Hot August Nights

Not really, but I was looking for a Title for my latest epistle and this is what I came up with. The Summer is quickly slipping away and I see high school kids with backpacks and shorts trudging to school in the morning as I navigate my way to work in the early dawn light. My automatic headlights stay on now on the way to work as the days grow shorter. The good thing is that the temperatures have returned to normal (mid nineties) after a cool Summer. The bad thing is ditto as I have a golf game with two of my agents and my top underwriter on Tuesday at the Ridge golf club in Auburn. The temperature Tuesday is supposed to be 101 degrees. We are meeting them for lunch at the lodge and then play in the afternoon. My office will have a family Day on Saturday at a swim club in Sacramento. The club has high dives and horse shoes and sand volleyball. Darla and I are providing hamburgers and chicken breasts with buns and each family is bringing different items (salads, fruit, desserts, etc.) Several of the employees have begged off due to other plans, but we should have a good turnout. My newest underwriter is on the board of the swim club and got us access at no cost.

I had to order a part for the pool sweep tonight and I just love the internet. I was able to go online and order the part (a replacement bag) for $35 delivered to my office. I do most of my own shopping now on the internet. I'm looking at getting Jennifer a new Flip digital camcorder for her birthday and to encourage her to send us movies of young Samantha. I'll be able to order it and have it delivered to the office at no tax and no shipping. It is so convenient.

Darla has one of her newer recruits for Silpada with a husband who likes both golf and poker. She has been trying to hook us up and I talked to Chuck today (he called me) and I invited him to my poker game this weekend. he and his wife, Pam, want to go to Monterey with us this year. I just signed up for the trip October 30th-November 1st on Friday, I went online to search for a good priced hotel. I am a believer in Priceline as long as you use a hotel with 3 plus stars. I put in a 3.5 star hotel in Monterey and offered $89 a night. We got a lodge room at the Portola Spa and Hotel on Fisherman's wharf for my asking price. When I told Bob about it, it turns out Vicki had gone to the hotel website and also booked a comparable room for $189 a night. Wow.

I played golf both Thursday and Saturday this week. I played at Wild Hawk in Elk Grove Thursday and it is a bit of a cow pasture golf experience. Neil, our TD, has signed a contract to play there next year for $65 a player. It is too much. It cost me $31 and I shot 39+40=79. The course is 6200 yards, but has two holes less than 295 yards (par fours). I also played in the Rose Cup qualifier. It is my goal every year to play in the Rose Cup and I haven't been on the team for three years. I missed again this year with a 43+39=82 at Diamond oaks on Saturday. I had three holes where I was a combined 7 over par. I came to number 8 at 2 over and went double bogey, triple bogey on 8 and 9 for a 43. I then went bogey-par-double bogey on the back nine with three lip outs. I was proud to pull my game together and finish with five straight pars on the back for the 39. It wasn't pretty, but there were times in my golf life when I would have shot a 44 on the back for an 87. Nice to see at age 53, that I've finally matured as a golfer.

I have two things to share. One is the 2009 Stella awards. For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald's in New Mexico, where she purchased coffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right? That' s right; these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head. So keep your head scratcher handy. Without further adieu, the 2009 Stella award winners are:

*SEVENTH PLACE* Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son. Start scratching!
* SIXTH PLACE * Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, California won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps. Scratch some more...
* FIFTH PLACE * Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, who was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson,the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut.. Forced to sit for eight, count 'em, EIGHT days and survive on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner's insurance company claiming undue mental Anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of anguish. Keep scratching. There are more...... Double hand scratching after this one...
*FOURTH PLACE* Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th Place in the Stella's when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbor's beagle - even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun. Pick a new spot to scratch, you're getting a bald spot..
* THIRD PLACE * Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. What ever happened to people being responsible for their own actions? Only two more so ease up on the scratching....
*SECOND PLACE* Kara Walton, of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor,knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms.. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000....oh, yeah, plus dental expenses. Go figure. Ok. Here we go!!
* FIRST PLACE * This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was: Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set.. The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down? $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.
Are we, as a society, getting more stupid.... Or are more members of Congress serving on juries these days?

