New Year 2013 is Upon Us

The New Year hits on Tuesday and in looking back over 2012, it was a really good year for us. My business really came alive during the year and the hires that I have made after losing my top producer to a competitor have brought some top notch college graduates to the office. Our move in April allowed me to occupy a first class office building, which has helped with recruiting and with the general mood and atmosphere in the office. It is nice to work in a really nice office building and we have picked up our game since the move. I have one day left in December and we are already up over 55% in premium over December of 2011. Our goals for 2013 are pretty lofty, but doable with an overall uptick of 13.3% for the year in revenue.

2012 was also a very good year for Darla and I personally as we saw our two sons graduate from Cal Poly SLO and get on to jobs of their own. They are not yet working in their fields, but they are active and contributing to society by paying taxes to allow Obama to continue to shift wealth from workers to bums and drug addicts. How proud we all are to be part of the enabling of the "don't want to works", also know as committed Democrats. It will be a long four years, but I have already shifted a big portion of my retirement into precious metals for the coming problems in the economy brought on by rampant overspending of the government. I hope things continue to pick up.  I see it with my business as some of the infrastructure contractors (remodelers, communications, etc) are beginning to ramp up. It is my opinion that Obama does not want to gulf the fiscal cliff). He will blame Republicans for his own failure (what else is new) and then will lower taxes just for the middle and lower classes and extend unemployment (again) for the hundreds of thousands of workers that are out of work and not really looking for a job, but collecting unemployment (the so called "long-term" unemployed). It is getting old with this President. One of the drones of Obama, Bill Maher, said that he worries about the American Public because they aren't very smart. Proof positive based on the reelection of Barrack Hussein Obama.

We had our annual New Years dinner on Saturday and both of our guests had leads for David. Camille is the head of a 1000 person call center with PG&E and has David signing up on their recruiting site and using her as a referral. Rick has used the services of one of the largest architectural firms in Roseville as a contractor with the e state of California and knows the principal well. He asked for a copy of David's resume to forward to him. Networking is good.

The Cowboys laid an egg again in a "do or die" game in the NFL and it gets old. Jerry Jones stubbornly sticks to his guns as a GM and spend all off season trying to fix holes in the organization only to overpay for talent, ending up with broken down offensive linemen that can't stop false starting or holding and even when cheating, can't keep the defenders from raining on Romo. Randy has been off the Romo bandwagon for awhile, but statistically Romo is a top five quarterback  and my problem is that I live in Northern California and have watched the side show that is Alex Smith for years. He is a mediocre talent that can't throw the ball beyond about 12 yards with any accuracy. When he is "on" he throws for 175 yards and one touchdown. Romo averages 300 yards and two touchdowns a game. He needs a better offensive line and they need to improve their defensive line, especially their end play. The team needs a makeover, but quarterback is not the problem. The GM and his fumbling of the draft and free agency is the biggest issue.

Darla and I talked to Samantha on Face Time tonight with Jennifer. She showed us all of her toys and presents she got for Christmas and her birthday, including the princess castle that we bought for her.  She took us on a tour of her bedroom and the boys also bought her an art program that has a camera and attaches to your TV. You take a picture and then can trace it on your paper. She took a picture of herself and had it on her TV. It was great. She hasn't traditionally done well on Skype, but she did really well on the Face Time, which is on the iphone system. Jennifer and I both have iphones and we were able to hook it up tonight.

Our weather has finally turned for the better. We added another 4 inches of rain this last week and we are now up to 85% of our total annual rainfall which takes us through June of next year. The weather finally broke Saturday afternoon. I played golf Saturday under the threat of rain. It was overcast, but the rain never did materialize. I shot a surprise 39+40=79 at Diamond Oaks and took $9 from my friends. Boyd shot 84 and Darren had a 92. I will play golf on Tuesday at Diamond Oaks with the weekly group and then play Woodcreek on Saturday with my weekend group. Darren and I spotted a couple of Golden Eagles in the trees by the sixth hole. Darren got the picture above right before the eagle swooped from his branch and grabbed a frog in it's claws and the two of them took off for a meal.

