Another Rain Free week, we are up to 50 days without rain!!

 

Another weekend in the books. It started Friday night with a chance to go to the King's game. I had been up with Andy to Tahoe on Thursday to visit some of his agents and Rich up there called Friday and said that he had floor seats for the game against Indiana. Our top two players were hurt this week and both would miss the game Friday night against the best team in the league. My inclination was to stay home and watch on TV, but I had never sat in floor seats and Darla had a party, so soldiered on. We met the agents at a sushi place close to the arena and I parked my car there while we had dinner and then went to the game.

 

Brett is the younger of the two agents and he and Andy were very vocal with the players. Lance Stevenson made the mistake of engaging them in conversation. Brett told him he was having a bad game and Lance said, "Are you talking to me or the ref?" Brent told him that Marcus Thornton was lighting him up with 28 points on him late in the second quarter and the Kings were up by 12. Every time down the court from then on he had a comment for Brett. The Kings played over their heads, but lost a 17 point lead and the Pacers took us into overtime on a four point play with 15 seconds left. We were up 4 and just needed to not foul and we fouled on a three pointer that went in and Paul made the free throw. It was a lot of fun and we sat to the side of the Kings bench and had Coach Malone's coaching box right in front of us. I got home about 10:30 and Darla had got home from her party at 10 o'clock.

 

I played golf in the first Diamond Tournament yesterday and enjoyed the day with Rick, Steve and Boyd. Rick had one of those rounds where every putt he tried went in. He was banging in putts from thirty or forty feet and shot a 38+43 for 81 and net 65. I shot 42+42 and struggled on the greens, twice three putting during my round. I had a nice birdie on 16, but that was my only real highlight of the round. Once again, my driver was on fire and it will all come together pretty quickly as I'm hitting the ball about 280 off the tee . Boyd had a 76 and Steve shot an 88, which was better than it sounds as he had an 8-10 start and almost walked off the course. Darla texted me at the course afterward and said she wanted to go to dinner with her parents as it was her Mother's birthday. We drove up and met them in Yuba City at Cool Hand Luke's restaurant. It was a nice visit although no one thought to take pictures.

 

I washed the car tonight at 4:30 and was amazed to see so many families at the park with blankets and food out relaxing and enjoying the 75 degree weather. One of my buddies drove by and harassed me about "wasting water". I reminded him that I didn't vote for Obama and still believed in individual rights of American citizens, in spite of all of the evidence against that. He laughed and we chatted for a few minutes.

 

Darla had another party today and will be home after 6 PM. I got home and made a breakfast burrito with the left over rib eye and baked potato from the night before. I added some cheese and fried onions and cleaned up the dishes, laid down to close my eyes for a few minutes at about 12:15 and woke up after 3 PM. I watched the Farmers Open golf tournament on tape and then headed outside to trim back some of the frost damaged plants surrounding the pool and then washed the car.

 

The drought continues to dominate our lives and we received phone calls this week at both home and work from the city of Roseville to let us know that pipelines attached to the ground aquifers were turned on this week and the clarity of our water will likely be affected. The water from the snow fed Folsom Lake is very pure and water from the aquifers is ground water that is somewhat cloudy. You can see the picture comparing Folsom Lake today from the height of it's capacity back in 2004.

 

I have to do the handicapping for the Super Bowl tournament on Saturday and we have a record 110 players participating. I wouldn't want to be in one of the last groups as they'll have trouble finishing their round. Our first tee time is 9 AM and the last group will tee off at 12:47 PM and will have to finish in 4.5 hours to make sure their is enough light for them. I will be working on that after I finish the blog.

 

Tuesday night we will be off with Neil and Lilly to see the Eagles play at Sleep Train Arena. It should be a good night and we haven't seen much of them since our trip to Mexico. Darla and I also have plans to go to a dinner at church on Valentine's Day where they will serve Prime Rib and then we will be entertained by a comedian. It should be fun and definitely clean.

 

Work is going well. I was a little concerned about reaching our budget this year. We have grown from a budget of $13,000,000 in 2010 to a budget of $26,000,000 this year. I've talked to the staff continuously about focus and the need to sharpen our renewal retention and new business production. Well, we rolled out the new year by exceeding our January budget by January 23rd. I increased our goal by 20% and we have 5 full work days to try and hit $300,00 in income this month.

 

I hope you each have a great week this week. Pray for Jennifer as she prepares for her move this next weekend. She will fly out on Friday and she and McKenny will pack up a moving truck and be on the road by Saturday night for Vegas. Be well. Ciao.