Okay, and here my political bent shows up: WHO AM I?

I was born in one country, raised in another. My father was born in another country. I was not his only child. He fathered several children with numerous women. I became very close to my mother, as my father showed no interest in me. My mother died at an early age from cancer. Later in life, questions arose over my real name. My birth records were sketchy and no one was able to produce a legitimate, reliable birth certificate. I grew up practicing one faith but converted to Christianity, as it was widely accepted in my country, but I practiced non-traditional beliefs & didn't follow Christianity, except in the public eye under scrutiny. I worked and lived among lower-class people as a young adult, disguising myself as someone who really cared about them.. That was before I decided it was time to get serious about my life and I embarked on a new career. I wrote a book about my struggles growing up. It was clear to those who read my memoirs that I had difficulties accepting that my father abandoned me as a child. I became active in local politics in my 30's then with help behind the scenes, I literally burst onto the scene as a candidate for national office in my 40s.. They said I had a golden tongue and could talk anyone into anything.. That reinforced my conceit. I had a virtually non-existent resume, little work history, and no experience in leading a single organization. Yet I was a powerful speaker and citizens were drawn to me as though I were a magnet and they were small roofing tacks. I drew incredibly large crowds during my public appearances. This bolstered my ego. At first, my political campaign focused on my country's foreign policy. I was very critical of my country in the last war and seized every opportunity to bash my country. But what launched my rise to national prominence were my views on the country's economy. I pretended to have a really good plan on how we could do better and every poor person would be fed & housed for free. I knew which group was responsible for getting us into this mess. It was the free market, banks & corporations. I decided to start making citizens hate them and if they were envious of others who did well, the plan was clinched tight. I called mine "A People's Campaign" and that sounded good to all people. I was the surprise candidate because I emerged from outside the traditional path of politics & was able to gain widespread popular support. I knew that, if I merely offered the people 'hope' , together we could change our country and the world. So, I started to make my speeches sound like they were on behalf of the downtrodden, poor, ignorant to include "persecuted minorities" like the Jews. My true views were not widely known and I needed to keep them unknown, until after I became my nation's leader. I had to carefully guard reality, as anybody could have easily found out what I really believed, if they had simply read my writings and examined those people I associated with. I'm glad they didn't. Then I became the most powerful man in the world. And the world learned the truth.

*Who am I? * I am ADOLF HITLER, WHO WERE YOU THINKING OF?

That's it, I retire the soapbox for another week. Ciao.

Booted out of the house for Silpada...Again

So, instead of golfing, I decided to re stain the fence surrounding the back yard. We had the fence put in three years ago when we had the pool installed and I stained the fence with a Behr Redwood stain with water repellent then and I still had about 2/3 rds of a five gallon can left. The wood had been sun scorched and much of the stain had faded or worn off. It isn't a task that you plan to do, it just sort of happens. Darla had another retirement party today from 1-3 PM at the house (this is where she offers her "retired" jewelry at 50% off and previews the new jewelry in the catalogue). She encouraged me to go play golf, but I played yesterday and money is a little tight right now because of the brakes we had done by the boys, so I stayed home and re-stained the fence. Darla gets a little goofy when her parties are on and was irritated that David and I were at the house. I went out to work on the fence when she left for the store at 11:30. When she got home, I innocently asked if she could put some sunscreen on my back and she about took my head off. She really wanted me gone. I was thinking of the tongue lashing I'd get if I worked all afternoon and sunburned my back. It was a no win situation and she came out and brought me some cold drinks when there was a lull in the party and was apologetic. Stressed a little bit?

The golf club had a tournament at Ancil Hoffman this week, but this was the weekend we had planned to be in Las Vegas. Jennifer worked it out with John to trade this weekend for her birthday weekend, so we didn't have to spend $400 to go babysit. Jennifer will be out in Sacramento for her 29th birthday as her Mom is flying she and Dina (her roommate) out to help her install some ceiling fans. Of course, young Samantha will be in tow. At any rate, I missed the tournament and set up golf with Matt and Darren at Diamond. I shot 80, Matt shot 74 and Darren shot 85. I won the skins as I kept picking up the carry over skins. We had a good weekend.

