Fun in the Sun in Nuevo Vallarta

We are back from Mexico and we had a grand old time. The group that joined us is (using the Pipi's picture with the guys wearing the hats: Bob and Vicki, us, Rick and Jan and Neil and Lilly. It was a great group and we all got along famously. Often these trips are great on paper and then you get to your destination and find out someone is a PIA and complains about everything. We had our share of struggles and trying times on the trip, but the couples were all great and Darla and I were thrilled with the gang.

The trip started out with a 4 AM call from the airline telling us that our Sacramento flight to Phoenix was delayed three hours which would cause us to miss our connecting flight to Puerto Vallarta. Rick and Jan and Neil and Lilly were on our flight. Bob and Vicki, who have never been to Mexico were on a flight out of San Jose and had no problems. We stood in line at the airport for an hour and a half at 5 AM trying to work out a solution to our problem. Neil and Lilly managed to get on a later flight to Puerto Vallarta, but Rick and Jan and Darla and I were stuck in Phoenix overnight. We tried hard to get on another flight and even worked with the corporate office in Phoenix, but we were screwed. Neil offered to give up his flight to us, but US Air was not accommodating and did not allow that. All of the reservations and rooms were in my name as the owner at the Grupo Mayan. I called them and they asked me to FAX a list of our guests along with a copy of my ID and they would check them in. US Air tried to FAX that information to them, but their FAX machine does not allow international faxes (they fly all over Mexico and Latin America). US Air originally told me that they didn't have any rooms available for Darla and I in Phoenix and we'd have to book and pay for our own rooms. I raised a bit of a loud stink and amazingly they got us into the same hotel as Rick and Jan at no charge. We checked into the hotel about 11:00 AM and spent the first day of our vacation in the 114 degrees of Phoenix, Arizona. The amazing part of the blast furnace of cactus and desert is that some people CHOOSE to live there. It is a great place about four months of the year and a hell hole the rest of the time. We read books and sat in the pool and waited for the cooling 104 degrees of sunset to go to dinner.

Rick and Jan had a 10:00 AM flight and Darla and I caught the 12:00 PM flight to PV. Funny that we were the hosts in Mexico and got there last. We finally arrived at the resort about 27 hours late and were ready to relax and enjoy our vacation. We went to dinner at Brasil, a restaurant in Nuevo Vallarta that serves food in a Brazilian fashion. We ate salads and some appetizers and then the show started. They brought us meat on swords about every ten minutes. They served rib eye, chicken, New York steak, pork loin, sirloin, filet mignon, potatoes, onions, peppers, and more. The funny thing was when they finally stopped and we said, "No mas!", the waiter came out and asked us what we wanted to order after all of the "samples". We had a good laugh and I ordered another serving of the filet, which was excellent. True to Mexico, the fare for the dinner was $22 a person. Amazing.

We played four rounds of golf while in Mexico and only ended up playing one away from the resort. The resort course Golf Vallarta, is so immaculately maintained that the fairways are like carpets. Every group has at least one caddy and the caddies work hard to repair ball marks and replace divots and fill in sand mix in lower divots. The course was amazing. We had planned to play three rounds in town, but cancelled those right away. We did play the Nicklaus course up at Vista Vallarta in the mountains east of Puerto Vallarta. It was about a thirty minute drive from the resort and as lush and green as you could imagine. It rained almost every night and Monday we awoke to 85 degrees and a constant drizzle. We decided to push on and drove up tot Vista Vallarta where the rain was supposed to be heavier and the rain stopped and it was partly cloudy and about 89 degrees the rest of the day. I shot 91 at the Nicklaus course and Bob shot 85. Our companions were both over 100 as the rough is as thick and impossible as Torrey Pines. It is Bermuda grass and the grass is about four inches long and too soft to support a golf ball so it buries in the rough and being Bermuda, has fingers of roots that tend to grab and hold the club as you swing through. It was a frustrating day of golf and as one who works for a living, the penal rough at Vista Vallarta was too much. I shot 84, 83 and 82 at Golf Vallarta and enjoyed the rounds much more.

