Christmas 2010

Jennifer sent on pictures of Samantha's Christmas. Times are tight for the kids in Vegas, but they both now have jobs and Samantha will soon start in a three day a week pre-school. It will be a great thing for Samantha as an only child and because of the difference in Jennifer and John's work schedules, she will only have to go three days a week. That said, a private pre-school is $600 a month for three days a week. Jennifer's boyfriend Michael got some deals at the dollar store and had Jennifer wrap them, so Sam had a lot of toys to open. She got clothes and a remote control car and other things to amuse a 3 year old. We talked to Jennifer today from her work and she said this was Sam's best Christmas ever and it will only get better. I think it was special this year because Jennifer was out of work and got to set up the tree and house for Christmas with Samantha.

More good news in that I was able to get the flights changed for Sam and Jennifer and they will now fly in on Monday night, January 10th and stay until Thursday January 13th. It will be a short visit, but Jennifer can't afford to take much time off right now and she will only have to miss one day as I set her flight up after work on the Monday night. Our plan is to take Tuesday and Wednesday off while they are here and head up to the snow on Tuesday. We may get a condo up in Lake Tahoe on Tuesday night and come back on Wednesday. Darla's parents will have dinner with us Wednesday night and Lucas and his parents will also join us as Sam wants to meet her second cousin (Lucas is actually Jennifer's cousin).

Our holiday was full of family and a recuperating son. David had his oral surgery on Thursday and is actually doing great. He doesn't remember much from the day of the surgery, but has been remarkably pain free and even ate a small helping of prime rib on Saturday night. The boy is a trooper. We had the boys join us mid day and opened a few gifts (they are both going clothes shopping with their Mom this week). Darla's parents and Alicia, Don and Lucas then joined us for Christmas dinner. We fixed an 11 pound prime rib that although it was still frozen in the middle when we put it in the oven, turned out great. The middle was rare and the sides well done and there was plenty for everyone. Darla and I even had prime rib sliders with aus jus after everyone left Saturday night. We played pool, cards, and relaxed and visited with the family into the early evening when everyone packed up and headed home. Darla and I were able to relax in sweats and slippers for the rest of the evening.

I made it out on Friday with a nice break in the rainstorms and played golf with Boyd. I struggled after the week off on the front, shooting a 43, but rebounded on the back with a 39 for an 82. I was actually even par through six holes on the back and finished with three straight bogeys. Boyd said it is amazing how I always manage to finish with an 81 or 82. I guess I found my number. I plan to play on Friday again this week and hopefully one other day. Tomorrow is dry with another round of rain coming in on Tuesday.

We are poised at work to finish the year strong. We are already (as of Thursday) ahead of our December 2009 in both gross premium and retained net income, so the party continues. We will have to work hard in 2011 to match the strides we made in the office this year. I have the chief underwriting officer of our company owned insurance company coming out to visit us in January. This is the guy who choked on a piece of meat and ended up with a tear in his esophagus and spent two weeks in the hospital in Folsom on his last visit. I told him that we'd bring the food processor with us to dinner and whatever he orders will be made into a delicious shake,

I was able to get out over the weekend and clean up the yard of the last of the leaves and debris and to clean out the pool. I also washed the car for the first time in a month. I go to the car wash, but it is a poor substitute for rolling up your sleeves and washing the car. The front of the car and the grill are what needs attention as the soft brushes that the car wash uses doesn't scratch the surface, but also doesn't do a very good job of removing bugs.

Darla and I had a lite Christmas. I bought her a Wii Fit and a new lens for her camera and she got me some clothes. We both decided to plan a weekend away in late January or February as our gift to each other.

Darla will cook another prime rib next Saturday as we have our annual New Years' party for our friends. We will play pool, dice and card games, watch some football and eat ourselves silly and all start a diet plan the next day. Our friends look forward to the gathering as do we.

Well, this is the last blog of 2010. I will return with more epistles in 2011. Ciao.

