It is still raining in Northern California. We had about a two day break at the end of last week and then a strong storm that has been gaining strength in the Pacific pushed onshore late last night and we are getting doused again. I got a chance to drain the pool again and had the water line at the bottom of the tile, but after last night's storm the waterline is back at the halfway mark on the tile. We are supposed to get rain through Wednesday and then tapering off toward next weekend. Our average rainfall is 19.85 inches and we have about 8 inches to date from July of last year. We had a wet year last year after two straight drought years and had hoped to keep the water works going this year. The average to date is almost 13 inches so we are behind and they are threatening water rationing this Summer. It is hard to imagine when the rain is pounding down, but we had a very dry January, which is our wettest month.
Darla just returned from San Diego and another Silpada junket. I missed her as she left Thursday and the dishes just don't do themselves, you know. I had planned to play golf this weekend, but my back has stayed tight and I decided to be an adult about things (and keep Jane, my physical therapist form spanking me)and cancelled my Sunday tournament and got Bob to take my spot at Diamond yesterday morning. It was a tough decision as the weather was nice yesterday, about 69 degrees with slowly increasing clouds during the day that lead to the current storm. I made up for my lack of golf by driving out to Thunder Valley Casino for breakfast and some nickle poker. I played for about three hours never really moving up or down from the $50 that I brought, but finally left a little after noon with $30 left after breakfast. I got home and spent three hours working on the lawn picking up the leavings from the last storm, downed branches and leaves, papers and debris left in and amongst the plants in the front of the house. I also cleaned out the pool, brushed it down and added some algeacide to counteract the effect of all of the leaves and brush that had blown into the pool in the last storm. I also used my leaf vac to clean up the backyard and took the garden rake to the side yard and de-thatched some of the grass there. The overseeding and fertilizer have taken hold and the grass is green and lush and I have to mow every week. My neighbors look at me like I'm nuts, but it is in my DNA. Blame Dad.
I took part of the weekend to add some music to my Iphone. I now have about 2000 songs on my phone and have a docking station at work that I use to listen to music in the afternoons when the phones slow down. I added an eclectic mix of music, with songs by Ray Charles, Aerosmith, Neil Diamond, Cher, Frank Sinatra and Van Morrison. I have music now that matches any mood I may be in.
I am taking Darla to dinner tonight at a new restaurant in Roseville, Cloud Nine. One of the local radio stations has a "half price hook-up" every Monday and last week it was buy two $25 gift cards to Cloud Nine for $25. I bought four of them for $50. I also took advantage of a half price deal at the new John Daly designed course at the Rolling Hills Casino in Corning were I got two rounds of golf and a $50 gift certificate in their steak house for $50, essentially I'll get the golf for free and it runs $65 per person on weekends.
I have to be in the San Francisco branch on Wednesday as our leader, Alan Kaufman, will be in town for a seminar and then he is heading to San Diego for a mid year NAPSLO (National Association of Surplus Lines Organizations) meeting Thursday- Saturday. I've been invited along with my top two underwriters, Anthony and Lorraine (from Modesto). They will be holding a professional lines seminar and I'm bringing Gail along as well. There will be about 26 people crowded into their conference room in SF. Friday, Darla and I will attend a meeting at the Silverado resort in Napa with the IBA association that I am on the board of. We will play golf Friday afternoon followed by a 45 minute board meeting and a nice dinner that night. Darla will have a spa day at the resort while I'm golfing along with a number of the other wives and female board members. It will be nice to getaway, especially after being apart this weekend.
I heard a nice "senior" joke recently:
Three old guys are out walking. First one says, 'Windy, isn't it?' Second one says, 'No, it's Thursday!' Third one says, 'So am I. Let's go get a beer.'
My favorite senior joke is:
An older couple in their 80's are both suffering the onset of dementia, but seem to be getting along great. One night the husband says, "you know what would be a nice treat tonight, scrambled eggs and bacon." The wife jumps up and heads to the kitchen. He can hear pots and pans banging and after about fifteen minutes the wife comes out carrying a big tray with two bowls of rocky road ice cream, covered with whipped cream with a cherry on top. The wife sets the tray down and the old man grabs his bowl, slowly shaking his head. "Honey, you did it again. Your memory is really starting to fade. I asked for Tin Roof Sundae with chocolate sauce!"
