HOT August Nights Dead ahead

 

 

The heat continues unabated. We had another weekend of 100 plus temperatures with another week of heat ahead. It looks like we will cool down to 99 degrees next Sunday, which is the first day of the Club Championship.

 

The heat is oppressive and we had three days of our air conditioning being out at my office in the prior week (I forgot to mention it last week). There are a couple of air conditioners in our building and the one that decided to go out was the one that serves our office space. The air conditioning was working in the hallways and bathrooms, even the gym had air. It was brutal as the temperatures were all over 100 degrees and the interior temperature was probably close to 90 degrees on that first day. I sent the staff home early and we brought in fans and dressed more casually the second day. We were able to put fans at each of the major doors drawing the air into the office. The problem for me is that my office is in the corner of the building where the sun hits the windows all day long. I was all over the building management and was shocked that they didn't provide fans or a portable air conditioner. The office manager showed up everyday at about 2 Pm with ice cream. Nice, but not really what we needed. We were out Wednesday -Friday and they had to order a part for the compressor. They finally got it installed Friday afternoon and the air came on and started to bring the temperature down. 

 

Good news? Well sort of. We came into the office Monday morning and unbelievably, the temperature was about 90 degrees again. WHAT??! Apparently they forgot to reset the schedule and the air conditioning is turned off over the weekend. They were able to get it up and running by about 9:30, but that was an unwelcome development. Hopefully it's cool when I get in tomorrow at 7:30.

 

Pictures this week. The first picture is of Darla when she walked the stage to receive a Leadership Award in Rhode Island. The second picture is of a replica of the hole flag on the 18th hole at Baltusrol at the PGA Championship in 2016 signed by the Burns and Wilcox brand sponsor, Jimmy Walker. It is a gift from our Marketing Department to my office. Very nice. The third shot is from dinner Saturday night where Darla and I went out to Rubinos Italian restaurant in Rocklin, California. I had a Groupon and we enjoyed lasagna and gnocchi at the white tablecloth restaurant. The food was excellent and the gnocchi was some of the best that I have tasted. We will be back. The last two pictures are from today when Luke and Alicia came over to swim with us. I was watching the Canadian Open and he was dying for me to come out to the pool. I finally put it on hold and went out and he wanted to play "bumper boats" with  he two float lounges. Darla and Alicia sat and visited under an umbrella and Luke and I tried to empty the pool of all of its' water. I had a good time with him.

 

I mentioned that we have the Club Championship next weekend. My game is about what you'd expect after four months off. I played Thursday night in 106 degree heat and shot 48. It was brutally hot. I played again on Saturday morning the night after poker and shot 41+45=86. I can't figure out where my game is right now and what to expect. I had a great front nine Saturday followed by a sloppy driving performance on the back nine that lead to the 45. My index will go up to a 16.7 and I'll get 17 on the white tees at Diamond...except in tournaments. We use a Tournament handicap and I'm stuck at 15. I'll let you know how the first round match goes when I update the blog next week.

 

I did have poker on Friday night and had a good night with the cards. I was down to about $40 in quarters when I got there and brought another $40 in cash. I left the game with $85 in quarters and $50 in cash. It was good to get together with the guys. That was actually my first poker game since the surgery in February. I physically could have played in any of the games, but we were busy every time they played, either with vacations or Sam being here or whatever. Always nice to fleece some cash from my friends.

 

Charlie is back and has three new stents in his left side and is now rehabilitating. He made the mistake Friday of trying to play golf and it really wore him out. The incision in his groin needs a chance to heal and he is out for at least another two weeks. He had planned to play in the Club Championship, but sent everyone a note and told us that he overdid it on Friday and was paying for it now. He was at poker on Friday night as well. Rest is his best friend right now.

 

The rest of the story on Darla's Touchstone representative's medical event is that she admitted to having the same event the week before her trip and not telling anyone because she wanted to go on the trip. She has diverticulitis, Her husband has MS and is a handful and she was looking forward to getting away with her friends. They were not happy and she was in the hospital in Sacramento from Monday until Friday, so it was serious. My guess is that she probably shouldn't have flown home and the doctors in Rhode Island likely didn't know that she planned to fly on Monday.

