Enjoying the New Year

The Pro Bowl is droning on in the background. I enjoyed the first series when 6 Cowboys were on the field at one time. DeMarco doesn't have a contract and left right away as did Tony Romo who is 34 years old. I've included some pictures from dinner with Darla's Mom last night. We met them in Yuba City at Cool Hand Luke's for steak. It was great. I've also included some pictures of California flowers in Winter for those of you whose gardens are dormant. These are African daisies and they grow year round. They are best in Winter and early Spring. They get a little stressed in Summer and start to come back in Fall.

 

I had golf today, our first stroke play tournament of the year. It was the Super Bowl tournament and I actually showed up for the tournament yesterday thinking that the event was Saturday. Oops. The weather was terrible this morning, heavy fog and COLD. It did burn off about 11:30 and we ended up with 70 degrees this afternoon. I was as cold as the weather and shot 48+44=92. I four putted the 9th hole and then chipped in for eagle on 10. It was the only thing I did right all day. I had 65 yards in to the par 5 after driver, three wood and hit a half wedge which bounced twice on the green and hopped into the hole.

 

After hitting balls on Saturday, I drove home and then headed over to Home Depot and picked up a couple of quarter turn inlet valves for the other two bathrooms and a couple of new hoses for the cold and hot taps on the washing machine. I installed the valves that have compression fittings and they tend to have problems seating. I turned the water off and then went out and turned it back on after installing them. BOTH valves were leaking, one from the valve itself and the other from the flex line that runs from the valve tot he toilet. I got both of them fixed, but still had water on the one in the Master. David came home with me after dinner and he took the valve apart, reseated the compression fitting and tightened the nut tighter I hadn't seated the nut all the way on the threads and was afraid to over tighten it. They are working great now.

 

I had a call from my tenant right after Christmas and the sewer line had backed up again. The rooter service ran a camera through the line and saw where the roots from the tulip tree in the front yard had impacted the pipe. They rootered it out, but I needed to have the tulip tree removed, the stump ground out and the roots chased. I contacted a couple of tree removal companies. The first place wanted $800, the second $550 and the last one $450. I'd already called the second company and told them to come out. He hadn't called back to schedule the removal when I got the last quote. I called him and said he could keep the job if he could match the price. He was out last week and his crew cut down the tree and it hit the roof when it was felled. They broke about five tiles and are looking for replacement tiles to have it fixed. They also had to have another crew come out to remove the stump. What a mess.

 

My year has started kind of rough on my paychecks. I get my bonus in the first quarter and drop my 401k deductions from 17% to 12% for the first quarter. I set up to have it changed and somehow they changed it from 17% to 22%, instead of 12%. I called HO and alerted them. They checked their records and said that they would have it fixed. My last check had 27% held out for 401K. Supposedly it will be fixed for the next check to 9% Traditional 401K and 3% 401K Roth. My last check had 9% Traditional 401K and 16% Roth 401K. The trouble with Roth is it is post tax and killed my take home pay. When I was talking to our benefits coordinator last week, she said to me, "It would kill me if I had that much withheld." Really? Really?

 

I was able to get the car washed today, the lawn mowed and fertilized and the pool cleaned. We haven't had rain since early December and I had to actually add about six inches of water to the pool.  It was an awesome afternoon, clear blue sky and a hot sun. Darla had a jewelry party this afternoon and we went in the spa when she got back. It was a cloudless evening with a half moon and stars and we enjoyed catching up on our day. Darla took one of her friends to church with her today. The lady is having open heart surgery on Wednesday and is not a Christian. She believes that all religions lead to God, from Buddhism, Judaism, Mormonism, even Islam. Darla took her to church today and they had a nice philosophical conversation at lunch.

 

Darla and I bought tickets for the Trailer Park Troubadours and will get together with Neil and Lilly, John and Camille, Bob and Debbie and Pete and Vicki this coming Saturday at the Crest Theater downtown. We will have dinner first at a new Italian restaurant in the K Street Mall and then enjoy the show.

 

We have no plans for Super Bowl. Darla is working a Volleyball tournament at Cal Expo next weekend, so we will just relax. I MAY play golf that morning. All of the courses offer early shotgun golf with cart and breakfast for a cheap price. I'll check with Paul to see if he is up for playing.

 

Well, that is it for this week. I hope you are all doing great, enjoying the New Year and your families. Be well. Ciao.

 

 



Championship Sunday

 

These are currently my two favorite pictures of Samantha. One is my wallpaper on my computer and the other is my wallpaper on my phone. I sure miss her. I miss her all the time and wish that they lived closer, but especially miss her after a week together. We'll be out in Vegas for my birthday and spend a week together at Almanor again this year.

 

It has been a quiet week with Darla gone to Hollywood and then home for one night and now in San Mateo for the girl's Volleyball tournament this weekend. No, she is not a ringer on one of the teams, but is set up and selling her jewelry at the event.

