Summer is Near

A wonderful weekend is in the books. A highlight for Darla and I was getting back to church and our church family. We had a couple stop us on the way out, some friends from our life group, and they wanted to know what happened to Darla. It was baptism Sunday and there were about forty-five people who were baptised, including a man whose wife has been praying for him to come to the Lord for 11 years. The sermon was on how to find joy in times of trouble and the first lesson in the series was based on the fact that Christians don't fight their battles alone. They are not only directed by God, but also surrounded by Christian friends who help them along the way. If you aren't involved in a church, get involved. Some of our strongest friendships are those we have made in church and they are the ones we turn to in times of crisis to pray for us and to help us get through. The only downer of the service was that Darla had an older gentleman sit next to her that had horrible gas and it was killing her. I got a wave t one point and felt physically ill. I don't know how she could take it. My wife has a tremendous amount of grace, but this old fart, well...you get it.

I spent this weekend taking out a planter in the back yard. We have limited space and this planter is about 15 square feet and had two rows of stones that were forever being tripped over as we moved around the tables and chairs on the back patio. You can kind of get a feel for what was there by the picture above and what I've added is basically pavers. it wasn't easy to fit the pavers into a round space, but I did my best and Darla and I will likely put flower pots on this spot and hand water them. The problems was the stones that were in the way and we've eliminated that problem. If you double-click on the wide picture, you can see the planter pretty well.

The weather this weekend was ideal in the mid eighties and the pool got a good workout as I was in and out as I worked. I took the weekend off from golf as I do have the insurance tournament at Sierra View CC tomorrow. I realized today as I readied the signs for the hole sponsors, Closest to the Pin, etc. that the sign vendor missed seven signs. It was my fault for not catching it, but Darla is hand drawing signs as I write this. With all of the excitement from the pending purchase of our competitor, I've been too busy to worry about my commitment as the sign chairman for the Golf committee. I can't leave the sponsors without signs, so we dashed off to Michael's and bought some sign stock and a couple of post holders and some Sharpies (paint pens) and my lovely wife is making me proud as she works on signs.

The buyout of our competitor hit a major snag this week and fell through. We were waiting until Friday to hear that the sale was final, but legal wording and wrangling by the other company had us back off. It may yet go through, but they have ceased operations, fired all of their staff and basically left their insurance agents without representation. I was at Home Depot on Saturday buying the pavers and I got a call from Harvey. He had been in talks with our CEO and they decided to go ahead and make offers to an underwriter and assistant from the Sacramento branch, so I sat in my car and we teleconferenced with each of the people and hired them over the phone. The underwriter starts tomorrow and her assistant will be in on Tuesday. We are going after the business and ended up losing a couple of the underwriters from some of the offices to other firms, but still will go after ALL of the business. It should be an interesting week. My hope is that they will come to their senses and get something out of the business. If they stand pat, they are basically walking away from millions of dollars in business. The advantage to a purchase is that we don't have to fight for that business with the other wholesalers on the street. It is ours.

We finished the month strong at work and beat both our budget on the bottom line and our premium written from last year. We have some momentum going and Alan will be here on June 18th. I have arranged dinner with one of our retailers Wednesday night the 17th and breakfast on Thursday morning. We will visit with the staff in the morning and then meet with the real estate people in the afternoon. We are looking to finalize our lease deal when Alan is here. I have two extra employees and the space we were looking at did allow us room for growth.

I called into action as a painter of signs, so this is it for this week. It's 11 PM and I have to be at work at 7 AM tomorrow to get ready for my new underwriter and then drive back to Roseville for the golf tournament. Ciao.

A BIG Thank You to the Euless Lyons!

Yes. The hospitality was gracious and it was great to see both Jenny and Chris home. BTW, is Jenny wasting her time behind the camera? That's one good looking niece. I know, Jenny, you'll put aside vanity to make some money. It's Austin's loss. Cake had gone out and bought us new sheets for the bed upstairs and laid out towels on the bed ala Sherry in Canada. Cake said she thought that was the height of luxury when Sherry did it and we got the royal treatment as well. Of course, I was standing there naked and wet after my shower and the towels were neatly folded at the foot of the bed. (Just kidding!) We enjoyed some good conversation, some laughs and some interesting moments with dogs who run away at inopportune times. Luckily, the dog was found by friends and returned to the backyard of a neighbor and we could get on with our lives. Randy and I had a chance to get caught up on our jobs and lives and it was nice to relax at such a warm home. We had a rental car, which was a complete waste of $10 a day, as Randy drove us everywhere and I'd only put 9 miles on the car when I returned it. The clerk asked me if I refilled it and I said, "Oh yeah, sure."

