A good week in the books. I survived my week as a bachelor and Darla is back home and I have clean white clothes again. I had to drop Darla at the airport at 5 AM on Monday Morning. I went into work for about 4 hours (getting there at 5:30) and then headed over to meet the guys and drive up together to Winchester Country Club up in Meadow Vista. One of the guys had purchased a foursome at a silent auction and the certificate had to be used by the end of the year. We ended up with a great day and I played pretty well on a very difficult track. I shot 43+42=85 and felt like my game was starting to come around. The course is tight and I was able to keep the ball in play and stay away from any blowup holes. We teed off at 11 and ended up finished about 3:30. Big John was the loser in skins and invited all of us out to dinner at Black Bear Diner in Auburn on the way home. As Darla was gone to Rhode Island and her Leadership Conference with Touchstone, I was thrilled to get a meal. I joked with the guys as we sat down at 4PM, that I now knew what it was like to be retired.
I had to work on my 2017 budget all week and our plans are to write about $28,000,000 in premium next year. I did add in another Producer position in my office and also contacted the professional headhunter on Thursday and put the wheels in motion to find a new employee. I finished the budget and forwarded it to my boss on Friday.
Tuesday was surreal as Donald Trump came back from the dead and beat the wicked witch of Washington. I was thrilled, not that I'm a big fan of Trump, but cannot stand the Clinton machine and the smugness of Bill and Hillary leading up to the election was over the top. Hillary really thought they had this in the bag and to see her melt like the witch in the Wizard of Oz was a fun night for me. I think the populace sent a signal loud and clear to Washington that business as usual will not be tolerated. Watching Obama balloon our debt from $10,000,000,000,000 to $20,000,000,000,000 in eight short years was sad. He added more debt in the last eight years than all other administrations COMBINED. It's insane and how anyone can think outspending your income is okay is unbelievable. The freebies will end under a Trump administration and the money wasted on immigrants, financial support for our enemies and climate change will be channeled into other things like Veterans, social security and Medicare. Many of the ridiculous trade agreements that have seen business flee for overseas will end. Hopefully, we will run this country more like a business and use our tax dollars to make this country stronger and not to make other countries stronger. We are done being the deep pockets for the rest of the world and the United States will start to take care of our citizens first and foremost and slow the influx of illegal aliens into our borders and onto the dole.
The riots and demonstrations that continue throughout the country will soon fade away and the busloads of paid protesters will head back home and to their unemployment lines and Trump will get busy putting his staff together. He has a Republican Senate and House of Representatives to help him get things done. He will overturn the illegal Executive Orders used by Obama because he was unable to drive a consensus in Congress. SCOTUS has already turned back his illegal immigration decrees, but many more including gun control and limitation of state powers will be overturned. He has issued over 350 Executive Orders to date. Trump has been smart in how he has set up his transition team and his first three official hires are a woman, a gay man and a black man. Racist? Homophobe? Sexist? Take that.
Darla got home Friday afternoon after a good week for her in Rhode Island. Her roommate ended up being a woman from Michigan, whose best friend is Martha Reeves (of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas). She lives in Motown and is a big fan of the Motown sound. She was a fan when she met Martha and they ended up living in the same neighborhood and are now great friends. She goes on Malt Shop cruises and has been able to meet and know Aretha Franklin and Frankie Valli. According to Darla, she is a fascinating lady with great stories (as you can imagine). Darla got to visit the Swarovski main office and jewelry plant and had a great week. I picked her up and dropped her bag at the house and then we went out to dinner.
Saturday was our Turkey Shoot and TOC event at the golf club. Bob Pando came into town and we had the first tee time. I finally put together two strong nines and shot 40+42 for an 82, net 68. I took first low net in my flight and won a $45 gift card for the local grocery store. I hung out with Bob for awhile and then headed home to mow the lawn and clean the pool.
Saturday night we went to dinner with one of my agents, Phil, and his girlfriend Carmine. Darla set Phil up with Carmine this Summer. He had worked with me in the National golf event at Del Paso CC and we all went to dinner the last night. Phil is divorced and an eligible bachelor as a small business owner and a really nice guy. Phil told Darla that he wasn't interested in anything serious and that he was happy just to date and live his life well. Darla showed him a picture of Carmine and he was suddenly VERY interested. Carmine was in the same boat having told Darla that she wasn't interested in getting serious and was only interested in dating.
They have been together for a few months and are madly in love. It was fun getting together with them as they were both SO thankful for us getting them together. They are both really nice people and both were born in Mexico and came to the US with their parents. Carmine moved here as a young adult and still struggles a little bit with the language. Phil speaks fluent Spanish and she loves that they can communicate (as Phil puts it) in Spanglish. We had a great dinner at Sienna. Darla and I had gone to the original restaurant in El Dorado Hills and they just recently opened a second location here in Roseville. It is a great restaurant. The food is incredible, but the restaurant is a great and comfortable venue. They have seating outside with gas fireplaces that are really warm and comfortable. We will get together with them again. They are really cute together and both really happy with each other.
Loved the Dallas game today where Dak and Zeke carried us to another gutty win in Pittsburgh. It was an awesome game with seven lead changes and Dak was able to lead Dallas to a come from behind win with only 41 seconds on the clock when they got the ball back. Amazing. Even Jennifer is totally into Dallas this year and I'm looking forward to watching the Thanksgiving Day game with her this year.
Finally, I'm a little late with this tonight as Darla and I met her parents in Yuba City tonight at Cool Hand Luke's. We had a nice visit and got back home tonight at 8:30. I have a busy work week ahead and will be in Stockton on Tuesday at a Diversity conference with the California Insurance Commissioner. I will be there as a representative of WIAA, where I an now the Vice Chairman. Jeff Barnett will be there as well and we will have dinner in Stockton before driving home.
I hope you are all well and we will do this again next weekend. Be well. Ciao..
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