Up next, Vegas and a visit with Samantha...and Jennifer and John, of course.

Just a quick update. I will add more to this later in the week, so check back. Darla and I visited with Dad and Shirley before walking to the video store and then watching the movie when we got home and the night sort of got away from me. Becky and Daniel are coming over tomorrow night for Chinese Food, so adding to this then won't happen, but I'll get to it before we leave for Vegas.

The pictures above of Samantha are some of the ones John sent to me to add to my new IPhone and they are adorable. The ones of Becky and Daniel and Darla and I were taken at dinner on Saturday night at Scott's Seafood on the Sacramento River. Daniel couldn't decide what to order and finally decided on one of the appetizers, The Tsunami Tower. It had three levels of shrimp, calamari, oysters, mussels and other seafood. He sat eating it, making faces as he forced down the uncooked oysters and gagged over the mussels with a greenish hairy spine. It was quite entertaining. Becky is a Junior at Cal Poly majoring in Psychology and she keeps up with Daniel in intelligence and in spunk. She is quiet around me, but keeps Daniel in line and I like it. She lives in San Jose and is home for the Summer and spending this week in Roseville with Daniel. She is staying at Daniel's grandmother's house while she is away in Montana.

David is on the road back from his three week trip to Yellowstone, Glacier National park and Canada. He left Vancouver on Monday and spent a day on Vancouver Island, two days in Seattle, two days in Portland and two days with his cousins in Willets, California. Taylor leaves tomorrow for Cuba and he wanted to see her before she left.

Dad and Shirley had a grand time with David and enjoyed his fresh take on life and his helpfulness while he was there. They saw many sites and he helped out with the car show, driving the '39 over to the picnic and back in spite of his trepidation. I look forward to seeing him and hearing about his adventures, and of course seeing the pictures.

Dad is planning a celebration of Shirley's 70 years of life in November and we have already booked our flights for Seattle. We will meet Randy and Cake in Seattle and drive in together. Darryl is looking into joining us at the same time and all of us driving into Vancouver together. We get into Seattle at noon on November 14th and spend the weekend.

Well, it is bedtime and I will add more to this hopefully Tuesday night. Hope you are all well and keeping Jesus close to your hearts. Ciao.

Tuesday 7:25 PM

I added more Samantha Pictures, of course. This is just a teaser, wait until next week.

Patiently waiting for my wife to make up some turkey tacos. They are better than they sound, actually. We swam until 6:45 and then I went out and hand picked a few broad leaf weeds in the lawn. I had been spraying them, but it left a big brown spot in the lawn, so I go on the hunt about every two weeks for weeds. Daniel is off shopping, having dinner, and going to a movie. David heard we were having turkey tacos and made himself scarce. Funny thing is he loved them when Darla fixed them one night and didn't tell him what they were.

With the trip to Vegas on the horizon, my golf game will take a break and it can't come soon enough. I played in the qualifier this past week and had my worst round in a year. I shot 45+44=89. Steve shot 91 and we finished the two man net game at 38+33=71. I had to back that up with a twilight league game that night and shot a 41. Who knows. I shot 84 on Saturday in the Rose Cup qualifier and finished out of the top 11. I need a break. I've actually played 69 rounds of golf in the calendar year 2008. I won't play again until the start of the Club Championship on September 7th. I will go out and hit balls and I may actually play on September 6th as a warmup, but this is either the thing I need to do, or it's a mistake. We'll see.

I talked to Jennifer today. They are ready for our visit. David has decided not to join us in Vegas as he needs to get prepared to leave for Cal Poly in two weeks. We will take Jennifer out to dinner for her birthday at Joe's Crab Shack on Friday night and may not even see her when we get in on Thursday as she works so early in the morning.

John has left his job with the intention of getting on with the union. Unfortunately things are slow right now for the low voltage techs and he has interviewed for a position with another electrical firm in Vegas and his prospects look good. In the meantime, Jennifer is the breadwinner in the family.

