Indian Summer in Sacramento

The temperature actually hit 100 degrees today on September 30th. It is supposed to hit 101 degrees tomorrow and then start a slow cool down that will see us down into the mid eighties by next weekend. I washed the car about a 1/2 hour ago and I'm still sweating. You can tell it is Indian Summer when you look at the leaves beginning to turn brown and fall from the grove across the street in the park. I watched the Ryder Cup meltdown by the Americans and NFL football today from my seat on the couch. Darla spent about an hour on the pool reading the latest Nicolaus Spark's novel. I was out on the pool yesterday afternoon after the golf and woke up in the shade that now hits the pool by about 4:00 PM.

I played golf yesterday with Darren, Boyd and Neil, having a good front nine (41) and a terrible back nine (45) and Darren and I lost $15 to Neil and Boyd. Boyd shot a 75 and Neil shot 88. Darren, my partner struggled to a 92 and we went down in flames. We did play the Power Hour special at 7:14 AM for $35 with a cart and range balls. Luckily I was flush after taking over $100 from my friends playing poker Friday night. There were only five of us and I won $110 and Steve won $150. The other three each lost precipitously. I had lost the last two or three games, so I didn't feel bad taking their money.

Darla and I went to dinner last night at Benihana with Neil and Lilly and we finally got to see their pictures from their Canada trip and visit with Dad and Shirley. Neil invited me to play Squaw Creek golf course next Sunday, so we will make the 90 minute trek up to Squaw Valley and the golf course. They close on the 15th of October for the season and Neil was given a free foursome that has to be used this year. I usually like to watch football on the weekends, but Dallas is off on a BYE week next week and I always like to try new venues.It should be beautiful.

Darren also told me that he won a $1400 golf package that includes foursomes at five of the top courses in Northern California as well as some golf equipment. he has invited us to join him at courses in Portola, the Capay Valley, Redding, Almanor and Graeagle. I look forward to those trips and we will take care of the travel and all of Darren's expenses on those trips.

In two weeks, we will take our annual trip to Monterey and will stay in Pacific Grove for two nights. The golf club is playing Poppy Hills (they will close for a full season next year as they upgrade and redesign a few of the holes on the course and put in a new sprinkler system) on Saturday and Carmel Valley Ranch Country Club. I'm planning to get there early on Friday and play 18 holes at Pacific Grove Golf Links as well. Darla always looks forward to this trip as she gets together with the wives and has lunch and goes shopping. We are staying at the Sunset Inn this year which is across the street from the Asilomar Conference grounds and near the hotel we stayed at with Darryl last year.

We closed out our month on Friday and finished September up 16% on the bottom line and about 7% on the top line. I now have 23 employees working for me and apparently we are making good use of the extra staff as the extra cost of their employment hasn't affected our bottom line. It is what Alan said to me when he visited the new office. His comment was I got you a top notch office, now you have to go out and recruit high grade employees and fill it up. I am really pleased with the last group of hires I have made and can see that those college graduates have really lifted the office to the next level. It is a much more professional group of employees. The younger folks are plugged into a social networking group with other young professionals put on by the Roseville Chamber of Commerce. they get together once a month for cocktails and appetizers at a local restaurant. they also have one learning event each month. In fact the chamber had a brown bag event this past Tuesday and I attended. The topic was "How to talk to your employees and how to coach them to greater success". It was interesting, but I met a partner at the largest architectural firm in Roseville and put David in touch with the firm. He is still looking for work.

My heel seems to be slowly getting better. It's still sore in the morning, but my doctor told me it would be like arthritis, in that it will be sore until I can walk it off in the morning. I still spend all day at work in my walking boot.

Darla finally got a call from our spa service and they were able to find a part for our spa and it will be in by mid week. We are both really looking forward to getting back into the spa, once the weather cools down. It is already much cooler at night and we actually haven't had our air conditioning on for the last month. It is nice to open the windows once the sun goes down. We run the whole house fan for about ten minutes and pull the cool air into the house and the warm air is forced out. You can stand in the foyer by the open front door and feel the breeze as the air is pulled through the house.

