Fall is here, well so says the calendar

 

There is my granddaughter ready for school pictures. I think it was last year that Jen forgot to fill out the slip for pictures and Sam wasn't allowed to take them. She was heartbroken and McKenny took a load of pictures in the backyard by their garden. This year the whole family was ready and Jennifer curled Sam's hair for the pictures. She is busy with Soccer and we will be there in about three weeks to cheer her on with Samson in tow as well. We will bring him to the soccer field which is dog friendly along with Maceo.

 

It was a tough week of work for me, or I should clarify, it was a bad Friday for me. My Personal Lines Underwriter, Linda, turned in her resignation and is going to work for a carrier for homeowners insurance. It is a job where she works at home and goes into the office a couple of times a month. I didn't see this one coming and I had her on a growth track at work whereby she would become the Personal Lines Manager in March. We had been meeting once a month and looking at her progress. Pete tells me that she had met with him a few times and was frustrated with her staff telling her "no" when she was asking them to do certain things. She didn't share that with me and I would have told her to have some repercussions for not following through on her demands. I would make those repercussions monetary based. She pays her staff out of her bonus and if they aren't following through on things, they should lose money. She wasn't cut out for management and I think this job offer that will pay her about what she is making now with bonus is an easy out for her. She has been negotiating with them since June and the job offer came in on Thursday.

 

I honestly think the number one strength for me in my office is my staff and, unfortunately, my biggest headache is my staff. It hit me hard and I had a rough day as Linda was one of my biggest successes of late. She took a disoriented unit and pulled them together and they have consistently been number one in new business in my office. I have a recent college graduate from Lehigh working as a Trainee in the unit and I will be fast tracking him for a production role. I will meet with the entire Personal Lines staff tomorrow with Linda out of the office and go over where they are and what needs to be done to keep the unit working at top speed. 

 

It just feels like I've taken hit after hit and my bosses always ask me why I can't keep my best employees. The problem, frankly, is that we put so much emphasis on bonuses and our competition pays higher salaries. Our CEO is a multi millionaire and can't relate to someone who lives paycheck to paycheck and can't understand why someone would leave us for a 25% bump in salary when they would likely make more with us when the bonus is factored in. The answer is that the bonus is not guaranteed and more money in the paycheck every paycheck tends to trump pie in the sky. Until this company learns how to compensate Millenials in a better fashion, I will continue to be backfilling positions. It is a frustrating process.

 

I got out on Thursday and played golf with Ron Floyd and Robert in his office along with Pete in a charity event at Lincoln Hills Golf Club. We hammed around with 14 pars, three birdies and a bogey for a 70. The winners shot 57. I did win a $50 gift card for hitting a marshmallow closest to the pin on one of the par three holes. I used the gift card and bought Darla a replacement blender jar for her Osterizer. She broke it last week and is in the middle of a shake replacement diet, where she replaces lunch with a protein shake.

 

I have been suffering back pain for the past three weeks and will see Jane on Wednesday for a Bowen treatment. I decided to take the weekend off from golf and got my car waxed on Saturday. I did all of my yard work and pool maintenance and still had time to wax the car. I belong to a car wash program, where Darla and I both can have unlimited car washes. The wash tends to streak my dark colored car and it always looks much better after I wax the car. The water beads up and blows off better when the car is freshly waxed.

 

Darla and I had tickets to a Christian Comedy night at church on Saturday and we met Randy and Julie at the church and enjoyed the show. One of the comedians is a pastor in Southern California and he was funny, but not really polished. The other is a comedian who became a Christian and changed his show to a Christian show. He was very polished and really funny. He says that if you diet and exercise you lack faith because our earthly home is temporary and if you want to live longer, you are delaying moving to your Heavenly home. He also said that as a comedian he can say anything about anyone in the audience as long as he says, "God Bless You!". We had a lot of laughs and then went out for ice cream.

 

When I first met Julie and Rand, we had gone to a Christian concert and then went to ice cream afterward and I didn't have my wallet. Rand bought and I told him I'd get the ice cream the next time. That was about three years ago. I finally got the opportunity to host the ice cream. We went out to Red Robin and all had smoothies and ice cream shakes. We visited for about an hour and then came home to rescue the dog from his cage.

 

Today I watched football, taped the Tour Championship that I'm watching now and have the Raider game on tape. Tomorrow is the Cowboy game on Monday Night Football so I will be leaving the office early to enjoy the game.