Our trip to Vegas will be here in two weeks and I'm looking forward to seeing Samantha and Jennifer and seeing their new house. Jennifer continues to squabble with John and hopefully they will settle their differences sooner than later. I may lose Darla one night on the trip as she met a group of flight attendants from Henderson, NV that fell in love with her jewelry and Darla has tentatively scheduled a party for the weekend of our trip.
I was also able to make reservations for Josh and Laura's wedding in Dallas over Memorial Day. I put a tickler on Travelocity for flights to Dallas from Sacramento. They were all running about $350 at the time, but I managed to get two flights to Dallas and back for $214 a ticket through Travelocity and booked it. They e-mailed me. We arrive on Friday May 22 and fly back on Sunday May 24th. We wanted to fly back on Monday, but the flight jumped to $322 for the extra night. This way, we'll be forced to come home and relax by the pool on Memorial Day (don't cry for us). We'll manage. Randy has graciously agreed to put us up in Dallas and cart us to the wedding and back. I looked at the wedding website which is http://www.joshandlauralyon.com/ which Josh put together and has all of the details. My only complaint is that the wedding is at the Stonebriar Country Club in Frisco and I haven't heard any talk about golf. This is a bad memory of Dad's wedding and Shirley's 70th birthday, each of which was held on a golf course that I have yet to play. Whazzup with that?
Well, folks, that is it. I slept in and missed church this morning, so my bad. Hope you are all doing well. Ciao.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Canada comes to California
We are in the midst of a weeklong storm with wind, rain and cold dominating our outlook. The AT&T Pebble Beach National pro-Am was delayed today as a strong storm swept through Northern California. We haven't had quite as much rain as Monterey, but there are downed tree limbs, leaves and debris scattered all over the area and a moderate rain has been falling all day. Darla and I literally got blown from our car into church this morning as the gusts were at 35 MPH.
We are glad that we made it to church as there is a good sermon series this month on Habakkuk, an obscure book of the Old Testament, but a book about trusting in the Lord in hard times. Pretty apropos to the times we are living in right now. We also had a guest worship leader in Dennis Agajanian. He is a country western Christian artist who has toured for twenty years with The Billy Graham Crusades and currently is a featured artist on Franklin Grahams crusades. He is about 6'5" and 255 pounds and wears a crude black cowboy hat and dresses all in black. He welcomed us to church this morning and said, "in case anyone is confused, this is NOT a gathering of Saints, but a hospital for sinners." He also toured with Johnny Cash, which came as no surprise. He was tremendously entertaining and is about the biggest musician I've seen since Aaron Neville, who also happens now to be a Christian artist. Church was relatively light this morning and Pastor Rick mentioned that we have all been praying for rain and as soon as it gets here, people stay at home instead of coming out to thank the Lord for the rain. He's right.
I need you all to pray for Jennifer and Samantha and for John. John is suing Jennifer for custody of Samantha. It isn't clear what his intentions are, but he has thrown Jennifer into a real tailspin. Suffice it to say that John has thrown out some pretty damning accusations and it is now Jennifer's turn to answer those. My only advice to her is to not engage John in a battle of "He said, She said", but to make sure she puts the best interests of Samantha first. That is what the judge will do and what he will respond best to. In my opinion, it is almost always the best thing to have both the mother and father involved in a child's life. There are exceptions, but this one hasn't risen to that level. Just pray for the situation and hope that cooler heads prevail.
