Autumn arrives, but the heat isn't over yet

It is the start of Fall in Northern California and there are signs of the impending weather change: the leaves are beginning to fall, there are evening thunderstorms over the mountains and foothills that make an interesting backdrop to a late night walk, and it is dark in the morning when I leave for work at 630 and dark by 6:30 at night. The weather today would lead you to believe that the change is here as it has rained a bit today, it is overcast and only 70 degrees, but a look at the forecast for this coming week shows temperatures back into the nineties by midweek and into Friday of next week.
Dad and Shirley arrive Thursday night for their trip up to Lake Tahoe and we will drive up together Friday afternoon. The weather in Tahoe is into the upper seventies during the day and down into the lower 30's in the evenings, so bring your coats and jackets. We have rented a private home for three nights up in Zephyr Cove just across the border in Nevada and dad and Shirley are staying near Stateline in California. Neil and Lilli will join us at the house (it is a two bedroom, two bathroom). One of my underwriter's, Peter and his wife Vicky will also join us for Saturday night. Pete heard me talking about the trip and had met Dad back in the late nineties when we all were in Vegas and asked if they could come up and hang out with us. I said, "no problem". Dad has tended to make quite an impression on the people in my life that he has met and spent time with and I think that is a testament to who he is as a man. We will go have hors' de ouvres at our condo Saturday afternoon and then Dinner at Tep's Villa Roma in Tahoe. I'm sure we will then find our way to the casinos and have some fun. I'm looking forward to the weekend away.
I had my boss, Harvey, and our Real Estate Manager, Mike, in the office on Friday. Our CEO wanted him to take a look at the top four buildings that we had seen and make a decision on our new office location. Mike really liked the one story office building in Gold River as a potential real estate acquisition for the Kaufman group. it is nice, but Alan wants to be in the BEST area in Sacramento and Gold River isn't it. The location at Palladio in Folsom, the mixed retail and office location, a so called Lifestyle center was very nice, but the available space had us looking over either the parking garage or the roof of the building behind the office building and he quickly scratched that off the list. He did find the office on Douglas Boulevard in Roseville to be our best location, building and amenities of all of the rest, but unfortunately the build out will not be ready for our lease end of December 10th. They will have to negotiate an extension at our current location and we will probably move in January. We looked at the second office location in Roseville, but the surrounding area (there is a vacant parcel next to the building that has been allowed to turn brown and full of weeds and debris) is an eyesore. They arrived in my office at 9:30 and I finally dropped Mike back at his hotel at 9 PM. Mike and I met Darla and had dinner in Sacramento on Friday night.
This weekend my golf was a big bust. I hit balls on Tuesday night and wore a Dallas Cowboy t-shirt to the range. The range was packed as it was a half price night and one of the golfers had to yell out. "Hey Cowboy fan, you guys were lucky to beat us Sunday!" I said, "Yeah, lucky you guys have a lousy quarterback!' There were snickers and groans down the line. Note to fans of teams that lose games: Just shut up, you LOST. There isn't a silver lining in there, it is an L in the standings.
Saturday I played in the Diamond tournament. This is a tournament (and there are four of them during the year) that are put on by the pro shop of Diamond Oaks and have nothing to do with RGC. They cost a bit more to enter and pay really well. I played with Boyd and Ben and a new member. I staggered early, going five over after five holes. On the sixth tee, I decided to hit a three wood. I teed it up, took my swing and the ball shot right toward the second green. We yelled, "Fore!", but the ball entered a cart sitting by the green and struck one of the golfers in the shoulder, bounced off the windshield and bounded back into our fairway. The ball was traveling about 120 mph when it hit the guy and he jumped out of the cart holding his shoulder and cursing a blue streak. He was about 40 yards from the tee and took the full brunt of the shot in the meat of his shoulder. I was lucky (as was he) that it didn't hit him in the head or neck or even in the collar bone because it would have snapped any bone it came into contact with. He was screaming at me and jumping up and down. I went over to see if he was going to be alright, but he pushed me away and said he was fine. When he got to the tee box he started in with the other three in my foursome, including the wife of the new member who was riding with him in the cart. He called her a "Fat Bitch" and told her to quit looking at him. Why he chose to jump on them instead of me I'll never understand. It was an accident, but I was the only one culpable in his being hit. The wife is on disability and had her spinal cord injured when a care patient of hers who was 90 years old fell on her and his walker snapped and embedded in her spine. She has put on weight and struggled with her self image since the accident and this didn't help. She jumped all over that guy cursing him up one side and down the other and called him a "Big Pussy" for being so upset. It was somewhat amusing in hindsight, but it ruined my game as the adrenaline rush that I got over the whole thing was too much. I had an 8 on that par 5 and a 10 on the par five following that and ended up with a 48 + 41 = 89, which was posted as an 85 because of the Equitable Scoring rules. I finally calmed down on the backside and finished with 4 pars and a bogey on the last five holes. So, who else shanks a 3 wood? Geesh.
I hope to get in some golf with Neil this weekend and Dad if he wants to play. The girls can take a ride up to the outlet mall in Truckee or Reno and we can get in some golf. I was thinking what a disaster my golf would have been in Monterey as those courses are narrow and full of trees. Darryl will be here two weeks from our trip with Dad and Shirley for the golf in Monterey, so plenty of good times ahead. The Blog will be late next week as we will be out of town, but it will return with pictures from our trip.
Darla and I went to church last night and then out to dinner. The Pastor was finishing his series on issues that affect Christians and talked about Anger, Envy and Worry. He told the story of four pastors who would get together every week and pray for each other and for their churches. One of the pastors said that they all want their church members to admit their vices and purge them from their lives and he suggested that they share their own weaknesses with vices with each other and they could help each other through it. He said, "I'll start. I struggle with gambling." The second pastor admitted having problems with looking at other women and the third said that he struggled with his ego and always feeling like he wanted to brag about himself and his church. The fourth pastor was quiet and when prodded, finally said, "My problem is Gossip and I can't wait to get out of here."
That is it for this week. I will return next week with tales of Dad and Shirley and our trip to the mountains. Ciao.

