SURPRISES

I came to find out this week how deceptive both my wife and my staff can be. The annual Big I Day Insurance Convention was held at the Sacramento Convention Center on Tuesday. Our office hosted a booth as we do every year and had our brochures and goodies there for the agents to pick up and visit with us. I sent some of my staff there Tuesday morning to man the booth and I showed up with a few other underwriters for the lunch and we worked the booth in the afternoon. The secretary of the Insurance Brokers and Agents had called me on the Friday before and offered to give my office an assigned table at the event. The tables are for 12 and you generally have to buy 12 tickets to get a table. I was a little surprised as we only had eight tickets, but accepted the offer. When the time came for the group to give out the Associate member of the Year Award, the speaker began introducing the winner by saying, "This member likes three sports 'Golf, Golf and Golf'. He enjoys vacationing in Hawaii and Mexico where he likes to play Golf." I thought, "Wow, this guy is a man among men. I'd like him." The speaker went on to say, "He has two sons that attend Cal Poly San Luis Obispo University and a daughter in Las Vegas, Nevada and the apple of his eye is his granddaughter, Samantha Paige who is 9 months old." It dawned on me at that point and I looked up to see my entire staff grinning at me like my pants were on backwards. it was a complete surprise and I walked up to the podium to accept the award in front of 1500 of my closest friends. It was a very nice honor and they continue to insist that the call I took earlier in the week asking me to join the board of directors of the Association was just a coincidence. Yeah, sure. We happened to have one of the Managers from Detroit in town for the conference and ended up going to dinner with the gentleman who won the Agent of the Year award that night. Darla was in the crowd seated at the back of the room with the father and wife of the agent winner. She took some pictures, but was at the very back of the room and you can't see anything on her film. Again, it was a nice honor and I look forward to working with the group next year. I've got a feeling that I will be asked to chair the annual golf tournament next year, which will be no problem.

The weather is very nice this weekend, in the mid eighties yesterday and should hit 78 degrees today, perfect Fall weather. I played golf Monday in the Pro-President NCPGA event at Del Paso Country Club. I shot an 80 and my pro, Scott, shot 75. We ended up in a tie for 66 and our undoing was a double-bogey 5 on a par three on the backside where both Scott and I had 5. We ended up one stroke out of the money, with the winning team at 58 splitting $1,300. I got a nice PGA golf shirt and some good memories. It was nice to shoot good golf in such an important event. I played yesterday with the guys and shot 82 at Woodcreek after starting one under after four holes. I won $11 on my two birdies and was happy. I played with Darren, a friend who had played most of the Summer with us, but dropped out about two months ago. He had borrowed my power washer and returned it yesterday with a dozen balls and a bottle of 2006 Ponte Merlot from the Temecula Valley here in California. He called it interest for the time he held onto my power washer.

I ended up using the power washer with some CLR and power washing the tile and river rock on the pool. It didn't do a perfect job. I need to get some ScaleAway and use a wire brush to clean up the area around the waterfalls, which get kind of heavy with buildup.

Jennifer and John have split up at least temporarily in Vegas. They are working through some issues and I hope for Samantha's sake that they end up back together. John is a very gentle soul and a great father. They are both excellent parents, but hopefully their decision not to marry doesn't cost them both their family. Samantha is doing great. John sent us a video of Sam pushing her toy box around. It is on wheels and she would get behind it and push until she hit a wall and then walk around the box and start pushing from the other side. She is so incredibly cute and smart and it is only a matter of time before she is walking. Her one year birthday comes up in December.

This is a bit short this week, but I have chores to do, so I will bid you adieu for now. Ciao.