I can't get used to working..we're going back on Vacation

Yes. Believe it or not, we leave for a week up in Lake Almanor next week. The fires right now are threatening the trip as Highway 70, the Feather River Highway, is closed due to remnants of the fire having caused a weakening of the hills next to the roadway and the potential for rockslides. Cal Trans is working on the problem and hope to have it fixed soon. We will take the jet ski with us, but I told the boys that I will pay for the first tank of gas (about $175 for the tank and two five gallon containers of gas) and they are on their own after that. David has more money than the local government and Daniel seems terminally incapable of finding a job.

Darla's grandpa, Andy, is doing amazingly well after his accident. He is out of his medically induced coma, has been on his feet and is out of the woods medically speaking. He still hasn't seen his wife, Liz, as she is in a care facility after the accident. Darla has been to Modesto several times to see both Andy and Liz and they are both doing miraculously well. He wants to go home, but I'm not sure either of them will ever be able to return to their little home at the retirement facility. It is more than likely that they will require a convalescent facility with 24 hour care.

The other picture is of the back yard. The cement stain that I put down several months ago was beginning to wear out in spots as I didn't seal it. I sealed the stain last year with a solvent based sealer and it turned out terrible. I talked to the rep at the Spec West facility (they specialize in concrete applications and products) and he said that I should try a water based sealer, but that he only had 5 gallon pails in the store at $106. I went to Home Depot and got three gallons of the Behr "wet look" water based cement sealer and it worked like a charm. It gives the stain a "wet" look and seals it from water and the elements. It even has a UV blocker and is supposed to last for two years. I own stock in the parent of Behr, MASCO products. They also have Delta faucets, Kraftmaid cabinets, Millgard windows, Liberty Hardware, Arrow Fasteners, American Shower and Bath, and Cobra Products, among many others. Buying Masco was like diversifying into the entire Home Improvement products industry.

You can also see the ground cover around the pool that has grown unbelievable this Spring and Summer. The ground cover has grown as high as two feet in some areas and I have to be constantly pruning it. It has little red flowers on it and the bees come from miles around to taste the nectar. You can also see a little white planter full of the red plants that used to grow in front of the pool. Those plants died off in the winter, but we still get hundreds of little volunteers sprouting up in the ground cover and I decided to plant some of them to see if they would grow and amazingly, they did.

Darla and I were up early this morning for church, but the boys played the part of heathens and slept in until noon. I have trouble praising that sort of laziness and just shake my head when they finally stumble out of bed and look to their Mom for food. The sermon this morning was about Faith and Hope, the crux being that without a faith in God there is no Hope. Christians are often criticized, but materialists who live just for today are dead inside. There is no hope for the future, because there is no future. Sad isn't it?

I played golf yesterday at Cherry Island and shot 42+41=83, a frustrating round that could have been much worse save for about four putts that I made of over 20 feet. I have several golf excursions planned for this year including Monterey in August, the Serrano Country Club three day invitational in September, the NCGA second round qualifier that I play in August 21, a President's NCGA meeting and golf outing at Catta Vadera CC August 18th, and then the coup de grace, a three day outing to Bandon Dunes on the coast in Bandon, Oregon the first week in October. The three Bandon courses are all rated in the top fifty course in the United States. My golf tour of the United States continues. Next year: Myrtle Beach?

We had so much fun in Mexico this year. I really hope we can get Darryl and Cheryl, Randy and Cake, and Dad and Shirley to join us next Fall. The Nicklaus redesign will be done and we can play golf and relax in paradise. We talked about doing it this year, but couldn't get a commitment. What is it we all work for, but vacation and relaxing. I know that Darla and I will be back and hope you can all work it out in your schedules as well.

Little Samantha continues to grow and prosper. She is now crawling and watching her on the Skype is more of a challenge as she toddles to and fro in and out of the camera range. She is adorable. Jen put her in a baby "jump up" that hangs from the door jamb and Samantha was kicking and jumping like a jumping bean. There is a reason that babies are born to younger women as we watched Jennifer chase her down and bring her back to the camera. Jennifer and John will close on their house this week and hopefully be moving in next weekend. Darla and I will be there in August to see them and celebrate Jennifer's birthday. We are looking at being there perhaps the 14th - 18th, so if Dad and Shirley want to plan a Vegas outing near then, we will be in town.

Well, again, we will be in Almanor next week, but I will try to get to the blog sometime during that week. Be happy and content in your lives. Ciao.

Fun in the Sun in Nuevo Vallarta

We are back from Mexico and we had a grand old time. The group that joined us is (using the Pipi's picture with the guys wearing the hats: Bob and Vicki, us, Rick and Jan and Neil and Lilly. It was a great group and we all got along famously. Often these trips are great on paper and then you get to your destination and find out someone is a PIA and complains about everything. We had our share of struggles and trying times on the trip, but the couples were all great and Darla and I were thrilled with the gang.

The trip started out with a 4 AM call from the airline telling us that our Sacramento flight to Phoenix was delayed three hours which would cause us to miss our connecting flight to Puerto Vallarta. Rick and Jan and Neil and Lilly were on our flight. Bob and Vicki, who have never been to Mexico were on a flight out of San Jose and had no problems. We stood in line at the airport for an hour and a half at 5 AM trying to work out a solution to our problem. Neil and Lilly managed to get on a later flight to Puerto Vallarta, but Rick and Jan and Darla and I were stuck in Phoenix overnight. We tried hard to get on another flight and even worked with the corporate office in Phoenix, but we were screwed. Neil offered to give up his flight to us, but US Air was not accommodating and did not allow that. All of the reservations and rooms were in my name as the owner at the Grupo Mayan. I called them and they asked me to FAX a list of our guests along with a copy of my ID and they would check them in. US Air tried to FAX that information to them, but their FAX machine does not allow international faxes (they fly all over Mexico and Latin America). US Air originally told me that they didn't have any rooms available for Darla and I in Phoenix and we'd have to book and pay for our own rooms. I raised a bit of a loud stink and amazingly they got us into the same hotel as Rick and Jan at no charge. We checked into the hotel about 11:00 AM and spent the first day of our vacation in the 114 degrees of Phoenix, Arizona. The amazing part of the blast furnace of cactus and desert is that some people CHOOSE to live there. It is a great place about four months of the year and a hell hole the rest of the time. We read books and sat in the pool and waited for the cooling 104 degrees of sunset to go to dinner.

Rick and Jan had a 10:00 AM flight and Darla and I caught the 12:00 PM flight to PV. Funny that we were the hosts in Mexico and got there last. We finally arrived at the resort about 27 hours late and were ready to relax and enjoy our vacation. We went to dinner at Brasil, a restaurant in Nuevo Vallarta that serves food in a Brazilian fashion. We ate salads and some appetizers and then the show started. They brought us meat on swords about every ten minutes. They served rib eye, chicken, New York steak, pork loin, sirloin, filet mignon, potatoes, onions, peppers, and more. The funny thing was when they finally stopped and we said, "No mas!", the waiter came out and asked us what we wanted to order after all of the "samples". We had a good laugh and I ordered another serving of the filet, which was excellent. True to Mexico, the fare for the dinner was $22 a person. Amazing.

