I had taken some digital photos of the kitchen remodel and the tile floors to add to the blog today, but for some reason, there was no mail with Pictures attached in my in box this morning. I wonder who I sent them to last night? Very interesting. I'll look into the situation and see if I can rectify it by tomorrow. If I have to, I'll burn a disc and bring that in tomorrow.
I spent the weekend doing baseboards and finishing up the kitchen. Brian, my actual tile guy (not like the fool that called himself your tile man who wasn't licensed and never called us back), lent me a Porter Cable mitre saw and I was able to get all of the baseboards in where we had tile installed. I am waiting on the bedrooms, living room and family room until we have new carpet installed. Once that is in, I'll do the baseboards in those rooms. I had to install a new hood and fan in the kitchen above the cooktop. Brian had tiled up to the old one and we had bought a new black hood to match the new gas cooktop. That job was a minor hurdle in my life as the space was so small and the duct work so tight and hard to work with. I lost some spiritual growth as we attempted to lift the hood into place, wire the electrical and bolt it into place. I was dripping with sweat by the time we finally got the unit into place. Darla was a doll putting up with a sputtering husband who more than once blurted out that I'm not a blue collar guy and I didn't go to college to end up installing appliances! She encouraged me and batted me in the rear and we got the job done. There is a reason that I don't do my own repairs in the house and on the cars. I'd rather pay someone to do the job right than cause myself a ton of grief to end up with a half assed attempt at finishing the job. The hood, fan and light work great.
Brian, our tile guy, did not finish off the carpeting and said that he doesn't do that. I have several rooms where the carpet is jagged cut and needs to be stretched and tacked down. Rather than pay someone to come out and pull our old worn careting into place, we have decided to have new carpeting installed. It is a big job as we have a pool table, family room furniture and four bedrooms of furniture and whatnot to move. I think we will have the living toom and family room done and then have them come back to do the bedrooms. Either that or I'll pay them extra to move the furniture.
Brian broke the toilet in the bathroom off of the remote bedroom and had to replace the unit. He got it installed and was finishing the backsplash when Darla came out yelling that there was a leak. He had installed the toilet using the old gasket and water was pouring out of the unit. I thought I was the only one that made those kinds of mistakes. Brian said that he had to do both plumbing and tile work in his business. I told him to stick with his day job. He said that was why he didn't take on the carpet stretching as well.
The house is beginning to take on a finished look and once the capreting is in, we will have a completed project. Darla has picked up the piles that had gathered during the process and we used the time to cull some of the unnecessary clutter from our lives. I have a large pile of clothes and clutter on the side of the house that will be taken to the dump this weekend. We thought we had rid ourselves of all of the junk when we filled a trailer that Brian hauled away, but there is more with old throw rugs, the toilet, some clutter from several of the rooms that had piled up. I'm going to have the boys go through their rooms and add to the pile before we take the dump run this coming weekend.
Daniel turned 16 last week and is about four months from getting his license. I got mine on my 16th birthday, but kids today seem so casual about the whole process. David got his license when he turned 16 1/2 and Daniel will just beat that. Jennifer was almost seventeen before she got her license. The costs are enormous to the parents as our car insurance bill has gone from $100 a month for Darla and I with two cars to $375 a month for adding David and his car to the policy. Luckily, Daniel will be covered under his father's policy as a principal driver. We will add him to our policy for liability, but exclude him as a driver on both Mustangs. I'm still not looking forward to seeing that bill. We are buying Daniel a new laptop computer for his birthday.
Jennifer continues to count down her days in the military and will clear out of Kuwait on October 28th and fly to Fort Gordon in Augusta Georgia for her debriefing and final clearing. She hopes to be home around November 10th. Check out her blog at the bottom of this page. She has had several job offers, but most involve overseas travel and she has been there, done that. She is looking for something at home where she can work and go to school.
I said about enough on work in my last epistle. I am keeping my head up and my feet on the ground. There are other possibilities for me that I may pursue. I know that this office will be a huge success and it would be hard to leave with the potential for a huge income here, but I have to feel appreciated at the same time. I'm in a bit of a bind, but meanwhile the bills are getting paid and my staff is great to work with.
Dad and Shirley won another "best of the best" in a car show in Abbottsford this weekend. Their '46 is a show stopper and they have entered 7 car shows and won 5 times. I know that Dad will not do the car shows much beyond the next couple of years and his two cars could fetch a nice return for them if they keep winning prizes. Dad had the fun of transforming the cars into what they are now, but there is always someone with money willing to buy a prize magnet. They said that they will travel to a few car shows next year and one of them is in Pleasanton in the Bay Area. We look forward to that. I'm trying to talk Dad into entering his car in the Hot August Nights show in Reno next year as well.
Well, that is enough for now. I will get those pictures added to the blog as soon as I can. Take care and keep your mind and your thoughts on Jesus and he will lead your path to glory. Ciao.
Monday, October 17, 2005
Friday, October 14, 2005
Back from the Motor City
This will be short and sweet as the work on my desk is unbelievable. I flew into Detroit on Saturday morning, getting up at 4:15 AM to catch a 6:00 AM flight to Phoenix. This is the same scheduled flight that I was on way back on September 11, 2001 when the terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York. I've taken that flight four or five times since the event and it always brings it back for me, the feeling of helplessness and disbelief that a small insignificant nation would attack the great United States of America. I stopped for an hour and a half in Phoenix and was able to eat some breakfast and begin to wake up after sleeping on the plane from Sac to Phoenix. I feel sorry for my seatmates as I always get an aisle seat for more legroom and then fall fast asleep effectively imprisoning the middle and window seat passengers.
The flight from Phoenix to Detroit was three and a half hours of sheer boredom and I arrived to find the limo driver holding a handmade piece of cardboard with "Burns and Wilcox" written on it at the baggage claim area. We met up with the Fresno Branch Manager and made the half hour drive out to Farmington Hills. We meet and stay at the Westin Hotel and it is a nice facility. That said, I arrived at five-thirty tired and ready for a shower and the hotel did NOT have my room clean. They told me that they'd call housekeeping and they'd have the room ready in five minutes. I told them to "take ten, I want clean linens".
I met one on one with Alan Kauffman, the CEO and owner of our subchapter "S" corporation on Sunday afternoon. Burns and Wilcox is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Kauffman Group, so this was the big cheese. He asked me how I thought we were doing in Sacramento. I told him that we were finally in the black and would make a small profit in 2005 of $100,000 after losing money the previous 5 years and losing $200,000 in 2004. I thought that the right people were in place going forward and that Sacramento was on the verge of breaking out as a branch. Alan proceeded to tell me that our branch was the worst performing branch in the company and that our ROI of .88% was so bad that if we were a grocery store, he'd close us down. He was unhappy with my personal production and wanted me to take a more active role in production and let the office "run itself". I was floored and saw the turnaround of the branch as a huge success and a personal accomplishment. I left the meeting deflated and discouraged. That was Sunday afternoon.
Monday night at the awards banquet, Alan was giving out awards and said that, "there is a big success story within the company and that this young man has a great future with our organization and that he has turned a losing branch into a branch on the verge of a breakout....The Gold Branch of the Year for Division III goes to Ken Lyon and Sacramento!" I sat stunned at my table and walked up with some seriously conflicted emotions. To say that I'm enormously confused is an understatement. I left the meeting Sunday figuring that it was time to find another job and spent Monday night fielding congratulations from my colleagues.
I've asked Harvey, the regional VP to come out to Sacramento next week and address the staff. I don't know how to address the conflicting images given to me at the meeting. Are we doing well and on the verge of something big or are we the "worst performing office in the company?" Are they happy with the success of the office, but unhappy with my performance? Did I fall asleep and wake up in the Bizarro world? Clarity would be a welcome respite for my troubled mind right now.
On a brighter note, the remodel of our house (Phase I) is finished. The tile is in and looks great. The backsplash is particularly nice, where Brian and Darla designed a nice effect above the cooktop with tumbled marble. The countertop is in and looks excellent. I will get pictures put on the site on Monday. I got home Wednesday about 1:00 PM after getting up at 5:00AM that morning for a 6:00 AM pickup at the hotel. That was 2:00 AM California time for anyone paying attention. I got home and Brian was working on the backsplash. Darla took off to have lunch with Daniel on his birthday and I took a long shower and a short nap after. I awoke and went with Darla to Home Depot to pick out some new baseboards for the house and to also look at carpeting. We decided after the new tile floors, to replace the existing carpet in the house. We have carpet in the living room, family room and all four bedrooms. I got home about 4:00 PM and started working on the baseboards. I wanted to do the laundry room so we could put the washer and dryer back in there and I could park the Mustang in the garage. I also did the front entry so we could put the armoire back up and get the coats and clothes out of the master bath tub. Finally, I did the kitchen and inside the refrigerator nook so that we could get the refrigerator out of the family room and back into the kitchen. I honestly don't do well with clutter. Brian was amazed that I could fly home from the east coast and get right into work. Well, it needed to be done.
The results of the remodel are amazing and I look forward to the new carpeting later this month that will finish the project. Now, we'll just have the master bathroom, the roof and the windows on the back side of the house, including two sliders to replace. Darla also wants a new refrigerator, dishwasher and eventually a new oven and microwave. Aside from those minor items, we are good to go here at the Lyon homestead.
Well, as mentioned, my work awaits and apparently I am being solely measured on my own production. My production naturally has taken a toll to running this branch and getting our Modesto Service office up to speed. I have my marching orders, the problem is it's hard to lead a team through dense fog. I'll manage...or maybe that was a poor choice of words. God Bless and I'll update this after the weekend. Ciao.
The flight from Phoenix to Detroit was three and a half hours of sheer boredom and I arrived to find the limo driver holding a handmade piece of cardboard with "Burns and Wilcox" written on it at the baggage claim area. We met up with the Fresno Branch Manager and made the half hour drive out to Farmington Hills. We meet and stay at the Westin Hotel and it is a nice facility. That said, I arrived at five-thirty tired and ready for a shower and the hotel did NOT have my room clean. They told me that they'd call housekeeping and they'd have the room ready in five minutes. I told them to "take ten, I want clean linens".
I met one on one with Alan Kauffman, the CEO and owner of our subchapter "S" corporation on Sunday afternoon. Burns and Wilcox is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Kauffman Group, so this was the big cheese. He asked me how I thought we were doing in Sacramento. I told him that we were finally in the black and would make a small profit in 2005 of $100,000 after losing money the previous 5 years and losing $200,000 in 2004. I thought that the right people were in place going forward and that Sacramento was on the verge of breaking out as a branch. Alan proceeded to tell me that our branch was the worst performing branch in the company and that our ROI of .88% was so bad that if we were a grocery store, he'd close us down. He was unhappy with my personal production and wanted me to take a more active role in production and let the office "run itself". I was floored and saw the turnaround of the branch as a huge success and a personal accomplishment. I left the meeting deflated and discouraged. That was Sunday afternoon.
Monday night at the awards banquet, Alan was giving out awards and said that, "there is a big success story within the company and that this young man has a great future with our organization and that he has turned a losing branch into a branch on the verge of a breakout....The Gold Branch of the Year for Division III goes to Ken Lyon and Sacramento!" I sat stunned at my table and walked up with some seriously conflicted emotions. To say that I'm enormously confused is an understatement. I left the meeting Sunday figuring that it was time to find another job and spent Monday night fielding congratulations from my colleagues.
I've asked Harvey, the regional VP to come out to Sacramento next week and address the staff. I don't know how to address the conflicting images given to me at the meeting. Are we doing well and on the verge of something big or are we the "worst performing office in the company?" Are they happy with the success of the office, but unhappy with my performance? Did I fall asleep and wake up in the Bizarro world? Clarity would be a welcome respite for my troubled mind right now.
On a brighter note, the remodel of our house (Phase I) is finished. The tile is in and looks great. The backsplash is particularly nice, where Brian and Darla designed a nice effect above the cooktop with tumbled marble. The countertop is in and looks excellent. I will get pictures put on the site on Monday. I got home Wednesday about 1:00 PM after getting up at 5:00AM that morning for a 6:00 AM pickup at the hotel. That was 2:00 AM California time for anyone paying attention. I got home and Brian was working on the backsplash. Darla took off to have lunch with Daniel on his birthday and I took a long shower and a short nap after. I awoke and went with Darla to Home Depot to pick out some new baseboards for the house and to also look at carpeting. We decided after the new tile floors, to replace the existing carpet in the house. We have carpet in the living room, family room and all four bedrooms. I got home about 4:00 PM and started working on the baseboards. I wanted to do the laundry room so we could put the washer and dryer back in there and I could park the Mustang in the garage. I also did the front entry so we could put the armoire back up and get the coats and clothes out of the master bath tub. Finally, I did the kitchen and inside the refrigerator nook so that we could get the refrigerator out of the family room and back into the kitchen. I honestly don't do well with clutter. Brian was amazed that I could fly home from the east coast and get right into work. Well, it needed to be done.
The results of the remodel are amazing and I look forward to the new carpeting later this month that will finish the project. Now, we'll just have the master bathroom, the roof and the windows on the back side of the house, including two sliders to replace. Darla also wants a new refrigerator, dishwasher and eventually a new oven and microwave. Aside from those minor items, we are good to go here at the Lyon homestead.
Well, as mentioned, my work awaits and apparently I am being solely measured on my own production. My production naturally has taken a toll to running this branch and getting our Modesto Service office up to speed. I have my marching orders, the problem is it's hard to lead a team through dense fog. I'll manage...or maybe that was a poor choice of words. God Bless and I'll update this after the weekend. Ciao.
Monday, October 03, 2005
Back from Carmel..What a weekend!
Darla and I snuck out of work early on Thursday afternoon and made the three hour drive to Carmel. The weather was absolutely perfect, with highs in the low seventies and great sleeping weather at night. We got into Carmel about 6:15 PM and got checked into our hotel. We unpacked and ventured out about 7:00 PM for some dinner. We walked down to the Wells Fargo ATM in the middle of town and got some funds for the weekend and did a bit of window shopping in the warm night air as the sun slowly set over the ocean. We walked over to one of our favorite restaurants, The Forge in the Forest on fifth street. It was packed and there was a wait for outside tables. They did however have a table in their "dog friendly" patio and there was a nice German Sheppard and a Collie in residence. We chose to eat sans canines and opted for a table next to the fire inside near the bar. Our waiter was one of those fussy looking quasi-gay fellows with a bright pinkish orange shirt (NOT that there's anything wrong with that). He seemed somewhat harried as he rushed about, but seemed genuinely unhappy that Darla and I chose to split a steak sandwich and I ordered a salad and Darla a crock of French onion soup. Darla's soup arrived and we shared that, although Darla was not thrilled with my technique of folding back the cheese to get at the soup. We waited an interminable amount of time for dinner and my salad never did show up. Finally, Mr Finicky (our waiter) arrived with a plate of steak tacos. I balked as he was setting them down and told him that we had ordered a steak sandwich. "No." he said. I insisted and he left to check his tag and came back to the table with the plate. "Uh, you were right, I ordered the wrong entree." (No shit, Sherlock). We accepted the steak tacos and shared that dinner. Darla mentioned that as Christians we needed to set an example of understanding and grace. When it took the waiter another twenty minutes to bring us the bill when we finished eating she was ready to "dine and dash" which seemed to me counter to the Christian grace posture she had avowed earlier. I left a ten percent tip as the waiter didn't even offer to discount the meal for his mistake. Whatever.
Our friends arrived later in the evening both couples taking wrong turns and getting lost en route to the hotel. One couple missed the 156 turnoff at Hollister and went in to Gilroy and the other drove through Pleasanton and San Jose to get to Carmel. I never drive to Carmel via the Bay Area. I always take I-5 to Santa Nella and cut through Hollister and San Juan Batista. The traffic is lighter and it is a nicer drive throught the San Juan reservoir. They finally made it and we made plans to have breakfast together the next morning.
We played Poppy Hills on Friday, teeing off at 12:20PM. We ate breakfast at our favorite breakfast restaurant. The Swiss Cafe on seventh street. We decided to have dinner at the Pasta House in Carmel that night and made reservations for twelve. Golf was tough, but I shot 93 on Friday and 91 on Saturday. I took second low net on Saturday with a net of 78 and won $29. Boyd had to leave early and gave me his winnings, which turned out to be $54, as he took low gross with a 79 and closest to the pin on number two. I had the shortest drive of my golfing life on number 18 Saturday as I hit a 235 yard drive that pushed left under some trees and came to rest (I thought) on the cart path. The hole is a 410 yard uphill par four. As Boyd got up to hit, I said, "I think my ball is moving." Indeed it began to roll back down the cart path and by the time the 4th player hit, the ball was rolling down the cart path past the tee box. It rolled another 100 yards off of the course. So I hit a 235 yard drive that rolled back 335 yards and I took a 6 on the hole, instead of a par. C'est la Vie. I have shot 80 before and won nothing, so second place for a 91 was not so bad. I bought a sleeve of balls, a golf vest, hat, glove and a towel for my $81. Thanks, Boyd.
