4 Managers Meetings to go before I retire!!

So glad to be back home after six days in Detroit. Our office is flat in revenue this year, but up about 10% in retained income. Of course the discussion with corporate and my review centered around the revenue. I don't know, I am a bottom line guy. I could send the troops out and have them write under priced business and see our revenue spike up and lose money. I won't do that. The bottom line is profit and I have streamlined our operation whereby we are making more money on basically flat premium and I'm proud of that. Am I a little frustrated and slightly demotivated? Well, sure, but I really enjoy my job. I told Darla that I will retire at 65 and I will stick with that. We will have enough money to live on and I'll delay collecting Social Security until I turn 70. The issue we have is that Darla is seven years younger than me and when I sign up for Medicare, she has 7 years to carry health insurance until she is eligible. We will work that out. I'll be ready to retire. I have my friends asking me to come out and join them and play golf. I'll be there when I turn 65.

 

The meeting was very good and because of the 7 "Over BILLION dollar" Catastrophes that have occurred this year (California fires and 6 hurricanes), prices are expected to rise in 2018. The cost to the insurance industry of those 7 events is expected to be $100 BILLION dollars. The majority of that is Reinsurance and that price IS going up in 2018. All insurance is reinsured and when the cost of treaty reinsurance goes up that cost is passed on to policyholders in the form of higher rates. We expect about a 5% price increase and our company will write $1.4 billion in premiums in 2017, so we expect that to increase to at least $1.5 billion and our expectations are to write about $1.55 billion in 2017. The biggest issue we have as a company is getting our younger staff to realize that prices are going up. Most of them have never seen a hard market and have always sold price. We will have to sell expertise and service and try to take some of our competitors business that is also going up.

 

The pictures above from the meeting show the surprise visit from Jimmy Walker. He came in and  spent the entire day and night with us. He took individual pictures with each of the managers and we rotated to his position by the golf simulator in small groups from our carrier meetings. I also hit the ball 9 feet and 5 inches from the hole and was the closest when I played. I got a high five from Jimmy. He left the meeting at 4 PM and went over to our Home office and met with all of the home office employees. He then met the managers back at the Detroit Zoo at 7 PM where we had a viewing of the Penguin sanctuary and then had dinner in the building with the dome shown above. That building houses the butterfly exhibit and has two stories for meetings. We had food stations set up with prime rib, Chinese food, Mexican food, salads and an apple crisp bar. It was fun in a way. I would have preferred to stay at the hotel, but Alan is a board member and benefactor at the zoo. I had a great conversation with Jimmy at the zoo and we talked about his wire to wire win at the PGA Championship in 2016. He said that he was "in the zone" on Sunday when he was playing in the final group and Jason Day (Number 1 in the world at the time) was in the group ahead of him going low. He won by one stroke when Jason eagled the final hole and Jimmy had to birdie it to beat him. That was by far the highlight of my trip.

 

We went downtown Wednesday night to the Detroit Athletic Club which we have done for the past four years. We had a social hour and then the graduation celebration for our Accelerated Management group. When we were leaving it was stacked up at the elevators as there were over 180 of us in the room. They wouldn't let us use the stairwell, which confused us, but we came to find out that our Human Resources VP had taken a header down the stairs and we saw her on the gurney with the paramedics. It turn out she cracked her head, had a concussion, broke her wrist and broke her kneecap. Sad situation. Apparently she just tripped heading down the stairs

 

The last picture is of some of the employees in my region that I work with and who were at the meetings. We had a work day on Saturday which is always fun after a busy week (Sarcasm intended). My flight out was 5:35 PM and I got back to Sacramento at about 9 PM. Darla and I went into the hot tub when I got home and then I went to bed as it was after 1 AM for me. Samson' reaction when I got home was hilarious. He was bouncing around and jumping and couldn't settle down. He was growling and dancing around and I finally had to hug him on the bed to get him to settle down. Darla and I had a good laugh over that.