Well, that is the news that is fit to print this week. I hope all of you are in good spirits and ready to vote Obama out of office in November. Please. Wait, half of my audience are freaking Canadians. Jeesh. Ciao.

Is it Golf or is it Risking your Health?

 

The question is am I risking further injury to my heel by continuing to play golf? I suppose I'm not helping it to heal, but I have had it wrapped each day that I play and I wear the boot when I am at work or out in public. I don't have the boot on now, but I have been sitting on the couch all day watching football and napping. I am not kidding myself that I'm not slowing down the healing process, but honestly I can heal the ankle once the rainy season gets here.

 

The pictures above are of the home of the pre-invitational party that I attended on Tuesday night. The home is owned by one of the members at Serrano Country Club and is nothing short of fabulous. The home includes a four hole putting green, a 69 yard chipping green, a garden chess set with three foot tall chess pieces, a bocci court, a tennis court, a shuffleboard court, a pool house with three stories and includes a full kitchen, screening room, a second floor exercise room and a third floor outdoor patio with a fireplace in the center with 360 degree views of the country club and grounds.There is also an Olympic sized pool and a 12 person hot tub. The cherry on the sundae is a 3/4 mile two lane go kart track that was officially built as a running trail as the building department denied his request to build a go kart track. The owner is about 62 and has been retired for about 14 years since selling his successful dental lab business that he built up using talent from the Philippines to craft dentures. He became well known on the west coast for his perfect fit dentures and eventually sold out his business for 29 million dollars. He has since taken on a couple of more businesses, but still has plenty of time for golf. He had a putting contest and we put in $20 when we checked in and I was able to win 4th place and take home $100.

 

Gary and I struggled in the Invitational for the second time and decided that we will not play in it again. The big problem for both of us is the 6 and a half hour rounds of golf. I am a "tempo" golfer and play my best golf in about 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours. The 30 minute wait on tee boxes just ruins my momentum and destroys my continuity. I shot 85, 88 and 84 over three days and Gary and I finished 9th out of 12 teams in our flight. Gary shot 89, 92 and 90 and is a 9 handicap the same as me. Our club has a slow play rule and we enforce it by using time clocks and holding our golfers to 4 hours and 40 minutes OR you must finish within 15 minutes of the group in front of you. If you don't, you are penalized 2 strokes per player. At SCC, the owners are GOD and the pro and his staff have no control over the owner members, who can hire and fire him at will. IF I had played in the Invitational as a prelude to joining the club, I wouldn't. I told Gary to tell them that I was considering joining the club, but when the rounds were so ridiculously long, I backed out. By the way, don't ask me to explain the picture of Gary with the coyote. I just took the picture and who am I to judge him? It was taken on one of the holes where there were five groups backed up on a par three.

 

Work is going well and I'm off to the Manager's meeting next month in Detroit. Matt will join me this year as he is one of the Management Program participants and they have all been invited to the meeting this year. He asked if he had to sit in on the Sacramento review with Alan this year. He won't. Matt called me on Friday as I was playing in the Invitational. One of the employees had accidentally pushed the button on our coffeemaker twice and it overflowed and kept running. The shut off valve for the water is under the counter behind the built in dishwasher (well designed, eh?). They ended up calling the property manager and they came up, pulled the dishwasher and turned off the water. The coffee service came out and reset the coffee maker and the water was turned back on after the overflow was extracted and cleaned up. At that point, the property manager couldn't get the plug for the dishwasher plugged back in and the message for me was that the plug was too short. Really? It's all plugged in, they unplug it, pull it and then the plug is too short when they go to put it back together? I told them to have the TIB contractor come back out if they couldn't get it fixed and magically, they were able to get it to work. That HAD to happen while I was out.

