Busy Week..Scottsdale, Jennifer and a New Car for Darla

Okay, admittedly I am a little worn out. I left for Scottsdale at 5:45 AM on Sunday and it was actually 4:45 AM because of the time change that evening. I sleepwalked through the morning, actually losing my driver's license for awhile (in my pocket). I had shown my id at the baggage check in and put it in my pocket with my cell phone. The DL, which has a magnetic stripe on it adhered to the face of my phone and Pete and I spent about five minutes tearing my stuff apart trying to find it. We went over to a table away from the ticketing area and I emptied my pockets. Pete finally found it plastered to the face of my phone. Just a brief panic. We got into Phoenix at 9 AM and were able to get our rental car. It was packed in Phoenix with Spring break revelers and people in town for both Spring Training and the World Baseball Classic. We drove out to Mesa and tried to check into our resort at Painted Mountain, but there was some rather large angry woman working the counter and she was adamant that there were no rooms available until 4 PM. I thought about going and getting a dozen Krispy Kremes and seeing if there were any rooms available then, but we changed in the restroom into shorts and headed over to the Brewers stadium in Surprise for the 1 PM Giants exhibition game. Our seats were great and we were located about 8 rows behind home plate with all of the scouts. There were at least 12 guys with Juggs radar guns monitoring the pitches. Most of the stars were gone off to the various teams of the WBC, but Matt Cain, one of the World Series' heroes was the starting pitcher and Hunter Pence was starting in the outfield. It was a good game and you can see how close we were to the field by the two pictures that were taken of the field from our seats. 

 

We left the game in the seventh inning and headed back out to the resort to check in. We got there at 3:40 and promptly checked into our room. The heavy set clerk was nowhere to be found. From there we cleaned up and drove into Tempe, where we met one of our former underwriters for dinner who has gone to work at another company. We were both tired and headed back to the resort early and got to bed early.

 

Monday, we were up early and headed in to Scottsdale and breakfast with one of our Underwriters, who used to work with Pete and I at Republic Western. Patti is now the Underwriting Manager for the company and is doing well. From there we drove in to downtown Scottsdale and a meeting with our largest carrier. We've been having some issues with their underwriting and how they are treating us as a $3.5 million partner. We met with the Underwriting VP and the first thing I had her do was pull our results from the last eight years. It turns out that our loss ratio is about 18% average annual and the highest loss ratio that we've had was 33%. My point is that my office has made millions of dollars for them over the years and that they need to realize that and start treating us like the true partners that we are. The new underwriter came in and we had a good visit. I went back over the profitability that we have shown historically and that she needs to let her guard down and realize that we are not trying to place substandard business with them and that our history is of good underwriting and profitability. She is new and doesn't know us and Pete and I laid it out pretty directly to her. They have been losing business recently and their competitors are gobbling up business that they have declined and we have other carriers lining up to clean up the scraps. I think we made our point and then went out and enjoyed a great lunch at Tommy V's in downtown Scottsdale.

 

From there, we drove out to the Northern side of Scottsdale and the Biltmore Country Club to meet Mike, my compatriot from our Scottsdale office, and Mike, our underwriter from Burlington. We got some range balls and warmed up after changing into shorts. Pete pulled me aside and said he was hitting balls next to Frankie Munoz, the actor from Malcolm in the Middle. He's obviously older, but I told him he was crazy. They soon called the Munoz foursome  to the tee. On the other side of me was Channing Frye, the center from the Phoenix Suns, who was diagnosed last year with an enlarged heart and hasn't played since. He had a set of custom made golf clubs that were huge. We were putting and still waiting for the Mike's when my phone rang and it was Mike asking where we were. I told him on the putting green. He said he was looking at the putting green and didn't see me. I asked him if he was at the Biltmore and he said, no we changed it to the McDowall Ranch course in Southern Scottsdale. We were about 30 minutes away and our tee time was in 15 minutes. I put the little Rav 4 that we had through it's paces and got to the course in about 35 minutes. The Mikes were on hole number 2 and we  jumped into our cart and met them on number 3. All of the warm up went for naught and I was uncomfortable and stiff. I did manage to shoot 82 with writing in two pars for the first two holes and a nice 39 on the back nine. We went out to dinner with the Mike's and enjoyed some nice Italian at Arrivadercci's in Scottsdale.