Darla and I went to a couple's shower at Anthony and Erin's house in Roseville. Matt was there and Pete and Vicki showed up as well. They were expecting more people from the office, but they didn't show in the time that we were there. Anthony has a nice home in Roseville, two stories with a pool and the kids were all out swimming.

Darla and I walked for the first time since her injury last night and walked over to the video store to pick up a movie to watch last night. She complained about some soreness in her foot afterward and she hasn't technically been cleared to walk yet, but it was nice to stretch our legs.

Work is going great. We had a great July made even better by a mid year contingency check from one of our companies that came in mid July. It pushed us over budget for the year, which is awesome. We are up about 45% with this company and on track to write about $4,000,000 with them this year with a 7% loss ratio. Anthony writes a small artisan program with them and books about $30,000 in new business every month. Anthony has turned into a true superstar within the company and is third in the company in new business production through mid-year. He was my assistant just three short years ago and it is one of my best decisions to promote him. Pete had a great month in July and is tracking for the same this month. He has had four months this year over his personal best from his past three years, so things are truly looking up.

Darla's job is solid in spite of the failing economy and furloughs that abound with state workers. They are having to cut services in some instances, but so far the agency is doing good.

David and Daniel continue to work odd jobs this Summer. Dan is off on a week long vacation with his girlfriend, Becky, and her family. David was working tearing down an old metal shed in his Dad's backyard. He had a screw that was frozen and was putting pressure on the screwdriver and slipped and the sheet metal tore into his hand above the middle finger of his right hand (his driving finger Darla calls it). He had to rush to emergency and it took five stitches to close the wound. Luckily he wasn't in Canada or they would have given him a Band Aid and an Excedrin and told him that stitches are only done on Tuesdays. Shirley had an incident with a cut thumb and the medical tech at the Emergency told her they weren't doing stitches that day. And Obama and Hillary (Frick and Frack) want socialized medicine in the US. God be with us.

You can see in the pictures included with my post the cut back palm garden in the raised bed above the pool. I did that last weekend and the fence today. It took me four hours to stain all of the fence and I didn't end up with a sunburned back. Darla's party went well although she didn't have a lot of guests, but those that did come were buyers.

Finally, you see the picture of Winchester CC at the top of the blog (double click the picture to see this picture as it is intended). The Country Club was a dream of one of the area's largest home builders. He spent 20 years and countless millions building the course, which at it's height commanded $100,000 for a membership with a monthly fee of $600. It was one of the most exclusive country clubs in California. Unfortunately, the housing market killed the development. Homes were built there and the CC&Rs did not allow a home smaller than 5000 square feet to be built. The clubhouse (bathed in lights above) is 35,000 square feet and a jewel of design and engineering. I took a group of my agents there on Wednesday for $75 per player with a cart at noon. The course is 6,500 yards from the blue tees with a slope of 134. I shot 84 and thoroughly enjoyed myself. People always asked me why I haven't joined a private club. This is the best example I can find(plus I'm cheap). Can you imagine the angst these members feel as the course goes through bankruptcy? What will happen to their $100,000, plus they have to put up with guys like me, who drive up, plunk down $75 and play their dream course. I'm really not prepared to marry a golf course at this point in my life. There are far too many great courses left to play.

I hope you are well, happy and healthy. Be good and keep Jesus as the head of your household. Ciao.

August Already?

So what happened to the Summer? Time has rushed by this Summer and the Sunday ads are all about Back to School. Classes will begin later this month, NFL camps are under way and the first preseason football game is next weekend. I guess time really does fly when you are having fun.