Jennifer will be moving into an apartment in Pleasanton. She has signed a one year lease. It is probably the easiest town in the Bay Area for us to get to because we drive in from I-5 to 580 and down to Pleasanton. We miss all of the traffic in the Bay Area. I can't wait until Samantha gets moved here. The waiting is the hard part.

I work until about mid afternoon tomorrow and then Darla and I will head over to friends tomorrow night to ring in the New Year. It is late after watching the mess that was the Redskin-Dallas game and
I will sign off now to spend the last of the evening with my bride. I wish you all a prosperous and relationship filled new year. Be nice to each other and if need be, draw closer to God. In these days, it is the only thing that keeps me sane, the knowledge that God is in control. Ciao.

Christmas is Coming!

 

It is the calm before the storm. No, that's wrong, in truth the storm rolled in yesterday and we have wind, rain and more rain. This is one of the wettest years that I can remember. Our normal rainfall Jul 1 to date is 6 inches and we have received 10.24 inches to date. I know Dad and Shirley and folks in Seattle would laugh at us, but it does interfere with our golfing here in Northern California.

 

You can see from the picture above that Jennifer is here with us. Her job started last Monday and her boyfriend left for Virginia on Friday. She drove up Friday night and will be here until Wednesday morning, celebrating Christmas with us. She drove up to Yuba City today and had brunch with Jason, her friend that still comes up to Lake Almanor with us. Tomorrow she will meet Diane's other ex-husband, Bill, and her friend, Sarah, for lunch in Folsom. She is in the process of walking all of the sites that she will be working the next few weeks and has been on her computer since she arrived making notes and preparing for walking the sites with her Manager. Jennifer will then need to make arrangements to order materials and equipment for the construction job. She will work Wednesday and Thursday and then heads to Vegas Friday through Monday to hang out with Samantha. We Skyped with Sam on Friday and sang "Happy Birthday" to her. She was in a great mood and showed us some presents that she had. Jennifer will celebrate Sam's birthday and Christmas next weekend. Sam is with John and his family in Southern California for Christmas. Sam is 5 now and will start Kindergarten next Fall.

 

The other picture is of Darla's cousin, Brenda and her husband, Mark and daughter, Meghan. They were in town to celebrate Christmas with Mark's family and drove out to Roseville and had dinner with us at Sammy Hagar's restaurant downtown. It was a nice visit. They live in San Jose and we need to get out there to see them and Bob and Vicki.

 

We will have a houseful on Christmas Day with Darla's parents, Jennifer, David, Daniel and Darla's sister, husband and nephew, Luke. We are serving a Prime Rib (7 rib) and all of the trimmings. The boys will be over tomorrow night and we will open presents. We will also go to Christmas Eve service at church and sing Christmas carols and enjoy the Christmas sermon. We were going to go to service on Saturday night, but cancelled when Brenda was able to come by.

 

We had our Christmas party for work on Thursday at Sammy Hagar's restaurant in Roseville. The manager over at Sammy's was great and set up a deal for us to have a limited menu and add sodas and coffee and tea for an extra $2.50 and give each person a drink ticket for another $5.00. We were able to feed 22 of us for just a little over $400 with tax and tip included. We did our gift exchange where we draw numbers and you can steal. I was the first person to choose and at various times during the afternoon had a wine pack, a vodka pack, a set of binoculars, and a blanket. All of those were stolen from me and I ended up with a pizza maker. Darla took one look at it when I got home and said it was a space waster. I have one of my guys, a 23 year old, that really wanted it, so I will bring it to him on Wednesday. Our newest employee, Dylan, who will type policies for me and back up on Underwriting teams, was invited and will start for me on January 2nd. His first day, he ended up with a Grey Goose gift pack and a $50 gift card for Chicago Fire pizza.Not a bad first day. I bought $50 gift cards for everyone and set those up on a table and had everyone pick one as their number came up. The gift cards could be stolen as well and it was an amusing free for all as gifts and gift cards were taken at will. Each gift or card could be stolen twice and then were locked. I had about four of each card, so it was an interesting match. Darla and I ended up with both a gift card for Suede Blue, an upscale Roseville restaurant, and one for McCormick and Schmick's steakhouse.