We played four rounds of golf while in Mexico and only ended up playing one away from the resort. The resort course Golf Vallarta, is so immaculately maintained that the fairways are like carpets. Every group has at least one caddy and the caddies work hard to repair ball marks and replace divots and fill in sand mix in lower divots. The course was amazing. We had planned to play three rounds in town, but cancelled those right away. We did play the Nicklaus course up at Vista Vallarta in the mountains east of Puerto Vallarta. It was about a thirty minute drive from the resort and as lush and green as you could imagine. It rained almost every night and Monday we awoke to 85 degrees and a constant drizzle. We decided to push on and drove up tot Vista Vallarta where the rain was supposed to be heavier and the rain stopped and it was partly cloudy and about 89 degrees the rest of the day. I shot 91 at the Nicklaus course and Bob shot 85. Our companions were both over 100 as the rough is as thick and impossible as Torrey Pines. It is Bermuda grass and the grass is about four inches long and too soft to support a golf ball so it buries in the rough and being Bermuda, has fingers of roots that tend to grab and hold the club as you swing through. It was a frustrating day of golf and as one who works for a living, the penal rough at Vista Vallarta was too much. I shot 84, 83 and 82 at Golf Vallarta and enjoyed the rounds much more.

Bob picked up a case of Montezuma's revenge on Tuesday night as we went into town and had large Edsel sized margaritas and chips and guacamole made table side. We then walked down to the beach side restaurants and shops, finally catch a taxi and having him take us up to the El Panorama restaurant, which sits in the hills above the city of Puerto Vallarta and provides a perfect view of the sunset. Our reservations were for 7:30 PM and we arrived shortly after 7:00 PM and were seated on a window table where the sun was blazing on us for an hour before sunset. The gang were nice enough to host our dinner that night in appreciation of our planning the trip. The small restaurants and bars in Puerto Vallarta have questionable water supplies and Bob had some ice for his soda and likely picked up the bug there.

He missed golf Wednesday morning after being up all night on the throne. We finished nine holes and saw Bob waiting for us. He was sitting on the steps next to the 9th green with his arms resting on his legs. Rick said, "that's probably the position he was in most of the night." He was still suffering the effects of the "curse", yet managed somehow to shoot a 36 on the back side and clean us out on bets.

Darla ran into a group leaving the resort on Wednesday morning and they had bought the "meal plan" that works out to about $22 per dinner or lunch and provides an appetizer, a main course and dessert at each meal. We had bought into the plan, but only had three dinners or lunches per couple. The group leaving gave Darla another 12 dinners/lunches and six breakfasts. We ended up staying at the resort the rest of the time for dinners. They have an Italian restaurant, Tramonto, that served Chateaubriand for two and rib eye steak, seafood and pasta dishes. We also ate at a beach side restaurant whose specialty was seafood and ate the rib eye and lobster tail surf and turf that was listed on the menu for $54. The half lobster was $72 and several of our party availed themselves of that. The meal plan is the best way to go as you can eat really well and not worry about the prices on the menu. The appetizers, salads and soups were excellent and the service absolutely top drawer.

The gang met every afternoon at 4:00 PM at the pool bar for happy hour. The couples would go off and do things alone or in groups of four, but meet every day for the two-for-one drink specials. The first picture above was taken by our bartender at the pool bar. The second picture was taken at one of the restaurants at the resort when we ate outside. The third and fourth pictures were taken at Pipis and the final picture was taken at the balcony of the El Panorama restaurant.

The only real problem with the vacation was the flight problem out of Sacramento. The rest of the story is that the flight crew had arrived late the night before on a flight from the Midwest and FAA regulations require the crew to have a minimum of eight hours of rest. Southwest Airlines would have brought in another crew, but US Air is not quite that savvy. The airline industry is hurting in a huge way and flights are being cancelled routinely now if they aren't full. Our way of traveling will have to change as people will miss weddings and meetings as the airlines dictate how and when they will fly routes. Most of the major airlines have already reduced service, put in baggage charges and cut routes deeply in some markets. American Airlines just pulled out of eight airports including Oakland. it is a sad state of affairs, but none of the airlines are making money and the cost to put fuel in an airliner is incredibly high.

We did have some bad news while we were gone. Andy Kuening, Darla's maternal grandfather was in a car accident on Tuesday. He was driving to the Waffle House as he does every day with his 88 year old wife, Liz (Andy is 89), He turned across traffic and did not see another truck that was doing 45 miles an hour in the 35 MPH zone and was tee-boned. His wife was not wearing a seat belt and was thrown under the dash and her right foot was severed. Andy was thrown into the steering wheel (his 1986 Accord did not have airbags) and broke multiple ribs and suffered a hairline crack in his neck. His kidneys were lacerated and his lung was bruised. He had been in a medically induced coma until today, but is now awake and in a great deal of pain. His wife is in a different hospital and had her foot reattached and is in a cast. She is doing surprisingly well and Darla visited them both today. I went with Darla yesterday to see her grandfather. Pray for God's mercy and God's will in this situation. It is very difficult.

Well, there will be more to follow and more to say as the weeks stretch on. It was a marvelous vacation and even so, it's good to be home. I hope you are all well and happy. Ciao.

Once again, the Blog is going on Vacation to Mexico

I just finished watching the TIVO of Tiger Woods winning his 14th major and 3rd US Open. I was there on Friday and watched Tiger limp around the 7,600 yards of Torrey Pines and I am even more impressed with him as an athlete. The crowds that surround him, from security and media people, to the throngs of gallery are unbelievable. How he focuses as well as he does in that zoo is amazing. He had at least 60 cameramen running ahead of him and taking pictures. There were at least ten San Diego PD officers, five television cameras, seven reporters from NBC, XM Satellite, Sportscenter and some Japanese reporter. Shutters are popping on every shot that he makes. We sat and watched him on hole number 14 on Friday and he hit a pull to the left that buried in high rough. He absolutley killed a shot from about 170 yards into the greenside bunker where he chipped on to the green and made his par. His swing out of the heavy rough was all out and he winced in pain as his surgically repaired left knee buckled on him. We had set up early on 14 and wached the groups come through and there was little buzz, but after Tiger eagled 13, the swarm arrived and pushed us up against the ropes and the police were forced into crowd control.

I loved being at the US Open and enjoy the memory, but it is no way to watch a golf tournament as everything is happening on other holes and you pick up bits and pieces off leaderboards and some satellite scoring machines handed out to American Express cardholders. The crowds were huge with 52,000 of us on Friday holding our $150 tickets. I flew in with one of my top agents early Friday morning from Sacramento. We were met by our host who handed us little picnic backpacks filled with a thermos, salt and pepper, two metal drinking cups and a golf towel and a dozen nike Karma balls. We drove from the airport out to Qualcom stadium where we caught the shuttle bus to Torrey Pines. They dropped us off at the kite airfield, where the human kites usually fly up and over the golf course. The airfield was closed during the open because of the need for parking and because of the blimps in the sky above the course. We had a nice $45 lunch at the Trophy Club behind the number two tee box, that was exclusive to Trphy Club ticketholders, It was an intimate lunch with 5,000 of our closest friends. I bought lunch and Rich bought us CC and ginger ales to walk the course with. It was an event for sure.

