Cooler June weather and we will enjoy it while it lasts

The weather has turned cool after the HEAT of last weekend. I had an early tee time on Saturday and we teed off with coats and jackets on. We had a high of 78 degrees on Friday, 80 on Saturday and 83 today. The heat is expected to come back later in the week and we will be back to the 90's by next weekend. The 80's are actually very comfortable for doing yard work and chores. I mowed the lawn yesterday and took advantage of the unseasonable weather to put down some fertilizer. I also cleaned the patio tables and chairs and Darla and I bought new chair pads for the chairs. I used CLR and it was amazing on both the glass and the frames of the tables and chairs. I used some leftover of the CLR and hot water mix to clean the spa cover as well.

I added some pictures from the Pismo trip as we had more. You can see Sam and David completely enjoying themselves at the beach, although you wouldn't know that the wind is blowing the sand sideways. It was a great time, although I feel bad about missing the ceremony over at the college.

As I have passed the age of 50 and begun to feel more of the aches and pains that accompany getting older, I have been lucky to avoid some of the more serious ailments like lack of sleep, stomach issues and things like constipation. The latter creeped up on me this last week. I've never had a problem like this before and have been on a stool softener since Friday. I talked to the advice nurse at Kaiser on Thursday and she suggested I try a stool softener. I went to Wal Mart Friday and it was the only thing I had to buy. Thank God they had a self check-out lane. I had visions of a price check on Colace Stool softener being broadcast to the entire store. I did some research on the problem and found a hilarious story about magnesium citrate and it's effects. Here is the link and I strongly encourage a look at it, but don't do it in your office as you'll be howling with laughter: www.poopreport.com/consumer/magnesium_citrate.html

I have made it through the weekend with little relief and being on a laxative is not the best thing if you have to leave the house for any reason. I had to leave Darren on the 4th tee at Woodcreek and run to the restroom. I had a cart thankfully as I got a $42 deal and it was $37 to walk. With the cool weather we both decided to ride. Good plan. Although I'm still backed up, the Colace causes water to be absorbed into the colon and both the large and small intestine and the idea is it will soften any blockage. What happens in the meantime is massive amounts of liquid pass through you as you wait for the brick to soften and move out of your system. When it is time, there is no opportunity to relax and take your time, alacrity is needed and you need a bathroom NOW. Darla and I walked up to the store this morning and I just made it to Bel Air before the "urge to purge" overcame me. Luckily there was no one in the bathroom. If it had been locked, I would have had a problem. 

Darla's sister has chronic problems in this area and David, who is home, met them for a day on the lake wake boarding today. Darla had shared my predicament with Alicia and she is sending some magic elixir home with David. It supposedly works overnight. Luckily I work close to home. Right now I'm just looking forward to farting again.

Darla and I leave Thursday night for San Francisco. We have been married for 16 years and have never taken an overnight trip to the city before. We are going with Neil and Lilly, Rick and Jan and Steve and Brenda. The guys will play the Presidio Golf course on Friday. We then stay over in the city at the Harbor Court Hotel on the Embarcadero and about a mile to AT&T Park. Rick and Steve both set their reservations for Thursday to Saturday nights. We got a great rate of $115 a night and when Neil and I tried to add Thursday night, the hotel wanted $289 for just Thursday night. We got the deal through hotelscheap.org and the Harbor Court rack rate is $289. We decided to just stay off the 80 freeway in the Bay area and found an Extended Stay hotel for $80 a night and Neil and Lilly and Darla and I will stay there Thursday night and meet the others at the golf course. After golf, we will check into the hotel, get cleaned up and head over to Mo Mo's, a restaurant across the street from the Giant's ballpark for dinner. We then have tickets for the Giant's-Red's game at 7:15 PM. Saturday, we have tickets to the night cruise to Alcatraz and will bundle up for the boat ride and tour of the old prison. During the day, we will hang out at Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf. We will get an early start back to Roseville on Sunday and relax by the pool.