The rehearsal dinner was great, although we only found out the night before we left that we were invited. We had planned to go out to dinner with Randy and Cake on Friday night, but drove out to the restaurant, Abuelos and helped Darryl spend some of that unGodly salary that he commands. It was good to get caught up with some of Cheryl's family and spend a bit of time with the bride and groom.

The wedding was nice. It was a cloudy day, threatening rain that never came. The venue at the Stonebriar Country Club was a first class affair and mercifully short. I give Josh and Laura kudos for keeping the ceremony to 15 minutes. Having the minister talk about the rings being a "perfect circle of love" for the umpteenth time is tedious. If I could talk to any bride and groom, I'd say brevity is a gift to your guests. As usual the wedding party was gone for forty five minutes taking pictures, but the wait was more than bearable with an open bar near the reception room. Their pastor was hilarious and made the ceremony memorable and kept things light. Weddings are about the reception and this one was great. We were able to visit with all of our family and the few people that I knew there and Darla was able to get pictures and totter about on her broken foot for the afternoon. The food was very good and the line went fast.

Afterward, we enjoyed some downtime at Bruce and Kathy's house and drank a little more and visited a little more and even sat through a performance by Abigail, Janelle's daughter, who is a little ham. She took down everyone's name on a sheet of paper and then did a dance recital by calling each person's name to come and dance with her. Jessie tried to jump the gun and dance before his name was called and Abby sent him back to the couch. It was good fun.

We did manage to play some golf on Sunday, meeting Dad and Shirley and Bruce and Darryl at Riverside golf club in Grand Prarie. I started strong by going par, birdie, par, but the lack of a pitching wedge and hybrid irons caught up to me and I shot 42+43=85 and struggled with unfamiliar clubs. It was a great time and I look forward to Mexico and more golf with the Lyon clan (minus Randy).

I did make it back to work today and the merger is on, so I will conduct formal interviews by the end of the week and we will make offers to the employees we want to keep. It is busy at work right now with the merger and I'm getting ready for the annual golf day on Monday. Of course, I'm on the committee.

I'm going to take this weekend off from golf and work on my backyard as I bought some pavers to take out the half moon planter by the kitchen nook window. I will fill the planter with sand, place and cut the pavers and then paint and seal the finished product to match the decking we have in now. It will give us more room by the pool as we have two sets of patio chairs and tables (4 chairs and an umbrella) in that spot now and need the room. I don't have water run to the planter now and will take out the irises in the planter and transfer them to another spot in the garden. I also plan to finish scrubbing the pool tile and will put a coat of marine wax on the tile to keep the scale and calcium from building up, especially below the waterfalls.

Well, that is it. I will add to this on the weekend. The Insurance Golf Day is next Monday and I have stacked a team this year with Matt, my Underwriting Trainee, who is a 3 and Bob from the club who is a 4 (Bob is also an insurance agent so it's legal). We will play with my workhorse, Anthony, who doesn't have an index, but makes me lots of money. That's it for now. Ciao.

We got Josh and Laura all Married UP

We got home at two a.m. last night after getting out of Dallas an hour and a half late and then enduring a two hour delay in Denver. A tornado touched down somewhere near the Denver airport and threw the entire world of jet travel into or out of Denver into complete disarray. We were finally ready to go out of Denver at 11:30 and then had to wait for four passengers to run to the plane from another waylaid airliner. Airline travel has definitely taken a turn for the worse with the economy In Obama's hands as airlines insist on flying only full planes. The point here is that I slept in this morning and relaxed by the pool today and will add to this tomorrow night. We had a blast in Dallas and thank you to Randy and Cake for their warm and excellent hospitality. I'll add to this tomorrow night. Ciao for now.

A Ridiculously BUSY Week!

