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.
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