Indian Summer

 

Siting in the 93 degree heat on October 9th finishing up the afternoon football. Dallas and their amazing rookies won again to go 4-1. Zeke and Dak both played well and will make it interesting when Tony Romo is healthy. Jerry says Tony will start and he probably should, but Dak is playing so well that it leaves that decision open to criticism. As other sports announcers have said, it is a good problem to have and one that was so needed last year when Tony got hurt.

 

Things are going well at work. I've been doing a little more marketing with some of the younger producers and got out this week with Wendy to Gary Anderson's office. Gary wanted to change underwriters and I brought Wendy in to meet his staff and then Gary wanted to go get a glass of wine at a restaurant near his office afterward. Wendy had to get home to her baby, so I took one for the team. Gary was telling me he had a Scotty Cameron putter that he won and wanted to sell. I have a Scotty and love it. They go for $400 and he wanted $100. for it. It is a mallet style putter and too heavy for me. I asked John if he'd be interested and sold it to him right away.

 

I took Pete, Ron and John to golf at Serrano on Wednesday afternoon. I had won a gift certificate and John had subbed for Ron and I in the twilight league and I promised him a chance t play Serrano, which he had never done. He picked me up at the office and we were about five miles from the course when I remembered that I had left the gift card I my car back in our parking lot. I called the course and asked if I could show them a picture of the certificate and they said Yes. Thank God or we would have had to turn around and drive back. We hit balls and then had a nice lunch at the patio grill which John was nice enough to buy. I played well on the difficult course and shot 88, which seems to be my number lately. John had some back issues and struggled. Ron shot low 90's and Pete shot in the 100s. We had a really good time together and the weather was perfect (about 75 degrees).

 

I played this weekend and planned a trip to Rio Vista with Paul Gonzalez for his birthday. He turned 62 on Thursday and I had a Golf Moose certificate for two rounds with cart at Rio Vista. Rio Vista is on the Delta about 20 miles east of Lodi and about an hour and fifteen minute ride from Roseville. We ended up just playing as a twosome as our club is in Monterey this weekend. The course is much like Discovery Bay in that it is part of a designed community in a gated community. The course went into disrepair over the last several years and was bought by Warrior Golf. Warrior is the golf design company that offers free golf clubs and they feel that if you try out one of their clubs, you will buy a whole set. I've hit the clubs and (frankly) they are CRAP. The company started buying and managing golf courses six years ago and now have about 20 golf courses throughout the US, including 4 in California, four in Texas, 4 in Florida and several in North Carolina and other eastern cities. They have an interesting acquisition strategy in that all of the clubs that they buy are in the $1 million to $5 million price point and all of the courses are bought as LLC's with private investors that pool their money to buy the courses with no lending institutions involved. Warrior Golf then provides the management and upkeep of the courses. It is a work in progress at Rio Vista as the course had=s great greens, but the fairways, tee boxes and sand traps need work. I shot 44 on the front side and was up and down. Unfortunately, the course is really wet from over watering and I took a fall on the fourth tee box, which is a raised tee box. I was walking down the side of the box and my feet went right out from under me and landed on my right side. It jarred me pretty good and I'm sorer today than yesterday. My right shoulder is really sore and I have a physical on Tuesday morning and will have my doctor look at my shoulder then. Hopefully I don't have a dislocated shoulder, but if I do, he should be able to pop it back in then. Strangely, I played much better after the fall and was actually 1 under after four holes on the back nine before going six over on the final five holes for a 41 and 85 for the day. At least it wasn't 88/ I blame Paul for my bad finish as we passed two groups and were on the 15th hole when he decided that he had t run back two holes to the restroom. What? I told him to just go in the bushes, but he had to pinch a loaf. We drove back and then had to skip the 6th hole and play in on 16-18. We took bogeys on 15, even though I was on the edge of the green on a par three. Paul.

 

Darla's business is going well and she has many parties lined up in the coming weeks. She has the largest team in California for Touchstone and has set sales records every month for the company. I'm proud of her and look forward to her next two promotions, whereby she will get a BMW.

 

Darla and I have decided to leave AT&T for our cell service and try out Sprint. We are both getting new iphone 7s and our bill will drop from $169 to $100. I get $100 a month from my company for my cell service so it works out from that standpoint. We'll see how the service stacks up and will have 30 days to switch back if we don't like it. In the meantime, they will pay off Darla's phone service with AT&T and pay us to switch.

 

We had a great service today at church and we are working in the book of Philippines and studying Paul and his incarceration. He continued to be a champion for Christianity and even turned several of the Palace guards in Rome to the Lord. There was a quote from George Bernard Shaw referenced that reads: "I learned long ago not to wrestle pigs in the mud. You get awfully dirty and the pig loves it." Another nugget from service.

 

I also included a picture of Miya, David's girlfriend, from a dinner that they attended last night. He waited a while to date seriously, but ended up with a gem. She is an Endocrinologist and a beautiful soul. He's a lucky guy.

 

The Presidential debates are starting and I need to sign off until next week. I hope everyone is great and living a fulfilling life. I love you all. Ciao.