 

They gave us some nice gifts this year. The VP gift is a blue tooth Sony speaker, the main gifts for all Managers was a specially designed watch that marks the 35th Leadership meeting. That watch is still being produced and will be delivered in December. The other gift was a BW "blackout" Titleist golf hat. Very nice this year.

 

I really suffered the jet lag this year and was to bed early both Wednesday and Thursday. I didn't go to the hospitality suite at all until Friday night and that was after the awards dinner and I had to be there to congratulate the winners. Peter in my office was a $1,000,000 income producer again and is now number 21 in the company. Congratulations to him. I had put our Operations Manager up for a Distinguished Service Award, but she did not make the cut.

 

I managed to get out and mow the lawn today and saw that the trees on the side yard have finally started to lose their leaves. I blow them off the lawn and pile them up and the city comes out each Monday and picks them all up. I also took a picture of the trees at the park that are all over 50 feet tall and will soon inundate my lawn and bushes with leaves. I'll have about a month of leave pickup and it will be over.

 

I will have a meeting with the entire staff tomorrow to go over the highlights of the meeting which include some new software that we have coming in 2017 that will include an optical reader that will pull information from applications sent into us and automatically load it into our quote portals. We will also move to Windows 10 in 2018. I have two young guys out of college that have been with me less than two years that will move into production. I continue to look for someone who is with a competitor in their 30's that I can move over to our office and bring their contacts and agents with us.

 

Well, I'm tired and have a full work week ahead. It looks like Mac and Sam went to the Las Vegas Knights game together today and he added a picture to his Instagram account that I stole. He also had a picture of Sam in her Halloween costume which ended up being the Mad Hatter and I grabbed that too.

 

I'll be at it again next week. Be well. Ciao

 

 

 

 

Back From Vegas and Onto Detroit this week

 

 

We had a great time with Jennifer, Mac and Samantha in Vegas. Darla and I left last Friday at 1:30 AM and I drove to Bakersfield before getting so tired that we pulled into a Rest stop and slept for about 90 minutes. Samson was overall excellent on the long ride to and from Vegas. He got car sick about an hour into the drive and we had to stop outside Stockton to clean him and the backseat sling up. It was a short stop and we drove on to Bakersfield. I was back up by about 6:00 AM and we drove on to Tehachapi where we stopped for gas and breakfast. Samson would not go to the bathroom. He wasn't drinking his water and I guess had no need for a rest stop. We walked all over the grass with him, but he had no interest.

 

We drove on again stopping in Nevada this time at a rest stop and he again pooh poohed pooh poohing. We drove on to Vegas and arrived at Jennifer's about 11:45 AM. We made good time and Samson slept most of the trip. We got in, had some lunch, visited for awhile and then went to bed for another 90 minute power nap. Mac was working in the study upstairs and Jennifer had a few calls to make so we were ready to go down to bed. Samson walked into Mac's studio and had a big bm right on the carpet. That is actually the last mistake he has made and he is now basically housebroken. He was confused at their house as they have a doggie door and we have a bell that he rings to go out.

 

He learned the doggie door pretty quickly and we had to close the door and coax him through the doggie door. Once he figured it out, he was in and out of the house the rest of the trip. Maceo did teach him a few things and it was interesting watching them fight (play fights). Samson was trying to dominate Maceo and was jumping up and pushing his head down. Maceo would them nip at Samson's heels and feet. Later on, Samson would do the same thing to Maceo. He is a quick learner. The only problems we had with the dogs was that Samson has not been neutered yet and he got a little too excited playing with Maceo and would mount him. Maceo wasn't having any of that and they would growl and go at it. Samson would not back down with Maceo even though Maceo outweighs him 40 to 80 pounds.

 

We met Samantha at the bus stop just outside the gates to their homeowners association with both Samson and Maceo and Sam was able to introduce Samson to her friends. We headed home and she got out her RC car and we played out in the court for about an hour. It was fun and I enjoyed seeing how good she is at controlling the car. Jennifer fixed us a baked salmon for dinner and then we played games afterward. It was a great night.

