Back at the keyboard on Sunday night. The smell of an oven baking tri tip assails my nostrils as I pen this and Darla is bustling about in the kitchen with potatoes and bread and I will drop this like a hot stone as soon as the dinner bell rings. It dawned on me earlier today that I have a five day work week this week for the first tie in almost a month. Pray for me.
It was a good weekend. I hosted poker Friday night and we had the last of a rainstorm that sprinkled the parched valley over the preceding three days. We haven't had much rain this season and our snow pack is at about 1% of normal. Skiers in this area have been flocking to Colorado and other states where the snow is ready. The resorts have seen a nice snowfall out of this last storm with a stronger storm due in tonight. Grass Valley is expected to see up to 4 inches of rain out of this storm so it is a soaker. We are expected to see about an inch and a half of rain. I usually fix deli sandwiches to save Darla the hassle of having to attend to us guys, but decided with the rain to make steak chili. I got two big cans of chili con carne, some onions, red bell pepper, chili peppers, a can of stewed tomatoes, chili powder, shredded cheese, marinated strip steak, and served it with Fritos, sour cream and French bread and made up a large pot of chili. Sure enough one of the guys mentioned that he was looking forward to carver sandwiches. Oh well. I though the chili was excellent and the 8 guys finished up the pot of chili that was enough to feed 12. I had a good night with the cards and finished up about $65.
Saturday, I set up to play golf with John and Paul (Ringo was busy) and John's soon to be son in law Justin joined us. We drove up to Auburn and played at Auburn Valley Country Club. It is a track that sits up in the foothills and runs alongside a creek and has several man made lakes on the course. That track is known for their greens and our only saving grace on Saturday is that they received about 2 inches of rain out of the last storm and the greens were soft and accepting. They ran fast and true. The guys all struggled on the 129 slope course with John shooting 110, Justin
105, Paul 98 and I had a pretty nice 44+42=86. I'm starting to get my game back and it's been just about 11 months since my shoulder surgery. The top two pictures are from Auburn Valley and the second picture shows Paul hitting his approach shot to number 11 (and, yes, that's a pony tail). I took $10 in bets from my friends, but I did drive up to the course and brought the gang in the 300.
I had a nice break for some tri tip and enjoyed a nice visit with Mrs. Lyon. She went out with the girls Friday night to Thunder Valley Casino in Lincoln while we were playing poker. The girls had dinner at the seafood buffet. Any buffet is one buffet too many for Darla. The casino has a nice Chinese food restaurant and a steakhouse, but the girls were up for the seafood. They all played the slots afterward and Darla and Frieda found a bank of nickel video poker machines and camped in for the night. Frieda won a quick $150 jackpot and was the big winner on the night. Camille was the other winner. Brenda called Steve about 9 PM and said that she'd already gone through her $100. Darla finished down $9. They went over to Denny's after the casino and had beignets with cream cheese sauce and were home about 11:30. The game broke up at midnight.
Saturday night Darla and I went out to dinner at our favorite white table cloth Italian restaurant, Rubino's, in Rocklin. I got a couple of pictures of Darla at the restaurant. We had hoped to have the waitress take a picture of the two if us, but she was one of those that would take our drink orders and then walk past the table ten minutes later and then rush back to the kitchen to get the drink she forgot. She was extremely nice, but seemed harried and we thought her head might explode if we asked her to take our picture. I had a nice chicken piccata dish with a gnocchi side, while Darla had a chicken marsala with gnocchi. I love gnocchi and had the main dish gnocchi the first couple of times that we went to the restaurant and then had one of the waiters suggest a main dish and the gnocchi as a side. It is much nicer to have it as a side as the potato gnocchi is a lot at one sitting. I also get a vegetable side with the meal. We had a Groupon for $30 that I bought on sale for $14.40, so good deal. I have another Groupon in the bank for next month.
Darla talked me into heading over to Thunder Valley after dinner and we sat and played the nickel slots until almost 11:30 when we rushed home to let the pooch out of his caged purgatory. We ended up spending about $25 each after initially turning $80 into $94 in the first 90 minutes. We had a good time playing slots and people watching. I always get a kick out of the couples that are arguing. It's apparent that they can't afford to be at the casino to begin with and the fight is usually at the ATM when the guy is raiding the rent money. We also get a kick out of the "slammers" that come around. They are the slot players who slam the keys really hard and seem tremendously impatient to lose their money. They usually only last a few minutes as they are so antsy.
The last two pictures are of Samson from today. He is progressing with us. He was able to come out and meet the guys at poker although he was a little fired up after being cooped up for two hours. He came in and barreled into Steve who was sitting in the recliner and Steve almost lost his chili. Samson is a very social dog and if he get in trouble during the day for not minding or biting, he is put in his cage and usually comes out and is very good for awhile afterward.
I did hire a new Personal Lines Underwriter last week. The process was tougher than usual as Harvey and our HR director in SF both felt that Meghan is a bit introverted and wouldn't make a good marketer. I think she was tremendously nervous when she visited Harvey in SF and had to sit through three separate interviews. She had driven 100 miles into San Francisco and then had the interviews. They felt that she was "low energy". Pete and I both found her tremendously knowledgeable and bright. She currently works for a competitor and our regional HR Director reached out to her on social media and let her know we had an opening for an underwriter and asked her to reach out to me. She did and I'm thrilled. She was very professional and friendly in her interviews with us. She has not done marketing calls as that function is handled by a marketing rep at her company. I can teach a person who knows insurance how to do marketing visits. I have more trouble slowing down the Type A marketing types who talk a blue streak and put me in an Errors and Omissions quandary. She has worked for our competitor for 14 years and is in her early 30's. She is well liked and respected in the insurance community. I talked Harvey into the hire and he told me that he was holding me personally accountable to her marketing calls. As I told Harvey, I'm personally responsible for all of my underwriters' marketing activity, so no problem. I'm excited to see her impact on our office.
I still have one position open for an Assistant Underwriter and met with a great candidate on Thursday. She lost a 2 year old child to a rare medical condition over Memorial Day this last year. She took a leave of absence from work and was let go when she returned to her position. Callous. I hope to have her do a video interview with Harvey this week or next and we may then close the last gap on the last opening in the office.
That's it for this week. Darla is finishing up some call reports for her social work job and Samson is sleeping at our feet below the leather couch. I hope you have a great week and we'll do this again next weekend. Ciao.
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