I have been experiencing some back problems lately that I haven't seen in years. I wake up every morning kinked and sore and it takes a couple of hours to work my back straight again. I tend to list to the right when I wake up. I've been to see Jane twice in the last week and she tells me that the problem is playing golf in cold and wet conditions. I asked her what I could do about that and she just stared at me like I was a halfwit. I am trying to dress more warmly and if it is really cold, I take a cart and try to keep my back stretched out. I played Monday in a Cha-cha-cha at Brookside in bitter cold and could barely walk the next day. I'd just seen Jane on the Thursday before. I went in again and she gave me another treatment. I did get out in cold, wet conditions on Saturday and play the Trilogy course at Rio Vista. I got my new R7 draw irons, but with the wet and wind didn't get a good representative idea of what the irons can do. It was blowing about 25 miles an hour and I had one hole that I hit a six iron into the wind from 165 yards and came up short in the front bunker. I usually hit my 7 iron 165 yards. I shot 44+42=86 on a tough course, but had an 86 five of my last 7 golf outings. My index jumped to 8.7 this month and is headed back to close to ten next month. Boyd had a really good round, shooting 39+37=76 and Bob shot 40+40=80. Darren had a bit more trouble and was complaining about the wind on his way to 45+48=93. Darla is out of town next weekend on a Silpada junket to San Diego and I have golf planned both Saturday and Sunday.
Work is going along well. We had a good month in January, ahead of last year, but below the budget. February has been a slow start, but is picking up steam. One of the problems we are having and the company is dealing with is audits for contractors whose work has ground to a near halt in this economy. Oftentimes the audits work out to $20,000 or more and they have had to lay off staff and have no jobs in the bank. They can't afford to pay the audits and are more worried about putting bread on the table than paying for insurance that happened last year. These audits are going unpaid and to direct collections and my underwriters are seeing this phantom income come back off of their numbers at an alarming rate. That happened in February and we actually started the month in a hole. I am anxious to see the economy turn around sooner than later.
I tried to get reservations for our condo in Mexico, but found out that they only take reservations six months in advance, so I will have to get the two condos set up in early May for our November trip to Mexico. I was a little surprised that they only book six months out, but that is the rule. I'd like to plan a little further in advance than that.
For those who just watch network television, you don't know what you are missing. Try watching "Diners , Dives and Drive-ins" on the Food network or "Worst Job" on the Discovery network. There was a fascinating series this week on CNBC called "House of Cards", a look at the mortgage meltdown in America and how greed in the loan industry and mortgage backed securities dealers like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the house of cards to fall. Good television that really puts most reality tv shows to shame.
By the way, Jennifer identified the black guy in the picture last week as her sister's fiance. She is the shorty in the middle of the picture.
Well, this is short this week, but it is all rain, wind and cold here. Nothing to see here, folks. I hope you are all well and regularly taking advantage of your own "hospital for sinners". Be well. Ciao.
We are glad that we made it to church as there is a good sermon series this month on Habakkuk, an obscure book of the Old Testament, but a book about trusting in the Lord in hard times. Pretty apropos to the times we are living in right now. We also had a guest worship leader in Dennis Agajanian. He is a country western Christian artist who has toured for twenty years with The Billy Graham Crusades and currently is a featured artist on Franklin Grahams crusades. He is about 6'5" and 255 pounds and wears a crude black cowboy hat and dresses all in black. He welcomed us to church this morning and said, "in case anyone is confused, this is NOT a gathering of Saints, but a hospital for sinners." He also toured with Johnny Cash, which came as no surprise. He was tremendously entertaining and is about the biggest musician I've seen since Aaron Neville, who also happens now to be a Christian artist. Church was relatively light this morning and Pastor Rick mentioned that we have all been praying for rain and as soon as it gets here, people stay at home instead of coming out to thank the Lord for the rain. He's right.
I need you all to pray for Jennifer and Samantha and for John. John is suing Jennifer for custody of Samantha. It isn't clear what his intentions are, but he has thrown Jennifer into a real tailspin. Suffice it to say that John has thrown out some pretty damning accusations and it is now Jennifer's turn to answer those. My only advice to her is to not engage John in a battle of "He said, She said", but to make sure she puts the best interests of Samantha first. That is what the judge will do and what he will respond best to. In my opinion, it is almost always the best thing to have both the mother and father involved in a child's life. There are exceptions, but this one hasn't risen to that level. Just pray for the situation and hope that cooler heads prevail.