 

We are still waiting for the part for our hot tub and Darla, who was off Friday, went over to the spa service and raised some noise. They promised to get on their suppliers this week and we'll see. As soon as the weather cools, I will be ready for the spa, so they better get on it.

 

I agreed to one more year on the golf club board as the handicapper. Neil was asked to be Tournament Director again next year and he agreed on the condition that I continue on as the handicapper.We were asked to serve by the Vice President. This was all a bit premature, but the Vice President of the club was elected President on Thursday night for next year and we are now on the hook for this again. I enjoy working with Neil and vice versa.

 

Darla was gone for two nights Monday and Tuesday in Pasadena for her job with Alta. She was able to have dinner with Daniel's girlfriend, Becky on Monday night. She was home by 7:30 on Wednesday night and I got home shortly after as I had to go sign in over at Serrano for the Invitational. I received $175 credit with Titleist as a tee prize and bought two shirts, a pair of shorts, a dozen Pro V1s, a golf glove and a pair of socks for my money.

 

Darla and I did go over to the Country Club on Saturday night for the final dinner and awards and we only stayed about an hour. We don't know many people at the club and Gary didn't show for dinner. The women were over dressed and the men were over served and we had a drink, enjoyed dinner and got out of there. I don't think we are country club people. Neither of us are particularly self important and don't really fit in with the crowd.

 

Well, that is it for this week. I hope you are all well. I'm back to the boot this week and hope to have this cured by mid October. be well. Ciao.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the road to recovery

Just a couple of pictures of Pete and Vicki from our Sports bar trip last week and a new armoire Darla bought for the kitchen to hold our toaster and toaster oven as well as other kitchen related gadgets and linens.

Football was a little more fun last week than this week with Dallas laying an egg against a pretty bland Seattle team. I'm watching the game and relaxing and get a text from my brother in law saying "Go Seahawks!" Who does that? Oh, I guess someone who is a Kansas City Chiefs fan and has no team of note to root for, so knocks every one else's team. I already de-friended him on Facebook, now I guess I'll have to blacklist him from my cell phone.

This week was a real test for my Achilles as I had three golf games. Frankly, my heel was sore on Tuesday after the golf, less so on Thursday after golf and I had no pain after yesterday's round of golf. It was all scramble golf, which is not my favorite, but fun in a business sense. We shot 61 on Tuesday and were out of the money, 62 on Thursday and were out of the money. Both of those were 4 man scrambles. Matt and I played in a 2 man scramble on Saturday and won low gross for the entire 72 man field with a 64. I did take a cart in each of the events which kept the stress off my foot. I showed up Saturday and had my push cart ready to go, but the starter in the pro shop told me that I had to take a cart as Matt had already told them i had a bad foot and we would be riding. Nice to have my Mom out there with me.

I will be playing three days again this week with one of my agents, who has invited me to his Invitational event at his country club in Serrano. The event is a lot of fun with betting, three days of golf, tee prizes galore including golf shoes, sunglasses, shirts, hats and golf balls. It will be fun and all starts with a pre-tournament party on Tuesday night.

Darla was at a Chili cook-off and car show on Saturday. The event charged $75 for the chili chefs or $300 for a vendor, so she decided to cook chili and then have her jewelry available for sale as well. She went out and bought about $75 worth of ingredients and loaded up our camp stove, the tank of propane and her tables, pots, pans and chili ingredients at 6 AM. When she and Missy arrived in Rocklin, they began to set up their little table and camp stove and pretty soon they had shade all around them as the food trucks and mobile restaurants started to set up. Their neighbors had full kitchens with generators and chef costumes and paces to sit and enjoy their chili. Darla was the only chili vendor there with a camp stove and 5 quart pot. The others had multiple burners, 50 quart pots and giant cans of tomatoes and sauces. She said she had never felt so out of place. She quickly packed up her gear and Missy and her were laughing uncontrollably on their way out to breakfast. I guess it was a lesson learned.