 

Our office is doing great again in December and we are really on a roll at the end of the year. As of Friday, we were already 35% up over December of 2011. We are getting some good attention in Home Office for our recent run of success. Things are really going great as we wind up the year. I finished my budget on Friday and have figured in a 13% increase over 2012, which will be a record year for my office. I am a blessed man.

 

Well, that is it. I will be back at the keyboard next weekend for the last blog entry of the year. Darla and I will also be hosting a year end party for friends on Saturday night and we will fix another prime rib. New Years eve we have been invited to a party at Freida and Charlie's house in Granite Bay.We will have the same gang over on Saturday that we went to dinner with last week. It is basically the crew that we went to San Francisco with and John and Camille. We have invited Bob and Vickie from San Jose to join us, but don't really expect them. We invited them to stay in our extra bedroom. It would be nice if they could make it. Have a tremendous Christmas Day and God bless all of my family and friends. Ciao.

 

Jennifer is Back in California

Yep. Jennifer starts her new job tomorrow. Samantha is back in Vegas for now and Jennifer is keeping her apartment there until she can get to court  and get her moved to California. Her job is in Pleasanton (that's the office), but she is in charge of facilities from the Bay Area to the Oregon border. The facilities are T Mobile infrastructure and Jen will be working for an Independent Contractor that has a contract for the facilities with Ericcson Electric, which holds the contract to build and service these facilities. Jennifer is a Construction  Manager and will manage the team of electricians that are working at the sites. I asked her if she'll be rolling up her sleeves and doing some of the work herself. Her contract only allows her to supervise the electricians and not do any of the physical work herself. It is a really good job and her new boyfriend, McKenny, helped her arrange the job. He now works directly for Ericcson and did work for the Independent Contractor that Jennifer works for. She hopes to get on full time with Ericcson in the near future. In the meantime, this job is a very high paying position that will allow her to provide for her and Samantha.

Jennifer and McKenny drove up on Saturday afternoon to drop off her two cats, who will be here until they get moved into a house. Right now they are looking in Santa Rosa, although they are staying at an extended stay hotel in Pleasanton for the interim. Darla and I took them out to dinner at Ginger's, a Hawaiian style cafe in Roseville. McKenny got right into the theme as he ordered loco moco, a Hawaiian breakfast delicacy made from rice, beef patties, two eggs and brown gravy. There is also Spam loco moco, that he was smart enough to avoid. McKenny lived in Hawaii for two years and even drives a car that still has Hawaii plates. he seems like a really nice guy and Jennifer is rather taken with him. They drove home after dinner.

Jennifer will come and spend Christmas with us as Samantha will stay with Jon and they are visiting his family in Southern California. Jennifer had Samantha over Thanksgiving this year. She will work in the Bay Area this week and drive up on Friday and stay through Christmas. Samantha's birthday is this Friday and Jennifer won't see her until the weekend before New Years.

It is back to a series of rain and storms. I played golf yesterday afternoon after being pushed out of the house for one of Darla's Silpada parties. We teed off at noon right behind Dave and Wes, our old neighbors from Padgett Way. Missy, the wife and Mom was at my house with Darla handling the party. I played with Pamas and Paul and shot a 42+43=85. The rain came in on the back side and was pretty steady by the time we finished up. It was nice to get out and stretch my legs and the price was right. $35 at Morgan Creek Country Club with a cart and range balls thrown in. I had a bowl of their three meat soup before I teed off and it helped to warm up my bones.

Thursday night was the annual sale and Christmas party for the Diamond Oaks pro shop. I went over and bought some golf gloves and another pair of golf shoes. For that purchase I received three tickets for the drawing and promptly won a new Burton Signature Cart Golf bag. I have a brand new Ping bag and so I put the bag on Craigslist Friday night. The bag lists for $159 on the Burton website, but I found it online for $89.95. I priced it at $50 and had someone text me almost immediately to ask me to hold it for him. He came by Saturday morning and bought it for his father for $50. A good deal for him and for me.

I also bought a new flat screen TV for the master bedroom with the money I got from the Wade Cable award. We don't watch much television in the room, but I do tape Headlines on Monday nights on the Tonight Show. Darla always complained that the 20 inch TV we had was way too small, so I bought a 32" HDTV for the room. I can see sitting in there more often and watching TV before we go to sleep.