 

We had to be up early on Saturday morning for Sam's soccer game as she played at 7:30. We decided to bring the dogs and then dropped them back off after the game and I took the gang out to breakfast at Mimi's café. I have a few pictures from the game above, including Sam with her friend Sam on the bench and one with Samantha trailing her coach on the sideline as he was getting ready to put her in the game.

 

From there we headed back home and hung out for awhile relaxing and then headed about 2 PM to Fremont Street where the NHL had a 100th anniversary celebration and they had some players from the Vegas Knights signing autographs and they had a big rink set up for the kids to play in. They also had the Stanley Cup on display as well as a Zamboni that Sam rode in a VR display. Finally, they had a trailer set up that had all of the memorabilia from over the years showing uniform changes, shoulder pads, masks and goalie gear. They also had a replica of a locker room where you could put your name up on the stall and take pictures. Mac and Jennifer took one with both last names as Corbin. Soon enough, eh?

 

We ran into Pete and Vicki at the 4 Queens casino and said hi to their Mom and Dad. Pete's Dad has Alzheimer's and is 81  and this was his last trip to Vegas. Pete hit a $400 jackpot as we were hanging out at the NHL Experience. He texted me with his winning ticket.  I had called Pete and told him we'd stop by and say hi.

 

Saturday night Mac's friend, Clay, and all of us convened back at the house and had a taco bar for dinner. Clay had night plans so headed out after we ate and we sat and played a new game that Darla bought for Samantha that is a word game with 12 tiles that are shook up and poured out. You then get 2 minutes to find every four letter or longer word with points for each. We gave Samantha the right to use three letter words and score the same as us and she hung in there pretty good. If you have the same word as someone else, both players words are eliminated, so she had an advantage not having anyone else doing three letter words. It was fun and Sam is quite competitive.

 

Sunday we slept in as Darla and I were exhausted from the trip. We woke up early and let Samson out of the room and off to go potty. We brought him back in, zipped him up in his canvas crate and slept in. We all had a  late breakfast of eggs and fruit and then headed out to the Renaissance Faire in Henderson, NV. Mac drove separately as he had tickets to the Knights game that night in Vegas. The game was 4 and he would meet us after the game at BJs and I was buying everyone dinner.

 

The Renaissance Faire was kind of tacky with a lot of booths selling swords and knives, period costumes, and villages set up like the gypsies would have had back in the day. Sam got a map at the beginning of the day (actually she bought it for $5) that showed all of the locations with red flags where you had to get your map signed and stamped by the wench in charge. Sam dutifully went around the entire grounds collecting stamps and signatures. She only missed one and we honestly couldn't find it. She was to bring the completed map back and she got to choose a prize. When we lined up with the other kids it was evident that it didn't matter if you got any signatures or stamps, EVERYONE got a prize. I could tell Sam was really frustrated by that and I feel confident that she will not become a liberal. She picked out a wood pirate's chest.

 

We got back home and watched some NFL football. Sam and I took the RC car out for another spin and then took the dogs and headed to the park. You can see a couple of shots from our trip above.

 

We headed over to BJs about 7 and Mac showed up about 7:30. You can see the one picture of Sam above calling him and asking him when he was coming. We sat and relaxed back at home and visited until it was Sam's bedtime and then we headed to bed as well with the big drive home that next day.

 

We were up at 6 and on the road by 6:15. We decided to drive back up highway 95 through Nevada and to Reno and then back to Roseville. We stopped in Hawthorne for lunch and relaxed for about an hour as we let Samson run a bit at a park and he did go to the bathroom this time. We were back home by about 4:00 PM, so the Nevada trip is definitely faster. I think it is longer by mileage, but the speed limit is 70 throughout the state and we were doing about 80 most of the way.

 

Again, the trip was really fun. I don't know that we will drive it again as it took a lot out of us. Perhaps if we go and stay for a week like at Jennifer's wedding, we will drive. It was fun hanging with the Corbin's and I see a lot of growth and some real smarts in Samantha. She has a real talent for art and is constantly with her sketch pad drawing.

