Monday, June 29, 2015

Bodega Bay 2015

Our Bodega Bay condo and Darla waving hello.


Pimp Daddy Charlie and Frieda



Frieda and Ken



 
Lee Janzen

Tom Watson
 
The Senior US Open came to town last week and it was a big deal for Sacramento. Not because of the fact that it was a major event (It was sort of), but more so for the money that it poured into our local economy. There were over 7000 additional car rentals over the course of the week and  an additional 25,000 hotel room bookings and all told the boost to the local economy was about $16.7 million. Not too shabby.
 
I took one of my agents out to the event at Del Paso CC on Wednesday. The advantage of going before the event starts is smaller crowds and interaction with the players. If I was an autograph guy (and I'm not) I could have had a flag of the Del Paso CC completely covered in autographs. They also allow cameras. We went over about noon and I have several impressions. I've been to three PGA Open Championships and the prices were outrageous, like $8 for a bottle of water and $17 for a steak sandwich. Here the cost was $2.50 for water and $7 for  hamburger or chicken sandwich. The agent I took is a friend from church as well as one of our mid level agents. He insisted on buying me a souvenir and you can see the Sr. US Open hat that I'm wearing in the golf pictures above. The practice rounds allow each player 15 minutes on the green. They can chip and putt and  hit sand shots and calculate break. The caddies are busy with their notebooks and the players stroke putts from around the green. The course was in amazing shape, unlike many of the golfers.
 
We had a heat wave roll in last week and hit 106 degrees two days and it was brutal. I was astounded by how some of the golfers are so out of shape. Scott Simpson, who played for years at the AT&T Pebble Beach event with Bill Murray must be pushing three hundred pounds. Craig Stadler, whose nickname of the Walrus is apropos, his face was beet red and he was really laboring. We hung out at the 13th tee which is shaded and watched the groups come through. They would each hit drives, approach shots and putt on each hole to record a score and then chip and putt to try to learn the greens. When Tom Watson came through he was being shadowed by one of my buddies, Pamas, who is an FBI agent. Their office here in Sacramento was lending security to the more high profile golfers in the field. What they should have done is provide a medical person for each of the fat, out of shape golfers. One or two withdrew because of the heat, but most of them stayed the course.
 
It was a good time hanging out at the course and I ran into a lot of friends while we wandered around. I had no interest in watching the regular tournament and besides, we had reservations in Bodega Bay with their 68 degree high temperatures and sweater weather in the mornings and evenings.
 
I worked a half day Friday with the goal of heading to Windsor early afternoon. The 104 degree weather said otherwise and Darla and I stayed in the pool until about 4:30, when we saddled up and headed west. We got to Windsor, a small town near Santa Rosa, about 6:15 and checked into our motel in Rohnert Park. Neil and Lilly wanted to meet us for a "drink", but had already had dinner. Darla and I went to the Black Bear Diner near the motel and they came over and drank coffee while we ate our dinner. We visited for awhile and then they scooted back to their hotel in Santa Rosa and we packed it in for the night.
 
Saturday we met all of the ladies up at the golf course in Windsor and they piled into my 300 and headed off to buy up the town.  I played golf and made a hash of the whole weekend. I shot a 99 at Windsor and got into every sand trap and hazard on the course. It was quite remarkable to be so consistently bad for an extended period of time. The ladies had headed over to Bodega Bay to check into the three bedroom condo and I drove over to Bodega with Neil after the tournament.
 
We got cleaned up and looked halfway presentable and all six piled into the 300 (not easy when you take into account that I have two large bucket seats in the front). We stopped at John and Camille's condo one the other side of the golf course. Ours is on the first hole and they were near the 16th green. Our backyard faced the 1st fairway and the front faced the 9th green. Anyhow they were fixing chicken on the barbecue and tried to get us to stay. We were all in the mood for clam chowder and seafood so begged off.  We had eaten at the Tides restaurant on our visit last Fall, so decided to go to Lucas Wharf Seafood restaurant. Charlie is not a seafood fan and had a nice New York steak. Darla and I split an order of Fish and Chips and a big bowl of clam chowder. That and copious amounts of sourdough bread made for a nice evening. John had invited us back to their condo for a drink afterward, but we were all pretty deep into a food coma and begged off. Charlie snuck off to bed at nine o'clock and the rest of us turned in by ten thirty. Quite the party crowd.
 