We did head home Saturday night after golf, caravaning with our friends and having dinner at the Cedar House near the Casa De Fruta. We had a lot of laughs and truly enjoyed some good conversation and some quality time with our friends. The weather was ideal and although the golf could have been better, they were tough championship courses and I actually shot a 41+50 on Saturday, so I at least had one good nine hole stretch of golf.
Finally, we will get started on our kitchen this week. The tile guy will be in on Wednesday and will start the floor project and the granite installer is supposed to start this week. We have yet to hear from him, but the contract says that he will have it installed by 10/7/05, which is Friday. I will talk to him today. We are ready to have the work done as half of the kitchen is sitting in the living room. We have to take down the armoire this week and tear out the tile in the entry for that installation next week.
I leave for the Manager's meeting this weekend in Detroit and will be gone until the following Wednesday. I hope and plan to talk to the powers that be about promoting me and hiring another underwriter. The Sacramento office is beginning to take off and we need to stop being treated like a red headed stepchild. I will let you know how that goes. The blog will be late next week as I will be in Detroit. I have been asked to present my sales meeting profile in a best practices session on Sunday. Management likes the interactive tone of my meetings which are short and deal with where we are at that moment with regard to renewals, new business, quotes, etc. versus our budget. We have our meetings once a week and everyone in the office knows where we sit versus our budgeted numbers at any given time.
Jennifer called last week. She is still in countdown mode and will leave Kuwait sometime near October 28th. She will be in Georgia processing out of the Army until about November 10th, but will be home for the holidays. One of her best friends, Jason, who was a boyfriend has contracted lymphoid cancer and is being treated for it. Jason is only 25 and it is a call to prayer. Please pray that Jason receive the best medical care available and that the Lord will heal him. His parents lost his brother to a suicide last year and they need Jason to survive. Please PRAY hard.
Our pastor, Rick, will be taking a three month sabbatical beginning in late December. He has spent eleven years building a church family in Roseville/Rocklin and he needs to get away and recharge his batteries. We give thanks to God for his leadership of our church body and wish him well on his break and look forward to him coming back to the lectern in April.
Well that's it for this week. Be well and focused in your walk with the Lord. Ciao.
Our friends arrived later in the evening both couples taking wrong turns and getting lost en route to the hotel. One couple missed the 156 turnoff at Hollister and went in to Gilroy and the other drove through Pleasanton and San Jose to get to Carmel. I never drive to Carmel via the Bay Area. I always take I-5 to Santa Nella and cut through Hollister and San Juan Batista. The traffic is lighter and it is a nicer drive throught the San Juan reservoir. They finally made it and we made plans to have breakfast together the next morning.
We played Poppy Hills on Friday, teeing off at 12:20PM. We ate breakfast at our favorite breakfast restaurant. The Swiss Cafe on seventh street. We decided to have dinner at the Pasta House in Carmel that night and made reservations for twelve. Golf was tough, but I shot 93 on Friday and 91 on Saturday. I took second low net on Saturday with a net of 78 and won $29. Boyd had to leave early and gave me his winnings, which turned out to be $54, as he took low gross with a 79 and closest to the pin on number two. I had the shortest drive of my golfing life on number 18 Saturday as I hit a 235 yard drive that pushed left under some trees and came to rest (I thought) on the cart path. The hole is a 410 yard uphill par four. As Boyd got up to hit, I said, "I think my ball is moving." Indeed it began to roll back down the cart path and by the time the 4th player hit, the ball was rolling down the cart path past the tee box. It rolled another 100 yards off of the course. So I hit a 235 yard drive that rolled back 335 yards and I took a 6 on the hole, instead of a par. C'est la Vie. I have shot 80 before and won nothing, so second place for a 91 was not so bad. I bought a sleeve of balls, a golf vest, hat, glove and a towel for my $81. Thanks, Boyd.
We did head home Saturday night after golf, caravaning with our friends and having dinner at the Cedar House near the Casa De Fruta. We had a lot of laughs and truly enjoyed some good conversation and some quality time with our friends. The weather was ideal and although the golf could have been better, they were tough championship courses and I actually shot a 41+50 on Saturday, so I at least had one good nine hole stretch of golf.
Finally, we will get started on our kitchen this week. The tile guy will be in on Wednesday and will start the floor project and the granite installer is supposed to start this week. We have yet to hear from him, but the contract says that he will have it installed by 10/7/05, which is Friday. I will talk to him today. We are ready to have the work done as half of the kitchen is sitting in the living room. We have to take down the armoire this week and tear out the tile in the entry for that installation next week.
I leave for the Manager's meeting this weekend in Detroit and will be gone until the following Wednesday. I hope and plan to talk to the powers that be about promoting me and hiring another underwriter. The Sacramento office is beginning to take off and we need to stop being treated like a red headed stepchild. I will let you know how that goes. The blog will be late next week as I will be in Detroit. I have been asked to present my sales meeting profile in a best practices session on Sunday. Management likes the interactive tone of my meetings which are short and deal with where we are at that moment with regard to renewals, new business, quotes, etc. versus our budget. We have our meetings once a week and everyone in the office knows where we sit versus our budgeted numbers at any given time.
Jennifer called last week. She is still in countdown mode and will leave Kuwait sometime near October 28th. She will be in Georgia processing out of the Army until about November 10th, but will be home for the holidays. One of her best friends, Jason, who was a boyfriend has contracted lymphoid cancer and is being treated for it. Jason is only 25 and it is a call to prayer. Please pray that Jason receive the best medical care available and that the Lord will heal him. His parents lost his brother to a suicide last year and they need Jason to survive. Please PRAY hard.
Our pastor, Rick, will be taking a three month sabbatical beginning in late December. He has spent eleven years building a church family in Roseville/Rocklin and he needs to get away and recharge his batteries. We give thanks to God for his leadership of our church body and wish him well on his break and look forward to him coming back to the lectern in April.
Well that's it for this week. Be well and focused in your walk with the Lord. Ciao.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Kitchen Renovation Under Way
The blog is having some serious problems this morning. I spent forty minutes composing an entry only to have it gone when I tried to publish it. Hey, it's just part of my life I'll never get back, what the heck?
As the title implies, we are finally underway on our kitchen renovation. The boy's helped me tear out the kitchen countertops and backsplash this weekend. We had white tile and took hammers, sledges and crowbars to remove the tile. I had no idea what I was doing and began by slamming the tile in the middle of the counter only to have Darla stop me and explain that we needed to remove the bullnose from the edges and then peel back the tile in sections. We masked off the kitchen and Darla removed all of the drawers and things from her walls and counters that are now piled in the living room awaiting our granite installer to get moving on the installation. Our installer, Vasil, who's best friend is in the hospital in Lake Tahoe after losing both legs in a boating accident last weekend, needs to get going on the job now. His focus has not been on getting his work done as he is suffering along with his friend. We were able to get the tile removed and the backsplash within about an hour and a half and the tile peeled off in sections once I figured out how to do the work. The boys were a great help although we ended up knocking a couple of holes in the wallboard where the backsplash was removed. I am leaving the holes there until our tile setter can look at the job. He may be using an underlayment and I don't want to fix something that I don't need to. Hopefully, Darla can get on Vasil and have him come out to do the final measurement, get the slab fabricated delivered and installed. I'd say she is motivated with her house torn apart.
This weekend was a busy weekend dominated by work related activities. Saturday night Darla and I attended a surprise 50th birthday party for my biggest agent, Jeff Barnett. Jeff worked with me in my first insurance job back in 1980 when I was a package underwriter and he was a casualty underwriter. I ran into Jeff again two years ago. He wrote about $50,000 in premium with Burns and Wilcox mostly in personal lines. We now write about $900,000 with Jeff's agency. His wife Linda, paid for dinner and drinks for 35 at one of Folsom's nicest restaurants. I didn't know many of the people at the party as it was mostly family and friends, but Darla and I sat with Jeff's assistant Shalini and her husband over dinner. I've know Shalini for two years, but Darla was able to determine within 5 minutes that Shalini has an autistic child and she uses Darla's agency for services and support. Leave it to a social worker.
Sunday I spent with one of my agent's in San Francisco at Monster Park watching the Dallas Cowboy's come from behind win over the San Francisco 49ers 34-31. It was like a home game for Dallas as about a third of the crowd were dressed in silver and blue and cheering for Dallas. In fact, on the last drive of the game as SF was trying to tie or win, the players could not hear the signals being called by the quarterback and he eventually threw an interception that essentially ended the game. I dressed for SF weather in jeans and a sweatshirt and the day was beautiful with highs in the low eighties. I was able to leave the sweatshirt in the car and wore a short sleeved shirt, but roasted in the direct sun all afternoon. It was a great game if you like offense. I missed church and I truly do miss it when I'm not there. There is a void.
Darla and I will be in Carmel this weekend. We leave Thursday afternoon and will play Poppy Hills on Friday and Laguna Seca on Saturday. We are staying at a little inn in Carmel close to the shopping and restaurants. This year, Cora and Mel are joining us as well as some friends of Darla, Debbie and Bob. I look forward to getting away to relax this weekend. Our fourth will be Boyd Robertson, who is a 4 handicap and who won the club championship again this year for the fourth time. We will return home on Saturday night and be in church on Sunday.
Check out Jen's blog at the link below. She is finally in countdown mode with 33 days left of her active service. It will be fun to see her plan her life going forward.
Well, this may seem short, but the website is having some real problems this morning and I've had to rewrite this three times, finally saving to draft every five minutes so as not to lose what I wrote. It may seem short, but it seems three times as long to me. Keep your footsteps in the footprints of our Saviour Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Ciao.
As the title implies, we are finally underway on our kitchen renovation. The boy's helped me tear out the kitchen countertops and backsplash this weekend. We had white tile and took hammers, sledges and crowbars to remove the tile. I had no idea what I was doing and began by slamming the tile in the middle of the counter only to have Darla stop me and explain that we needed to remove the bullnose from the edges and then peel back the tile in sections. We masked off the kitchen and Darla removed all of the drawers and things from her walls and counters that are now piled in the living room awaiting our granite installer to get moving on the installation. Our installer, Vasil, who's best friend is in the hospital in Lake Tahoe after losing both legs in a boating accident last weekend, needs to get going on the job now. His focus has not been on getting his work done as he is suffering along with his friend. We were able to get the tile removed and the backsplash within about an hour and a half and the tile peeled off in sections once I figured out how to do the work. The boys were a great help although we ended up knocking a couple of holes in the wallboard where the backsplash was removed. I am leaving the holes there until our tile setter can look at the job. He may be using an underlayment and I don't want to fix something that I don't need to. Hopefully, Darla can get on Vasil and have him come out to do the final measurement, get the slab fabricated delivered and installed. I'd say she is motivated with her house torn apart.
This weekend was a busy weekend dominated by work related activities. Saturday night Darla and I attended a surprise 50th birthday party for my biggest agent, Jeff Barnett. Jeff worked with me in my first insurance job back in 1980 when I was a package underwriter and he was a casualty underwriter. I ran into Jeff again two years ago. He wrote about $50,000 in premium with Burns and Wilcox mostly in personal lines. We now write about $900,000 with Jeff's agency. His wife Linda, paid for dinner and drinks for 35 at one of Folsom's nicest restaurants. I didn't know many of the people at the party as it was mostly family and friends, but Darla and I sat with Jeff's assistant Shalini and her husband over dinner. I've know Shalini for two years, but Darla was able to determine within 5 minutes that Shalini has an autistic child and she uses Darla's agency for services and support. Leave it to a social worker.
Sunday I spent with one of my agent's in San Francisco at Monster Park watching the Dallas Cowboy's come from behind win over the San Francisco 49ers 34-31. It was like a home game for Dallas as about a third of the crowd were dressed in silver and blue and cheering for Dallas. In fact, on the last drive of the game as SF was trying to tie or win, the players could not hear the signals being called by the quarterback and he eventually threw an interception that essentially ended the game. I dressed for SF weather in jeans and a sweatshirt and the day was beautiful with highs in the low eighties. I was able to leave the sweatshirt in the car and wore a short sleeved shirt, but roasted in the direct sun all afternoon. It was a great game if you like offense. I missed church and I truly do miss it when I'm not there. There is a void.
Darla and I will be in Carmel this weekend. We leave Thursday afternoon and will play Poppy Hills on Friday and Laguna Seca on Saturday. We are staying at a little inn in Carmel close to the shopping and restaurants. This year, Cora and Mel are joining us as well as some friends of Darla, Debbie and Bob. I look forward to getting away to relax this weekend. Our fourth will be Boyd Robertson, who is a 4 handicap and who won the club championship again this year for the fourth time. We will return home on Saturday night and be in church on Sunday.
Check out Jen's blog at the link below. She is finally in countdown mode with 33 days left of her active service. It will be fun to see her plan her life going forward.
Well, this may seem short, but the website is having some real problems this morning and I've had to rewrite this three times, finally saving to draft every five minutes so as not to lose what I wrote. It may seem short, but it seems three times as long to me. Keep your footsteps in the footprints of our Saviour Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Ciao.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Summer is Fading
Although the temperatures this week will top out in the nineties for Northern California, Autumn will make it's annual appearance on Thursday at about 2 PM come what may. The jet ski has been stuck in the garage for the last couple of weekends as we have had some unseasonably cool weather of late, with temperatures in the seventies. Beautiful golf weather, but hardly the kind of day that makes you yearn for the lake and the spray of the lake water on your face. Hopefully, we will have a bit of Indian Summer in the coming weeks and we can get the ski out for some more fun in the sun, before I disconnect the battery and winterize the ski.
We had a fairly marvelous weekend after a busy week. I played in a charity golf tournament on Tuesday and had a ball. One of the morning newstalk deejays was in my foursome and we managed two eagles and eight birdies for an 11 under par total, but alas, the winners were at 19 under and third place was 15 under. We got a great big attaboy. I was smoking my drives and hit two big drivers off the deck to get onto the par fives that we eagled. They had a silent auction and a live auction over dinner that night and it was fun to watch the movers and shakers bid $1000 for Neil Diamond tickets or $4000 for an ad package on the radio. I was a little out of my element, but I enjoyed the day. I got a nice windshirt that is worth about $125. The foursome was $3,500 and included signage on one of the tees. It's nice to know the right people.
I also went to the Giants game on Wednesday, an afternoon affair at SBC Park in San Francisco. We ate garlic fries and drank Anchor Steam beer and had a ball. The Giants lost, but that is another story. Friday, I took Gail and Pete to San Francisco to meet and greet people at the annual NAPSLO (National Association of Professional Surplus Lines Organizations) meeting and we met several of the VPs from Burns and Wilcox as well as a number of company people. It was good exposure and we got some excellent feedback from some of the officers on how Sacramento is doing. I expect to be promoted at the Manager's meeting in October. We'll see. I'm going to push that envelope like a dog pushing his bowl at feeding time. We also were able to get over and see the new San Francisco office of Burns and Wilcox. They just moved to Pine Street from Montgomery.
I did play golf on Saturday in the Consolation (loser's) Bracket of the Club Championship. I managed to shoot 42+38=80 and took "first loser" with the low gross score in my flight. You can file that under too little, too late.
Darla and I are finally moving to the end of negotiations and the start of production on our remodel job. We are both mentally exhausted and can't imagine ever building our own house. It seems a pre-requisite for contractor's to be terrible businessmen. We finally got call backs and will put in a granite slab in the kitchen countertop area and tile throughout the house. We will not be doing the master bathroom right now, but will do all of the other work. The final bid on the slab was $200 more than what it would have cost to do granite tile with the requisite grout. I look forward to getting that process started next week.
We were in church yesterday and heard a sermon on building hedges around our families. The world has become a Sodom and Gomorrah world with pornography, homosexuality, drug abuse and loose morals the norm. It is hard to raise kids in this environment. The pastor said that we must make it a priority to go to church every week (I'll miss next week as I'm going to the Niner-Dallas game in SF). He talked about modeling and if you are a part time Christian that your children will likely will also be. He gave an example of a young boy who when asked why he was a Christian, responded: "It runs in our family." Perhaps not the most inciteful answer, but true. He also told the story of a boy who didn't want to go to church. His Mom was trying to get him out of bed and he asked her to give him two good reasons that he should go. "First, you're 42 years old and you shouldn't even still be living at home. And, second, you're the pastor of the church! Now, get up!!"