 

As mentioned in the title, I am off to Detroit for the annual Leadership meeting on Tuesday and fly to Detroit via Los Angeles. I will meet two of the people from our LA office and then we fly on to Detroit arriving at 7:30 PM. The World Series will be on, so I'll grab a bite at the hotel and then head to the hospitality suite to watch the game. I'm pulling for Houston.

 

Darla was able to hook up with both of her sons and her niece, Shea, this morning as I was out playing in the Past Presidents event. I had high hopes, but shot 44+49=93 AND I 4 PUTTED three holes. The greens were aerated three weeks ago and they used the big tines and they are really "waffley", but I'm still struggling with my short game. I went out with a client on Tuesday and shot 84 at Morgan Creek and thought I was on my way back, but it takes time. I am an 18 now at Diamond Oaks. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

 

Darla was able to see her boys, her sister, Luke and Becky. They all met downtown. Shea was in town because her boyfriend had one of his favorite bands playing at an event in Sacramento Saturday night. They fly back to Honolulu on Tuesday.

 

Darla and I had planed to go to Luke's football game on Friday night, but Samson got really sick in the car by the time they got to my office. We got him cleaned up and then he had diarrhea on the sling in the back on our way over to Folsom. We turned around and I stopped at a Fire Station to get the back cleaned up. I took Samson for a walk and he had more diarrhea in the parking lot. Luckily none of the Firemen came over because I didn't know how I was going to clean up that mess.

 

Yesterday I was able to clear the pool out of leaves. We had a storm roll in somewhat unplanned on Thursday night/Friday morning and one of the umbrellas blew over and into the pool. Three of the umbrellas were over. I had to drag the umbrella back up out of the pool by turning it sideways and then lifting it out. You can't lift it straight out as it will fill up with water and bend.

 

I mowed and cleared the leaves out front as well yesterday. There was a soccer tournament going on at the park and the cars were everywhere. I love living across from a park about 60% of the time. A lady pulled up in an SUV while I was clearing the walk on the side of the house. She had apparently bought an early dinner for her little soccer player. The dad and boys came over from the park and as I was sweeping up, she rolled down her window and dropped two tomatoes on the sidewalk. She almost hit me with it. I said, "Really!?" I think I startled her as she didn't know I was there. She said in a nasty soccer mom voice, "You don't own the sidewalk, besides it's biodegradable." My quick wit and mouth get me in trouble a lot. I said in a deadpan, "so is your kid!". Darla said now I'm the creepy old guy that lives across from the park. She rolled up her window and they beat a retreat.

 

Dallas just finished whipping up on the 49ers 40-10. Some would say they had a second bye in a row. That's it for this week. I'll be back next week with tales of Detroit. Be well. Ciao.

 

 

 

 

Gearing up for our trip to Vegasnext week

 

The blog will be on vacation next week, but the good news (as always) is that we will return with plenty of pictures of Samantha, Jennifer and Mac. We are driving so we can bring Samson and introduce him to Sam and family. He'll also get to meet Maceo and maybe learn something from him. He is sleeping on the wood floor right now as I work on this. The Cowboy game has just ended and our tremendous offense was once again let down by our pedestrian defense. I know that Jerry is trying to get the help we need there, but you can't completely overhaul your secondary in one year and expect to slow down a stud quarterback like Aaron Rogers, who was passed over by the 49ers for Alex Smith. I think one more year and a few more tweaks on the defensive line and they'll be ready to go. Perhaps he will spend money in free agency and surprise me. I hope so.

 

We had our office picnic on Thursday and had a good time. It was also our goodbye to Linda in my Personal Lines department. Linda is the blonde in the pictures above. She was the product of huge change for me in my office when she took a dysfunctional unit and molded them into a team. She accepted a position with an MGA that is starting a new Homeowners program. She will do great and I am happy for her and sad for me. I have a requisition in for a new Personal Lines Underwriter. I found Linda and I should be able to find another capable underwriter. It is the personality and work ethic that concerns me.