Things at work are progressing. We are actually up about 10% in policy count, but down about 10% in premium volume. I have less people, so they are all working harder and gaining less. It is a bit tense at work and some of the staff can get a little snippy with each other. We will have a little team building meeting tomorrow. My receptionist who was out on maternity leave decided not to return, so I hope to fill her position. It is a bit tough at the moment, but we just need to tread water and wait for the tide to turn, as it always does eventually. The blog will be late next week, but full of pictures of my gorgeous granddaughter. Ciao

Taylor Home before leaving for Guantanamo Bay

Taylor (our niece) is home from boot camp and advanced training with the Navy. She leaves for 16 months working with the MPs at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on August 25th. She joined the Navy in order to get training as a military policeman with the goal of getting out of the service in 4 years and joining the CHP. She has to be 21 to join the CHP, so she decided to get some training and be ahead of the game when she is old enough to join. She is 18 now. Taylor is on the red raft in the bottom picture. The others are Kristi, her step-sister from her mother's first marriage and, of course, Shea. It was nice to be able to host the girls this weekend. They hadn't seen Kristi in a year (she lives in Lodi). Darla's parents came down from Paradise and Darla's sister came to visit as well. The girls stayed with us Friday and Saturday night. Daniel made it home from his camping trip Sunday and was able to visit with the girls for a couple of hours. They left Sunday about 3 PM and Daniel made a quick turnaround and was off to Paradise where he will work with Earl this week as they continue with the reconditioning of their house after the water damage.

They have new carpets being installed today and they worked last night moving furniture out of the rooms that carpet will be installed in. He will be there to move the furniture and help Earl with projects around the house. So far he has put in laminate flooring and new linoleum. Daniel and Earl will be working on putting in new baseboards throughout the house this week.

David has made it to Vancouver and he and Dad & Shirley are having a great time together. He made it in last Tuesday and will be leaving for home today. They went to a car show together yesterday and Dad was trying to get David to drive the '39 to the park while he and Shirley drove the '44 Merc. David wasn't thrilled with the prospects of driving Dad's baby and I don't know how it turned out as we didn't talk to them last night. We talked to dad last Thursday and it sounded like they were having a great time. They had taken a hike up Grouse Mountain with Al and Sherry and their boys. Dad and Shirley took the tram up the mountain and waited for them at the top. They had also stopped at the Capillano Suspension bridge and David even coaxed Shirley out on the rope bridge for the first time in her life. David has been getting a bunch of pictures and we are anxious to see them. Unfortunately, Dave had to miss Taylor, but he may still go visit her when he gets home.

My golf game has been frustratingly pedestrian lately. I played Turkey Creek and Timber Creek this weekend and shot 86 both days. Nothing to see here, folks. Boring golf ahead. I am off work today and have a meeting of NCGA club Presidents at Catte Vadera Country Club at ten today followed by an afternoon golf tournament. Thursday I will play in the second round qualifier for the NCGA four ball championships at Turkey Creek. This is a tournament of teams that all qualified at their local courses for this event. If we are lucky enough to move on from here we will play two days in the Carmel bay area at Poppy Hills one day and Spyglass Hill the next. I would be in golf heaven if we made it through this qualifying round, but I'd have to raise the level of my game to make it.

Jennifer called yesterday afternoon as Darla and I were relaxing on the pool. Things are going well with them in Vegas. The only concern is that John has left his job and has yet to get a call from the Union for work. They both seem unconcerned about things as the big construction project on the civic center will require a lot of electrical work and the high voltage electricians are hard at work now and that will leave a lot of work for the low voltage techs in the coming weeks. he hopes to get on a job within a couple of weeks. In the interim, Samantha gets to enjoy spending time with Dad. Jennifer was off for the better part of a year, so now she can work while John waits for his call from the union.

They are enjoying their house and have met all of the neighbors. One of the neighbors was away on the first weekend that John and Jennifer moved in and the police had to come out and break up a party that got out of hand for the 17 year old girl that was left home alone. They are walking at night and taking Samantha to the park to play. They've enjoyed barbecuing in their backyard and relaxing in their own home.