I have been experiencing some back problems lately that I haven't seen in years. I wake up every morning kinked and sore and it takes a couple of hours to work my back straight again. I tend to list to the right when I wake up. I've been to see Jane twice in the last week and she tells me that the problem is playing golf in cold and wet conditions. I asked her what I could do about that and she just stared at me like I was a halfwit. I am trying to dress more warmly and if it is really cold, I take a cart and try to keep my back stretched out. I played Monday in a Cha-cha-cha at Brookside in bitter cold and could barely walk the next day. I'd just seen Jane on the Thursday before. I went in again and she gave me another treatment. I did get out in cold, wet conditions on Saturday and play the Trilogy course at Rio Vista. I got my new R7 draw irons, but with the wet and wind didn't get a good representative idea of what the irons can do. It was blowing about 25 miles an hour and I had one hole that I hit a six iron into the wind from 165 yards and came up short in the front bunker. I usually hit my 7 iron 165 yards. I shot 44+42=86 on a tough course, but had an 86 five of my last 7 golf outings. My index jumped to 8.7 this month and is headed back to close to ten next month. Boyd had a really good round, shooting 39+37=76 and Bob shot 40+40=80. Darren had a bit more trouble and was complaining about the wind on his way to 45+48=93. Darla is out of town next weekend on a Silpada junket to San Diego and I have golf planned both Saturday and Sunday.
Work is going along well. We had a good month in January, ahead of last year, but below the budget. February has been a slow start, but is picking up steam. One of the problems we are having and the company is dealing with is audits for contractors whose work has ground to a near halt in this economy. Oftentimes the audits work out to $20,000 or more and they have had to lay off staff and have no jobs in the bank. They can't afford to pay the audits and are more worried about putting bread on the table than paying for insurance that happened last year. These audits are going unpaid and to direct collections and my underwriters are seeing this phantom income come back off of their numbers at an alarming rate. That happened in February and we actually started the month in a hole. I am anxious to see the economy turn around sooner than later.
I tried to get reservations for our condo in Mexico, but found out that they only take reservations six months in advance, so I will have to get the two condos set up in early May for our November trip to Mexico. I was a little surprised that they only book six months out, but that is the rule. I'd like to plan a little further in advance than that.
For those who just watch network television, you don't know what you are missing. Try watching "Diners , Dives and Drive-ins" on the Food network or "Worst Job" on the Discovery network. There was a fascinating series this week on CNBC called "House of Cards", a look at the mortgage meltdown in America and how greed in the loan industry and mortgage backed securities dealers like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the house of cards to fall. Good television that really puts most reality tv shows to shame.
By the way, Jennifer identified the black guy in the picture last week as her sister's fiance. She is the shorty in the middle of the picture.
Well, this is short this week, but it is all rain, wind and cold here. Nothing to see here, folks. I hope you are all well and regularly taking advantage of your own "hospital for sinners". Be well. Ciao.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
It is a tad quieter in the Lyon household at night now
Jen sent some new pictures and they are always quick to make it onto my blog. Of particular interest here is the picture of Jennifer with her sisters. Dina is Jennifer's roommate with the faux mohawk with purple tips (it is Vegas, you know) and the two other girls are her biological sisters. Jennifer is actually taller than her sister in the middle of the picture. The girl on the far right has the same hair color and type as Jennifer does when it isn't colored. I don't know who the black dude is, the tag line on the picture was "frosty balls". I don't know if the guy was cold or that is just his nickname. It is always good to get pictures of Samantha. Look at how long her hair is getting in the bottom picture. I remember Jennifer at that age and how I started trimming her bangs as they were growing into her eyes.
