It's all about Baby Samantha...or Here Today, Gone To Maui

It is another Holiday before the Holiday as the roads were barren this morning as I navigated my way to work for the first time since Christmas and our visit to Sin City. I'm hoping that John and Jennifer get moved back to California before Samantha gets old enough to ask what all the strip clubs are or why every billboard or bus has a naked butt on it. We had an absolute blast with Jennifer and John. Samantha is beautiful and Jennifer and John are excellent parents, very attentive and responsible, but they also let Samantha fuss and sleep with noise around her which will serve them well going forward. Samantha will be used to being around people and activity and not require absolute silence in order to sleep. Samantha is absolutely perfect with great coloring and wonderful features. John and Jennifer brought her out to have breakfast with us on our last day in Vegas and she did great, all bundled up and in her car seat. You can see the picture of her sleeping in her car seat, I think it is the first picture above. She slept through breakfast and was an angel. You can see the picture above of John and Jennifer outside the Black Bear Diner on Tropicana. I really like the picture of Jennifer and Samantha looking at each other. The love is certainly evident in Jennifer's eyes.

Jennifer's friend Sara came to visit during our stay and brought her daughter, Arianna, who is about seven months. It was Samantha's first play date and the pictures from her visit are above. Jennifer and John put out a play mat that they have for Samantha and the girls played. Well, Samantha laid there and Arianna played, but you get the picture. Samantha will catch up in due time. We hadn't seen Sara in months and she lives in Rocklin, the next town over from Roseville.

Jennifer had a rough delivery, but she is doing great and getting stronger every day. It was scary when she lost so much blood and fainted several times, but she got the blood transfusion and is getting rest and even Samantha is allowing her to sleep at least four hours at a time overnight. John has been great and is very helpful in changing diapers and allowing Jennifer a break when he is home. With breast feeding, there isn't much that John can do at night, but I was really proud of him as he pitched in and helped out so much with Samantha.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express on Christmas night and then moved over to the Jockey Club on Wednesday. The Jockey continues to have severe parking problems as they sold off their parking area to the Bellagio and now the owners of Bellagio, MGM, New York New York and others are in a partnership building the new casino and shopping mall that is going in next to the Jockey Club and in the spot once held by the Holiday Casino. There will be underground parking in the new venture and the Jockey will have a portion of that parking for their owners. One of the shuttle drivers told us that there is a new casino complex on the drawing boards to be started in two years called "Ice". The casino will be all futuristic with glass encased walls and neon lighting throughout and in the interior of the glass walls. The casino owners will again go in as a partnership and they are negotiating to buy all of the property from Planet Hollywood to the MGM Grand, which will include the Polo Towers. They will take down all of the existing property including the Walgreens, Smith and Wollinsky steakhouse, the Travelodge and all of the property in between. If the Jockey experience is any road map, the sale of the Polo Towers will be very difficult. The value of the building is far smaller than the total of the time share ownership and Bellagio could not agree on a price for the owners. The Polo will be even more expensive as it is a much nicer property, newer and more extensive. I'm hoping that Dad and Shirley don't end up in the same predicament with a huge construction project dwarfing the Polo. It seems like they will almost have to rebuild elsewhere in order to make the owners whole in this deal. Frankly, Darla and I enjoy the Jockey Club. With the valet parking, it is so convenient to just drop your car off and not worry about parking. The problem is that they fill up fairly quickly and we had to leave our car at Planet Hollywood twice during our stay and catch a shuttle back to the Jockey.

Darla and I are off to Maui on Thursday for a week. The blog will be delayed next week as we relax at the Hyatt in Lahaina. Silpada is paying for the trip and we are on our own for all but three meals. They have limos for the pickup and delivery at the airport, but we have rented a car for the week as we want to explore the island. This will be our first trip to Maui as a couple. I went to Maui with Dad and Mom when I was 17 and Darla has been as a young adult, but this will be our first trip together. I look forward to a week in the sun.

Well, this is short, but I have been away from work for a week, so I need to get to it. Take care and have a very safe and Happy New Year!!

