Off to Dallas this week

So, Darla has a little purple theme going in the back yard this year. I spent the morning (after church) putting a second coat of sealant on the deck and I'm paying for it tonight. My back seized up about half way through the process, but I took breaks in the process and made it through. I have a congenital defect in my spine where a couple of vertebrae did not completely form and if I bend over too much, sleep wrong, twist my back the wrong way or just have a violent sneeze, my back will seize up and I can't straighten up. I end up pretty much shaped like a question mark, hunched over like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons. I laid down for awhile after I finished and Darla massaged my back, but this is a process and hopefully it will heal itself or I'll be off to Bowen before my flight on Thursday. I was able to wash the car, but had a spasm when I was setting the bucket of soapy water by the car and almost spilled the whole thing. There was a lady in church this morning that had a coughing fit during communion and she spilled the little cup of juice all over herself. 

 

I got the pool cleaned up this weekend. We had quite a windstorm this past week and there was leaves and pollen and a layer of dirt all over the pool. I was able to clean it out and wanted to actually clean the filters today, but when my back gave in, I put that off to another day. Darla bought the purple containers and plants and planted all of those while I worked on the pool. She also picked up a couple of new umbrellas from Save Mart (a grocery store of all places) and we put those up today.

 

My visit from Alan and his trip to our office went well. He was tough as usual on the underwriters (we are writing the wrong business with the wrong retailers, etc., etc.), but overall it was a good visit. My staff needed a break after all that they have been through lately, so it was good. We met one of my old agents fro lunch and he is also a very good friend of Pete's, so it was a nice visit. Tabb is the former state chairman of the IBA West group, one of the largest agency groups on the West Coast. He is also the chairman of the IBA True Choice national youth Golf tournament in 2016. I have already talked Alan in to being a national sponsor of the event which is being held at Del Paso CC in Sacramento, site of the 2015 Senior US Open. Tabb invited Alan to come out and see the tournament in person.

 

Alan also reached out to the staff and took the underwriters out for drinks after work on Monday. We met at Fat's Dim Sum Bar and had drinks and appetizers. It was nice for the staff to see Alan in a more relaxed environment and he had some very complimentary things to say about the staff and the Sacramento office. We went out to dinner afterward and Pete joined us. We went into old town Roseville, but the restaurant I wanted to go to was closed on Mondays, so we ended up having dinner at the Claim Jumper restaurant, which Alan seemed to enjoy. I took them over to McClellan Air Park at about 9:20 for his 8:30 flight on Net Jets to Fresno. We were late, but he just has to pay the wait fee. It was good to load the package and get back to normal in the office.

 

Well, normal for two days and then I had Anthony from Home office in for an Audit. I talked to him over lunch and he had a water damage claim in his house as well, but his story takes the cake. He lives in a suburb of Detroit and in January of 2014, he woke to the sound of running water. I know that sound. He had a pipe break in the house and it was 20 below outside when it happened. The house was at 70 degrees, so it shouldn't have frozen. It turns out that his flew from the stove exits right next to the pipe in question and it had developed a leak and the baffle stuck leaving the flew wide open and the cold air entering the house and then escaping to the pipe.

 

They were out of their house for 5 months and got new floors, ceilings, etc. One year and one day to the event in January of 2015, he awoke to the sound of running water again and the same pipe had broken again. It turns out that the contractor had not fixed the original problem with the flue and it happened all over again. They expect to be back in the house in May. Wow.

 

I played golf this weekend in preparation for our trip to The Cliffs and had one of my worst outings in a while. I shot 45+49=94 and my driver failed to show up. I had played poker the night before and I was a little tired, but it really wasn't the reason for my poor play. I was pulling the ball dead left off the tee and scrambling all day. My only two good drives were on 1 and 18 and I parred both of those holes. I'm bringing the sticks but I don't know what to expect.

 

Darryl and Cheryl and Dad and Shirley are in Dallas now. I see the weather is typically extreme in Dallas this time of year. My ex, Diane, posted on Facebook that she thought she was going to die last night just driving home from friends. The wind and rain were so bad that she and her husband had to pull off the freeway and wait out the storm. She sent a post that she just wanted to live through the night so she could make it to the CMA's tonight. Priorities you know? I see that the weather is expected to stay a little iffy with thunderstorm in the forecast throughout the week next week. Hopefully, we will get a chance to get out and swing the clubs a few times while we are there.

 

We got the house completed this week. It turns out that the paint we bought was not a match for the paint that we had up there, so it cost us an extra $125 to redo the paint. Darla bought the paint and did the deed on Thursday and Friday. We had to have them color match the paint as the pint we had leftover from the original paint job was too light and didn't match the house. We can't figure out why unless we were between two colors and decided on the darker and still had the lighter can leftover. Who knows. Darla's original idea was to buy more of the other paint and paint the upper part of the siding, but I said, no. I wanted to get the right color and, besides, our house is about thirty feet on the side at the apex. We got it to match and will buy one more gallon so we have something for touchups.

Well, this will be late next week as I will be happily enjoying some R&R with Randy, Cake, Dad and Shirley. I hope you are all well and we will meet again in cyberspace next week. Ciao.