Waiting for Flooring

So, two and a half weeks since our water damage claim and we finally have some movement on getting our flooring completed. Darla and I have worked on getting painting done and as you can see by the colors, I may have to learn to sleep with a mask in order to fall asleep. It is pretty bright in the bedroom.  When I say "we" have been working on the painting, I mean that Darla did all of the painting except the baseboards, which were delivered with a single coat of white paint on them and I added a second coat.

 

I had a guy over on Thursday working on the hot tub. We have a compressor/blower that is bad and it is being replaced. Darla asked the spa contractor to move his truck when our contractor showed up with the 20 foot baseboards. The guy looked at her like she was speaking Chinese and never did move his truck. Darla was peeved. This guy is a referral from Neil and Neil said that he is hard of hearing. Apparently. They had to carry the baseboards around the corner of the house and in the front door. I set up a couple of sawhorses in the living room and was able to get all of the baseboards painted on Thursday night. The contractor was over of Friday and supposed to put the baseboards in all of the rooms that are getting carpeting. He only got the Master bedroom, the walk -in closet and the hallway completed and still needs to do both bedrooms. Apparently, they add the baseboards after the hardwood is installed, but before the carpeting. The contractor will be there first thing tomorrow morning to take delivery of the hardwood laminate and will begin installing it in the family room and living room tomorrow. He expects to be done Tuesday and will take delivery of the carpeting Tuesday afternoon and expects to have the carpeting installed on Wednesday. That is the good news. The bad news is that our property is stored in the PODS at the front of the house and the pool table is in the garage along with much of our property. We can and will move back into the house, but we will have to wait to get our closet installed on December 9th before moving the rest of the clothes out of the PODS and back into the house. We have enough clothes to get by, but I'm getting a little tired of the same eight shirts.

 

I had poker on Friday night and when I showed up at Carl's both John and John were already there and parked in the driveway next door. They both said that I was at the wrong house, just as the neighbor came out of his garage and asked the guys if he could help them. Pretty funny. There were only four of us as two of the guys bailed at the last minute, but we had a great time.

 

Saturday was Rick's celebration of life and you can see a couple of pictures from the event. His kids did a great job of speaking and his daughter is a meteorologist in Bakersfield and has a nice presence in speaking. She talked about the fact that they didn't lose their dad, because he was just on loan to them from God. His wife also spoke and then they opened it up to the crowd to share. there were 200 people there and only two got up to speak, so I jumped up and told the story of Rick's final golf game at Pacific Grove and also the story of our trip to Mexico when Bob had Montezuma's revenge and told us he'd meet up with us after nine holes if he was feeling up to it. When we finished nine holes, Bob was waiting for us on the steps by the clubhouse with his elbows on his knees and Rick turned to me and said, "I bet he's been in that position all night." The service was done very well and it wasn't a funeral, but a Celebration of his life. He had people there from his work, from his fraternity, from his birthplace in Chicago, from his High School and there were about thirty five of us there from the golf club.

Darla and I left early and had breakfast at Wings, a restaurant up at the Auburn Airport. I've eaten up there before and they have a couple of old guys who sit out on the patio and judge the landings. They have numbers and hold them up when the pilot taxis in. Pretty funny.

 

I had a meeting this week and went over the results from our Employee Survey with the staff. I had them work on three Action Items on areas where we were a little lower than the company as a whole: Stress, Customer Service and Office Leadership. It kind of hurt that Leadership was a little lower, but it turns out that the staff has some issues with our weekly staff meetings. It turns out that they want more substance in terms of training and information. I have always tried hard to keep the meeting to about fifteen minutes. I have led the meetings and try to give out information on carriers, go over the calendar for the next week and look at numbers month to date and send everyone back to work. It also turns out that when I was in production, I wanted to get in and get out on meetings. My staff is younger and still learning the business and want more hands on instruction. Two things, I will take that feedback and run with it and there will be a lot more people involved in running the meetings going forward. We are working our way through the responses from the Action Plans as I had teams of five working on the issues and we will vote on which of the answers to share with the whole company tomorrow.

