Rain comes to the valley

Luckily, the rain came today and left yesterday free for golf, but we'll get to that. Anyone who knows me, knows that I love my wife dearly. She is the ying to my yang and my true north in any storm. BUT, she likes to save everything. She saves newspapers and bottles, cans, plastic bottles, yada yada yada. I decided on Monday that the pile of things in front of my car was putting me in peril when I pulled into the garage and I decided to clean up. I parted out the papers, cans, bottles, etc. into separate piles and threw away alot of old shoes, rags, paper bags, etc., basic clutter that infiltrates a garage. When I dug sown to the bottom of the pile, I was rewarded with a brand new pair of winter golf shoes that I had bought at the Holiday sale at Diamond Oaks last year. I thought I'd lost those shoes the night of the sale as I was never able to find them after bringing them home and setting them by the pile of "things" that live in the garage. Apparently several garbage bags of cans ended up on top of them. The receipt was still in the box and I now have a new pair of wet weather Etonic golf shoes to use this Winter. God smiled on my efforts Monday night. I made a trip to the newspaper recycling bin with my Mustang literally crammed full of newspapers.

Darla, in addition to being "green girl", also looks out for God's creatures. We've had a feral cat hanging around our house lately and Darla has taken to feeding it. She mentioned it to one of her friends at work and she volunteers at an animal shelter. She said that the shelter would spay the cat and make sure it had all of it's shots free of charge if we would trap it and give it to her. She brought over a trap and the poor animal was caged and handed over to the shelter worker. We don't need another cat with two in residence, but Darla's rational is that the cats are inside and we need a "mouser" for around the house. Apparently mice aren't the part of God's creatures worth caring about. The cat came back and wouldn't go near Darla's little set up in the rear yard of food as I'm sure it sees all food in a surrounded area as a trap. Darla decided to set food out by the front door to lure the cat back into her good graces.

Now, in the midst of all of this excitement, I had put up the Christmas lights and was trying to set the timers to have the lights come on automatically, so Tuesday night I checked the front before bed and the lights were off automatically. Strangely, though, there was what looked like a squirrel eating the cat food in the bowl on the front porch. When I called Darla, she turned on the front porch light to get a better look and a creature from the black night stared back at us. It was a skunk making a meal out of the food!. I'm okay with cans, bottles, newspapers and even feral cats, but I draw the line at skunks.

We talked briefly with Dad and Shirley tonight and they arrived tired and sated after their trip to Europe and the Mediterranean. They had no water problems on the boat or mice in their stateroom, but did have to suffer through the wet docking of the ship and crates of repair materials on the upper deck awaiting the end of their cruise. They do have some of the most interesting vacations.

I did manage to make it out golfing on Saturday before the storm swept in and brought us this cycle of rain in the valley and snow in the Sierras. Saturday was clear and cold. I finally put my newest new driver into play. It is a Callaway Fusion FT-i draw bias driver with a Speeder shaft. This is the square series driver and I was able to buy a brand new one on E-Bay for $159 from a head professional in Connecticut who was clearing out his inventory for the winter. I have never hit a straighter club in my life, in fact I'm now hitting a slight draw which I have never done in my life. My nickname back when I started playing was Chiquita (and it's not because I'm well endowed). I struggled with the putter and left many birdie putts short. I managed only one birdie, but was in the fairway all day as I shot 42+41=83. With my poor display of putting, it should have been a 77 or 78. I look forward to continue to improve with this new putter and have a goal in 2009 of getting down to a 6 handicap.

Darla and I went out Friday night and did a foul swoop of Christmas shopping, buying something for each of the kids and doing a grand birthday and Christmas shopping for Samantha at Babies-R-Us. It is a fun store to shop for your grandchild and we left with a winter coat, pjs, pants, tops and socks. It was a blast. It is, by the way, Miss Samantha's first birthday on Sunday and she will be with us over Christmas for a few days. I look forward to seeing her and Jenn.

Dallas stayed alive tonight by beating the New York Giants 20-8 in a game of defensive excellence. It was great to see Dallas take on the team everyone says is the best and dominate them all game long.

Well, Darla awaits on the couch. I have an auditor from Home Office in this week to work on our Imaging transition and audit how it is going. He'll be here on Monday and Tuesday and in my Modesto office on Wednesday. That's it. Ciao.