Baby Samantha arrives and we head to Vegas

Funny, but Darla and I thought we'd wait until mid January and our trip to Hawaii was complete before coming to Vegas to see Samantha. Well, the tug of a new granddaughter was far too strong and with the help of Dad and Shirley, here we are in Las Vegas. The trip on Christmas day was as easy as the return on Thanksgiving was difficult and even after an hour stop for lunch in Barstow at the only open sit down restaurant open in town (IHOP), we still arrived at the hotel by 3 PM after leaving Roseville at 6 AM. We actually made the trip in about eight hours of windshield time, which is pretty darn fast. The traffic was moving at about 80 MPH the bulk of the trip. I drove from Roseville to Barstow with one stop for gas and for a potty break for Darla outside Fresno.

We saw Samantha last night and only stayed for about three hours as Jen and John had company all day with John's Dad and Step-Mom over for a Christmas visit. They left shortly after we arrived at 4 PM and we had a great visit. The boys bought Darla a new digital photo machine for Christmas that is portable and makes 4x6 prints of pictures from the digital camera. We left the machine with Jennifer and John so they could print some pictures and when I talked to Jennifer today, she was copying some pictures. Samantha is, by the way, adorable. She is so small, but has long fingers and toes. She was born last Friday at about 11:30 AM and was 7 pounds even and 19 1/2 inches long. Thin and tall. She sleeps alot and is hungry quite often. Jennifer and John are doing great with her, feeding and bathing and changing diapers. They are a little frustrated with not being able to comfort her when she gets cranky, but they will learn what she needs, whether it is food, or burping or being rocked. She was fussy when they changed her last night, but she calmed right down when Jennifer fed her. They are very good parents, attentive and protective and Darla and I just don't want to be in the way while we are here. We've said that we will be available to help Jennifer during the day as John is back to work, but will leave by 7 PM each night to give them some "family time" together. We will leave for home mid afternoon on Saturday and drive straight back. That will give us Sunday to relax at home.

Jennifer and John said that they plan to take Samantha on her first outing on Saturday and we will buy them lunch at The Black Bear Diner on Tropicana. Darla and I had dinner there last night after we left. Jennifer and John bought me a little desk set with a pen and pencil and a letter opener. All of the items fit in a small golf bag that holds the pens, etc. The whole thing is about five inches tall and two and a half inches wide and has pockets and a carry strap just like a golf bag. Jennifer had engraved on it "To Dad, my Hero. Love , Jennifer" Very Nice. Darla got a bath set in a small crystal tub with legs. We bought the kids gift certificates. Jen got a Visa card and John got Home Depot. He already bought a palm sander and wants to get a Shop Vac as well.

Darla is upstairs in the Holiday Inn telecommuting and I am down in the business center updating the blog. I have a large account that closes on Friday and I've left Gail and Dinda in charge of getting it done and closing the deal. Hopefully, they can get it done. I was planning to be in the office this week, but Samantha came calling.

Diane, Jennifer's Mom, was here for the birth, barely making it in on Friday before Samantha arrived. In fact, she left her bags at the carousel in Vegas and grabbed a cab to the hospital. She arrived about a half hour before Samantha. Jennifer had such a great and uneventful pregnancy, so naturally the birth was difficult. Labor was long and painful (about eleven hours) and she didn't get an epidural until about eight hours into the labor. When they finally gave her the shot and numbed her from the waist down she was fine. The second problem was the delivery, where Samantha ended up breached and they had to do a double apiesiotomy (sp?) and her shoulder still got caught in the birth canal and ripped Jennifer on delivery. ( I never thought I'd need a medical dictionary to do the blog!)

All of the pain and tearing didn't deter Samantha and she came into the world perfect. Jennifer, however, lost a lot of blood and passed out three or four times. They finally had to do a blood transfusion before sending her home on Saturday. The doctor wanted Jennifer's body to heal itself, but Jennifer wanted to get home and asked for the transfusion. She is sore, but is thrilled to be home with her new addition. I will add pictures next week.