 

Finally, work is going well. We had a good month last month and passed our results from 2016 on Friday and have all of the business from the weekend and Monday to book on top of that. We have a good chance to be up 5-8% this month and my absent maternity leave Underwriter will be back on Tuesday the 1st, so August is looking good already. Harvey will be in the office on Thursday and we have lunch with one of our national retailers. It is actually a smaller family owned agency that just sold to one of the national retailers. We have both a national agreement and a special California agreement with them, so I look forward to the visit. I also met with another of our national retailers on Thursday with Pete and one of the young guys from both the Personal side and the Commercial side. We have marching orders to grow with these guys and I have put these two "twenty-somethings" in charge of following up with all of the local agents. We met with the regional manager and I bought lunch at a restaurant in Granite Bay. I am really thrilled with how hard the staff has been working lately and my focus has been on hit ratios, retention and new business. Amazing what can happen when they actually listen to me.

 

That's it for this week. I hope you are all doing well. I'll be back at this next week. Ciao.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lonely Days and Lonely Nights

Darla is off on her company annual meeting and absence does make the heart grow fonder. It is definitely quiet in the house as I write this and know that Darla will be home tomorrow night. She is my best friend and I miss her when she is gone. My weekend was supposed to be full of poker and golf and it turns out that poker is next weekend, a golf game that was set for this morning got dropped because of text issues and the game of golf I did play on Saturday was not one to write home about. Ron had texted me on Wednesday and asked if I wanted to play golf at Haggin Oaks at 7 AM this morning. I immediately accepted and put it happily on my "To Do List for the weekend. He texted back Thursday and said that they had filled the opening. Somehow my text did not go through on his side, but showed "Delivered" on my end. Luckily he did text me back or I would have shown up this morning.

 

Darla is in Providence Rhode Island and her trip has not been without excitement. One of her girls is 70 and in poor health. She uses a cane and is very feeble. Why she wants to attend a conference is beyond me. She immediately gets a wheelchair at the airport and Darla likes travelling with her as she goes as her plus one and they get on the plane first. She is in the middle of the bottom picture and in the stretcher in the next to last photo. She started hemorrhaging at conference and had to be rushed to the hospital on Saturday. Darla went with her and had to get a ride back to dinner as Cindy had to stay over in the hospital. I don't know the full story as Darla told me she'd fill me in, but as Darla said, she thought she was just going to a conference, but ended up doing some "medical social work" as well. The bottom picture was at Flemmings in Providence. They took the ferry over and spent the day Friday touring Providence.

 

The two pictures of my crepe myrtles in the side yard show the wonderful blooms that have sprung up in this 100 degree weather. There are crepe myrtle bushes and I'd like to add some of those to the side yard as well and take out some of the agapanthas that have wonderful blooms but dry up and die off too quickly in the heat. It has been ridiculous this year as we seem to have 100 degree temperatures every weekend. We had 106 yesterday and 103 today. It is supposed to drop into the mid nineties during the week and back up to 103 degrees on Saturday. In fact, our forecast shows a stretch of 7 days starting Thursday of over 100 degrees. This has been one of our hottest Summers in terms of average temperature and that follows a tremendously rainy Winter and Spring. We have already endured 18 days over 100 degrees and average only ten every Summer. Our biggest heat wave came when Sam was visiting.

 

The other pictures are of my Commercial Lines Underwriters as we were invited out to Top Golf by one of our major carriers. We went Wednesday afternoon and had fun. My arm seems to be getting better as I had no issues whatsoever. The 4th picture down has our Underwriter from the carrier and hostess, Karen, on the right in the picture.

