Father's Day Meanderings

A great weekend is in the books. Father's day is a day without kids for me, which is perhaps backwards in the scheme of things, but the way it works when divorce is part of the equation. The boys joined us for church and a great sermon on the role of women in Christianity as the pastor continues to debunk the myths and half truths portrayed in the DaVinci Code. The book, by the way, is a world-wide phenomenon which shows how far this world has come from a world of intellect and common sense to a world basically run by celebrity and cattle drive mentality. I've heard that many of the DaVinci Code movie goers have been heard "mooing" as they stand in line to get in to see one of the world's great farces played out. Dan Brown has reached the pinnacle of celebrity, but likely will face his eternity in a hot dungeon if he believes half of the nonsense that he writes. As to his premise that the early church was a religion that believed that God was a woman. Frankly, the Old Testament does not give God a gender. The only time that God receives a gender is after Christ is born and he refers to himself as the Father and Christ as his son. As to the notion that Mary Magdalene was Christ's wife, look at the Bible. The disciples were perplexed as to why Jesus was so affectionate with Mary Magdalene. If indeed, he was married to her, would the disciples wonder why Jesus and Mary were so close? No. It is again a myth that Brown has thrown onto the guileless public, whose brains have turned to mush in this celebrity driven world. Father's Day is to me a time to thank my earthly father for the guidance and love and support that he has always shown me, but more so to celebrate the fact that God accepted me into his family through the death and life of Jesus Christ. Praise God.

The boys did head over to their Dad's house after church and Darla and I packed up and headed to the Lake. We did NOT bring the jet ski, but simply spent a relaxing afternoon on the beach with a good book, some drinks and a Subway sandwich lunch. The lake continues to be full and there is only a small strip of beach. We were bombarded by frisbees and footballs and even the volleyball from a game going on down the beach. The weekend saw temperatures in the mid and upper-nineties and Summer is in full throttle although it doesn't officially start for two more days.

I went out to the Thunder Valley casino on Saturday night for Anthony's bachelor party. Anthony was my assistant until I promoted him to an underwriter position last Spring. I have pictures of he and his betrothed, Erin, on the blog a few weeks ago. His brother set up a golf day followed by dinner at Austin's steakhouse in the casino and then a round of gambling. I had a qualifier tournament at my club on Saturday (I shot 84, ho hum) so begged out of the golf, but told them that I'd meet them at the casino for dinner. Austins' was awesome and I had their signature prime rib dinner which is a 26 oz prime rib, bone in, with a thickness of about three inches. It was huge and delicious and Buddy certainly enjoyed the leftovers as I had the bone and about 8 ounces of meat left for him to gnaw on. The restaurant is very nice and I'd like to take Darla there soon. I know that we can share a Prime Rib or one of their Filet Mignons as the portions are enormous. It cost $270 for five of us. There were ten at the casino, but half of the guys kept gambling and wouldn't join us for dinner. Perhaps they were confuased on the concept of a bachelor party. These guys are all in their mid to late twenties and the concept of "me first" apparently rules their lives. Anthony wanted to get the group together to play blackjack after dinner, but I begged off as the tables are all minimum $25 at Thunder Valley and you pay for the cocktails on top of that. My gambling chit was about $100 and I didn't want to spend it all on four hands of blackjack. I played nickle slots and got hammered pretty good by the casino, but finally hit four aces with a three on a double-double poker machine for a $100 payout on a 25 cent bet and walked away. I was able to pay for dinner and bring home about $60 of my $100 stake. I left the gang about 11:15 and headed home as Darla and the boys were back from Almanor.

Darla and the boys had a cabin up at Almanor for Friday night and stayed over Saturday and wake boarded off of Earl's boat. I had my golf tournament and Anthony's bachelor party and stayed home to attend to those things. The weather was finally great at Almanor and they had a really good time. We have a reservation at Almanor over the July 4th holiday and will spend five days at the resort. We'll bring the jet ski and camp out for the long weekend. I have both July 3rd and 4th off and we'll stay over until July 4th. David may have to drive up himself and come back himself as he has to work on July 3rd. I may even bring my golf clubs and play golf on July 3rd. I will have to miss the Firecracker tournament on July 1st. In fact I'm missing two tournaments this weekend for the wedding. Who says that golf rules my life? We will not have a cabin over July 4th and will be dirt camping. I will survice that, but I can't say that I'm excited about the prospect of slumming it for a weekend. I think we evolved to building houses and having indoor plumbing for a reason.

Jennifer has started a new blog and I have the link at the bottom of this page. My blog is about the comings and goings of a middle class family in suburbia. Hers is the adventures of a generation X'R living the dream in the middle east. Her story of the climb of the mountain in Korea is good reading. Way to go, Jenn. You make your old man proud. Jennifer, by the way, bought me an eclectic group of gifts for Father's Day including a travel alarm clock/flashlight which is about the size and shape of a cigar cylinder. She also got me a chiller, which is a device that you hook up to the USB port of a computer and it keeps cans chilled to 45 degrees (cokes, etc.). The piece de resistance was a basket of home made root beer and snacks. I have waited to try the root beer as I wanted to get a half gallon of vanilla bean ice cream and make a root beer float. Thank you, Jenn.

Darla and the boys also bought me a set of golf shorts and shirts by Izod. Izod has the best golf shorts around with knitted stretch waist band and large pockets for tees, etc. It was a nice celebration for sure.

Well it is time to do payroll and I have to get at it. I hope you all have a great week and take the DaVinci Code for what it is, a piece of fiction and not a code of ethics. Ciao.

Buddy's New Butch Summer Haircut

I'm showing the new and the old Buddy. We have a new dog. Darla called me last week laughing hysterically. She's taken Buddy in for a Summer cut and they shaved him down to the skin. He is now a white dog. We had seen a golden retreiver at the Lake a few weeks ago and thought that the shorter cut looked good. That dog had been cut to about two inches of hair and looked really cute. Apparently the groomer didn't understand or got carried away with the cut. What can you do?

77 degrees with high thin clouds

Sorry that the blog is late. I actually tried to work on it from home yesterday, but the site was having problems and I finally gave up. I stayed in Roseville yesterday as we had the Insurance Golf Day in the afternoon at Sierra View Country Club. The Roseville Golf Club also had our annual David Oxley Junior Golf tournament in the morning at Diamond Oaks and I went over to help out marshalling the under-11 9 holers. David Oxley was a junior golfer who also worked in the cart barn at Diamond Oaks. He was killled on a camping trip back in the 70's and we have had an annual tournament in his honor ever since. Diamond Oaks and Sierra View are virtually side-by-side in Roseville and I was able to help out with the junior tournament in the morning and make it over in plenty of time to warm up, eat lunch and play in the Insurance tourney.

The weather was awesome, a little overcast in the morning with a light breeze and a high temperature of 77 degrees. We are being blessed with some Spring-like temperatures here in the middle of June. We deserve it after all of the rain that we endured in the Winter months.

The kids at the junior golf tournament always amaze me at how accomplished they are. There are a few beginners that play, but there was one 11 year old, who drove the ball a mile. He actually played in the Roseville Amatuer and shot a 75 from the tips. I talked to his Dad and he said that he has him play with the top amateurs in the area, but also has him occasionally play with his own age group. He shot a 37 on the front nine.

I was asked to marshall on the par five tenth hole. The hole has a crest where you scale a hill and then work down the hill to the green. You cannot tell if the landing area is clear from the tee box, so they had me stand out on the top of the hill and signal when it was clear to hit. These little kids really bomb the ball and were playing from the red tees. I picked out a spot behind the large oak tree on the left center of the fairway and would signal that they could tee off and then take shelter behind the tree. The problem was that there was an ant hill at the base of the tree that I couldn't see until I felt the ants working their way from my tennis shoes up my legs. When I finally realized that I was being used as a new ant hill, I did the fire dance in the fairway. It took me two hours to rid myself of ants. I had ants on my shirt, in my hair, on my hat and in other places that will go unmentioned. I was telling the story to our president when I came in from my duty and he said, "No shit." as he knocked several ants off my shoulders and hat.

I made it out to the Insurance golf tournament and continued to find ants crawling on me as well as a spider that my playing partner picked out of my hair. I was like Euell Gibbons, just living in nature and eating bark off of trees. Our team shot a respectable 60 in the scramble tournament which won us a hearty "attaboy" as the winners shot 53 and 48!! respectively. I was in the third to last group through hole number 12, which is a 185 yard par three. I hit a 4 iron that ran low and hit the ground about 20 yards short of the green but kept rolling up and onto the green and to about six feet of the hole. I was the closest of the day to that point at 6'8" and on tap to win the $250 gift certificate to a local golf shop. Unfortunately, Caleb Summerhays was behind me and put his tee shot 5'10" away to claim the only prize on the hole. Caleb has a cousin who plays on the PGA tour (Brad Summerhays) and an Uncle on the senior tour (Bruce Summerhays). His 17 year old sister has a golf scholarship to BYU and his brother just missed qualifying for the US Open by two shots. I played golf with Caleb last Wednesday and he "struggled" to a 75. I did manage to win a $50 gift certificate to Home Depot as well as a wind jacket from the pro shop in the raffle.

Daniel is up at the first of three football camps this Summer. This week he is up at the University of Nevada Reno until Thursday and next week he will be tent camping at Woodcreek from Monday until Wednesday and then be at a two-day camp in Sacramento. At least it is keeping him busy. I have a job for him when he gets back on Friday as I have to get some furniture out of storage for the office and I'll pay him $50 and buy him lunch to come down and move it into our office.

We will finally make it up to Almanor on the weekend of July 1st. I have both July 3rd and 4th off and we have a spot at the Almanor Resort and will bring our jet ski up for a long weekend. Darla is planning to be up at Almanor this weekend, but I have the Net Amateur tournament at Diamond Oaks.

I read today where a sunbather was killed yesterday on the beach in Oxnard, when two lifeguards accidentally drove their SUV over her head as they were patrolling the beach. And the concern is melanoma?

