Back at it after a few days up in Lake Tahoe with Charlie and Freida. It's been a busy ten days with a lot going on and a lot to get caught up on. I've been doing this blog for over 16 years and it may change to an occasional update going forward. It's hard to come up with enough excitement in the life of an old married guy. Funny, I've been feeling that way for awhile and then a week like this happens and I have a lot to say.
First, the pictures. The top photo is of Freida and the view fro the 8th floor Jacuzzi at the Ridge Lake Tahoe condo resort. It was a VERY nice, well kept, well manicured resort and we will be back. We've stayed up in the basic area of the Heavenly ski resort and always had stairs to climb and climb and climb. This resort has elevators (shocker!) and subterranean parking for the cars. The condo had two master suites and a common area with a nice view of the valley. We did not have a lake side view, but the view down to the Minden valley is nice in it's own right. The second picture is of the 17th hole at Lake Tahoe Golf Course where Charlie and I played on Monday. The third, fourth and fifth shots are from our Sunday night dinner at Tep's Villa Roma n Tahoe, a favorite of ours and a place that we frequent often when we visit Tahoe. Dad and Shirley have bee there with us.The sixth and seventh shots are of our drive to Tahoe and views from the summit as we headed down into the valley. The eight shot is from a house warming at John Parola's house and is of Darla and Neil. I didn't take many shots for whatever reason. The 9th, 10th and 11th pictures are painting that Darla's Uncle Gene painted. He had a great eye and painted Marilyn Monroe, Sammy Davis, Jr, Sinatra, Elvis and others, but the portraits of Ellen DeGeneres and Raymond Burr are two of my favorites. The third is a self portrait that was VERY accurate. Gene passed away last Sunday. The final picture is of Chuck and Linda Cinnamon. Chuck was a member of our golf club.
I say Chuck WAS a member of our golf club as he was severely attacked, beaten and killed by his 43 year old mentally ill son last Friday. His son had recently been released from a mental institution and turned over to his parents. He was living in a trailer on his parents driveway about two blocks from the golf course. Chuck was a 72 year old retired Air Force colonel. Linda was badly hurt in the attack, but she was able to escape and call police. The news shook our little club to it's core as Chuck had been an active member for over 20 years. Linda was in the hospital for a week and was released over the weekend. Chuck and Linda travelled extensively and he always had a smile on his face when I saw him at the course. It is a tragedy and the mental health care and rehabilitation in this country needs to be completely overhauled. These murders occur far too often when the patient moves out of care and into the community. I have a friend who worked at the institution where the son was housed and Chuck ad Linda were regular visitors and very active in his care.
Darla and I only got four days up in Tahoe, but it was a wonderful, relaxing mini vacation. Darla had to be back tonight for a meeting with her jewelry reps and she works the farmer's market in Sun City tomorrow, which is her regular Wednesday gig. I obviously had to come back as well, so signed up to play golf with the regular group of happily retired golfers who play Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday every week. It is a blind draw two man event tomorrow and I get 17 strokes. The course has been re rated by the NCGA and we expected the ratings to go down because of the loss of trees on the course. The maintenance group had combatted the loss of trees by narrowing the fairways and letting the rough grow up and the ratings from the whites changed from 67.8/114 to 68.4/117. The blue tees moved from 69.0/119 to 69.6/122. The first number is the course rating (what a pro would be expected to shoot from those tees). The second number is the slope and is the degree of difficulty of the course compared to others. Again, we were very surprised to see the ratings go up as we have lost nearly 100 trees over the last five years. Most of the trees are oaks and the grounds crew pours entirely too much water on the trees and kills them. It is a delicate balance keeping the course green during the hot Summer months, but they need to have an irrigation plan set up to keep the sprinklers away from the trees.
Charlie and I did play golf up in Tahoe at the Lake Tahoe Golf Club, which is on Highway 50 along the road to the Y entrance to Lake Tahoe Boulevard. Charlie turned 72 on Sunday and thought he had a tee time set up. He had his paperwork and everything showing our tee time, but forgot to hit ENTER in the website. Luckily the pro got a good laugh over his OOPS and got us in at 10 when our "tee time" was 9:48. I shot a 44 +43=87 and Charlie had a good time, shooting over 100. The girls relaxed in the sun back at the condo in the 75 degree air. We met back at the condo and had a late lunch of hamburgers grilled on the deck. We went to Lakeside Casino and gambled until about 10 and then headed to Applebees for a late dinner.
I just got the financials for August at work and we made a profit for the month of over $120,000 and the management of the company took notice as I got a couple of congratulatory e-mails today. As I mentioned last week, we are two straight months of beating budget and need to make a third as I am off to Detroit next month for the annual managers meeting.
As mentioned above, Darla's Uncle Gene passed away a week ago this past Sunday and his funeral was on Friday. Darla got a call from his pastor on Wednesday and the funeral was planned for either this past Friday or this week. It turned out to be last Friday and Darla found out it was a go on Thursday. She jumped in the car and drove to Palm Springs Thursday for the funeral. I got her a hotel in Redlands about an hour from Palm Springs and she got in late Thursday night. She and her Uncle had reconnected about six years ago. He had a falling out with his Dad and sister several years ago and it was a sad situation. Darla, with her great big heart, couldn't stand by and became close to him. She HAD to go to the funeral and it was not a planned event, but hey. She was back mid day Saturday and we had John and Camille's house warming Saturday afternoon. I played golf with David and Daniel on Saturday and shot a 45+42=87. David was nice enough to come over Sunday night and watch the dog. We were up early Sunday and off to Lake Tahoe.
Well, that's it. I'm tired from the drive today and ready to relax. Darla is off to coffee with a couple of her friends after her meeting and Samson is sacked out next to me on the couch. I ran him pretty good at the park and he found a baseball in the bushes which he brought home and proceeded to tear off the cover. I'm trying to arrange a mobile groomer to come out and groom him as he needs it, but I got no one to call me back and several that told me they are not taking new clients. One in fact said that she does not groom LARGE dogs. Our 65 pound baby was excluded. Bummer.
I will get back to this a couple of times a month, but you will have to check in every now and then as it will no longer be weekly. I hope everyone is doing well. Ciao for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment