Rainy Sunday

The rain is not such a bad thing as the final round of the Masters was on TV and I enjoyed the show as Phil Mickelson won one for Amy, his wife who is battling breast cancer. Tiger showed up and exhibited some rust from his self imposed exile from the game, but played well, sort of as well as someone would with no real conscience. He proved that he may not be the best golfer right now, but he's still the best swinger. It was entertainment watching him struggle and try to control his notoriously hot temper. The CBS cameras only caught him swearing once and he seemed in control of his emotions most of the time. Phil was sort of lost in the shuffle with the focus on Tiger and he snuck up on the weekend and into control today with a safe and almost boring style of golf. He controlled his urge to go for the throat and only once tried a big gamble and that was on number 13 when he was behind a tree and his ball sitting on pine straw and he still hit a 5 iron 210 yards over the creek and onto the green about eight feet from the hole (he missed the putt).
Darla and I continue to work on the house and spent yesterday after my golf game driving around Roseville and Rocklin looking at roofs that have been done by our choice for a roofing contractor. His bid is less than anyone else's and that made Darla a bit wary. We were able to talk to a couple of the homeowners and get their feedback on the construction work and cleanup and have so far heard good things. I will check the Contractor's State Licensing Board and see if he has had any complaints against him, but I think after our excursion yesterday we are ready to sign a contract. This last big storm of the season (we average an inch of rain in April and go down monthly from there) will remind me of why we need the roof done as shingles from the roof litter my driveway from the strong winds and our gutters leak in about three different sections. This storm is forecast to bring over an inch of rain to the valley itself. We will have a Premium Owens Corning lifetime composition shingle roof put on with ridge vents and upgraded felt and OSB, new gutters and downspouts and gutter guards installed throughout. I have so many trees that shed their leaves annually and I installed plastic gutter guards on the gutters about five years ago that have curled up and split in places. One section of the gutter split when the downspout clogged a few years back and I used a welders glue to put it back together, which has held fine but looks like poop. I should see if I can get someone to come out and blow out the underground tubes that channel the water from the downspouts to the edge of the grass.
I am also getting bids from contractors for the pool deck. I had the boys strip off the old latex stain on the concrete, but rather than do it myself every two years, I'd like to get a professional to color the stamped concrete and seal it so that it lasts. I've had several bids that are all in the $3,000 range and involve stripping the concrete and acid staining the deck followed by a sealer. I have one more guy coming out on Tuesday that swears by the water based staining and he will undoubtedly be much less in cost.
Finally, I had a tile cleaner come out yesterday and inspect the pool. He will come out and take off all of the calcium and stains from the tile and backsplash and I will seal the tile and river rock when he is done. Darla and I are planning for Summer. We will not take a Mexico vacation this year and plan to spend a lot of time on and in the pool this Summer.
Next weekend we will be in Reno for a two day golf event. Darla and I will stay at the Silver Legacy Casino Friday and Saturday night and I will play De-Andrea in Sparks on Saturday and Wolf Run in Reno on Sunday. We have many of our friends joining us on this event. It is Bob Hand's birthday on Friday and we will find nice steakhouse to celebrate his birth. Saturday night we will get a group of about 24 together fro dinner at The Old Santa Fe restaurant in Reno. It is a Basque style restaurant and they bring out wine, soup, salad, bread, pasta, relish trays, more wine, vegetables, mashed potatoes, more wine, french fries, your main course, more wine, dessert, followed by more wine. All for $17.99 a person. I look forward to getting away with Darla. She will shop and do spa activities with the ladies while the guys golf. The blog will be back on Monday night next week as we will be gone and likely get back late Sunday. I will have pictures from our trip and I'm still waiting for pictures from Jennifer.
Tomorrow night I will take Anthony from work and we will go to a dinner with the Sacramento Kings served at their practice facility and then be given lower bowl tickets to the King's final home game of the season. I arranged a group outing this year and this dinner is for the group leaders to thank them for their support this year and I'm sure also to get us to sign up for another group event next year. My group is doing a Sacramento River Cats AAA baseball game in may this year and I'm not in charge of the fundraiser for next year so I doubt that we'll sign up for anything. The free grub and tickets to the game are nice though.
I went out and hit balls on Tuesday night. Woodcreek has $2 Tuesdays and the range balls are half price. While I was there I picked up some new golf shoes on a special size sale in the breezeway. These are $150 Footjoys called "Reel Fits". They had my size for $89 (one pair only). The shoes do not have laces, but a system of plastic laces that hook into a wheel behind the heel. You simply crank the wheel to tighten the shoes and pull the wheel out to loosen the laces. Old Man shoes!! They are great.
I played in our master's tournament on Saturday and shot 42+40=82. Kind of same old, same old with my scoring lately, but I had two birdies and shot a 6, 5, 2, 4 and 3 on the first five holes of the back side for an interesting scorecard. On the par three 12th i put the ball 37 " from the hole and sank the birdie putt ot win closest to the hole. i also won $38 in skins for my two birdies. It keeps me coming back, but I'd sure like to put up a score in the 70's soon. My last score in the 70's, a 79 in February is the only one in my last twenty scores. I range from that 79 to an 87 and most of my scores are between 81 and 84. My index is up to a 10.6 and I will get a 12 on both of the courses that we play up in Reno. I'd like to do some damage up there and maybe win a ournament for a chnge. I took 5th in my flight yesterday out of 22 golfers.
I also hosted poker on Friday night. I've been playing poker for over 25 years, some with the same guys in my group now and although I enjoy the fellowship, I'm starting to tire of some of the games. The guys like to play Texas Hold'em, which for me has been ruined by ESPN who show the WSOP nightly. I prefer to play cards from the cards in my hand and not community cards. I may need to take a break for awhile to get my interest back. Darla fixed Italian sausages with grilled onions and peppers for us Friday night and the guys loved it.
Well, that's it for this week. I hope you are all well. We went to church this morning in the wind, but before the rain started, and heard a sermon on going the full mile for Christ. The story was about Abraham's father who left with the family for Canaan, but stopped halfway on his journey and settled in Haren. A good reminder that we need to sell out to Christ at all times in our life and not be a lukewarm Christian. I hope you are all healthy and happy. Be well. Ciao.