It was a BUSY week with Dad and Shirley here, Alicia's 40th birthday, Darla's 45th birthday, David's 22nd birthday, a big acquisition at work and temperatures at 107 degrees. The pool is up to 83 degrees and I'm sitting in a quickly drying swimsuit writing my weekly blog epistle. You can see pictures of Dad and Shirley and Darla and I at Il Forniao Restaurante in Roseville, pictures of Darla's boot bag in the swimming pool, and pictures from the 40th birthday surprise party for Alicia at Turnbull Winery in St Helena.

Darla was in the pool last weekend and her bag sprung a leak and she ended up having to go back into the doctors office and have a new cast put on. She told the doctor that it leaked in the shower, a little white lie.

Dad and Shirley arrived on Wednesday and we visited with them over a nice dinner. They came to the house about 4:30 and visited with Darla and then went to check in to their hotel. For some reason they don't stay with us when they visit and I think it was the bed in the guest room. Well, folks, we have a new softer mattress, so no more excuses about not wanting to bother us when we are busy with work. The jig is up and we are on to you. Darla and I used to sleep on that mattress and it definitely discourages visitors. I got home about 6:00 PM and had a quick shower and we were off to meet them at the Holiday inn Express. I called dad and said we were on our way and he said to meet them in room 309. We showed up at the hotel and were knocking on room 309 when Shirley emerged from a room farther down trhe hall and said that they were in room 309 the night before. Luckily they were on the same floor or we might have gone to dinner with strangers. We had a great visit and an excellent meal at the Italian restaurant at the Galleria Mall, laughing and talking, enjoying an excleent napa valley wine with dinner and the meals were all fantastic. We ended up bringing them back to our house so they could watch the semi-final of American Idol. They were on their way to Las Vegas and were supposed to visit with Jennifer and Samantha this weekend. I haven't heard from Jennifer as yet to how the visit went.

My company has purchased one of our main competitors in Roseville, a company that has been struggling of late and one that has a principal owner that is 93 years old. We finally got him to capitulate and sell and we are doing our due diligence now and the sale is supposed to close on June 1st. I will be busy this week interviewing some of their staff and making decisions about staffing in my office. This is quite a coup for our CEO and the pressure is on the California managers to make the transition work. It is an exciting time at our company right now and I'm thrilled to be with a company that is making bold moves in a tough market.

The surprise party for Alicia went off without a hitch as Don and Alicia were in Napa for her birthday and took a cooking class at the winery. The class was about how to pair wines with food and they both enjoyed it. The class got out at noon and we were all in the courtyard of the private residence at the winery and caught Alicia completely unaware as they walked into the courtyard to look at the gardens. Darla was in the planning with Don and we picked up the food at a small local restaurant that the two enjoy. We had pasta, salad, pizza and vegetables, along with wine from Turnbull winery. One of Don's friends brought some beer and Darla made a special trip to get another 36 pack of water as the day was 95 degrees, which is absolutely scorching for Napa. Darla's Dad and Mom brought their fifth wheel and are camping at the fairgrounds in Calistoga for the week. Darla was partly in charge of getting people to show at the party and she finagled her aunts and Uncles to come and they all brought their trailers and fifth wheels and were camping with Darla's parents. We did not stay over as I had poker on Friday night and the golf tournament today, so we drove down in the morning and back that night. Joni Minear, a good friend of Darla's and her Maid of Honor at our wedding drove down with us and was glad we didn't spend the night. Darla and I both sank into the pool when we got home as it was over 100 degrees in Roseville.

I bought Darla an IPhone for her birthday and she loves it. I also bought her an FM transmitter so she can play the 200 songs I have downloaded onto her car stereo. She is enjoying having internet connection and pictures of Samantha at her fingertips.