Sammy's Train Ride

This is the video of Samantha's solo ride on the Miner Train at the Adventuredome in Las Vegas. I uploaded the video using bitripper.com, a great program for uploading video and then carved a shorter clip from the video to upload to the blog using Windows Movie maker. Good memories. Ciao.

September is in Full swing and this was the last full week of Summer

A couple of fun pictures of Miss Samantha from her Mommy (taken from her Facebook). I call them Sammy the Birdwatcher. I don't know what she was doing, but it seemed to fit. The other picture is of the guys from BW. From the left, my Underwriting Manager Pete, my management Trainee Matt, my Rainmaker and Top Producer Anthony and myself. We played in an Enterprise Rents golf tournament on Thursday and came in tied for third with a 63 in a scramble format. It was a good team building event for us and we saw quite a few agents in attendance as well.
I took the staff out to lunch in Roseville at the Spaghetti Factory on Friday (for our Budget Busting in August) and then we toured the proposed new building and office suite in Roseville afterward. There are still a few grumblers and one or two that boycotted going with us, but I figure that the more transparent that I am in the process, the smoother it will go. I have the Real Estate Division Manager in the office on Friday from corporate and he will tour the facility and hopefully get the lease signed and then the TIB buildout can begin. We have to be out of our current space by December 10 and the clock is ticking.

Today was week 2 of the NFL season and I'm proud to say that I sat and watched the games on my DirecTV season pass and it cost me nada. I got on the phone with one of their "Retention Agents" on Monday and threatened to quit the service. He looked up my account and saw that I have been a customer since 1999 and that I have been an NFL Season Ticket subscriber for ten years. He initially offered me $20 a month off the $59 monthly cost and I told him "no sale". He then asked me what I wanted and I told him I sit and watch TV commercials with Deion Sanders dressed like a fairy offering the service FREE to new subscribers and I could swear he was flipping me off during each commercial. The agent ended up refunding $99 to me, giving me the service FREE for this year and giving me three months of HBO at no cost. I had to laugh as I will now be on the phone with them every year and at least get the service for a discounted price.

