Back in the hunt with the golf game

 

Paul and I won the Inaugural 2 day Winter Challenge event at Diamond Oaks this weekend. I didn't play great, but had some really good holes and Paul played consistently and we shot a 59 on Saturday to open a one shot lead and then outplayed the second place team on Sunday (who had shot a 60 on Saturday) 63 to 66 to win. The turnout was not as good as it could have been and they only had a total of 21 teams in three flights, so we only won $110. It only cost us $80 total for range balls, green fees and a cup of chili both days, so we came out ahead of the game. I shot 89 and 91 and Paul shot 81 and 78, so we somehow managed to work our way around the course and win. Darla came out after the round today and had lunch with Frieda. Frieda had not played in the event, but came out hoping Charlie would buy her lunch. When she saw me, she had me call Darla and then grabbed the phone. Darla was just sitting down to a chicken sandwich at home and Frieda insisted that she" put the sandwich down and come out and have lunch with her". Darla complied. I actually had my chili and then went and hit the new Callaway Driver, the Rogue  at a Demo Day event at the driving range. I hit it well, but didn't drop the $499 for the new stick. I ended up leaving, coming home, working on the yard, taking Samson for a walk and watching the Honda Classic PGA event before Darla came home. She and Frieda closed down the restaurant at the club and I'm guessing solved many of the country's biggest issues as they talked.

 

Darla and I talked to Jennifer yesterday and she was involved in a car accident on Tuesday of last week. She was out at lunch and there was an emergency vehicle that was driving on the main street. Her light turned to red flashing so the fire truck could go thru the intersection and the car behind her didn't see the light and hit her from behind, pushing her through the intersection and into oncoming traffic. She said her car did a 360 and came to rest in the other traffic lanes. When the police came, he checked on her and called for an EMT and then went to talk to the driver that hit her. She got checked out by the EMT and he walked her back across the intersection to the policeman who was laughing and having a conversation with the other drivers. He "shooshed" her when she tried to cut in and give her side of what happened. She thinks the policeman knows the other driver and his wife. When she got the police report, it showed no fault on either driver as the light had gone red flashing. Jennifer (I guess) talked to Diane and now has an attorney to get the incident changed to the driver that hit her being at fault for not stopping at a red flashing light. We'll see how that goes. I don't want to seem pessimistic, but my experience is the only people who win in that kind of an argument are the attorneys. Luckily, she is okay. She is seeing a chiropractor for her neck and missed one and a half days of work.

 

We got a call last night from Alicia's husband, Don, and they have decided to come out to Vegas and be at the wedding. I talked to Jennifer last night and we talked about the "no kids" edict. Right now, they have Sam (of course), her girlfriend Ava, McKenny's two nieces 12 and 16, a baby who belongs to one of McKenny's groomsmen and now Luke. They arrive on Wednesday and stay until Sunday. Darla finally got her dress for the wedding and I went and got fitted for my tux at Men's Wearhouse. Do you know that a tux rental for two days is now $270. What the hell? How does a teenager afford going to prom? Oh, that's right, they don't wear tuxes anymore.

 

We had the kids over last Sunday night and I got some pictures. Samson was a little overly excited and Darla wanted to leave him in his crate, but we have to get him socialized to guests, so I let him out after dinner and he did pretty good. I had him on his leash and he stayed calm, going over and getting attention from each of the kids and staying down from jumping up on them. Becky is not used to dogs and actually has a fear of dogs, but she is really bonding with Samson. They are all moved into the house in Roseville and have Dan's cousin living with them as a tenant and he has a pit bull mix dog that spends most of the day with Becky, who is home working on her dissertation for her doctorate. She is on the last lap for getting her doctorate. We had a great time with the kids.