The company had us adhere to a corporate gift for our agents this Holiday season and would not pay for each branch to purchase individual gifts. What they ended up with was branded popcorn tins with caramel popcorn. I would have appreciated the three type popcorn tins, but they were not an option. The issue is that the tins are $24 each and I could buy similar popcorn at Costco for $16. The second problem is that it was ordered so late that we will not even receive it until tomorrow. One of my underwriters was bemoaning that fact this week, asking if she should sing the Little Drummer Boy ("I have no gifts to bring, pahrump a pum-pum-rump-a-pum-pum.") We will be running around this week delivering the booty to our agents.

Darla has her Christmas party for her Silpada gals on Tuesday night and I have again been banished from my own home. I will ride this one out at the casino in Lincoln. Thursday is my Christmas lunch for the office. We will go to Sammy Hagar's Island Bar and Grill in Roseville. That is our friends and us from the Golf Club at Sammy's on Friday night in the picture above. We will enjoy lunch and have our annual gift exchange, where we pick numbers and then pick wrapped gifts off of the table and they can be stolen by the next person or they can pick another off the table. I have $45 per employee to buy gift cards. I end up buying most of them from Costco where I can get two $50 gift cards for $80. I'll get about 6 different cards and have four of each to choose from and they will also be able to steal the gift cards. It makes for a lot of fun and can test some people's patience.

It was Shirley's birthday this weekend and we have Samantha's and Janelle's coming up this week. After the tragedy in Connecticut this week, it makes us appreciate our friends and family even more. There will likely be a rush to want to institute gun controls nationwide again, especially with the deaths of so many innocent children. The problem with that (and you can't get liberals to understand this), but criminals don't buy their guns from gun shops, they buy them out of trunks of cars with the serial numbers filed off. If the public would just look at countries that have armed citizens, they will see that criminal activity is almost non existent. The reason that criminal activity is rampant with firearms in this country is that the criminal rarely have to worry that their victims will fight back.

The above says it all. Well, that is it for this week. Have a relaxed and safe week this week as we all prepare to celebrate the birth of the Baby Jesus, our Saviour and Redeemer. Ciao.

Happy holidays Indeed!

Another week has gone by and another holiday party is in the books. I hosted our first Holiday Open House at work on Thursday night and it was a tremendous success. We had over 125 guests  come and enjoy the food, beverages and conversation. You can even see in the last picture that the bosses' wife even showed up and was part of the fun. I took the Executive Vice President, Ron,  of one of our largest retailers and his wife out to dinner after the party and Darla, Matt, Harvey and Pete joined us at Sammy's Rockin' Island Grill in Roseville for some dinner and conversation.

The top picture above is of my entire staff  and we are using this picture as our Holiday card this year. I enlarged the photo and used it in a photo card that I'll pick up on Tuesday at Costco. We had a great time and even met one of our company VPs for breakfast on Friday morning. Harvey stayed over Thursday night and spent a little time after breakfast with some of our newer employees. We had five of our insurance companies send Managers to our party and four of the five flew in and back on the same day, which was a tremendous honor to me. The party went really well and the food and drink were plentiful. I did not have to send anyone out to get more beer or wine and planned that well. Also, I had two of my carriers give me $250 which paid for all of the beverages.

The staff was great. I had spent time ahead of the party to coach them about making sure to meet and greet each of the guests as they came in and to offer to get them drinks . I also insisted that they remain engaged during the event and that I didn't want to see staff members visiting with each other and they were great about making people comfortable, doing tours of the office, and making sure that our guests were well taken care of.

Well, it has been a month since I was on the golf course. I didn't practice or do anything golf related in the four weeks and I let my heel heal (so to speak). After that kind of a layoff, the rest was evident this weekend. I had a golf board meeting on Saturday followed by golf at Morgan Creek Country Club. I hit a bucket of balls and chipped and putted before the round, but still managed to duck hook my first drive out of bounds. I lost four balls on the front side and shot a 45. I calmed down a little on the back side and shot a 42, but still lost two balls OB on the back. I was happy to have the Saturday round to prepare me for today's tournament, our last of the year. The Dallas-Cincinnati game was on and I sat in the restaurant and watched the first half before teeing off at 11:40 AM.  I hit four drives on the range and headed to the tee. I bogeyed the first hole and then ripped off six pars before bogeying 8 and 9 for a 39. The back side was similar with 4 straight pars followed by bogeys on 4 of the last 5 holes for a 40 and a total of 79. I was thrilled with the round, although I had numerous birdie chances that went unrewarded throughout the day. The short game is the first part of the game to suffer and although I only had one three putt on the day, I also only had four one putts. Bottom line is I took a month off, let my heal get better and then came back and took first place in my first tournament back with a net 68. Good stuff.