Work continues to get better with each passing month. Our office was up 23% in earned income this month and up about 22% in policy count. I am also up in staff as I added an underwriting trainee, we added two with the purchase we made and have added another part time typist who starts Monday. Our service standards in typing have been eroding the last few months and I've been begging for a new typist and the position was finally approved last week. I wasted no time in hiring someone and actually am bringing in an ex employee of one of our retailers who was caught in the downturn. She is over qualified for the position, but will be good bench strength as we continue to grow the office. She felt the same way and is hiring on with an eye to moving up within the organization when an opportunity presents itself. She is a Type A personality and hopefully she doesn't bowl over the other typists, who tend to be an introspective lot.

Darla got home from Kansas City last Sunday with many tales from her trip. She enjoyed herself and enjoyed herding her seven recruits around at the conference. I picked up Darla and one of her team members and her teammate kept going on about how EVERYONE knows Darla, she can't walk around without someone stopping her. There are 7,000 women at the conference, so I'm guessing it was a bit of an exaggeration.

The weather here has cooled into the upper 80's and it is fantastic. It is still warm during the days, but with cool nights and mornings. I took advantage of the cooler weather and took a couple of agents out golfing this past week to Woodcreek and up to the Country Club in Auburn, California. I've begun struggling with poor front nines. I shot 43+39 both days for 82. I played Saturday and had the same problem, but followed it up with a 43 on the back for an 86. I'm turning into a hacker. I have another marketing golf game on Wednesday, when I will take the two men who met with my CEO off hours out to golf at Winchester Country Club. It is the most exclusive and best country club in Northern California, but the developer went into bankruptcy and the course is now open provisionally to the public for $75 after noon. It is a tough track in beautiful Meadow Vista, California in the gold country foothills. I'm looking forward to it.

Jennifer will be out with Samantha and her roommate, Dina, over Jennifer's birthday weekend. I've invited them out on the Jet Ski at Folsom lake, but they are being brought in by Jennifer's Mom ostensibly to put in some lighting in her home, so we'll see. I'm still carrying a little matchbox car that was in the base of Samantha's car seat after Alamanor that I'll return to her when they get here. I also plan to buy Jennifer a camcorder so she can send me movies of Samantha when we can't see her.

The boys are home and doing odd jobs for money. I had them change out the brakes, rotors and pads, last week and paid them for parts and $75 each for the job. It saved me about $175 on what the brake shop would have charged and they made a few bucks. They are also fixing up their father's rental home so he can get it rented. Finally, they have fixed up one of his old pickups so they could drive it to the dealer and get the $4,500 that Obama is giving to every American to trade in their clunker and buy a new car from the bankrupt car companies. Unfortunately, most Americans are doing what Steve did and are buying Toyotas or Nissans. I don't know what he is paying them this Summer, but they are slave labor for him.

I did some work on the pool this weekend, cleaning the tile and reapplying some of the waterproof sealer on the river rock surrounding the pool. I also trimmed back the Sego palms and installed a drip watering system to the plants surrounding the palms. I'm hand watering the palms (once a week) and I installed some fertilizer stakes to help green them up. They were getting a little yellow on the leaves from over watering.

Well, news is at a premium around here and I could bore you with our trip to the bookstore and dinner last night, but I'll save you from that. Darla is on the phone right now working her Silpada business calling potential party hosts, so all is normal here in Northern California. I hope you are all well. Ciao.

Once More a Bachelor to Silpada

Of course, more pictures. The picture of Daniel and Samantha is great. It looks like she is saying, "Dude, let go of some of that shake, I'm hungry!" The picture of Earl is of a hat that Don got me because my car is a pimp car. I don't know why I should dress up like Chef Boyardee, but whatever. The picture of David and Taylor was taken fro Darla's brother, Steve, so he could see his daughter in her dress "whites". She is an MP in the Navy and stationed at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Darla is off to Kansas City this weekend with seven of the women on her team. It is the annual conference and there are 400o Silpada reps invading Kansas City. I played poker last night and she called me about 9 PM forgetting that I was in a poker game. I'm surrounded by five men and she says, "Tell me you love me and want to kiss all over me." I said, "Did you spend any money today?" She said, "No, we were in conference all day." I said, "I love you and want to kiss all over you".