The dreaded 107 degrees hit today and I had the last tee time in the tournament. I almost wilted as our foursome took the brunt of the heat as we teed off at noon. I brought two frozen bottles of water and rotated them in the cooler pouch of my golf bag and the ice lasted until the 15th hole this time. Usually I bring one bottle and the ice is gone by the ninth hole. I also kep a wet towel and used it to wipe my face and arms and hang it around my neck to cool me off. It helped, but the weather was brutal. I struggled in the heat and shot 41+43=84 and finished second in the tournament. A 14 handicapper who was 3 behind me at the start of the round shot an 84, net 70 to edge me by one stroke. He is also the low overall at 209 for the tournament to my 210, so I may still take low net in my flight and he will be the overall winner. The sad thing is, I was sweating so bad that I had sweat in my eyes on the 17th hole and missed a three foot putt that would have at least tied me. Overall, I played a good tournament and finished at seven under par. My total would have outright won the A flight, which I will join next month. Thanks to the 75 I had two weeks ago, my tournament handicap is now an 8. I had fun, but today was flat brutal. I turned in my score, paid my skins and was off to home and the coolness of the pool. That pool has been a huge blessing to Darla and i and she enjoys it as much as I do. It wasn't as big a hit with the boys, who have grown up in the vidoe and video game age (what's fun about being OUTSIDE?), but Darla and I love it. We look forward to having Samantha here to visit and play in the pool. Darla and I plan to fly Jen and Samantha to Sacramento next month.

Randy has let me know that he and cake will NOT be able to join us in Mexico in November. It is the close of his second quarter and our trip is the week before Thanksgiving week, which is traditionally a dead week for his business partners. he can't afford to be away the week before, so we are bringing some friends from Roseville to take their place. I talked to randy tonight and invited he and Cake to Mexico some other year> they will be missed and will miss out on some Mexican style partying for sure.

Darla and I were up for our regular Sunday worship at nine o'clock, but ran out of gas on the way to church. The 300 has a really quirky gas gauge that moves from a quarter full to empty in a blink of an eye. I went out last night and picked up a couple of movies and some food for dinner and the Fuel light went on while I was in the parking lot at Save Mart. I drove the mile home and we left this morning for church and got about two miles from home and the car quit. I was telling Darla about the screwy gauge and wondering how far I could drive as the gauge was past E when the car died. We nursed it around a corner and into some shade and settled in to wait for AAA. The temperature at 8:45 was already 85 degrees on it's way to triple digits. I paid the driver $5 for two gallons of gas which shot the gauge up past the 1/4 mark and drove on to the gas station. Darla and I went back home and settled in the pool while I waited for my tee time. I read a book and swam and was reluctant to get out of the oasis and put on golf shoes and a golf shirt and shorts, but did so only to get beat by a higher handicap. Oy vey.

Next week is Josh's wedding in Dallas and we will be gone Friday - Sunday. I will post on the blog on Monday, Memorial Day next week and have plenty of pictures from the wedding and attendant parties and even some golf with Dad and my brothers. It will be nice to fly home Sunday and have Monday to decompress from the festivities. Things are going to busy for me at work until this acquisition is finalized. Well, that is it for another week. I hope you are all well and living in the pathway of our Lord. Ciao.

Mother's Day 2009

You can see how I spent part of my Mother's Day. We went up to Paradise last night and stayed with Earl and Frances. I rushed out of my golf tournament, showered and we were on the road by 5:20 Saturday night and up to Paradise by 7 PM, where we enjoyed a meal of barbecued pork chops. Earl and I prepped the grill for installation that night. We took the old grill off and masked it and painted it black. We also took the new grille which showed up with a ding in the upper right corner and straightened it. Earl wasn't thrilled with the result, but he's a perfectionist and it looks fine. We let the old grill dry overnight and went in to play some cards (3-13). Sunday morning we were up for Earl's famous Sunday morning pancakes and eggs and then off to church. I took the gang out to lunch at La Posada in old town Paradise and then Earl took us on a nickle tour of Paradise, showing us the large homes that overlook the canyon that runs down to Chico. They have some friends from church that have one of the nicest lots in the area and looks right down on the city of Chico from the mountainside. Typically, they are unhappy with the heat that emanates up from the valley and their house is always hot in the Summer. One of the charms of Paradise is that it is a mountain community and is usually ten to twelve degrees cooler than the valley. It was 90 degrees in Roseville today and only 82 in Paradise. We returned home to fasten the new chrome grille overlay to the old grill. We painted the old grill black so it can't be seen behind the overlay. The overlay is a billet grille style with horizontal billets 1/2 inch apart across the front of the grille. It attaches right to the old grill shell and uses the original Chrysler emblem along the top of the assembly. It was funny that the grill was only attached using two screws. Either the dealer or the original owner took off a chrome grill and replaced it with the original factory grill. The Stull version of the grille that I bought sells for $289. I bought mine on E-Bay motors for $65 and it was manufactured in Korea. It took us about twenty five minutes to install the overlay and attache the grille back onto the car this afternoon. I drove home and washed the car tonight and it is ready for the showroom. Earl continues to be the Pimp Daddy as far as getting my ride ready for the big time.

