Good to have the wife home again

No pictures this week, but we will make up for that next week after Darla and I return from Canada. I thought we might have a problem crossing the border after Canada made a mess of the early hockey game against the US of A, but due to some odd "double elimination if you are the host country" rule or something, they allowed them back into medal contention and they won the game today, so the border should be open to Americans. The Olympic hockey game with NHL players is about as much fun as NHL hockey, which doesn't hit the Richter scale in the United States (although we win the Stanley Cup every year). I'm not excited about the Olympic basketball with NBA players either. I think the reason the USA win over Russia in 1980 was so exciting was because the gold was brought home by amateur hockey players playing for the love of the sport. Now NHL players don't make NFL or NBA money, because (let's face it), they are hockey players, but let's let the Olympics stand alone as a bastion of amateur sports. I watched very little of the Olympics because you never knew when something was going to be on and I wasn't going to suffer through curling and the biathlon to try and see Lyndsey Vonn or Apollo Ohno. I didn't see any of the hockey because I can't see myself dedicating two hours to a soccer game on ice. 2-1 is an exciting game or so they tell me. I am usually asleep after twenty minutes of watching people smack into each other and toss the puck behind the net 20 times. I will probably watch the closing ceremonies tonight or maybe an hour of it. I'm proud that Vancouver was able to host the games and got a lot of good press that will likely help their tourism and economy going forward, but the opening and closing ceremonies are so forced and overblown in the Olympics. What was that deal with Eskimos dancing around with spears and head dresses? I know they had their Ford Escort parked in the parking lot and live in the suburbs like the rest of Canadians. Your heritage is all well and good, but you don't live like that anymore, so move on.

It is great to have Darla back home ( I needed some wash done). She was gone from Saturday until Wednesday night and I was sure happy to see her home. I went out marketing Tuesday with Peter in my office and told him that I'd been golfing, did some yard work, worked out and about the only thing I hadn't done was run to the casino. Well, Tuesday night I took $100 and went out to Thunder Valley in Lincoln (about 15 minutes from the house). I had one of those unbelievable stretches where I hit two Royal Flushes on the video poker Double Double game in an hour. The chances of hitting one Royal are 10,000 to 1. My first one hit with two quarters in and I was dealt the 10, queen, king and ace of diamonds with the jack of hearts. I discarded the jack of hearts and hit a jack of diamonds for $115. On the second Royal, I was playing three quarters and saved a jack of spades and had the 10, queen, king and ace of spades come up for $280. If I'd had five quarters in it would have paid $1,000. I also would have likely lost all my money and went home before hitting even one Royal if I was playing $1.25 a hand. I did get out of there after 90 minutes with $480.

Darla got free tickets to see Bill Engvall, the country comedian and part of the Blue Collar Comedy tour with Larry "the Cable Guy" and Jeff Foxworthy. She works for the Maloofs and received four tickets to the show. We went Saturday night with Bob and Debbie Hand and had a great time. We had dinner beforehand at El Azteca, the neighborhood Mexican food joint in the shopping center up the street. I enjoyed the company and the concert.

I played golf Saturday while Darla had one of her jewelry shows at the house. I played at ten and her show was scheduled to be over by 3:30 and that's when I could come home. It was raining Saturday morning, but the forecast was for the rain to move out by about 11 AM and the sun to come out in the afternoon. I actually had an 8:40 tee time, but we were the only cars in the lot save for the workers. We got a couple of baskets of range balls and headed into the covered shed where the pros give lessons. We were trying to hit the flags on the driving range as the rain pelted down and we waited for a break in the weather. Matt from the office was there as were two guys from the club, Pamas and Paul. The rain finally started letting up about ten and we teed off as the only players on the course. There were a few that followed shortly after us and by the time we finished at 2 PM in bright sunshine the parking lot was half full and they were waiting in line to tee off.