Darla was put up in a suite that overlooks downtown Kansas City and has two bedrooms. She was at a Sterling Club event Thursday night for S=tar Leaders and had dinner with the founders and 1000 of her closest friends. I have to pick her up tomorrow night and decided to get the blog out of the way tonight.

I have been playing a lot of golf recently, adding in some marketing golf with agents. I played Woodcreek on Tuesday and shot 81, I played Mather Golf Club on Thursday and shot 78. We played with two golfers from Jesuit High School, who will play on the Claremont Golf Team in Los Angeles this Fall. Both of them could hit the ball a mile and they played from the blue tees at 6900 yards and I played the white at 6500 yards. They were hitting it fifty yards past me, but I shot 37 on the front and they shot 37 and 36 respectively. They quit after nine and I shot 41 on the back while my agent shot 49. I played a practice round today at Diamond for our two man blind best ball tournament tomorrow and shot 42+42=84. Hopefully, I was saving up for the game tomorrow. Boyd shot 76, Neil 90 and Mel 94.

I got home with every good intention to clean the pool and relax on the pool, but fell asleep on the couch at 1:30 and woke up at 4:00PM. I did clean the pool, trimmed the bushes and ground cover and edged the front lawn. I have some spaghetti thawing in the kitchen for dinner tonight.

Work is going well and we exceeded budget last month and will come close this month. My assistant has left and moved to Thailand and Cora, Mel's wife, is now working as my assistant. I have my old assistant, Dinda's, daughter, Toni-Anne starting with us on Monday. Toni-Anne is Cora's niece. It is one happy family. They are all excellent workers, very diligent and hard working. I look forward to Toni-Anne joining the team. She will work for Pete, who is my number two underwriter in the office and a guy who is on the cusp of really getting his business humming. Toni-Anne is a graduate of UC Davis with a degree in Psychology and she has worked for a workers compensation and employee benefits company for the past four years. She will be able to handle Pete and help him get his business booming.

Well, dinner awaits and a movie afterward. I may take a night swim tonight. it was 97 degrees today and expected to surpass 100 tomorrow. I hope you are all well. Be good to each other. Ciao.

New BLING for Darla

After seeing Jason's parent's Explorer at the lake, I went on E-Bay and bought Darla a billet grille for her car for $30. I can't believe how cheap these grills are. This one is actually a replacement grill for the stock Ford grill. They are plastic with a chrome spray that is polished to a high gloss. You can't tell here (it was twilight by the time we got out of the pool and I installed it), but double click on the picture to see the grill in all it's glory. No more plastic grills for us. Now Darla has a little pimp in her ride, too.

More Almanor Memories

Lots more pictures where these came from as Darla took 230 pictures during our vacation (luckily we have the 2MB smartcard). Most of these pictures are of Samantha and we had most of a week without her, so there are a lot more pictures, but we had such a good time and it's my blog, so I'll relive those now. There will be plenty of other pictures of our week in Almanor to be shared in the weeks ahead. These pictures are off of the Canon Rebel Digital camera, where the pictures last week were from the Canon CoolPix camera that I bought for Darla at Christmas. I haven't spoken to Jennifer since I dropped she and Sam off with her Mom. I tried calling her from Almanor on Friday, but just got her voice mail. You can see the picture of Samantha in her swimsuit and sunglasses. The funny thing is that unlike most 18 month olds, she prefers to have the sunglasses on when she is outside.

Our jet ski performed extremely well while we were in Almanor and we had no issues. We do have a broken fuel switch and it was turned half off and Jennifer struggled with the ski our first day out. I had her bring it in and Daniel and I were able to turn it to fully on and we had no further problems all week. We take the ski in every Spring and have Yamaha summerize the ski and it seems to really help us. It started right up every time and it was a no brainer for us all week.