The title hints of changes in our house and I think our last visit to Canada was a motivating factor for me to do something about my snoring. I've shared rooms with people over the years and always heard about how loud I was snoring. Darla routinely sleeps with ear plugs and Boyd told me that I snored so loud that his earplugs were vibrating in his ears, he had bought earplugs the second night after I kept him up half the night the first night. He said he could hear me from in the bathroom with the ceiling fan on. My brothers gave me grief about hearing me from upstairs in Sherry and Al's house and Darla and I slept in the downstairs bedroom. Jennifer had also remarked that I was horribly loud when she stayed with us the last night in Austin before we all flew home from Jesse's wedding. I did some research and found PureSleep.com. They manufacture a mouthpiece designed by a dentist and I ordered one for $79. It is an upper and lower mouthpiece molded from plastic and it has a large hole below the top teeth and above the lowers. The device is designed to pull your lower mandibular forward to increase the air passage in the back of your neck. You plunge the mouthpiece into boiling water for one minute, let it cool on a spatula for ten seconds and then jam the scalding hot plastic into your mouth and bite down on the device to set your bite into the mouthpiece. The note on the packaging reads that it is normal for your teeth and gums to feel very warm during this process. "No sh*t, Sherlock!" It has taken me a week to get used to sleeping with the device, but so far, no more snoring. Darla was concerned because I was starting to snore a little the second night and she thought I was learning to defeat the device, but it turns out I had a stuffy nose that night and had to breath through my mouth. I did have my jaw cracking and popping the first few mornings after wearing it, but re-read the instructions and it suggests a morning exercise of lightly pressing your lower jaw backwards and holding your muscles for about 45 seconds to reset your jaw. It is a bit of a hassle, but I think I owe it to Darla after twelve years of marriage.
Darla's sister, Alicia, had a scary encounter last week. She lives alone with a cat and had left the side door to her garage unlocked by accident. The house door to the garage was broken and couldn't be locked. She woke up to a noise at about two in the morning and their was a man dressed in all black in her hallway outside her bedroom. She screamed at him and grabbed the phone telling him she was calling 9-1-1, which she did. The guy turned and ran out of the house. The Roseville Police arrived within two minutes and told her she was very lucky that she woke up because there was no telling what the guy was in the house to do. Her car was parked in the garage and it was obvious that someone was home. It would appear that someone knew she was home alone. She has since had the door fixed and is looking into house alarms. Darla and I are much more careful about locking our house door to the garage now as we sleep on the complete opposite side of the house and we could get cleaned out and sleep right through it. As the economy turns and there are more and more empty houses in our neighborhood and people out of work, the crime rate is rising.
I talked to Dad and Darla talked to Cheryl last week and we are all on for our trip to Nuevo Vallarta in November. Dad and Shirley are going to a resort in N.V. the week of November 7th -14th. I will be in Detroit through the 8th at our annual Manager's meeting and it appeared that we would get there late, but Darla and I talked and decided to see if Dad and Shirley would be interested in staying in Mexico an extra week and moving over to our resort. We would get two rooms and have Dad and Shirley, Darryl and Cheryl and Randy and Cake (hopefully) join us. Our suites are 1249 square feet, two bedroom units with private baths within each room and a small splash pool on the balcony. I called the resort to make a reservation and they told me to call back on May 1st to book for November. They only book six months in advance and then only for owners. The Jack Nicklaus redesigned golf course reopens on September 12th and we will be among the first to play it. The resort is building a new main shopping district with restaurants and a central check-in with light rail service to each individual resorts (there are three on the property) that will also be finished September 12th and they had to completely rebuild the back nine to accommodate the new construction. The back nine winds around the Cuale River and hosts crocodiles on it's shores.
Darla and I overslept today and missed church. The weather is iffy today with rain likely tonight and into tomorrow. I have a golf tournament in Stockton tomorrow afternoon and hope the rain comes in hard tonight and trains itself out by tomorrow. I am playing an a Cha-Cha-Cha event with some friends from the club and it is an outing put on by the NCGA. I played in our Super Bowl tournament on Saturday at 7:30 AM and it was wet and cold. The scores were all a bit higher and I struggled to a 42+42=84. The driver continues to work well for me, but I struggled with my putting. The greens are still damaged from the late season aerification that the course superintendent did in November about a week before our first frost. I set up a road trip next Saturday to the Trilogy Golf course in Rio Vista with Bob, Boyd and Darren. It is on the Delta about 75 minutes from Roseville and they are running a $100 weekend special for four players including carts. I look forward to it.