Darla leaves for Pasadena tomorrow and a seminar for her work. She will be there until Wednesday. She has tomorrow night free and will meet Daniel's girlfriend, Becky, for dinner tomorrow night.

Darla and I have set up a trip to Hawaii in November for the boys. We promised them a vacation and have it worked out with Dan's work to go November 12-19th. We will be in Kona at the Kona Pacific Condominium resort in Kailua-Kona, HI. It is a 2 bedroom, 3 bath condo a block up from the ocean. We'll be on the fifth floor and have a view of the ocean (see below). We'll also be about a mile from Darla's brother's house and a ten minute walk to Wal Mart and town. Darla's parents will also be in town so it will be a chance for the boys to have a last family vacation with their extended family (other than our annual trip to Almanor, which hopefully they will plan for). We fly from SF on 11/12 and return the following Monday. We had hoped to bring Samantha and Jennifer, but they needed some financial help with bills and her car, so maybe next time.

Jennifer was moving in with her friend in Vegas this week and I hope that goes well for her. I have some reservations about the whole move, but she is 31 years old and makes her own decisions in this life.

Well, that is it for this week. I need to get to a nice tri tip that Darla has waiting for me to grill. I will check in with all of you next weekend. Be well. Ciao.

Taking it Easy, Trying to stay out of a Cast.

It has been a boring weekend without golf. The weather is nice in the low nineties and I've enjoyed relaxing on the pool both yesterday and today. Darla has been in absentia parts of both days, yesterday with an event at a local hospital and today at a home party in Auburn. I went yesterday and met her at 5 PM, so I could help her load her jewelry back into the car. She had two cases and three bags of jewelry and couldn't leave it sitting in the lobby. I drove over and helped her load up. we came home and then went to church. I spent Saturday in my light brace and my foot was sore this morning, so I spent today in the boot and it feels much better. Obviously, with the metal braces built into the boot, the support is much better. I've been really good this week only taking the boot off to drive to and from work and to sleep at night. I've put the light brace on when I'm driving.

This week will be a tougher test as I have golf on Tuesday up in Redding and on Thursday. Both are scrambles and I'll be in a cart, but hopefully I don't undo all of the good that I've done this week.

I took the staff out this week for our budget lunch. We went to Buca Di Beppo and enjoyed two salads, two pasta dishes served family style with bread and drinks. Some of the staff really enjoyed it but I heard some buzz of a few complaints. It still amazes me. It may just be the way I was raised, but when I first started in business, if my boss took us out to lunch I was thrilled. When it was announced I don't recall asking where we were going or what the menu was. The attitude of entitlement never ceases to amaze me. I guess they are all Democrats.

Our hot tub is still on the IR as we are waiting for a diverter valve from the manufacturer to be delivered to the spa repair facility. Darla and I are anxious to get back on our spa schedule as a nice hot soak before bed helps both of us sleep. I talked to the repair place last week and they have no idea when the part will be delivered. Nice.

Darla has been doing a lot of work with her jewelry business lately. They have a sales incentive on that will pay a $15,000 bonus if she hits it. I wouldn't put it past her. She finally had one of her consultants reach a Star Leader level, which increases the consultant's rate of pay and gets Darla closer to another level with the company.That consultant will also join us in Hawaii in January. She continues to do well.

The two parties' conventions are now in the books and the difference between the candidates is crystal clear. It is partly the party lines with the Dems being Big Government and the Republicans ideal of small business as the answer to our problems. BUT...Obama is the embodiment of a government employee who believes that the government should run everything and knows better than the populace. Romney is a man who has run businesses and knows that the well being of a populace is based on their ability to work and take care of their family. It isn't standing in line for a government hand-out that gives a person a sense of accomplishment, unless you have grown up in a family that was on welfare and on the dole. Then you don't know any better. Obama has created an entire generation of people that have been on government assistance for years. He has worked hard to take the work element out of Clinton's Welfare to Work program. It is astonishing that people still want to hear what he plans to do to improve the economy. He's had four years and has failed miserably. It is time for real Hope and real Change. Political Ads have changed from discussing issues to being about attacking your opponent. The one thing that is missing in those ads is TRUTH. It is now all about winning and not campaigning. It is disgraceful.