 

We had a guest speaker at church Saturday night, Louie Giglio, who is the senior pastor and founder of the Passion movement and Passion City church in Atlanta Georgia. He is a dynamic speaker and preached about David and Goliath and the battle at the Elah Valley in the Promised land. His sermon was about battling the Giants in our life and he used the example of his own struggles with depression that lasted two years in his life and took a toll on him emotionally and physically. His point is that if you go into battle with the Lord by your side you have already won. It was pretty powerful.

 

The other picture above is from Darla at our favorite Italian restaurant, Rubino's in Rocklin. We went to dinner after church. We had wanted the waiter to get a picture of us, but he was one of those obnoxious 20 "somethings" who like to act like they are forty and smile and wink at you. We both could barely keep from laughing when he came by and refilled our drinks as he was so verbose.

 

Ron Floyd and I will team up next week in the 54 hole team championship. The event is three days over two weekends and encompasses a round of best ball, a round of alternate shot and a round of 2 man scramble. I have to do the handicapping for the event tonight and that entails coming up with individual handicaps for the first day and team handicaps for the final two days. It's a lot of work, but I only have to post the individual best ball scores.

 

I have the LA manager, Tim, coming in to my office tomorrow. He is part of the Surplus Lines Association board and they are meeting in Sacramento Monday and Tuesday. He had contacted me two months ago and set up coming in to my office to meet the staff and see the location and then have lunch with Pete and I. He also wanted to play golf Wednesday morning. He called me last Thursday and bailed on golf as he noticed that our morning temperatures are near 40 degrees. His flight is 2 PM and he wanted to play in the morning. He is spoiled as he grew up in Michigan, but is now a So Cal weather snob.

 

Work is going along okay. We were up substantially in January, but just missed budget numbers on income. However, because of three new employees and the cost of outfitting them and some overlap on salaries, I ended up only making $800 in profit for January, which compares with $23,000 last January. I was stunned when I got the financials and Harvey and I had a talk. He said that he has been caught off guard like that before and it is never fun. I will be watching the expenses very closely and had a heart to heart talk with the staff last Wednesday and went over commissions and fee income and told them point blank, that if an agent complains about our fee structure and is making more than 10% in commission, that we will cut their commission. It is amazing how well they all turn into Super Salesmen when their income is threatened.

 

Well, I have to get up and barbecue some pork chops. I am off to lunch with Tim and Pete tomorrow, so I won't be bringing leftovers, but the boneless chops are so much better on the barbie. We are expecting a pretty wet week this week with a storm front coming in tonight and lasting most of the week. Have a good week. Ciao.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back from LA and getting closer to Vegas and THE WEDDING

o

It was a special trip to Los Angeles this week and to Riviera Country Club and the Genesis Open. I worked Monday and Tuesday and then a half day on Wednesday. Darla and I met for lunch at California Pizza Kitchen to enjoy Valentines Day together on Wednesday. I went back to work until about 1:45 and then left to pick up Mike Stewart at his home in Orangevale and then on to the airport. We had time for a quick drink at the airport before we caught our flight. We were meeting Harvey in Burbank and driving together to Beverly Hills and the Hilton there. We arrived right at six and Harvey's flight pulled up to the terminal at the same time as ours. We met up with him and I had a car reserved. I had an Impala lined up, but they upgraded me to a 300. It took us a full hour to travel the 6.1 miles to the hotel. We checked in about 7:30, got cleaned up and then headed to Bedford and Burns restaurant in Beverly Hills. We talked to the Concierge at the Hilton about recommendations for dinner and it was, of course, Valentines night. He was able to get us in at the restaurant in spite of the crowds. He did say that he wouldn't judge three guys going to dinner together on a romantic holiday. Thanks.