Darla and I celebrated Valentine's Day early last night with a night out to Ruth Chris' steak house. We ate well and came home to watch The Express, the Ernie Davis story. It's a great football and human rights story about the first black athlete to win the Heisman trophy. He was one of the greatest college athletes of all time, but he contracted leukemia at age 22 and died at 23 before ever joining the Cleveland Brown's backfield with Jim Brown. That may have been the greatest tandem of runners in the history of the NFL. If you get a chance rent it, it is so much more than a football movie and well worth your time.
Well, Darla is calling to have me go take a walk with her, so I'd better finish this up. I hope you are all well, happy and strong in your personal faith. Ciao.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Why I live in Northern California
Sunday February 1st high temperature 70 degrees, light breeze with a high blue sky. We need rain and I say that's what weekdays are for. Saturday was a carbon copy of today and I brought out the shorts for my day on the golf course. luckily, I have the benefit of a Bahamas vacation in the bank and some tan on my legs. There were a few albinos out on the course wearing shorts and looking vaguely like out of bounds markers dressed in shorts and shirts. I was able to get a good head start on my gardening this year on Saturday and trimmed all of the rose bushes back and pulled all of the downed leaves out of the flowerbeds and put them in the recycling can. I also trimmed the flowers in the palm garden above the pool and trimmed the bushes back away from the palm trees. I mowed the lawn and top seeded the grass and then put down some Turf Builder. I want the seed to have a chance to germinate in the next couple of weeks before I put the crabgrass preventer down in late February. I got an e-mail from Dad this morning and it was snowing in Vancouver. That is why I live in Northern California.
Darla and I watched the Super Bowl this afternoon and saw an entertaining game. I like Larry Fitzgerald and the Pittsburgh defense, but let's just say the game lacked real star players. Warner is a good story and Big Ben is good for 255 yards and two touchdowns in a game. Neither team has much of a running game and there just wasn't a sense of expectation as the game approached. In fact, I was watching the playoff of the FBR PGA tournament and realized that it was time for the Super Bowl to start. I taped the playoff and watched the video recording at halftime. We taped Springsteen and watched that afterward. Several of the younger people in my office were complaining about the halftime entertainment being 80's stars and they are right, but you have to play to the people with money. Besides, when they went younger with Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson, there were boobs all over the screen. Kind of like the commercials for Doritos and Go Daddy this year. What the heck?
I did buy the FT-iQ driver by Callaway in spite of my original denials about doing so. I did just want to enjoy the FT-i, but then a pro in Florida had the FT-iQ up for bid on -Bay and I put in a bid at $289 for the $500 club and got it. I had bought my FT-i new for $159 and sold it used for $152. I put quite a description of the club out and caught some interest and ended up with a bidding war that ended at $152. Here is my description for the club: "This FT-i was purchased brand new in December from a pro shop owner in Florida and has been used for three rounds only. If you have not tried the Callaway FT-i driver, you are in for a treat. This is by far the straightest driver I have ever hit. I have a natural fade and I can barely reach the right side of the fairway now. I had an opportunity to buy the brand new FT-iQ at a bottom dollar price and jumped on it. My loss is your gain on this club. I got a steal at $189 and you can have a like new FT-i for a used price. This club would be a 9.5 out of 10 with only very minor face marks and no crown marks. I am an 8.3 handicap and would recommend this club and this technology to any level of golfer. The off center hits are in the fairway! The shaft is a Regular Flex Speeder 586 Fujikura with the Callaway stickers still on the clubhead end of the shaft. The serial number is 7002240719. The headcover is included and is designed where the head is slid in from the side of the headcover and latched shut with the magnetic closure. Happy bidding on this club. I will ship this club within one business day of payment via Fed-Ex ground delivery." You'll notice that I said I bought it for $189, well I wanted them to feel like they got a bargain. it's marketing.