David will not play basketball for William Jessup this year, but they want him to play for them next year. They need him at point guard and want David to work on his ball handling skills. Daniel's football team got an old fashioned thumping on Friday night as they fell behind 21-0 in the first three minutes and went on to get routed 49-7. It was a painful sight to behold and the boys likely feel like the Niners feel after getting belted 42-3 by Philadelphia.
Well, I was out so much last week that the work is waiting in droves and I best get at it. Have a great week. I haven't heard from Jennifer since she left here for Kuwait. Darla and I are sending her a care package this week and we hope to hear from her soon. I give thanks for our soldiers daily and I'm so glad that we have a Republican in the White House. At least Terrorists know that we give a damn and will respond to their bullying tactics, and like Saddam, hunt them down like the animals that they are. God Bless. Ciao.
We had a fairly marvelous weekend after a busy week. I played in a charity golf tournament on Tuesday and had a ball. One of the morning newstalk deejays was in my foursome and we managed two eagles and eight birdies for an 11 under par total, but alas, the winners were at 19 under and third place was 15 under. We got a great big attaboy. I was smoking my drives and hit two big drivers off the deck to get onto the par fives that we eagled. They had a silent auction and a live auction over dinner that night and it was fun to watch the movers and shakers bid $1000 for Neil Diamond tickets or $4000 for an ad package on the radio. I was a little out of my element, but I enjoyed the day. I got a nice windshirt that is worth about $125. The foursome was $3,500 and included signage on one of the tees. It's nice to know the right people.
I also went to the Giants game on Wednesday, an afternoon affair at SBC Park in San Francisco. We ate garlic fries and drank Anchor Steam beer and had a ball. The Giants lost, but that is another story. Friday, I took Gail and Pete to San Francisco to meet and greet people at the annual NAPSLO (National Association of Professional Surplus Lines Organizations) meeting and we met several of the VPs from Burns and Wilcox as well as a number of company people. It was good exposure and we got some excellent feedback from some of the officers on how Sacramento is doing. I expect to be promoted at the Manager's meeting in October. We'll see. I'm going to push that envelope like a dog pushing his bowl at feeding time. We also were able to get over and see the new San Francisco office of Burns and Wilcox. They just moved to Pine Street from Montgomery.
I did play golf on Saturday in the Consolation (loser's) Bracket of the Club Championship. I managed to shoot 42+38=80 and took "first loser" with the low gross score in my flight. You can file that under too little, too late.
Darla and I are finally moving to the end of negotiations and the start of production on our remodel job. We are both mentally exhausted and can't imagine ever building our own house. It seems a pre-requisite for contractor's to be terrible businessmen. We finally got call backs and will put in a granite slab in the kitchen countertop area and tile throughout the house. We will not be doing the master bathroom right now, but will do all of the other work. The final bid on the slab was $200 more than what it would have cost to do granite tile with the requisite grout. I look forward to getting that process started next week.
We were in church yesterday and heard a sermon on building hedges around our families. The world has become a Sodom and Gomorrah world with pornography, homosexuality, drug abuse and loose morals the norm. It is hard to raise kids in this environment. The pastor said that we must make it a priority to go to church every week (I'll miss next week as I'm going to the Niner-Dallas game in SF). He talked about modeling and if you are a part time Christian that your children will likely will also be. He gave an example of a young boy who when asked why he was a Christian, responded: "It runs in our family." Perhaps not the most inciteful answer, but true. He also told the story of a boy who didn't want to go to church. His Mom was trying to get him out of bed and he asked her to give him two good reasons that he should go. "First, you're 42 years old and you shouldn't even still be living at home. And, second, you're the pastor of the church! Now, get up!!"
David will not play basketball for William Jessup this year, but they want him to play for them next year. They need him at point guard and want David to work on his ball handling skills. Daniel's football team got an old fashioned thumping on Friday night as they fell behind 21-0 in the first three minutes and went on to get routed 49-7. It was a painful sight to behold and the boys likely feel like the Niners feel after getting belted 42-3 by Philadelphia.
Well, I was out so much last week that the work is waiting in droves and I best get at it. Have a great week. I haven't heard from Jennifer since she left here for Kuwait. Darla and I are sending her a care package this week and we hope to hear from her soon. I give thanks for our soldiers daily and I'm so glad that we have a Republican in the White House. At least Terrorists know that we give a damn and will respond to their bullying tactics, and like Saddam, hunt them down like the animals that they are. God Bless. Ciao.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Busy week ahead
It will be a busy week, but most of the activities will involve sports and marketing. First off, this is the week of the NAPSLO (National Association of Professional Surplus Lines Offices)conference in San Francisco. ALL of the Surplus Lines Companies and wholesalers will be in attendance and all of the brass from Burns and Wilcox will be in town to attend. We will entertain our chief Underwriting Vice President, David Price, an Englishman by birth and a former member of the Lloyds Syndicate in London, today along with Wayne Bates, Vice president and head of our internal market, Special Risk Division (SRD). Wayne is also an Englishman by birth. They will be in the office about 10 AM for some one on one time with me and an office meeting. Tomorrow I will play in a charity golf tournament with one of my agency's, Albano Dale, and Mel Padeirnos, Cora's husband. Cora is an assistant in my office and Mel belongs to the golf club. The agency paid $3,500 to be a minor sponsor of the tournament and I was lucky enough to be invited. Wednesday, I will go to the San Francisco Giant's game against the San Diego Padres and see the return of Barry Bonds in person. We have been invited by Dan Carroll, an agent with one of our local agencies and a friend who I worked with back at Deans and Homer in the 90's. His agency has season tickets at Pac Bell park behind the Giants dugout on the third base side. Great seats, about five rows up from the field. Thursday, I will likely be in San Francisco for some of the peripheral parties and soirees surrounding NAPSLO. I was not invited to the convention which cost $2,500, but they would like me to go to a few of the company functions that are put on by our carriers. I will take Pete Morrison, my newest underwriter, with me. I've also been invited to attend the third San Francisco Niner game. I would normally be genuinely disinterested in a Niner game, but they happen to be playing Dallas and I can't say no to an agent. Right? I look forward to that game.
The weather here in Sacramento has turned cool and we just about froze at Daniel's football game on Friday night. Luckily I had on jeans, but had to take Darla's sweatshirt and sat chattering in the unseasonably cool night air. We have dropped from 100 degrees to highs in the low eighties and upper seventies with overnight lows in the fifties. It is about sixty five degrees as I write this and a high blue sky. It will be chamber of commerce weather for the home office personnel when they arrive.
Daniel is starting on the special teams this year and is a backup on the OL. He did NOT get a rep in the game this week, although made a nice stop on a punt return where the returner broke the wedge and Daniel knocked him sideways as he tried to juke around him. The team won the game 29-14 and again start the season 1-0. We have a new coach and a new grind it out style of offense. It is a ball control, four running back, one receiver offense and it worked well. We had two runners rush for over 100 yards and five interceptions by the defense to seal the victory. It is still not division games, but it was a win over a Division I school and a nice start to the season. I hope Daniel gets a few plays in the upcoming games. He's used to going both ways fulltime and now he's cooling his heels on the sideline watching the Seniors play. Tough transition.
The Club Championship was this weekend and I knew I had pulled a tough first round opponent with Larry Walker. Larry is a decent golfer and I can play with him, but he is one of the most deliberate and slow golfers in our club. First of all, he is 6'7" tall and gets down on the ground to line up putts from both sides of the line. Then he takes at least five to six practice swings before finally pulling the trigger. He drives me nuts. Our match went right down to the final hole, where he hit a dead skull drive left into the trees that somehow managed to land in the tenth fairway. From there he hit a perfect seven wood to about six feet to seal the victory. That ball by all rights should have fallen straight down into the trees, but it didn't. I walked off feeling like,e I let one slip away. So my annual golf goals came up with a goose egg. I did not get into single digits on my index, I missed the Rose Cup team and I did not win my flight in the Club Championship. Oh, well, I'm learning to deal with disappointment. I shot 84 to Larry's 83, but more importantly lost the match 1 down. Next on my golf agenda is our trip to Monterey on September 29th - October 2nd.
I haven't shared much about David's basketball situation. He was approached by the coach of William Jessup University in the neighboring town of Rocklin about playing for him on a partial scholarship. William Jessup is a Christian college that was located in San Jose and moved to Rocklin last year. The coach at William Jessup had heard about David through one of our youth leaders and asked him to come and play with his players to do a chemistry test. David has played with them two or three times and has met with the coach. IF he decides to join the team, he will get about an 85% scholarship and be able to get his Undergraduate studies done at William Jessup. The Jessup family attends our church, Adventure Christian, and Bryce Jessup spoke at our church this past Sunday. He is the chancellor at William Jessup and his granddaughter is pushing David to go to William Jessup. We'll see. David has really second guessed his decision to put his ball playing days behind him and is intrigued with the offer.
We finally got the quote on our tile job at home and will start the job in the next couple of weeks. Darla is still looking at granite slabs for the kitchen counters and we have another quote coming. She wants to get away from tile on the counters completely. She's tired of fighting with the grout problems. The price was comparable to what Florian, the unlicensed Romanian liar, wanted to charge us. The total is maybe $700 higher, but that's peanuts. I did find out that although Brian, the tile contractor, is licensed, he did not carry liability insurance. I told him that he was nuts and had put his business and, indeed, his house in jeopardy. I set him up with my number one agent and they got him an annual quote of $1,600. Hopefully he jumps all over that.
Well, that is the news to the minute. The staff is beginning to straggle in and I have to get to work. Ciao.
The weather here in Sacramento has turned cool and we just about froze at Daniel's football game on Friday night. Luckily I had on jeans, but had to take Darla's sweatshirt and sat chattering in the unseasonably cool night air. We have dropped from 100 degrees to highs in the low eighties and upper seventies with overnight lows in the fifties. It is about sixty five degrees as I write this and a high blue sky. It will be chamber of commerce weather for the home office personnel when they arrive.
Daniel is starting on the special teams this year and is a backup on the OL. He did NOT get a rep in the game this week, although made a nice stop on a punt return where the returner broke the wedge and Daniel knocked him sideways as he tried to juke around him. The team won the game 29-14 and again start the season 1-0. We have a new coach and a new grind it out style of offense. It is a ball control, four running back, one receiver offense and it worked well. We had two runners rush for over 100 yards and five interceptions by the defense to seal the victory. It is still not division games, but it was a win over a Division I school and a nice start to the season. I hope Daniel gets a few plays in the upcoming games. He's used to going both ways fulltime and now he's cooling his heels on the sideline watching the Seniors play. Tough transition.
The Club Championship was this weekend and I knew I had pulled a tough first round opponent with Larry Walker. Larry is a decent golfer and I can play with him, but he is one of the most deliberate and slow golfers in our club. First of all, he is 6'7" tall and gets down on the ground to line up putts from both sides of the line. Then he takes at least five to six practice swings before finally pulling the trigger. He drives me nuts. Our match went right down to the final hole, where he hit a dead skull drive left into the trees that somehow managed to land in the tenth fairway. From there he hit a perfect seven wood to about six feet to seal the victory. That ball by all rights should have fallen straight down into the trees, but it didn't. I walked off feeling like,e I let one slip away. So my annual golf goals came up with a goose egg. I did not get into single digits on my index, I missed the Rose Cup team and I did not win my flight in the Club Championship. Oh, well, I'm learning to deal with disappointment. I shot 84 to Larry's 83, but more importantly lost the match 1 down. Next on my golf agenda is our trip to Monterey on September 29th - October 2nd.
I haven't shared much about David's basketball situation. He was approached by the coach of William Jessup University in the neighboring town of Rocklin about playing for him on a partial scholarship. William Jessup is a Christian college that was located in San Jose and moved to Rocklin last year. The coach at William Jessup had heard about David through one of our youth leaders and asked him to come and play with his players to do a chemistry test. David has played with them two or three times and has met with the coach. IF he decides to join the team, he will get about an 85% scholarship and be able to get his Undergraduate studies done at William Jessup. The Jessup family attends our church, Adventure Christian, and Bryce Jessup spoke at our church this past Sunday. He is the chancellor at William Jessup and his granddaughter is pushing David to go to William Jessup. We'll see. David has really second guessed his decision to put his ball playing days behind him and is intrigued with the offer.
We finally got the quote on our tile job at home and will start the job in the next couple of weeks. Darla is still looking at granite slabs for the kitchen counters and we have another quote coming. She wants to get away from tile on the counters completely. She's tired of fighting with the grout problems. The price was comparable to what Florian, the unlicensed Romanian liar, wanted to charge us. The total is maybe $700 higher, but that's peanuts. I did find out that although Brian, the tile contractor, is licensed, he did not carry liability insurance. I told him that he was nuts and had put his business and, indeed, his house in jeopardy. I set him up with my number one agent and they got him an annual quote of $1,600. Hopefully he jumps all over that.
Well, that is the news to the minute. The staff is beginning to straggle in and I have to get to work. Ciao.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Tuesday, bloody Tuesday!
I got here at 6:45 this morning and quickly realized that I have no muffins for breakfast, the coffee was not made (which is really a Monday thing), and I left my glasses at home and have to use the Ben Franklin readers that I keep for my Alzheimer days. Nice start to a short week...But, I had a nice binder waiting for me and a phone message from Bill McCord, the Underwriting Vice-President congratulating me and the staff on a great month. We hit $1,000,000 in written premium and had net income over $150,000 so all is not dismal. I have my health, a good job, a great family and I don't live anywhere near the hurricane where suffering is ripe and where despair is very real.
It was a nice Holiday weekend, spent golfing, boating and at the beach. I played in the Labor Day tournament on Saturday and again suffered through a horrific round of golf shooting 49+42=91. I felt like a complete hacker and it is a concern with the club championship starting on Sunday. The thing about golf is that it comes and goes and the club championship is a match play affair, so anything can happen. I can't say that I'm imbued with confidence, but I have as much chance of winning my flight as anyone. My driving has been excellent lately, I've been hitting the ball long and straight, so I just need to button up my iron play and work on my putting. I'll let you know how I did next week.
Jennifer has been updating her blog at a regular clip since returning to Kuwait and I suggest you check it out. There is a link at the bottom of this page for doing just that. She continues to have to commute daily back to Camp Doha to work at the armory and it is an hour bus ride each way. Sounds brutal. Glad to see that Jennifer is starting to send out resumes and plan for her return in November.
Darla, Alicia and I went up and spent the night in Paradise on Saturday night with Darla's parents. They have their new home completely furnished and have some new furniture and window coverings as well as all new sculptured carpet throughout the house. It is very nice and we enjoyed our stay. We took the boat out on Sunday to Lake Oroville and toured the lake. We considered bringing the jet ski, but opted not to with gas prices approaching $3.00 here in NorCal. We will take the boys out on Saturday and enjoy Folsom Lake. Oroville is nice, but not a great lake for jet skiing as there isn't any beach area along the lake. The sides of the lake are pretty steep. We are pretty spoiled with Folsom as the lake has plenty on inlets and beach area to relax. Darla and I went to the lake yesterday and drove out into the back side of the lake and went off road and found a nice quiet inlet where we set up our blanket and umbrella and took our books to read. I read about a chapter and set the book aside to rest my eyes for a few nminutes and woke up about an hour later. It was great day right up to the point when two SUVs pulled up and disgorged a carload of screaming kids to invade our day. We quickly broke camp and headed back to the homestead before our neighbors were even set up. I worked on the yard, cutting back the crepe myrtle in the front of the house that had started to infringe on the roof and was clogging the gutter guards with discarded petals. Darla didn't want me to cut back the blooms, but the tree was out of control and I needed to do so for my own peace of mind.
I had turned on the back sprinklers on Saturday after golf to water the back lawn and the grass seed that I'd sewn in some of the bare spots and we left for Paradise with the sprinklers still running. It dawned on me within about fifteen minutes, but we couldn't get hold of the boys who were with their Dad. Darla left several messages and finally got hold of Daniel after about an hour. David and he drove over to the house and had to siphon out some of the water from the back yard as it was flooded.
We are still playing with the home improvement project and hope to get a quote from Brian on the tile work today or tomorrow. We have had two quotes on the granite countertops, one was high and the other was the granite transformations group and Darla is not sold on the quality or look of the granite composite that goes on over the existing tile. We are having Brian quote us the job with Granite tile and a marble backsplash. This project is taking forever to just get off the ground. We had dinner on Sunday night at a friend's house who had a handyman install floor tile in their home. The job is definitely second rate and he made a lot of mistakes and took twice as long to finish the job as he estimated. The handyman of course was not licensed and it solidifies our decision to stick with a licensed contractor.
