The Rain has finally arrived in Northern California..Praise God!!

A day late and my brother is already harassing me. I had to work today, Saheeb. It is Winter and the weather finally decided to mirror that fact. The rain rolled in on Friday and it rained off and on all weekend. We had a good drenching on Friday night, replete with wind and cold and it left a lot of downed tree limbs and debris for me to clean up on Saturday. I cleaned up around the house between storms, cleaned out the pool, unblocked one downspout and cleaned out the other gutters. I'm glad I did it, but we had another big storm last night and there are branches and junk all over again. At least the gutters worked well. The storms are supposed to peter out tonight and it will dry out over the next week. We got about two inches of rain out of this system and it was long overdue.
I also changed out the light fixture in the laundry room. It was the light fixture from the kitchen when we first moved in and the ballast was going on it. I tried to take the diffuser off and it was so brittle that I couldn't get it to lift off the base. I went to the internet and saw a posting that said you may as well go ahead and break it now as it would happen two hours later. I finally just took the whole thing down and replaced it with another chrome light fixture with two neon bulbs for $33. The cost to change out the ballast was $22.50 and their were two of them on the four bulb system. It looks nice and took me less time than trying to mess with the current wood light fixture that I took out of the kitchen because I thought it looked cheap. Darla is happy to have light in there instead of the flickering hum of a broken ballast.
Saturday night we watched Sanctum, a good film about underwater caving in Papua New Guinea. It is based on a true story wherein a huge storm caused portions of the cave to collapse as they were exploring it and the race to get back to the surface. It was directed by James Cameron and is worth a few hours of your time. Darla and I watched it on HBO. That night we were awakened by our alarm system at 4:20 in the morning, blaring and blasting away. The odd thing is that the alarm was not set. It turns out that the fire alarm went off because of a dusty smoke detector attached to the system. We were able to disarm the alarm after about ten minutes looking up the code. It was deafening inside and out. Oddly, we had no police show up and no neighbors heard anything. That's a comforting thought. We need to get up and clean out the smoke detector. It went off one other time when we were having the whole house fan installed and the construction debris (wallboard and dust, etc) rained down on the smoke detector below the fan. That isn't something you want to wake up to. Trust me.
I did not get out to golf this weekend and missed it, although my golf elbow appreciated the respite. I have a tournament on Sunday with 108 players and that is why the Blog got missed last night. I watched the two football playoff games after sleeping in Sunday morning (after the fun of the alarm at 4:30). I had to give Neil all of the player's handicaps and tournament handicaps, adjust the white and red players' handicaps and send that across to him. I got done at 9:30 and decided the Blog could wait until tonight.
As to the football, it should be a good Super Bowl with a replay of the 2009 Patriot-Giant slugfest that saw the Giants beat the unbeaten Patriots in surprising fashion. The Pats should have plenty of motivation and I see them winning this one in a fairly high scoring affair. I swear I have tried to see some good in Alex Smith of the Forty Niners. He had a great year and made very few mistakes, but an NFL QB that throws for 197 yards a game and one TD on average is hard to like. Alex Smith was the 19th ranked QB in the league this year, right behind that All Pro Rex Grossman of the Washington Redskins. Alex had a career game against the Saints and played a very good game, but was still outplayed by Drew Brees who had 470 yards passing in the game to Alex' 299. Granted, Alex won the game and made two great drives when it counted. He failed on Sunday with the game on the line. In the 4th quarter he had four straight three and out drives and looked like a scared rabbit as he ran around the pocket either afraid to throw or throwing the ball into the turf. He ended the game 12 0f 26 (46%) for two tds and no interceptions. He didn't make any mistakes, but didn't do anything to help his team. Eli Manning, on the other hand, was 32 of 58 for 316 yards and two tds. I really like the Niners defense, offensive line, running back and tight end, but overall their passing game is what hurts them. Alex Smith made a huge turnaround this year with Harbaugh preaching ball safety and no turnovers.
As a Dallas fan I'd love to see what Harbaugh could do with Tony Romo. Romo's biggest fault is that he takes too many chances with the ball. His stats are great, but he loses games by his street ball mentality. Smith is a cerebral quarterback, where Romo is a great athlete, so apples and oranges, but if Harbaugh can shine that turd with Smith...
Ah, next year. The eternal cry of the loser and right where both Dallas and SF are. By the way, I hear that SF stands for Stop Fumbling. Poor Kyle Williams, nobody knew who he was before yesterday and now he's in line for a share of the Giant's Super Bowl money. He'd probably drop it if they gave it to him anyhow. I know, the jokes are out there. The poor guy had death threats from his own fans last night. I think he and Billy Cundiff could get together and trade sob stories. Both games were tight and came down to mistakes. I would tell any SF fan that the silver lining here is that the Niners are still undefeated in Super Bowls at 5-0. If they'd beat the Giants, New England was ready to pounce. If Eli went for 316 yards against the Niners in the Niner's house, Brady was looking at 400 and 3 or 4 TDs in Indy. It is just too bad that the Packers and Saints got knocked out. They had the best teams in the NFC, but any given Sunday.
My assistant shocked me last week when she turned in her resignation. Her husband had gone back to the Philippines last year and they had a long distance relationship. She was considering what to do with her life and if she would stay here and go on alone, but her family talked her into moving back home and giving it a go. She leaves her two college aged children behind, which is hard for her, but knows it is time to put her energy into her marriage. The kids are moving on with their lives and she would have soon realized that she was truly alone here in the United States. Her husband has a thriving Import business in Manila and he just opened a Thai restaurant in the financial district with a partner, so things are good for him. I'll miss her, but I am excited for my friends to repair their marriage and have a chance for happiness.
Well, I stayed late tonight to work on this and get it in the can. Darla is waiting at home, so I am on my way home. We have been studying how to have a better life, marriage, home and neighborhood at church and Saturday night the big secret was revealed. To be in a better marriage, you have to be a better husband, to have a better relationship with your kids, you have to be a better parent. To live in a better neighborhood, you have to be a better neighbor. A simple concept, but one that not too many people get. I hope you are all doing well. Until next week,Ii bid you adieu. Ciao.