 

Darla and I went out to dinner last night at Rubinos in Rocklin. I love their gnocchi and it is the best gnocchi in the area. I have had gnocchi both times that I had visited in the past, but wanted to add chicken to the gnocchi. The waiter did me one better and had me order chicken parmigiana with the gnocchi as a side. Fantastic. The restaurant owner had spent the day at the eggplant festival in Loomis and they were trying to sell us the fried eggplant appetizer. We chose instead the fried calamari with oil and garlic glaze. I had played golf during the day and Darla had offered to pay for anything above our $30 Groupon that I paid $10.50 for. She had a party on Saturday and another one today.

 

We just had the neighbor's ring the doorbell and they brought over a Halloween costume for Samson. It is a pumpkin and includes a mask and a pumpkin vest. I guess the mask is a Mardi Gras mask. It also has a spike collar that is too big for him.

 

 

We will bring them to Vegas and maybe Sam will be able to get them on him. The neighbors are great.

 

I did play golf yesterday and it was Paul's 63rd birthday on Friday, so I hosted him over at Cherry Island. I had a 10:54 tee time and got there about 10:15 to find out that they were running almost an hour behind. They offered us free range balls, but my coupon included range balls. They ended up giving us a free foursome with cart to use at a later date. Jesse and Rico joined us. Both Paul and Rico shot 79s, Jesse had an 85 and I shot 89.I was really hitting my drives well but struggled with my short game. We teed off a little before noon and finished up about 4:45.

 

We did not have church today as the church was doing community service this weekend. I saw some of our folks working at the elementary school across the street spreading sand and bark when I left for golf. They were also working today, but we missed services last week and never got signed up for the work service. We will be gone again next week.

 

The tragedy in Las Vegas was horrible and I learned about it last Sunday night and sat in silence watching the images on my television in bed. Jennifer was pretty shook up and one of Sam's classmates lost an Aunt and Uncle in the tragedy. Mac's mom called him on Monday morning and told him to sit Sam down and tell her what happened. Jennifer had already left for work, so Mac had a crash course in parenting. Mac's mom was correct that they needed to let her know before she went to school. Good that he did especially in light of the classmate's loss.

 

The leaves are beginning to fall and I had to take all of the lounges and rafts off the pool and clear the leaves from both the surface of the water by net and the floor of the pool by leaf cleaner. I also cleaned the artificial grass with an organic cleaner and watered it all down. He uses it to pee and it was getting a little rank. It was fresh and clean when I finished the task.

 

Darla and I are able to take Samson for walks each night and it seems he is much better at night if we walk him and let him work up a little lather and get some "antsyness" out of his system. We take him either just around the block or along the perimeter of our neighborhood. He loves his walks and gets excited when we get his harness and leash out. He has yet to actually stop and pee or poop on his walks. He is way too excited to check everything out including anyone we see walking along the way.

 

It was breezy again today and my job of clearing leaves looks like it was a waste of time. The surface if the pool is once again covered with leaves and they will soon sink and leave me with the same job to do all over again. I will do it later rather than fight that battle while the wind is blowing.

 

We will leave early Friday morning for the nine hour drive to Vegas. I plan to get on the road by 4 AM and we should be there by about 2 or so. We will have to stop at either drive thrus or dog friendly restaurants where we can sit outside on the porch.  We will probably stop, pick up sandwiches and eat at a park or rest stop. Darla took him up to Paradise a few weeks ago, but that is only a 90 minute drive. This will be interesting to see how he does. Rico said to me, "I don't know why you'd EVER drive to Vegas." I responded, "Wait until you're a grandparent, THEN you'll get it."

 

Darla has some bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches waiting for me, so I will wrap this up. I was promised turkey tacos, but I think she wasn't in the mood to make them. Her home party today was cancelled at the last minute. The lady had three people coming, but unfortunately Darla and her friend Joni were two of the three and the third one cancelled, so the party was postponed. Not before Darla showed up and took a fall in her driveway when she was unloading. She tore her jeans and scuffed her knee.