Well, I need to get going pretty soon. I should eat something before I go. The days are getting shorter and I've noticed that I need my headlights on when I go to work at 6:30 in the morning. it is dark now at night by 8:15 PM and soon Summer will give way to Fall. I will miss the warm days and cool nights. Summer is my favorite time of year. Be well and keep looking to the Lord for direction in your life. Ciao.

P.S. I forgot to mention some good health news. My doctor was very concerned with my high triglyceride readings and put me on a drug called Gemfibrozil, I take two 600 mg tablets a day and I finally went through almost a three month supply and was retested last week. My cholesterol has been running in the mid 200's and the triglycerides have been mid 500's, often too high to get a correct reading on the cholesterol. In fact, she told me that I was "pre-diabetic". Bottom line is I tested at 149 for triglycerides and 201 for cholesterol. Still room for some improvement, but a huge change for the better. The diet has helped and I still don't exercise enough, but I'm stoked at the changes. Good stuff, eh?

Back from Monterey to Hot August Nights

It is the dregs of Summer with warm nights and Hot days. It was so nice to relax in the natural air conditioning of Monterey and put on a warm up jacket in the morning while heading to breakfast. The fog would roll in at night and back out by late morning leaving sunshine and 75 degrees. The weather was absolutely perfect, but my golf game left something to be desired. I have a second round NCGA qualifier next Thursday and perhaps I'm saving my good rounds of golf for there. I shot 43+44=87 at Laguna Seca, 43+46=89 at Poppy Hills and 40+45=85 at Del Monte. Del Monte was the tough one because I was one over par after five holes and limped home with a 40 and then fell apart on the backside with dumb shots and poor execution.Del Monte is the oldest golf course west of the Mississippi. It has small greens and holes very close to each other.
We had a great time and Darla and I took Friday night as a date night. We went out to an old fashioned Italian Restaurant in Pacific Grove called Vito's. Vito was there along with his ex-wife who was our server and just off the boat from Italy. Darla got such a kick out of her. She barely spoke English, but chattered away with Darla. She brought us extra appetizers and bread and Darla a soup when she raved about mine and had ordered a salad. At the end of our meal, the waitress (owner) asked is we wanted a Happy Ending. I almost fell out of my chair until she brought us a homemade sorbet ice cream with blackberries compliments of the house. It was a great night out. We sat across from four little old ladies who laughed and carried on throughout their meal of pasta and red sauce. At the end of the meal they each passed around a Tide stain pen to blot up the red stains. It was adorable.
We went to Monterey with Steve and John and their wives and went out to dinner at The Fish Hopper on Saturday night. it was ahoot with four couples all laughing and carrying on. The maitre d brought us complimentary calimari appetizers and John and Steve had brought three bottles of wine into the restaurant. They had taken a cab and so were able to drink a lot of cab.
Our hotel was nice, in a great location close to the Pacific Grove Golf Links. It was older, but well maintained and a good price. It is walking distance to the ocean and close to the main drag on Lighthouse in Pacific Grove. We had breakfast at a little cafe in Pacific Grove on Saturday before Poppy Hills.
We have heard from David. His trip to Montana, Yellowstone and Glacier National park went well. He is on his way now to Banff and then will spend a week with Dad and Shirley in Vancouver. David said dad told him he'd need five days for dad to show him everything. I know David is really looking forward to it. I added a couple of pictures that David sent us from his trip.
I haven't talked to Jennifer in a while with us being gone. We'll touch base sometime this week and be in Las Vegas the end of the month.
Work continues going okay. The market is tough. I renewed my largest account on 8/1. When I wrote it four years ago it was $327,000. This year we renewed it for $122,000. That is the market. It is a home builder and he is putting off building anything but a custom home for an owner. He refuses to build anything on speculation and I can't say I blame them. The one thing the smart builders are doing right now is buying up land and getting ready for the turn in the economy. it's coming, it always turns around.
That is it for now. pork chops and potatoes are smelling ready and it's already 7:30 on a Monday night. hope you are all well. Ciao.