The rest of the week was fun and relaxing. We played cards and relaxed in the sun and while the temperatures in Sacramento were 107 degrees, it was a comfortable 92 degrees in Almanor with an overnight low of 52 degrees. You have to love the mountains. I was able to make it out and golf. I went to the Lake Almanor West resort which is a 9 hole course and it wasn't well maintained last time I played it. We were able to play for $20 last time and it was $35 this year. They must have a new greens keeper because the course is immaculate. The greens are tremendous and they have stopped the practice of having two flags on each hole and one being the front nine and one the back. They have a new set of tees and that differentiates the two nines. I played alone in front of the Men's group and played two balls (I asked them if it was okay as I was stuck behind a threesome of old men that were playing the women's tees). I shot 41+40=81 and was very happy with my game. The course is relatively short, but cut into the pine trees of Almanor and very tight. I drove into town afterward and enjoyed a barbecued hamburger at The Depot.

Time was short when Samantha was with us and I wanted to enjoy the days, so we didn't make it out to Paul Bunyon's while she was there (it is like a Tastee Freeze or Dairy Queen), but Darla and I did steel off Friday afternoon and enjoyed some ice cream together. Jennifer had bout a 1/2 gallon of ice cream and the boys ate that during the week.

Earl and Frances planned to treat us to pizza again to celebrate their 49th wedding anniversary. Alicia's boyfriend Don decided to surprise them with dessert and when he went to pay for the dessert at the end of the night, they stuck him with the whole bill. Don made an announcement to the entire restaurant that it was Earl and Frances' 49th wedding anniversary and they had several people come by and wish them well. Earl was asked his advice on 49 years of marriage and he said simply, "Watch your tongue". Excellent advice for all of us.

We hope to be back in Almanor next year in August to celebrate Earl and Frances 50th wedding anniversary and plan to invite the brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, for a full week. We hope to have Jennifer and Samantha join us again next year.

Well, dinner awaits my barbecuing skills as chicken breasts are on the menu, so I have to run. I did play golf today in the 107 degree heat as Darla had a "retirement" party at the house, where she sells the pieces of jewelry being replaced in the new catalog at a 50% savings. I figured I could stay at the house and help women try on rings and necklaces or play golf. I shot 84 in the sweltering heat of the Cherry Island golf course. Boyd shot 78, Bob 80 and Matt 83. We more survived the day than conquered it as we teed off at 11:00 AM and finished at 3:00 PM. Darla is off to her annual meeting with Silpada in Kansas City next weekend and I'll be all alone with nothing to keep me occupied but golf, poker and the pool. Say a prayer for me. Be well. Ciao.

Lake Almanor 2009

I've enjoyed Almanor in the past, more so since we moved to the East side of the lake, but never so much as this year. I really had a chance to bond with Samantha. Jennifer was late getting in as her plane was about 90 minutes late getting off the ground in Vegas. Not fun when you have a one year old who was kept up from her afternoon nap so she would sleep on the plane. We had a nice visit Friday night and were up early to the sounds of Samantha in the family room at 7 AM. We packed the truck and loaded the jet ski and the boys came over and added their wake boards to the cargo. Jennifer, Samantha and I snuck off to the park across the street to take Sam to the swings and play area at the park. Samantha insisted on walking even though it is a long way across the grass. She held tight to my right index finger and we walked all the way to the "kiddie" jungle gym near the kindergarten room of the elementary school across the park. Sam and Jennifer rode the dual slides and laughed and had a great time. I have pictures on the Canon that is still up in Almanor with Darla and I'll add those to the blog this weekend. We walked from there over to the swings and Sam had a good ride and then got on the hobby horse and back to another set of twin slides where she "raced" her Mom to the bottom. It was great. When we walked back, she insisted on walking herself and holding on to my finger as we walked. She started calling me "Poppa" and she melted my heart.

Samantha is now saying Daddy, Mommy, Puppy, kitty, nummy (food), birdie, nana (grandma), papa and other words. She is so cute and smart. She likes to hand things out and then go and collect them. Jennifer cut some flowers outside the cabins and Samantha handed them out to all of the ladies and then went around collecting them and putting them back in the vase. You can see a flower in her hand in the picture with David.

She was really good during the trip overall, but she had some cranky moments and is teething again. I think she's up to nine teeth in now and two more just popped in over the weekend. Jennifer is good in keeping her teeth numb with some baby teething gel and she gives her Baby Tylenol. Sam enjoyed the boat ride and was amazed at the water and the birds flying with us, but got a little cold toward the end and Jen wrapped her in a towel and we headed back to the dock.

