Easter 2010

Darla and I have spent this rainy and cold Easter Sunday covered in blankets and reading on the couch. We were up for church early this morning and enjoyed the service which centered around surprises that were seen at the Tomb early on Easter morning. The surprises included that Jesus actually folded up his linens and bandages before leaving the tomb, a lesson for our children who leave their rooms a mess. Even Jesus stopped to clean up after himself. We also talked to Jen, who was on her way home from a trip to Lake Las Vegas and an Easter Egg hunt for Samantha. Samantha didn't get many eggs as the older kids scooped in and cleaned up, but she was able to find a few. Jennifer had hidden eggs (in plain sight) around the apartment this morning when Sam got up, so she had the fun without the competition. They also stood in line and got pictures with the Easter Bunny and Jen has promised to send those on.

Jen mentioned that she has a line on a job with a company that manages and maintains the recording and a/v devices for one of the courthouses in Las Vegas. Jennifer would be in charge of setting up and maintaining all of the devices in the courtroom and be on call daily for any glitches with any of the equipment. One of the main managers of the company will be in town tomorrow and will meet with Jennifer. The one problem is that the job pays barely more than she is making with unemployment and she would have to factor in the cost of child care as well. Hopefully she can negotiate a living wage and get the job. The nice thing is that it is a Monday to Friday job with benefits.

Darla and I are in the process of getting bids on our roof. Of all of the construction trades, the roofing business is the one most rife with fraud and miscreants. One of the guys that I'm dealing with works for a general Contractor who also has a roofing license. The benefit to me, according to him, is that they can paint my house for HALF the cost of the job when the roof is off. I checked his math on that by having one of Darla's Silpada ladies' husband, who is a painting contractor, come out and bid the paint job this weekend and, amazingly, it was the same price as the half price job by the roofer! We have about four more roofers who will come out and give us bids. So far we are looking at prices in the $10,000-$12,000 range which includes full gutters and downspouts and gutter guards over all of the gutters. I hope to get that job started within the next month.

I'm also still struggling with the stamped concrete in the backyard. I need to take a soy based paint stripper to all of the surface and remove the rest of the stain and varnish from the cement and then look at doing the acid staining. I will probably get Darla's Dad to help me with the job as he has experience with concrete and I don't want another mistake like the one I made last year. The best answer is the acid staining which reacts with the chemistry of the concrete and permanently stains the concrete. It won't flake or wear off and the only maintenance I'll have is the sealant.

Work continues strong and we finished March with our best month ever. We finished with a total income of $215,000 in March to break our record of $211,000 from last year. All of my underwriters had good months and we will go out on Tuesday and celebrate with a lunch at the Elephant Bar. I still have the office in Modesto for another month, but finally got rid of all of the files this past week when Pete and I went to Modesto on Thursday and met the shredding service. Matt and I had filled twelve bins the week before, but still had 200 some odd files left over. Pete and I took five more bins and got rid of those files. We also cleared out the remaining empty boxes and odd envelopes and pictures. The only thing left in the office now is furniture and I hope to be in Modesto one day next week to get rid of those via Craigslist.

Friday was Good Friday and although my company has very few holidays during the year, one day we celebrate (as a Jewish owned company by the way) is a half day off on Good Friday. I took Anthony, Pete and Matt golfing at a local military course, Mather Golf Course, on Friday. The course was built for the military, but taken over by the county when Mather AFB was closed ten years ago. It was cold and WINDY on Friday and we had a ball, playing the almost empty course in 2 hours and fifty minutes. I shot 83, Matt had 84 (and wasn't talking about it afterward). Pete shot 90 and Anthony had a 95. The wind was blowing so hard that we had to shape shots from left to right or right to left. When we were downwind, we hit some huge drives, but when the wind was in our face, we had to hit stingers. It was a blast.

I also took Matt, Boyd and Mel to River Oaks Golf Course on Saturday. River Oaks is in the little delta town of Nicolaus and is not a tremendously maintained facility. It is a challenging course and we played it in better conditions than Friday, no wind, but cloudy and cool. I shot 84, Matt 77, Boyd 78 and Mel 95. Next week is our Masters tournament at Diamond Oaks and the following weekend, we'll be in Reno for our two day Reno golf trip with the club. It's ALL GOOD.

Well, not a lot of news this week, just work and golf, but what else is new. Jennifer said that she will be sending us pictures of Sam from this weekend and I will add those when her talk becomes action. I hope you are all feeling renewed in your walk with Jesus and thankful for the sacrifices that HE made for all of us. Ciao.