 

Darla and I had a chance to talk to Dad and Shirley yesterday and get caught up on their recent vacation. It is their anniversary today and I wish you both continued happiness and love. It sounds like they really enjoyed Venice, although from what they said, what an incredibly expensive city. They had breakfast one morning and it was $100 and then shared a lasagna for dinner and it was also $100. I'd enjoy the sights and look for a McDonalds.

 

Well, hopefully I am writing this from our house next week. I went to church this morning(Darla had an event in Auburn) and then over to the house to clean up leaves and clean out the pool. I then had the car washed (it was filthy and there is a "touchless" car wash across the street). Darla continues to enjoy our "staycation" and I look forward to us getting back in to the house. I hope you are all well. Ciao.

Hotel Living is Not For Me

Now you know that Darla would find this whole experience fun and exciting. Not me, I just want the adjuster to get moving, get us a budget and get our contractors moving on putting in our flooring and get us back home. Darla has enjoyed our "staycation". I've been pretty stressed about the whole thing. I'm concerned about what this is going to cost me out of pocket and especially when we will get back in our home. My furniture is all stored away in a POD and the majority of the house is down to bare slab and carpet tack strips.

 

We moved into our current hotel on Tuesday after spending two excruciating nights at the Extended Stay hotel here in Roseville. I set up a week's stay there without finding out that the hotel is used as a half way house for homeless, recently released prisoners and county patients. Darla even used the facility for some of her clients and still let us move in there. The first night there Darla went out to get some ice and ran into a woman in the hallway with mental issues. How do I know that? She commented on Darla's Silpada necklace and then went on to tell her that she should wear a garlic necklace because vampires live in the hotel. On the first morning I rode down in the elevator with an 80 year old guy with a Duck Dynasty white beard in his socking feet and pajamas that smelled like "butt". We moved out the next day. Darla jumped all over Expedia and the Extended Stay people and got them to refund us three days of our hotel. We went from the Extended Stay with drug addicts and nut jobs to the Larkspur Inn on Tuesday night where I was sitting in the fireplace room of the hotel and enjoying an IPA and skewers of barbecued shrimp. Very nice. I told Neil that it was like staying with Dad and Shirley with appetizers and drinks every night. They also have hot chocolate chip cookies every night. The Extended Stay smelled like smoke and Darla swore she could smell Meth on the second night. (how she knows what Meth smells like is beyond me.) The floors were sticky and we only got housekeeping once a week. This place is $18 more a night and has very nice furnishings, the evening hospitality, every other day housekeeping and a nice Spa and work out room.

 

We just got the cost for our carpet on Friday and it came in higher than we expected. we are working with our contractor now because we are going from carpet in the living and family room to laminate flooring. At this point, we just need a budget to know what it will cost us to build out the house. I want to be back in the house by Thanksgiving, but Darla thinks that is being a little too hopeful. We'll see. If we can get the materials ordered tomorrow, we can get the laminate in this week and they can start to work on the carpet by next weekend. We'll see.

 

I did pull the VP card on Friday when I talked to my adjuster and said that it had been ten days since our damage and she hadn't even got us an estimate on the flooring yet. I told her that I was a VP with an insurance wholesaler and that if one of my companies took that long to work on claims I'd fire them.  It seems to have worked as she got us the estimate on Friday night. She promised to have everything to my contractor by Monday morning so that we can work on ordering our materials and get going on the repairs.

 

I did play in our final event of the year and the last time that Neil and I will work together as Handicapper and Tournament Director. It's kind of sad because we have worked together so well and the new TD is a real nerd. I'll see how it goes this next year, but know that I'll miss Neil's administration skills. He is pretty "no nonsense" and rubs more than a few people the wrong way, but I like it. I struggled on both the front and back sides today and felt myself getting pretty irritated as the day went on. I admit that I've been edgy, but living in a hotel is not for me. I shot 44+45=89 and only had one good hole with a birdie 4 on the par five 6th hole. I likely won't be playing much golf the rest of the year as we work toward getting our house back in shape. I know the golf course has an event in December and I may work toward playing in that one.