This is necessarily short today as I must get to work and get caught up on the mail, phone calls and minutia that pile up on a day out of the office. A Day out is never free. Take care. Ciao.

Summer is coming

The heat is on in Sacramento. Strangely, we were supposed to head up to Lake Almanor this weekend and the weather up in the mountains was cold, cloudy and unpredictable. We were all packed and set to load up the jet ski and head to Almanor Saturday morning and Darla's Dad called and said that it was overcast and cold and that we'd best stay home. That is two weeks in a row that Almanor has been a dud. It was, however, sunny and hot in the valley with temperatures near 95 degrees and Folsom Lake was packed. The water level is so high that many of the good beach access is under water. We ended up jammed on a small slip of land next to the boat ramps that the jet skiers use to launch their craft.

The ski held up well over the winter and I changed out the battery to be safe. The only problem we had is that some water ended up in the hull and some of the electrical sat in water all winter. I thought I had completely drained the hull, but some water must have been left in the engine and slowly worked its way out and into the bilge area. We hooked up the new battery on Saturday morning and got the engine to fire up. Unfortunately we were not as lucky at the lake as the engine would NOT start. Normally we fire it up while it is still on the trailer and then start it again after we get it in the water. The reason is that it is harder to start in the water as the engine has to turn the water as well. We finally got it going after about ten minutes of frustration and it ran really rough for the first ten minutes or so, but slowly as the water was forced out of the hull and the electrical dried out, it was back to its old self.

There is a great deal of dead wood in the water right now as well as large mounds of it that the parks department has already dredged from the water. We had to be a little careful manuevering around the trees and limbs in the water. Most of it has been removed, but there are still some sections that look like a boat wreck because of the piles of driftwood in the water.

David somehow managed to lose our Annual Pass to Folsom Lake. It is still good until the end of July and costs about $175 for day use and boat access. He borrowed it on Memorial Day to take a trip to the lake with his life group from church and lost it somewhere between his Dad's house and ours. He said that he remembers setting it out on the floor at his Dad's. The counter is too jammed with stuff and he didn't want it to get lost. He paid our way into the park ($15) on Sunday and we are giving him this week to see if he can find it. Both of the boys keep a really messy room and perhaps they will learn that when you lose something in your piles of crap, it's time to clean up the mess. Perhaps not. If David doesn't find the pass it will cost him about $50 to have us buy a replacement earlier than planned. Lesson learned I hope. More to Darla to not trust the boys with something like a pass to the lake. They won't be taking the ski out themselves anytime soon.

I did not play any golf this weekend as I planned to be up in Almanor with the family. They will want to go back up in a couple of weeks and I will likely stay home as I have golf tournaments planned over the next couple of weeks. I shot a 41 on Thursday night and have golf again this week on Wednesday (marketing trip with two agents), Thursday (twilight league) and Saturday and Sunday in a tournament. I did manage to get through the weekend without golf without too much withdrawal.

We had the fruitless plum tree removed on the side of the house on Friday. The tree crew also trimmed up the valley scrub oak in the front of the house. It had never been trimmed and needed some major pruning. There is actually some light finding its way onto the front lawn again after having been cast in darkness for so long. I was really pleased with the job that they did, but even more so with the cleanup. They completely removed the tree down to the stump and removed all traces of the tree including leaves, branches, etc. I would use them again for sure.

I have two new employees starting today and I had another employee give notice on Friday. Margaret works in the Modesto satellite office and is leaving to work up in Seattle. She had told us that she wanted to move to Seattle and it was our goal to partner her with an experienced broker in the Seattle area, but we never found the right candidate. She tired of waiting and found another job. It is simply another hole to fill. I am finally fully staffed in Sacramento.

Well, this is short, but I was late getting in this morning. Some motorcyclist decided to plant himself on the roadway on my main access road to work and it took me an hour to get in today. I saw his bike when I passed and the handlebars were broken off. I assume he is in as bad of shape at the hospital. Motorcycles are a sure way to see Jesus sooner than later. I hope you all have a good week. Ciao.

Memorial Day is just a faint Memory

The long weekend has come and gone and the reality of having taken a day of golf on Friday followed by the long weekend hits me as I sit in my office digging out from under piles of paper, phone messages and just general stuff. The periodicals are stacking up in my "in" box and I look at all the trade journals and magazines and wonder why I get all this stuff. Do I really ever think there will be time to put my feet up and read it? Amazing. It is Tuesday after a long weekend and the calls from staff have already started coming in. "I don't feel well and I'll take the day off." We close the month on Thursday, get your lazy butt up and get in to work.

I had a great Memorial Day weekend and I played 4 golf games in 5 days. I had actually cancelled my weekend game as Darla wanted to go up to Lake Almanor and visit her folks. We ended up not going as the weather was so bad up north that it actually snowed on Friday night. I looked at the long range forecast and it was 48 degrees and showers. Somehow sitting in a fifth wheel in the rain didn't really appeal to me, so we cancelled the trip. I worked feverishly to get back into the Memorial tournament and was able to get an 11:15 tee time. My game deteriorated a bit from last weekend and I shot 85, 89, 43 and 82 over the course of the four games. The 82 was a 42+40 on the weekend in the tournament and at least I saved the best for when it counted. The weather here locally was outstanding with temperatures between 78 and 83 over the long weekend and I'm sporting a slight sunburn from the fun of the weekend.

We got together with five other couples from the golf league yesterday for a barbecue of kebobs, grilled sausage, appetizers and margaritas. It was a fun and enjoyable visit with the gang and we always deign to get together more often whenever we get the group together. We had the barbecue at the home of some friends in Granite Bay right next to Folsom Lake. The lake was so crowded on Memorial Day, that the CHP had set up a roadblock and were turning people around. Charlie had to go down to the roadblock and leave our names so the officer would let us through. He wanted to know what we were cooking before he'd okay it though. Funny stuff.

Daniel is out of school and has a boring Summer ahead of him. His father will NOT let him get a job because it takes time away from him when Dan is working. Oh, boo hoo. Get a life or a girlfriend or something. Why is a 16 year old kid responsible for the well being of a 51 year old divorced man? My concern is that Daniel already tends toward being lazy, sleeping in until noon and then getting up to eat before going back to bed to rest from the stress of having to be upright for ten minutes. He would do well to focus on working and making some money. His car gets about 12 miles to the gallon. Right now his father is the wallet and I think he likes it that way. It keeps Daniel under his thumb. David is already working full time this Summer and doesn't need his Dad's charity. It is tremendously frustrating to me and I can't fathom Daniel living every other week at my house like a mole in his room. He'll be sleeping at 6:30 at night when I get home from a day of work and I just get cranky at him.

We are still trying to fill some holes here at work and I have an offer out to an Underwriting Assistant as of Friday. The CEO wanted to amend the contract with the placement firm from 90 days to 180 days in case the candidate doesn't work out and they would need to give us a replacement candidate. I am hiring this person on a temp-to-perm basis. I have finally hired a new Accounting person and have one more Assistant Underwriter position to fill and I'm interviewing for that position now.

We hope to get the jet ski out of mothballs and on to the water this weekend. Darla wants to go up to Lake Almanor, but I'd like to stay local and get the ski out to Folsom Lake. I have no golf this weekend and the weekend is free. Somewhere and somehow, we will get the ski out on the water.

Well, this is short, but the mounds of work on my desk are calling me to attention, so I better stand up and salute. You don't really want to see that salute though. Really. Have a good week. Ciao.

Monday and it's back to Rain...What's Up with That?

Yep..it is raining in Northern California on May 22nd. I had kind of hoped that the rains of the early Spring would leave us with nothing but sun and fun now, but alas the great weatherman in the sky has decided that we need some continued drenching. So far the rains, which arrived yesterday and are expected to leave us tomorrow, have been light though constant. We should see half an inch out of this storm and I can turn off the sprinklers for a few days.

The early arrivers are a little peeved with me lately. I have dropped coffee from my diet, in fact the last cup of coffee that I had was with Dad and Shirley at the Seattle's Best coffeehouse in Las Vegas. I decided that I was drinking too much coffee and rather than reduce the intake, I'd just cut it off. I went through some initial withdrawal headaches, but feel great now. I've replaced the coffee with water which is much better for me. The coffee, which used to be hot and ready when the troops arrived, now goes wanting.

I did a pretty intense trimming of the bushes and trees in the backyard over the weekend. The rain that we had in March and April really brought out some dense green foliage and it was beginning to choke the gardens, so I trimmed back all of the bushes and plants to allow us to see the individual plants. I have an arborist coming out next Friday to trim the scrub oak in the front yard and to cut down the fruitless cherry tree on the side yard. The former owner liked to prance about sans clothing in the yard and wanted a tree to block the bedroom windows on the two story next to us. The problem is that we only have about 14 feet between the houses and the tree is growing onto both roofs.

Golf was an A+ this weekend. I shot 40 in my Thursday night league. We've played four nights and my scores are 42-40-40-40. Saturday Boyd, a 4 handicap dropped out and left me to play with Gary, a 25, Bob Hand a 22 and one of Bob's friends Howard, also a 22. I had visions of ineptitude creeping into my psyche, but shot one of my best rounds of the year at 37+38=75. Somehow I would have rather put that score together with Boyd in the group as I was up against a 91, 99 and 101 and paid $1.00 out in skins. How? Well, those handicaps allow two strokes on 15 holes combined and a par for them is a net eagle. I had two birdies, five bogies and eleven pars in my round. I've shot 74 twice at Diamond Oaks and now a 75, so my game which has been stuck at 83 and 84 is coming around. I actually have four games planned for this week ahead, so my game is rounding into shape at the right time.

I've included a couple of pictures from our evening with Anthony and Erin from Friday night. Anthony is the underwriter in the office who used to be my assistant and is now one of the top underwriters on my staff. Anthony and Erin are getting married on June 24th and Darla and I have been invited to the wedding. They have asked me to videotape the ceremony and we were getting together to discuss that and to have some private time to talk about things. They are both really busy with the wedding approaching and we finally carved out a night to spend together.