Bob picked up a case of Montezuma's revenge on Tuesday night as we went into town and had large Edsel sized margaritas and chips and guacamole made table side. We then walked down to the beach side restaurants and shops, finally catch a taxi and having him take us up to the El Panorama restaurant, which sits in the hills above the city of Puerto Vallarta and provides a perfect view of the sunset. Our reservations were for 7:30 PM and we arrived shortly after 7:00 PM and were seated on a window table where the sun was blazing on us for an hour before sunset. The gang were nice enough to host our dinner that night in appreciation of our planning the trip. The small restaurants and bars in Puerto Vallarta have questionable water supplies and Bob had some ice for his soda and likely picked up the bug there.

He missed golf Wednesday morning after being up all night on the throne. We finished nine holes and saw Bob waiting for us. He was sitting on the steps next to the 9th green with his arms resting on his legs. Rick said, "that's probably the position he was in most of the night." He was still suffering the effects of the "curse", yet managed somehow to shoot a 36 on the back side and clean us out on bets.

Darla ran into a group leaving the resort on Wednesday morning and they had bought the "meal plan" that works out to about $22 per dinner or lunch and provides an appetizer, a main course and dessert at each meal. We had bought into the plan, but only had three dinners or lunches per couple. The group leaving gave Darla another 12 dinners/lunches and six breakfasts. We ended up staying at the resort the rest of the time for dinners. They have an Italian restaurant, Tramonto, that served Chateaubriand for two and rib eye steak, seafood and pasta dishes. We also ate at a beach side restaurant whose specialty was seafood and ate the rib eye and lobster tail surf and turf that was listed on the menu for $54. The half lobster was $72 and several of our party availed themselves of that. The meal plan is the best way to go as you can eat really well and not worry about the prices on the menu. The appetizers, salads and soups were excellent and the service absolutely top drawer.

The gang met every afternoon at 4:00 PM at the pool bar for happy hour. The couples would go off and do things alone or in groups of four, but meet every day for the two-for-one drink specials. The first picture above was taken by our bartender at the pool bar. The second picture was taken at one of the restaurants at the resort when we ate outside. The third and fourth pictures were taken at Pipis and the final picture was taken at the balcony of the El Panorama restaurant.

The only real problem with the vacation was the flight problem out of Sacramento. The rest of the story is that the flight crew had arrived late the night before on a flight from the Midwest and FAA regulations require the crew to have a minimum of eight hours of rest. Southwest Airlines would have brought in another crew, but US Air is not quite that savvy. The airline industry is hurting in a huge way and flights are being cancelled routinely now if they aren't full. Our way of traveling will have to change as people will miss weddings and meetings as the airlines dictate how and when they will fly routes. Most of the major airlines have already reduced service, put in baggage charges and cut routes deeply in some markets. American Airlines just pulled out of eight airports including Oakland. it is a sad state of affairs, but none of the airlines are making money and the cost to put fuel in an airliner is incredibly high.

We did have some bad news while we were gone. Andy Kuening, Darla's maternal grandfather was in a car accident on Tuesday. He was driving to the Waffle House as he does every day with his 88 year old wife, Liz (Andy is 89), He turned across traffic and did not see another truck that was doing 45 miles an hour in the 35 MPH zone and was tee-boned. His wife was not wearing a seat belt and was thrown under the dash and her right foot was severed. Andy was thrown into the steering wheel (his 1986 Accord did not have airbags) and broke multiple ribs and suffered a hairline crack in his neck. His kidneys were lacerated and his lung was bruised. He had been in a medically induced coma until today, but is now awake and in a great deal of pain. His wife is in a different hospital and had her foot reattached and is in a cast. She is doing surprisingly well and Darla visited them both today. I went with Darla yesterday to see her grandfather. Pray for God's mercy and God's will in this situation. It is very difficult.

Well, there will be more to follow and more to say as the weeks stretch on. It was a marvelous vacation and even so, it's good to be home. I hope you are all well and happy. Ciao.