We awoke Sunday to a heavy marine layer that left a misting rain on everything in it's path. Our tee time was 10:18 and it had mostly moved out by then and we had scattered clouds. I got a sunburn on my face and I can't remember a time when the sun was out in full. Sometimes the cloudy skies can fool you. I continued my poor play at Bodega and shot a 95, including three lost balls. I was pretty cranky and when one of our foursome had to go back twice to re-tee on a par five I almost lost it. I was short of the green in two and took a seven. I like playing with golfers who are much better than me as I find myself playing either up or down to my competition. I was pretty vocal after the par five and said, "imagine that it takes us forty minutes to play a hole and I get a double bogey"! Tim the player in question came up after the round and apologized and I in turn told him that I apologized for my outburst and he didn't deserve that. He did deserve the 12 he took on the hole, but not my attitude. I regretted it as soon as it poured out of my mouth. Funny thing is the course is so difficult that I took 7th place with my net 77.
 
Now about the condo. It is owned by the local motel. They have three condos on the golf course  and the one we stayed in is the biggest and nicest. For $350 a night we got a three bedroom two bath 2500 square foot home. The upstairs consists of a master suite with a sitting room and views of the golf course from every angle. Neil and Lilly got the suite this time. I'd like to get a group together again in the Fall to come out for three days and stay at the course. it was fabulous. The kitchen was not overly large. It is a galley style kitchen with a closed end. There is a two car garage and all of the bedrooms had queen beds in each room with large pillow top mattresses. The rooms each had walk in closets and views of the golf course. The condo was great. The carpets could use a good cleaning and the outside is in need of a fresh coat of paint. The wet and foggy conditions are hard on the exterior of the homes, especially ones with wood siding.
 
The reason that Darla and I came down early was a big NASCAR race at Sears Point, the Save Mart 350. It was Jeff Gordon's last race there as he is retiring and he'd won the race six times. and won the pole position 4 times. We decided that we would have dinner with the gang on Sunday before driving back. Darla had a gig at the hospital in Sac today and a party tonight, hence the reason I am sitting at my desk at 7:05 in the evening working on the blog. We rested after golf, got cleaned up, packed up the car and headed out to De Nucci's Italian, a place highly praised by Ron, my twilight partner (more on that in a minute). We drove up to a completely empty parking lot. It turns out that Mr. DeNucci had died and they closed the restaurant to prepare for the funeral. Funny, because it was open on Saturday night because Ron ate there. Maybe he died that day or the night before. We are in the sticks in Bodega and had driven up to Valley Ford for dinner. I told Charlie he was up for the next place and he drove for twenty minutes and finally pulled over. He found a nice place in Cotati and it was highly recommended. We drove another ten minutes and pulled into a strip mall that was mostly deserted Charlie swore the place was there, but the number of vacant stores said elsewhere. He went back to his yelp and I walked over to a heavily tattooed guy outs9ide the tattoo shop (must have been a good restaurant with neighbors like a tattoo parlor, eh?). He suggested Art's Place in Rohnert Park and we took off for there, not sure of what to expect. Darla said it had to be good with Art's name on the restaurant.
 
I was very pleased with the service, the food and the ambiance. We initially saw seating in a family style, but got a table for six. Art is from a little town in Italy and emigrated to the United States in 1960 and began working for restaurant owners. He opened his own restaurant in Petaluma in 1968 and moved to Rohnert Park in 1995. He has home made gnocchi which had me ready to eat before we even walked in. All of the food was good, from the Caesar salad to the wedge salad to the tri tip dips and spaghetti and meatballs. A great find and I have a tattoo shop employee to thank. Nice guy. He told me exactly how to get there and we had no issues.
 