I got the Christmas lights up on Saturday afternoon after golf and also got a chance to wash my car. It is nice to have the lights up, the leaves gone and some really good weather after the storm last week. Today was mid sixties under a bright blue sky. The course took a beating last week with the 5 inches of rain in three days, but it is back to green and beautiful although still pretty wet. The rushing water on the course took out one of the foot bridges over the creek on number four. The water actually lifted the bridge up off it's pilings and moved it about a foot. That buckled the wood planks and they have some repairs left to do.

I have a number of Holiday lunches to attend this week and Darla and I will take Jeff and Linda out to dinner in Folsom on Tuesday night. I also have the IBA Sacramento Holiday party on Tuesday and will take another agency to lunch on Wednesday. Saturday we will get together with Neil and Lilly and enjoy a meal out again at Sammy's Bar and Grill here in Roseville.

Darla and I went out on the weekend and got her a new radio for her car that has Bluetooth capability. She got a cell phone ticket a couple of weeks ago and we needed to get her a new radio anyhow, so we combined the two and she now uses her radio to make and receive calls. Merry Christmas, Darla and Daniel gets some benefit out of it because he will take her car when we buy her a new SUV next year.

Well, that is it for this week. I hope you are all getting prepared to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ in a little over two weeks. Be well. Ciao.

We Survived the Deluge

 

We had a series of storms blow in over the last four days on the back of a Pineapple Express blowing in from Hawaii. We received about a third of our annual rainfall in those four days and almost 3 inches overnight. I had emptied the pool down to the bottom of the tile yesterday and it not only reached the coping, but the flowerbeds adjacent to the pool all overflowed and I ended up with both dirt and some bark chips floating in the pool. Always a fun event. The rain actually stopped this morning and I was able to get out and clean up the backyard of downed leaves, drain the pool and clean up the spa and clean out the filters and drains on the pool. The job in the front yard of raking up and piling the leaves was made easier by the wet leaves and no wind. Working with wet leaves is certainly easier, especially when you are piling them on the street. The "claw" will be along tomorrow and will pick up all of the leaves and haul them away. Nice to see all of the bare trees after this storm. There are still quite a few leaves on the roof along the flashing that will eventually find their way to the ground.

We did have the Christmas party for the Golf Club last night. Darren and Marissa were supposed to join us for their first experience with the club's holiday party, but Marissa fell ill after contacting some illness on the flight home from Dallas last week. She was having trouble breathing and Darren took her to the 24 hour Emergent Care on Saturday morning. Darla and I went over at 6:30 and had a great night with Rick and Jan, Tim and Sue, Dick and Denise and Neil and Lilly. I was lucky enough to win the "Wade Cable" Award, which is the lifetime achievement award for the club. It is the award that is given annually to a board member who has been a valuable board member for a sustained period of time. I have been a board member now for 9 of the last 11 years and  guess it was my turn in the barrel. Neil, Rick, Charlie and Gary are all past winners of the award. Wade Cable was a board member and his son set up an annual award after his death in the seventies that honors a board member each year. The award comes with a nice plaque and a $250 stipend. I also won two free rounds at Diamond Oaks in the door prize drawing. We stayed until about 11 PM and enjoyed a few adult beverages as well as some dancing during the evening.

I'm very proud of Darla as she promoted up at the end of November with Silpada to a Silver Manager. I'm not exactly sure what the parameters are for the promotion, but she has two of her team that are now Star Leaders (her prior title) and she had to have a certain amount of dollar income from herself and her team. She was sweating it right up until 10 PM on Friday night. She texted me while I was at poker to say she hit the mark. There are only two Silver Managers in all of Northern California and her percentage goes up on her team's earnings. She is thrilled and i am very happy for her. When that girl puts her mind to something, she gets it done.