Once again, the Blog is going on Vacation to Mexico

I just finished watching the TIVO of Tiger Woods winning his 14th major and 3rd US Open. I was there on Friday and watched Tiger limp around the 7,600 yards of Torrey Pines and I am even more impressed with him as an athlete. The crowds that surround him, from security and media people, to the throngs of gallery are unbelievable. How he focuses as well as he does in that zoo is amazing. He had at least 60 cameramen running ahead of him and taking pictures. There were at least ten San Diego PD officers, five television cameras, seven reporters from NBC, XM Satellite, Sportscenter and some Japanese reporter. Shutters are popping on every shot that he makes. We sat and watched him on hole number 14 on Friday and he hit a pull to the left that buried in high rough. He absolutley killed a shot from about 170 yards into the greenside bunker where he chipped on to the green and made his par. His swing out of the heavy rough was all out and he winced in pain as his surgically repaired left knee buckled on him. We had set up early on 14 and wached the groups come through and there was little buzz, but after Tiger eagled 13, the swarm arrived and pushed us up against the ropes and the police were forced into crowd control.

I loved being at the US Open and enjoy the memory, but it is no way to watch a golf tournament as everything is happening on other holes and you pick up bits and pieces off leaderboards and some satellite scoring machines handed out to American Express cardholders. The crowds were huge with 52,000 of us on Friday holding our $150 tickets. I flew in with one of my top agents early Friday morning from Sacramento. We were met by our host who handed us little picnic backpacks filled with a thermos, salt and pepper, two metal drinking cups and a golf towel and a dozen nike Karma balls. We drove from the airport out to Qualcom stadium where we caught the shuttle bus to Torrey Pines. They dropped us off at the kite airfield, where the human kites usually fly up and over the golf course. The airfield was closed during the open because of the need for parking and because of the blimps in the sky above the course. We had a nice $45 lunch at the Trophy Club behind the number two tee box, that was exclusive to Trphy Club ticketholders, It was an intimate lunch with 5,000 of our closest friends. I bought lunch and Rich bought us CC and ginger ales to walk the course with. It was an event for sure.

Work has been a struggle lately as we are in a downsizing mode and I've had to let four emplyees go. It is exceedingly difficult, but a necessary evil in these times of increased competition, lower prices and squeezed margins. I have moved from a staff of 23 at our peak to a staff of 16. We are lean and mean and I met with the survivors to ensure them that we cut deep and I promised not to pick at the scab. I could have gotten away with only cutting two, but I wanted the cuts deep enough to impact the bottom line and so that I could promise the survivors that only performance will impact them going forward. Tough times.

I played golf this weekend at Ancil Hoffman golf course, famous for being the site of the "new" governor's mansion built by Ronald Reagan in 1979 and then pishawed by Governor Moonbeam (Jerry Brown). The mansion was never lived in by a California governor and was eventually sold at a loss to the state and subdivided into four home lots including the original mansion. The golf course had a hydrant installed on the number 15 tee next to the mansion for the safety of our governor and that plug still sits by the tee box, looking woefully out of place. I struggled to an 85 on Saturday in the heavily wooded course. I have gone back to my Taylor made R7 driver after an experiment with the Cleveland Launcher driver, which I hit well (at times). I am much more steady with the R7, though shorter off the tee. I decided that I prefer the fairway to the rough.

I played horribly on Thursday night in the league as I was in conference all day on staffing issues and ended up on a thirty minute teleconference in my car on the way to the course. I arrived late, with my group already on the tee and Bob stalled on the box as I changed into my shorts and golf shoes from my work attire. I went in to pay and the starter was on the phone with his girlfriend, I told him (loudly) that I'd be back in to pay after my round. I was almost hyperventilating on the tee and shot a smooth 45.