Work has been a struggle lately as we are in a downsizing mode and I've had to let four emplyees go. It is exceedingly difficult, but a necessary evil in these times of increased competition, lower prices and squeezed margins. I have moved from a staff of 23 at our peak to a staff of 16. We are lean and mean and I met with the survivors to ensure them that we cut deep and I promised not to pick at the scab. I could have gotten away with only cutting two, but I wanted the cuts deep enough to impact the bottom line and so that I could promise the survivors that only performance will impact them going forward. Tough times.

I played golf this weekend at Ancil Hoffman golf course, famous for being the site of the "new" governor's mansion built by Ronald Reagan in 1979 and then pishawed by Governor Moonbeam (Jerry Brown). The mansion was never lived in by a California governor and was eventually sold at a loss to the state and subdivided into four home lots including the original mansion. The golf course had a hydrant installed on the number 15 tee next to the mansion for the safety of our governor and that plug still sits by the tee box, looking woefully out of place. I struggled to an 85 on Saturday in the heavily wooded course. I have gone back to my Taylor made R7 driver after an experiment with the Cleveland Launcher driver, which I hit well (at times). I am much more steady with the R7, though shorter off the tee. I decided that I prefer the fairway to the rough.

I played horribly on Thursday night in the league as I was in conference all day on staffing issues and ended up on a thirty minute teleconference in my car on the way to the course. I arrived late, with my group already on the tee and Bob stalled on the box as I changed into my shorts and golf shoes from my work attire. I went in to pay and the starter was on the phone with his girlfriend, I told him (loudly) that I'd be back in to pay after my round. I was almost hyperventilating on the tee and shot a smooth 45.

Father's Day was a delight. Darla found a deal at Sears whereby if you bought $100 of Docker's apparel, you'd get a $75 gas card to Shell. Not bad. I got some new work clothes, socks, etc and she got two thirds of a tank in her SUV. We talked to Jennifer. She took Samantha out and had some professional pictures taken of Samantha and herself for John for Father's Day. John was appropriately emotional when he walked out and Jennifer had the pictures in frames on the dining room table. Samantha is getting so incredibly cute. She is sitting up in the pictures and is close to crawling. Their house is progressing well and they are excited to move in. Jennifer and John bought a small blow-up pool and took it to Boulder City to visit with his Dad, step-mom, and Samantha's aunt, Olivia. They splashed about in the 106 degree heat.

Darla and I went to church Sunday morning after considering skipping it and were blessed with a great sermon on Noah as the great father, building the ark to save his family. We then relaxed at home in the sun on the pool between trips in the house to get caught up on the US Open on TIVO.

We leave Friday for a week at our timeshare in Nuevo Vallarta. It is the Grand Mayan and we have a Jack Nicklaus redesigned 18 hole golf course on site. Unforunately, the course is still under redesign and only 9 holes are open. We will still play it twice and venture out to PV and Marina Vallarta and Vista Vallarta twice (the Nicklaus course and the Weiskopf course). We will go with Bob and Vicki, the President that i worked as VP under, Neil, and my current Vice President, Rick and their wives. It should be a blast. After all of the stress at work lately, I am looking forward to relaxing on the pool at the Grand Mayan with a nice margarita. Ciao.

The Junior Tournament is FINALLY in the books!

It's not like this tournament took over my life or anything, but it really did. We ended up with 123 participants and I had a total of 27 volunteers who showed up to handle scoring, check-in, starting, rules, the scoring tent, pictures, closest to the pin, spotting and a couple who are retired and just hung around, but didn't want to really do anything other than visit, drink free water and eat snacks and then have a free lunch. They also left right after lunch to supposedly go have a healthy nap after all of the excitement. I had 7 kids who withdrew from the tournament for various reasons and two who just failed to show up.

The tournament is being known as the "Lyon tournament" because of the special mojo that I brought to the 41st annual event. In 4o previous events, the tournament had seen only one hole-in-one. In this event, we were witness to two holes-in-one. One was by an 11 year old boy playing from the red tees and only playing nine holes. He shot a 39 and his ace was from 96 yards with a pitching wedge. When I congratulated him and shook his hand, I asked him if it was his first ace. He shook his head no and held up two fingers. I turned and held up one finger for him. 51 and golfing for 35 years and no hole-in-one and some smarmy kid already has two. The second ace was a 16 year old who also recorded his second career hole-in-one and he did it from 136 yards with a pitching wedge. These kids are good.

The low boy's score was 66 from the 6400 yard blue tees and second was a 68 from a 14 year old boy. The low girl was 14 years old and shot a 77. Very nice. The event is very enjoyable, but also somewhat humbling. These kids all play with state of the art equipment and 9 out of 10 of them hit Pro V1-x balls. In fact we bought balls for both of the guys who had hole-in-ones and they both chose Pro v1-x balls. We also had an eagle on the 465 yard par four finishing hole when a young man of 15 knocked in a three wood from 200 yards.

Bob was scoring for the 9 and 10 year olds and he said they were under fire from the driving range as the 16-17 year olds were hitting 300 yard drives off the practice tees. The day mostly went off without a hitch, but we had one guy who showed up and was recruiting for a rival youth golf program and I had to run him off. We had one of the old retired guys make an incorrect ruling on the course. He allowed a drop for a female competitor because branches from a neighbor's tree were impeding her swing. He was NOT on the rules committee and I asked him to stay off the course after that. Our rules chair was ready to strangle him. He referred to the branches as an outside influence. We referred to him as an idiot.

There were many great stories and one really sad ending to a great day of golf. One of the 16 year olds was having his best tournament round of golf coming in to 18. He was three under par and put his second shot up against the fence. He couldn't hit it and I would have faced the wrong way and punched a three iron toward the green. Instead he took a penalty drop, but wanted to drop within about two feet of the fence. We told him that he had to mark the spot and then a place another tee two club lengths from the ball no nearer the hole. He marked that off and dropped the ball at the furthest point with a tree in front of him. I don't know if he was confused or what, but he could have dropped the ball anywhere within the two clubs. He ended up hitting the tree, knocking his fourth shot over the green, chipping on and three putting for an 8 and a round of 73. He finished tied for second, but took 4th place based on the tiebreaker, where he shot a 40 on the back nine to go with his 33 on the front. OUCH. The young man was shaking when he came to the scorers table. He could barely control his hands as he filled out the card. To make matters worse, the guy he was scoring shot an 83, but was the one to knock his ball in for eagle on that hole.

I played golf Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday this week and was exhausted by the end of the weekend. I shot 41 in the twilight league, 81 at Wolf Run in Reno (with the marmints above), 87 at the 7000 yard Old Greenwood course in Truckee and 84 in my tournament on Sunday at Diamond Oaks. It was a fun trip and I lost some money gambling, but ate well, drank too much and played some decent golf. Mel and I were paired as a best ball twosome on Friday and shot 38+25 = 63. Good stuff.

Jennifer has some exciting news on two fronts. She finally has made contact with her birth mother. She lives in Ohio and has two sons and two daughters. One of the daughters had a child within weeks of Samantha's birth. Her oldest brother had on his facebook page listed under "people I'd Like to Meet": The sister that I've never met. Jennifer is on cloud nine and plans to meet her mother, Barbara, this Summer in Vegas as well as her two sisters who plan to travel to Vegas to meet Jennifer. The other news is that Jennifer and John have bought a house! It is 1850 square feet, three bedroom, two full bathrooms and located next to a greenbelt with a jungle gym and play area for kids. Both Jennifer and John are very excited. I told Jennifer to give praise to God for all of the good fortune in her life. I also said, "You've got a beautiful daughter, a great house, what's next?" She said, "Marriage?" Hey she brought it up, I didn't.

