As I have mentioned before, turning the page on 2015 did not see many tears shed on my part. It was a good year personally and a challenging year professionally. We did finish 2015 strong as Pete and his assistant worked until the 11th hour on December 31st to close a $252,000 account. We got it, then lost it, then renegotiated and finally closed the deal late in the day. It was pretty quiet after noon on New Years Eve and the staff was itching to head off to their holiday. I finally called everyone together (all 10 of the skeleton crew) about three and told them that as soon as all binders were processed and the two refrigerators in the office were cleared out and wiped down, that they could go home. I've never seen people move so fast. In fact, Shawna, my Operations Manager, had some chicken in the kitchen refrigerator that was tossed before she had a chance to grab it. It was her lunch and she was obviously planning a late lunch that day. I felt bad and gave her $5.00 to buy a hamburger. We finished with a record December and over $300,000 in income to the office. I will be buying the staff a lunch at the Macaroni Grill here in the New Year, the first of many, I hope.
I am working on the office budget and corporate sent the templates out really late this year. I've asked each of the teams to give me their projections for 2016 and I will then massage those numbers before sending in the final budget. It is due on January 20th, Darryl's 60th birthday. I have asked the teams to have me their numbers by this coming Friday. I'm also in the middle of reviews and have to take on a couple of extra reviews as Wendy is still out on her extended maternity leave. All of that and I'm still the lead underwriter on Wendy's book of business. I've mentioned before that it is good for me to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty doing some real underwriting again. I get involved in the larger accounts in the office, but it had been awhile since I was working on $1200 heating and air guys. I had a couple of the underwriters and assistants giving "Train the VP" sessions for awhile to get ne up to speed on some of the new rating platforms, but it all worked out. Her numbers are down, but this is a relationship business and her clients are slow to get back to their former flow of business. Hopefully that is more a sign of her relationship strength than any weakness in mine.
I've included some pictures from my golf trip up to Grass Valley and the scenic Alta Vista Country Club. It is about 18 miles Northeast of Roseville and up in the pines. The course was beautiful and I had a great time last Tuesday afternoon playing golf with one of my agent buddies from Rocklin. Doug also attends our church and is a Godly man. I had a blast with he and two of his good friends. I drove them all up to the course and was the youngest by about ten years. At my age, that's a good day.
The bottom picture is of a photo collage that Darla put together and hung in the guest bathroom in the hall leading to the garage. We are keeping our memories of the family trip to Mexico alive here in Roseville. As I look back on the trip I'm amazed that we were able to get every one's schedules to coincide. I guess a free condo in Mexico helped that cause. I know they would all be on board for doing it again. We would only need to say the word.
Darla and I plan to be back in Mexico later in the year, but also plan to take a trip in August back to Hawaii. Daniel and Becky have a bunch of airline miles and have offered us a trip for our 20th wedding anniversary. We are looking at dates now, but will be back to our time share in Kauai for only the second time since we bought it in 1999. We have since bought timeshares in Mexico and the cost of living is so much less there and the ease of travel from the west coast so much better. We have traded the Kauai time share every year for other accommodations and Becky and Daniel used it for the honeymoon two years ago.
Darla is coming off a nasty cold that she picked up at Don and Alicia's on Christmas day. We had a 7 rib Prime Rib that was destined for our New Years Day party and we had to cancel as Darla got progressively worse during the week. She started out with sniffles, then a sore throat, chills and finally a bad cough. She is finally starting to feel better and we ventured out for dinner last night at Benihanas. I took second place in my office fantasy football league this year and used the $70 to take Darla to dinner. I also have six $10 off cards for Benihanas that I got when I bought gift cards for the staff. I was able to use 2 of those last night. We even brought home an extra large serving of the chicken fried rice and had that today as I watched to final weekend of NFL action.
I had to work on the handicapping for our first golf tournament of the year today. Neil is back in as our Tournament Director, so it will be good working with him again. John Parola is our VP this year and John is a good friend of mine who I play poker with. He s the cousin of Steve, who also plays poker and is often my partner on Best ball golf events. We played in the NCGA qualifier in Santa Clara this year.
Darla and I bought a new pre-lit Christmas tree after the holiday this year. Our old one had a strand of lights on the pre-lit tree that didn't work anymore. I was looking at Big Lots and they had all of their trees half off. We went over on New Years and looked at them and Darla wasn't impressed. The trees were $80-$100 after the 50% off. We drove over to Home Depot and they had the perfect tree for $75 (half off from $150. We didn't realize that the half off was off the discounted price and got a new 8 foot tree for $37.50. I think that was a God thing. Darla plans to keep both trees and put one on the front window and the new one in our family room. Maybe next year we'll actually have some gifts beneath the tree, too.
Well, that is it for now. We are still discussing a trip to Canada in either March or April this year. It depends on whether Jennifer and McKenny can join us. Dad and Shirley have a condo up in Whistler in April that I might enjoy. It all depends on whether Jennifer, McKenny and Samantha can join us. If so, we will go to Surrey and let them see Vancouver and the surrounding area. I hope the New Year is treating everyone well. Take Care. Ciao.
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