What a Difference a Week Makes!

Rain. Canada brand rain. 3 inches in three days and still raining. No golf, no smiles, no sunshine. "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in California anymore!" We even had a little bout of hail this afternoon. We have had periods of intense, sheeting rain and some periods of just rain. We were supposed to get a little break this afternoon, but after some sun trying to peek through the clouds about 1:00PM, the dark clouds rolled back in and the hail was here by 3:00 PM.

Darla and I were invited to a Slavic Christmas by Oksana in my office. We were supposed to go with Anthony and Erin, but they politely backed out yesterday. We asked John and Camille and she was called in to work at the PG&E call center due to the storms. So, Darla and I headed over to Adventure at 2 PM for the event. Oksana had not prepared us for the event at all. It was 100% in Russian (although the invitations were in English, go figure). I have never seen our 3000 capacity church more crowded. There were at least 4000 people jammed into the auditorium and we had to make a cattle run upstairs to the balcony for seats. It was wall to wall people and the ushers were ill prepared for the crowd. They should have turned people away. We finally found seats upstairs about 1:55 PM and the crowd just kept coming. They had people lined up in the aisles and crowded around the doors and lined up the stairs leading to the balcony. The preacher started his sermon in Russian and then a woman joined him on stage and recited more Russian. They announced that we could get earphones that would interpret the message in English, but they must have had about 500 of those and they were snapped up before we got there. We stayed a 1/2 hour and listened to Oksana and the Choir sing three songs all in Russian before getting up to leave. It was weird listening to everything in another language in our own church, but the obvious infractions of the fire code is what prompted us to leave. Besides, I was seated next to a Russian woman who must have dipped herself in fragrant oil before coming to the church. The crowd was beginning to spill into the walkway at the top of the balcony and we couldn't see around people. It was claustrophobic and the crowd was restless and jostling each other. They had a full symphony orchestra and the music was excellent, but we felt like we could breathe again when we made it outside. We were glad that Camille and John didn't make it because it was a nightmare.

We had our annual holiday party at work on Friday. Gail had made reservations at Rudy's Hideaway, a Lobsterhouse in Rancho Cordova. We gathered at 1:30 at the restaurant and Gail had to miss it as she got a call from her husband that her daughter was in a serious car accident in Folsom. It turns out there was a six car pileup on the freeway and her daughter's best friend (who had just got her license on Thursday) ran into the back of her Volkswagen Beetle. It was pelting down rain and her daughter stopped for the accident and the other young lady didn't react fast enough. The airbags in her friend's car deployed and they took her to the hospital. Everyone was fine, but the cars were pretty messed up.

We all had a good time at Rudy's and had lobster, prime rib and steak entrees. Rudy's had set up an ice tea, water and coffee table for the group. Several of the gang went up and ordered beer or wine as I was not requiring people to come back to work. I just had iced tea as I did return to the office. We had our gift exchange done by drawing numbers and being able to steal an item twice. I picked third out of 18 and got a set of colored bowls that were roundly ignored by the group. I had brought a remote control Ford F 150 and it was stolen and then stolen again by Anthony for his two year old son (Yeah, right!). Someone else brought a cubed plastic game with a ball bearing in it that had to be maneuvered through a maze and into position to open the trap door and retrieve a crisp $20 bill. That was gone in the first 8 picks, picked and stolen twice. I ended up trading my bowls to one of the gals in typing for a "rabbit style" corkscrew wine opener. We needed one and Darla would not have allowed those red, blue and yellow mixing bowls into her kitchen. My employees bought me a $125 gift card to Golf Galaxy and I give thanks for such a great staff. I will stop tomorrow and buy each of them a gift card to the Elephant Bar or to BJs.