 

Thursday morning we were up and in the lobby at 6:30 as Jimmy Walker was teeing off at 7:30 and we wanted to be there to see him tee off. We had parking at a middle school right next to the course. It was the staging area for CBS Sports and the parking lot for all of their employees. How we got in there is a mystery to me. Home Office sent me the parking pass. We jumped on the shuttle, which was (strangely) a golf cart. Not only was it a golf cart, but it was Dottie Pepper's golf cart. Dottie is a former LPGA Champion and the on course golf announcer. The driver asked if we were spotting on a hole. I told him, No, we had a villa on the 17th green. He kicked us out of the cart as it was for CBS employees only. We had to wait and catch the large shuttle van. That van took us to a side street next to the main entrance of the venue. The driver told us to be sure that we got on the shuttle for Parking Lot #4 at Paul Revere Middle school when we came back as there were multiple shuttles leaving from the same area..

 

There was next to no one following Jimmy, Charley Hoffman and Shane Lowry as Tiger teed off with Rory McElroy and Justin Thomas at the same time on number 10. I was able to meet Jimmy's wife, Erin, who was very nice, appreciative and accommodating. We also saw our Marketing Creative Director Royal Russin, who works with our Advertising agency, as well as Rich Shipley, our Marketing Director and his wife, Amy. We followed Jimmy for about five holes and then hustled over to our villa to see Phil Mickelson's group come through followed by Tiger and his group. The bar was open and they had some snacks in the tent. The venue was awesome as we sat right on the green at number 17. We had 40 people in the trailer and stands and we were able to come and go during the day. Jimmy finished his round at 12:30 and would be at the box at 1:30 to meet the agents and sign autographs and take pictures.

 

Mike and I wandered the course for awhile and followed Dustin Johnson, Adam Scott and Bubba Watson for several holes. They had Jordan Spieth right behind them and he was playing with Kevin Chappel. We had a blast as Mike had never been to a PGA tournament and he was enthralled with everything. His son is a huge PGA fan, so he was texting him back and forth as we went.

 

Jimmy did come by the box at about 1:45 and was extremely gracious in meeting with all of the agents and showing an interest in where they were from and how they were doing. He signed Genesis Open flags for each of the agents and posed for photographs. He signed some hats for the agents as we had given out Burns and Wilcox black Titleist hats earlier in the day. They served a great lunch of pulled pork and shredded chicken sandwiches with salads and fruit. The bar was open all day with an Angel's Envy brand Kentucky bourbon, that was my go to drink all day.

 

The pictures above are of the Kings game that we went to last weekend with Pete and Vickie. I took them to dinner at Frank Fat's Chinese restaurant. We had a ball with them. The 2nd picture is of the Hotel in Beverly Hills. The 3rd picture is of my two Valentines, Mike and Harvey, at dinner at Bedford and Burns. 4th picture is of Jimmy on number three. 5th picture is of Dustin and Adam Scott walking on number 5. 6th picture is Dustin. 7th picture is of Bubba Watson at number 5. 8th picture is of Mike with Jimmy in the villa box. 9th picture is of myself and Jimmy. 10th is Harvey and Jimmy. 11th is of Jimmy, myself and Rich Shipley, our marketing director. 11th is of Rich, Harvey, myself and Mike. 12th picture is of the venue (Ours was the second from the very left). 13th picture is of Jimmy with our group. The redhead is Kelly, our Vegas Managing Director. The final picture is of Dustin hitting his approach on number 18.

 

Harvey ended up tired and cold later in the day and Mike and I wanted to watch Dustin, Adam and Bubba finish. He caught a ride back to the hotel with Russin and we hung out until about 5 PM. We walked back to the side street and made sure to get on the shuttle for Parking Lot 4.  Unfortunately the idiots had two different parking Lot 4s. We ended up on the shuttle that took us to the employee parking lot in...wait for it...Santa Monica. We tried to get the driver to stop, but he wasn't allowed to (supposedly). It took an hour to get to Santa Monica and an hour to get back. We were supposed to meet Harvey and our LA Manager, Tim for dinner with Rich and his wife, Amy. We texted them and told them we were in Santa Monica and it was a long story and that we would miss dinner.