I finally made contact with Dad and Shirley and it turns out they've been up in Colorado at a car show and visiting Darryl and Cheryl. The trip was ugly with some minor car problems and one gas issue with a leaking fuel hose that stunk up the car and poured some $5 gas on the ground. It was good to get caught up. I also told Dad and Shirley that David is going to quit his job this month and spend part of the Summer traveling. I told them to work on him for a Canada trip. David could come up and help Dad with any projects around the house and they could give him room and board and act as tour guides for him. I'm sure he'd love to see Aunt Glad up in Cultis Lake. With David, it won't happen unless you push him a little bit. First thing he'll need is a passport.

Well, this was late, but I've been busy. I hope all are well and living a life that God would be proud of. Ciao.

Late, but not forgotten

My work IT department has finally shut the door on bloggers and I can no longer access my account at work. I can still view the blog, but I can't work on it. It is fair and makes sense. I get to work at 7 AM and work on the blog, buy I wouldn't want my employees goofing off working on their blogs during work hours so it is a fair tradeoff for me. I had a golf tournament yesterday and will have Junior tournaments the next two Mondays and then be in Mexico, so you might have to look to find my updates. I have OCD, so doing the blog on Monday was my comfort zone. Now, I'll just have to venture into fertile fields.

I played in the Insurance Association Golf Day yesterday. I was in charge of the signs and my friend, Bob, picked me up at 9:30 and we loaded up his truck and had the signs at the course by 9:45 AM. We played at the local country club, Sierra View, and I stacked the deck with Bob's 4 handicap and another agent, Rich's, 5 handicap. I'm a 9 and Anthony in my office is probably a 16. I'm not a fan of scramble golf and half the field plays once or twice a year so it is an exercise in frustration if you take it too seriously. They sell "player improvement packages" with 2 feet of string, a mulligan, and a free throw for $20. The packs make a lot of money for the association, so it's good. We used all of the above and shot a 19 under par 53. We shot 15 birdies, two eagles, and a par for 53. The winners shot a 25 under par score of 47 and there were two groups at 48. When they went up to get their prize of $100 restaurant certificates, the tournament director said we better check their card. I yelled out they better check their urine! Unbelievable. It was a good time and I got to see most of our local agents in a single setting.

I played golf Friday and Saturday as well and it is getting to the point that I could fill out my scorecard before I play. I shot 43+40=83 at Rancho Murietta North. It is a course designed by Arnold Palmer and he has a green on the number three par five with huge undulations in it. It looks like two dinosaurs laid down on the boundary of the green and the grass grew up over them. Palmer thought it was unique. The country club design committee thought it was ridiculous and Palmer's group was paid to put in 18 holes of golf and 17 greens. His company was never paid for the third green as they insisted he change it and he refused. Palmer has never set foot on the course again. They named the road he lived on while the course was being built Latrobe Road. I think they thought that was his birthplace, but it was actually Youngstown, PA. The country club has several Palmer Courts and Arnold Drives, etc. I went out Saturday and played Cherry Island and shot 42+41=83. 83 is my number right now. Both Cherry and RMCC North are 133 slope courses and my nine is safe. I dropped to 9.4 this month and once was an 8.8. I'm giving that number a run for the money this Summer.

I leave Thursday night after my golf league for Reno. We are staying at the Peppermill Casino. We play Friday at Wolf Run, a course famous for it's run of marmints all over the course. I'll try to remember to bring a camera this year as the little furry creatures are fascinating. Wolf Run was built by a wealthy alumnus of the University of Nevada Reno as the home course for the UNR golf team. We will stay over Friday night and again make a trip to the Santa Fe Inn for their $17.50 rib eye steak. It is a Basque restaurant and they feed you pasta, salad, cheeses, chicken, sausages, cream corn, potatoes, a relish tray, asparagus, bread, butter, lots of wine and of course the main course. Amazing, even a better deal than the free drinks in Reno. Saturday we will pack it in and head back through Truckee and play Old Greenwood, a course that is storied and well designed and I really look forward to playing it. The course sits under snow all Winter and uncovers in late Spring in all of it's glory. It reopened two weeks ago and it will be a blast. I'll be home Saturday night, play in a tournament on Sunday at Diamond Oaks and then host the 41st annual David Oxley Memorial Golf tournament on Monday at Diamond Oaks.

I am the tournament director this year and now have 126 junior golfers signed up to play on Monday. I have Sysco Foods donating the hot dogs and buns, Darla and I are supplying 15 cases of water, I have one of the guys with over $80 of snacks for the kids. I have 22 volunteers that will work with me as scorers, marshals, closest to the pin monitors, starters, check-in people, scoring tent monitors, computer scoring, rules officials and some "hangers on" that don't do much beyond eat the free lunch and just hang around.

Darla and I will be off to Mexico in two weeks and the Nuevo Vallarta vacation is coming at a good time. This tournament has worn me out. The kids are great, but their parents are monsters. The deadline for entry was May 24th and I'm still receiving entries. I got one in the mail today with an April 30th dated check and the post mark on the envelope was June 2nd. I am not allowing any late entries and have been called a few names for my stance. The way I look at it is that 126 players got their entry in on time and I'm not sure I would want the kids of some of these parents. The kids are obviously spoiled and don't know the meaning of a deadline. I know the tournament will be excellent, but I'm looking forward to relaxing with a margarita at the pool bar at the Grand Mayan on June 21st.

Darla has been struggling just a little in her business lately. She has had several cancellations of shows and her girls have been dragging. The gas prices and the economy are definitely playing a role. She has a good attitude and will bounce back and is still doing so much better than her peers in the business.

Jennifer's Mom is flying in to Vegas tomorrow to visit with Jennifer and John and Samantha. Jennifer is going in to her union to see about getting placed in some jobs. She can't get her certification until she has worked in Nevada for a year and it has been less than that, especially with her pregnancy. She just needs to get on some union jobs and bide her time and she'll be fine. The pay is very good.

Well, that's it for this week. I will try to update this over the weekend sometime. I hope all is well with each of you. Be happy in life and you will influence others around you. Ciao.

Memorable Memorial Day

The weather has cooled off dramatically and we actually had rain on Saturday. After a spate of record high temperatures, we are now experiencing some record low high temperatures with Stockton hitting a high of just 63 degrees on Monday and Sacramento at 66 degrees. Roseville hung in there with temps in the 70s over the weekend, but we are more used to HOT weather over the Memorial Day weekend than colder weather.

I had to work the Jazz Festival yesterday, so the cooler weather was actually welcome. I worked for the beverage services group which is headed up by Pete's Mom and we did the teardown of all of the bars in Old Sacramento yesterday afternoon. As the venues closed down, we were there with golf cars to pick up the unopened hard liquor and return it to the warehouse. My shift was 12 to six, but when I got there, was told to return at 2:00 PM. A phone call would have been nice as I was already downtown, so I cooled my heels and listened to some Jazz. There was a band from New Orleans playing Cajun jazz that was excellent as well as a band called High Street that played mostly zydeco music with a Latin beat. My back is sore today from hauling cases of booze and mix around all day yesterday. I did score a couple of bottles of Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey and some Red Bull that I brought home. We could only store unopened bottles of booze and most of the venues were pouring out the leftovers. I thought that was a huge waste and took some home. I also brought some limes and celery. They had two cases of limes leftover and a case of celery for the bloody mary drinkers. It was fun to help out (volunteer) and both Darla and I will volunteer next year.