We are mostly ready for Christmas. The boys both want to go shopping with their Mom after the holiday for clothes, so we have set money aside for that and got them a couple of small things. I bought a couple of things for Darla on Amazon that should be delivered to my office this week and I also ordered the Leapfrog learning system for Samantha and three electronic games. It will be a fun thing for her and Jennifer to play together as Samantha learns to read and recall things.

Sam has been adjusting to Jennifer being back at work. Both Michael and Jennifer started work, training on Wednesday and Thursday and starting the job on Friday. They worked all weekend and will have Wednesday and Thursday off. I, of course, set up for them to fly in Friday the 7th and home on Tuesday the 11th. With her schedule she would have to miss a week of work. Right now to change the flight to Sunday to Thursday would cost us $240. I'm continuing to look to see if we can make some changes. At worst, I'll have her fly in Sunday and at least she can work Friday and Saturday. It would cost me $80 plus taxes to make that change. She had been out of work so long when we set it up and I assumed if she got a job it would be M-F. It will be nice for Sam as Jennifer can spend every Wed-Thursday with her and John can spend Sat-Sun.

David flies home from Rome tomorrow and his Dad is picking him up in San Francisco. He'll have Tuesday to relax and get over his jet lag and Wednesday he has major dental surgery. They will pull two baby teeth on either side of his jaw and implant bone posts that will be later used for implanting his permanent implants. They aren't crowns as he doesn't have any permanent teeth to attach them to. The posts are being drilled into his jaw . He will be out of commission for about two weeks and will have to watch us eat prime rib on Saturday as he has a shake or something.

Well, that is the news to the moment. It was definitely a quiet weekend. We slept alot and relaxed the rest of the time as it was UGLY outside. Hope you are all well and looking forward to the celebration of Jesus' birth. Ciao.

Great Autumn Weather in Roseville

We went to the annual RGC Christmas party on Saturday night and there were only 35 people in attendance this year. The economy had something to do with it and our VP this year is a bit quieter of a guy and didn't really push this with the members. It didn't help that a group of the members were on a cruise and that the party was a week later this year and was competing with other corporate and personal parties. It was pretty low key and Darla and I were home by 10:30.

Neil and Lilly had to miss as she just had surgery on Thursday and just got out of the hospital today. It was a planned surgery to relieve some pain that she has been having due to diverticulitis. Darla made a lasagna and some salad and delivered it to Neil on Saturday morning. I saw Neil at the course as I was finishing up and he came over to tell me about the surgery and to thank us for the dinner. He said, "Darla is such a great lady, Ken, you must wake up every morning and just pinch yourself!" Funny guy.

You can see in the pictures above that my hair is darker, but it is mostly brown now. I still see a touch of rust color in the hair, but no one seems to notice it. Jennifer didn't notice it until I pointed it out. I think it helps that I didn't darken my moustache and beard much. Some of the ladies at work have noticed, but the guys can't see any difference. I did tell the story in our staff meeting of the original red color and one of my female underwriters now calls me "red". She is a redhead. No one at the RGC part noticed until Darla pointed it out to one couple. I had one guy come over and say, "Ken, you need to dye your facial hair, your wife is so young and you are looking older." Open your eyes, pal.

It was a great weekend weatherwise, with cold and wet fog in the morning that burns off to a sunny day and temperatures in the upper 60's. I came out of poker on Saturday night to a cloudless sky with twinkling stars that lead to fog come Saturday morning. It burned off by the third hole and we were in shirt sleeves the rest of the round. I shot 42+42=84 and the ground was really wet from the rain during the week. I ended up winning a total of $119 in the tournament last week, although someone beat me out for closest to the pin. They were at 3 feet and i was at 3' 7" and took second place. the course is having their Holiday Sale on Wednesday and I have $190 on the books, so will go by and see if there are some gloves, balls and perhaps another pair of shoes that I want.