Father's Day was a delight. Darla found a deal at Sears whereby if you bought $100 of Docker's apparel, you'd get a $75 gas card to Shell. Not bad. I got some new work clothes, socks, etc and she got two thirds of a tank in her SUV. We talked to Jennifer. She took Samantha out and had some professional pictures taken of Samantha and herself for John for Father's Day. John was appropriately emotional when he walked out and Jennifer had the pictures in frames on the dining room table. Samantha is getting so incredibly cute. She is sitting up in the pictures and is close to crawling. Their house is progressing well and they are excited to move in. Jennifer and John bought a small blow-up pool and took it to Boulder City to visit with his Dad, step-mom, and Samantha's aunt, Olivia. They splashed about in the 106 degree heat.

Darla and I went to church Sunday morning after considering skipping it and were blessed with a great sermon on Noah as the great father, building the ark to save his family. We then relaxed at home in the sun on the pool between trips in the house to get caught up on the US Open on TIVO.

We leave Friday for a week at our timeshare in Nuevo Vallarta. It is the Grand Mayan and we have a Jack Nicklaus redesigned 18 hole golf course on site. Unforunately, the course is still under redesign and only 9 holes are open. We will still play it twice and venture out to PV and Marina Vallarta and Vista Vallarta twice (the Nicklaus course and the Weiskopf course). We will go with Bob and Vicki, the President that i worked as VP under, Neil, and my current Vice President, Rick and their wives. It should be a blast. After all of the stress at work lately, I am looking forward to relaxing on the pool at the Grand Mayan with a nice margarita. Ciao.

The Junior Tournament is FINALLY in the books!

It's not like this tournament took over my life or anything, but it really did. We ended up with 123 participants and I had a total of 27 volunteers who showed up to handle scoring, check-in, starting, rules, the scoring tent, pictures, closest to the pin, spotting and a couple who are retired and just hung around, but didn't want to really do anything other than visit, drink free water and eat snacks and then have a free lunch. They also left right after lunch to supposedly go have a healthy nap after all of the excitement. I had 7 kids who withdrew from the tournament for various reasons and two who just failed to show up.

The tournament is being known as the "Lyon tournament" because of the special mojo that I brought to the 41st annual event. In 4o previous events, the tournament had seen only one hole-in-one. In this event, we were witness to two holes-in-one. One was by an 11 year old boy playing from the red tees and only playing nine holes. He shot a 39 and his ace was from 96 yards with a pitching wedge. When I congratulated him and shook his hand, I asked him if it was his first ace. He shook his head no and held up two fingers. I turned and held up one finger for him. 51 and golfing for 35 years and no hole-in-one and some smarmy kid already has two. The second ace was a 16 year old who also recorded his second career hole-in-one and he did it from 136 yards with a pitching wedge. These kids are good.

The low boy's score was 66 from the 6400 yard blue tees and second was a 68 from a 14 year old boy. The low girl was 14 years old and shot a 77. Very nice. The event is very enjoyable, but also somewhat humbling. These kids all play with state of the art equipment and 9 out of 10 of them hit Pro V1-x balls. In fact we bought balls for both of the guys who had hole-in-ones and they both chose Pro v1-x balls. We also had an eagle on the 465 yard par four finishing hole when a young man of 15 knocked in a three wood from 200 yards.

Bob was scoring for the 9 and 10 year olds and he said they were under fire from the driving range as the 16-17 year olds were hitting 300 yard drives off the practice tees. The day mostly went off without a hitch, but we had one guy who showed up and was recruiting for a rival youth golf program and I had to run him off. We had one of the old retired guys make an incorrect ruling on the course. He allowed a drop for a female competitor because branches from a neighbor's tree were impeding her swing. He was NOT on the rules committee and I asked him to stay off the course after that. Our rules chair was ready to strangle him. He referred to the branches as an outside influence. We referred to him as an idiot.