We finished the month at work with an increase of over 65% in premium increase and 54% in net income increase over November of 2011. We ended up number two in the entire company in percentage increase for revenue in November. We were second to an office that writes half of what we write. We were also up over $80,000 in income and second to New Orleans, which is a $60,000,000 branch. I am absolutely thrilled and blessed to have such a great and hard working staff.  We will host a Holiday Party on Thursday night and have over 125 guests coming to see our new space and enjoy some appetizers and libations. I also have about 6 company executives coming in for the party. Harvey will be here and i am taking one of our $1,000,000 agencies out to dinner. Ron is a member of the golf club and also a VP with a large national insurance brokerage. I invited Ron to dinner after our event and also invited his wife. Darla will join us and we will have dinner at Sammy Haggar's Rockin' Island Grill in Roseville. Darla has not met Harvey and it will be a good opportunity for them to visit on Thursday night.

Jennifer sent me a text this week that she has accepted a job in the Bay Area. She is dating a guy who is moving to the Bay Area to take a job and I can only imagine that he hooked her up with the same company. I think it is Ericsson Electronics, but I'm not sure. I asked her by text if she had told John yet and she said she had. Apparently, they have a mediation appointment with the courts and then the courts will decide if Jennifer can take Samantha to California. We are thrilled and hope it all works out for her and Samantha. I enjoy visiting Las Vegas, but think that it is a lurid, horrible town to raise children. There is nudity all over buses, billboards and signs all over town. Samantha so far has not been adversely effected by the town, but as she gets older, it will be harder and harder to keep her innocent.

Jennifer and Samantha will fly out on January 4th to visit with us and to see an animatronics show at Sleep Train Arena. The show is "How to train your dragon" and stars Astrid, the little girl that she dressed up as for Halloween. We haven't seen them since mid August when we were in Vegas to see them for Jennifer's birthday. Darla and I leave for Waikiki on January 8th and will be there for five nights on her annual Soar trip. Next year is Panama and Darla is well on her way to qualifying for that trip. She has until June of 2013 to qualify and is well on her way.

Well, that is it for this week. I hope all is well in your world. I will make sure to wear plenty of sunscreen in Hawaii. Dad has been diagnosed with skin cancer again and got yelled at by his doctor for his dark tan coming home from Mexico. He was wearing 75 SPF sunscreen, but the years of exposure to the sun are catching up to him. Be well. Ciao.

Thanksgiving for Everything in Life

 

We had an awesome weekend, with some family time on Thanksgiving and then some alone time on our trip Friday and Saturday to Half Moon Bay. You can see the leaves that we came back to from Hawaii. It is about to come to an end as the trees across the street are almost bare. The liquid ambers on the side yard are a little behind on losing their leaves and I'll be working those leaves for a few more weeks. You can see the picture of Lucas with Papa above from Thanksgiving. It was one of the only pictures with his pacifier out of his mouth and I am not a fan of those things. I was very happy when Samantha finally gave hers up.

 

The second picture is from our dinner on Friday night at Sam's Chowder House on the Cabrillo Highway (Highway 1) in Half Moon Bay. They are known for their clam chowder and for their lobster rolls, who no less an authority that Good Morning America has listed as one of the top 5 sandwiches in the United States. They happened to have a singer from Thunder Bay, Ontario Billy Manzik playing in the bar and we were seated in the bar for our dinner. As I listened to his music, I made the comment that it would make great traveling music and that we should buy a CD. When Darla went up at a break to buy the CD, Billy said to her, "the CD is really good traveling music." The CD was actually made when he was part of a group of musicians and the extra instruments are actually a slight improvement over his acoustic set he was doing in the bar.

 

The third picture down is of the beach at Half Moon Bay, where we went Saturday morning and relaxed at the beach. It was a little breezy, so we decided to take our sandwiches which we bought at the San Benito Inn where we stayed Friday night with us to San Francisco. I was looking for a nice spot overlooking the city and we found Grand View Park which is near San Francisco State university and is actually a high hill that you have to climb up to. Darla counted the stairs and there were 22 per flight and seven flights up to the park. There is one bench at the apex of the hill and we sat there and enjoyed our sandwiches.