 

Tuesday was my birthday and we met the Underwriting VP and our auto underwriter from Scottsdale Insurance out at the Talking Stick Resort. The Talking Stick is a Troon resort and absolutely beautiful. I struggled a little bit on the desert course getting off the fairway a few times into the desert and seeing some larger scores because of it. I ended up posting a 44+43=87. We went from there out to lunch where we met the Underwriting Supervisor and our Commercial Lines Underwriter. I got a 911 text from one of my friends back in Sacramento and when I called him back, he let me know that my friend, Neil, had a stroke and had been taken to the hospital. It turns out that Neil had a blood clot in his carotid artery that caused him to have a mini stroke. More on that later.

 

Pete and I met the four employees from Scottsdale and had a great early dinner before heading back to the airport and our flight to Sacramento. It was a great trip, kind of short, but it was a good time with our carriers and with Mike from our AZ office. I found out that although Mike and my office write the same premium volume, that my office has more than double the profit that AZ does. That was an eye opener for me and when I called Harvey when I got back, he shared with me that our office is one of the most profitable in the territory.

 

You can also see that we visited Jennifer and McKenny in Pleasanton. We drove down on Saturday afternoon and Jennifer took Darla and I to dinner at an Italian restaurant downtown (for my birthday). We had a nice visit, but something was missing. It was Samantha!! Jennifer is working with an attorney now and hopes to have a visit with Samantha here in California soon. Jennifer seems very happy, but we need to get Sammy here and soon.

 

Finally, you can see Darla's new car. We looked at a bunch of different models from Lexus to Nissan to BMW and Honda. Darla really wanted a Navigation system and a hands free system for her phone.

We narrowed the decision down to a Ford Explorer and a Honda Pilot. Both have three rows of seats and can seat 8. The 2013 Ford Explorer with 17,000 miles on it was about $7,000 more than the Pilot, but had the Navigation system and leather seats as well as a back-up camera and the full SYNC system. Darla loves her Explorer now and she was absolutely sold on the white Explorer with black interior. We looked at the cars on Friday night and left, knowing that the Explorer might not be there when we returned today. We are both big believers in "God's Will" and left it in his hands. If the car was still available today, we would bite the bullet and buy it. We went out to breakfast this morning and had to wade through crowds of St Patty day revelers that were already out and drinking green beer at 10:15 this morning. I had to park a couple of blocks away from the restaurant to get in. The car was there and we pretty quickly worked out a deal for the car. I drove it for the first time and was impressed. Ford has definitely upped their game and I'm proud to have bought a car from the one American car company that did not take any of the Obama bail out money. They kept working hard, making changes to their models and pushing the envelope on technology, partnering with Microsoft on the SYNC system. The car is very clean and very nice.

 

I played golf on Saturday with Boyd, Ron and Pamas and had a little issue with my new driver. I was pulling the ball to the left and decided to adjust the driver to neutral from a closed face and the head got stuck and I couldn't get it fixed. I ended up playing with Pamas' driver  on the back side and shot an 88. I got home and took a look at the driver and somehow the nut got on the top side of the shaft rather than the bottom (sounds like a scene from "Something about Mary..").  I was able to fix it and the driver is great right now. I think somehow I had made the original change and put the nut on the wrong side of the head and I was lucky that it didn't break when I was using it.

 

As to Neil, he has decided to have surgery this Wednesday to have his carotid artery cleaned out. They have to cut it, reattach it to another artery, clear out the clot and then tie it back together. The surgery is fairly serious because it deals with the carotid artery. He could have opted to be on blood thinners for the next month to see if the problem cleared itself up, but his wife and daughter were worried about a recurrence of the stroke and didn't want another stroke to perhaps occur when he was driving or something. I did stop in last Wednesday and visited Neil and Lilly in the hospital. I will also go by on Thursday and see him after his surgery. The hospital is about two blocks from my office in Roseville. Neil will be down for about a month after the surgery.

 

Well, that's it for a busy week. I get the stitches out of my head tomorrow and my head is healing nicely. I'll stop by at the bank after the procedure and get the loan squared away for the Explorer.I put down a nice piece of change on the car, so the payment is nice and low. Have a great week and I will be back at the keyboard next week. Ciao.