Summer arrives with a BANG

6:15 PM

109 degrees officially, but it was 118 degrees on my car thermometer when I left the Golf course today and it only cooled to 113 degrees by the time I got home. The 118 degrees was the temperature on the hot pavement of the parking lot, but it didn't cool dramatically on the drive home. The pool is at 86 degrees and we need some relief. It was 103 degrees yesterday and we had Darla sister, her boyfriend and Darla's Mom and Dad over for a swim party and tri tip on the grill. We ate outside and thank God we have the new canvas and metal gazebo with zippered netting on all sides. It was hot when we ate at 6:30, but we didn't have bugs and we all sat in wet swimsuits and enjoyed the dinner before hopping back in the pool afterward. So, this is what it feels like to live in Vegas, eh, Jen?

Golf today was absolutely brutal. I walked the course against Darla's better judgement that I should have taken a cart. I haven't been walking at night lately with Darla's broken foot and I'm getting a little soft around the edges. I think I lost about five pounds in water weight today. I played really well on the front side while I was fresh, but withered down the stretch and shot 38+42=80, a net 71. We endured playing behind one of the slowest members in the club and he exacerbated his reputation with a 13 on a par five. He was lining up his putt for 13 like it was the last hole of the US Open. We were hooting at him. I had about 215 yards into the hole after a great drive and came up just short of the green after waiting about ten minutes to hit the shot. I hit a nice chip and had a tap in for birdie, but I'm a tempo golfer and don't do well with waiting. I did pick up two strokes on my Eclectic score ( the year long tournament that keeps track of your best score on each hole) and I'm now at 32+34=66 on the year. I was so hot when we finished the round that my clothes were absolutely soaked through. There was very little breeze on the course. I guess I'm out of shape, because Bob walked the course as well and shot a 33 on the back side for a 73. I will play golf on Friday morning at 7:30 (the July 3rd holiday) and again at 7:40 AM on Saturday.

Darla is inches away from winning her trip to the Mayan Riviera in Mexico in January of next year. She needed $5,000 in sales as of last week (it includes her whole team of 20 reps) and she is right at the finish line with two days left. I'm excited about this trip as it is at an all inclusive resort in Riviera Maya and that includes all drinks, food, golf, massages, activities, etc. Last year there were over 550 reps at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas and as of last week only 205 reps had qualified for Mexico. Darla said , "Make that 206" as she says she is in. The only problem I have with the trips is the amount of vacation we get. I want to spend time in Las Vegas with Jennifer and Samantha, we take our yearly trip to Nuevo Vallarta, have another week of time share time each year (one in Puerto Vallarta and one in Hawaii every other year), plus we take the annual trip to Lake Almanor that comes up July 11th - 18th this year. I only get three weeks of vacation plus another week of sick time. I guess it is a good problem to have, eh? I'm proud of her. What pushed her over the top was her last push sale, which if you look at the picture of her on her scooter was called "Boot scootin' savings!" She has a scooter and is in a walking boot. We've invited Jennifer and Samantha to join us for part of the trip to Almanor this year.

8:45PM

I just got out of the pool. I washed the 300 and was dripping wet when I finished and not from the hose, so dove in the pool and cooled off. It is supposed to get down to 85 degrees at midnight tonight and down to about 70 degrees at 4 AM (About Vancouver's high temperature yesterday). It looks like the heat wave will break on Tuesday with a forecast high of 96 degrees and an overnight low of 63 degrees. Nice.

Our computer printer went out this week and I scoured the repair blogs and the Epson site to find a fix. The printer shut down and has an error message saying "Take in for Service." What I can tell from the blogs is that there is an ink overflow pad that gets full and needs to be replaced. I called around and everyone wants $100 minimum to service the machine. Epson said we could ship it to them and they'd do it for $35. I said, "bunk" and ordered a new HP Wireless All-in-one Printer on Amazon for $99, no tax and no shipping cost. the advantage with this is that Darla's HP laptop will be able to print as well. She is forever sending work items to my e-mail to print. Now, she will be able to print from the living room and I can still print from my desktop computer, which also happens to be an HP.

July 4th is around the corner. We have been invited out boating on Friday with Alicia and Don and I will rush back from golf for a day on the lake. I hope you are all well. The speaker, Vince Antonucci, was great today at church as advertised and we encourage Jennifer to try out his church in las Vegas. I hope you are all well, hale and hearty. Ciao.

Father's Day 2009

Happy Father's day to all of the fathers out there. We all do our best and it is often inadequate, but we try. Guiding and directing children is difficult and doubly so in a world that has slowly eroded the fabric of life. Values and morals are less important to the world in 2009 than they were in the 60's. There is a small demographic that is once again introducing values and boundaries to their kids and I applaud them. I see the respect and the honor given to parents and others in authority at our church and I give thanks for that. We had a nice service this morning and a video of a young boy watching everything his father did, from how he played with him to how he acted when he got in a small fender bender and how he handled his family's bills. It was powerful to see the influence that a father has on his young child's life.