We talked to Jennifer and John last night and tried out Darla's new laptop on the Skype. Her laptop has a built in webcam and microphone so Samantha could see and hear us as well last night. It was nice. Samantha is getting so big and curious. Jennifer's Mom bought Samantha a new walker and she is working that new ride hard. She was jumping up and down and Jennifer had her standing up. She is soooo cute and we have to get out to Vegas soon. Our short term is pretty busy with Mexico next month and Almanor in July, but we will definitely be in Vegas in August.

I played in the Memorial golf tournament on Sunday at Diamond Oaks. I had one of those "could have been great" rounds and shot 43+38=81 with four birdies. I finished out of the money, but won $60 in skin money with all of my birdies. I improved my Eclectic score from 71 to 66. The Eclectic is the year long tournament that takes your "best" score on every hole throughout the year and combines it for an 18 hole score. Boyd and Bob lead the scoring with 64s, so I'm very happy with my nine strokes to be sitting with a "net" 57 this early in the year.

I have a busy golf schedule next week with a marketing golf game on Friday at Rancho Murietta, golf at Cherry Island Saturday, the Insurance Brokers golf tournament Monday at Sierra View Country Club, my league golf on Thursday (we have a bye this week), and then two days of golf at Wolf Run and Old Greenwood up in Reno Friday and Saturday of next week in an agent outing. Fun stuff ahead. I played with one of my inspection company vendors and Mel and Boyd at Apple Mountain up in Camino, California on Wednesday of last week. Camino is in the Sierra foothills above Placerville and almost up to Pollock Pines off Highway 50 That is a tough track in a hilly venue of Sierra pine trees. The guy from Portland was out for his fourth game of the year and shot 112. I birdied the second hole on my way to an 84. Boyd shot 80 and Mel had 94. I really enjoyed the golf course, but would approach some holes differently when I play it again.

I took advantage of the cooler weather this weekend to fertilize the lawn. The heat of last week had stressed portions of the lawn and I'd been hitting those with extra water. After a nice cool weekend, the grass looks stronger and more healthy. It will be a hot Summer ahead and I'm trying to prepare the turf to weather that storm.

Darla and I are both on diets as we prepare for our trip to Nuevo Vallarta June 20-27th. We met with Bob and Vicki, Neil and Lilly and Rick and Jan on Friday night at Cabo's in Rocklin for our final Mexican dinner in preparation for our trip. We are using both of our weeks together and getting two two bedroom condos for the group. We are all looking forward to the trip. Bob and Vicki have never been to Mexico and are in for a treat. We will play golf at the resort which is still undergoing a major renovation by the Nicklaus Company as well as Vista Vallarta (the Nicklaus and Weiskopf courses) and Marina Vallarta (designed by Joe Finger) while we are there. Our goal is to play golf in the morning with the afternoons to sightsee or just lay about by the pool with a cold drink and a good book.

Well, it is closing in on work time. So far I only have one casualty of the long weekend as Anthony has called in with a headache. I have a headache every day and come to work. Often the headache appears after I get to work, but that's another story for another time. I hope all are well. Here is to those brave souls who have died for our freedom! Check out Jennifer and Samantha's blog at the link above. Jennifer has updated it with new stories and some new pictures. That's where I stole the piuctures of Jennifer, John and Samantha above. Ciao.

May Birthdays are HOT HOT HOT!

It was a big birthday weekend in the Lyon household as Darla celebrated the 14th anniversary of her 29th birthday and David hit 21. Darla was actually in San Jose on her birthday as she had one of her cousins in town from Idaho so she left Thursday and spent the evening with them and returned on Friday. Darla had asked me about three weeks ago to not buy her a birthday present or a Mother's day gift and just put the money toward a new laptop for her. We have an HP desktop computer and she has a state owned laptop computer that she uses for work. With her jewelry business growing so fast and her work with the foster agency that requires monthly reports, she wanted her own laptop. I told her at the time that her business needed to buy the computer and that I'd already bought her birthday gift. I shut her down pretty quick and she didn't really give it another thought. In reality, we have some friends that work for Hewlett Packard and I had already ordered her a new HP Pavilion dv9700z Entertainment 17 inch laptop with web cam and 2 GB of memory. The laptop has fingerprint sign on, Microsoft office and Vista Windows and is very nice. I surprised her with it on Wednesday night when we got home from dinner with the Home office visitors at Joe's Crab Shack in Old Sacramento. She was completely surprised and here it is Monday and she's already taken the computer on two trips, one to San Jose and one to Lake Tahoe.

Darla got home on Friday and we met Alicia and her boyfriend, Don, at Paul Martin's American Bistro restaurant in Roseville. Alicia and Darla share the same birthday, although five years apart. It was an interesting visit. Don had stopped at the restaurant earlier in the afternoon and dropped off a cake and two sets of roses for Alicia and Darla. Don and Darla have very similar personalities and both are passionate people and the conversation got a bit heated at times as we discussed the state of health care in America. I had to calm both of them down. It was like a tennis match for Alicia and I watching the two of them go at it. I thought we could have gone to the bar and got a drink together and not been missed. Paul martin is the "P" in P.F. Changs and this is a great restaurant with great food.

Saturday was David's 21st and we took him up to Tahoe for his first "legal" drink and a night of gambling. He was working on some online classes and didn't get finished until almost 4:30 and we left from Roseville picking Darla up in El Dorado Hills at a fundraiser for injured horses where Darla was selling her jewelry. We got up to the hotel (Tahoe Beach and Ski resort) about 6:45 and got checked in. David had to go online and submit his tests and then we went out to the Lakeside Inn and Casino for their legendary Prime Rib dinner. We got David signed up for a players card and both he and Darla got t-shirts, dice, a free drink coupon and a coupon for a free dinner because it was their birthday month. We put our name in for dinner and sat in the bar and David had a margarita. Dinner was great and I splurged with a prime rib as well. David opted for the 20 ounce prime rib and we had lettuce wraps and coconut shrimp appetizers. We finished dinner about 9:30 and ended up sitting and playing nickle video poker until about 1:30 AM. Darla and I paid for David's gambling and with dinner, the room, gambling and breakfast, it was about a $250 outing. We held our own gambling for quite awhile, but were cold late. David hit a number of jackpots with four-of-a-kinds and really seemed to enjoy himself. We went out to Heidi's for breakfast Sunday morning and were back and relaxing on the pool by about 1:30 PM Sunday.

The weather did change last week and we hit 102 on Thursday, 100 Friday, 103 Saturday and 100 yesterday. The heat wave has subsided and today is supposed to top out at 95 degrees and it will be back seasonable by about midweek with mid eighties. The early heat wave really shocked the system. You just haven't prepared for the blast furnace heat and it saps you. I played golf on Saturday and it was 92 degrees when we teed off at 8:30. It seemed even warmer as the water from the ground is evaporating up and the humidity on the course is probably 80 percent. By the back nine, it was up to 98 degrees, but the course had dried out and it was more comfortable. I shot 41+41=82 and took $6 in skins from the group.

