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.