Friday night was poker and I took another $60 from my friends. I play with a couple of cousins, both in their late fifties and they got into it during the game and almost came to blows. They are both BIG men and it was pretty intense when they went nose to nose. It was like a couple of bulls with neither one willing to back down. There is some history there and they had each consumed about a bottle of wine. The guy who was hosting is a little guy and he just sat staring at them afraid that his house was going to get thrashed. It will be awhile before they make up as there were some pretty nasty things said to each other.

Darla is off on a Silpada gig tonight and also let me know that she is hosting her December meeting here tomorrow night. I will make myself scarce and go watch the Monday night NFL game somewhere.

I got an e-mail from Dad and they are going through some issues at home right now, with their car having a power window go bad. it's happened to me and the window just drops and you can't raise it. He also had an undercounter light in the kitchen that somehow got too hot and melted the housing on the fixture. He was afraid that bad luck always follows in groups of three and sure enough when he went into the crawl space to put back some Christmas boxes, the crawl space was flooded with about three inches of water. There is an underground spring that runs under their house and Dad thinks that the construction on the home behind their house has caused a drainage problem. It has been raining non-stop in Surrey for at least a week that I have been keeping track of.

Jennifer starts her new job tomorrow and will be in training for a week or so. She and Michael went to what the recruiter called and orientation last week and when they got there with seven other people that will be on their team, they had a pop quiz. The questions all related to internal forms and practices of the company they will be working for. Jennifer said it was a joke, no one knew anything about the company's internal working and she was embarrassed. Luckily everyone else was in the same boat. She was furious and Mike and her let the recruiter have it, but they are still starting work. I'm glad and feel for them as they have been out so long and itching to get back to being productive and off unemployment. I guess they will be Republicans once they are back to work (Just kidding, Jen!).

Well, that's it for this week. I will have my office celebration next Friday and will be out for a few agent lunches this week. I will also get to the gym a few days to make up for the extra calories. Darla and I will be going to a Christmas performance by the Slavic Chorale on Sunday at our church. One of the ladies in my office is Ukrainian and sings in the Oasis chamber choir. She is a great young lady, a Christian and Darla and I will support her along with Anthony and Erin. We'll go out to lunch first and then to the performance. It should be at least different and they will be singing Christmas songs. I hope you are all well. Ciao.

Samantha back in Roseville if just for a day and night.

Of course, you can see that Samantha is sort of number one when she comes to visit. Yes, Michael and Jennifer were along for the ride. I was hoping to have my staff meet Samantha as they all saw her as an infant, but Diane didn't get them over to my office until almost 5:30 PM on Monday and most of the staff had already gone home. We ended up taking them to John's Incredible Pizza in Roseville. It is a Chuck E. Cheese style restaurant, but it is like Chuck E. Cheese on steroids. The place has midway style games and rides with bumper cars (Sam was too small), a tea cup style ride, but with more oomph (Sam was too small), a plummet drop ride (Sam was too small) and a mini roller coaster (Sam could ride with an adult). Most three year olds could go on the ride, but you had to be 44 inches tall and Sam doesn't make the grade. They had a buffet with pizza, pasta, a salad bar and a big dessert bar with cobblers, cinnamon buns, ice cream, donuts and pastries. We sat in the Toon room and watched cartoons while we ate and then Sam talked me into taking her over to the midway. The facility is in a former Sam's retail warehouse, so it is HUGE. I took Sam on the Frog ride, we did a jump rope game, the merry-go-round and I took her to the kiddee area with slides and a climbing tower. Jennifer and Darla met me there and they went on the roller coaster. By the way, take a look at Darla's black and white outfit. I'm married to quite the cougar, eh? No wonder I'm trying to color my hair.
We ended up there for about two hours and Samantha collected a grand total of 241 tickets. We were able to exchange those points for a ping pong game that throws the ball up in the air and you try to catch it in the basket. Sam no sooner got the game than she pointed it at her face and shot the ball into her forehead. She was walking out of the venue and shooting the ball up in the air and Jennifer was chasing it all over the place. We got into my car and Samantha managed to crush the ball. I didn't realize that and when I asked Sam where her toy was when we got home, she said it broke. I asked her who broke it and she said, "Samantha".
We had birthday cake and she opened her gifts when we got home and then watched "Toy Story 3" on video. Sam spent most of the movie letting us know that she didn't want to watch "Toy Story 3". We had rented that video and bought her "Sinbad" for her birthday. She wanted to watch Sinbad. I finally took the package and told her that it said "Sinbad" was to be watched in the morning only. That seemed to satisfy her.
I put her down and she asked me to lie down with her. I told her I would stay with her if she
promised to go to sleep. She had trouble and so I started pretending to be asleep and snoring a little bit. Sam then started pretending to snore too, which cracked me up. We were in giggling and laughing when Darla and Jennifer came in and I was in trouble for keeping her awake.