I mentioned the second round of the golf tournament. I played in the last group and the difficulty for me as a ten handicap is that my flight goes up to 16 and the second place golfer (Steve) had shot an 84 last week which gave him a net 68. My 75 gave me a net 65. Saturday, he matched me shot for shot on the front and shot a 38 to my 39. Of course, it was his best nine holes EVER. He settled back into his handicap on the back and doubled both par threes on his way to a 44 for a BEST EVER 82 and a net of 66. I ham and egged it, double bogeying the last hole for a 41 and a round of 80, net 70. I'm now in second place with a two day total of 135 to his two day total of 134. I think he fed off my play, especially on the front nine. I didn't have my A game and double bogeyed the first hole before running off six straight pars, a bogey and a finishing par. I did birdie 16 again, but struggled on the back to five over. (I guess I actually played to my handicap on the back nine). We will finish the tournament on Sunday next week so I am able to make it. Steve said he has family in town and will have to miss the last day, but I expect to see him. I'll give it my best shot next week no matter what.

Darla and I had a strange week. She thought at one point that she'd dropped a sunflower seed down her cast. She was in the bathroom blowing a blow dryer into her cast trying to loosen the seed. It never came out, but whatever was sticking her was gone and she is back to normal. Friday night, one of the cats came into our bedroom and ran up the bed and used my bare back to turn around and head back out of the room. I was in a dead sleep and jumped when the cat dug it's claws into my back. Darla was also awakened from a dead sleep and said she felt something wet on her head and when we turned on the light, she had a four inch scratch along her hairline that was bleeding. We can't figure out if I swiped her when I was flailing in pain or the cat got her as well. We both ended up tending to each other's wounds with peroxide in the middle of the night. The door to our room will remain closed for a while.

I talked to Jennifer tonight and she just hosted her Mother for the weekend. They had a nice visit and John even agreed to switch weekends with Jennifer so she could have Samantha over Mother's Day. I'm not going to say anything about change in their relationship as CPS will be on Jennifer's doorstep again tomorrow, but it was a nice gesture. By the way, John has password protected Samantha's site, so you'll just have to stay tuned here to get your Sammy fix. We plan to fly Jennifer and Samantha out here for a weekend in June.

Well, it is late on Sunday evening ( I took a break to eat and to visit with my wife), so I will wind this up. I'll let you know how the tournament turns out next week. I'm just thrilled to be in the hunt at nine under par.

Darla's Broken Foot

If you are a regular blog reader, you know that Darla tried to take down a chair from the cabinets in the garage last week as she was perched precariously on top of a an ice chest and when the chairs shifted, the ice chest slipped out from under her and she fell rolling her foot underneath her. Her foot was bothering her during the week and she had black marks between her middle toes and along the instep of her left foot. I told her to go to the doctor, but when her boss finally told her that he had done something similar and when he finally went into the doctor, they found a broken bone in his foot, she went. Of course, she had broken a bone that runs on the outside of her foot to the small toe. Initially the bone was broken and pushed so far out that they thought they might need to do surgery. They decided after consultation with a podiatrist, that they could cast it for six weeks and see how that goes. She is supposed to stay off it, but she was at a Silpada party on Friday night, at the salon yesterday and has another party today. There is no keeping a good woman down. She will have to pick a purple dress for Josh and Laura's wedding.

Funny that Darla had to get the word from her boss before she acted. My typist has an 8 year old son that I met once. He was quite impressed that I was his Mom's boss and got a big kick out of my corner office. He got in trouble recently for using his middle finger. A little girl had flipped him off in school and he found the "bird" fascinating and used it on his Mom at dinner. She was not impressed and had a discussion with him about how it meant a bad word and it was the same as saying it. He thought about that and kept asking his mom about different fingers and if they meant bad words. He stewed on it for a few days and came in to his Mom and asked her if he took his shoes off and held up his middle toe, if that was a bad word. She said, "I'm not sure, I'll have to think about that, but don't do it." He said, "Well, Mom, why don't you wait until tomorrow and ask your boss and then we'll both know." Kids.