 

I played in the Diamond Oaks tournament with Neil yesterday. It was hosted by Footjoy and we each got a shoe bag. Good thing as I certainly didn't WIN anything. I shot 47+49= 96 which was like falling down a flight of stairs. My driver was all over the place and my short chips went rocketing across the greens. I'm still knocking the rust off and the two rounds last weekend were not indicative of where I am right now as a golfer. I have the Club Championship in two weeks and will play in it, but have little hope of being victorious. The only silver lining is that the CC is a match play event and I had two birdies in my round even with the poor scores. I suppose I could hang on and win hole by hole with a few blowups along the way. It was HOT and not fun on Saturday, but strangely I enjoyed being out on the course and visiting with Neil. We took a cart to avoid some of the blinding sun and that helped. Neil hasn't played a lot of golf this year and actually let his annual pass lapse this year as he and Lilly have been working on the house. They had new windows installed, a new air conditioner put in and new landscaping installed. Thy also had the exterior of the house painted and painted the interior themselves. Neil and Lilly send their best to Dad and Shirley.

 

I will be back out at Diamond on Thursday night subbing again in the twilight league and then Saturday morning for a practice round with Rico and Paul. Ron is supposed to join me, but had a potential conflict and he will let me know if he can play tomorrow. I played well at Morgan Creek, but my home course is kicking my butt right now. I need to get that handled before the Club Championship in two weeks.

 

That is all the news that is fit to share at the moment. I really enjoyed the British Open this morning and the Dallas kid, Jordan Spieth, struggling and then finding his game late to win by three strokes. He is incredible at the tender age of 23. Be well. Ciao.



July Meanderings

 

 

Another week is in the books.. We were supposed to be hosting Charlie and Frieda tonight for a barbecue and Charlie was going to help me install the new pool lights. We got a call from Frieda last night that Charlie was in the hospital. She was out for lunch on Saturday with a girlfriend and Charlie was working in the yard and had some tightness in his chest and tingling in his right arm. He went to the neighbor's house and they took him to Emergency. Frieda said to Darla that if she was home, she would have told him to lay down and sleep it off. Luckily, she wasn't there as the doctors suspect a blockage in his left side after an EKG. He is still in the hospital and they will perform an angiogram tomorrow.

 

Charlie is an electrician and I wanted him to help me with the pool lights. With him absent, I decided to follow the directions and videos on the internet and change them out myself. I tackled the job today and pulled out the old fixtures and laid them on the pool deck. There is enough extra wiring to lift the fixture from the housing and set in on the deck. I clipped the wiring from the old fixture and connected that to the wiring from the new fixture, disconnected the old wiring from the switch and pulled it up through the conduit to the J box. I connected the wires, left enough wiring to be able to pull it up when I need to replace a bulb, hooked up the fixture and tested the lights. They work! Charlie probably would have charged me $100 to help, so I saved some dough today. You can see the pictures of the old lights and see that the seals were shot. The entire fixture is supposed to be sealed and air (and water) tight. The bottom fixture not only leaked, but was starting to mold as well. We have been without pool lights now for about three years.

 

Charlie hopefully will be out of the hospital tomorrow.

 

Michael did make it in for the week and Darla and I had dinner with him Wednesday night at Il Forniao in Roseville. I had my golf meeting Tuesday night, but met Pete and Mike at McCormick Schmick's in Roseville for drinks and appetizers before my meeting. The two of them love oysters and they have "Buck a Chuck Happy Hour" and these two power through about two dozen oysters. I had some calamari and a cheeseburger and they gave me grief. It was an Angus beef cheeseburger. Darla and I enjoyed our visit with Mike. Home office is still targeting my office because we are flat. The thought is that if you are not up 5% you are actually losing ground. I am and always have been a bottom line manager and we are up almost 40% in profit this year over 2016. Top line doesn't pay the bills and I'd rather write $27,000,000 and make a $1,000,000 in profit than write $40,000,000 and make $500,000. They want both, so I'm still on the "List". We had a good conversation and enjoyed getting together with Darla and visiting.

 

I had golf Thursday night, my second game back after surgery and it wasn't pretty. I got a couple of the younger guys to take Mike out to Top Golf with a couple of agents and he had a blast. Ron, who invited me to sub for his partner in the twilight league must have questioned his wisdom as I shot a 53 and was all over the course. We ended up winning the match against Cody and his wife, Kristen. Kristen shot a 65. My play gave me pause with the tournament this weekend on Saturday. I want to be out playing with the guys again, but I don't want to embarrass myself.

