Off to the Manager's meeting in Detroit this week. The whole town will be buzzing because of the Detroit Tiger's presence in the World Series. We will have dinner Wednesday night at the Detroit Athletic Club downtown and it will be the first night of the World series. I'm hoping that game will be played in San Francisco as the Giants are still alive playing in the sixth game of the NLCS as I write this and they are ahead 1-0 in the game. They need to win tonight and tomorrow night to move on to the World Series. Oh, wait, they now lead 4-0. Wow.

 

You see the picture of our friends from our Life Group at church, Vance and Terra Lee. We haven't been in the life group for about 5 years, but try to keep up with all of the people that were in our group. Vance and Terra Lee generally go to Sunday Service and we go to Saturday night, so rarely see them. They were at service last night and we caught up with them and invited them to dinner with us. We had a Groupon for a Pizza restaurant not far from church and had a great visit, getting caught up on each other's lives. Vance is a former Pastor from Oregon who now works for an Audi dealership in 'Sacramento. They both teach a Marriage Enrichment class at church and they invited us to join them for the next series in January.

 

Our weather has finally caught up with the calendar and a storm front will move in tomorrow and bring us our first measurable rain since early Summer. There is a Winter storm warning up in the Sierra and we are expecting about an inch of rain out of this system. I spent a portion of the day cleaning out the rain gutters and clearing some of the leaves off of the roof. I had gutter guards installed when I had the new roof put on two years ago, but dirt and debris still gets into the gutters and the downspouts will clog up on the first rain of the year. I also bought and installed new windshield wipers for Darla's Explorer and also fixed the trim on the drivers seat that had worked it's way loose. I had finally mowed the lawn yesterday two weeks after having the lawn aerated and overseeded for the Fall. The new grass had sprung up and was about 3 inches in spots. I set the mower height at 2 1/2 inches and cut the lawn and trimmed it. Today I trimmed a few of the bushes and then put down another application of fertilizer in preparation for the rain that is coming.

 

I leave for Detroit on Tuesday and Matt will go with me this year. I had Anthony along last year and that didn't work out so great for me. If Matt leaves, I will no longer allow employees to go to Home Office. In truth Matt is locked in pretty good with us. He is my Director of Branch Operations and a member of the Accelerated Management Program with the company. He is enrolled at UC Davis in their MBA program and we are paying his way. I keep close to him and he is happy with his position in the organization and can do the math. Pete and I are both in our 50's and Matt is 29. He is the future of our branch. We have a 10 AM flight to Denver and then change planes for the trip to Detroit. I will be home Saturday night.

 

I got out with Darren, Boyd and Neil this weekend and we played the Timber Creek Country Club in Roseville. My driver is still giving me issues, but I was able to use the 3 iron I bought with the Rifle X shafts on the shorter holes and managed a 42+42=84 in spite of getting into some tough spots with my driver. I can hit the 3 iron about 225 yards off the tee and can find the middle, so if the hole is 375 yards or less, I'll use the 3 iron to tee off. I will play in the Past President's event on Sunday next week when I get home. I sent off the handicap information to Neil today for the event and also sent him a report of the course handicaps for each player in case he adds anyone during the week.

 

Darla had Alicia and Lucas over today as Don is off to Las Vegas for some medical convention this week and flew out this morning. She wanted to get out of the house and visited with Darla while I watched the Dallas game this morning and worked outside. They stated until it was time for his nap and then she drove him home.

 

I haven't heard much from Jennifer lately. I had asked her to reach out to Darla and talk to her about some things that came up while we were in Las Vegas. She ended up sending her a text, but has yet to call like I asked. I don't plan to call her until she follows through on this.

 

Well, I am writing this looking at the NFL game and the NLCS game (5-0 Giants in the 5th). There isn't much news after our trip last weekend. I will check in with you after the trip this week. i hope you are all well. Ciao.