Next weekend: Carmel and the Monterey Peninsula

It keeps getting better. We will escape the valley and head to the coolness of the oceanside golf courses of the Monterey Bay. This is our annual trip to Carmel to play Poppy Hills. We usually play another course in the area and this year it is Old Del Monte, the oldest of the courses owned by the Pebble Beach company and perhaps the least exclusive. I have never played Old Del Monte and look forward to it. darla and I will head down Friday morning, stopping in San Juan Bautista for me to play San Juan Oaks golf course. We may still switch back to Pacific Grove golf course. They chemically treated their greens last month and burned the greens on the front side of the course. It would be more convenient as Darla and I are staying at the Sea Breeze Inn in Pacific Grove on Friday night and it is about ten minutes from Pacific Grove Golf links, but we'll see how well the greens have repaired. I'm going with Boyd and two of my poker buddies who also play in the club, Steve and John. Steve and I will play in the NCGA second round qualifier for the two man championships for Northern California in about three weeks.

Darla is sitting in the backyard with her best friend, Joni, who has moved to Roseville from the Bay Area. Joni came over to swim this afternoon and took a dunk when she was trying to reposition herself on the floating raft, We looked up and she was underwater. She came up coughing and looking like a drowned rat with her sunglasses still on her face. They have been visiting non-stop since she got here and I had trouble sleeping on the pool, so finally headed inside to get some work done. I ordered two newwheel assemblies for the jet ski trailer. The one that we refilled in Almanor is flat again and I'll take it in to be repaired once the new wheels get here. I'll keep the two we have as spares in the event that we get another flat. I got two of them online for less than $100 through tiredepot.com.

David has made it through his camping experience in Montana. They hiked for six days through the National Park in Montana and he is back at his Aunt's house visiting with relatives. He will be off later this week for Canada and a visit with Dad and Shirley. They will each have a great time as David has a real fondness for Dad and Dad has always praised David's maturity. I'm sure they will each come away from the trip with some fun memories and I know Dad will proudly show David my birthplace and perhaps take him over to the island as well. Hopefully the weather is good. Dad, you might see if you can get up to Cultis lake and see Aunt Glad as David still remembers his trip from so many years ago.

I did, of course, play golf this weekend and competed in the PGA McGladrey Team Championships. We played a three man team using 50% of our handicaps and I played with Bob and Joe. I shot 80, Joe, a 9 handicap, shot 79 and Bob, a six, shot 74. We managed a 65, but the winning team shot 60. We got a nice tee prize of a PGA travel bag and a six pack of Titleist golf balls. I got to the course at 9:30 for my 9:58 tee time and my phone rang in the parking lot. They had sent the teams out in sixsomes, instead of threesomes and they were running early and my team was on the tee. I asked the pro shop guy how that was my problem. He told me to just "Hurry Up". I showed up on the tee with no warm up and put my opening drive out of bounds. As I said, I managed an 80 (40+40), so it didn't hurt me too bad, but this is the kind of thing we put up with at Diamond Oaks a lot.

Work is going well as we struggle through a tough economy. My Sacramento branch was up year over year in July and I will host a pizza party for the staff on Wednesday. Modesto was down and the economy is particularly bad in the central valley of California. We will survive.

Jennifer and John are in their new home now and Darla and I look forward to visiting them over Labor Day. David may fly in as well as he continues his party tour Summer of 2008 before starting in earnest at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in the Fall.

This is short, but I'm on the laptop as I'm having connectivity issues with the desktop computer in the office. Comcast will be out tomorrow to fix that. We had a guest speaker at church today who was almost hanged in Saudi Arabia for preaching the good news of Jesus Christ. He was pleased to announce that eight of his captors came to Christ after he was abducted. He is still a wanted man in the Middle East and cannot return there. It was a compelling story and we had a lot of families come forward during the altar call today. Be well. Ciao.