It was pretty wet on the course and we had to dodge some large puddles in the fairway as it had been raining most of the week. One of the holes was almost an island hole as the creek had overflowed it's bank. We also had a hole on the front side that was completely covered in water as the main creek had overrun it's banks and covered the course. Paul hit a brand new Pro V1 into the water and had to leave it because it was about three foot deep across the fairway. I was determined to get the round in as Darla's party was in full swing and I couldn't go home. Also, I had a qualifying event today with Bob Pando for an NCGA tournament. They had opened the 7th green after six months and had also cross cut the greens this past week and I wanted to see how they were rolling. I shot 42+41=83 and took $15 from my friends in a round robin format that we played.

From the course, I went to get a late lunch and afterward it was still only 2:45, so I stopped at the gym for a workout. The mistake I made was getting on the recumbent Lifecycle and pedaling for thirty minutes on a hill climb. My legs were sore from trudging through the wet course and I began to cramp up in both calves after thirty minutes. It started in my right calf and as I reached to massage that, my left calf started cramping. I was tottering around like a new born calf, jumping from one foot to the other to keep my weight off the cramping calves. I finally just dropped to the ground and let the cramps pass, but not before two or three people ran over to see if I was okay. I think they saw my gray hair and thought I was having a heart attack or something.

When I finally got home at three-thirty, the party was still going strong and I decided to take advantage of the clear skies and lack of rain and wash my car. One of Darla's friends has a daughter who is developmentally delayed. She is probably 15, but has the mental ability of a six year old. She came out and wanted to help me wash the car and clean my clubs and golf cart. I gave her a sponge and I used the wash mitt to clean one side of the car, while she was on the other. I heard a scratching sound and went over to investigate and she'd pulled the tire brush out of the bucket and was brushing the side of my car! I washed my side, went around and washed her side and then sprayed the car off. She saw me with the hose and wanted to spray. I let her spray the car after I'd completely cleaned off the soap. She wanted to continue to spray the hose and I wanted to dry the car. I suggested that she could help me dry the car, but she wanted no part of that. I let her spray the grass and the mail box, the sidewalk, driveway and road, while I dried the car. I told her to make sure she didn't spray the car. Just as I'd finished drying the whole car, she turned the hose as she turned to say something to me and drenched the car AGAIN. I turned off the hose and she quickly lost interest and went back in the house.
She is a nice young girl and I asked her Mom if I could pay her for helping me. Mom said, "Only if she really helped." I gave her $5.00 but what I didn't tell her Mom was that I would have paid her $10 NOT to help.

Today was the NCGA event and Bob and I were both flat early on, in fact we posted an even par 36 for the front nine. Bob missed a 2 foot birdie putt on number three and I followed that up by missing a 3 foot birdie putt on 9. I shot 43 on the front and just felt out of sorts. Golf is a strange game and just as quickly as it went south, I absolutely couldn't miss on the back nine. I birdied 10 and 14 en route to a 36 on the back nine and a total of 79 for the round. Bob continued to struggle which is not like him and finished with an 80 and our team score was a middling 67. The best score when I left was 63 and there were three 64s , a few 65s and a 66 ahead of us. Bob did call me tonight and tell me that we won $30 in skins for my net eagle on 10.

Our CEO is in San Francisco tomorrow and I am meeting three of my underwriters at the office at 7 AM tomorrow and driving into the office. The San Francisco team has a nine o'clock scheduled meeting with him and we will be in meetings after 10:00 AM, but Harvey wants us there by 9 AM, so we will be. We had another record setting month in February, closing the month at $165,000 in net income, which surpassed our previous February of $134,000, which is a 23% increase. We are up over 25% in net revenue for the year and 2009 was our biggest year ever. I have a 6:30 golf meeting back in Sacramento which I may or may not make, depending on when we get out of the city.

Well, again, Darla and I will be in Vancouver next weekend and I will try to get a blog entry in before the following weekend, so keep an eye out after the 10th. Be well. Ciao,