I've said before that marketing isn't about what you say but how you say it. I have a BS degree in marketing (appropriate, eh?). You can tell a woman she has a face that could stop a clock and you'll get one reaction. You can take the hand of that same woman, and tell her that when you gaze into her eyes, time stands still. You've said the same exact thing, but you got two different reactions. The difference: "marketing".
I have been tinkering with my equipment quite a bit and have yet to get my game back on solid footing. in fact, my last three games have all been 43+43=86. I'm driving the ball well, but struggling in the wet sand traps and struggling with the condition of the greens that haven't fully healed from the waffle cut that the greenskeeper did in late November. We ended up with several early frosts in December and it will take weather like we've had the last few days to fully heal the greens. My handicap went up to 8.7 from 8.3 in February, but it will only help me on tougher courses which will lift my strokes from 9 to 10. on my home course, I remain a 9, which mean I have to shoot 81 to shoot net par. I won't completely have my game set until march when i buy my new irons, until then, I'm a work in progress. I have definitely upgraded my equipment in the last three months with the new driver, Scotty Cameron putter, and Pro V-1 golf balls. Again I'm watching e-Bay and looking at Ping irons, Callaway X-22 irons, the new Taylor Made R-9 irons and the new Nike Tiger Woods Victory red irons.
I play in a shotgun on Saturday at Diamond Oaks and then a cha-cha-cha at Brookside Country Club in Stockton a week from Monday. The cha-cha-cha is a four man better ball game where you use the one best ball on the first hole, two best balls on the second and three best balls on the third. It then reverts to one on the fourth hole and so on. My team will be Boyd, Bob and Neil and I look forward to it. Steve had set up the game and then injured himself in the final round of last week's tournament. he pulled the muscle that is tolled over the shoulder blade and was in real pain last weekend. he couldn't lift his arm above his shoulder and his game went south. The doctor told him he has to take 2 months off, but Steve plans to lay off 4 weeks and then see how he feels.
Work is going well, we ended 2008 with a nice profit although slightly less than in 2007. January has started strong and my number one underwriter, Anthony, was up almost 25% for the month versus 2008. We were up, but behind budget, which is always artificially high. I'm running a renewal contest for my renewal underwriters this year and my assistant, Ben, has won the contest for the 15th and 31st this month by running almost 92% on my renewals. The other renewal underwriters are already grumbling, but the higher our renewal retention the less new business we have to write to get to 100% of last year. The company has always promised an incentive plan for assistants and I decided to throw $1200 on the budget and make it a $50 contest twice each month. I think it will motivate the troops to make those extra phone calls to see if we can retain the business. I'm a little bit out on a ledge here as other offices don't do this, but I'm running our numbers and the renewal retention for January was at 66% versus 58% in the year ago period, that relates to about $111,00 in additional renewal revenue for a $100 cost. I think I can sell that and hopefully our numbers will stay as high.
Still keeping my fingers crossed for the corporate outing to the Masters in April. We'll see. I hope you are well and quietly following in the footsteps of God.
Darla and I watched the Super Bowl this afternoon and saw an entertaining game. I like Larry Fitzgerald and the Pittsburgh defense, but let's just say the game lacked real star players. Warner is a good story and Big Ben is good for 255 yards and two touchdowns in a game. Neither team has much of a running game and there just wasn't a sense of expectation as the game approached. In fact, I was watching the playoff of the FBR PGA tournament and realized that it was time for the Super Bowl to start. I taped the playoff and watched the video recording at halftime. We taped Springsteen and watched that afterward. Several of the younger people in my office were complaining about the halftime entertainment being 80's stars and they are right, but you have to play to the people with money. Besides, when they went younger with Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson, there were boobs all over the screen. Kind of like the commercials for Doritos and Go Daddy this year. What the heck?