We enjoyed Christmas with the boys back home on Monday before leaving for Vegas. Darla's folks came over and Alica and her boyfriend, Don. Darla fixed a big Prime Rib, and I mean big: it was 14.5 pounds. We brought the leftovers with us and Darla will fix prime rib for the gang at Jennifer's tonight. We bought the boys a Wii Nintendo, which is an interactive video game where you use a controller and bowl or golf, fish, tennis, box, baseball, etc. We had a blast playing it on Christmas Eve and even had Earl and Francis up bowling. Darla and I won the team bowling with a combined 167. We also went to Christmas Eve service after dinner and enjoyed the Christmas music and the message from pastor Rick. He even came over and met the family, which is nice in a building that seats 3000.

We will check int the Jockey Club tonight and Thank You Dad and Shirley for making this trip possible. Samantha is a JOY.

Well, I will add more to this next week. I hope all are well, had a great Christmas and plan to celebrate the New Year next Monday and Tuesday. Ciao.

Last Christmas Party of the Season

It's been fun, but I can't say I'm shedding any tears over the fact that it is done. I had to host two of the parties and it is a little distracting and certainly time consuming making sure that all of the tees are crossed and i's dotted. Both parties went off with nary a hitch and we truly enjoyed using Dinda and JP's home this year. As you can see from the pictures, they have a home that accommodates a large party very well. I called JP and Dinda up at one point and we presented them with a $100 gift certificate to Scott's Seafood restaurant and Dinda quickly blurted out, "We'll do it again next year". I also gave her a $50 Starbucks card for being such great sports and allowing all of us to trample through their beautiful home every year. She took a sabbatical a few years ago and the party was at our house. Although it was still fun, our home can't quite as comfortably accommodate 35 people. It was a little tight. We did two twelve pound turkeys and a ham from Honey Baked Hams this year and although it was a little more expensive, the food was certainly better. We also went through eleven bottles of wine (including five 750 ML bottles), two and a half cases of beer, a 12 pack of Mike's Hard Liquor variety pack, two bottles of Martinelli's cider, two bottles of champagne, two cases of soda and 48 bottles of water. Gail brought hors de oeuvres, Darla fixed mashed potatoes and stuffing and a green bean casserole, Cora brought garlic bread, Steve brought some M&Ms and Pete brought the carving knife and cut the turkey this year.

We did the gift exchange again and everyone enjoyed the experience. Darla and I ended up with an Almond Rocha gift pack and two tickets to the 49ers-Bengals game on Saturday. We checked with the boys to see if they wanted to go to the game. David couldn't make it, but Daniel and his Dad went to the game and actually saw the 49ers 4th win of the season as they beat the Bengals. Darla and I brought a dinner gift certificate and a collector copy of the Bourne Ultimatum DVD. Darla took pictures of each couple as they left and I've posted those on the office G Drive so everyone can view the pictures. It was a lot of fun, but I'm glad it's over.

I had a golf club board meeting on Saturday morning and the gavel was turned over to me. I will sit on my first board meeting as President in January and then host the first Open Meeting of 2008 on January 17th. We all met for breakfast and the board presented Neil (the outgoing President) with a $150 gift certificate in the pro shop. I will lean heavily on Neil's guidance in 2008 as I navigate the club throughout the year. I will likely be the most popular and the most reviled President as I plan to begin penalizing players for slow play. Our rule is that you have to finish within 4 hours and 40 minutes or within fifteen minutes of the foursome in front of you. If you miss both of these guidelines everyone in the foursome will receive a 2 stroke penalty. It is the number one issue in the club and the rule has been on the books for a full year, but has not been imposed as yet. I will have a representative on the first hole to note the starting time and on the 18th hole to monitor the groups.

We played golf after breakfast and I managed an uninspired 40+44=84. I basically fell asleep on the back side and messed up a good round of golf. The final eclectic scores and payouts came out last week and I went back over the year to see how much I had won. I finished in the money in 13 tournaments and won a total of $579.50 in the club this year. Not too shabby. My handicap varied from 9.0 to 11.9 this year and I finished the year at 9.3. I didn't win the club championship in my flight nor did I get a spot on the Rose Cup team, two of my goals, but it was otherwise a very good year. I was runner-up in the Club Championship and got in a playoff for the final Rose Cup spot.