We went out to a house party at Darren and Marissa's last night. I had thought it was just the golf guys getting together, but when we got there he had all of his neighbor's over for a barbecue. We got there a little late as Darla didn't wake me from my slumber on the pool until 4:45 and the party started at 5:00 PM. Their neighbors seemed nice enough, but it was like we had crashed a neighborhood watch meeting. Bob and Vicki showed up about 5:45 and we sat outside while the neighbors all visited inside. We tried a few times to mix with the group, but it just didn't jell. It was an odd mixture of people and Darren even mentioned that there was a division in the groups. Vicki had been in Southern California for two weeks helping her daughter who had just given birth and we wanted to get caught up. Darren and Marissa have a beautiful home that was once owned by the Christian artist, Lincoln Brewster. Lincoln played bass guitar in Journey with Steve Perry and is now the music pastor at our old church, Bayside in Granite Bay.

Well, this is a little short, but it is payday and I have to do payroll to make sure the troops get paid. It is a relief to have the visitors from Home Office gone and the office back to normal. I hope all is well in your world. I will get a few pictures uploaded tonight. Take care. Ciao.

The Heat is On!

Yep, Spring has Sprung and Summer isn't far behind. We actually had a very comfortable weekend with highs in the mid-eighties and nice cool nights, BUT all of that will change toward the end of the work week when the high is expected to creep up over 100 degrees. In fact, 100 is supposed to hit on Thursday, which is the night of my golf league. I very well could go from the course home to my pool. The pool was up to 76 degrees this weekend and Darla was on the pool in an air mattress yesterday getting some sun.

Mother's day was a nice relaxing day. I coaxed David into hosting his Mom to a Mother's day lunch at Chevys. I n fact i called him Saturday night and told hime that he was taking his Mom to breakfast the next day. He did me one better and bought her lunch. We met at church and the two of them headed off to lunch in Rocklin at the new Chevys there. I headed home chopped up some potatoes, some onion, some turkey bacon and had it all nicely frying on the stove, when I realized that we were out of eggs. I enjoyed a breakfast of potatoes and turkey bacon with toast and no eggs. A little weird, but it works. I set out to the back yard to cut back some of the ground cover around the pool. It is so healthy that it keeps growing up the fence line and onto the raised flowerbeds above the pool. I took my hedge trimmer and cut it back along the border of the patio and the pool edging and went about cleaning up all of the trimmings. Darla and David made it back home and soon Darla and I were relaxing by the pool with a cold drink and our books, while I slowly nodded off to sleep. Darla woke me up with a start and I looked up to see an 8" rat sitting on the raised flowerbed. His tail was about 7 inches long and he scampered into the bushes before I could react. We let the cats out to see if they could raise him, but no luck. When I went out to barbecue dinner, he had fallen into the pool and was lying dead on the steps. Hopefully he doesn't have a whole family back there. I was going to call Clark to come out and set up some traps, but he committed rodent suicide before I had the chance. David took pictures of him in the pool, but I even I have standards high enough not to publish that picture in my blog. Well, not yet anyhow.

We had a fun weekend with a dinner and poker on Saturday night at one of my friend's' houses. He lives about four blocks from us and is the cousin of my two man best ball partner. We will go to Poppy Hills together with the wives in August. His cousin, John, is a master barbecue chef and his wife, Camille, is the sauce master. They prepared tri tip and chicken breasts. The sauce recipe that Camille prepares from scratch was "stolen" by her brother and he markets it commercially and is in both Costco stores and Wal Mart. I was really looking forward to going off my diet and enjoying some tri tip. I did, but the sauce on the chicken is so good that I could have passed on the tri tip. The chicken was moist and tender and delicious. John puts the marinated chicken breast on the barbecue and turns the meat every three minutes to keep it moist and on the third turn dunks it again in marinade and then turns it once more. The meat is cooked on high over charcoal for twelve minutes and is to die for. We all brought bottles of wine and the wine connoisseurs sniffed and tasted and rolled the wine on their tongues. i enjoyed the Armida Cabernet Sauvignon and the Stewards Private reserve Merlot. We also had a Greg Norman Cabernet that was very nice.

The guys played poker and I introduced Darren to the group and to poker. As is the norm in our group, Darren could not catch a card and proceeded to lose $110 in about 3 1/2 hours. He finally quit and retired to the couch. The girls were going to go to a movie, but were enjoying their vodka lemonades a little too much and ended up sitting in the kitchen talking and laughing. Darla hauled out her jewelry (by request) and soaked our friends for about $500 in sales. I won about $45 in poker so it was a good night.

Saturday was the final round of our 54 hole individual championship. I was pretty stressed out after a week of meetings and training and needed to relax and play golf by Saturday. I shot 39+41=80 for another net 70 and a three round total of -4. The winner was at -8 and I finished fifth out of 24 golfers in my flight, so was I pleased with my play throughout the tournament. I made a lot of one putts on Saturday and parred the top four holes at Diamond Oaks. I never did manage a birdie on the day, but played solid golf the entire tournament.

I am in the middle of preparing for two golf tournaments on back-to-back Mondays in June. The first tournament is the Sacramento insurance agents' annual tournament on Monday June 2nd. I am on the golf committee and in charge of the signs. We have about 30 sponsors each of which has to have an individual sign (hole sponsor, beverage, closest-to-the-pin, long drive, etc) and then I have to do a 3'x3' sign thanking all of our sponsors. On top of that, I am knee deep in preparing for the annual junior golf tournament that we sponsor at the Roseville Golf Club. The tournament is in memory of one of the junior golfers from Roseville that died in 1967 in a boating accident. He was 17 years old and already a plus golfer (meaning his handicap was lower than a zero) and his father was on the board of the Roseville Men's Club (We changed our name after being sued by an ACLU lawyer in 1991). The tournament has been going now for 41 years helped annually by a donation from the young man's family. So far I have 74 golfers signed up and expect over 100 young people to come out and play golf in our tournament. I am the tournament director and have handled all of the entries, phone calls, marketing, donations, etc. for the tournament. It is the sole biggest job of the President of The Roseville Golf Club and once this is complete, I will be done with about 90% of my responsibilities as the head of our club. The one thing that I am proudest of as President of this club, is establishing a slow play policy and enforcing it. We have purchased clocks for the first tee and the last tee and require each player to record the time they teed off and the time they finished. our slow play policy requires every player to finish in 4 hours and forty minutes or within fifteen minutes of the group in front of them. You never wanted to be in the last group of our tournament because your tee time would be pushed back thirty minutes and it would take a minimum of five hours to finish the round. Since we instituted the slow play rules, not one group has taken 4:40 to play and not one group has finished farther than fifteen minutes behind the group in front of them. I teed off Saturday in the third to last group (out of 20 foursomes) and we started within eight minutes of our tee time and finished the round in 4:15. The rules are working and the players are aware of the two stroke penalty for slow play and don't want to be the first to get whacked.

John and Samantha treated Jennifer to a spa day yesterday and then went out to dinner at some Italian festival in Las Vegas. I didn't talk to her, but Darla did and she was having a great day on her first Mother's day. We also didn't get a chance to call Shirley last night as we were busy with movies. We watched "PS: I Love you. ", a total chick flick, but an entertaining one. We had "27 Dresses" as well, but David refused to watch that.