We were able to go to church with Darla's parents up in Paradise and they belong to a nice church. The people seem really friendly and the pastor gave an inspired message about questions that a disaster like Katrina brings up. The pastor is very laid back and is more of a teacher than a preacher. Earl is still getting used to his style, but I was impressed with the depth of his preparation for the message and his insightful sermon. Alicia slept in and missed church.
Daniel has his first football game this Friday as a member of the varsity. He is starting on the special teams and is a backup offensive lineman. Again it surprised us that at 6'2" and 235 pounds that he'd be a backup, but they have a new coach and he is starting almost all Seniors. I expect Daniel will be starting before long because he is so hard to handle at his size. The guy in front of him is 6'0" and 285 pounds, a handful, but also a load that will quickly tire out.
Well, have a great week and continue to draw closer to our Lord. There will be many people who turn to our Savior through the tragedy in the Gulf states, but unfortunately the devil is working hard as well and there will be some souls lost. Pray for understanding, relief and for the power of our Lord to overcome in that part of our country so ravaged by pain and sadness. Ciao.
It was a nice Holiday weekend, spent golfing, boating and at the beach. I played in the Labor Day tournament on Saturday and again suffered through a horrific round of golf shooting 49+42=91. I felt like a complete hacker and it is a concern with the club championship starting on Sunday. The thing about golf is that it comes and goes and the club championship is a match play affair, so anything can happen. I can't say that I'm imbued with confidence, but I have as much chance of winning my flight as anyone. My driving has been excellent lately, I've been hitting the ball long and straight, so I just need to button up my iron play and work on my putting. I'll let you know how I did next week.
Jennifer has been updating her blog at a regular clip since returning to Kuwait and I suggest you check it out. There is a link at the bottom of this page for doing just that. She continues to have to commute daily back to Camp Doha to work at the armory and it is an hour bus ride each way. Sounds brutal. Glad to see that Jennifer is starting to send out resumes and plan for her return in November.
Darla, Alicia and I went up and spent the night in Paradise on Saturday night with Darla's parents. They have their new home completely furnished and have some new furniture and window coverings as well as all new sculptured carpet throughout the house. It is very nice and we enjoyed our stay. We took the boat out on Sunday to Lake Oroville and toured the lake. We considered bringing the jet ski, but opted not to with gas prices approaching $3.00 here in NorCal. We will take the boys out on Saturday and enjoy Folsom Lake. Oroville is nice, but not a great lake for jet skiing as there isn't any beach area along the lake. The sides of the lake are pretty steep. We are pretty spoiled with Folsom as the lake has plenty on inlets and beach area to relax. Darla and I went to the lake yesterday and drove out into the back side of the lake and went off road and found a nice quiet inlet where we set up our blanket and umbrella and took our books to read. I read about a chapter and set the book aside to rest my eyes for a few nminutes and woke up about an hour later. It was great day right up to the point when two SUVs pulled up and disgorged a carload of screaming kids to invade our day. We quickly broke camp and headed back to the homestead before our neighbors were even set up. I worked on the yard, cutting back the crepe myrtle in the front of the house that had started to infringe on the roof and was clogging the gutter guards with discarded petals. Darla didn't want me to cut back the blooms, but the tree was out of control and I needed to do so for my own peace of mind.
I had turned on the back sprinklers on Saturday after golf to water the back lawn and the grass seed that I'd sewn in some of the bare spots and we left for Paradise with the sprinklers still running. It dawned on me within about fifteen minutes, but we couldn't get hold of the boys who were with their Dad. Darla left several messages and finally got hold of Daniel after about an hour. David and he drove over to the house and had to siphon out some of the water from the back yard as it was flooded.
We are still playing with the home improvement project and hope to get a quote from Brian on the tile work today or tomorrow. We have had two quotes on the granite countertops, one was high and the other was the granite transformations group and Darla is not sold on the quality or look of the granite composite that goes on over the existing tile. We are having Brian quote us the job with Granite tile and a marble backsplash. This project is taking forever to just get off the ground. We had dinner on Sunday night at a friend's house who had a handyman install floor tile in their home. The job is definitely second rate and he made a lot of mistakes and took twice as long to finish the job as he estimated. The handyman of course was not licensed and it solidifies our decision to stick with a licensed contractor.
We were able to go to church with Darla's parents up in Paradise and they belong to a nice church. The people seem really friendly and the pastor gave an inspired message about questions that a disaster like Katrina brings up. The pastor is very laid back and is more of a teacher than a preacher. Earl is still getting used to his style, but I was impressed with the depth of his preparation for the message and his insightful sermon. Alicia slept in and missed church.
Daniel has his first football game this Friday as a member of the varsity. He is starting on the special teams and is a backup offensive lineman. Again it surprised us that at 6'2" and 235 pounds that he'd be a backup, but they have a new coach and he is starting almost all Seniors. I expect Daniel will be starting before long because he is so hard to handle at his size. The guy in front of him is 6'0" and 285 pounds, a handful, but also a load that will quickly tire out.
Well, have a great week and continue to draw closer to our Lord. There will be many people who turn to our Savior through the tragedy in the Gulf states, but unfortunately the devil is working hard as well and there will be some souls lost. Pray for understanding, relief and for the power of our Lord to overcome in that part of our country so ravaged by pain and sadness. Ciao.
Monday, August 29, 2005
Happy Birthday, Jennifer!!
Oh to be 25 years old and living in Kuwait. Jen, you are living the dream. Of course, it is the dream of an Iraqi sand dweller, but it is the dream. If you haven't had a chance, check out the update to Jennifer's blog at the link below. She is back and hating the changes in Kuwait. Her unit has moved from Camp Doha, but the Army, in it's own unique brand of intelligence, has left her job back in Doha for now and she has to take a bus every day from her Camp to Camp Doha. Well, at least gas is cheap in the middle East. I hope your birthday was at least a celebration, although it appears you had to work. Sorry we missed you, but you have an amazing knack of calling us when we are at church on Sunday. It is one of the few times that I have my cell phone turned off.
David starts college this week and he is running about buying textbooks and trying to get the lay of the land at the campus in Rocklin. He will continue to work at the Engineering firm on Mondays,Wednesdays and Fridays during the school year. He was able to make some nice bank during the Summer and hopes to buy a car in the coming months. He has grown tired of the Mustang and wants an SUV so that he can take some friends in his car and it has something to do with being 6'3" tall. Daniel has been back to school for three weeks and is deep into football practice for the upcoming year. Dan will be on the starting special teams unit and play backup offensive line. I was surprised, but the OL is all Seniors except for the center who is a junior and 6'5" 250 pounds. The guy that Daniel backs up is 6'0" and 265 pounds. I told Daniel to be ready, because that boy is going to need some oxygen, especially early in the season.
The boys spent Saturday up at Earl's new home in Paradise, helping him set up his shop. He had a trailer with most of the shop equipment and material that is collected in close to forty years in the same house. They got the shop set up, but David had an injury when some sheets of tin siding slipped and peeled his shins like a potato. He is raw and red and will be in for a tetanus shot tomorrow. He had to go to his grandmothers on Saturday night and wore long pants to hide his injuries or she would have made him go to the emergency room.
We spent the day with Alicia and the boys at Folsom Lake yesterday. We brought the ski and set up on one of the inlets (same place we set up, Jen) on the back side of the lake. We used just the tank of gas in the ski and added an extra 5 gallons from the tank that is now in the ski. It was a relaxing day spent reading and floating on our air mattresses. Darla and Alicia took the ski out and Darla rode with David. David wanted to get me on the ski, but he blew it when he promised not to break my hip. Wise guy. I told him, I'd been on the ski with Jennifer and that fear was not an issue. Each of the kids drives the ski so differently. David likes to get air where he can and really runs tight circles. Jennifer likes to get wet and does 360s right into the wake and drenches the ski and the rider. Daniel is a speed freak and likes to turn on a dime with speed and usually ends up in the water more often than on the ski. We have yet to flip the ski over, but David and Daniel came close yesterday. We are still enjoying the toy and all were thinking about Jen yesterday as we spent her birthday at the lake.
I played golf on Saturday and had one of those rounds that begs for understanding. I shot 48+44=92 and we all pushed on the bet. The course was wet and the greens were in bad shape. We played at Cherry Island in Elverta, which is not my favorite course. It gets a lot of play and is not kept up as well as some other courses. I was invited by Mark Konrad for a 6:39 am tee time. I didn't lose any money as both Mel and Mark struggled as well.
I was not going to play golf on Saturday as Darla and I are still working on the tile work in our house and she wanted to go to the tile store Saturday morning. When I told her I was playing, her response was, "You couldn't give me a whole day could you?" I guess not. We got over to the tile store about noon and spent about ninety minutes picking out tile and deciding on samples to bring home. We have a granite tile for the kitchen counters with a marble backsplash and a porcelain tile for the floors. We should be getting a quote this week on installation from the tile man (a licensed contractor!!). It is likely that we will only do a portion of the job now, probably the kitchen and back hallway, bathroom and laundry room. We will do the front entry, hall, bathroom and master bath later. The master bathroom is the biggest job with a new shower pan and tile around the tub and shower, countertops and floor. Perhaps we will do everything except the master bath. It depends on the cost.
I did call Florian, the Romanian tile guy back and left a message for him about his contractor's license. I thought that I would never hear from him. I'd checked his license number and found that he was using a defunct number from a plumber who went out of business in 1979. Florian called back and asked why I was checking his number. I told him that I wanted a licensed contractor who was bonded and insured. He said, "Of course I'm licensed, I'll give you my specialty license number." He proceeded to give me a number that corresponds with a rollup door contractor in San Diego. The jig is up, Florian. You're a fraud and I'm keeping the 50 foot tape measure you left at my house. Why would a guy even call back? Perhaps his countrymen are morons and he can pull his scams with them. He's a hell of a nice guy, but... likely the cost of having a licensed contractor do the job will be 30-50% higher than what Florian would do the job for, but I'll have some recourse if we have a problem. Working with a non licensed individual is a crap shoot. Plus, my father-in-law would disown me and I need access to his boat so the kids can wake board. Just kidding, Earl.
Darla and I did have a company out on Friday that does a granite composite kitchen countetop. The composite fits right over the existing tile and is epoxied on. It's nice, but when compared to the granite tile or the slab granite, it just doesn't measure up. We had a 4:30 appointment with Granite transformations and I got there about 5:10 as I had the Flowmaster exhaust and the K&N cold air intake installed and they weren't done when I got there. I had arranged to have a single inlet/ dual outlet muffler installed and the Mustang's drive train wouldn't allow the duals to go in. They ended up putting in a single outlet and tying in the tailpipe to a dual exhaust. It took them longer than I had hoped, but Jennifer you nailed it. The car has more horsepower, has a nice deep resonance and I have no hesitation when I pass now. An added benefit is increased gas mileage due to the leaner mixture of air and fuel. The K&N cold air intake is chrome and looks really sharp and I had dual chrome tips installed at the rear of the car. Yep, I'm 18 again, but this time I have money.
Well, work awaits. We are having a great month and I will be taking the staff out to Benihanas next week. I'm happy to spend the money. Have a great week and work on your hunger for the Lord. Read the Psalms..Psalm 73 is really encouraging. Ciao.
David starts college this week and he is running about buying textbooks and trying to get the lay of the land at the campus in Rocklin. He will continue to work at the Engineering firm on Mondays,Wednesdays and Fridays during the school year. He was able to make some nice bank during the Summer and hopes to buy a car in the coming months. He has grown tired of the Mustang and wants an SUV so that he can take some friends in his car and it has something to do with being 6'3" tall. Daniel has been back to school for three weeks and is deep into football practice for the upcoming year. Dan will be on the starting special teams unit and play backup offensive line. I was surprised, but the OL is all Seniors except for the center who is a junior and 6'5" 250 pounds. The guy that Daniel backs up is 6'0" and 265 pounds. I told Daniel to be ready, because that boy is going to need some oxygen, especially early in the season.
The boys spent Saturday up at Earl's new home in Paradise, helping him set up his shop. He had a trailer with most of the shop equipment and material that is collected in close to forty years in the same house. They got the shop set up, but David had an injury when some sheets of tin siding slipped and peeled his shins like a potato. He is raw and red and will be in for a tetanus shot tomorrow. He had to go to his grandmothers on Saturday night and wore long pants to hide his injuries or she would have made him go to the emergency room.
We spent the day with Alicia and the boys at Folsom Lake yesterday. We brought the ski and set up on one of the inlets (same place we set up, Jen) on the back side of the lake. We used just the tank of gas in the ski and added an extra 5 gallons from the tank that is now in the ski. It was a relaxing day spent reading and floating on our air mattresses. Darla and Alicia took the ski out and Darla rode with David. David wanted to get me on the ski, but he blew it when he promised not to break my hip. Wise guy. I told him, I'd been on the ski with Jennifer and that fear was not an issue. Each of the kids drives the ski so differently. David likes to get air where he can and really runs tight circles. Jennifer likes to get wet and does 360s right into the wake and drenches the ski and the rider. Daniel is a speed freak and likes to turn on a dime with speed and usually ends up in the water more often than on the ski. We have yet to flip the ski over, but David and Daniel came close yesterday. We are still enjoying the toy and all were thinking about Jen yesterday as we spent her birthday at the lake.
I played golf on Saturday and had one of those rounds that begs for understanding. I shot 48+44=92 and we all pushed on the bet. The course was wet and the greens were in bad shape. We played at Cherry Island in Elverta, which is not my favorite course. It gets a lot of play and is not kept up as well as some other courses. I was invited by Mark Konrad for a 6:39 am tee time. I didn't lose any money as both Mel and Mark struggled as well.
I was not going to play golf on Saturday as Darla and I are still working on the tile work in our house and she wanted to go to the tile store Saturday morning. When I told her I was playing, her response was, "You couldn't give me a whole day could you?" I guess not. We got over to the tile store about noon and spent about ninety minutes picking out tile and deciding on samples to bring home. We have a granite tile for the kitchen counters with a marble backsplash and a porcelain tile for the floors. We should be getting a quote this week on installation from the tile man (a licensed contractor!!). It is likely that we will only do a portion of the job now, probably the kitchen and back hallway, bathroom and laundry room. We will do the front entry, hall, bathroom and master bath later. The master bathroom is the biggest job with a new shower pan and tile around the tub and shower, countertops and floor. Perhaps we will do everything except the master bath. It depends on the cost.
I did call Florian, the Romanian tile guy back and left a message for him about his contractor's license. I thought that I would never hear from him. I'd checked his license number and found that he was using a defunct number from a plumber who went out of business in 1979. Florian called back and asked why I was checking his number. I told him that I wanted a licensed contractor who was bonded and insured. He said, "Of course I'm licensed, I'll give you my specialty license number." He proceeded to give me a number that corresponds with a rollup door contractor in San Diego. The jig is up, Florian. You're a fraud and I'm keeping the 50 foot tape measure you left at my house. Why would a guy even call back? Perhaps his countrymen are morons and he can pull his scams with them. He's a hell of a nice guy, but... likely the cost of having a licensed contractor do the job will be 30-50% higher than what Florian would do the job for, but I'll have some recourse if we have a problem. Working with a non licensed individual is a crap shoot. Plus, my father-in-law would disown me and I need access to his boat so the kids can wake board. Just kidding, Earl.
Darla and I did have a company out on Friday that does a granite composite kitchen countetop. The composite fits right over the existing tile and is epoxied on. It's nice, but when compared to the granite tile or the slab granite, it just doesn't measure up. We had a 4:30 appointment with Granite transformations and I got there about 5:10 as I had the Flowmaster exhaust and the K&N cold air intake installed and they weren't done when I got there. I had arranged to have a single inlet/ dual outlet muffler installed and the Mustang's drive train wouldn't allow the duals to go in. They ended up putting in a single outlet and tying in the tailpipe to a dual exhaust. It took them longer than I had hoped, but Jennifer you nailed it. The car has more horsepower, has a nice deep resonance and I have no hesitation when I pass now. An added benefit is increased gas mileage due to the leaner mixture of air and fuel. The K&N cold air intake is chrome and looks really sharp and I had dual chrome tips installed at the rear of the car. Yep, I'm 18 again, but this time I have money.
Well, work awaits. We are having a great month and I will be taking the staff out to Benihanas next week. I'm happy to spend the money. Have a great week and work on your hunger for the Lord. Read the Psalms..Psalm 73 is really encouraging. Ciao.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Dog Days of Summer
Sorry, no pictures this week. The dog days of Summer have arrived. Although the days are shorter and the evenings cooler, the heat of the day is beginning to be oppressive as the grass is stressed and the Dallis Grass and Crabgrass seem to flourish in the heat. I've been waging my own personal battle with these elements and so far they are winning, but I have gained a foothold in about a third of my lawn and I'm gaining on the insurgents. I was out last night with my weapon of mass destruction, the tank sprayer and a solution of MMSA hitting the offending weeds where they live. On another topic, Earl was over this past weekend and pointed out that I killed one of my crepe myrtle trees by weedwhacking the bark at the bottom of the tree and completely stripping the bark. The tree is about six years old and one of the grander decorations in my yard with it's annual display of bright pink blooms. Darla and I will replace the tree with a fifteen gallon variety and hope that it grows quickly.