I played in a Texas Hold'em tournament Saturday night at a friends house. He had 21 players and I was the 8th player out of the tournament. I just couldn't get any cards. The winner won $500 and he paid 5 spots. I did knock the host out on an All In when I pulled a straight on the river. I've played in two of the Texas Hold'em tournaments and I have to say I'm not a huge fan of the game simply because there is little skill employed in the game. It is all luck and bluffing. I prefer five card draw.

Sunday, Darla and I did little more than lay in front of the fire and relax. We got up for church and I was hard pressed to stay awake during the sermon. I think the weekend's activities finally caught up with me. We both slept for about two hours on the couch with a nice roaring fire in the fireplace. We awoke to a smoldering fire and I had to rebuild it from scratch. We had the fire going from ten AM until we went to bed last night. I watched Dallas lose and go from the second best record in the NFL to the second best record in the NFL. They have to win their last two games to assure home field advantage in the playoffs and hopefully they learned that they can't just wait until the end of the game to put a team away.

We talked to Jennifer last night and she is beginning to dilate and has about a week to ten days until the baby comes (supposedly). Samantha may make her appearance this week or wait until after Christmas. Hard to say. We meant to give Dad and Shirley a call, but it got too late last night and we will try to call them tonight.

Well, it is payroll today and I have to approve everyone's hours, so off I go. Have a great week leading up to the celebration of the birth of our Saviour. By the way, the announcement of my promotion was in the Business Journal last week. Here is the link to the article:

http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/potm/2007-12-10/

Busy Sports Weekend

This was a weekend filled with sporting events. Darla and I hosted our friends, Dave and Missy, at the Sacramento Kings vs. Los Angeles Clippers game at Arco Arena on Friday night. We went to dinner beforehand and had a good time in spite of the abhorrent play of Sacramento's NBA entry.

Saturday I played golf in the Eclectic Final. This is the last golf tournament of the year and the final tournament that is eligible for the year long contest for best score on every hole. We track each player's best score on every hole and use that final scorecard as a final tournament. So, in essence, it is two golf tournaments in one. I was able to improve my personal best 65 to 63 with birdies on two of the par threes. Unfortunately, I also missed a five foot putt for birdie on the only par five that I hadn't birdied during the year. My best ended up 30+33=63 for a net 53. I took first low net in my flight on the overall and with a 42+38=80 in that day's tournament, I took third low net for the day. I was frustrated with my 42 on the front because I thought I was striking the ball really well and I was able to go birdie, par, birdie on the start of the back nine. In fact I was two under on the back with four holes to play and finished bogey-bogey-bogey-bogey for the 38. it could have been better, but I was pleased. I will finish the year at a 9.3 index and plan to stay single digits for the next twenty years or so.

Saturday night we were invited to my assistant's house for her mother's 80th birthday celebration. Dinda lives in a 7000 sq foot mansion on Fair Oaks Boulevard in Carmichael and I hadn't seen it yet. It is a larger version of her 3500 sq ft house in Carmichael that her daughter and son-in-law bought from her. It is really the same floor plan with two extra bedrooms and larger everything. The one main difference is a second smaller kitchen upstairs. Dinda is Filipino and has a huge extended family. There were probably 100 people at the party and about 75% were family. They did karaoke with the sons and daughters singing Paul Anka's hit "Diana" to their Mom, but changing the words to "Our Mother". I don't know that they really thought it out particularly deeply as there is a stanza that goes "We're so young and you're so old.." Darla and I laughed when they sang that. They also had a ballroom dance instructor who danced with her Mother as ballroom dancing is one of their loves. Then each of the boys and each of the daughter's husbands cut in and danced with her as well. It was well done. The grand kids all sang "We are the world" to her and one granddaughter did a hula dance and another played guitar. One son and daughter-in-law sang a Fillipino love song to her. I think it was "Sapagkat Ikaw ay Akim", but it might have been "Sapagkat Kami ay Tao Lamang", the two are very similar (that is sarcasm for anyone who doesn't know me). We will all gather on Friday night at Dinda's house for our Staff Christmas party.