 

I was supposed to play golf next weekend with Pamas, who lost his wife last week. I called to follow up on Thursday and he isn't doing well. He didn't want to commit to play and let me down. The problem is that everyone had already paired up for the 6-6-6 event where we play six holes of best ball, six of two man scramble and the final six alternate shot. I talked to 8 of my friends and they were all paired up. I asked Charlie, our Tournament bookkeeper to pair me up with a single and I'll play with Gary, who is a 20 handicap and a pretty good tournament player. I don't know him well, but I will by the end of that tournament. It will be fun.

 

I played poker with the guys on Friday night and I like to brag about taking money from my friends. I won early and was up about $25 before going completely cold and losing about $65 on the night. We play with quarters and I have a rack that holds $50. I lost all of that and about $15 more. It was a painful night, but overall I'm well up over the years with these guys. We played at Charlie's house. I think I mentioned that John was going to bring a rubber snake and freak out Charlie. He ended up not going and so no snake this time.

 

This is short, but there isn't much to report and dinner is just about ready. Darla is preparing Spanish rice and she has been gone today at an event at one of her friends' house. There were about 15 women that showed up and the sales were about $1300. I'd call that a good Sunday. I hope you are all well. Dad and Shirley, we hope that the weather wasn't too bad for you on the cruise and that you make it home safely. We will call you next weekend. Love you. Ciao.

 

 

Autumn Arrives this Week

 

Not a lot of pictures this week. I did add a couple of pictures of my company's newest sports endorsement. The Detroit Red Wings will move into a new arena this year and we have added our name to the floor below the ice at Papa Murphy's arena in downtown Detroit. I'm not much of a hockey fan, but its a big deal in Home Office. Also, one of our Golf Ambassadors, Webb Simpson qualified for the year end Fed Ex final as one of the PGA golfers with the top 30 Fed Ex points. That is Webb Simpson. Jimmy Walker is the other Ambassador that we have and he has been suffering from Lime disease this year and had a down year. He is still a top 20 golfer, but did not make the final this year. The other pictures are of the fake grass that I put in by the pool. Samson was killing all of the ground cover in that area and it was basically dirt and rocks.

 

Charlie Aichele, one of my friends from the golf league had some leftover pieces from the installation of his backyard artificial lawn. The pieces were strips and trapezoid pieces. I just had a small area to do, but it is on a rounded edge of the pool and I had to use four separate pieces to cover the small area. Funny story on me picking up the grass pieces from Charlie. He is deathly afraid of snakes and has seen one rattlesnake in his yard this year. He lives near the Granite Bay side of Folsom Lake and the snakes are active because of all the rain this year. He had stored the grass under a couple of kayaks that he has behind his shed. When we went to pull the grass, we had to move the kayaks. He was afraid that some snakes might have made residence in the kayaks, so he approached the kayaks with a hoe and began beating on the kayaks. He walked around the back of the shed to put the hoe away and began literally screaming, "Holy Shit! Holy Shit! Oh my God! I hate them! I hate them! I hate them!" He went tearing around the back of his yard and out the gate. I peeked around the shed and there was literally about an 18 inch baby rattler. I took a shovel and cut its head off and picked up the body. Charlie came back looking a little green around the gills and pale as a ghost. He looked at the shovel and said, "Where's the head? You needed to get the head!" I calmly explained to Charlie that a snake's head is useless without it's body. I tossed the body in his outside trash and went back and found the head and dumped that as well. Charlie had to go inside and sit down because he was hyperventilating. He set up to have a snake service come out and see if they can find anything. I didn't want to tell him that if there was a baby snake in his yard, there is a nest somewhere. Hopefully they find it and clear it out.

 

Charlie is hosting poker this Friday night and John Parola said he is going to bring a fake snake that he has and hide it in under Charlie's chair and then yell! Charlie might pass out. I was able to get the pieces loaded into my car and get it over to my house. I cleared out the ground cover on Saturday and then cleared the dirt out about six inches below the deck. I then poured crushed aggregate into the area I was covering, spread that out and then tamped it down. On top of that I added three 60 pound bags of sand and smoothed that over and into the rocks. I tamped that down and then cut and pieced the artificial grass into the area. I duck taped the pieces together and then used 5 inch spike nails to secure the turf to the ground. It is now ready for our little bubba to pee and poop on it. The 5 inch base below the grass drains well and can handle his urine better than real grass. It doesn't look perfect and frankly I wasn't careful to match the nap of the artificial grass to get it laying in the same direction. It looks fine and works for my purposes.