 

 

Great Playoff Games Today

Just finished watching the NFC Championship game and I think we have the best two teams in the Super Bowl this year. I will be pulling for the Broncos and another win for Peyton Manning. As to the Niners-Seahawks, Colin Kaepernick lost the game for the Forty-Niners with a fumble and two interceptions late in the game. For awhile it looked like a USFL playoff game with two quarterbacks who couldn't throw the ball to save their lives and quarterbacks running around like a Division 1 AA game. My guess is that the Super Bowl will be competitive simply because Marshawn Lynch is almost unstoppable at times and will keep it close. In the end, Manning is just too good and has too many weapons. Seattle's defense is number one against the pass and Manning's offense is the best passing offense in history. It will be fun on February 2nd.

The pictures above show the reason that Jerry Brown has declared a state of Emergency for drought conditions in California. Folsom Lake is slowly drying up and is the source of water for most of the homes in the area. The reduction in the water level has uncovered a city buried under the water when the dam was built. It is called Mormon Island and was a gold rush encampment and the foundations of the stone homes are now visible and the park rangers are doing tours of the city ruins. We have received 18% of normal rainfall for the season since July 1st.

 Our weather here continues to be in the 70's every single day with freezing temperatures overnight. It is so clear that the temperature can drop 30 degrees in 90 minutes once the sun goes down at night. I played golf Thursday afternoon and we finished at just after 5PM and the temperature went from sunny and almost hot to tremendously cold in a matter of minutes once the sun reached the horizon. I have a dozen plants that have gone completely brown because of the frost and I hope that most of them come back next year. I actually had about 8 that froze last year and six of them came back better than ever, so we'll see. The concern right now is water rationing and the fact that if we make it to a stage 2 drought emergency, we will have to cut out watering our plants and watering our lawns  altogether. Right now they want us to cut water usage by 20% and are limiting our watering to three days a week. You can be cited for any wasting of water, including letting a hose run or over watering your lawn and having the water run down the gutter. A first citation is a warning, the second a $25 fine and the third a $100 fine.

I did play golf on Thursday afternoon and it was but my second round of stroke play golf for the year. I had set up to play with one of my agents and two of the guys from the club, but got a call from my agent in the morning saying that he was suffering from a bad case of kidney stones and couldn't make it. I decided to go ahead an play and took the afternoon off. I'm glad I did as I got to play with Pamas Bhatti, my FBI friend who has been so busy with overtime that he hasn't been able to get out and play. He is an interpreter for the FBI and speaks 7 languages including Farsi, Pashto, Dari, Punjabi and Sindhi. His specialty is critical to getting intelligence on the Taliban and staying ahead of the crazies. He leaves for India on Tuesday and will be there until April. He plans to open a golf course in his hometown when he retires and is working with the Indian Government Tourism group to bring in a course architect and start the process of getting investors. His family has the necessary land and Pamas wants to be the director of golf. We'll see how it goes for him. I shot an 81 and played alternately well and poorly. I hit some great drives, but struggled with my irons.

Friday night was poker at Charlie's place in Granite Bay. His home is located near Folsom lake and it is dark and difficult to find his house in the neighborhood. I picked up John and Carl and drove over to his place and got utterly lost as I turned on the fourth street instead of the fifth. There isn't a straight road in the development. I finally worked my way back out to the main road and made another successful run at finding his place. It was funny because one of the other guys saw my car and followed us all throughout the neighborhood. We realized that we were being followed and I almost made a wrong turn on purpose off the main drag to throw them off, but decided that I'd already had my fun with them if simply by accident.

Saturday I played golf with Boyd, Neil and Bryan at Cherry Island. We all struggled on the Bermuda grasses and slick, yet bumpy greens. I shot 89, Boyd had 87 , Bryan shot 84 and Neil was in the 90's. It was a glorious day in the 70's and warm and wonderful. I got home and had a great sleep on the couch after golf. I'd got in late on Friday night after poker and returning the guys to their homes and then up relatively early for golf. I was a bit tired, but I think the potato and bacon soup that I ate at the restaurant after golf was the contributing factor.

Today was a day of church early followed by a nice breakfast and then chores. I got the spa cleaned up, the chemicals done and filters cleaned out. I then washed both cars and cleaned up the yard and fertilized the lawn. I watched both football games on tape delay and the golf tournament from Palm Springs.

Jennifer and McKenny have found a home in Vegas and it is very nice. A 2100 square foot, three bedroom two story home near Samantha's school. They had a nice link on the web, but took it down once the kids signed their lease. Hopefully their move will go well and as a Dad, hopefully things progress quickly and they don't "play house" for too long.  Sam needs some stability in her life with Jennifer.

Well, that's it for this week. Not much going on in the New Year. I hope all is going well with each of you. It is Darryl's birthday tomorrow and I wish him a most Happy Birthday! Ciao.



