an important change for the club as we have to start filing an informational return to the IRS and we have never had our members claim the earnings from being on the board.

We are going through some pain at church right now as our pastor, Rick, who is so tremendously popular has been asked to step down by the board of Elders at the church. Apparently, his management style is that of a micro-manager and we have lost a number of key staff positions over the years. Rick, so far, has refused to step down. As a member of the church body, my concern is for the teaching in the church and Rick is an awesome teacher, in fact the best I have ever experienced. This is the Devil infiltrating our church and I pray that the leadership reach an amicable meeting of the minds on this issue. I think the church would be devastated if we lost Rick. Our Seniors' pastor, who is about 78 years old, stood up and addressed the church on this issue yesterday and he said, when he first head about the disagreement that he would take an early retirement. One of his friends pointed out that he was about 15 years late. He is sticking with us and hopes to see a positive resolution to a sorry situation.

Well, that is it for this week. I am off to the manager's meeting on Wednesday, but will be back in the office next Monday for one day before Darla and I head to Lake Tahoe for a much deserved rest. We have a condo at the Tahoe Beach and Ski Resort set up for next week. Ciao.

Jennifer is back to Las Vegas..it was a great visit!!

Jennifer's shower was a big hit on Saturday. Of course, I was out on the golf course, but I saw the pictures and heard the stories. Darla and I and Diane and her husband, Bob, went in together on a crib and changing table for the baby's room. Diane ordered the crib online and set up to have it delivered this week to Las Vegas. As it turned out, the crib was delivered on Friday and John arrived home to find the boxes on their porch. He called us to find out what was going on and we told him it was a surprise. He offered to put the crib together and send pictures to us to put in the package for Jennifer. Darla cut out the pictures and put them on a page with the e-mail from John. When Jennifer opened the package and saw the crib pictures, she was thrilled, but when Darla told her to look closer at the pictures and she realized the crib was in the baby's room at their apartment, she started to cry. She couldn't even read John's e-mail to the ladies and her friend, Sara, had to step in and take over. Sara is a great friend of Jennifer's and has two little girls already, so she bought Jennifer a baby monitor as well as a whole bag of things that new Moms need..things like thermometers for under the baby's arm, burp cloths, her own hand made extract for stretch marks, chlorine free diapers, etc., etc. Jennifer thoroughly enjoyed herself and has about $500 of gift cards to Babies R Us and Baby Gap and places like that. She will be busy when she returns to Vegas shopping. Darla's sister, Alicia, and their Mom bought Jennifer the mattress for the crib and she will be able to buy some bed clothes for the crib with her plastic money. Diane is shipping her gifts to her as she had so much she couldn't take it on the plane. Between Texas and here, Jennifer is well set up to welcome baby Samantha into the world.

Jennifer stayed with us last night and, as I write this, Darla and she are on the way to the airport. Jennifer has a 9:40 flight to Vegas on US Air. I paid for her flight home and set her up on US Air. Southwest is great, but it is a cattle call and a pregnant lady doesn't need to be jostled around in that fight for open seating. US Air has reserved seating and will let her pre-board as well. Jennifer and I went out to lunch on Thursday and ate at Fat's Dim Sum Bar in Folsom. We had a great lunch and a great visit. Last night we sat watching some TV and the football game and Jen was trying to get me to feel Samantha kick. She never did for me, but Darla was able to feel a kick as they were sitting there. Jennifer looked over at me at one point and said, "Dad, do you think all of your hair will turn gray some day?" I looked at her and said, "Why, do you plan on moving back in?"

I think Darla and I will head to Vegas over Thanksgiving and visit the kids. We thought about heading up to Canada, but with our Hawaii trip in January, we wanted to be able to spend some time with Jennifer and John and Thanksgiving will be a good time for that.

I played in our club's Invitational this weekend and invited Pete from my office out to play. He does not have a handicap and is probably about a 20. We shot 35+37=72 in the 2 man scramble format. Pete played well and even made a 20 foot putt for birdie on our last hole that saved us both $10 as we had a bet with Steve Matthews and his cousin on the match. They also shot 35+37=72 and we finished well out of the money. We played in the Peoria flight and finished with a net 72. We had two bogeys, two birdies and the rest pars. The course is in great shape as they punched the greens about a month ago and it is in good shape. The course superintendent scalped the fairways last week so he could overseed for the winter. The lunch afterward was great with tri-tip, baked beans, salad and rolls for lunch. The chef at our club was an old Army chef and seasoned the tri-tip on Friday in rock salt, olive oil and marinade and let it sit until Sunday. It was fantastic. I also played on Saturday with Bob, Boyd and a friend of Bob's who was in from Minden, Nevada for the Invitational. I shot 42+41=83 on Saturday. The club gave away hats that said "RGC Invitational" as tee prizes.

This week is the Open meeting where we will vote for the club officers on Thursday night. I am running for President this year and also adopting a change to the By Laws whereby we will no longer pay the board members a salary, but pay for selected green fees as a perk. As president, I will receive 12 green fees a year. It is equivalent to about a $500 perk. We were concerned about running afoul of the IRS by paying salaries to our board and we are, after all, a golf club so what better perquisite that paid golf?