Sunday, I met up with Pete from my office and six other guys for a limousine ride into San Francisco for the 49er-Viking NFL game. The 49ers are so bad, they are virtually unwatchable. It was 27-0 at the half and 27-7 by the end of the third quarter. We had great seats with Dan and I sitting in a lower box five rows from the field on the 30 yard line. After the third quarter we decided to head back to the limo where it was warm and we had food and drink, so four of us headed back and caught up with the limo driver. The other four were in two different sections of the stadium and they stayed until the end of the game. Two of the four got lost and we didn't end up leaving the stadium until almost six o'clock. The two that got lost actually got separated from each other as well and only one had a cell phone. We sat in the car and played phone tag with these inebriates and finally got everyone in the car. It took us three hours to travel the 100 miles home because of two accidents on the freeway. At one point, one of the drunk guys jumped out of the limo and ran into a Shell station to get some chewing tobacco and we were about three blocks away by the time he caught back up with us. The problem is he didn't tell anyone he was going, he suddenly jumped out of the limo and was gone! On top of that, he had taken his shoes off and was in stocking feet in downtown SF. What a boob. This is the same guy that wore a Vikings sweatshirt to Candlestick Park (Monster Park for the ad age) and was surprised that he got punched in the head by an angry Niner fan. When he told me the story, I was just surprised that their was a Niner fan who still gives a damn. That is one pathetic football team. So that was my weekend of sports and fun.

Last week, I hosted two of our Vice-Presidents from home office in for an audit of our USF files (USF is the Kaufman owned Insurance company that we place business with). Ken and Ken both visited our San Francisco branch Monday and Tuesday and then drove up to Sacramento for Wednesday-Friday. They arrived about 11:30 on Wednesday morning and I could tell that our Underwriting VP, Ken, wasn't feeling too well. He was carrying a large white cotton towel and was spitting into it every few minutes. I asked him what was wrong and he said that he had a piece of meat lodged in his throat from dinner the night before. I told him to go to the doctor and we called an Urgent Care facility. They directed him to the Emergency room of the hospital and he drove himself over. They finally got him into a procedure at 5:30, where they numbed his throat with a spray, gave him a general anesthesia and used a tube to push the meat down into his stomach. Well, lo and behold, they managed to rupture his esophagus in the procedure and Ken was stuck in the hospital from Wednesday until this morning when they finally released him. The tear is beginning to heal itself and he has to stay on soft foods for the next ten days and then have a specialist look at him again and do a barium test to make sure there is no more leakage. Unbelievable. His wife in Detroit was frantic and called me to see if I could sit with him Thursday and Friday. Apparently, this is the second time this has happened to him (cut your food into bite sized pieces and then chew 32 times before swallowing!). I told her that I had a branch to run, but that I would get over there both days at lunchtime. I talked to his doctor and he said that this is very common, especially with men between the ages of 35-55. There are men found dead in restaurant restrooms every day because they are too proud to admit that they are choking and pass out in the bathroom and die of asphyxiation. Gail, my underwriter who lives near the hospital, is driving him to the airport as I write this. Our audit went well and we now write over $3,000,000 with USF which puts us at number three in terms of volume with USF.

Well, that is it. I told Jennifer I'd have pictures of Darla and I learning to ballroom dance, but they decided not to do the dance lessons and just opened it up to dancing. You don't want to see a picture of me dancing. It is Elaine Benes all over again. Ciao.