 

I am hip deep in Employee Reviews right now with the Underwriter's reviews due this Friday. I was busy with the budget late in December (Our goal is $29,500,000 this year) and now reviews. I wasn't too busy to get a new Personal Lines Underwriter hired. Linda went in to SF on Friday and met with Harvey. He was equally impressed with her and his only issue is that we might be missing something because she is TOO perfect. I'll take it. I talked to her Friday and gave her a verbal offer which she accepted. The formal offer will be in her e-mail on Monday morning. She will be a great addition to the office and especially welcome in helping to grow our personal lines book of business. Many of our offices are 50-50 Commercial and Personal. I have six commercial Underwriters that will write $26,000,000 in premium and now two Personal Lines underwriters who will write $3,500,000. I hope to grow this unit to $10,000,000 in premiums before I retire and I'd like to see our office approach $50,000,000 in premium writings.

 

I had our first Open meeting for the golf group on Thursday and then poker on Friday night. It was good to see all of the guys on Thursday night and even nicer to have dinner prepared for me. We had a nice sweet and sour chicken with fried rice and pot stickers and I didn't have to cook that night. Darla was home on Friday morning and fixed a taco soup for the guys as I was hosting poker. I never win when I host and I was down to about $44 in quarters and I went on a dry streak early and was down to about $10 in change when we broke for dinner. I made a nice comeback after dinner and finished the night with about $84 in change. That was some nice change and a nice change.

 

Saturday, Darla was up early and Frieda joined Darla on the trip to the Bay Area for her gig. She wanted me to go, but I knew I'd be bored silly and I really didn't want to get up early and drive to a volleyball tournament. I slept in until about 9:30 and then was up for a big home cooked three egg ham and cheese omelet. I was over to the course to hit balls by 11 AM and we teed off at 11:25. I was happy to have a free round, especially given the cold, wet conditions. We've had a fairly warm winter with a lot of rain and a lot of nice Sunny days. Not this Saturday, which started socked in with fog and the overcast stayed around until about 4 PM. It never did warm up as the bitter cold (45 degrees) didn't allow my back to loosen up and I struggled to a 45+43=87. My buddy, John, who is an 18 shot a 38 on the front side and had a chance for a career round, but the cold caught up to him and he shot 48 on the back for an 86. We had a good time, but John couldn't catch a break and ended up losing $10 on our bets.

 

I'm writing this wrapped in a blanket as the cold has continued today. The wood floors are great and make the house seem much bigger, but they definitely are not as warm as carpeting. I've ordered a leather shoe bench locker from Amazon that will come in tomorrow. We will place that beside the couch and store our throws and pillows in there.

 

I was up fairly early this morning and off to church and a great sermon. I stopped at Lowes on the way home and picked up some 4 inch can lights for the kitchen. We have a box light in there now with neon tubes and we wanted to upgrade. I bought five lights as Charlie mapped out where he wanted to place them when he was here on Friday night.  Charlie will install them for me when he gets back from his vacation to Mexico. He and Frieda are staying at the same condo we have in Nuevo Vallarta and will be golfing. They both play golf which is nice as they can do it together. They are staying at his sister's time share. It will be nice to see some update to the kitchen. We did the floors, countertops, stovetop, backsplash and hood a few years ago. I still want to have the cabinets redone. Darla and I know a couple at church that run a cabinet shop in Lincoln and I may pull the trigger on that this Spring.

 

We still have our Christmas tree up. Darla told me that if I got the boxes down from the attic, that she would put things away on Friday. She had to meet a client downtown and didn't get to it. I really don't think she expected me to get the boxes down. Hopefully, we will pack away our Christmas this week. She is quite particular about what displays go in what boxes, so if I tried to surprise her, I'd be handed my head. She is very sentimental about Christmas and hates to see it go. She has a friend whose Christmas tree stayed up all year. She will NOT talk me into that one. Funny thing is she still plugs in the lights every night on the tree.

 

I got a call on Tuesday afternoon from David asking if Darla and I wanted to go to the King's game against Dallas that night. . I told him that his Mom was out of town, but that I'd get a friend to join me. He said that we were about four rows from the floor and he would be sitting courtside. I told him that if he could see me that I'd better bring a guy friend. I called big John and he was lukewarm to the idea until he heard where we were sitting.

 

Well, that is it for this week. Darla is on her way home from the Bay Area. I may take her out for a burger for dinner and we can get caught up on things. I hope you are all well. We are still planning on taking a trip to Dallas to see Randy and Cake in April and it will be fun to see family. I love you guys. Ciao.

 

 

 

 

Dallas is out of the Playoffs

Okay. I promise. I'm now finished with pictures from Jennifer and Sam's visit to Northern California. It is hard to move on as Darla hasn't even taken down our Christmas decorations or tree yet. We had so much fun and it is the memories that keep us warm until we see our loved ones again. It will be March.