She woke me up this morning by coming in to my room when Darla was showering and telling me it was morning and she wanted to watch "Sinbad". The girl is smart. I took everyone out to breakfast this morning and Sam was fussy after a late night. Again, everyone frowned at me. She was crying and putting up a fuss when we got to the restaurant, but settled down as soon as she saw the big boxes full of toys at the front of the restaurant for the kids. She picked out a toy and brought it to the table and then was mesmerized by the miniature train that runs throughout the restaurant up at the top of the wall near the ceiling. It was a perfect place to bring a fussy granddaughter for breakfast.

We stopped at the store on the way home and bought some replacement balls for the ping pong game. The ball was smaller than a regulation ping pong, so Darla thought to buy some fishing bobbers that were the right size. When we brought it to the car, Sam said, "These aren't balls, these are for fishing." It turns out John has taken her fishing before. Sam and I got dropped off at the park on the way home and we met up with another family with two girls 2 and 4 and Sam made some fast friends. She wanted to ride the 4 year old's bike with training wheels, but I told her, "No, you didn't have a bike helmet." We played for a while and I pushed her on the swings and then she went to play with the two little girls. I was relaxing enjoying the sun and when I looked up she had the little girl's helmet on and was getting on the bike. She is a little schemer. She had also asked for more cake and when her Mom told her that it was too late, she went into the dark kitchen and brought over a step stool and climbed up to the counter by the cake. When I laughed later about it, Darla said, "Ken, she is totally Jennifer!" True that, eh?

Some really good news came as the kids were visiting and that is that Jennifer got a job. She will be working for a Tech Temp company that provides temporary workers for companies looking for electrical and fiber optics work. The first job is a 19 month contract. Jennifer found this out on the same day that she found out her worker's compensation benefits were due to run out. Even better news was that when Michael was giving a verbal recommendation for Jennifer, the recruiter asked him to join the team as well and he will meet with the guy tomorrow at 10 AM. Jennifer will meet with him at 11:30 and has a training tomorrow at 2 PM. The only "fly in the ointment" is child care, but Jennifer was working on that when she left. John is out of the country in Bermuda on a job until next Friday. Pray for them that this all works out. Sam will have an adjustment as she's had Jennifer to herself for the last year.

Well, Darla is waiting in the living room and I have to go spend time with my cougar. I hope all are well and I'll write more this weekend. Ciao.