The Christmas Season has begun

The holiday season kicked off for us Saturday night with the Roseville Golf Club Christmas Party. We again held the proceeedings at the Sunrise Golf Club and Denise and her staff proceeded over a great dinner of Prime Rib, chicken and all of the side dishes. I was installed as the new President of RGC and was happy to pass on the duties as VP to Rick, my new Vice President. I was in charge of the Christmas party and all of the gifts and making sure that everyone had a good time. Darla and I bought roses for each of the wives and had at least one present for each member of the club. We had rounds of golf, car washes, dinner certificates, pottery Barn gift certificates, Home Depot certificates, several golf clubs and bags, several golf lessons, several gift baskets and about seven gift packages of booze (Crown Royal, Cutty Sark, 1800 tequila, Cabo Wabo Tequila, Michael Collins Irish Whiskey, E&J Brandy and Bailey's Irish Cream). We also had several hats and shirts from different courses in Hawaii, San Diego, pebble Beach and Carmel that one of the members rounded up during the year. I won a Torrey Pines hat and shirt, which luckily are different from the hat and shirt that I bought while I was there. It was a good time and the mantle has been passed. We have a meeting in two weeks where we will have both the outgoing and incoming board present for a celebration of another good year of golf for the club. There are about two dozen people who routinely help run the club and there will only be three new members on the 12 person board, with a new webmaster and two new board members, including my friend, Bob, who is taking over Rick's unexpired term as a member-at-large as Rick steps up to the Vice President duty.

I did play golf on both Tuesday of last week at Auburn Country Club and again on Saturday in the final Diamond Tournament of the year. I didn't play inspired golf either day and managed an 84 at both courses. I actually played well on the front side at Diamond with a 40, but had both a double bogey and a quadruple bogey on the back for a 44. The quad was a seven on a par three as I hooked my drive out of bounds left and then hit my third shot (second drive) dead right into a tree. It was frustrating, but I've played really well lately and was due for a couple of rounds that brought me back to earth. The round at Auburn CC was fun, but the ground up there is so hard and frozen that it is hard to keep the ball on the green if you hit right into it.

Darla is doing really well with her jewelry business and now has a team of 17 representatives that are out selling sterling silver jewelry. We will be in the air to Hawaii in January courtesy of her business and spend 5 days in Maui soaking up the sun. She has been very busy the last month and is just starting to slow down. I think she has about four more parties in December and then will slow down into January.

Work continues to go well and we were up about 12% in November and hope to finish the year strong. The staff is doing well and we all dressed up in Christmas colors last week and Darla came in to take pictures for our staff Holiday card. This is the second year that we took a picture and had a holiday card made up. In the past, we had the stiff corporate card, but decided to personalize it last year as so many of our agents know the underwriters personally but have never seen the rest of the staff. Darla took the regular staged picture of us all standing and smiling, but then asked us to throw our hands in the air and look like we were having a good time. That is the picture that we used as shown below:

We have done very well this year, but we are poised for a breakout year in 2008 with Steve taking over a new territory and the rest of the underwriters focusing on our top twenty five agents to give even better service and grow our books even larger and more profitably. I am focused on trying to add another underwriter in 2008 with a book of business that can come in and help us to grow our premium book even larger. Now that I am the Branch manager, I'm focused even more on the bottom line and my focus is growing the book and reducing expenses. We will go paperless in 2008 and every piece of paper that comes into our office will be scanned and then shredded. We will go live on Cinco De Mayo and with what I have heard from other managers who have made the switch, I will likely be drinking that day.

I didn't get a chance to talk to Dad or Jennifer over the weekend, but they were supposed to get together for dinner on Friday night and Dad and Shirley flew home on Saturday. The weather remained seasonal for them in Vegas as the temperatures were in the 50's and 60's with cold overnight temps. Shirley was hoping to get in some pool time, but it was just too cold.

We will have the staff Christmas party a week from Friday at my assistant's new 6000 square foot home in Fair Oaks. We will have both a turkey and a ham and will do our annual gift exchange where we draw numbers, open a gift and then the next person can either open another gift or "steal" the one from the first person. A gift can be stolen three times, so it is usually good to get a number around 16-20 as you get a good look at the booty and can sometimes make the final steal on that bottle of Patrone or the nice throw blanket. it is a lot of fun and a chance for everyone to let their hair down and have fun. I will be buying the booze and food and also buying dinner certificates for each of the staff as a present from me.

Well, work awaits, so I am off to the salt mines. Be good to each other. Ciao.