We finally met with a tile man, this time an immigrant from Romania named Florian. He spent the better part of two hours at our house and gave us a great quote on all of the tile work that we wanted done, including granite countertops in our master bath and full tile work in our bathtub and shower. He was to do about 810 square feet of tile, including our front entry hallway, all three bathrooms, laundry room, hallway off the garage and the kitchen. He would use traveltine in the front entry, hallway and bathrooms and ceramic tile for the kitchen, laundry room, hallway and bathroom. I speak in past tense, because I found out that he is not licensed by the California Contractors Board, nor does he appear to have a business license in Roseville. We are back to square one and I will be calling contractors who I have checked out on the Contractor's board website. Earl pointed out a truck at Home Depot with a tile man's name and number on it, but he isn't listed on the contractor's board website either.Oy vey.
Darla and I went to see the Trailer Park Troubadours on Friday night. It was a smaller version of the Flock Rock that has been held at the Placer County fairgrounds the last three years. It is a fundraiser by the Active 20-30 club and they barely broke even last year. They decided to move the show to a mansion in Roseville called the Victorian. It is a large facility designed for weddings and private parties. They held the concert outside and limited the tickets to 200. The city has a noise ordinance and they had to be done with the concert by ten pm. As is the norm, the concert which was to begin at 7 pm promptly started at 7:25. At ten PM the band was just starting their encore when the police showed up and told the owner of the house to shut down the party. She walked out and tried to get the band to quit and was booed off the stage. She left for about five minutes and returned and was gesturing loudly for the band to shut down, again they ignored her. Finally at 10:10 PM the electricity was shut off and the band went quiet. Two police cars were still on scene talking to the owner of the Victorian and the President of the charity when we left at 10:30. I'm guessing that they will be looking for a new venue to hold the concert again next year. We had a ball and met a couple of Darla's friends from work and their husbands.
Earl was in town this weekend trying to get a buyer of a hot tub at his rental to pick up his purchase. I played golf on Saturday (42+43=85) missing the cut for the Rose Cup team. You have to shoot under your handicap to get in. 69 was the cutoff and my 72 was good for an "attaboy". Earl picked up a refrigerator from my Personal Lines manager and delivered it to our house. The boys met him and helped load it up. It is about a five year-old Admiral that Darla deemed not nice enough for our kitchen, so it is in the garage cooling our sodas and acting as an extra freezer. It was apparently too "plasticy" according to Darla and white in color. Somehow the white clashes with our almond cooktop. Hey it has ice and water in the door, which our thirteen year old almond fridge doesn't, but the kitchen is definitely Darla's domain. They then took our old garage fridge to the dump and paid $27 to send it to the freon graveyard.
I showed up at Earl's after golf and found Earl and his spa buyer in the backyard of the rental. I was ready to help load the spa, but the buyer was a couple of beers to the far side of sober and was there to do some reconnaissance. He said that he "might" be there on Sunday to pick up the tub, but he wasn't sure. The new tenants are moving in today and have little kids. In the process of disassembling the gazebo Earl "accidentally" spilled a large glass of this bozo's iced beer. This guy was a serious nut job and he finally staggered out of there after saying some inappropriate things to Earl in the course of conversation, including some comments about his own wife best left unmentioned. Earl was getting pretty peeved with this doof and finally called him yesterday morning and told him to either pick up the spa or he'd take it up to Paradise, that it HAD to be out of there on Sunday. Somehow that lit a fire under Mr Miller High Life and he showed up about two to get the spa. We had the boys come over and finally got it packed up and Earl and I went with him to his house and we delivered it to his front yard. I told Earl to take his check to a branch of the guy's bank first thing this morning and cash it.
Frances was able to join Darla and I at church yesterday and we listened to a guest pastor speak about his death experience. He was legally dead in an operation for about seven minutes and was revived and had an out of body experience in the operating room and a close encounter with God. The pastor has a church in Cincinnati that has 6000 members, but was a terrible speaker. He fidgeted and wandered around and ran off on rabbit trails and really made me appreciate Rick. This pastor claimed he had the gift of "gathering", which if he was speaking of moss I might believe.
Well, I'd best get on to my week. I will be in Modesto on Wednesday to see the gals in the office there. Thursday I will get a new Flowmaster dual exhaust and K&N chrome cold air intake installed on the Mustang. I'm not quite through with my midlife crisis just yet. Keep your feet on the ground, but keep your hands reaching for Heaven. Ciao.
We finally met with a tile man, this time an immigrant from Romania named Florian. He spent the better part of two hours at our house and gave us a great quote on all of the tile work that we wanted done, including granite countertops in our master bath and full tile work in our bathtub and shower. He was to do about 810 square feet of tile, including our front entry hallway, all three bathrooms, laundry room, hallway off the garage and the kitchen. He would use traveltine in the front entry, hallway and bathrooms and ceramic tile for the kitchen, laundry room, hallway and bathroom. I speak in past tense, because I found out that he is not licensed by the California Contractors Board, nor does he appear to have a business license in Roseville. We are back to square one and I will be calling contractors who I have checked out on the Contractor's board website. Earl pointed out a truck at Home Depot with a tile man's name and number on it, but he isn't listed on the contractor's board website either.Oy vey.
Darla and I went to see the Trailer Park Troubadours on Friday night. It was a smaller version of the Flock Rock that has been held at the Placer County fairgrounds the last three years. It is a fundraiser by the Active 20-30 club and they barely broke even last year. They decided to move the show to a mansion in Roseville called the Victorian. It is a large facility designed for weddings and private parties. They held the concert outside and limited the tickets to 200. The city has a noise ordinance and they had to be done with the concert by ten pm. As is the norm, the concert which was to begin at 7 pm promptly started at 7:25. At ten PM the band was just starting their encore when the police showed up and told the owner of the house to shut down the party. She walked out and tried to get the band to quit and was booed off the stage. She left for about five minutes and returned and was gesturing loudly for the band to shut down, again they ignored her. Finally at 10:10 PM the electricity was shut off and the band went quiet. Two police cars were still on scene talking to the owner of the Victorian and the President of the charity when we left at 10:30. I'm guessing that they will be looking for a new venue to hold the concert again next year. We had a ball and met a couple of Darla's friends from work and their husbands.
Earl was in town this weekend trying to get a buyer of a hot tub at his rental to pick up his purchase. I played golf on Saturday (42+43=85) missing the cut for the Rose Cup team. You have to shoot under your handicap to get in. 69 was the cutoff and my 72 was good for an "attaboy". Earl picked up a refrigerator from my Personal Lines manager and delivered it to our house. The boys met him and helped load it up. It is about a five year-old Admiral that Darla deemed not nice enough for our kitchen, so it is in the garage cooling our sodas and acting as an extra freezer. It was apparently too "plasticy" according to Darla and white in color. Somehow the white clashes with our almond cooktop. Hey it has ice and water in the door, which our thirteen year old almond fridge doesn't, but the kitchen is definitely Darla's domain. They then took our old garage fridge to the dump and paid $27 to send it to the freon graveyard.
I showed up at Earl's after golf and found Earl and his spa buyer in the backyard of the rental. I was ready to help load the spa, but the buyer was a couple of beers to the far side of sober and was there to do some reconnaissance. He said that he "might" be there on Sunday to pick up the tub, but he wasn't sure. The new tenants are moving in today and have little kids. In the process of disassembling the gazebo Earl "accidentally" spilled a large glass of this bozo's iced beer. This guy was a serious nut job and he finally staggered out of there after saying some inappropriate things to Earl in the course of conversation, including some comments about his own wife best left unmentioned. Earl was getting pretty peeved with this doof and finally called him yesterday morning and told him to either pick up the spa or he'd take it up to Paradise, that it HAD to be out of there on Sunday. Somehow that lit a fire under Mr Miller High Life and he showed up about two to get the spa. We had the boys come over and finally got it packed up and Earl and I went with him to his house and we delivered it to his front yard. I told Earl to take his check to a branch of the guy's bank first thing this morning and cash it.
Frances was able to join Darla and I at church yesterday and we listened to a guest pastor speak about his death experience. He was legally dead in an operation for about seven minutes and was revived and had an out of body experience in the operating room and a close encounter with God. The pastor has a church in Cincinnati that has 6000 members, but was a terrible speaker. He fidgeted and wandered around and ran off on rabbit trails and really made me appreciate Rick. This pastor claimed he had the gift of "gathering", which if he was speaking of moss I might believe.
Well, I'd best get on to my week. I will be in Modesto on Wednesday to see the gals in the office there. Thursday I will get a new Flowmaster dual exhaust and K&N chrome cold air intake installed on the Mustang. I'm not quite through with my midlife crisis just yet. Keep your feet on the ground, but keep your hands reaching for Heaven. Ciao.
Monday, August 15, 2005
A Soldier returns to work
Jennifer has come and gone again, off to take on the final leg of her military career. She has decided that her tour of duty will end in November and she will begin to unravel the rest of her life from that point forward. She had considered the Air Force and a duty station in Hawaii, but the unit was on active status and could have been deployed at any time. She's been there and done that, as they say. She's not sure what her next steps are going to be, but she has time to mull the possibilities. She may move in with Sara when she gets back or she may live with Bill, her Stepdad, who is now estranged from Diane (See, it wasn't me). Jen had a great trip home and looks forward to bidding adieu to the Army. It has been a great experience for her, but enough is enough. She is actually in Atlanta right now visiting her friends from Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia and will return to Kuwait via Germany on Thursday. She is not looking forward to the 125 degree temperatures and will recall fondly our days on the water here in Norcal. We were able to get out three times on the lake with the jet ski and Jennifer was so enthralled with our new toy that she asked for a ski vest for her birthday. With our bruisers and Darla at 5'10", there wasn't a vest that fit Jennifer, so we ordered her an embossed neoprene vest size small ladies. She doesn't have much concern that we'll be using the vest while she is gone unless we invite some young children to join us on the ski.David and Destiny have gone their separate ways. It was a tough breakup and David took it hard. Destiny (the actual spelling of her name is a phonetic nightmare so I'll stick with this) was pretty immature and left David with a bruised heart, but a stronger sense of the female animal. He will take what he learned and use it in his future relationships. I won't go into details, but suffice it to say that Destiny has some friends who are not in relationships for one reason (horseface) or another and weren't enthralled that Destiny was spending so much time with David. They conspired to make sure that Destiny was able to be available when they needed their moustaches waxed. Dave will survive, but it is hard for Darla and I to see him hurt.
David begins college in a few weeks and Daniel is already back in school. The Summer is fast reaching it's zenith and Fall will be here before we know it. I was in the office at 6:45 today and had to have my lights on right into the parking lot today. The days are growing shorter and the nights are cooler. It has been a hot Summer, so the cooling nights are a welcome respite.
I played golf at D'Andria golf course in Sparks, Nevada yesterday. I drove up early (missing church in the process) and was at the course by 10:30. Our group played D'Andria on both Saturday and Sunday and I signed up for just the Sunday tournament. The course is very difficult and built into the side of some rolling hills above Reno. The vistas are quite nice with views of downtown Sparks and Reno in the distance. I played 16 good holes, shooting 6 over par and two bad holes where I went another six over. It was the type of day when I should have shot 79 or 80, but had to settle for 84 and second place in the tournament. I played right to my handicap, but there were so many guys shooting net 80 or above that I easily took second place with my net 72. My next golf tournament is Saturday and it is the qualifier for the Diamond Oaks Rosecup team. I would be thrilled to be on the defending champion's team this year for two days of golf in October.
Darla and I are still trying to get a tile contractor to come out to our home and give us an estimate on doing our kitchen, entry, hallway, master bathroom, laundry room and the hallway into the kitchen from the garage. We have had two appointments that were missed by a contractor who was recommended by our neighbor. He is now off the list. He refers to himself as "your tile man", well not ours. We also plan to have a fireplace insert installed soon to prepare for the Winter months ahead. I'd like to use the fireplace to heat the home and cut back on the use of the furnace. I'm not looking to replace the furnace, simply supplement the heat with the fireplace.
That is about it for this week. Work continues to go well and we are building toward something good in this office. Pete is beginning to build his book and Anthony is also having a great month. I may have to take the office out to Benihanas this month, which I'd be thrilled to do. We have to hit $110,000 in net income to go to lunch. Our "nut" is about $95,000 to pay the bills and I've set $15,000 in profit to afford a celebration. Unfortunately with the changes and new people I haven't bought lunch in four months. Hopefully this month will put us over the top. Be well and keep striving for heaven and you'll be fine. Ciao.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Jennifer looking more like a California girl than a soldier
It is a Tuesday morning in Northern California. I've had my coffee, made small talk with the early arrivers here at work and I'm now adding to the blog. Darla and I took a night up in Reno Sunday night and for that reason the blog is a day late. We had hoped to have Jennifer join us, but the pressures of friends and family were a bit too much for her and she begged off the trip. Darla and I shrugged and decided to take a trip up to Reno ourselves.We drove up after church on Sunday and relaxed Sunday afternoon. The clouds had rolled in and Darla read and I watched the final round of the International golf tournament on television. We had dinner at Benihanas at the Golden Phoenix. We then played a little video poker at the Phoenix and I got creamed. Darla won a few pots and I itched to get out of there and back to my comfort zone at the Atlantis Casino. We just play nickle slots and with 20 coins as a maximum, we can't get hurt too bad. I fell down about $80 before finally hitting a $100 jackpot. I then hit another $50 and finally four Aces with a 2 for $200. Darla and I cash out whenever we hit a four-of-a-kind and by ten-thirty we had over $450 in vouchers in Darla's purse. We took a break and went to the room so Darla could change. We decided to leave $400 of the vouchers in the room and took $50 to play with. At one point Darla hit four dueces with a 4, but only saved the dueces and went from a 2000 coin payout to 400. Ouch. We played until about 12:30 and returned to the room with just over $50, so it was a really good trip. We had an early lunch in Reno and then drove back to Roseville and spent the afternoon relaxing at Alicia's pool. We didn't even look at the machines on the way out of Reno and enjoyed taking some money home with us this trip.
Part of the allure of Reno this weekend was the final day of Hot August Nights, the annual car show and cruise in Reno. This year was as good as any and I always especially enjoy seeing the 1957 Chevys. It is my birth year and still one of the all time cool cars. I like Dad's collection and he is once again winning car shows ( I just received a note from him and he took first place in a show in BC), but the '57 Chevy is my favorite. They had a candy apple red one at Atlantis that was a dream. Dad, you need to come up to Reno in early August next year and bring the '44.
As you can see, Jennifer has made good use of the jet ski on her trip home. In fact, she decided she wants her own vest and Darla and I are getting her a new Body Glove vest which should arrive today. We have added two fuel containers on a rack to the jet ski trailer and I have a set of trailer guides coming today and a lock for the hitch slip. We will take Jennifer out a final time on Thursday to the lake and she leaves for Atlanta on Friday morning. We will take her out to dinner after the lake and celebrate her birthday, which is August 28th, but she will be back in Kuwait by then. She will spend the weekend in Atlanta and flies back to Kuwait on Monday.
Jennifer has had a good trip home and it has been a good mix of friends and family. She took the trip to Santa Cruz and has been out with most of her friends and went to the lake and water skiing with Jason. She went out to the clubs with David, her old boyfriend from Folsom last week. They went with one of his frends, Jay, a fireman. On their way back to our house at two in the morning they came across a house fire and were the first ones on scene. Jay kicked in the front door of the home (which turned out to be vacant) and Jennifer ran to the neighboring homes to awaken the residents. She ended up as the "unknown woman" who alerted residents in the Sacramento Bee. Jennifer had kicked off her heels to run door to door and by the time she returned to their car, the fire department had arrived and had hoses all over the ground and she lost her shoes. She went by the scene the next morning, but her shoes were nowhere to be found. I don't understand the bar scene and what the draw is there. At 24, I had a one year old and had been married for four years. Anyhow, thank God that Jennifer and her friends were up and able to alert the fire department of the fire as well as the neighbors.
Work continues to improve and I'm beginning to see signs of real progress with Anthony and Pete in this office and the Modesto office in particular. I'm having a great month and received the order on my largest renewal on the 1st of August to the tune of $225,000. My month is made and it's only the ninth.