 

I will be back at the keyboard in two weeks. I hope you all have a healthy and happy couple of weeks. I'll check in when we return. Ciao.

 

A Breezy Sunday

 

Autumn is showing some spunk with a little breeze blowing through the River City today. Darla is and was at a street faire in Lodi, CA today and she will be home soon. I have hamburgers ready to cook for dinner and have some cut French Fries chilling in ice water right now and will oven fry them for dinner. The ice water makes them crispier when you cook them in the oven. Darla was up and out of the house by 6 AM and Samson and I slept in. I got up and took him outside and you can see my chair that I sit in by his fake grass and coax him to "go potty!". He's getting really good and is in a routine of getting up, getting out of his canvas cage and (ALWAYS) getting a toy and then going outside to pee. The two shots of Autumn Sunrise are from one of our early mornings.

 

Samson is fast and you have to be prepared when you walk him or open the front door or anything. We got back from a walk this afternoon and I wrapped his leash around one of the chairs and began to take off my shoes. He tried to run after a leaf or something in the breezy back yard, upended the chair and then took off running. I tried to intercept him and the folding chair flew up at me and put a big gash in my right shin. I had to almost tackle him as the chair was following him as he took off running. Having a puppy is an experience. The joys certainly have outweighed the inconveniences. He is really smart and sometimes at night gets a little riled up and will start biting. We put up with it for a minute and try to correct him, but soon enough he is off to the bedroom and locked in his cage. He has gotten to the point that when Darla tells him that he needs to go in the room, he will walk in and head into the cage himself.

 

He is still having some issues with number two and luckily his diet is all dry food (if you get my meaning). I'll have him outside and he'll diddle around, biting plants and chewing sticks and biting the grass. I'll finally tire of his antics and bring him in. If he leaves the living room at all, he'll likely do his business in the hallway on the tile. He knows to go pee outside, but is a little mixed up on the poop protocol. We continue to work with him and praise him like idiots when he poops outside, which is most of the time. If the neighbors heard us over the fence, they would think we'd lost our minds as we praise him, "Good boy, Samson. Way to poop, boy! Good Samson. Good boy!"

 

I took a break and started the fries and Darla is now making up the hamburger patties and cutting all of the garnish for the burgers. The fries will take about 35 minutes and I will get the burgers on the grill in about five minutes. Darla had a decent day at the Faire, made some sales and a few connections. She had one really pretty girl come by her booth and buy a cross. She said her boyfriend was pretty rugged looking, but he gave her money to buy something. What Darla didn't see was the six inch heels and four inch platforms. The girl offered to do some marketing for Darla and she has a lot of followers on her site. When Darla checked her site, she realized that the girl had a lot of followers because she was a hooker. Pretty funny.

 

So the wind today. I'm sitting and watching the NFL games, trying to tune in right after the anthem to miss the crazy. I heard a loud noise and Samson sat up and looked around. I'm half deaf as it is and didn't realize until I took the boy outside to do his biz, that one of the umbrellas that I had closed had blown over and into the pool. I fished it out, but the umbrella kept opening and it was tough to get out. I had to turn it sideways and yank it up and out. I set it back in it's stand and it dripped dry. The wind had it dry within an hour.

 