It was a little tougher to sit in the house and watch the games today because it was 95 degrees in Roseville. I turned off the games about noon, went out and washed the 300 and then spent an hour and a half dozing on a chaise lounge on the pool. I taped the Niner-Dallas game and came in and watched that on a delayed basis after my nap. I couldn't believe the bad luck with injuries Dallas had in the game, from Dez Bryant sitting out to Felix Jones popping a shoulder and Tony Romo cracking a rib. Tony sat out the third quarter and we fell behind by ten points. He donned a flack jacket and played the fourth quarter and lead Dallas to a furious comeback finally winning the game 27-24 in overtime. He threw for over 350 yards and two touchdowns in three quarters of work. Alex Smith on the other hand threw for less than 200 yards in the entire game. The Niners will not give up on this guy, who has been their QB for 7 years and is a joke in the league now. He was chosen as the first overall player taken in the 2005 draft. That same draft produced Aaron Rodgers, the reigning Super Bowl MVP QB of the Green Bay Packers (and a local NorCal kid), not to mention DeMarcus Ware and Marcus Spears of the Cowboys who combined for four sacks on Smith in this game of the six Dallas had. Other players chosen after Smith are Vincent Jackson of the Chargers, Roddy White of the Falcons and in the third round, the Niners best pick of that draft, Frank Gore. Alex Smith was a bad draft choice and the owners of the Niners are loathe to accept that fact. The rest of the league already knows it as not one other team showed any interest in Smith in the off season when he was an unrestricted free agent. For some reason this guy hangs on like a bad smell in San Francisco and it is doing nothing but tarnishing the memory of Joe Montana and Jerry Rice who played a LONG time ago. The Niners were last participants in the playoffs in 2002 when Daniel was 10 years old and David was 12. It was nice to pull out the win so I didn't have to listen to the boys crow about a frankly, mediocre NFL team.

I took a road trip to Nicolaus, California on Saturday with Boyd, Paul and Darren. We played at River Oaks Golf Club, an 18 hole track sitting right next to the River north of Sacramento. I played well on the front with a 40, but fell apart on the back with a 45 for 85. It is a challenging, but fair course and my driver was a bit balky on the back side as I struggled to keep the ball in play. Next week I will play in the Diamond Tournament over at Diamond Oaks. I will try to get out to the driving range this week and work the kinks out of my driver as I am pulling the ball left right now and it is frustrating.

We are quick approaching our trip to Lake Tahoe with Dad and Shirley and will be there in two weeks with Neil and Lilly as well. I look forward to getting away and relaxing in the cool mountain air. Neil had a recurrence of symptoms from his COPD this last week and was having trouble breathing again. I hope the high altitude doesn't adversely affect him.

Boyd's wife, Jo Robertson, is a novelist and has had her first two books published. I bought her first one on the IPad and I Books. It is The Watcher, by Jo Robertson and is very good in the Stuart Woods, John LesCroart mode. I have bought books authored by friends before and suffered through them, but Jo is very talented and surrounded by other authors who have helped her mold her writing into a very entertaining novel. Her second book is The Avenger, which I will buy online and read after I finish The Watcher.

Well, not a lot going on this week, so this is short, but I will be back at the keyboard next weekend and then bring tales and pictures of our trip to Lake Tahoe the week after that. Two weeks after that I will spend a golf weekend with Darryl in Pebble Beach. Not too shabby, eh? Be well. Ciao.

September 11th...America Remembers

I still proudly fly my American Flag every day, do you? Americans experienced a rush of patriotism and pride rarely seen in this country after 9-11. There was a rush to churches for answers and streets and neighborhoods were decorated red, white and blue with flags flying from homes, in yards and even on cars. All of that, predictably, died out within a couple of months and it is too bad. If the surge of patriotism had continued, Barrack Hussein Obama never would have been elected. Frankly, we don't need a politician as our president, we need a man like Warren Buffet, who could put the American Government on a diet and make us a nation that lends money to other countries, rather than the largest debtor nation in the world. Someday, we will wake up and turn all of this around. if we just STOPPED sending billions of dollars to countries like Israel, Pakistan and even Mexico, we could pay off our debt within five years. it won't happen under the watch of Barrack Hussein, the biggest spending President in the history of the United States.

The surge of pride that pulsed through our country came because of the attacks on American soil, but it was helped along by a great patriot in the White House, George Bush, who loves his God and loves his country. I remember members of Congress standing on the steps of the Pentagon singing God Bless America. Of course, many of them were jockeying for the right camera angle, but it was still a touching moment. I recall Billy Graham speaking at a service for the victims of 9-11 and how proud and strong he stood as he praised America and said that God would punish our invaders and that we needed to come together in churches and synagogues and pray for our country. There was some good that came out of an awful situation, but it all faded far too fast. I have had an American Flag hanging on the front of my house since that tragedy and it is only taken down in high winds or when it was unceremoniously stolen from my house before Independence Day. I was quick to replace it and will always fly the red, white and blue at my house and we speak English here.

