Thanksgiving 2017

 

Thanksgiving has come and gone. We had a great visit with Darla's brother Steve and his wife Kirstin. Samson spent a great deal of his T-Day in his cage in the back room. He isn't necessarily bad, but he has trouble settling down with a large crowd and with Becky, who is uncomfortable around large dogs and Darla's folks who are in their 70's, we erred on the side of caution. He tends to jump up on people and jumps on their lap when they sit on the couch. David and Maya were great about taking him for several walks during the day and Steve and Kirstin also took him out when the kids were at the park playing football with Luke.

 

As I said, we had a great time with Steve. We were able to go out on Black Friday and drive up to Nevada City and go through the shops in the Gold Rush town. Alicia and Luke met us up in Nevada City (Don thought it was too far to drive, so backed out) and David, Daniel and Becky met us up there as well. It was crowded and we had trouble getting 9 of us into a restaurant. We found a nice place called Lefty's Grill on the other side of the freeway and about a ten minute walk. It was right next to the river and the venue and food was incredible. The pictures with the full white tablecloths are from Lefty's.

 

Darla's Dad was fairly emotional having his whole family here for Thanksgiving and bought us all dinner Friday night at Cabo's Mexican food in Granite Bay. Those pictures are with the white tile tabletops and of the entire group where we took a picture in a private room at the restaurant. We came back to the house and visited for awhile. Steve got a call during the evening and his daughter Taylor called to tell him that Shea's boyfriend had died of a drug overdose on Thanksgiving day. Shea was planning a future with him and unfortunately he was a recovering addict that stopped at a friend's house Thursday morning and then was going to meet Shea and his parent's for Thanksgiving dinner. They had just bought a house together two months ago and he was working as a Captain in Kona with his own boat doing tours for vacationers. It is incredibly sad and reminds us that tomorrow is not guaranteed for any of us so live life to the fullest and let those you care about know it everyday. I feel for Shea. Her sister and Mom flew out the next day and are there for her now. Steve headed back today and likely is with her tonight.

 

Saturday I played golf with the guys out at Cherry Island and Steve and Kirstin stayed until about noon and then headed to Kirstin's brother's place in Rancho Cordova. They flew back to Hawaii this morning. I played better with Bryan, Paul and Jesse, shooting a 43+42=85. It could have been better (couldn't it always?). I finished double bogey-bogey for a 42 on the back and was tracking for about a 40. Jesse shot 82, Paul had 79 and Bryan shot 78. It helps playing with the single digit golfers. I don't know how they feel about playing with me at 18, but we always have a great time together and Saturday was no exception.

 

It rained today which is just getting us ready for Vancouver/Surrey weather. We leave Tuesday morning for Seattle. You can see the picture of Samson in his towel as he was getting dried off after a foray into the yard during the rain.

 

Darla and I take Samson into Dale's kennel tomorrow where he will be in for at least 10 days getting obedience trained. It is time. He is getting to be such a large dog at 60 pounds. He is hard to control when we have him out walking and someone walks by or especially when someone with a dog passes us. It will be good to have him know and obey voice commands and we look forward to our training when we get back. He is supposed to stay in from Monday for two weeks until Monday the 11th. I would prefer to have him come back on Friday the 8th, so we can work with him over the weekend. We will talk to Dale tomorrow and see if we can work that out. Dale's kennels sit on 37 acres in Lincoln and he has a pond and trails on the property. He has a large fenced play area for the dogs when he isn't working with them. I'll get some pictures tomorrow when we drop him off. We will both miss him, but Darla is really upset about leaving him so long. He's a dog and will be fine. They say if you want to see who loves you unconditionally, lock your spouse and your dog in a trunk for half an hour and see who is happier to see you when you let them out.

 

Darla and I slept in this morning. She was up with Steve, Kirstin and Dan and Becky both nights they were here late. They got into some heavy conversations. I was in bed by about 11:30 both nights as I was tired.

 

Work is going well and our numbers are up this month. We are tracking for about a 15% increase over 2016. I did cancel the Holiday Open House. Corporate got involved and wanted to control the time, the date, the menu and even the guest list. This would have been the fifth year that we did the holiday event and it is incredibly popular with the agents. I was just not in the mood to have changes made to what has been an incredibly popular event. It's too bad.

