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.