 

Darla and I were over at the house on Saturday and I spent some time working on the year long Eclectic event for the club and getting the flights set up as this was the last event of the year. I also spent about an hour and a half clearing the leaves off of the lawn and out of the flowerbeds and getting them piled up for the city crews to scoop up and haul away on Monday. I also cleared out leaves from the pool and the patio and flowerbeds surrounding the pool to keep them from blowing into the pool. As we were driving away, some young punk in a "raised" pickup truck turned the corner onto our street and drove right along the line of leaves scattering them in his wake. The little bastard.

 

Next weekend is the celebration of Life for Rick Rusk and we will be there to laugh and cry with his family as we fete Rick. Rick was my Vice President in the club the year that I was President and he was such a help to me that year. His ability to break down problems into smaller pieces and work through them was phenomenal. He was a manager for the State of California and I would say that with his abilities, he should have worked in the private sector. I miss him now and will continue to miss him any time we do anything with the golf club. He was a great man and a good friend.

 

Well, this is short. You see the picture of Samantha that was shared by Jennifer on Facebook. Jennifer, McKenny and Samantha will be in California during Sam's Christmas vacation from school and we can't wait. All of the hassle of this property claim will melt away when Sam is sitting on my lap or playing cards with me. I hope you all have a good week. Dad and Shirley, Darla and I will try to call you some time this week or weekend. I hope your vacation was awesome and I'm sure it was. Ciao.

Water damage is insidious

 

Yep. We woke up on Tuesday morning to an absolute flood the likes of which haven't been seen since, well the Democrats got handed their head in the midterm elections on the same day. I woke up and said to Darla, "Did you turn on the heater last night?" I thought I heard the fan running on the heater. I took my shower and dressed for work and carried my shoes out to put them on in the family room as I always do and stepped into a torrent of water pouring out of our middle bathroom and out into the hallway by our room and inundating Daniel's old room, David's old room, the family room and the living room. There was so much water it was rushing out the front door as well. We got the water turned off. it was a break in the valve behind the toilet. I had a plumber out to replace the valve and line to the toilet and called our Homeowners carrier, Allied. They promised to have someone out there within two hours. Three hours later I called our agent, fired ServiceMaster who failed to contact me or show up and got CPR (Certified Property Rescue) out there in an hour to start the water extraction and emergency services. It was determined that our closet organizer that we had put in in 2012 was ruined and that was pulled out, all of the affected carpeting had delamination of the carpet  from the backing and that had to be pulled out.

 

Darla and I stayed in the house for the first three nights, but the sound from the blowers finally drove me batty and we moved Friday into a Residence Inn. The carpet was pulled on Friday and the tack strips remain along with the naked slab. All of the storage in the boy's rooms has been pulled out and boxed up and stored in the PODS container. The pool table was removed and put in the garage and we were able to grab some clothing for the next few weeks, the rest of it was boxed up and stored in the PODS.

 

Our adjuster from the company came out on Friday morning and was quite unpleasant to our CPR contractor, taking him to task for removing the closet organizer before she could inspect it and letting him know it was "inappropriate" to discuss the carpet with us. I'm glad he did, I believe it was her intention to try to salvage the carpet and I could see where it was separating, especially at the ends. We also called a contractor on Friday, who met with us on Saturday and inspected the damage. The adjuster gave us a check for the damage less the carpeting and closet, but our contractor will go to bat to get more as he wants to repaint several of the walls altogether rather than just do touchup. At this point, we need new carpets and we will look into upgrading at least the family room to hardwood floors and our bathroom to tile floors. Darla also wants the hardwood in our closet, but we'll see what the additional cost is. We also had to have all of the baseboards removed in the affected areas and those will have to be replaced. The cost of the work by CPR will be extensive as they have been pulling carpet, drying all of the walls and rooms, packing up and cataloguing all of our contents from the affected rooms. They had to box and store the china as well as Darla's blue delf collection. We also had the designer from the closet organizer come out and take measurements to replace the organizer in our master walk in. Darla is talking to her about designing a Murphy bed for the front bedroom (David's old room). She will make that her office, but wants it to double as an extra guest bedroom as well.