 

Darla and I fly back to Sacramento on Friday afternoon and turn around and drive to Monterey that night to meet Jennifer, McKenny and Sam for a quick getaway. Darla has a Touchstone event on Saturday and we will hang out in the Monterey Bay while she does her event and then grab dinner on the way back. They are coming to the area as McKenny has an overnight DJ gig in Stanford Sunday night. Friday will be a tiring day as we will drive from Surrey to Seattle and then Sacramento to Monterey.

 

We will miss the golf club Christmas party on Friday night for the first time that I can remember, but I'd rather hang out with family than friends and we were planning on doing a one day turnaround to Monterey on Saturday. This will be more relaxing and Darla's event doesn't start until 1PM, so we can sleep in a little and then head to Pacific Grove for brunch at Toasties. Darla and I were able to get a 2 bedroom hotel suite for all of us.

 

Well, that's it. I will return with pictures from both family events next weekend. Jennifer and Sam will still be here Sunday night, so the blog will likely be late. Hope all is well with each of you. Ciao.



Thanksgiving Week

It will be a short week this week and I'm looking forward to the holiday. It was a busy weekend with poker Friday night, the golf Turkey Shoot at Woodcreek on Saturday and I took a weekend off from the NFL and played golf today at Diamond Oaks. Unfortunately, The Cowboys took this weekend off as well and they are spiraling with Zeke out for another 4 games and two of their best players constantly hurt and missing games in Tyron Smith and Sean Lee. Its hard to win games against a good NFL team with a slew of injuries.

 

We had rain most of the week, but the rain cleared off Friday and we ended up with two glorious weekend days this weekend. It was not particularly warm with highs in the low sixties, but it was sunny with a cloudless sky and no wind. Being on the golf course when the weather is so clear and crisp is heaven.

 

The pictures above are of Samson from Saturday night and another one of the shots from Darla's Touchstone photo shoot. That shot was taken at the park across the street. The bottom two shots are of Samantha's art. Her favorite subject is McKenny and the two shots are of McKenny flipping 45's at the stove and a head shot of McKenny. She is getting better at her art and will be a good artist in time.

 

Friday night was poker at Carl's new home in Roseville. Carl is the father of Adam who was the other quarterback when David was in high school. His home is in the unincorporated part of Roseville, so he lives in the city, but not the city limits if that makes any sense. He also does not have the benefit of the city of Roseville's Roseville Electric rates. It is a nice house. Darla and I have two friends in their sixties who have both taken on new homes. I guess Darryl has done the same. I can't fathom taking on a new 30 year or even 15 year loan at 60. I am working hard to pay off or at least pay down the mortgage on the house before I retire. It is their choice of course. I had a VERY good night at poker and took my friends for over $85 on Friday night. It was a good time and I got home about midnight.

 

Saturday Darla and I were both up early as she was off to the Mandarin festival in Auburn and I was off to the Turkey shoot. It was a 9 AM shotgun start and I arrived about 8:30 to an EMPTY driving range and practice green. I headed into the pro shop and they had sent the groups off for an 8:30 shotgun! they had sent out an announcement that week, but didn't have my e-mail. Paul hadn't even arrived and we were partners. He got there and we caught up with our group after they'd finished the 11th hole (it was our starting hole). We played from 12 on and then went back and played 11 when we finished the rotation. I played pretty poorly and Paul shot 81. I shot 90 and our team score was 69. We had a nice turkey lunch with stuffing and potatoes after the round, but it was a 5 and a half hour round of golf. Woodcreek's men's club has notoriously long rounds of golf and we only play about two events a year. They don't use a slow play rule like the one that I put in place at the Roseville Golf Club when I was President of the club back in 2008. We use clocks on the first tee and 18th green and each group must finished in either 4 hours and 30 minutes or within 15 minutes of the group in front of you. It has made the average time of play for our tournaments about 4 hours and 35 minutes with many of the early tee groups finishing in about 4 hours.

 

Darla had a very profitable weekend at the Mandarin event with Saturday being her biggest day of the three (Friday - Sunday). I got back Saturday to rescue Samson from his cage and let him have a pee in the yard. As I did the same, he came into the bathroom and promptly dropped one of his toys into the bowl while I was mid stream. I flushed and then fished the damn thing out of the mostly clear water and rinsed it off. Luckily, it was one of his rubber toys and not one of his ducks.