The pictures from that night were taken with Darla's new digital camera, a Canon Rebel XT. The Canon has lenses that are interchangeable with her Canon Rebel 35 MM SLR camera and we had been waiting for the price to come down on the digital. Finally, the price had dipped below $1000 late last year and I was able to get the camera for closer to $500 recently and pulled the trigger. Darla loves to take pictures and has been less than impressed with the quality of the digital cameras. I think the Canon will change her mind.

It was David and Darla's birthday last week coming on the heels of Mother's Day as they always do. May is an expensive month in the Lyon family and this May was no different. We went out to dinner at the Cliffhouse restaurant in Folsom, overlooking Lake Natoma. Darla's sister who was born on the same date, but five years later joined us as did Darla's parent's Earl and Francis. We had a great time and were able to celebrtate all of the birthdays at one fell swoop.

I was still struggling with the decision of who to work for as of Tuesday night and it was nice to have the benefit of Earl's wisdom. His advice was to pray on it and see if the answer was revealed to me by the next morning. Indeed, it was, as I woke with a calmness and a surety of my decision. I talked several times to Dad and he gave me the benefit of his business background and his own ideals, but it was the simple suggestion to pray about it that made the decision for me. Not that we hadn't been praying. I think the problem was I was doing all of the talking and not listening for an answer.

Darla and I attended a Christian Financial planning seminar yesterday afternoon at church. I have been wanting to update my will, but the attorney and financial planners who were at the seminar strongly suggest a living trust which will avoid probate. Darla and I will be meeting with a representative to put together a living trust for the family. The financial planners and attorneys will draw up all of the documents and help us retitle our home in the name of the trust and there is no charge for the service (it usually costs $2000-$5000). We only have to agree to set aside a percentage of our estate for the church. Given that probate costs are 6-8%, leaving 5% to the church is really a bargain and we would likely want to leave a charitable donation to the church anyhow. The trust is revocable, meaning we can change it at any time, but I need to get serious about providing for Darla and the family if something happens to me and there is no time like the present.

Well, on that thought of my own mortality, I leave you to your day. I just want to give praise to God for all of the blessings in my life. My hope is that He continues to bless you as well. Ciao.

Back in the Saddle

Decisions are made and I will remain in the saddle here at Burns and Wilcox. Unigard made a spirited effort to recruit me over to their office and even offered me a serious cash signing bonus to make the move more palatable. What it came down to was my comfort level. I've earned my stripes here at BW and I'm finally on the threshold of being rewarded for all of my hard work. BW responded with a very generous pay package including a car allowance. It wasn't all about money either, it never was. I have the backing of my two immediate superiors, Harvey in SF and Bill McCord in Michigan. What I didn't have was a sense that Alan Kaufman, the CEO and President of Burns and Wilcox and the head of the Kaufman Group, our parent, was on board. I called Alan on Monday and told him that I needed to hear where he stood. Alan was very gracious and said all of the right things about being thrilled with the changes in Sacramento and standing behind the decision to keep me in place. He will be in Sacramento this Summer to officially promote me. That was worth as much to me as the money, to hear from Alan that he sees value in my role here in the company.

I was really quite humbled by the interest and the respect shown to me by Unigard. It's too bad in a way that I put them through such a circus in trying to land me. I named my price and, frankly, they came up just a tad short of what I wanted to make the move The upside here at BW is far greater than Unigard, and, frankly, I know the pitfalls of my job here. The unknown over at Unigard was daunting. Their offer of a pension almost drove me over the top.

I am in the process of hiring several people in the office and have to share a quick story. I had two interviews set up last week and one company representative coming in to meet with the staff. The company rep was in at 10 AM and the interviews were 1 PM and 3 PM. At 10 AM, Ben at the front desk called to tell me that Karen was here. I gathered the staff and invited Karen into the conference room. She looked a little unsure, but went along with the plan. The underwriters each shared a business card with her and sat down to hear her "dog and pony" pitch. I excused myself to get her a cup of water. As I was walking by the front hallway, I saw Sharon Haenig, the rep from Hartford Steam Boiler waiting for me. It turns out that my 3PM interview had her time wrong and was there at 10 AM. Gail had figured it out and brought Karen out of the meeting to meet with me and I sent Sharon in to do her presentation.

To make matters worse, I use some common interview questions, including "what is your greatest strength" and "what is your biggest weakness or something you need to improve upon?" Karen's biggest weakness was Public Speaking. Poor thing. The good news is she is a great candidate and I'm making her an offer this week.

Well, I promised to let you know the outcome of my job decision. I'm very comfortable with the decision that I've made and feel that my relationship with BW took a real turn in the last week. I prayed hard about this decision and God spoke to me through the process. It is a pretty humbling experience and I give all of the glory to God. Be well. Ciao.

A New Day is Dawning

I have been a little coy in discussing what is happening with me regarding work and that was due to the internet and the fact that this blog can be viewed by anyone. I have been recruited to go to work for Unigard Insurance as a Commercial Account Manager. My function would be that of a field manager handling the key agents with accounts over $25,000 and up to $250,000 and higher. A recruiting firm had been in contact with me back in 2003 when I left Republic Western and this firm, in Dallas, had kept my profile of the "perfect job". I've always enjoyed the freedom and relationships that are built in a field underwriting environment. I spend alot of time with the agents and create accounts that fit their needs, meet with them regularly, trouble shoot accounts and make sure that their needs are met. The company, Unigard, is located in Bellevue, Washington within a stone's throw of the Microsoft campus in Redmond. In fact, between the two companies is a road, Bell-Red Road which is the dividing line for Bellevue and Redmond. I flew in to Bellevue last Tuesday and visited with the upper management of Unigard and was suitably impressed. The company is a large regional insurance company and they are owned by an even larger Swiss parent, the Winterthur Group, who also owns National Casualty, a large East Coast regional insurance company. Unigard put on the dog for me and I really enjoyed the staff and managers that I met.

Friday, Darla had some minor surgery, oral surgery in fact and I stayed home to drive her to the clinic and back home again. Unigard wanted to have a phone conference with me on Friday at 10:30, which was during Darla's surgery so I was okay with that. I got Darla set up at the oral surgeons (she was having gum surgery, where they graft a strip of skin from the roof of your mouth to the recessed portions of your gums. It sounds hideous, but she seemed to handle it fine.) Unigard called right on time and offered me a wonderful starting salary and pay package. It was not quite what I had hoped for, but given that I would no longer have to commute (the office is in Roseville), the job includes a pension and 401K, and I'd no longer have any management responsibility, it is a great offer. I told them I needed the weekend to decide what I would do. I then called my boss and told him that I'd been approached by another company and offered a very tempting position. He listened and told me that he'd discuss it with his superiors and give me their response. True to his word, they were able to get back to me within an hour and offered me a 5% bump from what Unigard offered and a $300 a month car allowance. I, in turn, passed on that information to Unigard and will see what response they can come up with. I'm trying now to get ahold of Alan Kauffman, the CEO of Burns and Wilcox. I need to hear from him that he considers me his guy in Sacramento. I have the confidence of Harvey, my boss, and Bill McCord, Harvey's boss, but I want to hear from Alan. Things will untie themselves this morning.

The surgery for Darla was a stunning success and I'm still amazed at how well she did. The grafting was hard for me to imagine, much less having it done. She popped out of surgery feeling fine. It was partially due to the fact that the surgery went so well and mostly due to the wonderful drugs that she was on. Darla has such a bubbly personality that I really couldn't tell that she was looped when she came out of the office. She wanted a frappacino from Starbucks so I stopped and got her an iced frappacino, which the doctor recommended. As we were driving home and she was prattling on about this and that, I looked over and she had the frappacino running down her chin and on to her blouse. Her mouth was still frozen from the novacaine. I looked at her and told her I'd marry her all over again...or something like that.

I had poker Friday night and Darla stayed home to rest and recoup from the surgery. It was a surprise 55th birthday party for one of the guys we play with and he was caught totally off guard when we showed up. One of the guys had gone on his computer and traced back our game to May 15, 1987. We've been playing poker for 19 years. Some marriages don't last that long. The game went late and I got home about 1:30 AM. I crept into bed as Darla was fast asleep and turned the alarm off that I thought we'd left set from Friday morning. Saturday, Darla woke with a start at 7:45 and asked what time it was. I told her and she jumped out of bed. Her new jewelry sales organization, Silpada, was having a Sacramento convention and her sister and friend, Missy, were coming over at 8:00 AM to pick her up. So much for babying herself and taking it easy. Off she went to the conference, one day after surgery. What can you do?

I played in the final day of the three-day golf tournament Saturday and after shooting 84 and 82, averaging 83, I shot 39+44=83. I was really disappointed in my back nine, but the greens were really bumpy and I just lost focus. So I played three days as an 11 handicap and ended up 33 over par or even par net for the tournament and took fifth place in my flight. I didn't shoot great golf, but played steady and kept myself in the running with a consistent run of golf that now stands at about three months and counting.

Jennifer sent Darla a very nice bouquet of flowers for Mother's Day that arrived just as we got home from her surgery on Friday. Thanks, Jennifer, you are really showing some class lately. We went to church yesterday and then out to breakfast. From there we took the boys up to the Empire Gold Mine in Grass Valley. Darla and I had toured the grounds last year and wanted the boys to see the history and the mansion and gold mine shaft. They had all of the docents on staff and we were able to tour the blacksmithing shop, the mine shaft and the pump house, as well as the gardens and mansion and the clubhouse. It was a fun day.

Well, work awaits. I will update this when a decision has been made. Ciao.

Spring has finally Sprung

Thank God. Spring has finally arrived in a rush of foliage and flowers and, even better, temperatures in the upper seventies and low eighties. I played two days of golf this weekend and I'm sporting a nice farmer's tan with a golfer's twist to the tan..shorts and ankle socks. I actually have a slight burn on my neck and I'm wearing some Aloe Vera lotion on my neck and arms. It feels really good.