Back to the Grind

 

Back to work and the mundane as the kids have gone back to Vegas and the house has been voided of all traces of Christmas. The lights have been taken down, the tree packed away for another year and all of the Santas and cards taken down. The next thing we have to look forward to is an Eagles concert that Neil and Lilly have bought tickets for on January 28th. The pictures above are the last of the bunch from our visit with Jennifer, McKenny and Samantha. The others were taken at our home Saturday as we hosted our Intimate Encounters life group for a breakfast. It is the first time that we've been together since our study ended in September and we had a great time. Darla fixed a nice breakfast quiche and we had blood red orange juice and cut up fruit with the meal. The blood red orange juice was a bit weird and tart, but I mixed it with some regular orange juice and it added a nice flavor to the juice.  We will be getting together again in April and Darla and I are working on a list of goals for 2014 for Financial, Ministry, Family, Marriage, Career and Social.

 

I played in the Captain and Crew golf tournament today. It is the first tournament of the year and a scramble format. I haven't played in this tournament for a couple of years, because I just don't enjoy scrambles. I decided to play this year because I have to go to the trouble of doing the handicapping for the event anyhow. They take the players that sign up and break them into four groups, A - D and the A Flight is the Captain and the rest are the crew. I was the B player in my group.  We shot a 31 on the front side, but struggled in the wind on the back side and shot a 34 for 65. It was good enough for third, but unfortunately a five way tie for third. Not much money to be made in a five way tie for third, but it beats fourth. I've still had only one stroke play round this year and can still say that I've shot in the 70's every time I've played this year.

One of my golfing buddies is moving to Houston and leaves the end of this month. He works for the Seely Mattress Company and is being transferred from the Northern California territory to Southern Texas. I have been trying to get in our last round of golf before he leaves, but he has been bouncing back and forth from Houston and they will pack up his home Friday and Saturday of next week and he will be off and gone. We will try to get out and have a drink later this week, but he is in Florida right now. He travels as much as Randy.

Our weather has been too dry this year. In fact, we had the driest year in history in 2013 and the weather is warm now. We continue to have over night lows in the mid thirties, but highs in the upper 60's. Our forecast this week is for 70's all week. The area is in drought conditions and water rationing is in force in Sacramento and the surrounding communities. In Placer Counter (where we live), water rationing is suggested but not compulsory. We had a bit of rain on Saturday, it clouded up and the ground was wet, but we only got about 5/100th of an inch. We need rain desperately.


I am hip deep in reviews at work. All 26 employees need to be done, but this year I have each of the underwriters handling the first line reviews of their assistants this year, which will take 13 employees off of my plate. that said, I will handle the second line review which was formerly handled by my boss. I will handle the typists, my filing clerk and my personal assistant. I have plans this year to move my assistant to an Office Manager position and next year she will handle all of the reviews for the typists and clerks. I have until the first of February to handle the first line reviews and then the middle of February to handle the second level reviews.

Darla had a mild scare last week as she took a late afternoon spa in the hot tub. She called me in the car on the way home from work frantic. She was trapped in the tub by a skunk. He had worked his way behind the air conditioning unit. Darla heard some scuffling and looked over the edge of the tub and came face to snout with the little black and white rodent. I got home and made a bunch of noise on the side of the house to scare it off, but it had already slunk away as Darla sat frozen in the tub. I had a good laugh over the whole thing. Not surprisingly, she did not!

Jennifer and McKenny will be together in Vegas at the end of this month. McKenny is in the process of packing up the apartment and will move to Vegas. Jennifer has been looking at houses in the neighborhood around Sam's school and hopes to lease a home when McKenny gets there. Her apartment lease comes up the end of March and she has already given notice. I hope it all goes well for them. They do not want to have McKenny move into her place and then out to a rental home.

I have to make a strong recommendation to all of you. If you have not had the opportunity to see the PBS series Doc Martin, you need to do so. I had the recommendation from my friend, Boyd, from the golf group. he's been talking about it for several months and Darla and I are in the middle of the 2004 season now and it is absolutely engaging and hilarious. We have thoroughly enjoyed the show and would love to share it with all of you.

Well that is all the blather I have for you on this Sunday night. I hope you are all doing well and starting off 2014 with all of the things you had hoped to do and change for the better in your lives. I will catch up with each of you soon. Ciao.



We celebrate Sam's 6th birthday and Christmas

 

Samantha Claus

 

 

Fun times with Samantha, Jennifer and McKenny. They flew in at 8:30 on Friday and we met them at the airport. Jen had planned to have McKenny pick them up and then drive up to our place. Darla and I called McKenny earlier in the week and asked if we could pick them up (half the fun of having your granddaughter fly in is to pick them up at the airport. We surprised them, but Jennifer was irritated with McKenny as she called him twice after the plane landed and he didn't pick up. Samantha was in her pajamas and robe as they were up and on their way shortly after 5 AM for the 7 o'clock flight to Sacramento from Vegas. We drove them home, got Sam changed and then headed over to breakfast at a local coffee shop that we like. Sam saw Darla's Santa hats and wanted to wear one to the restaurant and that is the first picture.