 

 

Here is a picture of Darla and her jewelry teammate, Cheryl, at a bridal show today. They had a booth and were trying to get brides to sign up and do home parties so that they could earn jewelry as their bridesmaid gifts. Pretty smart and they ended up scheduling two parties and have 18 others to follow up on. It was a good day for them.

 

I had three golf events this past week and my back is a mess. I played Tuesday in the Day on the Oaks event. I shot 88 and had a great time. Neil was supposed to play with us, but was sick that day. Friday I was invited to play at a country club in Placerville. It was one of Gail's agents and she had another commitment. Michael was in town for our CE and Customer Appreciation event on Thursday night. Darla came out to that and then went to dinner with myself, Michael and our speaker from one of the carriers, Chris. We went out to McCormick and Schmicks for dinner. Friday, I picked Michael up at 7 AM and we drove the hour up to Placerville and the club, Cold Springs. I shot 88 up there as well. Ian from my Personal Lines unit joined us for golf as the agent writes mostly PL business with us. Today I played in the Rose Cup qualifier and I woke up with a sore back. I took some cyclobenzaprine and Advil, but I was sore all round. I shot a 47+48=95, for a net 77 and no prize. I will play again on Thursday in a charity event that one of my agents is putting on, but I won't play on the weekend. I need to get my back fixed before I play more golf. I'll see Jane next week and hopefully she will do the trick. We'll see.

 

One of my friend's Pamas, who is an FBI agent in Sacramento and a specialist in interpretation as he speaks 5 languages, lost his wife to heart disease this week. She died early Tuesday morning and the funeral was Saturday. John and I went to represent the club and ran into Neil there. The funeral was at 10 AM at an LDS church in Orangevale. We sat together, gave our respects and condolences to Pamas and then went out and had lunch at Mel's Drive In in Roseville. Mel's in San Francisco was the drive in used in American Graffiti and it is a good old fashioned 50's drive in. We visited for an hour and I got home and put in the grass.

 

Darla and I went to church Saturday afternoon as I had golf today and Darla had the Bridal show. It was crowded as Lincoln Brewster was the guest worship pastor and is a well know Christian recording artist who used to play with the band Journey. He is the worship pastor for our main church, Bayside in Granite Bay. The church was crowded and they had a barbecue afterward. Darla and I were planning to go to Rubinos for dinner after church, but decided to go to the barbecue and have some fellowship with our church family. We sat at a picnic table with another couple that was about our ages. The guy older and the wife younger and young looking like Darla. It turns out that he is John Ull, who has an insurance agency in Auburn. John was a Burns customer about five years ago until the 49er fire. He was working with Anthony and we had quoted the local Harley Davidson dealership for contents coverage. The fire had started and we ended up with a moratorium in the area and John tried to bind the coverage before the fire reached the location. We could not bind it and it burned to the ground. He moved all of his business away from us at that time and blamed Anthony for not living up to his word. He had called me at the time and was not happy with my decision not to honor the quote. He couldn't show me a written order for coverage that was dated before the start of the forest fire. The problem is that we don't know once a fire starts if the coverage would have been ordered barring the fire's existence. John and I talked it out and he is interested in consolidating his five wholesalers down to two. I will visit him with Pete in Commercial lines and Linda in Personal lines and see if we can work out a deal with him. It seems to Darla and I that we were meant to be at the barbecue and to meet with John and his wife. His wife likes Darla's jewelry and is perhaps interested in doing a party. 

 

Well it is after 9 o'clock on Sunday night and I want to get to spend some time with Darla before we head to bed. I hope everyone is doing fine. Ciao.

 

 

 



 

Darla is off to Paradise to visit her Mom who is recuperating from a knee replacement surgery. She went with her sister and took Samson along to meet them. It was just the girls as she is still not 100% and we didn't want to overwhelm her. Don stayed home with Luke as Luke's energy and boisterousness wouldn't have been great for Francis, regardless of how much she would have liked to see her grandson. We will all get up there when she is feeling better. I'm sitting watching the NFL Kickoff weekend. The Cowboys play at 5:30 and I thought I'd get on the blog early and get it done. I may add some pictures from Darla's trip today later.