There were many great stories and one really sad ending to a great day of golf. One of the 16 year olds was having his best tournament round of golf coming in to 18. He was three under par and put his second shot up against the fence. He couldn't hit it and I would have faced the wrong way and punched a three iron toward the green. Instead he took a penalty drop, but wanted to drop within about two feet of the fence. We told him that he had to mark the spot and then a place another tee two club lengths from the ball no nearer the hole. He marked that off and dropped the ball at the furthest point with a tree in front of him. I don't know if he was confused or what, but he could have dropped the ball anywhere within the two clubs. He ended up hitting the tree, knocking his fourth shot over the green, chipping on and three putting for an 8 and a round of 73. He finished tied for second, but took 4th place based on the tiebreaker, where he shot a 40 on the back nine to go with his 33 on the front. OUCH. The young man was shaking when he came to the scorers table. He could barely control his hands as he filled out the card. To make matters worse, the guy he was scoring shot an 83, but was the one to knock his ball in for eagle on that hole.

I played golf Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday this week and was exhausted by the end of the weekend. I shot 41 in the twilight league, 81 at Wolf Run in Reno (with the marmints above), 87 at the 7000 yard Old Greenwood course in Truckee and 84 in my tournament on Sunday at Diamond Oaks. It was a fun trip and I lost some money gambling, but ate well, drank too much and played some decent golf. Mel and I were paired as a best ball twosome on Friday and shot 38+25 = 63. Good stuff.

Jennifer has some exciting news on two fronts. She finally has made contact with her birth mother. She lives in Ohio and has two sons and two daughters. One of the daughters had a child within weeks of Samantha's birth. Her oldest brother had on his facebook page listed under "people I'd Like to Meet": The sister that I've never met. Jennifer is on cloud nine and plans to meet her mother, Barbara, this Summer in Vegas as well as her two sisters who plan to travel to Vegas to meet Jennifer. The other news is that Jennifer and John have bought a house! It is 1850 square feet, three bedroom, two full bathrooms and located next to a greenbelt with a jungle gym and play area for kids. Both Jennifer and John are very excited. I told Jennifer to give praise to God for all of the good fortune in her life. I also said, "You've got a beautiful daughter, a great house, what's next?" She said, "Marriage?" Hey she brought it up, I didn't.

I finally made contact with Dad and Shirley and it turns out they've been up in Colorado at a car show and visiting Darryl and Cheryl. The trip was ugly with some minor car problems and one gas issue with a leaking fuel hose that stunk up the car and poured some $5 gas on the ground. It was good to get caught up. I also told Dad and Shirley that David is going to quit his job this month and spend part of the Summer traveling. I told them to work on him for a Canada trip. David could come up and help Dad with any projects around the house and they could give him room and board and act as tour guides for him. I'm sure he'd love to see Aunt Glad up in Cultis Lake. With David, it won't happen unless you push him a little bit. First thing he'll need is a passport.

Well, this was late, but I've been busy. I hope all are well and living a life that God would be proud of. Ciao.

Late, but not forgotten

My work IT department has finally shut the door on bloggers and I can no longer access my account at work. I can still view the blog, but I can't work on it. It is fair and makes sense. I get to work at 7 AM and work on the blog, buy I wouldn't want my employees goofing off working on their blogs during work hours so it is a fair tradeoff for me. I had a golf tournament yesterday and will have Junior tournaments the next two Mondays and then be in Mexico, so you might have to look to find my updates. I have OCD, so doing the blog on Monday was my comfort zone. Now, I'll just have to venture into fertile fields.

I played in the Insurance Association Golf Day yesterday. I was in charge of the signs and my friend, Bob, picked me up at 9:30 and we loaded up his truck and had the signs at the course by 9:45 AM. We played at the local country club, Sierra View, and I stacked the deck with Bob's 4 handicap and another agent, Rich's, 5 handicap. I'm a 9 and Anthony in my office is probably a 16. I'm not a fan of scramble golf and half the field plays once or twice a year so it is an exercise in frustration if you take it too seriously. They sell "player improvement packages" with 2 feet of string, a mulligan, and a free throw for $20. The packs make a lot of money for the association, so it's good. We used all of the above and shot a 19 under par 53. We shot 15 birdies, two eagles, and a par for 53. The winners shot a 25 under par score of 47 and there were two groups at 48. When they went up to get their prize of $100 restaurant certificates, the tournament director said we better check their card. I yelled out they better check their urine! Unbelievable. It was a good time and I got to see most of our local agents in a single setting.