Darla was up in Lake Tahoe this weekend with the women's retreat at church. She left Friday afternoon and returned home yesterday about 1:00 PM. They had a good time and even took a cruise on Lake Tahoe as part of the package. I took full advantage of her schedule with the first two days of a three day golf tournament.

As of Wednesday, I was fully prepared to cancel my golf game and spend the weekend curled up in a ball nursing a sore back. Harry was able to get me in to the Bowen clinic on Tuesday. I walked in hunched over and listing to the left and an hour later left feeling much better, walking straight, but with an ache in my back that wouldn't be ignored. Harry told me to get up and walk around about every half hour and not to sit or lie down for extended periods until I went to bed. I got home and promptly fell asleep on the couch after dinner (a hangover from the weekend in Vegas). I got back up about ten o'clock and could barely move. Wednesday morning I was no better and when I got stuck against the car and the wall trying to get into my car at six thirty, I decided to stay home. I had a back spasm and fell onto my knees between the wall and the car and it took me five minutes to get back up and out of the garage and I was covered in sweat when I finally did make it out of there. I crawled (literally) back into bed and called Harry to see if I could get back in. Harry got my message and decided to wait until Thursday to call me back as he knew there was nothing he could do for me. Thursday I felt much better, but still had some recurring back pain. Harry told me to meet him at the course and he'd give me a quick treatment there. I showed up with no intention of playing in my Thursday twilight league, but Harry told me that I needed to heat up my back to get his treatment to work, so I played. Naturally, I shot a 39 and played great. My back loosened up and I've been fine since. I see Harry today at 4:00 PM for a tuneup.

Golf was great this weekend and I continued my mastery of the number 84 with a 41+43=84 on Saturday. My tournament handicap is 11, so I shot a net 73. The leader in my flight shot a 75 as an 11 handicap for a net 64. I was nine shots down with one round in on a three day tournament. Yesterday, I shot 40+42=82, for a net 71 and a two-day net total of 144. The leader is at 133 with second at 136. I sit in a tie for fifth place with one day to go. It was nice to shoot other than an 84 and actually have it be lower. The weather was ideal and the course is in great shape. They are out aerating the greens as I write this, so the conditions will be considerably different next weekend. The greens were really hard and not holding. If you hit even a high shot into the middle of the green, the ball would roll off the back of the green. Next week should be fun and I'm in the mix with a tie for 5th in a field of 16 golfers in my flight.

The boys stayed with me this weekend even though their Mom was in Tahoe. They feel very controlled over at their Dad's and wanted to be able to go out and see their friends on Saturday night. Daniel actually spent the night at one of his Christian friend's houses and David went over to a backyard party at one of his friend's. Steve needs to figure out to give the boys some leeway to make their own decisions and stop smothering them. What he really needs is a girlfriend.

I talked to Jennifer on Saturday night. It was Sunday morning in Korea and she and John were going over to the golf course at the Air Base to hit golf balls. She is really enjoying her relationship with John and has warned her Mom and I that this might be THE guy for her. According to her, "He is the nicest, sweetest, kindest, most hard working man I have ever met. And he can put up with me, that's a huge plus." Jennifer is expecting to be in Korea for another couple of months. Her Mom gets remarried in September and she will be home for the wedding. We had a nice long talk and it was great to hear how well she is doing. Apparently, she and John are the two top techs on site for Das Net and they get alot of recognition for the hard work that they do.

Things are really hopping here at work. I have three positions open that I'm interviewing for and one position that I have an offer pending for. Home office still has to tweak the offer, so I'm hoping it goes out today. We are doing well, yet I still see no sign that the company is recognizing the hard work that I've put in to build a solid team here in Sacramento. This will all come to ahead soon and I'll be in Bellevue, Washington this week to help in that process. My new broker is just back from a trip to Home Office and I hope to get her oriented toward writing some business this week.

Well, work awaits like a dog waiting for a treat and I have to accomodate that wish. I'll write more next week. I hope you are all well and living "La Vida En Cristo". Ciao.

Las Vegas: 95 degrees and AWESOME

Back from a vacation that could not have been nicer. The weather was great, the golf was great, the gambling...well, maybe it could have been a little better. Darla and I rolled out of here Thursday night and spent the night in a little hole in the wall motel off the freeway in Fresno. Fresno is not my favorite city in the United States and this experience did little to improve my view of the armpit city. We checked in at one o'clock in the morning and half of the parking lot was gated closed because of it's proximity to the all night AM/PM next door where the bums hang out trying to score enough spare change for their next fix of Ripple. I checked in at the night window which looked to be six inch thick bullet proof glass to protect the night clerk from the EconoLodge robber. He checked me in and handed me the tv remote and my key. I was surprised I didn't get the two-inch long bar of 1/4-inch wide soap as well. We checked in and Darla complained about a smell in the air, but I was too tired to notice and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow (our pillow thankfully, as we travel with our own pillows). I awoke the next morning to Darla blow drying her hair in her underwear and tennis shoes. When I enquired about her mental state, she pointed at the worn carpet and just shook her head. What do you expect for $40?

We got into Vegas a little after three PM after a stop for breakfast in Bakersfield. I tried to weasle my way into the room as Dad and Shirley weren't in town yet, but to no avail as the Jockey Club apparently has snapped up all of the former security detail at the Pentagon. They wanted me to recite Dad's phone number and address and all even though I told them I was his son and invited to stay the week. I failed the test and turned our bags over to the bellman and walked dejectedly to the pool. At least they didn't throw us out on our ear. Dad and Shirley finally arrived just before 5:00 PM and we were able to get checked in. The Jockey has sold their parking lot to Bellagio and they are in the process of expanding around the Jockey. All parking is now done by valet, which is tremendously inconvenient especially when we wanted to put Dad and Shirley's golf clubs into our Explorer for our 8:00 AM Saturday golf game. I found out later that Dad and Shirley thought I was nuts for setting up a game so early, but as it turned out we were off the course and back at the pool shortly after 1:00PM which more than made up for the early start as the temperature rose to the mid-nineties and the desert winds started to kick up. I shot 41+42=83 to keep intact a string of 12 out of my last sixteen games at either 83 or 84. I've shot as low as 77 during the span and as high as 87, but it is a consistent run of golf. Dad and Shirley both had nice games and Shirley actually tired a bit toward the end of the 18 holes while Dad began hitting his driver very consistently and had several drives on the backside that were both long and straight. I had a blast playing with Dad and Shirley and even had Darla along as a caddy. She drove with me all day and kept up a banter with everyone and everything as is her wont. She also used my cell phone several times and I had to restrain her when people were trying to play golf.

We were able to make it over to the new Wynn casino and see the arboretum at Bellagio as well as have a great dinner at PF Chang's. It was a great weekend and short vacation and Dad and Shirley are always very accomodating and willing to go along with the ride no matter what. It's almost like they're retired or something. Darla and I left Sunday night and drove four hours up to Tonapah and stayed at the Tonapah Station Ramada Inn and Casino. It was a cute little casino and the room made the dump in Fresno look like, well.... a dump. We drove back Monday through Reno and were back in Roseville by 5:30 PM. We would have made it back sooner, but we stopped for a couple of hours at the Boomtown casino in Verdi and had lunch and got our last taste of the poker machines.

Work continues like an omnipresent shadow. We had our best month ever and brought in more earned income than this branch has ever produced. I will host the staff at a celebration lunch next week. I am in the process right now of finalizing an offer to an Accounting candidate. He needs to come in and finish some testing and then we will make the offer. I tried to screen for psychos and did everything except ask directly, "Are you a psycho?" We'll see how I did in a few months. I am also interviewing for a new Underwriting Assistant to replace one of the ladies who is out on maternity leave. I do appreciate the case for maternity leave and Family Leave, but also appreciate that businesses have to be able to continue to thrive while an employee is out making a life decision. If I hadn't been allowed to replace the position, it would have sat waiting for five months.

I came in this morning to a resignation letter from Cora. Cora is Mel's wife who I play golf with. She is leaving to go to work at a retailer. It is horrible timing, but as they say, it is what it is. I have two new employees in this week as I've hired a second assistant for our Modesto office and our new broker, Katherine, started yesterday. Staff turnover is the only consistent thing in this office lately.

I pulled something in my back last night as I put some snail killer and insect killer on the lawn and around the flowerbeds. I felt something when I squatted down to fill the tank sprayer with some weed killer. I'm trying to get in to see Harry at Bowen Works. He said that he was booked solid, but we are hoping (praying) for a cancellation. I can barely move today and I had to have my assistant make my lunch and bring it to me. I was going to go without and she came in and offered to get it for me. I feel like the old man that Tim Conway used to play on the Carol Burnett show. I'm hobbling around all hunched over. I need the magic of a Bowen session to straighten me out.

Well, work awaits and I need to get to it. I may be in Bellevue, WA next week meeting with the upper brass for Unigard Insurance. Something about not managing an office appeals to me right now. Ciao.

Dad and Shirley Relaxing in Roseville

An Excellent Weekend in the Books

It was GREAT seeing Dad and Shirley this week. They got in about 5:30 PM on Wednesday night and had a nice dinner with us. Daniel is working at K-LOVE, the Christian radio station during their pledge drive, and had to work that night, so he missed dinner. As a matter of fact, you can see Daniel eating dinner in one of the pictures I'm adding to the blog and Dad and David visiting with him. He got home about 9:30 and we played pool and had a great visit. It was nice to have a guest room finally set up where we could have Dad and Shirley spend the night with us. In the past, they have always had a hotel. Dad was wearing sweats when he got in and we had a nice 75 degree day. He was quick to change into shorts and, of course, wash his Cadillac. People who think I'm a bit anal, just need to spend a few minutes with Dad and they see where I get it. We had a nice dinner of barbecued New York steaks and talked about Dad's childhood and mine. Dad and Shirley are off to the Lawrence Welk resort in San Diego for a week of sun and golf and then they head to Vegas for a week. Dad sort of off-handedly invited us to join them in Vegas and left us their numbers in San Diego and Vegas in case we could make it. They were barely on the road to Fresno and a visit with their friends, Ed and Brenda, before I'd decided to go to Vegas and I already had a tee time set up at the Desert Rose golf course for Saturday morning. Work has been unduly stressful lately and I need a break. I'm taking Friday and Monday off and Darla and I will drive down to Vegas. It is about a ten-hour car ride and I'd prefer to fly, but with short notice the cheapest flight we could find was $500 for two of us. it would normally cost $356 with a 21 day reservation. This way, we have wheels and I can bring my golf clubs and some snacks and drinks for the road. Darla and I will drive down on Friday and probably drive halfway back on Sunday night, stopping in Tonapah, Nevada. I opted out of the Roseville City Amateur in order to make the Vegas trip.