 

It took us an hour to go the 4 miles from the middle school back to Beverly Hills. The traffic was at a dead halt on the streets moving to the hotel. You can have LA. I like the weather, hate the traffic and HATE the politics. Mike and I ended up having a nice dinner at the hotel 's restaurant in the courtyard of the hotel. We talked family, some business and decided to roll the book of business they have with Anthony over to Burns and to meet in about two weeks to go over a special program on mobile homes that we will try to put together with our owned insurance company, Atain.

 

I played in the NCGA qualifier with Ron today and we both struggled, shooting a 70 in the event where 62 was leading when we left. Darla met me for lunch as we have an event coming up that I forgot to sign up for. She brought a check for me and I bought her lunch. We had a nice visit with Ron. I shot 46+43=89 and Ron shot 43+46=89. We didn't really ham and egg it well during the tournament. He carried us on the front and I carried us on the back, but we had bogeys on three of the four par threes which killed us.

 

I will play in a two day event next weekend with Paul. The boys are coming over for dinner tonight and Darla has prepared Italian Mac and Cheese for dinner. I'll be back next week with pictures from tonight. I hope everyone is doing well. Be safe and I look forward to seeing you guys in Vegas. Ciao.

 

 

 

 

 

 



PGA Golf All week long

Ah, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am. The pictures above are as follows: 1. The view back to 17 & 18 from the 6th fairway. 2. Jimmy Walker (Burns and Wilcox Brand Ambassador) putting for his 4th straight birdie on number 7. 3. Jason Kokrak hitting his second shot to number 6 from the number 8 rough (he hit the green with a six iron from 209 yards uphill). 4. Kevin Streelman finishing on 18. He and his partner Larry Fitzgerald won the Pro Am portion of the tournament. 5. Dustin Johnson acknowledging the crowd after a birdie on 13.6. Jason Day hitting to the green on 18 from the coastline. He ended up with a par. 7. The iconic Rolex clock on Pebble at number 1. 8. Jordan Spieth preparing to putt out on number 9. 9. A video still of me watching Jimmy on number 6. 10. Pete and I from a video still on number 6. 11. Jimmy Walker after putting out to cap off a 67 on Sunday. 12. Stillwater Cove at the Yacht club near the 4th hole. 13. The wharf at the Pebble Beach Yacht Club.

This is a day late as I was at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am yesterday all day. We left Roseville at 5:45. I picked up Mark from his office here and we drove to Sacramento where we picked up Tabb from an office building parking lot off the Garden Highway. From there we drove to Pete's place in Elk Grove where we met Pete and my other agent, Tony. We all piled into Pete's Extended cab F-150 pickup and drove to Monterey. We stopped at the Casa De Fruta complex outside Hollister for breakfast and a quick break. We went into the huge fruit stand building and Mark bought some hot sauce called "Dr. Assburn's Fire Roasted Habanero with Jalapenos" for his insurance office partner, Phil, who apparently likes that kind of stuff. To each his own.

 

We drove on to Cal State Monterey where we parked and caught the shuttle bus to Pebble Beach. We met up with Rich Shipley, our Marketing director and his wife, Amy. He introduced us to Jimmy's agent, Matt, who is about 32 or 33 and owns his own agency and represents 13 golfers including our other brand ambassador, Webb Simpson, as well as Charles Howell, Derek Fathauer and others. We spent most of the morning following Jimmy and spent some time with him when he finished his round. He was very gracious and posed for pictures with us. Our marketing director took those pictures and will send them to me later. Rich then hosted all of us for lunch and drinks at the village. He and his wife left to go see the 17 mile drive and we walked and followed Dustin Johnson and the eventual winner Ted Potter, Jr. We walked ahead and parked at 17 and 18 and watched all of the leaders come in. Jimmy had signed AT&T Pebble Beach hats for all of us, which was nice.

 

We left when Dustin and Ted were on the tee at number 18 in order to get a head start. We were in the car by 3:30 and on the road. We stopped at Santa Nella and had In and Out burgers for dinner. We had offered to stop and get seafood in Monterey, but the agents wanted to get home and we were all still full from our late lunch.