The NASCAR race had ended at 2 PM and we thought we were safe leaving late for home. Think again. The drive back to Sacramento was a nightmare as Highway 37 had a one hour backlog and it is one of those two lanes that split, one to Sonoma and the other to Vallejo. The Sonoma side has nearly no one on it except drivers that are trying to force their way into the right lane and the traffic was at a crawl. It was pretty tense and the delay was exactly an hour until we got to the split. Not a lot of fun at ten at night when all you want to do is get home. All of those rednecks and married first cousins that live for NASCAR were making my night a pure slice of heaven. We made it home at 11:30.
 
I went to sub for Ron last week in the golf league. They are about 1/2 way through their schedule and Ron's partner quit on him. I agreed to step in and now have a Thursday night commitment. I can use the practice on my game, but man it was HOT last Thursday. Brutal to play in 108 degrees at 4:30 in the afternoon. Tomorrow and Wednesday are supposed to be 111, so Darla better not kick me out of the house again. I'll just go skinny dipping in the pool. That 'll show them. Or maybe not.
 
That's it for this week. Be good to each other and say thank you to our LORD and Savior for the blessings we all often take for granted. Ciao.
 
 
 
 
 


Sunday, June 21, 2015

OW, my aching back!




 
I fell asleep at one point and woke up in Nan Schnider's backyard. Darla has decided that she wants a green thumb, so has about 18 potted plant in the backyard now, including vegetables, flowering plants and even some citronella that sit by our gazebo. I call it Darla's pot garden.They are a little hard to see because they are in the shade. With four large 8' umbrellas surrounding the yard there is a lot of shade in the backyard. Most of the pool gets full sun, but there a few patches of shade where you can set a drink or your phone to keep them out of the sun. The pool is sitting at 82 degrees and we spend a big part of the afternoon just relaxing on lounges in the pool. We did that today and now I am updating the blog and watching the US Open golf tournament on TV.
 
The title of the blog is pretty descriptive. My back had been sore about ten days ago or so and finally starting feeling better over last weekend. I played golf Tuesday morning in our Day on the Oaks event. I got the second tee time at 7:44 and was off the course by noon. I shot an 85 with my 17 strokes and ended up with a net  68 that took third place in the tournament. I birdied number 8 a, but still took $31 in skin money.
 
I had an interview on Tuesday afternoon with someone who worked for one of our competitors for 26 years. She left them last year to go to work with a retailer. Honestly, it was one of the worst interviews that I've ever been a part of.  She had trouble answering even mundane questions like how many agents did you work with and who were your top ten agents. She had "stepped down" as an underwriter last year and went back to doing assistant work and couldn't remember how many renewals she worked on. It was brutal. Pete liked her personality and Renee liked her experience, so I decided to check references for her. I didn't check with the references she gave me, but called the company underwriters to get a handle on her abilities. The first one I talked to said, "she is very nice and has an engaging personality." When I pressed for evaluation of her underwriting abilities, she said "No comment". That told me everything I wanted to know. Pete talked to another company underwriter who was more forthcoming. Apparently she was demoted to an assistant position and had some terrible audit scores with that company and her employer was apparently "thrilled" when she left to go to the retail side. I crossed her off my list. When I talked to Harvey after the initial interview he asked why her long time employer wouldn't jump at the chance to hire her back.  He was right n as I later found out.
 
We do have a young man that I'm looking at that is in his early thirties. He worked as a contractor straight out of high school and actually was a foreman on a team of underwriters, but quit when the economy soured and spent the last four years getting his degree from Sacramento State University, my alma mater. He was President of the Insurance club at the school and has a degree in Business with minors in Marketing and Insurance. He has a brother who own one of the agencies that I work with and several of his cousins work in insurance. His brother strongly recommended Burns as a great place to work. I'm running a background check on him now and once cleared, I'll have him talk to Harvey and see if we can get him hired on.
 
