An odd assortment of pictures today. I added some of Sammy's 9th birthday party. Jennifer hosted about 18 kids to a day at the Gravity indoor trampoline park in Las Vegas and Sam enjoyed a day with her friends playing on the trampolines and fun pits and whatever else is there to entertain children. She seemed to have a great time. I've also got pictures from Reno, Auburn California, and of our backyard. There are pictures from our gift exchange with the kids from yesterday and one picture of a tent encampment by the homeless just outside of the 9th hole at Cherry Island golf course. I spotted that today while we were golfing.The guy has a wood pit and his dog and a pretty good setup as far as I could see.
Darla and I took an impromptu trip to Reno on the 29th and we are glad we did. I had a night's stay at the Peppermill in one of the Tower suites with a $100 resort credit that needed to be used by January 20th We were going to go on January 1st and stay over until today, but there ended up being a wild weekend storm that blew in and the roads in the Sierra are either closed or have chain controls and it is snowing hard. We changed our plans, I took Friday off and we drove up in the bright sunshine to Reno and spent the night. We decided not to use up the credit at the steakhouse as it is one of those $60 for the steak, $12 for a salad, $8 for potato, $5 for mushrooms, $11 for mac and cheese, $7 for a plate and $5 for silverware kind of places. We instead ate at the bistro and had Chinese food, chicken chow mein, sweet and sour pork, soup and pot stickers. It was really good and we then went to gamble, turning $300 into $140 in about 5 hours. We had a blast together and finally hit a big jackpot at the end and decided to have dessert. We were a little shocked to see it was 3 AM and were told when we sat down in the cafe that all of the breakfast items were $7.99 from midnight until 6 AM. We shifted to breakfast and had omelets and Darla had pancakes and then we headed to bed. We slept in until about 9:30 on Friday and then were up and off to home. Darla bought David a shirt in one of the pricey boutiques at the Peppermill that was marked down from $300 to $120.
We stopped in Auburn on the way home and had lunch at Edelweiss, one of our favorite coffee shops. We did a bit of shopping and I bought the weather vane for above the pool and the Cowboy hat rack for outside. The shop was owned by a metal worker who has a CAD program and makes the metal signs and hooks. Darla shopped at a Silver store and bought Jennifer a purse and wallet because it looked like Jennifer. We headed home from there and faced a heavy line of traffic.
Saturday, we took it easy at home and I did some cleanup around the house. I actually got up on the roof and cleared the leaves off of the awnings and eaves as well as raked up a bunch of the leaves that get into and behind the plants on the side of the house. I exhausted myself and came in and took a quick nap. We were invited to Charlie and Frieda's house for New Year's Eve at 7:30. I needed to stop at the office to take care of payroll, so Darla came by and I showed her the pictures from our Holiday Party at the office. We got over to Charlie's about 7:45 and they ended up with 6 couples, but had enough food for 30 people as she cooked two hams and we each brought something. We had salad, appetizers, chili, rolls, salsa, tortillas, cake, cookies and lots to drink. They always put on a good party and Saturday was no exception. The girls ended up sitting in the living room and visiting and the guys watched the hockey game and then played 3-13 until midnight. We had a great time and got home about 1:30.
Sunday the boys came over with Becky and Miya and we had chicken fajitas for lunch followed by the exchange of gifts. We all traded names and I ended up with Daniel and Darla had David. McKenny had me and gave me a Virtual Reality headset for the i phone. I'm still getting used to it and downloading some games. I am having a little trouble getting the remote to work, but McKenny has the same one and will help me out. He also gave me $15 worth of I Tunes credit to buy some VR games. I'm really more interested in some of the movies and underwater scenes that are available. I already downloaded the VR Google Earth which is 360 degrees 3D, which is pretty awesome. I also downloaded a couple of National Geographic apps with Penguins and places like Papa New Guinea and the top of volcanoes, etc. Pretty cool. Darla got a nice shawl from Miya and some reusable shopping bags that you store in your purse. California is California and now charges 10 cents per bag at the super market. Darla bought David the shirt. Jennifer had Miya and gave her several albums for her phonograph. She had shared that she is a bit of an audiophile and McKenny was all over that. He gave her a copy of his .45 as well. We played Rook after that and enjoyed a nice afternoon.
Today was golf for me, but the weather was iffy with rain in the forecast. We teed off at 10:20 and made it through 12 holes before the rain hit. It was spotty at first and just a nuisance, but was sheeting down by the time we finished 15 and we called it a day. The good news is I shot a 75, but had three holes left. I drove home and was relaxing, just starting on the blog when Jennifer Face Timed me. They had Sam and were at a park with her new RC car. They were cruising it back and forth and then the wheel came off. They said they'd call later. Darla wasn't home yet, but she got here in time for the call from their house. They fixed the car and were driving it up and down their cul de sac. Sam had raked leaves into a pile and kept skidding the car into them. It was great to see how much fun she was having and how focused she is when she is trying something new. It will bode well for her in life. McKenny was having trouble getting the RC car started earlier, but went by the hobby store today and they gave him some tips and hints and he is on it now.
Good to see Dallas back in the playoffs and unlike other Cowboy fans, I was thrilled to see the team shut down Zeke, Dak and many of their starters in the last game to rest up for the playoffs and avoid unnecessary risk of injury. It was great to see Tony get in some reps and look good doing it. He hopefully will catch on with a winner next year and we may even play him as we have the Broncos and Cardinals on our schedule this year. Hey, Emmitt Smith played for the Cardinals for one year, but is remembered only as a Cowboy. The Boys are off next week and will sit back and watch the teams that they will possibly take on in two weeks beat each other up.
We finished the year very poorly at work, actually having our lowest total of all of the months and being under $300 K in income and $2,000,000 in premium for the first time in 2016. We have two new partnerships that start in 2017 and I will have my guys very busy in the first quarter of 2017 getting out and meeting the new agents and getting them signed up to do business with us. I was pretty hard on them this month and let them know this is the new "Trump" based reality. I will tell it like it is and that doesn't mean that I don't support the office or have great respect for what they do, but reality is reality and we have to face up to issues if we want to improve and get better. The new Snowflake mentality of not hurting people's feelings wont work in life or in business. We need to have a blowout January to keep the brass off my back. I will lead the charge on marketing and get out and see agents with each of my producers this month.
I will play golf with Neil this week and make up for our round that was lost last week because of frost and my illness. I'm feeling better and the overnight temperatures are up a bit with the cloud cover. We can almost guarantee frost when it is clear overnight. It was colder today and when it first started to rain there was very small sized hail that came down, just to add to the misery. I was soaked by the time we got to the car.
We got the results in from my MRI and I have a 1.2 cm by 2.4 cm tear in the supra spinatus ligament in the rotator cuff. What that means remains to be seen as I'll see the orthopedist toward the end of the month. I got the results and turned them into Aflac and they have a $320 check for me. I still feel sore and have trouble reaching over my head, but golf doesn't seem to be affected by it. Darla and I have a trip to Jamaica in early February and the cruise with Dad and the family in March, so surgery if necessary will be scheduled likely after those events.
Well, that's it for this week. I hope everyone had a good holiday and a Happy New Year. If there is one thing I'd like to see in 2017, it would be less whining by everyone (liberal, conservative, socialist, gay, straight, black, white, Muslim, etc.). When did we get to the point of just complaining about everything? We lived through Obama's pillaging of our national debt, I think the country can make it through a Trump Presidency. Perhaps this is wishful thinking, but everyone needs to buck up and get on with this thing we call life. Be well. Ciao.
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