 

I am back now for two days and then make my way down to Los Angeles and the Beverly Hills Hilton. Strangely, we are watching REELZ right now and the "Autopsy of Whitney Houston." She died in room 434 at the Beverly Hilton. Mike Stewart and I fly out at five on Wednesday and will be back Friday morning. Rich and Amy will be there as will Harvey. We have a total of 36 people that will be in the tent on number 17. Jimmy and his wife, Erin, will meet with the agents Thursday afternoon after his round. It is a planned meet and greet and Jimmy will pose for pictures with the agents and have a Q&A. I really look forward to this trip. We will all have dinner together Thursday night with Danny Kaufman hosting the dinner.

 

Samson is still progressing with his Obedience and doing pretty well. He has a couple of things that he needs to work on. We have a Sego palm garden above the pool and Sego palms are highly toxic for dogs. He likes to climb up there and we are working on keeping him from climbing up on the raised garden bed. His remote collar is good for that. He is pulling a little bit more on his walks, so I make him heel or stop and sit and then do the Fast-Slow walking. He's pretty good about it. He has NOT done any biting since he came home and that was Darla's biggest issue with him. He is also staying off of our bed and REALLY likes his new round soft bed in our bedroom. He sinks into it and loves snuggling.

 

I did not play any golf this weekend and it is the first free weekend in a while. I will play in a tournament this Sunday and then a two day event called WinterFest the following weekend.

 

This is brief, but Darla is home from her social work visit and with me heading out of town on Valentine's Day, I better make some happy time with my bride. I hope all are well. I'll be back next weekend with information on the LA trip and our NCGA qualifier next weekend. Ciao.

The Trained Dog Emerges

We do have a new old dog. He is very well behaved and we are enjoying the new Samson. Our first training experience was a complete nightmare. He was housed in a barren kennel 1/4 mile from the house. It had space heaters, but the dogs were all kept in tiny plastic crates and they were miserable. We got back a dog that would heal if you shocked him repeatedly. It was a complete waste of money and the only good thing that came out of it was the DogTra remote collar. The experience with Kevin has been awesome. He kept us up to speed on Samson's progress through videos, texts and voice mails on the WhatsApp application on our phones. We were originally just able to see videos of him socializing with the other dogs, but it actually turned out to be pretty important.

 

As we run into other dogs on our walks he is now much more relaxed and comfortable around the other dogs. I was able to walk him today and we ran into several people walking dogs. That would have been a big problem before he spent the two weeks at boot camp. Today, he sniffed the dogs and we moved on, no big deal. He no longer pulls on the leash, but walks right along the side of us and we can speed him up or slow him down by saying "Fast" or Slow". The most impressive thing in my mind is that he is trained to STAY. That alone has really helped us. We made the mistake when he was a cute 20 pound pup of letting him up on the bed. THAT has now become his favorite place. We bought a new bed from Costco for him. He still sleeps in his canvas crate, but we are training him to hang out on HIS bed when we are relaxing in our room before bed. The way we have done it (so far) is with the Stay command. I set up his bed next to ours and had him stick there with the STAY command. He will stay for up to 30 minutes without moving. We released him after 30 minutes, he went outside and then came in and went to bed in his canvas crate. This morning when he got up he came in and we set him back on his bed with the Stay command and now he heads on to his bed when we go into the room. It's a process, but he is getting it.

 

Kevin spent two hours with us on Sunday morning and trained us on what commands he had taught Samson, showed us the Stay command, how to properly use the pinch collar, the loose leash walking, how to handle set backs, where and when to work with him and how to keep him off the bed. He was very in depth, left the room to see how Samson did when we were alone with him and using the commands. He did a fantastic job with Samson. It was incredibly expensive, but so far the results are worth it. We will have to continue to work with him every day, but so far so good. I actually had him on the stay command today and walked out the front door with the door open and he stayed in place. It will come in handy when Darla is cleaning or whatever and we can have Samson Stay on his rug or pillow and not worry about what he is getting into. It is really good to have the boy home. 