Obama decided to tell the convention hall that they are now better off than they were four years ago. About the only people who believe him are union workers, the unemployed and illegal immigrants. IF he is re-elected there will be alot more illegals, union workers and the unemployed. The sad fact is that there are now a whole group of adult Americans that are nothing but a drag on the system. The more we give them the more they want and they refuse to give anything back or work for their handouts. The DNC spent a lot of time crowing about Obama saving GM, but if you look at the facts, he was pandering to the auto unions. IF GM had gone into bankruptcy, they could have dissolved their union and then started paying their workers a living wage and dropped all of the guaranteed pensions. Instead, we paid billions to the car companies and the unions still threaten to strike for more pay and better pensions. I think we just delayed the death of the auto system by ten or twenty years.

It has been a good first week of the NFL, with Dallas beating the Giants in an upset and several other decent upsets, including the Niners upset of the Packers. Darla had a party at the house on Wednesday night and I got thrown out. Luckily, the young folks in the office all planned a night at a sports bar and they let the old man show up as well. I came home about 9 PM and was hoarse. We had a great time.

Well, I don't have much. I'll be back next week with tales of my travels this week. Hopefully my Achilles holds up well this week. Be well and I'll check in on the blog next weekend. Ciao.

I have been warned to stay off my feet

I guess it is more of the same on the pictures, but a couple more to keep our memories fresh. I did bang my Achilles again in Vegas and needed to see my doctor this week. I originally injured my foot playing racquetball with Darla over four months ago and was hoping that the injury would heal itself. I wake up every morning and limp into the bathroom and stay with my right foot essentially frozen until the blood starts flowing and everything un-stiffens. My doctor said it is the same as arthritis where the joints are so fused in the morning that people can't even use their hands. I had banged my heel on the door jamb of the rental car and a fresh round of pain coursed through my body and I decided it was time to get some help. I went to the medical center on Wednesday and she sent me down to x-ray to get a look at the heel. Essentially the Achilles has come loose from my heel and is "floating". She wanted to cast my foot right then, but I had the 18th week of my twilight golf league on Thursday night and then the Labor Day golf event on Sunday. She wasn't impressed with how seriously I was taking the injury and told me that I had three weeks to see some improvement in my heel or she would put me into a cast. The Achilles needs to rest and hopefully it will reattach itself if I can stay off of the foot and not work it loose again. I am wearing the walking boot whenever we are out and I keep my foot up when I am at home.

We were out to church and then dinner on Saturday night and when we went into Mary's Pizza Shack, we sat in a booth next to a woman in a walking boot. I leaned over and said, "I can feel your pain" as I walked past. I excused myself and went to wash my hands and Darla was giggling when I got back. Apparently, the woman had a complete heel replacement 15 years ago and has been in her boot ever since. Leave it to me to insert my walking boot into my mouth when we are in public.

Steve and I did play for first place in the league againts a husband and wife team going for a three-peat in the league. We beat them pretty handily closing them out on the 8th hole with two pars and winning the league. We all went out afterward to pizza and I put my walking boot on and kidded them about losing to a gimp.

Darla and I were supposed to go to a Labor Day barbecue this afternoon, but Darla has events every night this week and wasn't feeling up to being gone tonight. I think if the event had been held over the weekend, we would have been there. The hosts both played in our Labor Day golf event and decided to have it today at their house in Granite Bay.

The Labor day golf tournament was different for me in that I used a power cart in order to stay off my foot and I had the heel bandaged with an Ace supporter. I must have looked like quite the athlete, with a tendinitis brace on my left arm and an ace bandage on my right leg. Age is somewhat humbling, but I recall Darla telling me to play racquetball because I didn't work up enough of a heart rate when I golf. True, but I had never injured myself golfing either, other than the tendinitis, which actually started years ago when I still played softball. I managed a 42+42=84, which wasn't really bad or good and gave me a net 74 with my 10 strokes (I'm at a 9.8 index now).