Well, the gang is arriving and our Home Office trainers will be here shortly, so I have to get prepared for the day. I hope all is well with you, that Mother's Day was a celebration of your Mom, or you, and that God continues to direct your life and be in the center of it. Ciao.

We are officially paperless at work.

We are somehow paperless now and will be trained on the Document management system this week. I have two ladies in from Home Office with another coming in next Monday for a week. We are now paperless and paper files are taboo in my office, but I had to go out last week and get 22 120 page manuals printed for the training this week. It seems a contradiction in terms to print out a manual for a paperless training, but we hang onto what we know and having the manual physically in front of some of the staff will help ease them into the transition. According to Anthony, most of the staff was here over the weekend. I readied myself for this last week and actually took Friday off to mentally prepare for the next two weeks. It will be intense, painful and likely rewarding when it is all said and done. The other offices have transitioned without too much stress, so we will follow in their footsteps.

I took Friday off and played golf with several friends, including Darren and Mel. Mel is one of my agents, so I bought lunch afterward. We teed off at 8:00 AM and were done at Woodcreek by noon. I had a Jekyl and Hyde round with 48 on the front and 38 on the back for 86. We had lunch and I had to scoot by 1:30 as I had a 2 PM doctor appointment at Kaiser. I got home freshened up, changed my shoes and raced off to the doctor. I got there right at 2:00 PM and then made a couple of phone calls as I waited. It got to be 2:45 and I still hadn't been called, so approached the receptionist and asked if perhaps they had called my name while I was on the phone. It turns out that my appointment was for 3:30 PM, not 2:00 PM. The 2 PM is for my dentist appointment in two weeks. I asked why she didn't draw my attention to the time when I checked in. She said and I quote, "Well, sir, many older folks come to Kaiser and sort of make a day of it." That's it, I'm dyeing my hair. I did hear an older couple talking and she said to the old guy in a wheelchair, "We'll come back to Kaiser on Tuesday, see the dermatologist, then go to lunch and be back by 2:30 to see your oncologist. Won't that be fun?" The old guy looked at me as he passed with a "kill me now" look on his face.

I was driving home from work on Tuesday and saw an "I'm an idiot!" moment. There was a young kid on the side of the road riding a BMX bike and in his arms was another BMX bike. This is a narrow older road with telephone poles along the side of the road and no sidewalk. You can see it coming. He clipped one of the poles with the bike in his hands. The carried bike went one way, his bike went out from under him and he landed face first on the side of the road. Luckily he didn't get thrown into the road or he might have been killed. I saw him jump up in my rear view mirror, pick up one of the bikes and throw it against a fence. This is the new generation that will lead us into the promise of the future. I was just pleased to see a kid outside riding a bike.

I got home from the doctor on Friday and decided to mow the lawn. Of the few allergies that I have, grasses are my worst. I should mow the lawn with a mask on, but I don't want to look like a guy who should ride the "special " bus, so I don't. While mowing I ingested a piece of flying grass and went into a coughing fit that finally dislodged the grass from my throat. The ten seconds or so that it was in there caused my throat to swell up and I still have a scratchy sound to my voice three days later. Perhaps I should wear a mask and a helmet and just go ahead and admit that I'm a dweeb.

We had the first two rounds of our 54 hole Individual championship on the weekend. I played much better, in fact ended up with a 39+41=80 on Saturday for a net 70 and then followed that with a 41+41=82 for 72 on Sunday. I sit at -2 after two rounds and the leaders are at -6. The conditions were ideal over the weekend with both days in the 80's. The only problem we had is that the greens were aerated on Monday and Tuesday and are bumpy and SLOW. I left about ten putts on the lip over the course of the weekend and could have been right there with the leaders. We will finish up on Saturday of next week.

Darren and his wife, Marissa, joined Darla and I for dinner on Friday night and he decided to treat us to dinner. We went to Benihanas, and after drinks, appetizers, dinner and more drinks, the bill came to almost $300. That boy can eat. We had sushi, shrimp tempura, yellow tail something or rather, onion soup, salad and I even splurged on filet mignon. It was fantastic, but Darla and I decided that we probably can't afford to hang at dinner with them very often.

The junior golf tournament that I will be the tournament director for comes up June 9th. I now have 44 entries and looking to add more. I have 20 volunteers for the day and we have Sysco foods lined up as sponsor for the lunch for the kids. They will provide Italian Sausages and buns. At the end of this tournament my major responsibility as President of the golf club will be done. I will still preside over the meetings and be the figure head, but the club is mostly run by the tournament director and the handicapper. It has been a great year and we will have a really good junior event in June.

I talked to Jennifer and John last night. Samantha was on the Skype and is talkative, rolling over, standing on her feet (with Mom's helping hands) and basically being the princess of the millennium. Jennifer is with the electrical union in Las Vegas and is taking some seminars to be ratified as an Installer. Once she completes the courses, she will be eligible to work on the union jobs in town at a hefty rate of pay. She will also have union benefits. Jennifer and John still have several short sale offers in, but also made an offer on a regular sale home in a golf community north of Las Vegas. They should find out early this week if their offer is accepted.

The picture of the pool shows the flowers that Darla planted in and around my palm garden. She wanted more color and it looks really good.

Well, it is payroll Monday and I have to get to it. The Home Office visitors will be here shortly. We will be off to a Mexican Restaurant for dinner tonight to celebrate "Cinco De Mayo." Be well. Ciao.

Another Hot Spring Weekend!

Nice pictures of my granddaughter provided by Jennifer and John. They went out to an old gambling town outside of Vegas and Samantha really seemed to enjoy her day with Mom and Dad. She is just getting cuter and Darla and I need to plan a Vegas weekend soon.

The weather is heating up and we had two days in the 90's over this past weekend. Darla was up in Paradise at a street fair and I was home batching it. David and I made a steady diet of barbecued hot dogs over the weekend. Mine were barbecued Turkey franks. I'm sticking with the change in diet even if my blood work doesn't show much change. I feel better which counts for something. I have less problems with indigestion and heartburn and I'm sleeping better. Hopefully after my next appointment and getting some meds for the triglyceride problem, the blood work will settle down. I have switched to Zocor and continue to take the fish oil pills. We'll see how it all fleshes out.

I played in the Roseville City Amateur this weekend and definitely played like an amateur. The first day was at Diamond Oaks and the tournament started poorly in that I was placed in a fivesome. There are many good reasons that a regular golf group is comprised of four players. As it turned out, with the five players in our group we ended up with a good foursome. One of the guys was an absolute PIA (Pain In the A$$). He started the round by complaining that we were all standing too close to the tee box when he hit. We all dutifully backed off and let the Queen have her throne. He was back at it on the first green as he wanted everyone behind him and "preferably off the green" when he putted. Now with four players, that would be a rude request. With five, it was ridiculous. On the second green, he yelled at me to get out from behind him as he could see me. I moved and mumbled something about "fish eyes". He pulled me aside as we walked to the third green and said that he has "hockey eyes" and can see everything around him. I asked him if he was Canadian. When he said no, I said "thank God!" He had no clue that I was concerned for my heritage. I thought the only jerks in Canada were members of Parliament.