 

Today, Darla was off to her last day of the festival along with her friend and maid of honor, Joni. I got up and cleaned the yard up and got the leaves all piled up in the street for the city to pick up and haul off tomorrow. Then I headed to the course and played a free round at Diamond Oaks. I had one free round to be used anytime after 10 AM and got that in today. The course was mostly deserted as most men are home watching the football games, including me. As Darla was busy and it was such a great day weather-wise, I was off to meet Paul and play another round.  I shot 43+44=87 and I'm getting closer. I remember the days that I went out very week and shot 83. In fact Darla used to kid me that I could save time and just post an 83. I'm looking forward to getting back to those days. My putting and chipping are still raw and cost me about 4-6 strokes every round.

 

I drove home about 2:30 and on the way home passed a Santa Claus driving a red 1932 Duece Coupe convertible. Yep, it is the holiday season.

 

We will host Thanksgiving here at the house and have the whole family over. Steve and Kristen, Darla's brother and sister in law will stay with us. I bought Samson a bark collar as he will have to spend some time in his cage and we have tested it on him. I did not buy him one of the shock collars, but a collar that emits a vibration in his neck along with a high pitched ringing. It works great as he only barks once or twice when it is on and then calms down. He is still really hyper around other people and it could be a long day on Thursday. He will be off to the Obedience training a week from Monday and we leave for Vancouver a week from Tuesday.

 

Well, that will do it for this week. I wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving and the love of our Saviour Jesus Christ. Ciao for now.

Getting close to the Holidays

 

 

Good day today in spite of the Cowboys laying an egg. Darla and I were up early and off to church for a good message and then I took her over to the club and we had breakfast with a 2 for 1 coupon that I had. The weather was excellent, cool but sunny with no wind. It maxed out at 64 degrees today after a high of 62 yesterday. Both days started out foggy and the fog lifted by about 8 AM this morning whereas it was more like 11 AM yesterday when we were playing golf. I got out this afternoon and cleaned up the backyard and sprayed off the patio and cleaned up leaves. I had worked hard the day before spending about an hour and a half cleaning up the front yard leaves and getting them piled up for the city to come out tomorrow and pick them up, only to do it all again this week.

 

The pictures are from our Corporate VP, Michaels', visit and dinner with him at McCormick Schmick's on Wednesday night. Mike and Pete like to go there on Wednesday's as it is buck a shuck for their oysters and $1 each for their jumbo shrimp. I don't care for oysters and don't like cold shrimp, so the two of them ate 3 dozen oysters and 3 dozen shrimp. Darla and I had calamari, chicken lettuce wraps and seared ahi tuna. Good stuff. I forwarded that picture of Mike and Darla to him and he had dinner Thursday night with Phil Castro whom Darla and I set up with his girlfriend. Phil was telling him the story of how he met Carmen. Mike said he wanted to show Phil a picture of HIS girlfriend and showed him the above shot. Funny stuff. The picture of Samson in the bed is one that we could take every morning as he gets up and moves to the bed and lays there as we try to make it. I took that Saturday morning. The next two are just of us hanging out with Samson. He is not allowed up on the leather sofas, but climbs up and hangs out with us with his back paws staying on the ground. The next two shots were taken by one of Darla's girlfriends who is a photographer and is for her Touchstone business. Great picture of Darla alone and with Samson. The final picture is of Phil from yesterday's golf with Pete, Phil and Mark when we played the Turkey shoot with the Roseville Golf Club.

 

It was a good week of work. The results came in from our October and we were up 13% with profit up almost 30% for the month. We are up about 2% over 2016 and our profit is up about 14% over 2016, which was a pretty good year. I was thrilled with the results and continue to make plans for more growth in 2018.

 

I picked Michael up from the airport on Tuesday and he was here until Friday afternoon. He stays busy while he is here doing marketing calls with the teams and out to dinner each night with one of the teams. He is living the dream in his job right now as he travels across the country working with our younger producers. When he is on the road, he is busy. When he's home he is playing golf with his friends. In addition to dinner Wednesday, Mike, Pete, Phil and I played golf on Friday at Morgan Creek. It was a good day on the course, although we met Pete at the course to have breakfast and found out they only serve breakfast on Saturday and Sunday. We had to dash over to Carl's Jr. to get something before we teed off. I had set up for Pete and Phil to play in their first golf tournament on Saturday in the Turkey Shoot along with Mark who is Phil's partner in their Insurance agency in Roseville. It was nice to have the day before as a practice round. Little did we know that we would all shoot our best golf Friday instead of Saturday. We play at Morgan Creek because Mike is a lefty and rents clubs. Many of the local courses do not rent clubs, or if they do, they don't have a lefty set. Mike shot 83, I shot 83, Phil had 87 and Pete shot a 91.Phil and I both shot 40 on the back side and had birdies coming home. It was fun. We had lunch after the round at the course and then Mike had a 4 PM flight back to Phoenix. Pete agreed to take him if I would take his driver over to Diamond Oaks and get it re gripped for the round on Saturday. His grip was completely worn off on the spot for your fingers. Wow.