I did buy the FT-iQ driver by Callaway in spite of my original denials about doing so. I did just want to enjoy the FT-i, but then a pro in Florida had the FT-iQ up for bid on -Bay and I put in a bid at $289 for the $500 club and got it. I had bought my FT-i new for $159 and sold it used for $152. I put quite a description of the club out and caught some interest and ended up with a bidding war that ended at $152. Here is my description for the club: "This FT-i was purchased brand new in December from a pro shop owner in Florida and has been used for three rounds only. If you have not tried the Callaway FT-i driver, you are in for a treat. This is by far the straightest driver I have ever hit. I have a natural fade and I can barely reach the right side of the fairway now. I had an opportunity to buy the brand new FT-iQ at a bottom dollar price and jumped on it. My loss is your gain on this club. I got a steal at $189 and you can have a like new FT-i for a used price. This club would be a 9.5 out of 10 with only very minor face marks and no crown marks. I am an 8.3 handicap and would recommend this club and this technology to any level of golfer. The off center hits are in the fairway! The shaft is a Regular Flex Speeder 586 Fujikura with the Callaway stickers still on the clubhead end of the shaft. The serial number is 7002240719. The headcover is included and is designed where the head is slid in from the side of the headcover and latched shut with the magnetic closure. Happy bidding on this club. I will ship this club within one business day of payment via Fed-Ex ground delivery." You'll notice that I said I bought it for $189, well I wanted them to feel like they got a bargain. it's marketing.
I've said before that marketing isn't about what you say but how you say it. I have a BS degree in marketing (appropriate, eh?). You can tell a woman she has a face that could stop a clock and you'll get one reaction. You can take the hand of that same woman, and tell her that when you gaze into her eyes, time stands still. You've said the same exact thing, but you got two different reactions. The difference: "marketing".
I have been tinkering with my equipment quite a bit and have yet to get my game back on solid footing. in fact, my last three games have all been 43+43=86. I'm driving the ball well, but struggling in the wet sand traps and struggling with the condition of the greens that haven't fully healed from the waffle cut that the greenskeeper did in late November. We ended up with several early frosts in December and it will take weather like we've had the last few days to fully heal the greens. My handicap went up to 8.7 from 8.3 in February, but it will only help me on tougher courses which will lift my strokes from 9 to 10. on my home course, I remain a 9, which mean I have to shoot 81 to shoot net par. I won't completely have my game set until march when i buy my new irons, until then, I'm a work in progress. I have definitely upgraded my equipment in the last three months with the new driver, Scotty Cameron putter, and Pro V-1 golf balls. Again I'm watching e-Bay and looking at Ping irons, Callaway X-22 irons, the new Taylor Made R-9 irons and the new Nike Tiger Woods Victory red irons.
I play in a shotgun on Saturday at Diamond Oaks and then a cha-cha-cha at Brookside Country Club in Stockton a week from Monday. The cha-cha-cha is a four man better ball game where you use the one best ball on the first hole, two best balls on the second and three best balls on the third. It then reverts to one on the fourth hole and so on. My team will be Boyd, Bob and Neil and I look forward to it. Steve had set up the game and then injured himself in the final round of last week's tournament. he pulled the muscle that is tolled over the shoulder blade and was in real pain last weekend. he couldn't lift his arm above his shoulder and his game went south. The doctor told him he has to take 2 months off, but Steve plans to lay off 4 weeks and then see how he feels.
Work is going well, we ended 2008 with a nice profit although slightly less than in 2007. January has started strong and my number one underwriter, Anthony, was up almost 25% for the month versus 2008. We were up, but behind budget, which is always artificially high. I'm running a renewal contest for my renewal underwriters this year and my assistant, Ben, has won the contest for the 15th and 31st this month by running almost 92% on my renewals. The other renewal underwriters are already grumbling, but the higher our renewal retention the less new business we have to write to get to 100% of last year. The company has always promised an incentive plan for assistants and I decided to throw $1200 on the budget and make it a $50 contest twice each month. I think it will motivate the troops to make those extra phone calls to see if we can retain the business. I'm a little bit out on a ledge here as other offices don't do this, but I'm running our numbers and the renewal retention for January was at 66% versus 58% in the year ago period, that relates to about $111,00 in additional renewal revenue for a $100 cost. I think I can sell that and hopefully our numbers will stay as high.
Still keeping my fingers crossed for the corporate outing to the Masters in April. We'll see. I hope you are well and quietly following in the footsteps of God.