 

The final picture is of the sitting room in our suite at the San Benito Inn. We had a Groupon, which is an online coupon for travel and services, that I bought in January. I bought the Groupon for a two night stay in a queen room at the San Benito Inn, but the Romance Suite was available when we checked in and we upgraded for $50 a night to the two room suite with a private bath. The original room was with a shared bathroom. The suite is really nice with hardwood floors, an upgraded bathroom and a large overstuffed bed with antiques and artwork in the room. that was the good part. The bad part was the unending noise from the bar below. The Romance suite is on the street side of the Inn and directly over the bar. Apparently the bar is one of the only hangouts for locals in the area and it used to stay open until 2 AM, but the new owners have changed the hours to close at midnight because of the noise for the inn's guest. They actually turned down the music at 10 PM, but Darla and I were done after just the one night. The noise was deafening and the "F" bombs being dropped by one drunk patron were not adding to the "Romance" feeling of the suite if you get my drift. We checked out after breakfast and were given a refund of the second night's stay. The Inn is really charming, but the 120 year old building just doesn't have the acoustics of newer buildings and sound tends to travel. One of our issues is that the suite does not have a television or stereo and there is no way to mute the noise from the bar.

 

The town itself is really cute with restaurants and shops lining main Street. Dad and Shirley: it would be like spending the night in an Inn in Fort Langley. Darla and I walked the strip and ended up buying some books from the used book store in town. Darla found a nice jacket that she decided to go back and buy on Saturday morning, but the shop owner never showed up. I look at it that she saved $100, but she was disappointed. We got home at about 4:30 Saturday and I washed the car before we went to church. Today, we just relaxed and watched football and I had a nap in the afternoon.

 

Jennifer and Samantha joined her Mom in Southern California for Thanksgiving at Diane's husband's family's house in Redlands. Jennifer is dating a guy from Southern California and they all get together for dinner. They were driving back to Las Vegas this afternoon. 

 

The results this month at work are epic. As of Friday, we are up 35% over November of 2011 with a full week left to go. Things are really clicking and it is really rewarding to see the hard work that my staff has been doing paying off so handsomely for all of us. We even were able to withstand the loss that we had to pay for ourselves and it is basically a non factor on our profitability because we are up so dramatically this month. We are still working on the Holiday Open House that will be held on Thursday December 6th. We are still working on the menu and the guest list. Shawna received a quote of $3500 from one of the local restaurants and I had a good laugh over appetizers for 150 for $3500. We can and will do better than that. it is not a sit down dinner for 150 for God's sake.

 

I have been off of golf for three weeks and will get back in the saddle weather permitting next Saturday. The layoff has been good for my heel and it feels much better. Hopefully, the worse is behind me. Time will tell.

 

Well, that's it for this week. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and have much to be thankful in your life. I'll be back at the keyboard next Sunday. Our RGC Christmas party is next Saturday night and so it begins. Ciao.

Kona Hawaii 2012

 

Obviously, a lot of pictures from the trip. We had a ball. The hotel we stayed in for the Park, Sleep and Fly was fabulous, in Millbrae and had underground, secured parking for the week and the total cost was less than $140. The trip to the airport on Monday from the hotel was flawless, although the driver of the van was listening to the Steve Harvey radio show and there was a bit on it where they take letters from the audience to a therapist and one lady had met a guy online, met him in the city, didn't like him, had sex and got bruised and hurt. Steve Harvey was merciless on this woman, telling her that she should have run when she thought he was ugly, but let "Robbie Rough" take her to bed and cause her pain and suffering. That she was ignorant and careless. The driver was embarrassed, but the 12 riders on board wouldn't let him turn it off.

The condo on Kona was a block from the beach and two blocks to the restaurants and shops on Ali'i Drive. The condo had two bedrooms with a Junior suite in the back with it's own mini kitchen and bathroom. Darla and I claimed that. It had it's own lanai outside the room with a table and chairs and was nice and quiet. The boys like to stay up late and we couldn't hear the TV from there. The condo was stocked with boogie boards and snorkel gear, beach umbrellas and coolers. Darla's brother, Steve, lives just five minutes east of the condo and we were able to get extra snorkels, boogie boards and umbrellas from him. Our flight was delayed from 9 AM until 11:30 on Monday, so we relaxed at the airport and started on our vacation books.  It was mid afternoon when we finally got in and we set up camp in the condo and then went down to the city front and found a nice pizza place to have an early dinner (we were two hours ahead on our stomach's clocks). We then went and did our grocery shopping for the week, loading up on milk, sodas, chips, breakfast items, lunch meats and some hamburger for tacos one night for dinner.