The day dawned overcast today for the first time this Summer. I was up after 8:00 o'clock to mow and edge the front lawn and then settled in for the first full slate of NFL games on DirecTV's NFL Sunday ticket. I have been a DirecTV Subscriber since we bought this house in 1999 and an NFL Sunday ticket subscriber for 10 years. i will be on the phone with customer service tomorrow as they are now giving the product away to new subscribers. they will get an earful from me and I will ask them to refund the $354 that I paid this year and I will also ask them for some other free pay services. DirecTV is huge on subscriber retention and I will let them know that this long term subscriber is not at all thrilled with how they are treating us. Just a fun pone call for Monday morning. I did sit and enjoy the games today. After Thursday night the bar was set pretty high and only a couple of games met that standard today. I spent a little bit of time looking at the Niner-Seattle game, a game contested with two high school quarterbacks barely throwing for 100 yards each. What a joke. I look forward to the Dallas-Jet game tonight at 5:30 and I am working on my blog now to be ready for some football then.

Darla and I attended our church service last night and the pastor did a great job of showing images from 9/11 and interviewing members of the fire department, military and police departments. He also told the story of Rick Rescorla, the Morgan Stanley Vice President of Security who predicted the terrorist attacks years before they happened. He approached his bosses at Morgan Stanley and told them to move all of the employees out of the World Trade Center because of the threat of attack by planes on the buildings. The leadership listened, but their lease wasn't up until 2006 and they decided to wait until then to move to New Jersey. When they didn't move, Rick instituted drills every three months where he would lead the employees out of the building by way of the stairs. When the first tower was hit (Morgan Stanley was in Towers 2 and 4), he immediately evacuated 1400 employees from the towers and after tower 2 was hit, he returned to the building to make sure that all of the employees were safely evacuated. The tower imploded and of the over 1400 employees at Morgan Stanley, only three lost their lives, Rick and two of his senior staff who returned to the building to check on any stragglers. There is a good story about Rick at this website:
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/40201

Interestingly, the version of the article I picked is from the Canada Free Press. Heroes don't get much press in this country, just Presidents who cater to the undocumented aliens (coincidentally one of which he is himself). Rick was a hero in the Vietnam war and his men gave him the nickname "Hard Core". He is a man, born in England who emigrated to the United States and became a US Citizen. Take a minute to read the article, it is pretty powerful.

I've added more pictures from our trip to Vegas as we continue to enjoy the memories of that trip. I have yet to locate the video of Sam on the train, but I will add that at some point.

Of course, I made it out golfing this week. I played Whitney Oaks, a Johnny Miller designed course with a slop of 133 (degree of difficulty). Our course is rated 122. I played the course on Thursday with one of my agents and shot 86 and played again Saturday with Boyd, Darren and Rick and shot 89. It is a tough course, fun and fair and has great holes that you remember after you finish. It also has a lot of water, sand and blind shots (all hallmarks of Johnny Miller). It was a good time with the guys and I hadn't seen Darren in several months. The day started off right Saturday when I pulled into my parking space, opened the door and found a $20 bill on the ground. it was likely lost by the prior user of the space who dropped it when he pulled his keys out of his pocket.
I also played poker on Friday night and won about $100 from my friends. I'm not a big fan of Texas Hold'em, basically a game of luck, but i was on fire Friday night and won about half of the hands all night

Well, this is short, but football awaits and it is calling me like a siren song. Be well and God Bless America! Ciao.

Back from a short Vegas Vacation

Back from a fun vacation to Vegas. The weather was Hot and Windy and it seemed at times that we were in a desert. The room at the Rio was great and the vacation package was awesome. We rented a Jeep Compass, a small SUV that was perfect for our use. I like how all of the car companies let you choose your vehicle now.."anything in the Intermediate aisle". We had set up for a four door Hyundai Sonata of which there were none available. We had our choice of a Chevy HHR, a Chrysler 200 or the Jeep Compass.

We flew in Tuesday night and met Jennifer and Samantha at the hotel. We drove over to the Chinatown Mall and met Michael there and had dinner at the Emperor's Garden, a very good Chinese restaurant in Las Vegas specializing in Szechwan dishes. The food was delicious and the prices very fair. I had an excellent egg flower and corn soup. Sam loved the rice as always.