I did not play golf this past weekend and it is the first weekend without golf since we got back from Hawaii. I will play in a tournament in Reno (Sparks actually) on Sunday. I'll have to get out this week and hit some balls to refresh my game. Next weekend is the qualifier for Diamond Oaks' Rose Cup team and it is one of my annual goals to qualify for the team. I missed the chance last year as I was rehabbing a bad back.
Well, that is all of the happenings in our neck of the woods. My prayer is that God help lead Jennifer to the next stage in her professional life (and while I'm at it, He bring a strong Christian man in to her life and help her settle down. Hey, I'm out on a limb already, I'll reach for the stars). It will be interesting to watch God move in her life in the next several months as she prepares to conclude her service and get back to life in these here United States. Take care and keep God alive in your life. Ciao.
Monday, August 01, 2005
Summer Sizzle
Heat continues to be a major factor for us here in Sacramento. The temperatures have been close to or over a hundred degrees for most of July and this week looks just as toasty. We were able to take a day at the lake with Jennifer and her friend, Sara, on Thursday and we had a ball. Jennifer and David ended up sore after an epic battle to see who could throw whom off the jet ski with more alacrity. David ended up being thrown straight backward and he hit his tail bone on the rear deck of the ski. Jennifer was simply unrestrained in her enthusiasm for the ski and spent a total of several hours on the ski by herself and with David, Daniel and Sara. Darla and I mostly watched the proceedings figuring that we can use the ski anytime. We plan to get back out to the lake tomorrow with Jennifer and some of her friends. They ran the ski so much that we had to pull it out of the water late afternoon and run over to the local gas station. The tank only took 12 gallons so there were over 6 left, but David is a full time worker and was bringing us dinner, so we didn't want to present him with an empty ski.
We haven't seen Jennifer other than last Thursday as she left that night for Santa Cruz with Sara. They stayed with some friends and Jennifer truly enjoyed the 69 degree highs and overnight lows in the 50's while she was there. After the broiler of Kuwait, the cool weather was welcome. They stayed over Thursday and Friday night and were back on Saturday evening. She spent yesterday with her Mom and they went to church. She said that she will join Darla and I next week at our church and we look forward to that.
Darla and I took the boys yesterday to Linden and a final goodbye to the only home that the boys have ever known Earl and Frances to have. We spent the afternoon playing in the pool and Darla took some pictures. It was a melancholy afternoon, but the farm was just too big of a burden on Earl and I can see that he is demonstrably more relaxed. He has a lot of work with the house and grounds in Paradise, but it will be a labor of love and won't be predicated on time constraints. He'll be able to up and take a month's vacation without worrying about the farm. They also bought a rental three doors down from Alicia's house in Roseville. The boys will be keeping up the lawn and I'll be the contact for any problems or repairs that need to be done.
I played golf in the three club tournament on Saturday and I can only say that I'm glad I have 11 other clubs on a regular basis. It is really difficult to attempt to play with such a limited number of clubs. I shot 44+44=88 and struggled most of the day. I only managed four pars and missed some putts along the way, but was routinely chipping to the green for birdie and then two putting for bogey. It was tough. The groundskeeper burned several of the greens in the last week by sanding them and not watering enough during the week. There are several areas with large burn spots. Moron. Our next tournament is in Reno on the 14th. I hope to spend some time with Jennifer next weekend.
We had a guest speaker yesterday at church. Our pastor, Rick, is going through a series on Hot Topics and we heard from a man who was immersed in the gay lifestyle in the seventies and eighties and has emerged through the grace of God into a family man, married for eighteen years with two children. His sermon was not on the evil of homosexuality as one might expect (like a reformed smoker who is hell bent on eradicating tobacco), but more on the theme of reaching out to the gay and lesbian population and inviting them to experience the healing power of Jesus Christ. The man's name is Steve Dallas and he is a powerful speaker. He told the story of a middle aged pastor who felt the call to reach out to people suffering from the Aids epidemic. He started a ministry that befriended those suffering from Aids and he ministered at the local hospital's Aids ward. The gay and lesbian population soon heard of his works and invited him to be interviewed on a local gay radio program. Soon his church was visited by the gay population who wanted to hear from this compassionate minister. They came and heard and returned to hear him preach week after week. Finally, several of the church leaders met with the pastor and asked him what he was doing as their church was being overrun with Gays. The pastor said that there was plenty of room next to the adulterers, tax cheats, idolators and bigots for any sinner. Steve's point was that as Christians, it is much easier for us to espouse our ideology than it is to live up to it. Powerful and convicting stuff.
I was in the office at 6:45 AM this morning as I have several accounts that I'm working on. The depressing part of the day was that I had to turn on my headlights when I left the house. The Summer is quickly escaping. In fact, Daniel returns to school next Wednesday and David starts college the end of this month. August is here.
Well, that is the drivel that is on my mind this week. I'll try to remember my camera when we hit the lake this week and put some pictures on the blog next week. I hope all are well and living La Vida en Cristo. Ciao.
We haven't seen Jennifer other than last Thursday as she left that night for Santa Cruz with Sara. They stayed with some friends and Jennifer truly enjoyed the 69 degree highs and overnight lows in the 50's while she was there. After the broiler of Kuwait, the cool weather was welcome. They stayed over Thursday and Friday night and were back on Saturday evening. She spent yesterday with her Mom and they went to church. She said that she will join Darla and I next week at our church and we look forward to that.
Darla and I took the boys yesterday to Linden and a final goodbye to the only home that the boys have ever known Earl and Frances to have. We spent the afternoon playing in the pool and Darla took some pictures. It was a melancholy afternoon, but the farm was just too big of a burden on Earl and I can see that he is demonstrably more relaxed. He has a lot of work with the house and grounds in Paradise, but it will be a labor of love and won't be predicated on time constraints. He'll be able to up and take a month's vacation without worrying about the farm. They also bought a rental three doors down from Alicia's house in Roseville. The boys will be keeping up the lawn and I'll be the contact for any problems or repairs that need to be done.
I played golf in the three club tournament on Saturday and I can only say that I'm glad I have 11 other clubs on a regular basis. It is really difficult to attempt to play with such a limited number of clubs. I shot 44+44=88 and struggled most of the day. I only managed four pars and missed some putts along the way, but was routinely chipping to the green for birdie and then two putting for bogey. It was tough. The groundskeeper burned several of the greens in the last week by sanding them and not watering enough during the week. There are several areas with large burn spots. Moron. Our next tournament is in Reno on the 14th. I hope to spend some time with Jennifer next weekend.
We had a guest speaker yesterday at church. Our pastor, Rick, is going through a series on Hot Topics and we heard from a man who was immersed in the gay lifestyle in the seventies and eighties and has emerged through the grace of God into a family man, married for eighteen years with two children. His sermon was not on the evil of homosexuality as one might expect (like a reformed smoker who is hell bent on eradicating tobacco), but more on the theme of reaching out to the gay and lesbian population and inviting them to experience the healing power of Jesus Christ. The man's name is Steve Dallas and he is a powerful speaker. He told the story of a middle aged pastor who felt the call to reach out to people suffering from the Aids epidemic. He started a ministry that befriended those suffering from Aids and he ministered at the local hospital's Aids ward. The gay and lesbian population soon heard of his works and invited him to be interviewed on a local gay radio program. Soon his church was visited by the gay population who wanted to hear from this compassionate minister. They came and heard and returned to hear him preach week after week. Finally, several of the church leaders met with the pastor and asked him what he was doing as their church was being overrun with Gays. The pastor said that there was plenty of room next to the adulterers, tax cheats, idolators and bigots for any sinner. Steve's point was that as Christians, it is much easier for us to espouse our ideology than it is to live up to it. Powerful and convicting stuff.
I was in the office at 6:45 AM this morning as I have several accounts that I'm working on. The depressing part of the day was that I had to turn on my headlights when I left the house. The Summer is quickly escaping. In fact, Daniel returns to school next Wednesday and David starts college the end of this month. August is here.
Well, that is the drivel that is on my mind this week. I'll try to remember my camera when we hit the lake this week and put some pictures on the blog next week. I hope all are well and living La Vida en Cristo. Ciao.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Jennifer with her friend Sara at the airport
Jennifer made it home after a grueling set of flights that took her from Kuwait to Shannon, Ireland and then on to Dallas, Texas and finally home to Sacramento. She is thrilled to be back and ready to relax and renew some friendships and spend time with family. The highlight of her trip was when the locals in Dallas met the plane on the tarmac with two fire engines spraying water over the plane and a small band greeting the soldiers as they exited the aircraft. There was a group on hand waving flags and applauding the soldiers and several restaurants had water and muffins for the returning soldiers. Jennifer was able to catch up with Randy, who made a special point of flying home early from Philadelphia to see Jennifer. He and Cake took Jennifer and a lieutenant that she met on the plane out to breakfast off the airport site. Jennifer was amazed at the welcome she received from the people of Texas, as several approached their table and welcomed her home and thanked her for her service. The restaurant manager greeted them at the table and paid for their breakfast. It was a nice homecoming and says as much about the patriotism and hospitality of the Texas people as anything. As the lieutenant from Orange County said, we won't get this reception in California!
It was a great gesture by Randy to meet with Jennifer and help welcome her home and I appreciate it. He hopes to see her on the return trip as well. It will be a great couple of weeks with her home. We are taking the jet ski out tomorrow afternoon. That's it for now. Ciao.
Monday, July 25, 2005
The Prodigal Soldier Returns!
Yes. Jennifer will be home this week. She may even be on her way as I write this as she had to fly from Kuwait City to Germany and then catch a flight from Germany to Dallas, Tx. From there she takes an American Airlines flight to Sacramento. I've talked to her a couple of times in the last week and she is beyond homesick and ready for the two weeks of R&R. She called last night in the middle of the night and left a message that she will get in to Sacramento at 1:30 tomorrow afternoon. It has been so HOT in Kuwait and the days are so long, she can't wait to get back to Sacramento. We will have 104 degrees to greet her tomorrow, but it will seem cool to her after 122 degrees. I will take a few afternoons off to go to the lake with Jennifer and hope to get a day or two off to go up to Reno if I can squeeze into Jennifer's busy schedule.
I was able to talk to both Darryl and Randy yesterday. Randy is busy globetrotting for his job and it sounds like he is doing well. I talked to him while he was in Philadelphia and preparing for a meeting today. I don't think I'd enjoy the amount of travel that he does, but it gives him great perks in airline miles and hotel upgrades and car rental upgrades when he travels for pleasure. It also sounds like his company is doing really well and he is sharing in the increased profits, which is the whole point, eh? Darryl is just back from a trip to Canada and a quick visit with Dad and Shirley. They were able to golf a few times and Darryl helped Dad with a car show in Washington state. Darryl said that Dad won another first place prize for Best Canadian. I assume his car won too.
Work here continues at a frenetic pace and trying to carve some time out to spend with Jenn will be a challenge (and one that I'm up to by the way). I am in the office by seven most days and out by six pm and those fifty hour weeks take a toll after awhile. I'm having a very good month in July and August is shaping up to be even better. We made a nice profit last month even with my extended absence due to vacation and this month appears to be tracking just as well in spite of the loss of Gail to surgery and the subsequent rehabilitation and medical leave. All three of the new underwriters are excelling and each will earn a nice quarterly bonus. The bonus money should serve as a nice incentive going forward and their success is my success, so it's all good.
Darla and the boys returned from a week in Almanor, tired, spent, but happy. We had planned on taking the jet ski out yesterday, but the boy's friends all bailed and just Darla and I ended up at the beach at Granite Bay yesterday. The boys needed some down time. Darla did too, but I needed a trip to the lake. We left the jet ski at home, but took the air mattresses and floated out on the lake in the 103 degree heat. The lake water is so warm right now. I ended up with a light burn from the intensity of the sun. I didn't reapply sunscreen after being in the water and I paid for it. The beach was not as crowded as normal for whatever reason and it was a nice day spent just relaxing at the beach.
I've ordered two new ski vests (one for Darla and one for me) off the internet and a set of ski gloves for me. I found that the vibration of driving the ski at full throttle in rough water caused my hands to go numb on the yoke. We don't have cruise control, but as the guy that sold me the unit said, he'd throw in cruise control for an extra $50. He was holding a rubber band when he said that. Wise guy.
I've also ordered an owner's manual and I still want to get a dual gas tank holder for the trailer.
I played golf on Saturday and shot 45+42=87. Not my best by far. We teed off at 7:00 AM and beat the heat on Saturday. We were done by 11:00 AM and it was nice. I lost an 8 iron when I played in an insurance tournament two weeks ago and It never did turn up. I called Clubfinders, which is an internet based club replacement service. For $59.95 and $10 shipping, they replace a lost club out of a set. I have Wilson Deep Red II irons and they sent me a Wilson Deep Red 8 iron replacement. It doesn't match exactly, but has the modified fat shaft and a similar head design. I play in our annual three club tournament this weekend and will play with a driver, 8 iron and putter. Alot of the players will use three wood, a middle iron and putter and a few use their driver in place of a putter. As any good golfer knows, a five foot putt counts as much as a three hundred yard drive and I'd never play a round of golf without a putter. I'll let you know how I end up.
Again, it should be a great week or two with Jennifer home. I'll bring you up to date on her wanderings in the next epistle and even add a picture or two. I hope you all have a great week and continually give thanks to the Lord for all of the riches that he provides in your life. Be well. Ciao.
I was able to talk to both Darryl and Randy yesterday. Randy is busy globetrotting for his job and it sounds like he is doing well. I talked to him while he was in Philadelphia and preparing for a meeting today. I don't think I'd enjoy the amount of travel that he does, but it gives him great perks in airline miles and hotel upgrades and car rental upgrades when he travels for pleasure. It also sounds like his company is doing really well and he is sharing in the increased profits, which is the whole point, eh? Darryl is just back from a trip to Canada and a quick visit with Dad and Shirley. They were able to golf a few times and Darryl helped Dad with a car show in Washington state. Darryl said that Dad won another first place prize for Best Canadian. I assume his car won too.
Work here continues at a frenetic pace and trying to carve some time out to spend with Jenn will be a challenge (and one that I'm up to by the way). I am in the office by seven most days and out by six pm and those fifty hour weeks take a toll after awhile. I'm having a very good month in July and August is shaping up to be even better. We made a nice profit last month even with my extended absence due to vacation and this month appears to be tracking just as well in spite of the loss of Gail to surgery and the subsequent rehabilitation and medical leave. All three of the new underwriters are excelling and each will earn a nice quarterly bonus. The bonus money should serve as a nice incentive going forward and their success is my success, so it's all good.
Darla and the boys returned from a week in Almanor, tired, spent, but happy. We had planned on taking the jet ski out yesterday, but the boy's friends all bailed and just Darla and I ended up at the beach at Granite Bay yesterday. The boys needed some down time. Darla did too, but I needed a trip to the lake. We left the jet ski at home, but took the air mattresses and floated out on the lake in the 103 degree heat. The lake water is so warm right now. I ended up with a light burn from the intensity of the sun. I didn't reapply sunscreen after being in the water and I paid for it. The beach was not as crowded as normal for whatever reason and it was a nice day spent just relaxing at the beach.
I've ordered two new ski vests (one for Darla and one for me) off the internet and a set of ski gloves for me. I found that the vibration of driving the ski at full throttle in rough water caused my hands to go numb on the yoke. We don't have cruise control, but as the guy that sold me the unit said, he'd throw in cruise control for an extra $50. He was holding a rubber band when he said that. Wise guy.
I've also ordered an owner's manual and I still want to get a dual gas tank holder for the trailer.
I played golf on Saturday and shot 45+42=87. Not my best by far. We teed off at 7:00 AM and beat the heat on Saturday. We were done by 11:00 AM and it was nice. I lost an 8 iron when I played in an insurance tournament two weeks ago and It never did turn up. I called Clubfinders, which is an internet based club replacement service. For $59.95 and $10 shipping, they replace a lost club out of a set. I have Wilson Deep Red II irons and they sent me a Wilson Deep Red 8 iron replacement. It doesn't match exactly, but has the modified fat shaft and a similar head design. I play in our annual three club tournament this weekend and will play with a driver, 8 iron and putter. Alot of the players will use three wood, a middle iron and putter and a few use their driver in place of a putter. As any good golfer knows, a five foot putt counts as much as a three hundred yard drive and I'd never play a round of golf without a putter. I'll let you know how I end up.
Again, it should be a great week or two with Jennifer home. I'll bring you up to date on her wanderings in the next epistle and even add a picture or two. I hope you all have a great week and continually give thanks to the Lord for all of the riches that he provides in your life. Be well. Ciao.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Monday, July 18, 2005
A Waverunner surprise for the boys? NOT!