 

We met at 8:30 on Saturday morning at the course and we paid for Mark and Phil as a marketing outing. I told them NOT to get used to it. Both Pete and Phil were really nervous and afraid they'd do or say something wrong. They relaxed after the tee shot on the first hole. Pete struggled and shot a 103. Phil was equally sloppy and shot a 100. Mark had a 89 and I shot 88, but both Mark and I had two birdies on the backside and both won $50 in the all flight skins in addition to $20 in a gift card from a local grocer. I was happy to see the first tournament for Phil and Pete.

 

Next Saturday, Paul and I will play in Woodcreek's Turkey shoot which is a 2 man best ball event. It includes a putting contest, lunch and prizes. Paul won the Tournament of Champions which runs concurrent with the Turkey Shoot at the Roseville Golf Club. The TOC prize is the low net for the tournament out of all of the eligible tournament winners from the prior year. He shot 73, net 63 on Saturday. I hope he stays hot for next weekend.

 

Pete, Phil, Mark and I will all go to the Christmas party on December 1st with our significant others. Darla and I fly back from Canada (Seattle) that afternoon and then have the Golf Club Christmas party that night. Jennifer, Sam and McKenny are also coming in that weekend as McKenny has a gig at the radio station at Stanford on Sunday night. Darla has a Touchstone party on Saturday in Monterey and we will drive down with her and spend the day in Carmel and Monterey and then drive home Saturday night. Jennifer will visit with Bill who her Mom was married to when she was 9-17 while we are at the golf party.

 

We will host the family for Thanksgiving this year. We had originally planned to be in Canada, but Darla's brother, Steve, announced that he will be in California from Hawaii to visit family. We moved our visit to November 28- December 1st. It turns out that not only is he staying in California, but will stay with US. We went to Hawaii last December and spent some quality time with them, so I look forward to seeing them both. We will celebrate the holiday with them and Darla's family and then Monday, take Samson in to his Obedience school for 10 days. We have a list of things that we want him to concentrate on. The list (not all inclusive) includes: coming when he is called, not pulling on the leash when we walk, not going berserk when someone comes to the front door, listening to us, stopping when he is told, NO BITING, NO BARKING, STAY, HEEL, STAY DOWN, COME, among others. He will hopefully be a better behaved dog when we pick him up on December 18th. He is good, he's just a puppy. 100% puppy. He's lucky he's cute.

 

Well, this is short and sweet. I will be back at the keyboard next weekend. I hope all is well with each of you. Be nice to each other. Ciao.

 

 

Halloween has Come and Gone

 

It is a bit later tonight as we had dinner with Darla's parents, Earl and Frances. They have a rental home here in Roseville and they are updating the home now that their last tenant has moved out. They have redone the floors, some kitchen tile and the kitchen sink. They have repainted and are working on the grout in two of the bathrooms. They hope to have it rented out by the end of the year. They will work with a local rental service to handle the renting and maintenance on the home.

 

I paid off our rental in Galt last month. In fact, I thought it was paid off and I received a late payment notice. I called the mortgage company and said the final payment was shown as $877 and I received a bill that said clearly, "You have automatic payments, please do not send payment". The customer service rep said, "Sir, everyone knows that when you do a payoff of your mortgage, you must send a separate check for payment to a payoff address." Really, I don't remember that from the last three or four houses that I paid off (insert SARCASM here). I told her to credit me the late payment fee, provide me the new payoff amount and the address which did NOT show on the bill I received. She agreed and told me the payoff was $697. Wait, the payoff was $877 and I have at least 15 extra days of interest and the payoff went DOWN? Well, she said, the payoff changes daily. Yeah, but it doesn't usually go down. I sent in $700 and saw that the payoff was applied on Friday, so the loan is CLOSED. We will receive a check for about $1500 which is the balance of the Escrow account. I will directly pay the taxes and insurance now. My rental is now a cash cow as the rent is $1200 and I will use the money to pay down debt prior to retirement. It is a nice spot to be and it has been a long time coming.

 

I had mentioned last week that the trees at the park would start dropping their leaves soon. Well, it took all of three days and the rains came and the leaves started to fall. You can see the picture of what was awaiting me on Thursday night. This will be my joy for the next six weeks or so.