 

One thing this loss is forcing us to do is go through all of the things we had stored in those bedrooms and clear it all out. We will be able to have people come and stay with us after this is all over as we'll have three bedrooms available for guests.

 

I did get away from all of the headaches (my personal Hell as I refer to it) and get out and play golf. I hit balls on Saturday between meetings with contractors and then got out today and played in our Turkey shoot at the club. I had trouble clearing my head and shot 44 on the front, but calmed down and shot 40 on the back for an 84. Our last tournament of the year is next Sunday and it is the Eclectic Final. 

 

You can see pictures from our home and the damage done. I also included a picture of our trees on the street side of our home and the fall colors in full display. I'll be sweeping up all of those leaves in the next 30 days.

 

 

 

My good friend Rick Rusk lost his battle with cancer on Monday night. Rick planned his chemo treatments around our recent trip to Carmel. He made it out there, played 18 holes both days, participated in all of the meals and fellowship and it took a great deal out of him. He went downhill after the trip and Darla and I both feel that it is like he crossed the finish line wen he joined us for that trip. I drove the cart with him at Pacific Grove on Sunday and he was physically exhausted with his hands on his knees and breathing hard. I got permission to drive him up on to the tee boxes and we did. A smile never left his face and I was honored to be with him on his last golf game. Rick and Jan have been such a big part of our lives over the last twelve years or so. Rick was my Vice President when I was President of the golf club and I picked him because of his administration skills. He was brilliant. We also got stranded with Jan and Rick in Phoenix on one of our trips to Mexico. There was only room for four people on standby for the flight from Phoenix to Puerto Vallarta after our flight from Sacramento was cancelled due to mechanical trouble. We had a ball hanging out at the hotel in Phoenix with rick and Jan and my memories of our time together are full of joy and happiness. His celebration of life will be on the 22nd at The Ridge golf course in Auburn.

 

Well, this is short, but I am working from my laptop in a small room in the Extended Stay in Roseville. We moved over here from the Residence Inn because it is half the price. I have Additional Living expense on our Homeowners, but I don't want to take advantage of it. This place is pretty Spartan with no daily maid service and a small kitchen, but will work until we can get flooring into the house. I hope you are all well and we will be in touch soon. Love you guys! Ciao. 

Daylight Savings Time

The picture at the top about sums it up as I sit here in the dark and work on the Blog. You can see the celebration in my office from Friday and see both some of the build out in the office as well as my new personal office. I went in to the office after golf on Saturday and got all of my furnishings moved in and pictures and memorabilia up on the wall. I have a plaque that has both of the Sports Illustrated copies from the Giants World series wins in 2010 and 2012. Now I have to go out and have the new one framed as well. It will arrive on Thursday of this week and feature Madison Bumgarner on the cover. That was one of the best performances by a pitcher in World Series' history. Just amazing!

We had a pumpkin carving contest on Friday. The RIP pumpkin was my teams' and I added two others, A Niner pumpkin with a Dallas mini pumpkin in it's mouth (That team will not be getting raises this year). Also, the Chik-Fil-A pumpkin carved by the farmer and her two cows shown above.

 

I had our IT staff and one of the Real Estate Managers in the office this past week to help me with our move in to the new space. The two IT guys got all of the computers, phones and monitors set up in the new space and helped move the individuals in the office that were backfilling the spaces where people moved. The two guys in the office that were the happiest to see the new space open are our two newest hires that have been making their home in the conference room for the last two months. They finally have cubicles and the staff that complain about the noise in the cubicles need to walk a mile in their shoes.