The computer and the blogger website is really slow this morning. I hope that I don't spend part of my morning updating the blog to find that I lose it all in cyberspace. I've been trying to upload some photos, so far to no avail.


I finally had some luck in a golf tournament this weekend. I didn't shoot lights out, in fact, I shot a "same old" 43+41=84, but it was a two-man best ball NCGA qualifier and my partner, Steve Matthews (a 14 handicapper) shot a 78 and we managed a team score of 61 to win a spot in the regional qualifier against 22 other clubs for a chance to advance to Poppy Hills in September. We will play in the regional tournament on August 3rd, a Thursday, and hopefully play well enough to qualify to move on to the finals in Pebble Beach. Steve had a heart attack in November and has come back from that episode with an improved golf game. In fact, he and his partner qualified for a two-man event at Spyglass Hills in August. I knew he was playing well and sought him out for this tournament. They took two teams and we had the low score at 61. The other team shot a 63. There was also a Senior division and the two teams that qualified shot 63 and 66. There were a total of 44 teams playing with 4 spots up for grabs. Not bad.

Work continues to be a source of some stress as well as some source of accomplishment. We may hire a new broker for my office today. My candidate is in San Francisco today meeting with Harvey and his brokerage staff. If indeed, it is a good fit, we will bring her aboard and she will open a brokerage unit for this office. My underwriters are all just that. We do both brokerage business and contract (underwriting) business. Most of the big brokerage markets require that we have a full-time broker assigned to them and we have not had access to the brokerage accounts because of that. I made it a priority this year, in my budget, to add a brokerage presence to this office in order to move us up and ahead of the curve. Katherine is a very good broker, but only has about three years of experience on the brokerage side. She would not be a good candidate for San Francisco, but would be a great fit for Sacramento.

I agreed to lead the Life group tonight and we generally follow the scripture from the sermon at church the day before. Well, just my luck, yesterday was Baptism Sunday and there was no message. I will be feverishly looking up scripture on baptism over lunch today to have some material for tonight. Our pastor of senior adults led the offering yesterday and he always has a story infused with dry humor to go along with his prayers. He told the story of a church in the midwest that was struggling financially. The pastor got up and gave an impassioned sermon about the duty of Christians to support their church financially and with their prayers. He stressed that ALL church members had an obligation to give an offering to the church. When the plate was passed, little Johnny reached up and plucked off his clip-on tie and put it in the basket. Later, when his Mom asked him why he'd put his tie in the offering, Johhny said, "I really like that pastor and he said to put our ties and offerings in the collection plate."

All is well in our little corner of the world. The boys are doing well. Daniel has worked it out with his father, that Steve owns the Ford F150 with the camper shell and Daniel can continue to look for a more suitable truck and buy it with the $4000 that his Grandmother has pledged toward a car. In the meantime, Dan is driving that beast. Somehow, he managed to pop a tire this past week when he hit the median of the road when he was driving. Teenage drivers...jeesh.

The blog will be late next week as we will be in Vegas. I likely won't have much to say about our trip as "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas". I hope you are all well and living in the grace and light of our LORD and SAVIOUR. Ciao.

Resurrection Day has come and HE IS RISEN!

Yes. Another Easter Sunday is in the books and Spring is finally here. After a stormy and rain-filled Sunday, the sun has returned to Northern California in all of it's requisite glory. The sky is as blue as it can get and the sun is slowly awakening from it's hibernation to warm the denizens of Sacramento. Finally, we have some clearing and a week that is expected to see temperatures consistently in the 70-75 degree range. The fear here in Sacramento is that we would go from 50 degrees and rain to 90 degrees and oppressive heat, but it looks like we may get some Spring yet. Darryl sent a note to me last week showing Austin at 90 degrees and sort of mugging that he had warm weather. Frankly, 90 degrees is a little warm for me. This 72 and a light breeze is about perfect for me.

Darla returned home from her mission in Mexico tired and a bit sore and carrying some kind of creepy crud malady that sees her taking the day off from work today. Nothing like a day off to get over your week long vacation. The Mexico trip was a huge success and her group built one of two homes on a lot for a family that was burned out of their home. Darla's group built the home for Mom and Dad and another group built the home for the parent's pregnant daughter and her husband next door. I'd guess everyone was grateful except the son-in-law, but that's my sense of humor. In total the group built 5 homes and there were about 18 people on each crew. Darla was sick one day and had to stay back at camp and they had a flu bug go through the entire group that made it pretty tough on everybody. Daniel managed to avoid the plague and made it through the week relatively unfazed. It is really good to have Darla home. The laundry was beginning to pile up. J/K.

Daniel's father did come through on his promise of a truck for Daniel. Unfortunately, Daniel had absolutely no say in the vehicle purchased and Steve bought a 1993 Ford F-150 Super Cab with, of all things, a camper shell on it. Daniel is mortified that he has to drive what he referred to as a 50 year old man's fishing truck. Steve wants Daniel to put $1000 of his money into the truck and Daniel refuses. It could get interesting. These are two pretty bullheaded people and it will be interesting to see who wins this round. The truck could be salvageable if they take off the camper shell and fix it up with some new rims and a cd player in the cab. I guess Steve considered it a good buy, but Daniel had in mind a smaller truck like a Toyota or Nissan.

I did play golf this past weekend and the course continues to have soggy conditions and a lot of heavy rough. I shot 41+43=84 on Friday in a practice round and won $8 in skin money. Saturday was our second medal play tournament of the year and I shot 41+45=86, which was pitiful. I shot a 9 on number 16 by hitting two balls into the rough, neither of which we could find. The rough on that hole is about two and a half feet thick and the ball just buries. We play right to the letter of the law in our club and, despite the conditions, both balls were considered lost balls and I ended up hitting six from the spot of my second drive, seven onto the green and two putted for a nine. Ouch! I play in a two man best ball tournament on Saturday, an NCGA qualifier tournament and then have signed up for the Roseville City Amateur on the following weekend. That is where the real good amateur golfers come out and shoot 67 and 68 for two days of golf and take the trophy home. I'm playing for the $160 prize for my flight. Hopefully, the maintenance crews can get out to mow all of the fairways and rough over the next few days as the weather improves.

I was still continuing to struggle with managing the office and this young lady that doesn't like to work. She has continued to take sick days and miss a considerable amount of work even since I met with her two weeks ago. She called me one morning and said that her alarm didn't go off. She finally showed up at 11:00 AM, took a one hour lunch and went home at 4:30. I called her in the next morning and told her that under no circumstances could she continue to cause problems in the office and that she had to work a full day of work every day. She smiled and agreed and then left work at 1:00 to go to a doctor's appointment. Thursday of this last week, I took the morning and drove to our Modesto office to handle two salary reviews in that office. When I called in to check on the staff, my assistant told me that all hell was breaking loose. This model employee overheard two of the other assistants whispering. The topic of conversation was the pregnanacy of one of them and how the office would handle her maternity leave. The model employee "assumed" the whispering was about her and she had a meltdown, screaming and yelling and finally packing up her desk and leaving. She called the head of our Human Resources Department in Michigan to resign. I tried to calm everyone down and returned to work that afternoon.

On Friday, the staff presented me with a card and a $100 gift certificate to one of the fine restaurants in our area. They could feel my stress and wanted to give me a night out. I told them that my stress resigned on Thursday. Today I arrived to find the worker's compensation claim for a stress induced leave of absence. I've turned that over to Home Office. I don't quite see how you can resgn your position and then ask for worker's compensation, but this is California, the home of the weasly and the weird. We'll see how all of that pans out. In the interim, I have no one to handle my accounts receivables here in the office.

I am close to hiring a new broker for the office. She'll be here today to take a couple of personality tests and we are trying to iron out some salary issues. Harvey, my boss, was very excited about her as a candidate when he met her, but then he discussed her with one of her former employers and he started to get a little cool on hiring her. I disagreed and moved forward, so hopefully I don't get myself sideways with my boss, but on the other hand, I am charged with running this office. Harvey and I will talk today. While he was on vacation, I had Katherine do a telephone interview with Harvey's Boss, Bill McCord, and Bill is totally on board with hiring her. I need to get a broker presence in Sacramento and this lady is experienced and wants to work for us.

Jennifer and I missed each other a couple of times on the phone this weekend and I hope to touch base with her this week.


Dad and Shirley are driving to San Diego and a week at the Lawrence Welk resort for sun, fun and golf. They will be staying with us Wednesday night on their way to the resort and we will barbecue steaks and enjoy an evening with family. It will be good to see them as it has been over a year since we last saw them. I look forward to next year. We've talked about a reunion in Vegas, but I think a Mexico cruise would be fun.

Darla and I went to our church Saturday night and welcomed back our pastor, Rick, from his four-month sabbatical. He is refreshed and ready to work. It was great to hear his Easter message. Darla and I then went and met Darla's parents up in Paradise at their church and heard the Easter message presented by their pastor. It was a great weekend..and the sun is awesome today. I hope you are all well. HE is Risen. Ciao.