 

We took her birthday presents to the restaurant and she opened them there. We drove home, met up with McKenny and opened Christmas presents. Darla, Daniel  and I then took Samantha over to the park across the street and let her swing and climb and slide and have fun for about an hour. From there we drove over to Folsom and the outdoor skating rink. Sam is an accomplished little skater and had a part in the Las Vegas Skating Club's Christmas pageant. When we told her about ice skating, she didn't want to do it until she found out that it was an outside skating rink and then she was saying, "I wanna go, I wanna go!" McKenny, Jennifer, Samantha and Darla all decided to skate, while I decided to be the photographer. McKenny made it around the rink about six times and called it a day. He said his rental skates were like trying to "skate on a butter knife".  His feet got tired and he joined me within 20 minutes of getting onto the ice. Samantha skated a round a few times and then said to Darla, "these teenagers don't even know how to skate, they keep getting in the way!" Darla, Samantha and Jennifer skated for most of the 90 minute session.

 

We went from the ice skating rink over to the shops of Folsom and then on to dinner at Hacienda Del Rio on Sutter Street in Folsom. We stopped at a horse drawn sleigh where the sleigh was sitting by itself with no horse. We took a few pictures of Jennifer, Samantha and McKenny and Darla said that they could use it as their Engagement Announcement photo. Nice, except McKenny hasn't asked her yet. The boys met us over at the restaurant and McKenny was nice enough to buy everyone dinner.

 

Saturday we took it easy and really just relaxed at the house all day. Darla fixed a quiche in the morning. We had family over in the late afternoon and Darla's parents came over and Alicia and Luke joined us along with the boys. Don had his Kansas City playoff game and had kind of a rough week from a health perspective so decided to stay home. Luke and Samantha took a bit of time to warm up, but were fast friends by the time we ate dinner and took every toy and Santa toy out of the toy box and down from their perches around the house and onto the floor of the living room. They were playing all of the Christmas music from the various ornaments and Santas that Darla collects. It was loud in here for awhile. Darla fixed a roast turkey for dinner. We watched the live version of the Sound of Music with Carrie Underwood after everyone left.

 

Today, Darla and I were up early and off to church. Samantha was up late and fast asleep when we left, although Jennifer and McKenny were up and in the spa. We ran a couple of errands after church and Darla had to meet a client with some jewelry. We got home after 11 o'clock and Miss Samantha was still in bed getting her beauty sleep. We got her up and Darla fixed pancakes and sausage and bacon. She got a shower with her Mom and then we headed over to the park to play some Smash ball and then over to the swings and playground afterward. Darla put a 5 pound prime rib in the oven and we took it easy in the afternoon. The kids played cards with Samantha while Darla and I rested.

 

They left for the airport at 5:00 o'clock and are in the air on the way back to Las Vegas as I write this. Darla is at a team meeting with her Silpada staff in Granite Bay and I'm getting caught up on the blog, photos and I still have to do some handicapping for the RGC event next weekend. I promised to have the handicaps to Neil tonight. We had a great time with Samantha and Jennifer. McKenny is really growing on me and he will move to Vegas in February. They are looking for a house now close to Sam's school. Jennifer's lease at the Apartment runs out in March and she has already given her notice. The plan has always been to find a house. They both make good money and want a nice home for Samantha.

 

I did get out and play golf on Wednesday January 1st. I played with Boyd, Robert and Andy and shot a 38+39=77. Boyd shot his age at 73 and Robert shot 75. Andy is 78 and enjoyed the ride in the cart. He shot a 90. That is the best round I've shot since I had the hole in one and 75 in November. I joked that I have shot in the 70's every time that I've played golf so far this year.

 

Well, I know it is a lot of pictures, but I have an absentee granddaughter and have to enjoy my fix when I get it. She is really growing up. She was well behaved the entire trip and her only issue was a burn that she has on her thigh from spilling hot soup on herself before she left Vegas. She has an open blister and Jennifer is treating it with polysporin. She changes the Band-Aid and dressing each day and Sam screams bloody murder when the Band-Aid comes off. John is already over reacting to the injury, but hopefully he will calm down soon. I hope your New Year is starting out with all good intentions. We finished 2013 at work with $22,900,000 in premium on a budget of $21,800,000 and coming off $18,460,000 in premium in 2012. My budget for 2014 is $26,000,000. Wow.