 

Luckily, I was right back out on the course on Friday as we took Ron from Placer Insurance out for a day on the golf course or as I call it, "Sports Marketing". We played Morgan Creek and you can see some pictures above including a family of turkeys that crossed in front of us on number 2. I shot 44+41=85 and with my 17 strokes shot a net 68. I turned it up on the backside and had two birdies coming home. Mike shot a 78 using rental clubs and shot 36 on the back after a 42 on the front side. That gave me some hope for Saturday's tournament.

 

Saturday I played with Rico, Pamas and Paul and witnessed Rico shoot a 71 and Pamas a 76. Paul couldn't do anything right and shot 95. I shot 42 on the front side and felt like I was ready for prime time, but the three rounds caught up with me on the back and I started double-double-double before finally parring a par three. I followed that up with another double and was eight over after five holes. I shot one under from there on, birdieing number 16 from 40 feet. I ended up with a 43 on the back and 85 and took low gross in my flight and won $65. That was my first tournament of the year and I'm already qualified for the Tournament of Champions in November. I also won two skins and another $31. It is GOOD to be back with the guys and I enjoyed myself completely.

 

I will play in the first Diamond Tournament next Saturday with Neil. We had lunch together about a month ago, but haven't played golf together in a while. The tournament is a two man best ball event with net and gross individual prizes as well, so should be fun.

 

Darla ended up pulling a muscle in her back yesterday and I had her take my cyclobenzaprine (Flexeril)  and she seems to be better, but still sore. She hung on the inversion machine yesterday and is just sore today. I can certainly relate to her malady. Hopefully she feels better as she leaves Thursday for her annual meeting with Touchstone. She will be back on Monday, so I'm batching it next weekend. I have poker Friday night and golf Saturday, so set up for the weekend already.

 

I have the tree company coming out Wednesday to do an injection into the tree with Imadacloprid to try to control an infestation of beetles that are attacking the trunk and bark of the tree. The tree is massive and we had it trimmed this Spring, but need to have the beetles eradicated now. It's always something when you own a home.

 

By the way, the first picture above is of two bridges that cross the Feather River and we see that view every year when we drive to Almanor. Darla was ready this year and was able to get that picture from the passenger side of the car as we drove the canyon. It's a great picture and reminds us of our vacation. The upper bridge is Highway 70 and the lower bridge is a train trestle bridge. There are also massive electrical wires that work there way down the canyon and cross over the highway. It is quite a sight.

 

I will be back at the keyboard next Sunday lonely and hungry as my wife is off with her work cohorts living it up. Have a great week. Ciao.

We are Missing the Short Person who stole our hearts

 

 

 

 

As promised, here are the pictures of the extra bathrooms, the hall linen closet and the utility room cabinet renovations. We picked a dolphin gray color for these as we wanted to discourage fingerprints on the cabinets. I think the color is a little darker than we had bargained for, but they look really sharp. I need to change out the brass faucets and shower fixtures and add pulls for the cabinets and drawers. All in due time. As I mentioned last week, Darla and I are thrilled with the new look and the total cost of less than $6,000 saved us a small fortune over buying new cabinets which was in the $20,000 range.

 

You can also see pictures of Pete and Vicky and Darla and I at the River Cat's Business Mixer on Thursday night. It was 106 degrees and there were one or two finance types in suits and ties. The rest of us were in shorts and baseball attire as the weather was just TOO HOT. It was the annual Tacos and Tequila mixer and they had a tequila company there pouring shots of silver and gold tequilas as well as reposado. They poured the tequila in a shot glass and had us taste the tequila and then take a sip of maple syrup and then taste the tequila again. It was all smooth and good and the margaritas they were pouring were great. Darla was my designated driver. The tacos were equally as good and provided by Young's Market Company.  They had steak, chicken and carnitas and it was all delicious. We had a great time together and took a picture at the end of the night by a signed Willie Mays jersey.

 

I also have a picture of Sam from her Texas trip and had to laugh when I saw her wearing a California T shirt. She may be from Vegas, but she is a California girl.