 

Our weather is finally cooling off and although we did hit 96 degrees today, it was cool last night and this morning when I mowed the lawn at 8 o'clock. Darla and I went to Rubino's restaurant in Rocklin again. I bought a $30 Groupon for $10.50 on a Groupon 30% off flash sale. In fact I bought two of them. Darla had the pesto cream gnocchi and I had the tomato cream sauce (marinara and alfredo sauce mixed together). We went to 5:15 church last night and it was our Grand Reopening weekend. We officially became part of Bayside church on a vote earlier this Summer. They had the larges cake ever made in Roseville and were going to cut it and were also giving away chicken street tacos. We debated staying, but it was packed and we had the Groupon ready to go. The bottom picture is from Rubino's.

 

I went to my Bowen session on Thursday and was happy to be there as my back has been really acting up lately and I just got a new medication renewal on my cyclobenzaprine(Flexiril). It is the only medication that helps as it is a muscle relaxer. Jane set me up to go back in within two weeks (I normally go in every other month). Apparently my back was really stiff and she had trouble loosening me up. I figured that she knows best and she does. I played golf Saturday and the course at Cherry Island had a $35 deal with cart, golf and a beverage. They aerated the greens on Monday and are offering a deal. My back tightened up so much that I had trouble turning my hips on the swing. I would have left after 9 holes if we were walking, however I stayed for the whole 18 which included our cart running out of juice on the 12th hole. I had to carry my bag up to the green on that hole and it hurt. They sent out a replacement cart and we carried on. I was terrible, but did manage to play well enough to break even on my bets. I shot a 52+48=100. I played with Rico and he shot a wonderful 73 in the face of sanded and plugged greens. Ron shot 81 and Paul had an 88. I was happy to be out with the guys and getting some fresh air. I will play three games of golf this week, two of them work related. My back feels better today so we'll see how it goes. I will play with Ron from Placer on Tuesday in our last Day on the Oaks weekday tournament as a marketing event. I also will play Friday at a private course up in Placerville with Michael from Home Office and our new trainee in Personal Lines. We will be hosted by Jeff, who owns an agency up in Placerville and who I have played golf with a number of times. Then Sunday is the Rose Cup qualifier and, who knows, maybe I'll play well and qualify. We are the defending champions this year.

 

Michael is coming into town to see some agents, but mostly for our Continuing Education event on Thursday afternoon. We do these events about three times a year and this one is geared toward Personal Lines (homeowners, High Valued homeowners,  rentals, auto, etc.). I will not be able to attend the event this year as I have the annual meeting for the agent's association that I serve on the board. This is the group that sent us to Washington, DC last year and Maine this year. The meeting will run from 11 AM to about 2:30 and our CE event will run from 1-4. I'll be back in time for the Q&A session and the Agency Appreciation cocktail party from 5-7. We will have our booze sponsored by ServPro who is a claims remediation company and they love handling this for us every time. We have two other companies that have asked to take over the bar, but we are sticking with our long term partner until they decide not to do it. They are not technically a customer of ours, but the retail agents are both of our customers so they love to be there. We are doing a football theme this time (we did baseball last time).  We will have nachos, potato skins and sliders as appetizers. We'll also have the Thursday night game on in the boardroom.

 

The other pictures are of Jennifer, McKenny and his family along with Eva, one of Sam's friends. They are headed off to Sam's first soccer game. Sam had a tough week. She had tried out for choir and didn't make it and then she ran for the 4th grade spot on the school council and also wasn't elected. She wore a tee shirt that said "Vote for SAM" on Wednesday and Thursday. She was crying on Friday and called her Mom from the bus. Jennifer called me and asked for my advice. I told her to tell her how special she is and that in life you don't always get what you want. God sometimes has other plans for you. My advice was basically "this will soon pass". It turns out that a bunch of her classmates were in the same boat. I added a picture from Luke on the pool with Samson last week and one of him playing with his toys. I tied one of his toys to his harness.

 

Darla made it home and we are getting close to football time. She did not take any pictures today, so none to add. Samson did really well on the trip, relaxing in the car and no accidents in their house. He is doing really well on his house training and ...knock on wood... he hasn't had an accident since last week. We got serious last week and kept him on a leash in the house so we could keep an eye on him. We'd take him out every hour or so and praise him and give him a treat when he went in the designated spot. He now goes out and pees and sits for his treat. We have bells on the sliders and he rings the bell when he needs to go. We will slowly wean him off the leash and hopefully he will ring the bell when he needs to go out.