Back Home with Time to Spare

I left work a little early today (4:45PM) after a full day of work. So far, I've put a number of items up in the attic that I'll get in trouble for when Darla gets home. The nice thing is she won't need them for three or four months and won't realize that the box of scapbook supplies that's been sitting in the corner for four months has been put away. I've also thrown away some newspapers which is heresy around here. I'm running a couple of loads of wash as I get caught up on some piles of laundry that have been sitting in the laundry room for far too long. I'm not sure if it was clean or not, but with the dust that collects in a laundry room, it wasn't clean anymore. I was able to sweep the floor in the laundry room and I cleaned up a couple of the throw rugs that tend to collect dirt and aren't cleaned by sweeping or mopping. This is my own little slice of heaven. Cleaning is a task I enjoy, because the results are so dramatic when you finish. With two overly large and active teenagers, sometimes a full time worker with two extra part time jobs can't keep up.

Darla continues to work for Lighthouse, which is a foster agency and she works with several families. She also sells Silpada jewelry, her own jewelry and Creative Memories scrapbook supplies. She used to sell Pampered Chef, but has given that up now that she has all of their gadgets and supplies in her kitchen.

Darla did Not get the supervisor position and she took it kind of hard. In truth, all of the signs pointed to her working for this particular boss as heavily negative, but she is itching for additional challenges in her job. Take it from me that managing people will be one of the biggest undertakings she will ever try. I have five salary reviews and two Manager's reports to finish by the end of the week. I'm going to try to knock most of that out tomorrow as I have a massage planned for Wednesday afternoon at 4:30 PM. Darla ended up buying me a massage and I wanted to use it after a particularly hard day of work, which tomorrow will be. I have to tune out, close my office door, shut off the phone and just concentrate on doing the reports and salary paperwork. Darla will continue to seek additional challenges at work and will leave to go to work for another agency if need be. With the boys grown up, she is able to take on more at work.

Daniel's Dad is finally seeing the light and is ready to buy Dan a truck. He has his eye on a 2001 truck with 149,000 miles on it. The owner just installed a new transmission and Steve thinks its a bargain. Daniel was all bummed out as he wants to pick out the car and I counseled him about looking a gift horse in the mouth. If his Dad is ready to buy him a vehicle, shut up, sit down and enjoy having wheels. We'll see if Steve is blowing in the wind or whether he is really going to step up for his son.

I mentioned the link for Jennifer's Thailand pictures. It is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnswan81/sets/72057594098501362/

Well, I've prattled on enough and it sounds like the washer is ready to be unloaded. I probably have four loads of wash to do. The boys won't appreciate having their clothes folded and sitting on their beds as Darla usually hangs it up and puts it in their dressers, etc., but I'm more concerned about teaching these guys to be men and not boys. I'll write more, Same BAT time....etc. Ciao.

Hey, what's new? It's RAINING!

Wow, what a difference a week makes. It's called satirical comedy. The big change this past weekend was that although rain was forecast Saturday and Sunday, the rain spared us and didn't arrive until last night. The latest Canadian storm is expected to drop another inch on Sacramento, three inches in the foothills and up to 3 feet of snow in the Sierra. We may skip Spring altogether and just move from rain and 60 degrees to Sunny and 100 degrees. It was a nice respite from the rain over the weekend and I took full advantage with golf both Saturday and Sunday. The course was a full sponge as the fairways were wet and golf carts were restricted to the cart paths. If any cart rider was dumb enough to abandon the cart path and venture into the fairways, the carts would likely have gotten stuck in the mud. We had two days of sunshine on Thursday and Friday, but the grounds crew weren't able to get the mowers out onto the fairways because of the standing water. The greens had all been cut and the rough around the greens, but the rough along the fairways is US Open thick and the fairways are shaggy. Tough conditions. I shot 40+44=84 on Saturday and 40+45=85 on Sunday in the Titleist tournament. The back nine is wetter than the front and I hit the ball really high. I was getting no roll and several plugs in the fairway. It was frustrating, but overall (given the conditions) I was very happy with my play, especially on the front side.

Darla and Daniel headed off to Mexico and their annual mission trip to build houses for the homeless in Mexico on Saturday. Darla called me from San Diego on Saturday night where they were bedding down in a church for the night before heading across the border on Sunday. The trip had gone smoothly at that point and the weather in San Diego wqas nice. Hopefully they will get some good weather this year and be able to work and enjoy being in the sun.

Friday night I had my monthly poker game. Darla knew that I had a game that night and was going to meet with her friend, Joni, who was her maid of honor in our wedding. Those plans fell through and suddenly Darla wanted me to skip the poker game and stay home with her. I hemmed and hawed and we finally agreed that I would go, but would beg off early and be home by 11:00 PM. It was good seeing the guys as usual, but I got smoked on poker early on. It seemed that every time I had a flush, someone would pull a full house. Or if I had a full house, someone had a better full house. It was frustrating. By ten-thirty I was down about $30 and ready to head home. We played a three-card GUTS game that took a half-hour and I finally won the $80 pot. It was by far the biggest pot of the night and I felt like leaving right then would be bad manners, so I hung out until 11:30 and finally snuck out with $50 in winnings. Darla was not too happy with me when I rolled in at 11:35, but I was happy to have won the big hand and she got over it when I gave her some road money for her trip.

I plan to get a few projects done this week, touching up some paint around the house and cleaning the bathrooms and the tile floors throughout the house. Darla and I are both so busy and then we want to relax with each other at night. I'm batching it this week and can get some of my "To Do" list items cleared up.

I had to miss church yesterday with a 9:30 tee time in the tournament and really missed the weekly injection of faith and prespective that comes from drowning yourself in the Word. We used to have Saturday night service before we moved into the 3000 seat worship center and now it's Sunday only. I miss the intimate gatherings of Saturday night, but our regular service is 9:00 Sunday morning. It was just nice to have the option if I had golf on Sunday. Our church is a Bible teaching church and every sermon is based on the Word. The great news is that our pastor, Rick Steadman, returns from his four-month sabbatical on Easter Sunday. Praise God!

Jennifer called me when I was on the course yesterday. I hope to be able to talk to her this week. Jenn, call me at work, when you are home at night. I'm anxious to hear about her trip to Thailand. I will add the access to her pictures later this week. She sent it to me, but I only have it on my home computer. It looks like they had a great time.

This is short, but we were having network problems this morning and I have to do payroll by 9:00 AM local time. I'll add more later. Ciao.

I may lack "pinkie" class, but I've always got FAMILY

Those of you who know me well, know that I am a fairly frugal person. I tend to buy nice things for the house and for the family, but when it comes to buying myself things, I'll opt for the nice used car over a new one. Well, Jennifer knows me as well as anyone and she decided to splurge for my birthday. As she put it, she wanted to buy me something she knew I'd never buy myself. She bought me a Citizen Perpetual Calendar, Eco-Drive watch. It is silver and gold with a black face and it has the month, day, date and even the year on the face as well as military time to indicate AM or PM. Frankly, I had to have Daniel set the watch for me. If the alarm goes off in a meeting, I won't know how to turn it off. It is one of the nicest gifts I've ever received. So, to my wealthy daughter in Korea, THANK YOU, doll, for making your Dad so proud. I love you.

I woke up today in Vancouver!!

Funny, I remember going to the Sacramento Kings game last night at Arco Arena, driving home with Darla, watching a movie on disc and going to bed in Sacramento. The rain, it's all about the rain. Having just completed the rainiest March in 35 years in Sacramento, it is April 3rd and we will get up to an inch of rain out of the latest storm to darken our skies and darken our moods. I know why Seattle has the highest percentage of suicides in the country, constant rain is depressing. I was not able to play golf this weekend. The course was open, but had running water through several fairways and golf carts were not allowed on the course. I never play with a golf cart, but that answer to my query on Saturday morning was enough to keep me in bed at 6:45 AM, as my playing partners had already alerted the course that they were not going to show for our 7:20 AM tee time. Usually by this time of the year, we have had several stretches of weather in the eighty degree range, but so far it has had trouble sustaining stretches above 60 degrees. I look out on a slowly lightening sky that is overcast and raining. The dreaded time change hit yesterday and it was dark, raining and downright cold when I left the house at 6:15 AM this morning.

Darla and I did attend the Sacramento Kings vs Los Angeles Clippers game last night and had a great time. Our friends, Gary and Liz, couldn't make the game and are season ticket holders. We paid them the $66 face value for their two tickets and preferred parking and thoroughly enjoyed the game, which Sacramento won 106-96. I went to the game last week with Gary and really enjoyed it. I could tell Darla would like to go to a game, so when I got an e-mail from Gary that the tickets for the Sunday night game were for sale, we jumped on it.

Darla and Daniel leave Saturday for a week in Mexico building houses. We sincerely hope that the weather rains itself out and they end up with a dry and warm week. They endured torrential rains last year that required shifts where water was kept from building up on the sides of the large tents that the group stay in. It was muddy and miserable and they loved it last year. This year, Darla is praying for some sun.

Jennifer called me last Wednesday and told me that she had a few days of comp time and that she and her friend, John, were taking off and flying to Bangkok, Thailand for a few days of fun in the sun. The weather has been in the 90's in Bangkok at the beaches with overnight lows in the upper 70's. I haven't talked to her since her return, but I'm sure they had a ball. She's been freezing in Korea and was ready for some sun. Thailand is about a two-hour plane ride from Seoul, Korea. Frankly, Jenn has been doing nothing but minting money since she started this job. She had several 17 hour days of work leading up to the end of her project at the air base. They have a new project that starts today, but the air base had some sort of military process going on that precluded them from working last Wednesday through Sunday, so the call of the sand and sun was heeded. I'm jealous as I sit here bailing out the flower pots in front of my home, lest the Spring flowers die from root rot.

With Darla gone this weekend, the plan is for poker Friday night with golf on Saturday and Sunday. A look at the extended forecast shows rain ending by Wednesday afternoon with the next round of wet weather due in on Saturday. Naturally.

