Hot August Nights

Not really, but I was looking for a Title for my latest epistle and this is what I came up with. The Summer is quickly slipping away and I see high school kids with backpacks and shorts trudging to school in the morning as I navigate my way to work in the early dawn light. My automatic headlights stay on now on the way to work as the days grow shorter. The good thing is that the temperatures have returned to normal (mid nineties) after a cool Summer. The bad thing is ditto as I have a golf game with two of my agents and my top underwriter on Tuesday at the Ridge golf club in Auburn. The temperature Tuesday is supposed to be 101 degrees. We are meeting them for lunch at the lodge and then play in the afternoon. My office will have a family Day on Saturday at a swim club in Sacramento. The club has high dives and horse shoes and sand volleyball. Darla and I are providing hamburgers and chicken breasts with buns and each family is bringing different items (salads, fruit, desserts, etc.) Several of the employees have begged off due to other plans, but we should have a good turnout. My newest underwriter is on the board of the swim club and got us access at no cost.

I had to order a part for the pool sweep tonight and I just love the internet. I was able to go online and order the part (a replacement bag) for $35 delivered to my office. I do most of my own shopping now on the internet. I'm looking at getting Jennifer a new Flip digital camcorder for her birthday and to encourage her to send us movies of young Samantha. I'll be able to order it and have it delivered to the office at no tax and no shipping. It is so convenient.

Darla has one of her newer recruits for Silpada with a husband who likes both golf and poker. She has been trying to hook us up and I talked to Chuck today (he called me) and I invited him to my poker game this weekend. he and his wife, Pam, want to go to Monterey with us this year. I just signed up for the trip October 30th-November 1st on Friday, I went online to search for a good priced hotel. I am a believer in Priceline as long as you use a hotel with 3 plus stars. I put in a 3.5 star hotel in Monterey and offered $89 a night. We got a lodge room at the Portola Spa and Hotel on Fisherman's wharf for my asking price. When I told Bob about it, it turns out Vicki had gone to the hotel website and also booked a comparable room for $189 a night. Wow.

I played golf both Thursday and Saturday this week. I played at Wild Hawk in Elk Grove Thursday and it is a bit of a cow pasture golf experience. Neil, our TD, has signed a contract to play there next year for $65 a player. It is too much. It cost me $31 and I shot 39+40=79. The course is 6200 yards, but has two holes less than 295 yards (par fours). I also played in the Rose Cup qualifier. It is my goal every year to play in the Rose Cup and I haven't been on the team for three years. I missed again this year with a 43+39=82 at Diamond oaks on Saturday. I had three holes where I was a combined 7 over par. I came to number 8 at 2 over and went double bogey, triple bogey on 8 and 9 for a 43. I then went bogey-par-double bogey on the back nine with three lip outs. I was proud to pull my game together and finish with five straight pars on the back for the 39. It wasn't pretty, but there were times in my golf life when I would have shot a 44 on the back for an 87. Nice to see at age 53, that I've finally matured as a golfer.

I have two things to share. One is the 2009 Stella awards. For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald's in New Mexico, where she purchased coffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right? That' s right; these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head. So keep your head scratcher handy. Without further adieu, the 2009 Stella award winners are:

*SEVENTH PLACE* Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son. Start scratching!
* SIXTH PLACE * Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, California won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps. Scratch some more...
* FIFTH PLACE * Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, who was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson,the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut.. Forced to sit for eight, count 'em, EIGHT days and survive on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner's insurance company claiming undue mental Anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of anguish. Keep scratching. There are more...... Double hand scratching after this one...
*FOURTH PLACE* Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th Place in the Stella's when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbor's beagle - even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun. Pick a new spot to scratch, you're getting a bald spot..
* THIRD PLACE * Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. What ever happened to people being responsible for their own actions? Only two more so ease up on the scratching....
*SECOND PLACE* Kara Walton, of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor,knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms.. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000....oh, yeah, plus dental expenses. Go figure. Ok. Here we go!!
* FIRST PLACE * This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was: Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set.. The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down? $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.
Are we, as a society, getting more stupid.... Or are more members of Congress serving on juries these days?

Okay, and here my political bent shows up: WHO AM I?

I was born in one country, raised in another. My father was born in another country. I was not his only child. He fathered several children with numerous women. I became very close to my mother, as my father showed no interest in me. My mother died at an early age from cancer. Later in life, questions arose over my real name. My birth records were sketchy and no one was able to produce a legitimate, reliable birth certificate. I grew up practicing one faith but converted to Christianity, as it was widely accepted in my country, but I practiced non-traditional beliefs & didn't follow Christianity, except in the public eye under scrutiny. I worked and lived among lower-class people as a young adult, disguising myself as someone who really cared about them.. That was before I decided it was time to get serious about my life and I embarked on a new career. I wrote a book about my struggles growing up. It was clear to those who read my memoirs that I had difficulties accepting that my father abandoned me as a child. I became active in local politics in my 30's then with help behind the scenes, I literally burst onto the scene as a candidate for national office in my 40s.. They said I had a golden tongue and could talk anyone into anything.. That reinforced my conceit. I had a virtually non-existent resume, little work history, and no experience in leading a single organization. Yet I was a powerful speaker and citizens were drawn to me as though I were a magnet and they were small roofing tacks. I drew incredibly large crowds during my public appearances. This bolstered my ego. At first, my political campaign focused on my country's foreign policy. I was very critical of my country in the last war and seized every opportunity to bash my country. But what launched my rise to national prominence were my views on the country's economy. I pretended to have a really good plan on how we could do better and every poor person would be fed & housed for free. I knew which group was responsible for getting us into this mess. It was the free market, banks & corporations. I decided to start making citizens hate them and if they were envious of others who did well, the plan was clinched tight. I called mine "A People's Campaign" and that sounded good to all people. I was the surprise candidate because I emerged from outside the traditional path of politics & was able to gain widespread popular support. I knew that, if I merely offered the people 'hope' , together we could change our country and the world. So, I started to make my speeches sound like they were on behalf of the downtrodden, poor, ignorant to include "persecuted minorities" like the Jews. My true views were not widely known and I needed to keep them unknown, until after I became my nation's leader. I had to carefully guard reality, as anybody could have easily found out what I really believed, if they had simply read my writings and examined those people I associated with. I'm glad they didn't. Then I became the most powerful man in the world. And the world learned the truth.

*Who am I? * I am ADOLF HITLER, WHO WERE YOU THINKING OF?

That's it, I retire the soapbox for another week. Ciao.