As ALWAYS, a fabulous time was had by all in San Francisco. We traveled to the city with John and Camille Parola this year and Camille is a Manager with PG&E and got us parking in the city. My headline refers to the fact that we parked the car the minute we got in and left it in the lot all weekend until we left. You don't need a car in SF.
The first picture above is of the 16th green and the view of the Castle at Castle Oaks Golf Course in Ione. I played in the NCGA Net Amateur qualifier on Thursday. Jesse Sierra and I drove up together Thursday morning and he played in a group a half hour in front of me. I had a rough day and it started with my first shot pulled dead left into the pond and then my re-tee being pulled left over the fairway and into another hazard. I limped to the par 5 green and scored a 9, four over on the first hole. I shot 47+43=90. I got an "Attaboy", but the scores overall were high with one net 74 actually qualifying for the finals in late October. Jesse struggled as well and shot a 90 as well with his 11 handicap. We picked the course as our qualifying site because it is unique and is in the foothills where it is not so HOT.
Friday we were up early and picked John and Camille up at 7:15 for the drive to Napa, California. I had a 10:30 tee time at the course and we were able to get a screaming deal at $25 a man for golf. The girls dropped us off at the course, had a drink with us and then headed off to spend copious amounts of money at the Outlet shops in Napa (Shirley knows what I'm talking about). I've got a couple of pictures of the Napa course. It is definitely a muni course, but it was in such an awesome place that we had a blast. None of us played particularly well and I struggled the most on the front nine shooting a 47, but I did come back with a 42 on the back for 89. Neil shot 92, Charlie an 86 and John an 89 as well. It was tremendous.
We finished up about 3 PM and were on our way to San Francisco right afterward. I had talked to Angela in our SF office to see if she could get us into an upscale Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. She is Chinese and called around and all of the venues were booked for Friday night. We ended up making a reservation at Palomino's, an Italian place about four blocks down Embarcadero from our hotel. We got to the hotel a little after 4 and John and Camille got checked in within minutes. For some reason the front desk clerk had computer issue with our reservation and had to reboot her computer. I was kidding with her and asked her if it was her first day. She said, no, she'd worked there for ten years. She finally got it booted back up and upgraded us to a "VIEW" room, which was a king room on the bay side of the hotel overlooking Pier 12 and the Bay Bridge. You can see some pictures that Darla took above. We had another issue with the maid at the hotel. We were taking a nap about 4PM on Saturday ad she knocked on the door. It woke us up and when I asked what she needed, she said. "Oh, I didn't think anyone was there." The room had already been cleaned, so what business did she have coming into our room? We complained to the front desk and they asked what they could do. We told them we just wanted them to know that the maid was re-entering rooms randomly for no apparent reason. They ended up giving us a 15% discount on an already upgraded room. The room for two nights ended up just over $400 and was supposed to cost $540 with taxes.
We had a great time at dinner Friday night at Palominos. Great food and the view of the bay was incredible. The only real issue we had all weekend was that Neil and Lilly stayed at a different hotel bout 4 miles from ours. They were at Union Square and we were at Embarcadero trying to coordinate with them. They had to cab over to our hotel to join up with us each time we got together.
Saturday we went to the Giant game. Our World Champion Giants are out of the playoffs this year. We buy the tickets in April and you never know. They were flat and got clobbered 6-0. We had a nice two mile hike to the park from our hotel. We have a couple of pictures from our walk to the park and at the park itself. It was fun, but we left in the 8th inning as they were getting hammered. We rested up after the game and ended up meeting the gang in the lobby for wine and beer on the happy hour perquisite. We met Neil and Lilly over at Fog Harbour at Pier 39 at 7 PM for dinner. We all walked to the Ferry Building and then caught the Metro light rail to Pier 39. The mass transit in the city is excellent and your ticket at $2.50 is good all day. We got a great table overlooking the bay and out to the Golden Gate Bridge. You can see a picture o the sunset over the Golden Gate and a few pictures of the couples at dinner. I told John that if you looked the other way across the restaurant you could see the Bay Bridge. He turned around and was marveling at the two bridges, when I stood up and waved and he could see my reflection in the large mirror on the far wall. I got him.
This morning we all met in the lobby (Neil and Lilly bailed as they had to check out of their hotel). We all walked down to a place that the front desk recommended, Red's Java House, that turned out to be a small diner that offered about four choices for dinner. We opted to keep walking and went to Delaney's restaurant a little closer to the ballpark. They had a great menu and Darla had French toast and I had a bacon and Tillamook cheddar omelet for breakfast. We have the final picture from our group breakfast this morning.
We checked out, got on the road and were in Roseville by a little after 1 PM. I watched the Dallas game and was horrified to see Tony Romo sacked and he broke his clavicle for the second time in his career and will miss 6-8 weeks. Our stud receiver, Dez Bryant, is out for up to ten weeks after being injured last week. It could be a tough year, but I think the team will hang in there and be there when both Dez and Tony get back.
Well, that is it for this week. I have an HR audit in the office this week which is a first for me. I asked the HR Manager what she was auditing and she said Best Practices. OK. She'll be here Tuesday and Wednesday. She's in SF tonight and will audit there tomorrow and then head on to San Diego for a similar audit. I hope you are all well. Ciao.
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