Darla roused me a minute ago and told me to get in and work on my Blog. I had taped the US Open golf and was watching it and relaxing. When it ended, she sent me in here to update the blog.

Sorry that I haven't had any new pictures for awhile. Things have been so busy at work that we haven't done much but relax at home. I was in Scottsdale last Sunday-Tuesday night. I was able to learn alot about the company that put on the seminar and was able to come back and share that with the Underwriters. I was also able to have lunch with one of my contract carriers after the seminar on Tuesday and dinner with several underwriters and my old boss, Emery, who is now the Pacific Division Manager of our largest carrier partner. Wednesday I had about seven hours to get caught up on work and then was off to the airport to pick up our CEO and a Product Manager from HO. Harvey was supposed to go with me, but got stuck in traffic and I had to make the airport run myself. The plane from Salt Lake was due in at 5:24 PM and was on time when I left the office. I got to the airport early and parked in the Cell Phone lot waiting for a call. 5:30 came and went and I finally started the loop around looking for my passengers. Five trips around and I started to panic, thinking perhaps they expected me to meet them inside. I quickly parked the car and ran in to the airport to find the flight delayed until 6:05 PM. We went to dinner with a retailer that night and I finally got home at about 10:30 PM. I was up early the next day and at the hotel to pick them up at 7:15 AM for a breakfast meeting with another agent.

We went in the office, visited with the staff and had lunch brought in (one of the ladies bought meats and cheeses, breads, condiments, veggies and drinks from Whole Foods). The cost of the lunch was over $200. I had my sit down and was told to increase the writings in the office. We will do close to $500,000 in profit this year, but can always do better. The afternoon was spent looking at buildings.

My boss is a real estate mogul owning over 100 properties as a landlord and has little patience for brokers. We met two of them and he carved them up pretty well. We then looked at new office space for two hours, before I drove him to a local former military base where he met a Net Jets for a trip to Las Vegas and a Net Jets event. It looks like best case we will stay in our space for one more year and then move to a larger space. The company is in an acquisition mode and we may buy more of our competitors and need more space.

The Product manager stayed over another day until Friday and I carted him out to one of my retailers for lunch Friday. I told him in the morning that I had to get some work done at my desk before we left and was able to get about three and a half hours in before we left. He had a 4 PM flight, so I had to get him to the airport by 3:00 PM and just drove back home after that.

It was a tiring week and left me WAY behind at work. It is the company's 40th anniversary and we are having a celebration on Tuesday afternoon. I have to go out and get cake and ice cream. Baskin Robbins here I come.

I did manage a golf game this weekend. We played at Ancil Hoffman, which is one of the oldest golf courses in the Sacramento area and also has the most trees. It is also home to the infamous Reagan Governor's mansion that was built in the late seventies and never lived in by a California Governor as Jerry Brown took over the state and Governor "Moonbeam" railed against the excesses of government and refused to live in the mansion. It was built entirely by donations, but Jerry felt the cost of just upkeep and security on the mansion was a waste of money. He had a small apartment in downtown Sacramento and lived on a mattress. He was and he is a goofball, but he had Linda Rondstadt as his girlfriend at the time and Mike Curb (of Curb records in Hollywood) as his Lieutenant Governor. My driver was not behaving on Saturday and I was pushing shots all over the place. When I do that it is because my arms get too far from my body. I figured it out on number 8 and finished par-par on the front for a 45 and managed a 40 on the back for an 85. I wasn't happy, but better a 45+40 than a 40+45, eh?

I talked to Jennifer this weekend and she is working three ten-hour days on her off weeks with Samantha as they attempt to have the City Center Casino open in December. She also worked overtime Saturday and was praised by the GC for her hard work in getting the new fiber optic network up and running. I received a card from Jennifer for Father's day, which I appreciate, but I got a card from Samantha with her scribble on it that really touched my heart. Thank you, Jennifer.

Our pastor is taking a family vacation next week and we will have a pastor from the Verve church in Las Vegas come and preach to us. We saw a hilarious video of their pastor, Vince Antonucci, today and I'm trying to get Jennifer and Dina to try out the church. We will see him next week and report to Jennifer. Here is his YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V2RHG5c3HM&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Evinceantonucci%2Ecom%2F2006%2F01%2Fvideos%2Ehtml&feature=player_embedded

I hope you are all happy and healthy. I'll write more next week. Ciao.

Just a Quick note

It is Saturday afternoon and I just got back from golf. Darla told me she'd meet me on the pool, but she isn't home, so I thought I'd add to this now. I leave for a three day seminar in Scottsdale tomorrow. It is unbelievably busy at work. I've been putting in 60 hour weeks and now I know what Darryl feels like every week. Ugh. The last time I worked this many hours was when I was a struggling stockbroker, before Darla and I got married.