You can see by the pictures that we had quite a gang at Almanor this year, 14 in all. Jason, Jennifer's old boyfriend came up with us and was only going to stay for the day. He ended up staying over until Monday. We all really enjoyed him. He is the young man that had throat cancer and almost died in the hospital. He has a "trach" in his throat now to breathe and has a slight chance that his body will heal itself and he will be able to have it removed. He lost his job after the year long ordeal and now is on social security and is taking classes to become an x-ray technician,. He was a warehouse foreman and it was too hard on him. He seized once at work and the liability was too high for the company to let him continue. He has a great outlook on life and a good sense of humor. Jen was talking about her job and her pending promotion to tech specialist (I think that's it, but she'll correct me) and the raise that she'll get. Jason leaned over when Jennifer was talking and said to me, "Ken I'd like to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage". We all laughed and Jennifer was embarrassed.

The weather was windy on Sunday and we only spent about two hours at the water as the winds were really strong. It was a storm blowing out as it warmed up Monday in to the mid eighties and it supposed to be in the 90's the rest of the week. It was 103 degrees in Sacramento today. We relaxed in the cabin and visited Sunday afternoon watching the end of the golf tournament. Sam played with toys and cell phones and looked at pictures on our cell phones and was a hit with the group. She is well socialized because of day care and John's extended family in Vegas. She warmed up to everyone and loved all of the attention that she got. Sam and I took a walk each morning and afternoon down to the lawn and across to the rock beach and we looked at dogs and squirrels and birds and people swimming and fishing. There was another little girl about Sam's age there and the two sized each other up a couple of times, but didn't play together. We had limited time together and there was no time for outsiders. Sam did take the little girl a flower on one of her walks with Darla.

There was an interesting occurrence on our trip. Monday the sheriff's boat ended up towing in a jet boat that had stopped running on the water. He dropped the guy at the gas pumps at the dock, talked to him for a few minutes and left. The guy was working on his engine and must not have had his blower on because all of a sudden there was a loud "WHUMP" and smoke and a small flame came from the engine as he tried to turn it over. Apparently the spark had ignited the trapped fumes in the hull. He tried valiantly to put the fire out with a small Wal-Mart fire extinguisher. His family bailed out of the boat as it began drifting from the dock and several men yelled at the boat owner to jump. The fire was being fed by the gas in the engine and the concern was it would travel to the tank and explode. Finally, he went overboard and the boat became a fireball sending up a black flume of toxic smoke. We called 9-1-1 and the fire department arrived within minutes. Unfortunately, they were on the boat ramp at Big Cove and the boat was drifting over to the northeast side of the lake. The sheriff finally showed back up on his boat and he began making several passes in front of the burning boat to drift it onto the shore. He was successful and the fire department finally stretched 300 feet of hose down to the water and was dousing the flames. The West Almanor Fire pumper boat showed up about twenty minutes into the ordeal and helped put out the fire, but it was too little too late as the boat ended up a charred remnant of itself as it sat smoldering on the shore. The sheriff was yelling at the condo dwellers on the shore to get off the deck and close their windows as the smoke was highly toxic from the plastics and resins burning and it was floating into the condo. I'd say it was a bad day of boating for the owner of that boat.

Daniel was up with his girlfriend Becky (the redhead in the group photo). The two other girls are our nieces, Shae and Taylor, Darla's brother's girls who are about the same age as David and Daniel. Taylor's arrival was a surprise to most as she is on leave from the Navy, where she is an MP at Guantanamo Bay. Gantanamo Bay? Yes, it's still open, Obama is full of ...hot air? Daniel and Becky left today and her car broke down in the canyon. They had to hitchhike to town to use a phone and then Darla and Earl drove an hour to meet them and Earl was able to fix the broken air conditioning belt housing and get them back on the road. He had to take off the a/c belt as it was frayed from the housing breaking. Darla had called me to ask about our AAA. Our towing is only 5 miles, so I upgraded to the Plus membership today that allows 100 miles. (Again, too little, too late). Luckily, Earl was able to fix the car. They had planned to be back by 2:00 PM and got home at 6:00 PM instead. Quite an ordeal.