I have the Insurance Day tomorrow at the Sacramento Convention Center. The booth came in on Friday and we will be out there this afternoon to get the booth set up with our flyers and giveaways. I have to go over to Home Depot this PM and pick up the gift certificates. I'll buy 4 $50 gift certificates. This year I'm bringing the whole staff to the I Day. They will meet us there for lunch. The California Insurance Commissioner is speaking this year. After lunch, they will all tour the booths and put their business cards in for the drawings. The exhibitors give away some pretty nice prizes with a lot of gift certificates, but also I-Pods and portable DVD players and such. It will be fun for the gang this year.

I mowed the lawn this week and decided to vacuum up the leaves that fill my yard from the park across the street. The leaf vacuums are great, but always have iffy bags that attach. I was just about finished and vacuuming up the last of the leaves when the bag blew off the vacuum and the fine particles of leaves all blew up my nose and into my throat. I was literally gagging over the mess and hacking up some disgusting bile from my throat. I must have ended up scratching my throat pretty bad, because I'm still hoarse and people think I have a cold. I was bent over gasping for breath after the incident and looked up to see three little kids in the park across the street laughing their little buns off and pointing at me. Luckily I'm old and chasing them and pummeling them wasn't an option. I'll tell you, the life of Lyon is sometimes more than I can take.

I hope all are well. I'm off to Detroit and the Managers meeting for BW next week. I leave on Wednesday and will be back Sunday night. I'll be in the office Monday and then Darla and I have a week at the Tahoe Beach and Ski condos in Lake Tahoe. I look forward to some down time with Darla. Ciao.

Jesse and Lorrie's Wedding Weekend

We got Jesse and Lorie all married up!

It was a great FAMILY time in Austin. We had some great food, good drink, great conversation, played a little golf, and celebrated the wedding of Jesse and Lorie. The weekend went fast and it seems like a blur, but we packed an awful lot into a short time span and we are really glad we went. The only change I'd have made, is that I would have planned to fly in on Saturday and fly back on Tuesday.

Most of my readers were actually at the wedding so it would be superfluous to recite in detail the wedding and the trip, but these are my thoughts and recollections, so I will give you my impressions of the weekend. One of the things that touched my heart the most this weekend was the ladies getting together and throwing Jennifer a little impromptu baby shower. It was huge for me to see the love that you all so easily showered (no pun) on Jennifer and her excitement in being loved so much by all of you. Thank you Shirley, Cheryl, Janelle, Laura and Cake. We are truly blessed to have each of you in our family.

The wedding venue was very interesting and very auspicious. The grounds were beautiful and the weather turned out to be marvelous. The ceremony was just the right length and the party afterward was tremendous. I especially enjoyed the ribbing of "Roy" Brodigan and being able to celebrate their 56 years of marriage at the wedding of his grandson. The drive up to the grounds was a bit bumpy and reminded me of Mexico. I expected some roosters and a burro to come walking along on the road leading to the estate. The decision to bus the crowd up to the estate was a good one as that winding, dirt road was a drunk driving test in action. We had to wait a bit long for the bus when we were ready to leave, but it was a mild inconvenience.

We drove back to the airport La Quinta and Jennifer decided that she needed to get another bag for her trip as her bag was over-weight when she left Vegas and she had a bunch of baby gifts to transport. Her suitcase was so full and heavy that the latch was popping open. They let her get by with it in Vegas, but a tattooed pregnant lady is not so unusual in Vegas. She didn't want to push her luck in Austin, Texas. We found a 24 hour Wal Mart and found a small case that she could pack some things into. The souls that inhabit Wal Mart at 11:30 on a Sunday night are not a crowd that I generally run with. In fact it took us almost twenty minutes in line as the checker was handling food stamps and WIC certificates. We could have gotten through the line faster If I had announced that I was an INS officer and needed to get back to work. The place would have cleared out in a heartbeat.

I was able to get the gals dropped off at the hotel, return the car gassed up to Avis and get back by shuttle to the hotel within about 20 minutes and was in bed shortly after midnight. The girls were chatty and talking about the wedding and other things. I asked for quiet and was rewarded with a stream of water from Jennifer's water bottle for my trouble. Nice.

The office hung in very nicely while I was out and we finished September up in earned premium 124.4% over the September of 2006. We were also up 138% in written premium over the same month in 2006. The office is humming and it is a good time for me to be heading to Detroit for the Managers meeting. I leave on the 17th. We have our Sacramento Big I Day next Tuesday and I'm bringing the entire office out this year for the lunch and to tour the exhibits. I think it is important for the staff to see what an I Day entails and to see how we set up our exhibit. Also, the California State Insurance Commissioner is the keynote speaker for us this year.

It has been fantastic visiting with Jennifer the last few days. She heads over to her Mom's tonight and I plan to have lunch with her on Thursday. I have to go in and have my tooth fixed tomorrow ( I cracked a molar on the trip to Texas). Jennifer's shower is Saturday and I have golf both Saturday and Sunday morning. It is our annual invitational and I have Pete from work playing with me this year. Thank you, Darryl and Cheryl, for your hospitality and it was simply fantastic visiting with the family over the weekend. I hope all are well and in lockstep with the LORD. I will add some pictures from the visit to the blog tonight. Ciao.