Samantha stayed with us on Tuesday night and we had the best time with her. It was a little windy on Wednesday, so the pool experience was muted by the blowing wind. Sam took her shoes off and they literally blew away, we had to chase them. I woke up to Samantha standing by my bed, pulling on my arm and letting me know she had to go to the bathroom. We made our regular trip to the Black Bear Diner and the last picture is of Samantha on one of the bear statues at the front of the restaurant. Darla and I actually went back to the Black Bear on Thursday for breakfast as well.

We went to Jennifer and Michael's on Wednesday night and Michael fixed an awesome barbecued chicken with squash and potatoes. The man can flat out cook. We had a nice visit and I was able to meet Jennifer's friend, Amanda. Amanda has been a great friend to Jen and a good buffer with John. Michael gets a little worn out with all of the drama with John and Amanda gives Jennifer an ear and a shoulder.

Thursday was Jennifer's day off and although she had suggested that we take Sam to the Adventuredome on Wednesday, we waited for Jennifer to enjoy it with us and experience Samantha's joy at the 5 acre indoor amusement park located behind Circus Circus on the strip. Samantha could only go on about 1/2 of the rides because she is so tiny, so we got her in for $11.95 and it was $22 for Jennifer. Darla and i were able to get in and walk around, but not ride any rides (fine by me). Samantha had an absolute ball riding all of the rides and her favorite was the frogger, the ride with all of the frogs on the background. She rode it with her Mom the first time and then by herself and six other kids after that. They would finished the ride and then run back to get online and ride it again. We had to finally grab her and move to the next ride. You can see the pure joy on her face in many of the pictures. It was a great afternoon, but tiring and we went back to the room with Jennifer and Samantha and Darla and I fell fast asleep.

Thursday night we went to Maggianos on the strip with Jennifer, Samantha and Michael. It is a great Italian restaurant and a must do for anyone visiting Vegas. Samantha loved the pasta and especially the ground Parmesan which she ate by the handful. Darla and I went out to the Gold Coast afterward to gamble, won early and lost late and left down about $200.

Friday we had to check out of the hotel and went over to Jennifer and Michael's about noon. Darla wanted to go to the Black Bear again for breakfast, but I wanted something different. We were lamenting my choice when we drove all over looking for a decent breakfast place, only to stumble upon Shari's Diner, a fifties style diner off Lake Mead Boulevard in Summerlin, about five minutes from Jennifer's apartment. The diner has been there about four years and is run by a mom and daughter from California. They are both Christians and host a bible study one Sunday night a month at the diner. We were going to have breakfast, but the daughter talked us into their 1/2 pound burger cooked to our order (medium rare) and they were to die for. So good. We spent Friday afternoon at the pool at Jennifer's complex with Sam and Michal and it was a nice relaxing end to our trip. We were supposed to have leftovers from Maggiano's for dinner, but Michael went out and picked up a salmon steak and grilled it on the barbecue with asparagus and white rice. He paired that with a thin loaf of Italian bread and it was delicious. Did I mention that man can cook? Darla swears that his culinary expertise is the reason they are still together. Jennifer has wanderlust, but loves Michael's gourmet meals.
Sam was rather unhappy that we had to leave and got real pouty when we tried to say goodbye. Jennifer felt bad, but told us later that Samantha told her she was mad that we were leaving and wanted us to stay.
We had a lot of fun. I was tickling Samantha when she was trying to show Darla something on the night that she stayed over with us and she turned to me with her hands on her hips and said, "That's enough, Papa!" I just about died laughing. She is a riot.
It was nice to get home Friday night and still have the long weekend to relax. I played golf in our labor day tournament Saturday and it was so HOT. We teed off at 11:00 AM in the teeth of the heat and I just about passed out on the back side. I got light headed and had to sit for a minute to clear my head. I shot a 40+44=84, but totally ran out of gas at the end finishing double bogey-double bogey. It was a rough day for the field and my net 71 was good enough to tie for second place in my flight.

We went to Folsom Lake with Alicia and Don yesterday with the boys and relaxed on the beach. The boys took one run on the wake board and Darla took a nasty flip on the tube and got a nose full of water for her troubles. I relaxed at the beach and even got in a good nap. It was a veg day for me.

Well, that is it for this week. I will add some more pictures next week and also try to upload a video of Samantha on the little roller coaster train (she called it a "croller roaster"). I hope you are all well, enjoyed our day off from labor and are walking in the footsteps of our Lord. Ciao.