Just back from a relaxing and thoroughly enjoyable trip to Lake Almanor. It has not always been my favorite spot for Summer vacation, but this trip was great for a variety of reasons. First of all, the weather was hot and the lake water was WARM. Almanor is a mountain lake and is fed from the snowfall on Mt Lassen and to a lessor degree Mt Shasta. Although the lower lakes are also fed by snow runoff, the lower elevation lakes are in a hotter climate and warm up much better than Almanor. We have beeen stuck in a heat wave in the valley and it has taken hold in NorCal. Even Almanor at 4200 feet elevation has had daytime temps in the mid nineties and overnight lows in the sixties. We have stayed at Almanor years where we had the heaters blasting in our cabin and still we were freezing as the overnight lows dipped into the low forties and upper thirties. It would be hard for any lake to hold a decent temperature in those extremes.
As the title hints, Darla and I bought a Yamaha Waverunner, a 155 hp PWC with plenty of punch and a top end speed into the sixties. The boys have been busy with vacation with their Dad and off to church camp last week. They came home late on Saturday and ended up driving up to the lake on Sunday. We had an opportunity to buy the Waverunner at a good price, including the trailer and decided to jump on it with the lake vacation this week. We kept it a secret from the boys and concocted a plan to surprise them when they got to Almanor. The plan was that they would go out knee boarding on Earl's boat and I'd come riding up on the Waverunner. Darla was going to be on the boat with her camera to record the surprise. We waited Sunday for them to arrive and Darla and I made several runs across the lake to test out the craft. It is a 2001 Waverunner with a new motor (the old one conked out under warranty) that has just 40 hours on the water. The boys finally showed up at 4:30 and were raring to go. We talked to them for a bit down by the water and told them to go get changed into swim suits. We were ready to spring our surprise. They were gone for about fifteen minutes and came back and Daniel said, with a big grin, "Which one is ours?" We looked at him kind of funny and asked him what he was talking about. "The Jet Ski, which one is ours?" We again asked him what he was talking about and tried to play it cool until Frances blurted out, "OK, who told you?" We had told all of our friends at the resort that the ski was a surprise and to keep it on the q.t. It turns out that no one had told them. Daniel is a bright kid and just followed the clues.
First of all, when they got home from church camp (Darla and I were already up at Almanor), they found the Ford oval laying in the laundry room on top of my socket set. We bought the oval as a plug for the slide hitch housing. When they got up to Almanor and parked at the cabin, they saw the jet ski trailer parked on the side of the cabin. Finally, Daniel found the six bottles of Yamalube 2W oil behind the front door of the cabin. The surprise was ruined, but not the enjoyment and appreciation of the gift by the boys. They rode it hard yesterday and today and had already gone through a tank of gas (18.5 gallons) and three quarts of oil. The oil is injected into the gas as the engine is a two stroke engine and takes a combination of gas and oil. The high horsepower eats the gas and it could be an expensive week.
The jet ski will also come in handy next week when Jennifer returns from Kuwait for a twelve day vacation. I'm sure Jen and her friends will make good use of the ski during her time home. I'm really looking forward to seeing her and the jet ski is one reason that we finally talked. I left her a message that I had a Big Surprise for her when she came home and she was finally able to get ahold of me. Amazing.
We were able to go to church up at Almanor and this is our fourth Summer with the same Pastor. He is just starting a series on the Ten Commandments and started with number ten, which is "Though Shalt not covet." The pastor said that this commandment is the basis of all of the commandments, because if you break any of them, it will likely come back to the sin of coveting, whether it is stealing, killing or commiting adultery, the seed of the sin is coveting something that you did not have. It was an interesting sermon and it put a nice bow on my long weekend.
Darla came up to me today when I was finishing gassing up the jet ski and adding oil. She said that we had a problem in the bathroom at the cabin. I just assumed it was Daniel clogging the plumbing, but in fact the sink had fallen off the wall. It had glanced off of Darla's leg, but stopped short of smashing her feet as the hoses to the hot and cold water and the hose to the drain held it up. It turns out that the sink is attached to the pine wall of the bathroom and water had slowly worked it's way behind the sink and rotted out the wall. Whoever had installed the sink had used 3/4 inch stud screws and they came loose. Frank, the owner of the resort, and I reinstalled the sink using four 1 1/2 inch stud screws. Again Amazing.
We bought the jet ski as part of our proceeds from refinancing the house. I had to sign papers on Friday at four PM. Friday was my last day before a three day weekend and I had my senior underwriter, Gail out on medical leave. She has plumbing issues herself and will be out at least a month. Her agents all seemed to call me. I also got calls from a high number of my agents, several with immediate needs that I HAD to get to before COB (close of business). My Monday off turned into my Friday...meaning that my Friday was like the Monday from Hell. I didn't handle the pressure well and was close to losing it several times. I finally got out of the office at 3:55 PM and called the house to let them know I'd be late. I rushed out of there with the phone still ringing, but all of my promised tasks completed. I got home after a spate of bad traffic at 4:30 apologetic as all get out to the Notary , who had been visiting with Darla for half an hour and they were fast friends. My day soon became worse as I realized that my wallet was still in my desk drawer at work. The notary, of course, wanted proof that I was who I said I was. I showed her my just expired license, but she was all by the book and needed to see the current license. She offered to drive back to Rancho Cordova and to meet us at my office. I told her that it was my bonehead move and that, if she preferred, I'd just drop by her home and show her the ID. She agreed. So, Darla and I hightailed it back to my work and then over to the Notary's home in Fair Oaks. We got home about 7:30 and I again took Darla out to dinner (See last week's blog, same bonehead move). We were just relaxing watching the late night news after a marathon day, when the phone rang. We thought it might be the boys, but it was the Notary calling. She had triple-checked her papers and found a missing signature page. She wanted to make arrangements to meet the next morning to get the form signed. I had an eight o'clock tee time (41+41=82!!) and couldn't make it. With Darla going out of town for a week, we needed to do something. The Notary said it was her fault and she came over to our house at midnight where we signed the missing paper. A perfect end to a perfectly awful day.
I hope your week is more like the boys': all fun, sun and happy times. Turn to the Lord and you will experience Mercy, Forgiveness and Peace, something that is very missing in the mass of humanity these days. Think about it. Ciao.
As the title hints, Darla and I bought a Yamaha Waverunner, a 155 hp PWC with plenty of punch and a top end speed into the sixties. The boys have been busy with vacation with their Dad and off to church camp last week. They came home late on Saturday and ended up driving up to the lake on Sunday. We had an opportunity to buy the Waverunner at a good price, including the trailer and decided to jump on it with the lake vacation this week. We kept it a secret from the boys and concocted a plan to surprise them when they got to Almanor. The plan was that they would go out knee boarding on Earl's boat and I'd come riding up on the Waverunner. Darla was going to be on the boat with her camera to record the surprise. We waited Sunday for them to arrive and Darla and I made several runs across the lake to test out the craft. It is a 2001 Waverunner with a new motor (the old one conked out under warranty) that has just 40 hours on the water. The boys finally showed up at 4:30 and were raring to go. We talked to them for a bit down by the water and told them to go get changed into swim suits. We were ready to spring our surprise. They were gone for about fifteen minutes and came back and Daniel said, with a big grin, "Which one is ours?" We looked at him kind of funny and asked him what he was talking about. "The Jet Ski, which one is ours?" We again asked him what he was talking about and tried to play it cool until Frances blurted out, "OK, who told you?" We had told all of our friends at the resort that the ski was a surprise and to keep it on the q.t. It turns out that no one had told them. Daniel is a bright kid and just followed the clues.
First of all, when they got home from church camp (Darla and I were already up at Almanor), they found the Ford oval laying in the laundry room on top of my socket set. We bought the oval as a plug for the slide hitch housing. When they got up to Almanor and parked at the cabin, they saw the jet ski trailer parked on the side of the cabin. Finally, Daniel found the six bottles of Yamalube 2W oil behind the front door of the cabin. The surprise was ruined, but not the enjoyment and appreciation of the gift by the boys. They rode it hard yesterday and today and had already gone through a tank of gas (18.5 gallons) and three quarts of oil. The oil is injected into the gas as the engine is a two stroke engine and takes a combination of gas and oil. The high horsepower eats the gas and it could be an expensive week.
The jet ski will also come in handy next week when Jennifer returns from Kuwait for a twelve day vacation. I'm sure Jen and her friends will make good use of the ski during her time home. I'm really looking forward to seeing her and the jet ski is one reason that we finally talked. I left her a message that I had a Big Surprise for her when she came home and she was finally able to get ahold of me. Amazing.
We were able to go to church up at Almanor and this is our fourth Summer with the same Pastor. He is just starting a series on the Ten Commandments and started with number ten, which is "Though Shalt not covet." The pastor said that this commandment is the basis of all of the commandments, because if you break any of them, it will likely come back to the sin of coveting, whether it is stealing, killing or commiting adultery, the seed of the sin is coveting something that you did not have. It was an interesting sermon and it put a nice bow on my long weekend.
Darla came up to me today when I was finishing gassing up the jet ski and adding oil. She said that we had a problem in the bathroom at the cabin. I just assumed it was Daniel clogging the plumbing, but in fact the sink had fallen off the wall. It had glanced off of Darla's leg, but stopped short of smashing her feet as the hoses to the hot and cold water and the hose to the drain held it up. It turns out that the sink is attached to the pine wall of the bathroom and water had slowly worked it's way behind the sink and rotted out the wall. Whoever had installed the sink had used 3/4 inch stud screws and they came loose. Frank, the owner of the resort, and I reinstalled the sink using four 1 1/2 inch stud screws. Again Amazing.
We bought the jet ski as part of our proceeds from refinancing the house. I had to sign papers on Friday at four PM. Friday was my last day before a three day weekend and I had my senior underwriter, Gail out on medical leave. She has plumbing issues herself and will be out at least a month. Her agents all seemed to call me. I also got calls from a high number of my agents, several with immediate needs that I HAD to get to before COB (close of business). My Monday off turned into my Friday...meaning that my Friday was like the Monday from Hell. I didn't handle the pressure well and was close to losing it several times. I finally got out of the office at 3:55 PM and called the house to let them know I'd be late. I rushed out of there with the phone still ringing, but all of my promised tasks completed. I got home after a spate of bad traffic at 4:30 apologetic as all get out to the Notary , who had been visiting with Darla for half an hour and they were fast friends. My day soon became worse as I realized that my wallet was still in my desk drawer at work. The notary, of course, wanted proof that I was who I said I was. I showed her my just expired license, but she was all by the book and needed to see the current license. She offered to drive back to Rancho Cordova and to meet us at my office. I told her that it was my bonehead move and that, if she preferred, I'd just drop by her home and show her the ID. She agreed. So, Darla and I hightailed it back to my work and then over to the Notary's home in Fair Oaks. We got home about 7:30 and I again took Darla out to dinner (See last week's blog, same bonehead move). We were just relaxing watching the late night news after a marathon day, when the phone rang. We thought it might be the boys, but it was the Notary calling. She had triple-checked her papers and found a missing signature page. She wanted to make arrangements to meet the next morning to get the form signed. I had an eight o'clock tee time (41+41=82!!) and couldn't make it. With Darla going out of town for a week, we needed to do something. The Notary said it was her fault and she came over to our house at midnight where we signed the missing paper. A perfect end to a perfectly awful day.
I hope your week is more like the boys': all fun, sun and happy times. Turn to the Lord and you will experience Mercy, Forgiveness and Peace, something that is very missing in the mass of humanity these days. Think about it. Ciao.
Monday, July 11, 2005
Summer Doldrums
Believe it or not, I've been sitting at work for close to an hour and finally realized that I needed to update the blog. That hasn't happened before and I can only blame it on the hot, hazy, lazy days of Summer. I did get to read the paper cover to cover and get caught up on the nasty doings in the world.
Darla and I had a nice, relaxing weekend, although it didn't start out that way. I forgot my wallet at work on Friday night and didn't realize it until I stopped for gas on my way home. What a bonehead move as work is a good half hour away from home. I called Darla and told her that I'd pick her up and take her to dinner. She was enthused until I mentioned that I had left my wallet at work and we'd eat in Rancho Cordova. The boys were just home from their vacation with their Dad and they were leaving again for a week at a Christian Camp in Viola in So Cal. They had wash to do and would see us about 8:30 PM. Darla and I drove all the way back to my work to pick up my wallet and then I took her to Samarai Sushi for dinner. Neither of us are overly keen on sushi, but they have a nice menu of cooked Japanese food and we settled on the shrimp tempura for Darla and I had the teriyaki chicken with tempura. It was good and Darla was a good sport given my boneheadedness.
The boys did meet us about nine-thirty as it turned out and we got caught up on their travels through the asphalt clogged cities of Washington, DC, Boston, Philadelphia and New York. Again, this isn't my idea of a Summer vacation, but I'm glad that Steve could show the kids some of the east coast. I'll show them Florida and the beaches of South Carolina some day. They were up early on Saturday to meet the SUVs at church for their trip to Southern California. They spent yesterday at Disneyland. Not a bad Summer for the guys so far, eh? They will get home on Saturday and leave Sunday for a week with Darla and her family at Lake Almanor. I will be there until Monday when I return to run the office here. Peter will be out next week and Gail starts her month medical leave on Monday as well. Darla would like me to go up some year and spend the whole week in Almanor, but until I get three weeks of vacation, I don't see it happening. The venue is nice, but it's a mountain lake and the water is freezing. Somehow, I prefer the oceans of Puerto Vallarta or Kauai, where the water temperature is 80 degrees.
I played golf on Saturday in the Buick Scramble with Mel, Steve Matthews and Boyd. We shot a ten under par 62, but lost out to the winners at 58. The team wasn't strong, but Boyd kept us in the match all day and we even managed two eagles on the front side, both on the par 5s. Our undoing were the par threes, where we parred each of them. Finally, we bogeyed the 17th hole of the day (Number 8 as we started on number 10), which was dumb, but it didn't hurt us as we were already out of the tournament. I had a good time, but it was expensive. It cost $65 a man to play, plus green fees and then we had to provide a scorer as well for another team. We paid Mel's son $32 to do the job. Jean Paulo was thrilled and at fifteen, it was his first paid job. The guys in front of us used Jean Paulo and they were supposed to let him ride in the cart. Somehow they talked him into hanging off the back of the cart and we saw him hanging on for dear life as they careened across the course.
Darla and I have bought a pass for Folsom Lake and we spent Sunday at the lake. We left straight from church and stopped at the local grocery store for sandwiches while I dashed into the Taco Bell to change into my swim suit. We got to the lake about 11:00AM and it was mostly deserted. One of the local Granite Bay churches has their worship service at the beach and they were there around the corner on the point. The lifeguards were just coming on and we set up our towel, chairs, umbrella and ice chest a short distance from the first lifeguard tower. We noticed that a horse had visited the beach early and had deposited an offering a ways down from our blanket. We were far enough from the offending nugget to have it not interfere with our enjoyment of the beach. As the day wore on, the little equine prize kept us from having neighbors too close as they would see the deposit and move on. Finally a couple with a small child set up camp within spitting distance of the roadie and Darla felt compelled to mention it to them. The wife looked at Darla and said, "yeah, we saw it." She seemed unconcerned, so we went back to our books. Several minutes later, their friends joined them and the woman took one look at the horse puck and began yelling, "Why are you sitting next to a turd? I'm not setting up by a turd. Did you see the turd? Bubba, it's a great big TURD!" Bubba turned out to be her brother and a more fitting name could not have been applied to this large, okefied man. His sister was also of a rather large frame. She ranted awhile longer about the TURD and finally grabbed her daughter's beach pail and shovel and scooped up the offending fecal matter and sent it flying up the beach. Why she didn't put it in the trash can is beyond me. Darla and I were howling with laughter by now and she walked by and muttered something about why a woman had to pick up the turd rather than the men. I told her, "yeah, that's a bunch of crap." She wasn't amused.
We returned hom in the late afternoon after spending an hour at Alicia's fixing her sprinklers, which were alternately geysers or completely buried in the lawn. I had to locate three heads that were overgrown in the grass and when I showed Alicia, her comment was, "I didn't know I had sprinklers on that side of the lawn." I need to work with David to make sure that I get him to trim back the grass around the sprinkler heads. I installed 8 more solar lights along the walkway at the front of the house and I'm pleased with the result. The solar landscape lights are amber in color and let off less light than their wired brethren. It is a nice soft light that marks the brick and cement walkway leading to our front door.