 

I noticed last week that the majority of my pictures didn't have David and Daniel in them and that is because they were only there on the weekend. I went through and found a few more to add this week. It was a great vacation and we will do it again next year, complete with Miss Samantha coming to spend ten days with us and go to church camp again. I have a picture of the art project that Sam gave us as well as a picture of the subject (Baby). She seemed to really enjoy her week at camp. Next year she will be at our church and Darla may even volunteer for the week and be there with Sam.

 

The only headache we had other than the jet ski and trailer was that the resort charged us $125 for the cabin being "excessively dirty". The old owners used to leave us with a laundry list of things to do when we left, including clean the floors, vacuuming, clean all bathrooms, empty trashes, hose off the wooden deck and clean the kitchen thoroughly. The new owners removed the washer and dryer and all cleaning products and told us to just enjoy our vacation. They withheld half of our $250 deposit as it took them "3 1/2 hours to clean the cabin". They didn't even itemize what they had used the deposit money for. Now they didn't charge us for a slip at the dock or for extra vehicles or people, so it all works out, but Darla and I were shocked. I called up to find out what we were being charged for and the gal said it took them 3 1/2 hours to clean the cabin and "something" was left broken in the master bathroom. I asked her what and she said they had no record of that. I was pretty pissed as they were so cavalier when I asked them while we were there what we needed to do before we moved out. There response was, "it's your vacation, just relax and enjoy yourself". Now we had 9 people in a 2 bedroom cabin, so getting it dirty was inevitable with red dirt shores and a rustic landscape. Darla seems to think it's fine, but I was mostly upset that they just returned half of our deposit with no explanation. I wouldn't do that to my tenants after 22 years in my rental. Just keep half of their deposit and chalk it up to I had to clean the house. Whatever. Kind of a bummer way to end the vacation.

 

I have Michael coming in this week. He is the Corporate VP who is working with my younger producers. He and I had talked about his coming maybe in August and when I sent him a note on Friday to see if he had firmed up his plans he told me he had already booked his flights for this coming week. This is the second time that he has done this and it irritates me. He'll want to go out on calls with the underwriters and it takes tome to set these up. We will take an agent golfing on Friday, but I have conflicts both Tuesday night (my golf board meeting)and Thursday (I'm subbing in the golf league for Ron Floyd's partner).  I will have a talk with him about communicating better and especially communicating by e-mail. His recollection of phone conversations and mine differ greatly. I'm 60 and he is 72, so I win that one.

 

I have played one game of golf since surgery and that was the round at Granite Bay Country Club. I shot a 93 and made it all the way through the round with no pain. My physical therapist had suggested that I only play 9 holes and I told her I'd see how I felt after 9. I think that I was religious about my physical therapy working out twice a day and it really helped the shoulder heal and strengthen. I'm not 100%, but I'm probably 95%. It was 108 degrees the day we played, so staying loose wasn't an issue. I hit some good shots and some woeful shots. This week will be a test for me as I play 9 holes Thursday night, 18 on Friday and 18 in my first tournament back on Saturday at Morgan Creek. I will have Michael play at Morgan as well on Friday to get me ready for the tournament.

 

By the way, I have been released from physical therapy and I'm on my own to continue rehabbing my shoulder. I was judged at about 90% when I was released.

 

Work continues going at a rocket's pace. We struggled in May, but came back nicely in June and were up about 5% from 2016. It doesn't sound like much. but I have one of my main producers out on maternity leave and her numbers are down. Matt had left the company he joined after working for me and is opening a new branch for one of our main national competitors and they were out hitting Wendy's agents hard on her maternity leave. I called each of her agents and talked about Matt being with his third company in two years. Loyalty was the theme and it was pretty well received. I think.

 

Well that is it for this week. I will be back at the keyboard next Sunday with tales of my golfing exploits. We will have company Sunday afternoon as Charlie and Frieda are coming over for a barbecue and Charlie and I will change out the pool lights for new fixtures/ Both  lights have a broken seal and no longer work. The fixture is half full of water. Until, then, be well and Ciao.