 

Samson really bonded with another Golden Retriever that Kevin had in his boot camp and they became as Kevin said, BFFs. They would play for  hours in the back yard and Kevin took several videos of them, one in particular was the tug of war video with the shoe lace. He said that after Rex left, Samson wasn't interested in playing like he did when Rex was there. The one thing that Kevin shared with us that kind of surprised us was that Samson is a little bit of a bully with smaller dogs. He would dominate them and hold them down. He didn't bite them or injure them in any way, but was all over them outside. That doesn't seem like Samson's personality, but it is what it is.

 

Kevin had bathed and dried Samson when we picked him up and it was nice to have a nice clean dog. One of our big issues was him play biting and a big part of that was up on the bed. He hasn't done any play biting since we got him home, but its only been two days. He started to jump up on me when I got home today and he gets really excited, but I corrected him and true to his training, he sat right down and behaved. Nice to have a well mannered dog for a change.

 

Here is a short video of Kevin working with Samson:

 

 

I have a couple of pictures from our lesson with Kevin, one of Samantha at the Las Vegas Knight's game and one of the reason we live in California. We need more rain and hopefully it comes, but we had a long wet stretch and now are enjoying some great weather in the 70's. I wouldn't want the constant 80's of LA and really enjoy the seasons, but love this kind of weather. Warm enough for shorts, but cool enough that I don't need the sprinklers. We hit a new high of 75 degrees on Super Bowl Sunday.

 

I played golf on Saturday and was terrible. I shot 47+47=94 and all of the good juju I had the prior week was gone. Where I had chipped in for birdie the prior week on number 1, this week I had two chili dip chips and shot a 7 to start my round. This game is as frustrating as any you will ever play. But, I love it. Pete played in his first ever tournament stroke play event and wasn't properly prepared. We played with Ron and Paul. Ron is Pete's agent and knows him well. Paul met him for the first time. Paul walked up to me on number two and said, "Do you know this guy?" I said, "Yeah, he's a work mate, why?" Apparently Pete was getting to his ball and taking out a clean ball and exchanging it for the one in play. He also marked his ball on the green with the coin in front of his ball and replaced it with the coin behind the ball. I talked to Pete and set him straight and told him to ask me if he needed to know any rules. He said, "I don't know what to ask." We got through it, but I think watching him kind of played into my poor round. Pete shot 100, Ron had a 90 and Paul shot 83.

 

Next weekend I'm off to Pebble Beach on Sunday with Pete and two of our agents. We have tickets to the final round of the AT&T tournament. We will meet at 6:30 and drive up to the tournament. Next Wednesday I fly to Los Angeles with Mike, one of our agents and the father of Kennah, who works for me. It is Valentine's Day and we are staying at the Beverly Hills Hilton and the driving the next day to the tournament at Riviera Country Club. Romantic, eh? We have a tent at the 16th green and will meet with Jimmy and Webb Simpson n the early evening for a meet and greet and time with the golfers. The tent is all you can eat and drink for the guests. It will be fun. We stay over Thursday night as well and fly home Friday morning.

 

I'm not sure if I'll play golf this coming weekend. I'll be gone all day Sunday and leave Wednesday night for LA. I think I'll be home to help out with Samson and spend some time with my bride.

 

I went to the skin clinic today and got my six month check-up. He found one pre basal cell on my chest that he zapped. Aside from that I was clear, so my nose is in tact. Randy will be glad to hear that. I wore shorts for the first time this year on Saturday as it was about 72 degrees.

 

It is short, but it was a busy day yesterday as I had to put in almost 100 scores into the GHIN system after the tournament Saturday. The Super Bowl was on, Samson came home and we talked to Dad and Shirley last night. I decided to work on this tonight. I hope all are well. We are off to the Kings game with Pete and Vicky Friday night. We have floor seats from one of my agents. Be well. Ciao.