 
I did play golf as a sub in the twilight league on Thursday night. My back was fine throughout the round and I shot 39. I came home and had some dinner and then sat and watched television with Darla. By the time I got up at close to 11:00, my back had me twisted over in pain. I slept fitfully that night and was still in pain when I got up. I decided to go into work and call my doctor who is right down the street to see if I could get in rather than have another Bowen treatment. He was booked up, but I was able to get in to see a nurse practitioner. She didn't even examine me, just listened to my tale (tail?) of woe, and prescribed me with Prescription strength (800 mg) Motrin and 10 mg Flexeral. I've been taking both three times a day since Friday night. My back is better, but still sore. I did pass on a tournament round on Saturday, calling in at 7:00 AM to withdraw from my 7:58 tee time.
 
Tomorrow I have a golf tournament in Chico with an insurance agent. We will join up with Gail and another agent from the area. Gail is a Producer in my office. I'm hoping my back holds up, but what I've found is that the worst thing for my back is sitting in a chair all day. We'll have carts, but I plan to do a fair amount of walking on the course. It is a scramble, so I can take a few holes off as well.
 
Well, Jennifer called to wish me a Happy Father's Day while I was writing this, so short though it may be, I'm out of gas. I hope all the Dad's out there had a great day, especially my Dad. We did get signed up for the cruise, although we somehow missed out  on the gratuity perk. I think Sherry was confused on when we had to sign up, but she is looking at trying to get me some additional perquisites. Well, be well and I'll talk to each of you soon. Ciao.
 
 

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Summertime!










I am done with this drought and if you can't beat it, you join in. My lawn is going dormant for the Summer and I will only water it once a week to keep it alive. I did some research this last week on lawn paint and how long it lasts. Lawn paint has been used for years, mostly on golf courses and sport's venues. It is plant based and I found a product called Enviro Color, which is used by the NFL and the PGA. The product comes in a 32 ounce bottle for $25 and you mix 4 to 8 ounces per gallon. I bought enough to cover our 2000 square feet of grass in the front and side yard. It is mixed in a tank sprayer and applied with a fan spray nozzle. It will stain anything it touches, but will not adhere to wet surfaces, so I sprayed the trunks of the trees and had to wash off a few spots that got on the concrete. It went on amazingly well and it was literally like painting the lawn. I'm looking forward to someone turning me in for wasting water. It looks good and that's all I care about.
I did have one couple stop while I was applying it and ask me what it was that I was applying. We chatted for a few minutes and they left committed to buying the product and spraying it on. I should just set up a little side business and green up all the lawns around me.
It was a good week all told this week. I had a meeting with one of the larger agencies in the area. They are part of an Association and have never used wholesalers in the past. They work with smaller agencies all over the western United states and I was asked to sit in on an interview with their CEO for a board position. Jeff, one of my agency owner's, will be the President of the Association next year and he asked if I would serve on the board with him. When I met with Alan (the CEO) I asked him for a quid pro quo, namely that he allow me to come in with two of my underwriters and meet with their underwriting staff. That meeting was on Tuesday and couldn't' have gone better. They were impressed with our depth and size and we are moving forward on an appointment. It could be a real coup de tat for Burns and Wilcox. Both of the underwriters that I brought with me, Wendy and Linda performed tremendously well on the call and impressed their staff.
Our pool is at 84 degrees and Darla and I spent most of the weekend relaxing on the water. We have four umbrellas surrounding the pool and there's plenty of opportunity to get out of the sun. The one issue we have is bees. I have a ground cover surrounding the pool that is a cherry ground cover with little red flowers throughout. The bees love the ground cover. They don't bother me much on the pool, but seem to harass Darla unmercifully. I was working on the tile today and she was on the lounge trying to read. One of the bees kept dive bombing her and she ended up overturning the raft, drenching her sunglasses and book and my finding the whole episode tremendously funny did not endear me to my bride. She tends to have mosquitoes and bees bother her and is talking about tearing out the ground cover. We'll see if she follows through on that.
I played golf with Neil again this weekend. He had bought a coupon two weeks ago and paid for golf and I took us to lunch afterward. It was my turn to reciprocate this weekend and we went to Cherry Island in Elverta and then he took us to lunch at El Azteca in Roseville. We sat at the bar and visited with the owner. We had margaritas, lunch and then the owner treated us to smoothies after lunch. Smoothies are not on the menu, but she was making some for her workers with pineapple, coconut, strawberries, banana and lemon. They looked delicious and she gave Neil, Paul and I a taste. Paul played with us Saturday morning and then joined us for lunch. I played with no back pain, but was off on my game and shot 45+45=90. Neil beat me for the second time in three weeks with an 89.
I play in our weekday tournament on Tuesday. I'll take the morning off and then head into the office after lunch. I have the 8:09 tee time and play with Boyd, Andy and Jay. Next Saturday is the Diamond event and I'll play in that with Andy and Paul.
Darla has her team meeting here tomorrow night and that means that I'll work late and be able to get  a couple of my team caught up on their QAs. We approve the policies once they are written and when I have a few extra minutes I'll jump in and clear up some of the QAs. Tomorrow will be my chance to make a few team members happy.
We are almost back to full staff. I have one more interview on Thursday morning and I hope that it is a good one. This woman I'm interviewing has worked at an MGA for 25 years with several competing firms and she decided to try the retail life last year and went to work for an agent on commission. She is not progressing at the rate she had hoped and is interested in coming back to the wholesale side of the business. It would be a quick training exercise for her and we'd have her up and running quickly. She also happens to be a neighbor, living about two blocks away. Darla had told her next door neighbor who works in banking about the job and she must have told her friend as they both applied. Small world.
Rand and Darryl are both back from Hawaii and the reality is probably settling in that work awaits tomorrow. Dad and Shirley are still in Iceland and their reality is retirement.
Well, that's all for this week. I hope everyone is in good spirits and living in the footsteps of our Lord. Ciao.