Our pastor, Rick, spoke on the subject of War and Pacifism yesterday and how the Bible teaches us about this subject. It was enlightening and somewhat controversial, but I agreed with him when he said that War is preferable to the the advance of evil in society. The Iraq War is not popular, but it is much less brutal in terms of loss of life than any other war we've been involved in based on the size of our population and the loss of life as a percentage of same. We hate to lose even one life to a war, but I think we are doing the right thing. We need to defeat the enemy and get out of that country.
Well, not much news to report. The blog will be a day late next week as I'll be in Almanor. Stay well, keep your sunscreen on (SPF 30 or higher) and keep your nose in the Bible. It is the instruction manual for life. Ciao.
Darla and I had a nice, relaxing weekend, although it didn't start out that way. I forgot my wallet at work on Friday night and didn't realize it until I stopped for gas on my way home. What a bonehead move as work is a good half hour away from home. I called Darla and told her that I'd pick her up and take her to dinner. She was enthused until I mentioned that I had left my wallet at work and we'd eat in Rancho Cordova. The boys were just home from their vacation with their Dad and they were leaving again for a week at a Christian Camp in Viola in So Cal. They had wash to do and would see us about 8:30 PM. Darla and I drove all the way back to my work to pick up my wallet and then I took her to Samarai Sushi for dinner. Neither of us are overly keen on sushi, but they have a nice menu of cooked Japanese food and we settled on the shrimp tempura for Darla and I had the teriyaki chicken with tempura. It was good and Darla was a good sport given my boneheadedness.
The boys did meet us about nine-thirty as it turned out and we got caught up on their travels through the asphalt clogged cities of Washington, DC, Boston, Philadelphia and New York. Again, this isn't my idea of a Summer vacation, but I'm glad that Steve could show the kids some of the east coast. I'll show them Florida and the beaches of South Carolina some day. They were up early on Saturday to meet the SUVs at church for their trip to Southern California. They spent yesterday at Disneyland. Not a bad Summer for the guys so far, eh? They will get home on Saturday and leave Sunday for a week with Darla and her family at Lake Almanor. I will be there until Monday when I return to run the office here. Peter will be out next week and Gail starts her month medical leave on Monday as well. Darla would like me to go up some year and spend the whole week in Almanor, but until I get three weeks of vacation, I don't see it happening. The venue is nice, but it's a mountain lake and the water is freezing. Somehow, I prefer the oceans of Puerto Vallarta or Kauai, where the water temperature is 80 degrees.
I played golf on Saturday in the Buick Scramble with Mel, Steve Matthews and Boyd. We shot a ten under par 62, but lost out to the winners at 58. The team wasn't strong, but Boyd kept us in the match all day and we even managed two eagles on the front side, both on the par 5s. Our undoing were the par threes, where we parred each of them. Finally, we bogeyed the 17th hole of the day (Number 8 as we started on number 10), which was dumb, but it didn't hurt us as we were already out of the tournament. I had a good time, but it was expensive. It cost $65 a man to play, plus green fees and then we had to provide a scorer as well for another team. We paid Mel's son $32 to do the job. Jean Paulo was thrilled and at fifteen, it was his first paid job. The guys in front of us used Jean Paulo and they were supposed to let him ride in the cart. Somehow they talked him into hanging off the back of the cart and we saw him hanging on for dear life as they careened across the course.
Darla and I have bought a pass for Folsom Lake and we spent Sunday at the lake. We left straight from church and stopped at the local grocery store for sandwiches while I dashed into the Taco Bell to change into my swim suit. We got to the lake about 11:00AM and it was mostly deserted. One of the local Granite Bay churches has their worship service at the beach and they were there around the corner on the point. The lifeguards were just coming on and we set up our towel, chairs, umbrella and ice chest a short distance from the first lifeguard tower. We noticed that a horse had visited the beach early and had deposited an offering a ways down from our blanket. We were far enough from the offending nugget to have it not interfere with our enjoyment of the beach. As the day wore on, the little equine prize kept us from having neighbors too close as they would see the deposit and move on. Finally a couple with a small child set up camp within spitting distance of the roadie and Darla felt compelled to mention it to them. The wife looked at Darla and said, "yeah, we saw it." She seemed unconcerned, so we went back to our books. Several minutes later, their friends joined them and the woman took one look at the horse puck and began yelling, "Why are you sitting next to a turd? I'm not setting up by a turd. Did you see the turd? Bubba, it's a great big TURD!" Bubba turned out to be her brother and a more fitting name could not have been applied to this large, okefied man. His sister was also of a rather large frame. She ranted awhile longer about the TURD and finally grabbed her daughter's beach pail and shovel and scooped up the offending fecal matter and sent it flying up the beach. Why she didn't put it in the trash can is beyond me. Darla and I were howling with laughter by now and she walked by and muttered something about why a woman had to pick up the turd rather than the men. I told her, "yeah, that's a bunch of crap." She wasn't amused.
We returned hom in the late afternoon after spending an hour at Alicia's fixing her sprinklers, which were alternately geysers or completely buried in the lawn. I had to locate three heads that were overgrown in the grass and when I showed Alicia, her comment was, "I didn't know I had sprinklers on that side of the lawn." I need to work with David to make sure that I get him to trim back the grass around the sprinkler heads. I installed 8 more solar lights along the walkway at the front of the house and I'm pleased with the result. The solar landscape lights are amber in color and let off less light than their wired brethren. It is a nice soft light that marks the brick and cement walkway leading to our front door.
Our pastor, Rick, spoke on the subject of War and Pacifism yesterday and how the Bible teaches us about this subject. It was enlightening and somewhat controversial, but I agreed with him when he said that War is preferable to the the advance of evil in society. The Iraq War is not popular, but it is much less brutal in terms of loss of life than any other war we've been involved in based on the size of our population and the loss of life as a percentage of same. We hate to lose even one life to a war, but I think we are doing the right thing. We need to defeat the enemy and get out of that country.
Well, not much news to report. The blog will be a day late next week as I'll be in Almanor. Stay well, keep your sunscreen on (SPF 30 or higher) and keep your nose in the Bible. It is the instruction manual for life. Ciao.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
4th of July begets the 5th of July
Happy Tuesday. You have to revel in three day weekends, especially when the vacation hangover is still in place and I'm fighting to get my work focus back. We just closed June and although I had a down month (vacations will eat into your production), the branch made money and I receved a congratulatory call from the Underwriting VP on Friday. The Modesto office is ramping up and Gail had a solid month here in Sacramento.
I was listening to a national radio show yesterday on the way back from Folsom Lake and heard a sports announcer say that the Toronto Blue Jays did not have a game on July 4th and that was because Canadians do not have a 4th of July. Somehow, I thought we were all on the same calendar, but apparently not. Do Canadians have a July 32nd for skipping July 4th? Interesting bit of trivia or simply an act of a bufoon?
Darla and I had a nice long weekend. The boys are still on the east coast with their Dad, I believe somewhere in Washington, DC and Darla and I had to make do with just each other. We started the weekend by going out to Folsom Lake Friday night and enjoying a picnic on the beach. I let the staff go at 3 PM as it was DEAD and most of the companies and agents closed down at noon. I stayed until 4:30 and then met Darla at a parking lot close to the beach entrance. We parked my Mustang, bought some sandwiches and Darla brought drinks from home. We sat in the 100 degree heat, reading books and looking out over the lake and contemplating the free three days ahead. It was a nice start to a good holiday weekend.
I played golf in the Firecracker tournament on Saturday. We played a modified Stableford scoring system with positive points for Pars, birdies and eagles and negative points for double bogey or higher. I shot a 41+45=86 and scored 19 points. I was in the first group off and left right away as Darla and I were off to spend the night in Paradise at Darla's parent's new home. I'm guessing that my 19 points will place me in the middle of the pack. I hadn't played golf in three weeks and was rusty. My short game suffered the most, although my putter was hot. I rolled in three putts of over fifty feet, all of them for par and all on the front side. I easily could have shot 90 if not for a smoking putter.
Darla's parents new home is nothing short of spectacular. It sits in a former Apple orchard in Paradise and is part of a group of custom homes all with at least one acre of land. Their home is a single story home with the garage below the main floor and loads of storage. There are two rooms below the main living area, both used as storage. One is perfect for a root cellar and the other houses the air conditioner unit, the water heater and all of the controls for the sprinklers. They also have a water softener. The back yard is immense and has room for the fifth wheel and a separate two car garage at the rear of the property that is being used as a shop. The garage has water and is plumbed for a toilet. If they finish the construction and add the toilet, Earl could live out there. That building looks fairly new and I'd guess is only a couple of years old.
We went up to help them paint the house and joined Alicia and Darla's brother, Steve, a the house on Saturday night. Earl kept telling me he had a "special" job for me. I'm not much for painting and couldn't really sink my teeth into spending a beautiful July 4th weekend inside painting walls. Earl read me like a book and turned me loose on the nine sprinkler zones over the acre of property. Most of the sprinkler system is drip line and the former owner had used her hoe to dig up weeds and destroyed a good portion of the sprinkler lines in the process. I spent most of the day repairing the broken lines between trips to the hardware store. The rest of the gang were inside painting up a storm and I was completely in my element out in the fresh air digging in the dirt. I ended up changing out two of the sprinkler control valves and moving several of the sprinkler heads to get better coverage. The main lawn has oscillating sprinkler heads and Earl and I moved a couple of the heads to get better coverage. He still has work to do on the sprinkler system, but when we left most of the ground was covered by sprinklers and they could leave the home without fear of dying plants.
Their home is three bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths with room for four cars under cover. The home has a formal dining room, a living room and a family room, a hot stove fireplace, a garbage disposal and an inside atrium off of the living room. The home is beautiful and surrounded by a lanai off the living room and master bedroom that looks down on the property. They have a dry creekbed that runs along the side of the property that will have water during the winter months. The property is large and will keep Earl busy during his retirement I'm sure.
Darla and I stayed over Saturday night on an air mattress and sleeping bags and drove home Sunday night after working all day. The home includes a jacuzzi in the master bathroom that Darla and I put through it's paces before bed. Earl and Frances are staying in the fifth wheel for right now. They are redecorating, adding paint, carpet, window coverings and some furniture prior to their move in August. The current carpet is a peach colored monstrosity and they are replacing ALL of it. The home itself is painted an almost peachlike color on the wood sided exterior and they plan on painting the exterior a more natural wood stain.
Darla and I spent the day yesterday relaxing at Folsom Lake on the beach. We bought a State parks pass for this year at $120. It is $7 per entry and the pass is good at all state parks. The lake up near Darla's parent's new home is a state park and we will get in there without paying additional entry as well. The pass is hung from the rear view mirror and David and Destanie can use the pass as well in his car. We had a very rainy winter and Folsom Lake is as full as it has been in ten years. The lake is at 94% capacity and there is very little beach left. Last year we had to drive down onto the old beach and another 300 yards down to the water. We sat yesterday under the shade of an umbrella and on our blanket reading and soaking up some sun between trips to the water to cool off. We watched the park police write up our closest neighbors on the beach for alcohol consumption. They had two gallon jugs of strawberry margaritas and the guy claimed he didn't know they had liquor in them. Usually the police just give a verbal warning and make them pour out the alcohol, but this guy bought himself a ticket for lying to the officer. We had a silent giggle over that. The group next door left shortly after their hootch was poured on the beach. Some people cannot enjoy themselves without drinking and the lake is one place that restricts alcohol. It is truly a family friendly destination as the rowdys stay away in droves. Nice.
Well, I have some pictures to add to the blog from our trip and will do that now. I hope all are well and looking to the Lord for direction in your lives. Remember, God does allow U-turns. Ciao.
I was listening to a national radio show yesterday on the way back from Folsom Lake and heard a sports announcer say that the Toronto Blue Jays did not have a game on July 4th and that was because Canadians do not have a 4th of July. Somehow, I thought we were all on the same calendar, but apparently not. Do Canadians have a July 32nd for skipping July 4th? Interesting bit of trivia or simply an act of a bufoon?
Darla and I had a nice long weekend. The boys are still on the east coast with their Dad, I believe somewhere in Washington, DC and Darla and I had to make do with just each other. We started the weekend by going out to Folsom Lake Friday night and enjoying a picnic on the beach. I let the staff go at 3 PM as it was DEAD and most of the companies and agents closed down at noon. I stayed until 4:30 and then met Darla at a parking lot close to the beach entrance. We parked my Mustang, bought some sandwiches and Darla brought drinks from home. We sat in the 100 degree heat, reading books and looking out over the lake and contemplating the free three days ahead. It was a nice start to a good holiday weekend.
I played golf in the Firecracker tournament on Saturday. We played a modified Stableford scoring system with positive points for Pars, birdies and eagles and negative points for double bogey or higher. I shot a 41+45=86 and scored 19 points. I was in the first group off and left right away as Darla and I were off to spend the night in Paradise at Darla's parent's new home. I'm guessing that my 19 points will place me in the middle of the pack. I hadn't played golf in three weeks and was rusty. My short game suffered the most, although my putter was hot. I rolled in three putts of over fifty feet, all of them for par and all on the front side. I easily could have shot 90 if not for a smoking putter.
Darla's parents new home is nothing short of spectacular. It sits in a former Apple orchard in Paradise and is part of a group of custom homes all with at least one acre of land. Their home is a single story home with the garage below the main floor and loads of storage. There are two rooms below the main living area, both used as storage. One is perfect for a root cellar and the other houses the air conditioner unit, the water heater and all of the controls for the sprinklers. They also have a water softener. The back yard is immense and has room for the fifth wheel and a separate two car garage at the rear of the property that is being used as a shop. The garage has water and is plumbed for a toilet. If they finish the construction and add the toilet, Earl could live out there. That building looks fairly new and I'd guess is only a couple of years old.
We went up to help them paint the house and joined Alicia and Darla's brother, Steve, a the house on Saturday night. Earl kept telling me he had a "special" job for me. I'm not much for painting and couldn't really sink my teeth into spending a beautiful July 4th weekend inside painting walls. Earl read me like a book and turned me loose on the nine sprinkler zones over the acre of property. Most of the sprinkler system is drip line and the former owner had used her hoe to dig up weeds and destroyed a good portion of the sprinkler lines in the process. I spent most of the day repairing the broken lines between trips to the hardware store. The rest of the gang were inside painting up a storm and I was completely in my element out in the fresh air digging in the dirt. I ended up changing out two of the sprinkler control valves and moving several of the sprinkler heads to get better coverage. The main lawn has oscillating sprinkler heads and Earl and I moved a couple of the heads to get better coverage. He still has work to do on the sprinkler system, but when we left most of the ground was covered by sprinklers and they could leave the home without fear of dying plants.
Their home is three bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths with room for four cars under cover. The home has a formal dining room, a living room and a family room, a hot stove fireplace, a garbage disposal and an inside atrium off of the living room. The home is beautiful and surrounded by a lanai off the living room and master bedroom that looks down on the property. They have a dry creekbed that runs along the side of the property that will have water during the winter months. The property is large and will keep Earl busy during his retirement I'm sure.
Darla and I stayed over Saturday night on an air mattress and sleeping bags and drove home Sunday night after working all day. The home includes a jacuzzi in the master bathroom that Darla and I put through it's paces before bed. Earl and Frances are staying in the fifth wheel for right now. They are redecorating, adding paint, carpet, window coverings and some furniture prior to their move in August. The current carpet is a peach colored monstrosity and they are replacing ALL of it. The home itself is painted an almost peachlike color on the wood sided exterior and they plan on painting the exterior a more natural wood stain.
Darla and I spent the day yesterday relaxing at Folsom Lake on the beach. We bought a State parks pass for this year at $120. It is $7 per entry and the pass is good at all state parks. The lake up near Darla's parent's new home is a state park and we will get in there without paying additional entry as well. The pass is hung from the rear view mirror and David and Destanie can use the pass as well in his car. We had a very rainy winter and Folsom Lake is as full as it has been in ten years. The lake is at 94% capacity and there is very little beach left. Last year we had to drive down onto the old beach and another 300 yards down to the water. We sat yesterday under the shade of an umbrella and on our blanket reading and soaking up some sun between trips to the water to cool off. We watched the park police write up our closest neighbors on the beach for alcohol consumption. They had two gallon jugs of strawberry margaritas and the guy claimed he didn't know they had liquor in them. Usually the police just give a verbal warning and make them pour out the alcohol, but this guy bought himself a ticket for lying to the officer. We had a silent giggle over that. The group next door left shortly after their hootch was poured on the beach. Some people cannot enjoy themselves without drinking and the lake is one place that restricts alcohol. It is truly a family friendly destination as the rowdys stay away in droves. Nice.
Well, I have some pictures to add to the blog from our trip and will do that now. I hope all are well and looking to the Lord for direction in your lives. Remember, God does allow U-turns. Ciao.