Tuesday we checked out the area, driving down to a snorkel spot and relaxing at the beach. We drove home for lunch (barbecued hot dogs) and then took the boogie boards out for a trip to Magic Sands beach. We relaxed back at the condo and had dinner. Wednesday was our ATV ride and we decided to be up early for the ninety minute ride to Waipaio. We wanted to stop halfway up and have breakfast at Hawaiian Style Cafe that was highly recommended by a co worker. The food was enormous, excellent and the service lightning fast. The pancakes were plate sized and the omelet's 4 eggs. David and Daniel both opted for Hawaiian fare with Portuguese sausage and brown gravy over their eggs. Odd. Darla and I stuck with traditional fare, although Darla had the Macadamia nut and banana pancakes. Good stuff.

We were lucky enough to get an ATV ride with just our family and two guides. The property is a 600 acre cattle ranch and their land extends from the ocean up to the mountains above. We rode up into the ranch lands encountering a small herd of wild Wapaio horses and some donkeys along the way. The ranch is huge and has 300 head of cattle on the ranch. They also have three large ponds of tilapia fish that they raise and sell to the restaurants. From there we ventured back to the barn and loaded up on bananas, sodas and snacks. We took those with us and headed to the lower part of the ranch along the coast. You can see some of the pictures from the coast after the ATV shots above. We were out for three hours and finished up tired, but thrilled with the experience. From there we drove into town and had lunch at the Big Tex drive-in, famous for their malasadas, which are a Portuguese doughnut rolled in sugar. Eaten hot, they are downright tremendous. We drove from lunch to Akaka Falls and then on to Hilo before heading home.

Thursday was another beach and snorkel day and we drove about 45 minutes to "Two Steps" beach, so named because the beach has two steps that have been worn into the lava and is a perfect spot to get into the water with your snorkel gear. I'm not big on the whole snorkel experience and tend to take on too much salt water. The boys and Darla were in the water for hours and I ventured out about 20 feet, saw the sights, and was back out of the water in about ten minutes. There was a large sea turtle that found it's way up on to the lava rock for a nap.

Friday, we relaxed in the morning and I made a quick trip to the pool for a mid morning nap before we made our way out to a beach with some sandwiches and had lunch. From there we drove the three hours to Kilauea Volcano, stopping at the famous black sand beach along the way. We stopped in the National Park to see the large lava tube that is an easy hike that you can walk through and then up to the crater where the steam and lava is in evidence. We went after dark at Steve's suggestion and were able to see the red glow that shines up from the crater at night. It was about 50 degrees there and you can see us in coats and long pants. From there  we drove back and stopped for dinner at the southernmost tip of the United States and had dinner at Hana Hou cafe, the southernmost restaurant in the United States. It is a restaurant and bakery and was packed with locals singing and dancing with the two man band at the front of the restaurant. Darla met a guy who bought a gated property. He said it has three cattle gates on the property and was as close as he'd get to a gated community.

We spent the weekend with Steve and Kirsten, spending Saturday at Kau beach where you can see the boys and Steve going boogie boarding and Darla and Kirsten trying to ruin a perfectly good nap for me. We went to their house for dinner Saturday and played bocce ball at the park across from their home before dinner. Steve then cooked ribs for us on the barbecue. Sunday we went back to Magic Sands before going to dinner at Lu Lu's in Kona. The boys went to the Kona Brewery after dinner and Darla and I went back to relax and pack for our trip home.

It was a great trip. We put over 600 miles on the rental car, a Chevy Traverse with seating for 8. We planned our food just right and had just a few condiments and some snacks for Steve and Kirsten. I will be back at the computer this weekend, but Darla and I are off to a two night stay at a Victorian Bed and Breakfast in Half Moon Bay Friday and Saturday. I hope you are all well and living a happy and healthy life. Ciao.