Sunday, June 07, 2015

Summer 2015 is Here!





The calendar may not agree, but the first 100 degree day is due tomorrow and today was 98 degrees. The heat is on and the pool is open and in use. We went to church this morning and I went into the pool after breakfast to clean the tile. The water is at 80 degrees, which is fine, but I was cleaning the tile from a lounge and when I pulled over to the steps, I went to step out of the lounge and totally missed the step and ended up under the water. It actually felt pretty good. I stayed in the pool and relaxed until we had to leave for Charlie and Frieda's party this afternoon at three o'clock. We are all heading to Bodega Bay in late June and for the first time, Frieda is not golfing the first day and wanted to get everyone together to discuss what the girls would do and who she was driving with. When we finally got to the discussion, we all just said we'd work it out when we got there. Frieda was frustrated. Oh well.
 
This was a busy week with our annual Insurance Association golf day on Monday at Serrano Country Club. My team shot 62 and tied for third (the first two teams and last place got paid). It was fun. Burns and Wilcox hosted the putting contest again and I had Odyssey Versa putters for the closest man and woman. One of my male agents, Doug, who was playing Pete's group, won the men's side.
 
Tuesday night Darla and I headed to Walnut Creek for a claim deposition that I was deposed for. It turns out that the plaintiff attorney hurt his back and the deposition was postponed. I already had a hotel, so we went ahead and did the deposition preparation. Darla drove down with me and we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express on Main Street. We drove downtown after the deposition and strolled the shopping area before finally picking a restaurant. We ate at an upscale Chinese restaurant and really enjoyed ourselves.
 
We drove back Wednesday and stopped off in Galt to see the paint job on our rental. The guy did a tremendous job with the repairs and the paint. The rental looks so much better, although the lawn looks horrible. They had to dig up the stump after the tree was removed and the whole left side of the lawn by the driveway is missing grass. I never did pay for the tree removal as they dropped it on the roof and broke some tile. They couldn't find a bull nose end piece  for the slope and I had the paint guy repair it. I told the tree guy I wasn't paying for the tree removal until he fixed the roof. He stopped calling me about two months ago and decided to forget my bill as he knew it would cost him more than the $350 he would owe more to have a  roofer repair the damage.
 
You can also see a picture of the palm tree in the backyard of the rental. It was a 2 pound $1.99 Payless special back in 1995 and is now a 60 foot giant in the backyard. I also have another palm that is about 25 feet tall. Pretty amazing.
 