I will play golf Saturday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday this week before relaxing in San Francisco over the weekend. My index is down to 10.2 and could drop back into single digits again soon. I shot 37 at our twilight league on Thursday night and that included a birdie- birdie- triple bogey- birdie stretch. It was skin night, but this league has golfers with 16 handicaps (for 9 holes!) I get 5 strokes, but my birdies were all matched by stroke players. Oh well. I did come back to earth on Saturday and shot a constipation fueled 86 at Woodcreek. Tuesday is the second of our midweek tournaments at the club. I had to miss the first one because of work, but have some company clients coming in Tuesday night and will be out to dinner that night, so decided to play this time. I have the first tee time (8:02 AM) with Neil and will be into the office by 1:00 PM.

So far, neither of the boys have arranged a job yet and so I ask for your prayer. Daniel actually graduated early in December and still hasn't found work. I suggested they both head to South Dakota and work the oilfields. They are paying roustabouts $30 an hour and will pay $45 per hour for someone with a flatbed truck. So far, they don't think that is feasible. Hopefully (like my situation), something will break loose soon.

That is it for this week, I hope everyone had a great first week of Summer. We are loving the cooler weather here. Be well. Ciao.

Father's Day and Two Sons are College Graduates, ...now "Get A Job!!"

I am finally back to the blog after a week off. My intention was to get a post done this week, but I was tired on Monday after driving back from San Luis Obispo. It was hot and Darla and I just relaxed on the pool. Tuesday, my CEO was in the office and I had one of the Directors from Home Office in my office until Friday. Once the week slipped away from me I decided to just wait until today to get the post completed.

We had a ball in San Luis Obispo and stayed in a King Suite at the Pismo Beach Resort. It turns out that our condo was just down the street from the RV Park that Darla's parents were staying in and it was a coincidence as I had done the reservation months before. We got into the resort about 6:30 and had to take a detour as Highway 41 was closed due to a bad accident Friday afternoon.We met Earl and Frances, Darla's folks, and had a late dinner with them at the local Mexican food restaurant.  Jennifer and Samantha were coming in as well, but didn't get out of Vegas until 4 PM. She ended up driving a friend's truck over because she has a tire that needs to be replaced. They finally rolled in about midnight and Samantha, who was fast asleep woke up and was bouncing up and down on our bed within minutes of waking up. Jennifer's friend's truck has a bad ding in the rear bumper and the tailgate can't be opened. You have to jiggle the key in the lock to get the rear window open so you can access the rear compartment. More on that later.

Saturday, we were up a little later. Samantha woke up and wanted to go the beach. San Luis and Pismo runs about 70 degrees in June and the winds are fairly consistent, especially in the afternoon. We wanted to get over to see Darla's parents and there were some ducks and sea gulls that hang out at a small lake behind our resort. We brought some bread along and you can see the picture of Sam feeding the birds. We went from there over to the RV park and saw Earl and Frances.Samantha played at the playground on site as we visited. David came over to see us and our plan was to go to the beach and relax in the sun.  We did walk down to the beach, but the wind was up and we tried to find a spot above the bluffs to get out of the wind, but it was very difficult and the wind was blowing the sand onto our blanket, onto us and into our eyes. Samantha didn't care. She was running through the sand, making sand angels, running on the beach with Jennifer and David. Darla and I were miserable and walked back to the resort to sit by the pool until they got back and then we'd fix hot dogs for lunch. The kids followed pretty shortly after us, although Samantha wanted to stay. There is quite a draw of the beach for kids, especially ones that live in the desert.

Saturday night, we accepted an invitation from Steve, David and Daniel's father, to come to a barbecue at his rented beach house in Morro Bay. The house he rented was two stories with five bedrooms and was situated right across the street from the beach. Jennifer, Samantha and Daniel, who we saw for the first time as he was coming back from Becky's graduation from Grad school in Los Angeles, walked across the street to the beach and walked out on the pier.They had a full house with cousins, aunts, uncles and other family all staying at the home. We had a good time and stayed until about 9 o'clock.