This piece of work ended up getting into it with one of the other players on a ruling. I was not close to them when it happened, but the short version is that the player lifted a ball in a hazard to identify his ball. The yokel yelled, "that's a one stroke penalty, you cannot lift a ball in a hazard". The player making the identification said he thought he could. The yokel was adamant. i heard them yelling at each other and when they approached me explained what happened. I told them that the rule changed in 2008 and you could now lift a ball from a hazard for purposes of identification and then replace it in the same position it was prior to being moved. The rule was amended and it is now a two stroke penalty to play the wrong ball out of a hazard. In the past you went ahead an played the ball and if it was the wrong ball you went back and searched for another ball to hit. The USGA realized the error of their ways and changed the rule. I told this to them and Mr. Yokel PIA, told me I was full of #$%&. I told him to kiss my rear and learn the rules of golf if he was going to play the game. It was a brutal five hours of golf with this idiot. The guy who he called a cheater told me he was going to punch him in the head and I told him that I was President of the Golf Club and asked him to wait and do it in the parking lot after the round and then sucker punch him in the throat for me. We all struggled with this BOZO in our group and no one shot better than a net 72. I shot 87 for a net 76 and was just happy to get out of there without losing it with this idiot. He stayed about forty feet from the rest of the group most of the time and we all had completely had it with him.

Sunday was Woodcreek and a new day. I woke up with a sour stomach and some stomach cramps. I probably had a touch of the flu, but soldiered on and showed up at the course for my tee time. Unbelievably, the Yokel approached me and said, "Could you believe those guys yesterday? What a bunch of jerks, eh?" He completely caught me off guard and I was wondering what alternate universe this yahoo lives in. I finally found my voice and let him know that the only jerk I saw on Saturday was him. He played right behind us on Sunday and started with a foursome that dwindled to a threesome after three holes. I can only imagine that he chased the fourth player off with his "high maintenance" attitude. He let me know Saturday that he'd been married three times and was having trouble finding the right girl. There are deaf and blind women in the world and he should seek one out. Men are so forgiving of each other's weaknesses, but all four of the guys that I played with were ready to have this guy drawn and quartered within half an hour of meeting him.

My game on Sunday was equally as bad as Saturday with the exception of the fact that I actually felt bad. I shot 48 on the front side and almost walked off after the front nine, but was talked into staying by Tony Masone, of the guys in my club., He was enjoying playing with me and the other two guys were from Reno and Santa Rosa. I hung in there and shot a 40 on the backside for 88. I did suffer some stomach cramps and ended up having to relieve myself in some trees on the course after 16. I then parred 17 and 18 for the 40.

I got home and relaxed outside by the pool cleaning out the filter and straining and brushing down the pool. I'm sporting a bit of a sunburn from two days in the sun this weekend, but it feels good.

I witnessed a near accident this morning on my drive to work. A Chevy Tahoe was in front of me and he had run a light behind us to stay with me as we drove . He changed lanes as we approached another light and it went yellow. I guess he expected the truck in front of him to keep going and when he didn't abruptly changed lanes to make the light, not realizing that the car in the left lane was also going to stop for the light. He ended up swerving to his left and coming to rest on the median of the road next to the left turn lane. Good God, buddy, it is just Monday.

My office will go paperless next Monday and I will be invaded by minions from Home Office. I will try to get the blog done over the weekend, but I'm playing in a two day individual tournament at Diamond Oaks. I have to play host to the trainers and will be out to dinner with them on Monday night.

I hope all is right in your world. Ciao.

Hanging in the Beautiful Environs of Fresno, California

Yep. Eat your heart out. Here I am 4 hours from civilization just chillin' in Fresno, California. I spent the day at our office here in town seeing how the paperless environment works and I'm ready for some downtime. Tomorrow is the underwriter's session and I need a good night's sleep tonight. As usual, I slept just okay last night and need to get caught up on sleep tonight. I'm staying at a new TownePlace Suites hotel in Fresno and it's nice. We went out to dinner at a Mexican Food restaurant tonight (imagine that in Fresno, CA?) and I had a Waborita. That should help with the sleep, eh?

I was contacted by my doctor last week and all of my hard work and sacrifice on diet and extra exercise and even wolfing down Fish Oil pills every morning went to waste as my cholesterol numbers are about the same and my triglycerides are still high. I switched to Zocor from Lovistatin and will meet with my doctor in a week to see about going on a new triglyceride reducing medication. I'm really bummed, but the doctor said that it has more to do with genetics than anything else, so now I'm pissed at Mom and Dad.

David spent last weekend in San Luis Obispo at Cal Poly. He and a team from Cosumnes River College competed in the Architectural competition at Cal Poly. His team had a really nice presentation of a water proof pod where the could live and sleep. Daniel helped them extensively from hauling in the materials to building the finished project. I don't think it was technically in the rules for him to help, but you can't keep those Lierly boys apart. I haven't talked to David since he got back as I left before he came home.

I played golf both Saturday and Sunday in preparation for the Roseville City Amateur next weekend. I had an NCGA two man qualifier on Sunday. Following my earlier good practice round followed by an egg laid in the tournament, I turned the tables this week and shot 43+44=87 on Saturday and paid out the skins to my partners. Sunday, I played good golf and finished with a 41+39=80. It was a tough day as my partner, Steve, showed up with a screaming hangover courtesy of a night and day of drinking and carousing at his niece's wedding in Lake Tahoe on Saturday. He showed up about twenty minutes before we teed off and had a drinkers sweat going and looked like Hell. He played just the same and hit balls out of bounds on both number one and two. I managed a par on number one, but slipped with a double-bogey on 2. Steve shot a 9 and left us with a net 7 on the par five. By all rights our day should have been over, but we "ham and egged" it to a 32 on the front nine, which should have been a 30. We kept it going on the back with my 39 and a 41 for Steve and a 31 for the team. Our 63 was good enough for a tie for second place with two other teams. We had to play it off and one of the teams had left the premises, so they were disqualified. We played number one over and Steve managed another muffed drive that he hit about sixty yards to the right. I smoothed a shot about 260 yards down the middle. One of the guys we were playing is about 24 and he hit a drive that kept climbing and climbing and stopped about sixty yards from the green some 305 yards from the tee. Luckily his touch is the touch of a 24 year old who golfs on weekends and he hit his second shot about 120 yards on a straight skull shot. His Dad had a six, he had a five, Steve had a five and I two putted for a par and the win. Steve and I will move on in the qualifier to Poppy Hills on August 21st. Nice.

Darla continues to do well with her jewelry business and is making a nice living with her business. She is taking a break from her foster care social work as she doesn't have any kids now. She will be up in Paradise at a city event both weekend days of next week, so I will be playing the city championship and batching it.

I'll close with a joke that I heard recently. There was a guy getting prepared to hit a shot on the first tee at his club. As he lined up the shot, a voice came over the loudspeaker, "Will the gentleman on the first tee please move back from the ladies tee to the men's tee." He looked up and could see every eye on him. He went back to lining up his shot and the loudspeaker again boomed, "Sir, you are on the LADIES tee, please move back to the men's tee." Finally the guy cupped his hands and yelled, "Will the asshole on the microphone shut up and let me play my second shot?" Ah, golf, you've got to love it. Be well and stay in the boundaries of our Lord and Savior. Ciao.