 

So, short and sweet this week. I'm ready for some FOOTBALL. I have a blt sitting next to me and some iced tea and Lays potato chips to eat first. Have a good week.  Ciao.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ready for the Cool Down

 

 

Back at the blog again. It was a HOT and muggy week as we are getting some of the smoke from all of the fires burning in Central and Northern California. We had 100's all week up until today when it topped out at 94 degrees. We expect a week of mostly temperatures in the 90's. We nay dip down to the 80's Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Summer is finally slowing down a bit and it is Labor Day today, the unofficial end of Summer in Minnesota and Michigan (something like that). We will be comfortably warm.

 

We finished the month at work up about 2.5% which is negligible. In fact our CEO says that if we aren't growing at least 5% that we are losing ground. As flat as premiums are, I would respectfully disagree. We will finish this month with a pure profit of about $150,000 for the month and I get a piece of that. I'll take it.

 

I see Jennifer and McKenny got a new SUV, a Kia Sorrento. It is a good economical car with an awesome warranty. I haven't talked to them, but I assume they traded in her old car on the new one. McKenny has a KIA Soul and they like the quality of that car and bought another. They are going to get a tow package installed on the Sorrento and they will take the jet ski next year. It just sits here all year and we take it out only for Almanor.

 

Darla's Mom had her second knee replacement on Jennifer's birthday on Monday and has actually been doing quite well with her pain this time. Her first surgery was pretty painful and it took her a long time to get comfortable.  The problem with this surgery is that she had an allergic reaction to the pain killer Norco and it really caused some issues with her health. Darla and Alicia were going to go up and see her over the long weekend, but Earl called and said she is mostly sleeping and often incoherent. We pray that she comes through this quickly and the doctors regulate her meds and get her on a smooth road to recovery. We had hoped to have dinner with them last Sunday and meet them in Yuba City which is half way, but she wanted to put that off as she had a lot to do to prepare for surgery. She got out of the hospital on Thursday and is back home and Earl is her caregiver at the moment.

 

Daniel and Becky were up this weekend and we spent Friday night visiting with them. They stayed over Friday and Saturday night and Saturday they met his cousin and wife and went up to the river above Auburn hoping to get a bit cooler. It was over 100 degrees up there as well. Daniel has been interviewing for engineering positions with several cities and actually was offered the job in Suisun City, which is near Vallejo. He turned it down as it is a really small city and the engineering department consists of the manager and one other employee. He would have learned a lot, but is holding  out for a larger city job. He has had three interviews with Mountain View, CA and hopes to get that job. They are part of the Silicon Valley and quite a wealthy city, so I'm sure he would be involved in a lot of retrofit jobs and new city construction. They are both doing well and just got back from a 10 day vacation in Tahiti and Japan.

 

David left yesterday with Miya for a Spain vacation. They will visit Barcelona, Nice, Marseilles and make their way back to Barcelona before flying home. This is a pretty big step in their relationship and we hope that they are moving toward making things permanent. We like Miya and she is really good for David.

 

Darla and I went to Charlie and Frieda's for dinner on Saturday. We made sure that Dan and Becky had plans before accepting the invite. They wanted us to bring Samson and he was a hit there. Charlie blew up a  twin sized air mattress and he floated in the pool a good part of the afternoon. We played dominoes and the picture of Charlie sitting with the train game dominoes on the table I call Nude Dominoes. Put a shirt on Charlie. We had a great time and enjoyed the visit.

 

I played in the Labor Day event on Saturday and the only word for my game (besides potential) would be schizophrenic. I shot a 49+41=90 and out of the money. I have the Rose Cup qualifier in two weeks and we'll see where I am. I get 19 strokes now from the blues and if I ever actually play up to my abilities, I could clean up. That event is the qualifier for the Rose Cup that brings together the four local clubs for a Ryder Cup style two day tournament. I actually qualified for it last year and we won, but it was played while I was in Michigan for the Mangers meeting for work. This year I can actually play and we will be the defending champs so looking forward to competing to get on the team. I will also play in the last Day on the Oaks event, which is a weekday series of tournaments that the club puts on I will sign up myself and Ron Floyd for the event.

 

Darla and I were up fairly early this morning as she was headed up to see her Mom, but her Dad called and said she had a bad night and to stay home. Darla and I took that opportunity to go out to breakfast together and the last picture of me is from breakfast today. We ran a few errands and were back by about 11. Luke and Alicia came over so Luke could meet Samson. I watched the golf as they all swam in the pool. I was able to get out and do some yard work this afternoon and trimmed back one of the large crepe myrtle trees on the side yard that is (was) hanging over the sidewalk. I have a fantasy football draft at 6:30 tonight, so wanted to get this completed before that.

 

I hope you are all well and enjoyed the holiday. Ciao.