I was in San Francisco last Thursday night as one of my Contractor markets had an open house, followed by dinner in the city. We started the trip by visiting Harvey's office in San Francisco. I sat through a meeting with his brokers and then Harvey called me in to his office. One of my employees had called Home Office and complained of a hostile work environment. Supposedly, I expected her to work a full week, attend all meetings and help out in the office with tasks that she felt were beneath her. The final straw was when I told her that she could not get off at 3:30 in order to seek a part time job to help her pay bills. The nerve. I will be meeting with this mental giant late this morning to see if I can lessen her burden. I think a seat in the unemployment line should allow her plenty of time to seek additional sources of income.

The office continues to show momentum and I'm beginning to lose patience with running the office, but not being the Branch Manager. I interviewed with Unigard, a west coast company owned by a large Swiss conglomerate, last week for a Commercial Account Manager position. I was very intrigued with the job, which is a field underwriting position handling accounts in the $20,000-$150,000 range and really impressed with the Branch Manager of the Roseville office. The position would pay me more money and release me from the management aspect of the job. I would in essence be an entreprenuer, handling a book of about $6,000,000 in business and traveling about 25% of the time. My next step with Unigard would be a trip to the Home Office in Bellevue, Washington to meet with the CEO and upper level management. It would be nice if Burns and Wilcox would step to the plate, but it has been 18 months of doing the job without the recognition, pay and benefits of being the Branch Manager. After a while the promises ring a bit hollow.

Well, that is all the news that is fit to print. Be well, stay smiling and touch a life with a random act of kindness this week. Ciao.

Back from The Land of the Sun

Hey. I'm back from paradise and wondering how Dad and Shirley ever sold their place in Sun City. The temperatures were 79, 83 and 85 on the three days that I was in Scottsdale. Not too shabby and probably a little warmer than what Dad and Shirley are experiencing in Vancouver. I stayed at the Resort Suites in Scottsdale off Princess Avenue. It is the resort situated right next to the Fairmont Resort and the Fairmont makes anyplace else look like a dive. The Resort Suites was very nice and the rooms were about 900 square foot suites. The Miss Teen Arizona pageant was gearing up and the girls and their parents were checking in and fashion photo shoots were taking place outside my room. These girls are all adorable and it was a pedophile's delight as the 16-18 year olds lounged by the pool and walked around wearing tiaras and sashes all day long.

We started Wednesday night with a 30 minute bus ride out to Cave Creek, Arizona north of Scottsdale and went to a country restaurant and bar where they set us up in the rear yard with horseshoes, volleyball and six large fire pits surrounded by picnic tables. The grub was pulled pork, chicken, cowboy beans, corn on the cob and biscuits. The food was excellent and the music was very good with a rockabilly band with a lead singer who crooned in the Elvis Presley style. It was a fun night.

The underwriter in Modesto, Margaret, contracted tonsilitus from her kids and had to stay home. I caught the six am flight to Phoenix on Wednesday morning and rented an SUV when I arrived. I had a ten am meeting with Scottsdale Insurance and my Colony underwriter was trying to track me down and had three messages on my cell phone by the time I landed. She wanted to invite Anthony from our office to attend the seminar in Margaret's place. I talked to Anthony, he was caught up on his desk and could catch a Wednesday night flight to Phoenix in time to be at the seminar Thursday morning. I cleared it with our VP in San Francisco and Anthony was on a flight by the time we got to the dinner house in Cave Creek.

The trip was fun. They had a casino night on Thursday night and I opened and closed one of the Texas Hold'em tables. It was a lot of fun. We played golf Thursday afternoon and they put me with three complete non-golfers. We managed four over par which was amazing given that we used 17 of my drives and 90% of my other shots. I was playing really well and likely would have won if they'd given me even one golfer to play with. We had a good time and I got to know a couple of my Colony Underwriters better over the five hour course of the golf tournament.

The underwriters from my old firm, Richter Robb were there. That firm did about $36,000,000 in premium when I was with them. We hired away their top two underwriters last year and they finished 2005 with a little over $18,000,000 in writings. I expected to be treated as a pariah, but two of the three underwriters approached me about employment. I'm not looking to hire any more of their underwriters away, but it was funny to see the marketing that they each tried to do with me to sell themselves.

I returned from the sun and fun to a rainy Friday afternoon in Sacramento. I got in about 3:05 PM and was back in the office by 4:30 to clean up my e-mails and voice mails so I could get a fresh start this morning. I worked until about 7:30 PM. Darla had a site meeting with the kids from Adventure Christian Church in preparation for their Mexico trip. I figured that I could get more done at work, even though I was tired and needed to get caught up on sleep.

The Titleist golf tournament scheduled for Saturday was postponed due to inclement weather and rescheduled for April 8th. Darla will be out of town that weekend in Mexico and I plan to play golf both days. I did not play this past weekend, partly because of the weather, but mostly because I pulled a muscle in my back mowing the lawn Saturday afternoon. I reached down to pick up one of the spiny balls that fall from my trees and felt something snap. I have a call in to Harry for a Bowen Therapy appointment. I hope to get in this afternoon. If I stand in front of a mirror, I am listing to the left right now as my spine is out of alignment due to the muscle strain in my back. I was in agony last night and had trouble sleeping. The last time I did this, I had one Bowen session and was good to go after that. I'm done with chiropractors. They did little but lighten my wallet over the years.

I got an e-mail from Randy showing Chris' new truck, a beast of a Ram Quad cab. It is Cowboy blue and would require a step ladder for me to get into it. I was going to show Daniel the pictures, but Darla said not to. His father is still making him wait to get a car. We did our part and got David the Mustang when he turned sixteen. Daniel is so under his father's thumb that he cannot get a job and can't buy a car until they sell Steve's junker of a Jeep Cherokee. It has 270,000 miles on it and Steve wants $1,000 for it. I told Daniel to buy it and then sell it for $300 and buy a truck. He has $4,000 to put toward a truck, but has to put up with his Svengali father. In the meantime, I've added Daniel to our insurance at $1500 a year. I look forward to both kids hitting 18 and having a say in their own lives. Daniel is not allowed to get a part time job, because it would interfere with Steve's time with him. Frankly, I want the kid to get a job. He watches way too much television and lies around the house doing nothing. When he finally gets up some plans, he looks to us for money. I tell him to go see his Dad or get a job. It is immensely frustrating to me and I don't know how Daniel handles it. He will end up hating his Dad for being so controlling.

We had a guest speaker at church yesterday and he was a dynamic speaker who advocates getting out of our comfort zone and being an evangelist for Christ. He talked about how the vast majority of people live without any purpose...like a feather on the wind. He said that we need to take control of our lives by giving our lives to the Lord and letting him set our path. He called it making ripples and impacting others for Christ. It was convicting stuff. I hope that each of you can make a ripple and impact others. Ciao.

SPRING?

I see that the calendar claims that Spring begins today. Once again, after a relatively dry weekend, the rains are coming back tonight and tomorrow. I'm worried that the Spring might rust if this rain doesn't subside at some point.

This will be a busy week and I'll only spend two days of it here in the office. I have a conference in Scottsdale, Arizona that begins on Wednesday afternoon. It is the kind of conference that I like in that we will have a brief opening session (5:00PM-5:30PM) on Wednesday afternoon, followed by buses that will take us all out to dinner at Buffalo Chip Saloon and Steakhouse. The next day has breakfast at 8:00 AM followed by a trade show with the various underwriting departments and then golf from noon to 5:00PM followed by a catered dinner at the resort and then Casino night with slot machines, blackjack, roulette, craps and Texas Hold'em. The next day breakfast at 8:00AM followed by speakers from 8:30-10:00 AM and meetings with individual underwriters. They offered tickets to the Giants Spring training game in the afternoon, but I wanted to get back home, so I fly out 2:07 PM and arrive back in Sac at 3:05PM. There is a one hour time difference in Phoenix.

I'm traveling with one of the underwriters out of Modesto and we will visit with Emery Jensen, my old boss at Republic Western, who is now the Pacific Region Manager for Scottsdale Insurance. We will meet with Emery and his luietenant, Greg Buckley, who is the Underwriting Manager for our territory. Scott Epstein from our San Francisco office will piggyback that meeting with us. It should be a good trip. The conference is being hosted by Colony Insurance, our third largest carrier. I have yet to visit them and hope to make it over to the office on Friday morning. It will be a busy week, but it should be fun as well.

I did play golf over the weekend and in fact played both Saturday and Sunday. I played Saturday with Boyd and Mel in my regular foursome and then had an old friend from the golf club in town on Saturday. Mark Forbes was our webmaster and works for Sharp Electronics in their computer disk division in Portland. He moved to Washington State in 2004 and we keep in touch mostly through fantasy sports. Randy actually has been in touch with Mark through our football fantasy league. Mark sent me a note and said that he'd like to play golf on Sunday, but that he couldn't get out until 1;30 PM. I got a 1:35 tee time and arranged for two of his other friends (Gary Krohn and Neil Thomas) to play. We about finished in the dark last night, getting off the course at 6:30 in heavy shadows. The last two holes were played in the darkening skies of late twilight. I managed to string together two good rounds of golf over the weekend and shot 42+39 on Saturday followed by 39+42 on Sunday, for a pair of 81s. Sunday was more of a challenge as we had winds of 20-25 MPH blowing and I played with golfers with indexes of 24, 19 and 18. We met up with Greg Wanee and his wife as well as Liz, Lily and Darla afterward and all went to dinner. We had margaritas and toasted Mark's new bride, who was waiting for him in Washington. Mark was in town working on his business, Ventana, an antenna business for CB enthusiasts. She knew that he'd be busy building antennas and then playing golf. We hope to meet her next trip. It was fun and a nice end to the weekend.