It has been raining this week, actually doing a good impression of Seattle weather. We have received about an inch of rain out of this local storm. It did manage to mess up our golf tournament. We have a 54 hole individual tournament going on and were able to play in wet, rainy conditions yesterday. It rained hard last night and the course had standing water today and the decision was made to postpone the event. The third round is supposed to be next Saturday. The TD decided to add a date on May 16th, which has many of the players in an uproar as they have weddings, graduations, etc that day. It is Darla's birthday on may 16th and we have plans to be in Napa that weekend. The problem I have is that I played my BEST tournament round of golf yesterday and lead my flight by three strokes going into next week.

It was a static rain yesterday with a high temperature of about 60 degrees. It wasn't cold, but we had to do everything we could to keep our hands and equipment dry. I have a large Golf Pride umbrella which attaches to my cart and I hang a towel under the umbrella from the support and I will hang two golf gloves under the umbrella to keep them dry. I kept my hood for the clubs up and unzipped the top to access the clubs and it was a pretty good day overall. I parred the first five holes before running into a bogey train where I bogeyed three holes in a row. I did manage a par on the tough number nine which is the number 2 handicap hole for a 39 on the front. I went out in the steady rain and birdied number ten, bogeyed 11, parred 12, 13 and 14, bogeyed 15 and then finished birdie-par-par for a 36 and a total of 39+36=75. It all came together on one day and now may fall apart because I can't play the last date. This is a major tournament with trophies and bragging rights. Darla has offered to let me play on Saturday the sixteenth and then meet up with them for dinner Saturday night. I feel like I'm in a no win situation and the board will discuss the tournament at a board meeting tomorrow night. I've already won $30 for my tournament low net of 65 yesterday. It seems like kismet that I end up in this situation. Perhaps I shouldn't take my golf so seriously. Fat chance, eh?

It actually ended up being a pretty nice afternoon as the rain stopped and the sun broke out for a little while. We have two days of rain left in this storm and it should be back up to 80 degrees by mid-week.

We had a speaker at church today, a 26 year old man from Sydney, Australia that was born without arms and legs. He is a handsome, gregarious guy and totally on fire for the Lord. He was born to a pastor and his wife and attempted to kill himself at age 8 by drowning himself in his tub, but he couldn't do it as he didn't want to put guilt on his parents. We've known for a month that Nick Vujicic was coming to preach. He is a funny guy. He told the story of how kids will always come up to him and stare. One little guy boldly asked him what happened to him. Nick said, "Cigarettes, tell all your friends!" He also had his handler put him up in the overhead compartment on a plane and close the door. When the next person opened the compartment he yelled at them for not knocking first. Another time he had a girl staring at him at a stoplight. She could only see his head and he did a complete 360 in the seat and she drove off terrified. The result of Nick's testimony was a packed church with even the balcony being filled (We have room for 300 in the church). He had literally hundreds of people come to Christ at the end of the service after his powerful testimony.

Darla is managing with her disability and is at a jewelry show today. She probably puts too much stress on her foot as she has a walking boot that slips onto the cast using velcro. She uses her crutches, but I'm sure is using her foot more than she should. She said this morning that she hoped her doctor wasn't at church because she is supposed to be staying at home. I say this with her out with her truck at a party. Luckily, her foot that she broke is her left foot as she is still able to drive.

Dad came through his surgery pretty well and is feeling the pain of the surgery on his ear and especially behind his ear where they took skin to reform his ear. the doctor seemed a little confused and asked Dad where the cancer was again. When Dad finally got him directed to the correct ear, the surgery went well. Dad is concerned that they got all of the cancer as the doctor seemed a bit off. I know he sees the doctor again on Tuesday where the guy will probably want to look at his back or something before dad points to his ear. This social medicine in Canada is a little scary.

I did manage to get reservations for our trip to Mexico in November. we will be there from November 15-22nd and I look forward to a vacation with my brothers, their wives and Dad and Shirley. It will be a memory maker I'm sure. Well that's it for this week. I think I'll take advantage of a break in the weather and go mow the lawn. I hope you are all well