I played golf Friday and Saturday as well and it is getting to the point that I could fill out my scorecard before I play. I shot 43+40=83 at Rancho Murietta North. It is a course designed by Arnold Palmer and he has a green on the number three par five with huge undulations in it. It looks like two dinosaurs laid down on the boundary of the green and the grass grew up over them. Palmer thought it was unique. The country club design committee thought it was ridiculous and Palmer's group was paid to put in 18 holes of golf and 17 greens. His company was never paid for the third green as they insisted he change it and he refused. Palmer has never set foot on the course again. They named the road he lived on while the course was being built Latrobe Road. I think they thought that was his birthplace, but it was actually Youngstown, PA. The country club has several Palmer Courts and Arnold Drives, etc. I went out Saturday and played Cherry Island and shot 42+41=83. 83 is my number right now. Both Cherry and RMCC North are 133 slope courses and my nine is safe. I dropped to 9.4 this month and once was an 8.8. I'm giving that number a run for the money this Summer.

I leave Thursday night after my golf league for Reno. We are staying at the Peppermill Casino. We play Friday at Wolf Run, a course famous for it's run of marmints all over the course. I'll try to remember to bring a camera this year as the little furry creatures are fascinating. Wolf Run was built by a wealthy alumnus of the University of Nevada Reno as the home course for the UNR golf team. We will stay over Friday night and again make a trip to the Santa Fe Inn for their $17.50 rib eye steak. It is a Basque restaurant and they feed you pasta, salad, cheeses, chicken, sausages, cream corn, potatoes, a relish tray, asparagus, bread, butter, lots of wine and of course the main course. Amazing, even a better deal than the free drinks in Reno. Saturday we will pack it in and head back through Truckee and play Old Greenwood, a course that is storied and well designed and I really look forward to playing it. The course sits under snow all Winter and uncovers in late Spring in all of it's glory. It reopened two weeks ago and it will be a blast. I'll be home Saturday night, play in a tournament on Sunday at Diamond Oaks and then host the 41st annual David Oxley Memorial Golf tournament on Monday at Diamond Oaks.

I am the tournament director this year and now have 126 junior golfers signed up to play on Monday. I have Sysco Foods donating the hot dogs and buns, Darla and I are supplying 15 cases of water, I have one of the guys with over $80 of snacks for the kids. I have 22 volunteers that will work with me as scorers, marshals, closest to the pin monitors, starters, check-in people, scoring tent monitors, computer scoring, rules officials and some "hangers on" that don't do much beyond eat the free lunch and just hang around.

Darla and I will be off to Mexico in two weeks and the Nuevo Vallarta vacation is coming at a good time. This tournament has worn me out. The kids are great, but their parents are monsters. The deadline for entry was May 24th and I'm still receiving entries. I got one in the mail today with an April 30th dated check and the post mark on the envelope was June 2nd. I am not allowing any late entries and have been called a few names for my stance. The way I look at it is that 126 players got their entry in on time and I'm not sure I would want the kids of some of these parents. The kids are obviously spoiled and don't know the meaning of a deadline. I know the tournament will be excellent, but I'm looking forward to relaxing with a margarita at the pool bar at the Grand Mayan on June 21st.

Darla has been struggling just a little in her business lately. She has had several cancellations of shows and her girls have been dragging. The gas prices and the economy are definitely playing a role. She has a good attitude and will bounce back and is still doing so much better than her peers in the business.

Jennifer's Mom is flying in to Vegas tomorrow to visit with Jennifer and John and Samantha. Jennifer is going in to her union to see about getting placed in some jobs. She can't get her certification until she has worked in Nevada for a year and it has been less than that, especially with her pregnancy. She just needs to get on some union jobs and bide her time and she'll be fine. The pay is very good.

Well, that's it for this week. I will try to update this over the weekend sometime. I hope all is well with each of you. Be happy in life and you will influence others around you. Ciao.