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.