Happy New Year 2011

It is a new year and I do not have any New Year Resolutions. Instead, I have a personal plan, much like I have a Business plan at work. My personal goals for 2011 are to lose weight (I'm up about 4 pounds over the holidays and will be hitting the gym to work that off), continue to pay down debt as retirement looms in ten years, get back down to single digits in golf (I am at 10.0 as of 1/1 so don't have far to go), win my flight in the Club Championship, make the Rose Cup team, spend quality time with Darla and plenty of visits with Jennifer and Samantha in 2011, help to continue to transition the boys into true independence as their college years begin to come to a close, increase my participation and tithing at Church, and enjoy everyday and every friend as the gift that they are. Simple things and things that can easily be met.

We had our annual New Years Day party and had a great time.We had twelve total and we all squeezed around the dining room table. It was tight quarters, but we had 14 last year and had to split into two tables, which wasn't as much fun. Neil and Lilly made it and it was her first foray into extended time away from the house since her surgery. We were very happy to have them. They showed up late and left early, but seemed to really enjoy themselves.Bob and Vicki made it for what may be their last time as they are putting their home up for sale and moving back to San Jose. Bob has his business in San Jose and Vicki never warmed to the Roseville area. It was bittersweet for me as Bob is a good Christian friend and I will miss him greatly. At least I have a close friend in San Jose that I can go and visit. Rick and Jan made it and Bob and Debbie who had just returned from Southern California. Steve came and his wife Brenda joined us late as she was working. John and Camille chose not to come as the feud between the cousins has not been resolved unfortunately. They need to sit down and work it out soon, because (frankly) it is ridiculous. We had a great time and went through four appetizers, two bottles of champagne, five bottles of wine and two bottles of Martinelli's Sparkling Cider. All of that on top of soda and ice water. We had prime rib, salads, rice pilaf, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, au jus, ice cream covered with hot cherries and cake for dessert. You can see from the pictures above that Darla wouldn't let me carve the Prime Rib without a bib over my white shirt. We played "Catch Phrase" after dinner and had a lot of laughs.

I took Thursday off from work and played the Morgan Creek Country Club course in Roseville for the first time. Boyd was supposed to join me along with one of my agents. Boyd fell ill and my agent managed to cut down a tree on his property that landed on top of him. I ended up with Rick, Neil and Pamas instead. It was 28 degrees when we got to the course and they had a slight frost delay. We got out about ten minutes later than our tee time, so not bad. I tore up the course ion the front side and shot a 38, but as water finds its' level, I stumbled on the back nine with a 45 for 83. It's getting frustrating and I'm pleased to say that I finally broke out of the 82-83 rut on Friday with Bob, Matt and Darren by shooting 40+39=79 at Diamond oaks. I birdied three of the first five holes and hung on for the 79. We had a half hour frost delay Friday and finally teed off on number 12 in a modified shotgun just before 10 o'clock. I should have shot lower, but after my recent meltdowns, I was happy to break 80. I will play in the Captain and Crew tournament on Sunday, which is a scramble tournament and they match up the players with handicaps in Flights A-D and have one player from each flight make up a team. I have generally avoided the Captain and Crew because I'm not a big fan of scrambles, but realize that this is a good opportunity to get to know some of the other players in the club.

Neil asked me if I would consider stepping up for the club and taking on the role as our webmaster. I know nothing about being a webmaster, but agreed to meet with our current webmaster and discuss the job. I know that the NCGA offers member clubs a chance to have a website tied to the NCGA and it is professionally handled by their web design team. This may be an opportunity to significantly upgrade our web presence and perhaps even have some new potential members driven to the club through the reach and size of the NCGA, the largest golf association in the United States.

The boys both left for Cal Poly this morning. David is heading back and doesn't even have an apartment lined up as he moved out of his apartment before he left for Italy. He will bunk in with Daniel for a week if he didn't find something today. David will only be back at Cal Poly for a quarter and then will take an unpaid intern position with an architecture firm in San Francisco. He will live in the city with about 18 of his fellow students. Four months in Italy followed shortly after by two months in San Francisco. Not a bad gig for a 23 year old. I think he'll really enjoy the pulse of the city in San Francisco and get to know the museums and hot spots in SF. I will live vicariously through him once again. All of this is set up by Cal Poly for their architecture students in their Junior year, again one of the reasons that thousands apply and only a few hundred get into the program each year.

Jennifer and Samantha will be here next Monday - Thursday and we look forward to their visit. I will write one more blog before they get here. We are hoping to make it up to Lake Tahoe while they are here. We are getting a break in the weather this week after a rainy weekend, so hopefully we don't have a storm during the time that they are here. We have had a tremendous amount of rain and snow already and some areas of the Sierra are at 287% of normal snowfall already. We are well ahead on our rain totals and I look forward to the break this week. It will likely come with some morning frost and fog, but I'm kind of done with the rain for awhile. The local golf courses are wet and soggy with all of the rain we've had.

Well, that is it for this epistle. I will add more next week. Happy New Year. I hope all of your personal goals come to fruition in 2011.