We are once again jetting off to Hawaii this time on Tuesday for 6 days with Darla's jewelry business. We will stay in Waikiki on Oahu at the Hyatt resort. The weather has been windy over in Maui, but typically 79-82 degrees in Honolulu with overnight lows in the low 70's. They get a little more rain this time of year and you can expect a shower at some point most days, but also plenty of blue skies and sunshine. We look forward to getting away.
Today was rainy and overcast in the morning, but the weather broke about noon and we ended up with a bright blue sky and sunshine by the time Darla and I slipped into the hot tub about 4 o'clock. We had a fire in the fireplace because it was so cold this morning and when we were sitting in the tub, I could smell something burning. I thought the equipment was overheating before I noticed the smoke billowing out of our chimney and slowly lowering to the ground in the near windless air.
Jennifer spent the weekend with us and will head back to Pleasanton tomorrow with her cats. Darla will be happy to see them go as she has been on her own caring for the cats, cleaning up after them, socializing with them and feeding and keeping fresh water available to them. Our 1 week favor turned into three and Jennifer will finally move into her apartment next weekend. It has been nice having her. Her boyfriend, McKenny, stayed in the Bay Area at his music store, sleeping on a couch and using the showers at the 24 hour Fitness. They are staying the rest of the week in an Extended Stay hotel and get the keys to their new apartment next weekend. Jennifer will fly back to Vegas the following weekend to be with Samantha.
I have some pictures to load to the blog from our New Years party and from Becky's (Daniel's girlfriend) visit during the holidays. Unfortunately, the upload mechanism on blogspot is not working today, so I may add them after the fact.
I played golf on New Years day and again this weekend. New Years was a great dat and I shot another 79 at Diamond Oaks. This weekend was another story as I struggled in the cold and wet and managed a 45+42=87 on Woodcreek. I will take next weekend off as I will be in Hawaii, but will get back to it when I get back home.
Now that the budget is complete at work, I am working on employee salary reviews. I have most of the month of January and part of February to get them done, but I have to write each of the reviews, have meetings with each of the employees to go over goals and objectives for 2013 and then have to go over their written response to my reviews. I have each of the underwriters writing up a review on the members of their team now and that will help me immensely in putting all of this together. The budget technically hasn't been approved yet, but I was aggressive in my forecasting and think it will stick.
My former employee, Anthony, got an appointment with my largest carrier starting in January. I found out about it from one of my agents who called to assure me that our business was safe from a mass exodus to Anthony's firm. I called the Underwriting Vice President to ask her to assure me that her statement to me from July: "We are not taking on any new wholesalers, in fact we are looking to decrease our representation...you can take that to the bank." was still accurate. She was on vacation and I asked her to call me on her return to reiterate her stance. She called, rather hat in hand and said, it's just business, Ken. I told her if I took her word to the bank, it would have bounced. Harvey asked me if I was worried about the competition going forward and I told him I was concerned, but not worried. Anthony's firm doesn't have a good reputation and large insurance companies don't want to take money from one pocket and put it in the other. The one thing I was told is that the appointment is for new business only. It will have an impact, no doubt, but I know we pay a higher commission to most of our agents and money talks. The one impact may be to the large carrier as we will be a little less anxious to run additional business their way. One of my goals in 2013 was to build their volume back up as we were down about 25% on their business to $3,000,000 in total. Business is business and it goes both ways.
We are going out to dinner tonight with Jennifer at Chicago Fire Pizza. I have a gift card for $50 and it is her favorite pizza restaurant.
Well, not a lot of news and I will try to add some pictures later as it is not happening right now. I hope everyone is doing well. I know Randy had pneumonia and the creepy crud is going around. So far we have avoided it and my plan is to hide from it on a tropical island. Ciao.
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