Sunday was graduation day and we decided to miss the combined graduation ceremony and just go the individual ceremonies for the Agriculture and the Engineering schools. Jennifer had an 8 hour drive and decided to drive herself and leave from the school. I pulled her truck over closer to the condo. As we were loading the truck, I took the keys and was jiggling the key in the back lock to open the glass. I couldn't get it to open and took the keys in and just loaded the bags over the seat. As we were leaving for the graduation, Jennifer went out to the car and noticed that her key was broken. She came in and showed me the key and told me I broke it. I was shocked. We looked in the back lock and saw the half of the key stuck in the lock. We called AAA and sent Darla on with her folks to the ceremony. The locksmith took almost 45 minutes to get there and another 35 minutes to extract he half key and make a replacement key for the truck. He ended up making two and the cost was $195, $100 of which was paid by AAA. We missed the ceremony and I took Jennifer and Samantha over to the park to feed the ducks and then over to the big playground to burn off some energy before they left for Vegas. I then took them out to lunch in Pismo.

We went to the Cracked Crab and had clam chowder and Jennifer had crab salad for lunch. I had fish and chips. They had a crab tank and while Samantha was looking at the crabs in the aquarium, the chef came out with a big pot and took the crabs out so Sam could see them. He let Sam touch the bottom of the crab and when she did, Jennifer yelled "boo!" behind her. She of course jumped and one of the busboys was watching over by our table where I was sitting and he said, "Man, that's just messed up." That is my daughter. The chef told Samantha that one of the crabs was already named "Crabby" and he needed her to come up with a name for the other one and it was a girl. Sam thought a bit and said "Shelly". Not bad, eh? They left for Vegas shortly after.

Darla and her parent's and Uncle J.R. got back about 2 PM and J.R. invited me over to this place in Nipomo to play golf at his club, Black Lake. It is a course that I think once was probably really nice, but maintenance and water issues have cost the course some of it's former glory. I enjoyed the round and shot an 84, with a 41 on the back side. J.R. shot about 90 and we had a good time together, finishing our round in about 3 and a half hours. We then met Darla, her parents, and the boys and Becky at JJ Bumps Saloon in San Luis Obispo at 7 PM for dinner.

Jennifer decided to let Samantha see more of the ocean and took the 101 down to the 210 in Los Angeles and worked her way back to Vegas from there. They got home about 8:30.

Darla and I took a slow trip home on Monday, stopping in Paso Robles for breakfast and getting home about 3:30 PM. Tuesday, I had to go to my doctor to have her look at my ear, that had an exterior infection that started as a sunburn. The skin broke open and I kept putting suntan lotion on it and it got infected. My doctor put me on antibiotics for a week and wanted to look at it again on Monday. She didn't like the way it was healing, although I felt much better as the pain and swelling was gone. I went over to see the dermatologist Tuesday afternoon and he put me on a topical antibiotic that I'll apply over the next three weeks and then see me again.

Tuesday night I picked up Alan. I had on slacks and a golf shirt and had brought a dress shirt to change into. I was going to change in the cell phone lot and Pete and I got yakking and I forgot and met him in my Nike golf shirt. He had no reaction, but I'm sure it bothered him. We met Harvey at the hotel and went to a late dinner at Tahoe Joe's. I did change into the dress shirt before we left.

The trip went pretty well. We saw an agent for breakfast, one at lunch and a group for dinner. In between we had our meetings. Alan praised our office for the great 2011 we had and the momentum that we have going in 2012. He then told us three or four things that he feels we can do to improve our mix of business and the agents we do business with. I have said that my definition of marketing is not what you say, but how you say it. For instance, You can tell a woman that she has a face that could stop a clock OR you can take the hand of that same woman and tell her that when you gaze into her eyes, time stands still. You've said the same thing, but likely would get two entirely different reactions. The message was received.

I did get out this weekend, despite the 100 degree temperatures and played golf. Darren and I teed off at 6:30 PM and were done by 9:45. Darren is amazing. He rarely plays golf, but shot 42 on the front nine to my 43. I did play great on the back nine and shot a 38 for 81. Darren showed his rust on the back with a 46 and shot 88. The heat is expected to hang around most of this week and I have a 6:44 tee time at Woodcreek next Saturday morning.

Well, a lot to digest this week, but you got a double dose because of the missing post last week. I hope you all have a great week and Happy Father's Day to everyone! Ciao.

Warm Weekend in Nor Cal and Lucas Turns Two

We did get our new "3 day Closet" installed last week and Darla is THRILLED. You can see the tight squeeze we had before with hanging clothes on both sides of the closet and the mess that we ended up having. I think we had given up trying to organize the closet and just sort of jammed things in. We had talked about having a shelving unit built into the closet before and finally pulled the trigger. It looks good and really cleaned up the space and we actually have additional room now for more clothes. We did really go through and thin the herd on our clothes and this allowed us to get our shoes up off the floor and into shelves.