Darla and I both had setbacks physically this week. Darla went in to have her cast removed and they x-rayed her foot and found that the bone has still not healed and is split. Darla has put entirely too much pressure on her foot and will need surgery if it doesn't heal over the next four weeks. She is in a metal and canvas walking boot now and has been told to stay off her foot. Why they put her in a boot if she is supposed to stay off the foot is beyond me. She wanted to be completely healed, but really was poor about staying off her foot. She drove way too much and her injured foot being her left foot, she put tremendous stress on her foot just getting in and out of her car. She had to step down onto her foot to get out and push off on that foot to get in the car. She is going to take some sick time and work from home to try to rest her foot. The injury was to her fifth metatarsal bone and it is still split. The bone has grown closer together, but the stress of being on the foot caused the bone not to heal. She's frustrated with Summer coming and the prospects of surgery in July, so she is going to heal herself and when Darla sets her mind to something, it generally gets done. Also, with her Silpada business, she put on a big "Cast Off" sale for her customers and didn't want the cast put back on.

I went into my dermatologist for my six month cancer screening after the basil cell carcinoma was cut off my back and it healed well. He checked me out and saw a spot on the top of my right hand. I thought it was a bug bite, because it showed up on my hand, crusted over and then began to itch. I was treating it with Calamine lotion for the itch. He took one look and said, that is a precancerous growth, I'll burn it off. He got his can of whatever it is to burn it off (they actually freeze it) and started to apply the spray. I said, "you might want to clean off the Calamine lotion first with antiseptic" He said, "We'll burn right through that." As he applied it, the calamine lotion liquefied and started to boil and my hand was smoking. He looked at me with a smile and said, "I haven't seen that before." I thought I was in Canada talking to Dad's doctor. People were knocking on the door seeing if there was a barbecue. I think they smelled chicken cooking.

Dad has been back to his doctor and had more cells cut off his body and they will have them screened for cancer. It's too much with this damn cancer stuff and skin cancer definitely runs in my family. I'll be checked yearly now by the dermatologist for skin cancer. The doctor said I have a 30% elevated chance of getting more basil cell carcinomas, now that I've had one. Lovely.

I shot 81 in the golf tournament today and was tied for fourth when I left. There were three groups still on the course. Boyd shot 77 and was tied for second. The weather was perfect, about 78 degrees with a light wind.

The boys are done at Cal Poly for the school year and will be home late tonight. Neither have jobs line up and I'm hoping they land something. I worked all during my college years and don't have a lot of sympathy for them not having jobs. I was never out of a job when I was in school and helped pay for my schooling, taking over paying for my school in my Junior year. They both tried (weakly) to get internships for the Summer, but didn't really follow up on it and will likely spend the Summer sleeping in and complaining they are broke. I hope not.

Darla is in the final stretch of trying to qualify for her annual trip with Silpada. She needs to do like $7,000 in sales this month and I wouldn't bet against her. She has until the end of June and is working hard to qualify. the trip in 2009 is to Maya Riviera near Cancun, Mexico and is an all inclusive resort.

Well, Darla is home and I need to spend some time with her. I think we are having dinner at Black Angus tonight. We have a coupon for bacon wrapped filet mignon for $13.95 and thought we'd take advantage of that. I leave at 9:15 tomorrow morning for Scottsdale. I have an Underwriting Trainee in the office, Matt, and he is leaving for two weeks in Home Office tomorrow. He was saying goodbye yesterday and I told him that maybe I'd see him at the airport. He asked me what time my flight was and I said 9:15. He said, "well, mine is 9:30. What airline are you flying?" I told him US Air and it turns out his flight is 9:15 as well and we are on the same flight to Phoenix. He will change planes there for Detroit. His tickets were arranged by our travel department in H.O. so I wasn't aware of his travel itinerary. Funny stuff. I will add more next week. Pray for me this week as I entertain my CEO Wednesday and Thursday. Ciao.

Busy Times at Work

It has been a cool week with some night thunderstorms, evening rain and sun and clouds during the daytime. We had our Big I Golf Day on Monday and had ideal weather. Darla and I were able to finish the signs and although as one person said, "It looks like someone's third grade daughter did these signs", the event went off without a hitch and I took our art project to the cardboard recycling bins across from the Fairgrounds on Monday night after the event. I also went up in the attic this weekend and cleared out any old signs for companies that have gone out of business or were older signs with an old font we no longer use. I was able to make a new inventory of signs and threw out a bunch of worn or tattered signs. Our team ended up shooting 9 under par and the winning team was a group of novice golfers including my underwriter, Pete, who likely used creative accounting to get their score down to 59. I'm not buying it. I've seen two of them play and , frankly, they look like ex football players trying to play golf. Pete left for a week's vacation to Hawaii the day after the tournament, so I haven't had a chance to harass him yet, but I will.