It will be difficult, but I will lay off golf next weekend and wear the walking boot for the next three weeks and the Ace bandage when I can't. I have two charity golf games next week, one in Redding and the other here in Roseville and I will take carts at both of those. My biggest concern is that one of my agents has invited me to play in the Serrano Invitational again this year. This is the three day event that cost $1800 per team to play and includes shoes, shirts, golf gloves, golf balls, sunglasses, cigars, pens, hats and all the free food and drink you can consume while you play. My agent, Gary's, wife will be out of town during the event, so we will go stag this year. Darla, Kelly and Gary and I were going to attend a pre-event party at a 21,000 square foot home at the country club, but now Darla will be in Pasadena at a work conference on that date. I think it could have been a great event for Darla's Silpada business as those ladies will drop $1000 on jewelry without batting an eye. Oh well.

I need to be serious about healing. If I end up getting a cast, I won't be able to drive as the cast will be on my right foot. Darla doesn't seem all too thrilled about the concept of chauffeuring me around town. I'm sure I can get a ride home from work, but she would have to drive me each morning. I'd like to avoid that as I would have the cast on for a month.

Darla and I spent some time on the pool today reading and relaxing after the golf finished up this afternoon on TV. I was winding down finishing up my chapter in the shade of the umbrella in the far end of the pool when I heard Darla yell and then a splash. A bee had landed on her and stung her thigh and she overreacted, flipping her pool lounge over and dropping her book into the water. She was not too thrilled that I found the entire episode slightly amusing.

Jennifer and Samantha ended up in Southern California this weekend with her mother at Disneyland. Sam had lunch with one of the princesses at Disneyland and Diane and Jennifer ran in the Disneyland half marathon on Sunday. Jennifer has been working every night up to when she left on Saturday morning and she texted me that she had worked 15 hours on Friday and another 16 hours on Tuesday, her birthday. It seems like it is feast or famine in her job.

We finished the month of August up another 12% at work and the additions to staff have all panned out pretty well. I have one issue with one of the new employees and attitude, but seemed to get through to her that a pleasant demeanor with one's work mates is the smartest road to happiness in the work place. Her argument that " I thought I got paid to work, not make friends" didn't go over very well with me. I reminded her of her interview and the focus that I had on TEAM and that any additions to staff would have to mesh well with the team as we had things really rocking. she kind of shrugged and said, "oh, yeah." I told her this was an opportunity to do a U turn and make amends with her coworkers and I saw her doing just that on Thursday and Friday. Hopefully, that continues. I've been very lucky in my recent hires and it is hard to hit a home run every time. I will take the staff out to lunch this Thursday at Buca Di Beppo in Roseville to celebrate another month of being above budget. I suppose a $300 lunch is  cheap price to pay for continued success.

I put some items for sale this past week. I had two golf clubs, two golf bags and two golf carts. I put the clubs on eBay and the carts and bags on Craig's list. I had a Cleveland 7 wood that I thought I'd be lucky to sell for $25. I had put it up on Auction with a Buy It Now option of $69 and it sold the first day. I have a lightly used Titleist Vokey 60 degree spin milled wedge for $89 BUY It Now or auction and it went to auction with a 5 bids and a current price of $50 with one day to go. I hope to get $75 for it. I sold one bag Saturday for $25 and the rest of the lot yesterday for $100. So, for a bunch of left over golf equipment, I should hopefully clear $269. Not bad, and I cleaned out the garage.

Well, there are two seasoned rib eyes sitting on the kitchen counter awaiting my barbecue skill, so I will work my way over to the kitchen and out to the gas grill in the backyard for some medium rare deliciousness. Be well and I will check back in next weekend. I'll be bored, so prepare for quite an epistle.