 

I have arranged with one of our carrier partners to use their corporate apartment in March and head out to Scottsdale for Spring Training. We have the apartment March 6th-10th and I'm thinking right now that I might drive down to Phoenix and then work our way back through Las Vegas to home. It is my birthday on the 12th and I can't imagine anyone that Darla and I would rather spend it with than our granddaughter. We may yet fly into Phoenix and then fly home and then turn around on the 12th and fly to Vegas. Pete, my Underwriting Manager, and I will make the trip to Phoenix with our wives over the weekend and then see our carriers on Monday and Tuesday before flying home. The girls (if we fly) will come in on Friday with us and fly back on Sunday. Pete and I would fly back Tuesday and then I'd still just have Wednesday in the office.

 

Things at work are heating up. I have a new Personal Lines candidate that I have met with twice. She will make a trip in to SF this week to meet with Harvey. It's a funny story in that I was looking for another Management Trainee, who are fresh out of college and high potential employees. Linda worked for Allied Insurance and was in their Emerging Leadership program. She is a referral from one of my newer hires whose wife worked with her at Allied. Allied merged with the Nationwide Personal Lines unit and they have announced that they are shutting the Sacramento office and moving it to Iowa (Iowa??). Linda had already accepted a position at Kemper. I sought her out and invited her in for an interview. She sent me her resume and has 25 years experience!! This is not a recent college graduate. She is one of those people who is mid forties, but looks thirty. I met with her along with my Personal lines UW and we were both VERY impressed. This last week I had Matt, My Associate Managing Director and Oksana from our PL unit meet with her for lunch and they both came back equally impressed. When I told her that she would be meeting Harvey and that he likes my candidates to have done their homework and know about Burns and Wilcox and our parent company, she sent me a note and said that by the time she gets there on Friday she will know more about the company than he does. Cocky? A little, but a good salesman has a strong sense of self and is very self confident. Hopefully I will have good news on this front next week.

 

Yep. Dallas lost to Green Bay and is out of the playoffs. I'm not shocked as their defense was never as good as the offense, but the overturn of the call on Dez Bryant's incredible catch on 4th down was hard to swallow. I looked at it ten times and never saw the ball hit the ground. It looked like his hand was under the ball and it bounced forward into the end zone and he caught it again. It was either a completed catch down at the one or a touchdown. I was especially surprised to see the overturn because of the fact that it was called a catch on the field. I think we would have lost to Seattle, but it would have been fun to see. Hopefully they improve on defense next year, but they have to sign both DeMarco Murray and Dez Bryant and that will cost them big bucks. All in all, it was a great year for an overachieving bunch of players in Dallas. I enjoyed it immensely.

 

Darla has a Silpada manager coming in tomorrow to stay with us one night and then they are off to a management conference in Hollywood. Darla and Sue fly out Tuesday morning and then Darla gets back Friday and then leaves for the Bay Area on Saturday. She is leaving the conference early to work this event. She asked me to go with her and stay with her at the hotel. I considered it, but she is gone to a Volleyball tournament all day and in to the evening. Sitting around by myself just seems like no fun to me. I have poker here at the house on Friday night and just want to spend a quiet weekend. With Darla gone it will be quiet. I'll try and get out and play golf on Saturday later in the morning.

 

I did play in our first tournament of the year on Saturday and it was our Captain and Crew event. We break it out by A,B C and D players and combine them for a scramble team. I played with John Parola and Charlie Aichele along with Rafa Sierra. We started slow, but came on for a 32+31=63. We missed about a 10 foot putt for birdie on 16 and knew that would cost us. The winners both had 61, with another team at 62 and we were tied for fourth with the 63. I did manage to get us the closest to the pin on number 12 with a shot that ended up 14 inches from the hole. We should take home about $38 per man which about pays for our green fees.

 

Well, this is short and sweet, but Dad and Shirley are on a cruise, Randy is on business in New York and there is no one reading this drivel, so I'll move on. I hope you are all well. Ciao.

 

 



Great times with Jennifer and company

 

We had a blast with Jennifer, Samantha, David, Daniel and Becky over the holidays. It was a great, relaxing week and work awaits tomorrow. It is so good for Darla and I to see Jennifer in a stable relationship. It is good for Sam and McKenny is a really good guy. They have talked of marriage, but there are issues that need to be resolved financially and realistically. McKenny would be taking on a huge responsibility and the bills from Jennifer's hospital stay last Summer are over $200,000 and that needs to be solved before they can move forward. Darla and I have talked to both of them because of Sam and her need for a stable environment. They are both truly in love and committed to one another and I can only thank McKenny for his influence on both Jennifer and Samantha. It is entirely positive and he is a great guy.