 

My new office is bigger and has windows on two of the walls and is truly a corner office. My staff has very good timing and we just finished our best month of the year. We were up 33% over 2013 and up 22% on our budget, which actually brought our year to level with our budget. We are on track to finish the year at $27,500,000 which will be up about 17% over 2013. My first act as a Vice President was to meet with a representative from the Giant's Triple A team here in Sacramento and order season tickets. We bought 4 seats behind home plate on an 18 game package and will use the tickets for marketing purposes. We had seats back in 2009 when the team was the A's affiliate and we actually had trouble using them back then. I was pretty fried with my underwriting staff at the time for not planning outings with our agents and vowed not to buy them again. Back then I had 12 employees and three of my producers were women that had no interest in Sports. Now I have so many young people and producers and will give it another go this coming season, which starts in April. I will use some of the tickets as giveaways at some of our agent events and also as rewards for hard work from my staff.

 

Pete, my Underwriting Manager, flew out to St Louis this morning and sent me a picture from St Louis. I sent him a thank you and told him that it must suck to be a Niner fan in St Louis after that performance by his team in SF(Santa Clara)  today. Dallas was without Tony Romo today and his absence really shined a light on just how critical he is to our success. The Cowboys are competitive and border on elite with Tony in there. With Brandon Weeden, the drop off was substantial and really underscores  the importance of Tony to the team. Hopefully, he is back under center next week in London against the Jaguars. The event in St Louis is a gathering of professionals from the Excess and Surplus Lines industry. Harvey wanted me to send one of my younger employees and I fought for Pete to go to this. He is too often overlooked in my office and is a key performer and one of the big reasons for my success. he knows I have his back and appreciates it. he was picked as a team leader for the group back there and I'll be excited to hear how it goes for him.

 

I took our visitors out to dinner on Thursday night and my Operations Manager was on me about my choice for dinner. I wanted to take them to our new Korean barbecue restaurant in Roseville and she was thinking (in her mind) that I was taking them out for Mongolian Barbecue. She calmed down after we got there and the group had a blast cooking up all of the rib eye, chicken and pork. We also enjoyed all of the sides and the Sapporo on tap for $8.50 per pitcher. It was a fun night and one that they will remember better than another night out at a steakhouse.

I did play golf on Thursday as Pete had set up a round with Bob Telford, an agent that I've done business with for about 35 years. He brought out his son and we played his home course at Rancho Murietta outside Sacramento. I had to take the commute that I used to take to work in Rancho Cordova and it made me appreciate the new office even more. I shot a 47+41=88 and struggled on the narrow course. I did play better on the back and was encouraged when I finished. We stayed on for lunch and I was back in the office by 3 PM and able to take the group out to dinner that night.

 We had a storm front roll in Thursday night and had a constant rain on Friday. Darla and I had our annual Halloween date and shared a burger at Mel's Drive in followed by the movie Gone Girl starring Ben Affleck. It was good, but not great. I did enjoy the burger though.

Saturday was mixed weather with rain showers expected off and on all day. I did have a tee time on Saturday and 2 of my guys bailed, but Paul, my bachelor buddy, was game for golf. we got out there at 9:30 and the sun was trying to sneak out. It was deserted at the course and Paul and I zoomed through tte first seven holes and then ran into three groups trying the navigate their was through the eighth hole led by a father-son duo that looked like they were both playing their first round of golf ever. We bailed out and headed to the 10th tee and worked our way through the back nine in about an hour and 20 minutes. We finished 18 and headed back to number 8 and there was a nice gap in the golfers who were filtering out to the course as the weather improved and the sun came out. I birdied 8 and managed a par on nine for a 39+42=81.  Paul shot 78 and we finished 18 holes in three hours. It is the pace I'd love to play every time out and it is one reason I played as well as I did. I'm a rhythm golfer and like to keep moving.

Well, dinner is about ready. I keep asking Darla what we are having and she says it is a surprise. I guess I'll be surprised. I hope you are all doing well. I think dad and Shirley should be back this week. I look forward to catching up with them. Ciao.