The merger and purchase of our competitor fell through at the last minute and another of our competitors was able to get nine of their employees to accept positions with them. They had hoped that having their talent would give them access to the book of business, but we hired the five best employees and then reached a late agreement with the former firm to purchase the book. We have rights to all of their in force business and to exclusive renewal rights on the business until July of 2010. I was over in their Rancho Cordova office on Tuesday with 5 of my staff and we picked up all of the files. I then was off to Fresno on Friday morning to pick up files from the Fresno office. The delay was because the other firm that hired nine of the employees had hired the Fresno Manager and staff and subleased the same building that the other firm was in...along with the files that now belonged to us. It is a three hour drive to Fresno and I wanted to be sure we could get access to the office. I called the trustee the night before and told him to make sure I could get in the building because I would be there at 9 AM. I borrowed Gail's F-150 King Cab and left at 6:00 AM for Fresno with Ben, my assistant in tow. Sure enough, when we showed up the manager refused to let us in. She got on the phone with her boss and he said we needed paperwork, which I produced as a cover letter from the purchased company's attorneys granting us full access to all files. We tap danced for awhile and I stood my ground, finally getting the trustee on the phone and having him convince the manager to butt out and let us in. It was uncomfortable, but two hours later we had five trucks loaded up and took the files to our Fresno office where we parted them out to Fresno and Sacramento. I had left a padfolio with my business cards and a legal pad and some papers on the receptionists window and when I went to retrieve it, it was gone. I asked the receptionist and she said, "was it the blue padfolio on the windowsill?" When I said, yes, she smiled at me and said she'd never seen it. Nothing that was in there was important, but I did have an invitation from one of the local country clubs to come out and try their course. I brought it to set up golf for Saturday, but Bob and I ended up setting a game at Cherry Island. Keeping my company property was BS on their part. Ben and I finally got out of Fresno at 2:00 PM and were back in Sacramento by 5:00 PM. I dropped him off, gassed up the truck, stopped at Office Depot to return some boxes that we didn't need and then drove up to Gail's house to drop off the truck. She will be bringing the truck to the office tomorrow and we will unload the files and begin processing them. We will have to scan all of the files into Imageright and then begin making calls to the agents. When I get into the office tomorrow the old phone lines from the purchased company will be patched into my phone system and we will begin servicing their files. A lot of work is in the cards for the next while. I will be bringing in kids of staff to handle the scanning project and paying them $10 an hour.

Bob and I did make it out to Cherry yesterday and played golf with two thirty something women who were excellent golfers. I shot 39+42=81 and Bob shot 43+39=82. The ladies were a nine handicap and a ten handicap and said that they had never played golf with any male golfers who were better than them. I think they were more than just friends (not that there's anything wrong with that), but I really enjoyed playing with two women that were very good golfers. It was a treat. At one point, the course comes in contact with a city street on the border of the course and some idiot yelled out, "You bunch of girls!" as he drove by in his beat up pickup truck. One of the women is Irish and she said, "Eh, it looks like they noticed the tits!" I instinctively looked down at my chest and they all got a good laugh out of it.

Darla is anxious to lose her cast as it is time for her to move about without the confines of a plaster boot on her leg. Hopefully, she's learned a lesson, but knowing my wife, I doubt it. She's been in the pool just about every day with saran wrap and a shower boot on her leg since the start of swimming season.

I had a golf tournament today, but woke up with an aching back and an inflamed foot where I stepped on a bee while trimming the ground cover around the pool yesterday. We went to church and then Darla dropped me at the course, where I tried to play, but gave up after nine holes. My back was aching, my foot was pounding and I even have a sore yoke (collar bone). I shot 46 on the front and couldn't make a complete pass through the ball. I called Darla and asked her to pick me up. I sat and watched Tiger play some REAL golf instead.

The pastor talked about the concept of unanswered prayer. Garth Brooks had a famous song about the subject. The pastor's story was about a man who shipwrecked on a deserted island. He prayed every day and night for a ship to rescue him, but none ever came. He finally built a small hut and kept a fire for warmth near the hut. When he was gone one day out foraging and fishing, the winds came up and reignited his campfire which spread to his hut and burned it to the ground. He was mad at God and yelled about the fire and why was God punishing him. He brooded and cursed God, but a ship showed up that same day and rescued him. When he asked how they found him, the ship captain said that they had seen the smoke from his signal fire. God works in mysterious ways.

Well, that is it for this week. I'm off to Scottsdale next Sunday and an underwriting conference. I will try to update this before I leave. I hope you are all well. Do yourself a favor and find a good church to attend. It helps get us through all that is so sad in our world and our economy. Ciao.