Quick Update

I realize that we will not see Sammy until tomorrow, so I will update this with pictures after we get together on Monday and Tuesday. Darla and I spent part of the weekend getting our house decorated for the Holidays and doing some shopping for Samantha's birthday.
Darla and I met Thursday night at Clark's Ski Shop in Roseville and bought Samantha a ski bib, boots, goggles, sunglasses, gloves, boots, and a hat. Jennifer asked for some snow play clothes as they go up to Mt. Charleston in Vegas regularly and Sam is usually in jeans and gets soaked and cold. We were trying to decide between the goggles and sunglasses and the owner of the shop through in the sunglasses when we bought the goggles. That is definitely my style of shopping. We met at 6:30 and had checked out by 7:10 and were at the restaurant ordering dinner by 7:30. We went out to dinner at a new restaurant in Roseville, Granito's Italian Fusion, which was excellent. We then stopped at another store and picked up a few odds and ends (birthday wrap, a toy for our nephew, Lucas, and DVD for Samantha). I also stopped at the Blockbuster store and rented Toy Story 3 for her visit and also bought her the "Night Before Christmas" book for Jennifer to read her the Santa story.
Darla and I will take the kids out to Dave and Buster's in Roseville. It is a big adult play restaurant, sort of a Chuck E. Cheese for adults. They still ave a kid's area, so we will have dinner there and then let Samantha play some games. It will be a short visit for us as their flight is at 5 PM on Tuesday. I am taking the day off and taking everyone out to breakfast. As I said, I'll update this mid week and have pictures and stories from their visit. The kids have been here since Thursday, but were brought into town by Diane and spent the weekend with her. Diane leaves for Texas sometime this month.
I played in the final event of the 2010 golf year for RGC today, The Eclectic Final. I was in first place with a net 53 and played my closest challenger, who had a 54. he shot a 94 today and never challenged my lead. I shot (what else?) a 40+42=82 and did not improve my score any at all. There is another player that dropped his score down to a 53 today, but he has a gross 57 and is the gross leader, so he'll take 1st gross and I'll have first net. I also came oh so close today to my first hole in one. I hit a 9 iron on the 130 yard 12th hole that landed six feet past the hole and drew back to the pin, lipping out and leaving me a two foot putt for birdie. The guys on the 13th tee box were yelling thinking it was going in and then groaned when they realized that their hope of free beer was dashed. I did take closest to the pin on that hole. Also, Neil sent me an e-mail this afternoon and told me I won some "serious money" in skins. The pool was $110 and I split it with one other player. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but assume we will each take $55.
Darla and I attended Bob's sister's funeral on Saturday up in Auburn. She died last week of complications of Cancer. The funeral was at a Catholic church and the mass was long and full of chanting and recitations. It reminds me how happy I am to not be a Catholic. The priest was splashing the coffin with Holy water and waving a canister of incense that reminded me of the smell of Jennifer's room when she was a teenager and in to incense.
Bob did a great job with the eulogy and told a story of he and his older sister growing up together. They shared a room until she was 11 and he was seven. She was concerned with his hygiene as he shared her room and was always on him about taking baths and washing his hair more than once a week, etc. One day she asked him if he was cleaning his belly button. He asked her how to do that and she went and got him an old toothbrush and told him to take soap and scrub his belly button. After a week, his belly button was red and raw. He showed it to his Mom who heard the story and promptly disciplined Bev. When his Dad got home and heard the story, he came in a disciplined Bob for being so gullible. Funny stuff.
I will add more this week, with pictures of young Miss Samantha. In the meantime, I leave you with a Golfer's Love story. It sort of brought a tear to my eyes. Ciao.
" A couple were talking together and the older man said to his wife, "Honey, soon we will celebrate 50 years of marriage. I have to ask you, during our years together, have you always been faithful to me?"
The wife, held his hand and said, "My dear, I have always loved you and you are my world, but in our life I have been unfaithful 3 times, but always for a good reason and to make our lives better."
The husband was taken aback, but asked his wife, "What was the first time?"
The wife said, "Do you remember when we were in our twenties and almost lost the house because we were behind on our mortgage payments after the kids were born? I met with the banker one night and the next day our loan was renegotiated?"
The husband said, "I can forgive you that, you were only looking out for our welfare. What about the second time?"
The wife said "And do you remember when you were scheduled for heart surgery and we couldn't afford to pay the doctor? I met with him and the next day your surgery was done for free?"
The husband said, "Honey, you did that to save my life. I completely understand. Now what about the third time?"
The wife said, "Do you remember when you ran for President of the Golf Club and were 44 votes short of the election?"