Saturday night we hosted one of our friends from church, Marilyn, and her husband, Dennis for dinner. Marilyn has been going to church for thirty years and Dennis has not. We have been praying for him for years and decided to invite them both to dinner. We had never met Dennis as he is a non-church goer. He is a golfer and we are both about 12 handicappers. We had a great time. Dennis is the president of his golf club, Peach Tree Country Club in Linda, California. I will play with him some weekday up at his club. It is one of the jewels of the area, a 6400 yard track in Linda that was formed in 1965 by a group of peach farmers in Marysville. It has grown to 455 members, but the initiation is only $1000 and the dues $265 a month. We saw Marilyn at church on Sunday and she said that Dennis had a great time and wants to invite us over. He was surprised that we didn't give him the "bum's rush" about going to church. It was his biggest fear when Marilyn told him that they were going to some friends from church. I will encourage him to come to church eventually, but want to get to know him, play some golf and become friends first.

Jackson Sonyanga, the African minister from a church in Kampala, Uganda was back speaking at our church yesterday. Jackson brought some video and news about the 21 orphanage homes that have been built thanks to the support of Adventure Chrisitian church. AIDS is still an epidemic in Uganda and there are tens of thousands of orphans due to the epidemic. The homes are all clustered together in a park area and called Adventure Village. There are about twelve children in each home and they are separated boys and girls. It was amazing to see the work that is being done a world away because of our friendship with Jackson. He gave another very convicting sermon on evangelism. He talked about the new converts to Christianity in Uganda and how they go door-to-door preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how here in America we isolate the new Christians and don't let them get involved until they have been properly indoctrinated into the body. He always brings a "slap you upside the head" message with him from Uganda when he visits and it was great to see him. Rick will be back from his sabattical on Easter Sunday and we are all anxious to see his return. He wanted to come back sooner, but the Elders made him take his full four months off and wouldn't let him return.

Darla and I went to see a movie Friday night. We've been so busy the past few weeks that we needed a date night and went to see the new movie "Failure to Launch" It was hilarious and Terry Bradshaw steals the show. Darla has four jewelry shows over the next week and our time together is limited, especially with me leaving town.

Well, that is the news that is fit to share with you all. I hope you are all well. You will never stand so tall as when you kneel to PRAY. Take care. Ciao.

Various Images: Monterey

Darla, David and Daniel at Cannery Row, Monterey

Monterey was a Beach

I decided to update the blog this afternoon, as I had today off and I know what my desk and e-mails will look like tomorrow. I'll save myself some self-induced stress and update this now.

We took a chance and loaded up the SUV, the boys, some food (I said we brought the boys), and Darla and I drove through a steady drenching of rain the 3 hours from Roseville to Monterey. We had periods of sun, some light drizzle and some heavy squalls that put the Explorers' windshield wipers to the test. Darla really needs new blades and I need to get out and find some replacement blades for her car. Daniel decided to join us as he couldn't get a ride from the poker game back home on Friday night and I think he didn't want to miss the food and fun.

It actually snowed in Monterey on Friday night and it seemed that our trip would be one of ducking the rain and trying to stay dry. We had a two-bedroom hotel room and it was certainly servicable if not a luxury suite. The name of the hotel is Quality..it used to be the Quality Inn, but now is known simply as Quality. I suppose quality is subjective, but we had three queen-sized beds in a resort town and only paid $108 a night, so Quality it was. Darla and I awoke Saturday morning and there was a partly cloudy sky and sun streaming through the blinds. We got up and readied for our day and kicked the kids out of bed. We were at the Black Bear Diner in Carmel by nine o'clock and enjoying a hot breakfast. The hotel offered a continental breakfast that left much to be desired. There was coffee, some sort of watered down Tang and muffins cut into razor thin slices and some generic white and brown bread for toasting. I managed to drink some of the coffee while waiting for Daniel and David to shower and get on to our day. I knew I'd be buying breakfast, because if I'd brought those two six-footers in to the breakfast room for a "continental breakfast", there would have been some yelling and gnashing of teeth.

The weather ended up being nice enough that we were able to take a whale watching cruise out of the wharf in Monterey. I had looked into it before we left and it was to be $25 per ticket with a discount. The weather was so iffy, that the tour operator had lowered the price of the cruise to $19.95 and we jumped on it. It was certainly colder on the water, but the boys absolutely loved the trip. We saw a humpback whale and several gray whales as well as several schools of dolphin, including a school of white dolphin. The waves were at their peak about 18 feet and the little boat was thrashed about in the sea. There were about four or five passengers that got sick and Darla and I both had our moments on the trip where we thought we'd lose it. We both hung on and endured the trip.

We ran into an old friend from Stockton, Tai Famusili, a guy I played softball with and formerly a boyfriend of Darla's best friend, Joni Minear. Tai was there with his fiance, and his daughter as well as a group of singles from Quail Lakes Baptist Church. They were there for the day and had brought the church bus which we saw in the parking lot when we left. Their group also took a whale watching tour, but it was a different company.

We went out to dinner in Carmel and tried to eat at our favorite restaurant, The Pasta House on Fifth Street, but alas, it had closed and was looking for a new tenant. We just ate there in October when I played Poppy Hills. We switched gears and headed over to the Forge in the Forest Restaurant, which is also one of our favorites. We had a large meal of French Onion soup and steak sandwiches and steak fajitas. It was a fun evening. We ended up back in the hotel room watching one of David's buddies from high school, Ike Okoye, who is a forward on Wyoming's basketball team. He started for a while during the season, but was relegated to the bench during the conference tournament. He got in the game late in the first half, had three rebounds and made two shots for four points to give Wyoming a one point halftime lead. They ended up losing in overtime and Ike never saw the floor again (perhaps a correlation?)

We went in to the Cannery Row area on Sunday and a heavy squall came through and dropped rain and hail on the area while we ate breakfast. It had passed on and the sun was out by the time we finished up and headed to the shops. The boys both wanted to get an Aqua massage and it was 2 for 1 before noon, so they pooled their money and got a 15 minute aqua massage each. The massage takes place in a chamber where a heavy black curtain lays over your back and the water beats against you. I took pictures of the boys in the massage chambers.

We drove home, stopping for a picnic lunch at the Casa De Fruta Complex outside of Hollister. It was a great weekend and the weather really held on for us. It was raining by the time we got back to Sacramento. This week calls for rain from Tuesday to Friday.

I took the day off today and played golf with Boyd, Dave and a friend of Boyd's. It was cold and the course was wet and I managed a 44+41=85. I told Dave that he jinxes me on the front side. Luckily, he's busy next Saturday when we play. Perhaps I'll break 80.

I set up our trip to Puerto Vallarta today and we'll be in PV from Saturday, August 26th to Saturday September 2nd. We'll celebrate Jennifer's birthday with or without her in Puerto Vallarta. We bought our timeshare in PV back in 2001 and haven't been back since. I'm ready to start taking a vacation to Mexico one year and Hawaii the next. It was the idea when we bought them and I'm ready to get on that train.

Well, that's it for this week. Hope you are ALL well and living in the footsteps of our Saviour. Ciao.

Deja Vu all over again

Strange how sometimes a week goes by and nothing really changes. Last week I wrote about having good weather on Saturday and then the rains coming in to wipe it all away. Well, hello rerun as we just had the same weekend again this past one. Jennifer didn't call, but weatherwise it was a redo. Saturday was not as warm as last weekend, but it was clear and some sun came out and made us all smile and think of Spring.

I played golf again on Saturday and actually had a pretty good round. I played golf with Dave Armijo, my old partner who left the club two years ago because of continuing back pain and his new status as a grandparent. He and his wife were traveling to the Bay Area every weekend to see the grandchild and golf became no more than an afterthought in that scenario. Dave and I caught up on old times and I forgot to concentrate on my game and shot 44 on the front side. I woke up on the back and went even par through seven holes before finishing bogey-bogey for a 44+38=82 score. Dave struggled and shot 90, but it was his first game of 2006. I will take next Monday off and will play with Boyd and Dave at Diamond Oaks. Dave and I teed off a half hour before the RGC tournament which runs last weekend and next. I'm going to Monterey next weekend with the family to celebrate my last year of youth as I turn 49 on Sunday.

Darla went to Marin on Friday to visit her friend, Joni, and I had poker Friday night and golf on Saturday. Mix in church on Sunday and it was a perfect weekend. Darla was home midday on Saturday and we relaxed and watched movies on Saturday and Sunday night (Pride and Predjudice and Walk the Line). I would have liked both Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix to have won Oscars for Walk the Line, but at least Reese won. She was excellent as June Carter and I highly recommend the movie.

The rain squall has slowed and it is one of those strange weather patterns, where the storm sits over the city, but the edges of the storm are visible with blue sky and sun showing through. It is but an optical illusion as the forecast is for rain all week long. I have to drive to Modesto tomorrow to interview a candidate for an assistant underwriter position and do a 90-day review on the assistant in the office now. The new position will be in Sacramento and that person will technically work for Modesto, but be housed locally. The ladies in the office there have a candidate who lives in Stockton, but is willing to move to Rancho Cordova for the job.

Work continues to flourish. I'll be in Scottsdale, Arizona in two weeks for an underwriting conference with one of our carriers. We will also have a Burns and Wilcox conference in Dallas, Texas in June. The conference is just for underwriters and not Managers and I'm still somewhere in between. Our Branch Manager conference will be in Detroit in October and I've let it be known that I will NOT return to that conference as anything but a Branch Manager. I will likely send three representative from our office to the conference in Dallas.

The pastor had a good story this weekend on how three preachers each handled their take of the weekly offering. The first preacher said that he takes the offering into the field behind his church and draws a three-foot diameter circle in the grass. He then throws the money in the air and whatever lands in the circle he keeps and whatever land outside the circle goes to God. The second preacher said that he does it similarly, but whatever lands in the circle is for God and he keeps whatever lands outside the circle. The third preacher said that he does it differently. He throws the money in the air and whatever God wants, he grabs and whatever lands back on earth the preacher keeps.

We will be off to Monterey next week and the blog will be late. I'll either do it on Tuesday or late Monday afternoon. I look forward to a weekend away with the family. We found a great deal on hotel rooms and will stay in a two-bedroom hotel for $109 a night in Monterey. Hopefully the weather will rain itself out and it will be nice by next weekend. Stay well, keep your eyes on heaven and your feet firmly on the ground. Ciao.