August Already?

So what happened to the Summer? Time has rushed by this Summer and the Sunday ads are all about Back to School. Classes will begin later this month, NFL camps are under way and the first preseason football game is next weekend. I guess time really does fly when you are having fun.

Work continues to get better with each passing month. Our office was up 23% in earned income this month and up about 22% in policy count. I am also up in staff as I added an underwriting trainee, we added two with the purchase we made and have added another part time typist who starts Monday. Our service standards in typing have been eroding the last few months and I've been begging for a new typist and the position was finally approved last week. I wasted no time in hiring someone and actually am bringing in an ex employee of one of our retailers who was caught in the downturn. She is over qualified for the position, but will be good bench strength as we continue to grow the office. She felt the same way and is hiring on with an eye to moving up within the organization when an opportunity presents itself. She is a Type A personality and hopefully she doesn't bowl over the other typists, who tend to be an introspective lot.

Darla got home from Kansas City last Sunday with many tales from her trip. She enjoyed herself and enjoyed herding her seven recruits around at the conference. I picked up Darla and one of her team members and her teammate kept going on about how EVERYONE knows Darla, she can't walk around without someone stopping her. There are 7,000 women at the conference, so I'm guessing it was a bit of an exaggeration.

The weather here has cooled into the upper 80's and it is fantastic. It is still warm during the days, but with cool nights and mornings. I took advantage of the cooler weather and took a couple of agents out golfing this past week to Woodcreek and up to the Country Club in Auburn, California. I've begun struggling with poor front nines. I shot 43+39 both days for 82. I played Saturday and had the same problem, but followed it up with a 43 on the back for an 86. I'm turning into a hacker. I have another marketing golf game on Wednesday, when I will take the two men who met with my CEO off hours out to golf at Winchester Country Club. It is the most exclusive and best country club in Northern California, but the developer went into bankruptcy and the course is now open provisionally to the public for $75 after noon. It is a tough track in beautiful Meadow Vista, California in the gold country foothills. I'm looking forward to it.

Jennifer will be out with Samantha and her roommate, Dina, over Jennifer's birthday weekend. I've invited them out on the Jet Ski at Folsom lake, but they are being brought in by Jennifer's Mom ostensibly to put in some lighting in her home, so we'll see. I'm still carrying a little matchbox car that was in the base of Samantha's car seat after Alamanor that I'll return to her when they get here. I also plan to buy Jennifer a camcorder so she can send me movies of Samantha when we can't see her.

The boys are home and doing odd jobs for money. I had them change out the brakes, rotors and pads, last week and paid them for parts and $75 each for the job. It saved me about $175 on what the brake shop would have charged and they made a few bucks. They are also fixing up their father's rental home so he can get it rented. Finally, they have fixed up one of his old pickups so they could drive it to the dealer and get the $4,500 that Obama is giving to every American to trade in their clunker and buy a new car from the bankrupt car companies. Unfortunately, most Americans are doing what Steve did and are buying Toyotas or Nissans. I don't know what he is paying them this Summer, but they are slave labor for him.

I did some work on the pool this weekend, cleaning the tile and reapplying some of the waterproof sealer on the river rock surrounding the pool. I also trimmed back the Sego palms and installed a drip watering system to the plants surrounding the palms. I'm hand watering the palms (once a week) and I installed some fertilizer stakes to help green them up. They were getting a little yellow on the leaves from over watering.

Well, news is at a premium around here and I could bore you with our trip to the bookstore and dinner last night, but I'll save you from that. Darla is on the phone right now working her Silpada business calling potential party hosts, so all is normal here in Northern California. I hope you are all well. Ciao.