The weather did heat up this weekend and we saw highs in the mid nineties . The weather will rather quickly drop down to the seventies tomorrow with a storm system coming through. Tomorrow is our golf tournament for the Independent Agents Association and it will be the second year in a row that we will face rain. Both of the two agents that were supposed to play on my team this year (along with Matt) had to drop out and I added two agents from one of our fastest growing agencies. I just received an e-mail today from one of them dropping out. We will just play with three and take turns hitting an extra shot as this is a scramble tournament.

We had a tremendous May at work and it is good timing as our CEO will be in town next week. We were up about 16% overall and I'm happy that so far, the loss of my top producer has had a a negligible effect. Time will tell as to what the ultimate effect is for us, but we were proactive and met with each of the principals of our largest agencies that worked with Anthony and made sure they were on board with the direction of Burns. They were and all told me that they had no plans to move any of our business and would continue to use us as usual and so far so good.

The office is slowly rounding into shape as we now have the rest of the build out on the cubicles completed and most of the touchup items in the office have been completed. We finally got all of the marketing supplies and mail room items put away. (We don't have a mail room anymore or a file room.) I've had a few companies come to visit and a few retailers come in to see our new digs and everyone has very nice things to say about the changes.

I didn't play golf on Saturday and spent the day working on the yard and pool. I cleaned the tile with a toothbrush and acid (it is the best way to clean up the calcium deposit on the tile) and vacuumed and balanced the chemicals. I then added water to the spa and balanced the water. We were getting a lot of foaming and I bought a de-foamer and shocked the water to add oxygenation. It is a used spa and I did not get an owner's manual with the purchase. I was playing with the control panel, trying to reset the clock and program the system. I hit the wrong buttons and completely locked the panel. We couldn't turn on any of the jets and the panel was locked. Thank God for the internet as I was able to go online and find a free pdf of the owner's manual and figured out how to unlock the panel. The internet is an amazingly useful tool at times.

I played golf today in the NCGA Net Amateur qualifier. I played pretty well, but had one bad hole. I hooked a ball into the hazard on the par 5 6th hole and then also knocked my next ball into the hazard. I was hitting 5 from 250 years out and ended up slapping the ball around for a 9 and suffered a 45 on the front side. When we came around to number nine which is right next to the number two tee box, I noticed that the blue tees had been moved 25 yards down to the white tee box. It was a mystery to us until we figured out that one of the crazy homeowners on the course had walked onto the course and moved the blocks so his house wouldn't get hit by balls hooked off the tee. He walked up behind us, the first group, and moved the tees. I played with Neil and he was furious. It turns out he had chatted with the homeowner and unknown to him, the guy walked through his gate and up to the tee box after we teed off and moved the blocks. Neil was talking about buying a chain and lock and locking off his gate. What he ended up doing was sending a note out to the membership and telling them that we will always tee off from the permanent blue markers on the second hole in all future tournaments. Our group got hurt by the homeowner moving the tee blocks because we had to play the hole at a 25 yard disadvantage.

I did pull it together on the backside and shot 39 for an 84 (with a nine!!), but even had another adventure with the public. We were the first group and played behind two couples. They were fine, but passed a group of four guys on number 12, playing through them. We found out soon why. These guys were out of Animal House, completely drunk and almost falling over as they played. I sprayed a shot into the wrong fairway on number 16 and had to wait almost fifteen minutes for them to tee off. They each hit two drives and were goofing around screaming and yelling on the tee box. I finally jumped up after the sixth tee shot and hit my shot to the green. I ended up with a double bogey on the hole and was steaming. I hit my next two drives almost 300 yards as I was so mad. It usually doesn't work to play mad and hit as hard as you can, but I pured both drives and finished par-par for the 39 on the back.

Well, Darla has some prime rib dip ready for dinner, so I will draw this to a close. Happy birthday to young Lucas who turned two on Saturday. The blog will be late next week as we will be in San Luis Obispo for the boy's graduation from Cal Poly. Jennifer and Miss Samantha will be with us, so there will be plenty of pictures to come. Ciao.