A variety of pictures this week with the first, a picture of our date night Saturday night at McCormick and Schmick's in Roseville, courtesy of Burns and Wilcox and a $50 gift card I received at our holiday event. I've also included a few of Mexico and some of Darla's holiday event at Cabo's in Granite Bay on the 22nd. Finally, a couple of pictures from our Christmas Eve get together at our home with family. The last picture is of Taylor and Shea, our nieces from Sonoma and Steve's daughters. Darla had one of her contacts from a car club in Sacramento, ray, come dressed as Santa at her party and he took pictures with all of us and also with many kids and adults at the restaurant.
One of the laughs we have had is the confusion that the Mexicans have with our language. A couple of years ago, we had a cake for Dad and Shirley's anniversary that was decorated with "Happy Anniversity!" This time around, I wrote out "Happy Birthday. Shirley" for the chef and we ended up with Happy Birthday, Sherley!" Nice.
It was a quick turnaround when we got home from Mexico with Darla's Silpada Christmas party on Sunday night and then the family here on Tuesday night for Prime Rib. Darla's party was fun. She rented out a private room at Cabo's in Granite Bay. She also had the bar reserved and brought in a DJ (The same deejay we had at our RGC event and one of my buddy's from RGC's sons). Santa was out there and was dancing as well. He had his restored 1947 Dodge pickup parked in front of the restaurant and it was his sleigh. We were there from 5 PM until 9 PM and had a great time. Darla was great and took couple pictures and team pictures of all of her reps.
Tuesday night was fun. I let my skeleton crew of employees go at noon and I was home by about one. It is very slow in the office this week as many of the agencies are closed. We are close to missing our budget this month for the first time this year, but we had a huge day on Friday and moved closer to our goal. We will have to have above average days Monday and Tuesday to make it, but I'm not counting my group of employees out. They have amazed me all year. We'll see.
I worked on our 2014 budget this week and had it sent through to my Executive VP on Friday. My budget for 2014 is at $25,500,000 and will probably be bumped to $26 MM by our CEO. We will finish 2013 at about $23,500,000 on a budget of $21,800,000. It has been an incredible year. 2014 will see a remodel of my office and an addition in the space behind my personal office to pick up another 800 square feet and room for another 8 employees in cubicles. I will move the two employees that work for San Francisco and Atain Insurance to the back area and also move our Personal Lines department to the addition and spread out my commercial teams a little bit. Also, in 2014, I have moved completely out of production and will concentrate on working with our younger producers to help them grow their books of business. I will also be very involved in doing quality control checks on the policies written and in auditing policies. I will be on the road with employees on a weekly basis and will be very involved in getting to know the agents more personally. I certainly know the agents that I have personally worked with, but need to get to know everyone. It will be critical if we lose any more producers that I am able to not only step in to take over from an underwriting standpoint, but also to keep the relationship alive.
It is employee review time and I have all 26 employees to review by the end of January. Luckily, I have the underwriters handling the first line reviews of their assistants this year. I will handle the secondary reviews of each of those. I do have 12 reviews that I have to handle myself (the Underwriters and typists and my assistant). I will also handle the review of Connie, the employee that has moved to Atain as she was with me through October. I will let her manager handle her goals and objectives for 2014.
I went out and hit the driving range yesterday to hone my game, but did not play golf. I will play on Wednesday and take next weekend off as well with Jennifer and Samantha in town. I am spoiled with the 88 degree weather in Mexico. It is actually near 70 degrees here during the days, but it is freezing overnight. Samantha is bringing her ice skates and we will take her to the outdoor rink in Folsom on Friday to skate. Darla has both a turkey and a prime rib to fix next weekend.
We will spend next weekend with Samantha and Jennifer and I look forward to the family time. They fly in on Friday and will be here through Sunday night. I look forward to the Dallas-Philadelphia game tonight, but don't hold out a lot of hope without Tony room behind center. randy doesn't care for Romo and his December record is abysmal, but there aren't many players that care more about their job and can extend plays. That has always been his m.o. and one that has served him well. The team's problem is not QB, but a leaky defense that is one of the historically worst defenses in the history of the NFL and one managed by a 73 year old coach that time has passed by years ago. Our real need is GM, but Jerry Jones will never give up that tile as he is playing a real life game of billionaire fantasy football. Perhaps Dallas can surprise them tonight, they are 5-0 in divisional games this year. I will return next week with hundreds of pictures of Miss Samantha and our weekend together. have a very Happy New Year. Ciao.
3 comments:
Ken, I give all credit to Orton...he has played behind Romo long enough to believe throwing an interception with 2 minutes left and the game on the line was what he was SUPPOSED to do.
Ken - I give all credit to Orton...he has played behind Romo long enough to believe that throwing an interception with 2 minutes to go and the game on the line was what he was SUPPOSED to do.
Funny man. It was a much better game than I expected. A lot of work to do this off season.
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