 

Darla and I enjoyed Halloween at a nice dinner out at Chubbies, our little 50's diner in Roseville. We had hamburgers and I had a malt and then we came home and set up shop in our master bedroom and turned the lights out at the front. We sit across from a park and get about 10-12 kids at the most and having Halloween candy in the house is like crack for Darla, a diabetic. We just avoid the whole process. If Samantha lived close, we would open the house and enjoy the holiday, but without her, we just avoid the whole issue.

 

I did have one picture of Samantha on Halloween as well as pictures from our office celebration. We had a chili bar with three types of chili, including a chicken dish with white beans that was delicious. We had one row of our cubicles that all dressed up in Batman costumes. I didn't dress up this year as I was still exhausted from the meetings last week and wasn't in the mood.

 

We finished the month up 10% over 2016 in both revenue and income, so it was a very good month for us. We had a huge new business month which is always a good indicator of an up month. Not that it makes a big difference as far as my bosses are concerned, but it increases my bonus check at year end, so I'm smiling.

Alan had a couple of his Jeremy Dickinson lithographs delivered to the office while I was in Detroit. Dickinson is a British artist and I include the pictures as his art reminds me of Norris, who Dad used in his cartoonist days. His art involves classic cars and cars shown piled up. Often he has cars jumping a pile of other cars. One of his more famous paintings is of a Thunderbird jumping a lineup of cars and busses. He also has fire trucks and old busses. I had suggested we put up some photographs of local Sacramento landmarks like the state capitol, the Old Sacramento waterfront and the Tower Bridge. This is what we ended up with.

 

The last picture is of our boy, Samson, who had a nice bath today and you can't tell from the picture, but he smells really good.  Darla had him in our large shower in the master bathroom and got him all soaped up and washed. It is nice to see him clean again. We were getting him bathed once a month which was recommended by the internet. I found a veterinary approved non soap pet shampoo that is designed for animals with itchy skin or "hot spots" and you can use it up to twice a week. We will bathe him more like twice a month, but he was getting a little ripe after a month. He is growing and is up to 50 pounds and is growing about 10 pounds a month right now. he was 40 pounds when we went to Vegas.

 

Saturday night, Darla and I watched the new Netflix movie, "Our Souls at Night", which is a movie starring Jane Fonda and Robert Redford. It is based on a book written by Kent Haruf. The premise is a little odd, Jane Fonda's character a widow approaches Robert Redford a widower and longtime neighbor and suggests that they sleep together (Sleep, not sex). It is the hardest part for both of them, the sleepless nights. It is a cute movie starring the 79 year old Jane Fonda and the 80 year old Robert Redford. A romance blossoms, but the movie is an interesting take on loneliness. We both highly recommend the movie. The chemistry is very good between the two who have starred in many movies together over the years, including Barefoot in the Park.

 

Our sermon at church today was about finding JOY in the Lord. Our pastor, Kirk, uses analogies a lot. He talked about one of the younger pastors and his 4 year old son. They were visiting the little boy's aunt and Dad made him a deal that if he was really good during the visit that he'd buy him a special treat. The boy was so good during the visit and everyone enjoyed the day so much that Grandma decided to take everyone to the movie that night to see some Pixar movie. The Dad decided to buy the refreshments and got his son popcorn and soda and Milk Duds. The little boy was sitting in his movie seat surrounded by his haul, the popcorn tub on his lap, the soda in its holder and the Milk Duds tucked in the arm of the seat. He turned to his Dad and said, "I was really good today, huh, Dad?" Dad agreed that he was really good. The little boy said, "Then when am I going to get my treat?" The inference is that we are all like that with God. With all of the blessings that we get from God every day, we are always looking for more and not reveling in the Joy that we should have from his largesse.

 

Well, that is it for this week. I have a Top Golf outing on Wednesday with one of our vendors who is putting on a continuing education class followed by the Top Golf. On Friday, I will host one of our agents for a golf outing at the local Country Club here in Roseville along with Michael, our VP who works with my younger producers.  This weekend, Pete and I are hosting two of our agents at the RGC Turkey shoot. Mark has been a member for a long time and we got his partner, Phil, to join along with Peter. I invited them to come out and play in the tournament. This will be the first tournament that Pete has ever played in. It should be fun.

 

Well, I will be back at this next week. Dallas won a big game today against the Chiefs and I was happy to see them play some strong defense. That unit is coming together...finally. Have a great week and I'll talk to you next weekend. Ciao.