 

All of that said, it didn't stop Darla from rolling out the "boyfriend" bedroom in the house where McKenny stayed while Jennifer and Samantha stayed in the guest room. We really just settled the house for this visit and it worked well. The boxes are all opened and emptied. Darla's office still has some work, but she is combining two offices, the one from our bedroom and the one that was in the guest room. She is getting all of her Silpada items together and getting organized in there. The room has a door and what I don't see won't blow my OCD mind.

 

Jennifer, McKenny and Sam stayed until about 5 PM on New Years day and then drove home overnight so Sam could sleep. They got home at 2:30 in the morning and Jennifer was back up at 5:30 for her morning call with her company.

 

Prior to their departure, we had another three and a half days of fun. Monday we drove up to Paradise to visit Darla's parents and go to dinner. Jennifer had work during the day and Darla and I took Sam over to my office to meet the staff and over to her old office to see her friends. I had to get expense accounts done and spent about an hour working while Darla was over at her old office. Sam was exceedingly shy and hid behind me as I introduced her to the few employees working the week after Christmas. A couple of the girls got her talking about what she got for Christmas and I think she enjoyed it. She wandered all through my office and looked at all of my golf awards and pictures. I know she remembered it, because she asked me Friday afternoon if I got a hole in one while I was golfing that morning. If only it were so easy. Darla and I took her to lunch afterward.

 

We drove up in the afternoon and met the boys and Becky up there. The folks took us out to the Black Bear Diner in Paradise for dinner and you can see pictures of us in their yard and at the restaurant.

 

Tuesday we had thought of going up to the snow, but they really didn't have the right clothes for the visit and it was really windy over the mountain passes that day. We totally relaxed at the house on Tuesday and Sam went in the spa and played games and the girls (including Sam) made some Prime Rib soup with the bottom rib bones from our Friday dinner. Darla and I are still eating on that and I had a bowl of it while I watched the Dallas playoff game today. We had the boys over in the evening and played games.

 

New Year's Eve we made the drive into San Francisco and visited the Exploratorium. McKenny gave me a break and drove in with his rented Explorer. I paid for the gang to visit the Exploratorium and McKenny bought us lunch at the Fog Harbor Café on Pier 39. We got to SF about 11 and had lunch about 2. That was hard on Darla because of her diabetes. She needs to eat more often and the protein bar that she brought along didn't do her a lot of good. She finally got me to realize how low her blood sugar was and I got the kids to walk down to Pier 39 and have a late lunch. I bought everyone ice cream after lunch and we walked back to the Exploratorium where the kids walked through for about another hour. Gramma and I were pooped and rested on a bench in the sunshine in front of the building. We got back about 5:30 and had lasagna and soup for dinner, had a fire in the outdoor fire pit and hit the spa about 10:00 PM. Sam was a trooper and stayed up and watched the ball drop in Times Square (on three hour delay). She was wider awake than I was. I was drooping after a long day.

 

Thursday we took it easy. McKenny took a nap in the afternoon. Sam, Darla and I took a spa in the late afternoon and we had an early dinner of New York steak roast before they headed on their journey home. Darla and I both felt this was a very positive trip. We got to know McKenny a lot better and really like him. We got to talk to Jennifer about Sam and their future and it was really a great visit. The boys made time for us and hung out over here quite a bit and overall, it was a GREAT vacation and a wonderful family time.

 

I did get a little golf in during my vacation, shooting a 79 on December 23rd and then shooting 83 on this past Friday with the regular weekday crew. It was great seeing Boyd and Andy and I even won a couple of bucks. There were originally 16 playing, but the temperature has dropped overnight into the twenties lately and there was a three hour frost delay. They finally let people out at 10:15. Our group  now down to eight, teed off at about 10:45 and had tee times starting at 8 AM. I got home and took a spa and talked to Jennifer and Samantha. Saturday, we went through the frost delay again, although this time we were able to tee off by 10 o'clock. I suffered through a really sore back and shot a 90. I had the right partners and broke even on our bet, but could barely hit the ball 200 yards for most of the day. My back has been fine lately, but I just slept awkwardly and I couldn't relax it in the cold (46 degree) air. It stayed pretty sore throughout the day and into the evening. I was fine when I got up today. You never know.

 

Well, that's it. I'll have more pictures over the next few weeks. Sam is a little mini-me of Jennifer. She also has some of Jennifer's traits which include being pretty strong willed and petulant at times. She is also really sweet and has a wonderful personality. She has a strong sense of family and really enjoys her uncles and her Aunt Becky. She cried when she left and said she wanted to stay with her Papa and Gramma. Jen said she cried until they got to the gas station around the corner and then was more interested in the snacks they were buying. I will be back at the keyboard next weekend and we'll do this again. Be well and Happy New Year. Ciao.