Thursday morning I was up at 5:30 and off to Eureka, CA for another golf tournament with the Humboldt County Insurance Agent's Association. It was a five and a half hour drive up and I got there at noon for the 1 PM shotgun. There was no parking left as they had a morning shotgun for the members at Baywood Country Club. I had to park out on the course adjacent to the 9th fairway. Most of the cars just parked along the road, but I put my car directly behind a huge tree.
 
This is the tournament that I played with Matt, my old employee who left for greener pastures with a competitor.
 
My back has continued to bother me and I pulled it on Monday when I was taking one of the sponsors out to their hole at the Sac Golf Day. The sponsor was a Collision repair facility and they had a margarita machine. That wasn't the problem, i5 was the gas generator with 15 gallons of gas in it. I tried to help lift the generator and I felt a pull in my lower back.
 
When I finished lunch and made it to my cart, Matt walked up and said hi. He was in the cart next to me and I told him it was the wrong cart. It actually belonged to the group in front of us. He grabbed his bag and moved to our second cart.
 
Anyhow, I was on Advil and exercise and the 5 1/2 hour drive didn't help at all. My back was killing me. I took two Motrin and it took me about four holes for it to kick in. We ended up shooting a 64 and taking second place in the tournament.
 
When we finished playing and were putting our bags away, Matt realized that he left his wallet in the other cart. We were all going to dinner afterward and blowing off the buffet and awards. He scrambled around trying to find his wallet. I talked to one of the guys in a cart from in front of us and they said they didn't find a wallet.
 
We went back in to the clubhouse to say goodbye to everyone and ran into the other  two players in front of us and it turned out one of them had put the wallet in his pocket thinking it was his. Really? He gave the wallet back.
 
We went to Abruzzi's restaurant in Arcata and had the filet mignon and gnocci preceded by clams and calamari. A Regional VP from Blue Shield joined us along with his sales manager came with us, along with the two agents we played golf with. Toward the end of the evening Matt used the restroom and left his hat and wallet on the table. Again? I grabbed it and stuck it in my pocket.
 
When the bill came, Matt made a big show of paying it, grabbing the bill and reaching for his vanished wallet. His face turned green and he looked at all of us with a confused look on his face. I handed him the wallet and he was relieved. Our agent in Redding, Chris, picked up the bill and we headed to the hotel.
 
There was an after party at the Red Lion, but I decided to turn in early as my back was sore. I drove back Friday via the Redwood Highway and you can see the windshield pic of the "tunnel of trees" that I drove through on Highway 101. I stopped in Willits and had lunch before stopping to see an agent in Ukiah.
 
I got home about 4 PM and met Darla on the pool. She had to leave pretty shortly afterward for a graduation at Luke's day care. I had poker that night at Steve's house in Roseville. We had a large storm blow in that night and had strong winds, rain, thunder, lightning and hail as we sat in his backyard and played cards. The hail was particularly loud on the metal roof of his back patio. I had a particularly good night and won about $85 from my friends.
 
Saturday was our last NCGA qualifier of the year and I finally had the round I've been searching for this year. My handicap is up to 17 and I got 16 because I play from the white tees now. The rating between the blue and whites is a difference of one stroke. I shot 41 on the front and finished with a birdie-par and the par on nine was after a missed 8 foot putt. I shot a 40 on the back nine and finished double bogey-bogey. My 81 less the 16 strokes was a 65 and I was the low qualifier. The other three qualifiers all shot net 66. I will move on to the regional qualifier with the other Nor Cal qualifiers in late August. This is the second NCGA qualifier I will play in as Steve and I will play our Senior 4 ball regional qualifier in July.
 
Jennifer and McKenny have their tickets for Nuevo Vallarta in December and will fly in with all of us. We are really looking forward to a family vacation with Dad and Shirley at the resort in Mexico.
 
Well, that's it for this week. I have two new employees starting this week and have several more interviews this week as I look to add one more piece to the puzzle. I'm looking to get back to being one of the star offices of the company. It is a process and it all takes time. Be well this week. Darryl and Randy and their wives are together in Maui this week  I wish them all well and am quite envious of their vacation. I plan to post a lot of pictures from our trip in December. Be warned. Ciao!