Another Holiday Monday..here at work

President's Day. One of the major tenants in our building is Wachovia, and they have today off by virtue of being a bank and the parking lot is empty today. Today is the last of the Spring-like days that we have enjoyed for the past week and a half. Tomorrow is supposed to bring clouds and rain by the afternoon and the weather will remain unsettled until the weekend. We have been enjoying the cool crisp nights and sunny warm days over the past ten or twelve days, but we can still use some rain and the snow pack in the Sierra was starting to melt with the unseasonable weather. We want to see our lakes and reservoirs full this Spring and Summer, so bring on the rain. Hopefully, it will let up by Friday as I've been invited to join an agent at Lincoln Hills golf club in Lincoln. I buy lunch and he takes care of the golf. We call it Marketing around here.

I did, of course, make it out to the golf course this weekend and we played Cherry Island in Elverta. Cherry Island was built in the early 1980s and is located out on a farming community. You can hear animals, livestock and see horses and roosters and farm animals of every variety as we play the round. There is a large cattle farm along several of the holes and we heard the most awful bellowing by a cow. We weren't sure if they were butchering it, it was giving birth, it had got stuck in a fence or what, but it was not a pretty sound. I played with Bob and Boyd and Darren, the husband of one of Darla's friends at work. They just moved here from Southern California and she wanted to hook Darren up with us. He played several weeks ago and was shocked to find out that we WALK the course. His wife gave him heck when he got home and complained about being sore and tired. She told him he needed to lose weight. He responded by buying a new speed cart, a GPS system for distance and embracing the new exercise regimen. I didn't have the heart to tell him that my doctor doesn't consider walking a golf course exercise, because we don't elevate our heart rate enough to break a sweat. Hey, it beats riding a cart. Both Bob and Darren had never played Cherry Island and struggled. Bob, a 5 handicap, shot 85 and Darren had 92. Boyd shot a stellar 73 and I had 42+41=83. Boyd has been pushing us to play other courses besides Woodcreek and Diamond Oaks because he plays them so much he thinks his handicap is artificially low. He is a 7 and shot 36+37=73 at Cherry. He hadn't shot a round that low in three weeks. So much for trying new courses. Bob and Darren enjoyed it so much that they ran inside when we finished and made a tee time for next Saturday. Again, hopefully the weather will give us a window to play golf next week.

The gang here is all in jeans today as we scrub the office and our offices and cubicles in anticipation of our CEO's visit tomorrow. He is in San Francisco today visiting with Harvey's office and will be here tomorrow morning. He will then board a private jet at the Mather Air Field next door for a quick hop down to Los Angeles and the mid year NAPSLO (National Association of Professional Surplus Lines Offices) meeting in Indian Wells, California. He will visit our Los Angeles and San Diego offies while he is in the area. We haven't seen Alan since August of 2004 in our office, so he was overdo a visit to this area.

Darla is in Sawgrass, Florida as I write this. She left Saturday morning and will be there at a national convention of her Silpada Designs Jewelry until Wednesday. She won this trip by being a top producer and only had to pay her flight in to Sawgrass. The rest of the stay, hotel, food, etc. is paid for by Silpada. I talked to her last night and the hotel is excellent and the weather perfect. They are right on a beach in Sawgrass. Of course, Sawgrass is home to the TPC course that hosts the PGA Championship every year and The World Golf Hall of Fame is located just down the road from her resort at the Marriott. If I was there, I'd have my clubs.

It was quiet around the house with Darla gone. Daniel was in town for the three day weekend and we spent Friday night together and watched a movie. Darla was off on the flight early Saturday and the boys were gone to their Dad's house by the time I got home from golf. I relaxed Saturday night watching the TIVO of the golf tournament from los Angeles and watching Perfect Stranger, the movie with Bruce Willis and Halle Barry for a second time. It was good.

Sunday I spent at church. I went to the 11 AM service as I had a celenbration of life to attend for Randy, one of the board members from RGC who passed away two weeks ago. They held the celebration in an old packing shed in Loomis and there were over 300 people attend to celebrate his life. Randy was the same age as I am and graduated high school in 1975 as did I. He had friends from high school, his work, his hunting , fishing and golf buddies, and family and friends. They say you can get a measure of a man's life based on how many people attend his funeral. If true, Randy had a Hell of a life. The Roseville Golf Club was in full attendance at his funeral as we had 12 in attendance including five former or current Presidents in attendance and we all wore our Presidential blazers in Randy's honor. They held the celebration in the city that he went to high school and he lived his entire life in Northern California. He will be missed.

Dad and Shirley are off to the islands tomorrow and will be in Hawaii for six weeks. I am definitely jealous and will live by their example when Darla and I retire. We will make sure to spend at least six weeks in Hawaii, if just to carry on a tradition. I'm calling it a tradition, so it's a tradition.

Jennifer had me set up a Skype account this weekend and now I can see Samantha on her web cam. It is a nice way to feel a little closer to my granddaughter. Darla and I have continued to have problems with our computer since our trip to Maui and the power outage that we had at the house. First of all, our user accounts on XP were wiped out and I had to set those back up. Then our audio device was stripped from the computer and I couldn't figure out how to reinstall it. John tried to walk me through it, but it wouldn't reset. Finally, I went on Google and from there to a computer users website and they suggested that I go back to the HP website and download the drivers for the device again and behold, our sound is back and we could see and hear little Samantha. Nice.

Well, the natives are growing restless and I have to settle them down, so off I go into the junge of office politics. Wish me a safe journey. Ciao.