I played golf yesterday in the 6-6-6 event. My partner was supposed to be Pamas, but when I called him last Thursday, he said that he was having good and bad days and didn't want to commit to playing and then flake on me at the last minute. Pamas is the one whose wife recently passed away from heart disease. I asked Charlie, our Tournament bookkeeper if he could hook me up with a single in the club who was looking for a partner. I played with a guy named Gary Wilson, a retired Army Corps of Engineer worker who worked at Guantanamo Bay for years. Gary is a 21 and a better tournament golfer than a recreational golfer. Some guys just concentrate more in tournaments and it is the reason that our club has a Tournament Handicap. We use the lower of your GHIN or Tournament handicaps. The Tournament Handicap tracks the 5 best of your last 10 tournament scores. A lot of guys don't like it, but it evens the playing field. Our first six holes were best ball and we had a 19 Team handicap. I birdied the first hole from the trees on the left side. I hit a hooded 9 iron that was supposed to go below the tree branches but somehow went through them and landed on the green about 30 feet from the hole. I drained the snaking right to left putt. I parred the next five holes and Gary's score was never used on the first six. We were one under after six gross and seven under with our handicap. That was my highlight of the day. We went four over on the next six which were a modified chapman. We shot 39 on the front nine. The final six holes were a two man scramble and we were three over on that and shot 40 on the back for a 79, net 60. We tied for first, but one of the teams in our flight was a 15 and shot 75, so they won the low gross and the other team that we tied had shot 38 on the back and we took 2nd on the tiebreaker with a team win of $64. Not bad. Gary was a nice guy, but a little chatty for me. I found out all about his work life and his last twenty golf tournaments and needed a break when we finished the round. I had a few of the members come up and ask me how my round with  Gary went. I guess he has a bit of a reputation that I wasn't privy to. I'll take the second place money and endure the chatter.

 

My friend and insurance agent friend, Ron, approached me on the sixth tee when he was finishing two and heading to the third tee box. He asked if we were still on for Saturday night. I was dumbfounded and quickly recalled that I passed on going with him to the Republic FC soccer game last Saturday as we had tickets to the comedy show and agreed to go to this week's game against Phoenix. I said, "Oh, yeah, I'm in." I quickly called Darla and let her know I had a work commitment for Saturday night. It was her month end close and she had one of her leaders coming over to work on the close.. I picked Ron up at his house at six and we had planned to go to a sushi place in downtown Roseville, but parking was pretty lean as the city is working on a new four story parking garage and took 50 spaces out of commission in the interim. We were heading to Sacramento so decided to drive over and go to the Elephant Bar restaurant. The game was great and we won 2-0 against one of the better teams in the league. Sacramento is in line to get an MLS soccer franchise in 2020 and the announcement will come in December. The team has already started to build a new stadium in downtown Sacramento that will seat 20,000 fans. Their current stadium is at Cal Expo, site of the California State Fair and seats about 11,000. This franchise has the highest attendance in their league and have over 6500 season ticket holders. We will need to have 11,000 season ticket holders to get an MLS franchise  We have almost 15,000 people on the list for season tickets when they get the franchise. I don't think I'll ever be a big soccer fan. It is ice hockey on turf and I find hockey to be boring and lack scoring. Soccer is identical. I know it is exciting to watch the strategy and intrigue of a nil-nil game., but hey its nothing to  nothing. Yawn.

 

Darla has the  dog out for a walk as I finish the blog. He was carrying his leash around in hi mouth like he was taking himself for a walk. It was funny.

 

I talked to both Dad and Shirley on Thursday night and Randy on Saturday afternoon. Randy had cancer surgery this past week on his nose and it was pretty brutal. They filleted his nose and took out a bunch of the skin and then his plastic surgeon pulled everything back together. He said it pulled his mouth, his eyes and his cheeks all tight. Then Wednesday night came and swelling settled in and he said his nose swelled up like a balloon and he looked like WC Fields. We are all a little sensitive to skin cancer issues because of Mom. Randy did have a mass on his back that was similar to Mom's. It was also melanoma, but Randy's was stage one and Mom's was stage two (already attacked the lymph nodes). Randy had Mohs surgery and they kept cutting until they had all of the cancer isolated. They ended up taking a mass out of his back about the size of  an egg. I kidded with Randy and said that it was lucky his bra strap irritated the area as he was able to catch it early enough. He is cancer free and lost some weight in the process.

 

Well, that is it for this week  I have golf next Saturday with Paul, whose birthday is Friday along with Rico and Ron. Have a great week. Darla and I will be in Vegas in two weeks and I will get my allotment of pictures with the two Sam's that week. Looking forward to it. Ciao.

 

 

.