Well, there will be more this weekend as I'll add many more pictures from our trip. I want to thank Jennifer for taking a day off of work and coming to join the family vacation. You made our trip this year by sharing Samantha with all of us. I love you, Jen. Everyone be good and hug their loved ones this week. I'm back to Almanor tomorrow night. Ciao.

Indepence Day was a Party

We had a houseful on July 4th as we had a cookout, swim party and get together with friends from the Golf club. For Darryl and Cheryl and Dad and Shirley, the last picture is of Neil and Lilly who will join us in Nuevo Vallarta in November. We decided to have the party late in the week and I think Darla made phone calls on Thursday night. We called four couples and got a positive response from everyone. Amazing, either our friends have no life or they enjoy our company. I'm hoping the latter applies. We got together about four pm and enjoyed a few hours of pool time with beverages and good conversation and a lot of laughs. I cooked hamburgers and chicken breasts for sandwiches and everyone brought something to share. We had margaritas, beer and soda, bean dip, chips and salsa, some roll up finger sandwiches, pasta salad, potato salad, sloughouse white corn on the cob, fruit salad, cut watermelon as well as two kinds of dessert for later in the evening. Darla had an impromptu jewelry show and we all poured outside at 9:15 PM to watch the fireworks from the park across the street. It was a great time with great friends and we enjoyed ourselves completely.

I did, of course, manage to get in two games of golf this week. I will go into shock next week as we head up to Lake Alamanor and I take a two week sabbatical from golf. I played Friday morning with Boyd, Bob, Phamas, Neil, Rick, Matt, and Mel. Boyd had arranged the tee times at Woodcreek and we put eight balls in a hat and shook out four to determine the teams. Boyd, Phamas, Matt and Rick managed a cool 16 under par between them and my team managed a paltry two under par. Bob shot 78 and I shot 80, but Mel and Neil both shot 100 and killed our chances. Boyd and Matt shot 76, Phamas shot 79 and Rick shot 88. It was fun, but we lost $5 a man. I'd set up a second round at Woodcreek for Saturday and played with Bob Hand, Darren and Gary. I again shot an 80 with three birdies and a 25 foot eagle putt on number 16 that curled out of the hole. My game is pretty strong right now and I am shooting consistently in the low eighties and high 70's.

The weather was nice after the brutality of last week and we enjoyed mid nineties over the weekend and bit cooler day today at 90 degrees. It is supposed to stay in the mid eighties this weekend before jumping back into the nineties next weekend.

We leave for Almanor on Saturday and pick Jennifer and Samantha up from the airport Friday night. Jen and Sam will be with us until Monday night and I will drive back and deliver Jennifer to her Mom. They will spend Tuesday together before Jennifer flies home Tuesday night at 5:00 PM. Jennifer has been working hard latelylately and needs a vacation. We want to spend time with her and Samantha and our family vacation to lake Almanor is a good excuse. We are flying them to California and looking forward to a few days at the lake as an extended family. I ordered a life vest for Samantha from Overtons this weekend that will arrive on Wednesday. She will be able to go on the boat with us and be water safe as we hang out on the water and on the dock. Both boys will be with us as neither has a job this Summer and they are both looking forward to seeing Samantha and spending time with her. I'll have plenty of pictures, but the blog will be late next week. I hope to work on it Tuesday night as I will be at work on Tuesday and Wednesday. I have my assistant leaving after three years with BW and want to see him off. I'm also hoping to have our new employee hired that week and beginning to train.

We've made some wholesale changes at work and shuffled up the underwriting teams. Mel's wife, Cora, will be working with me and all of the other assistants will be juggled from one underwriter to the other. The office is doing well now and I'm trying to find the right mix to take us to the next level. Hopefully, change is not just change, but a significant improvement and a catalyst for higher earnings. We'll see.

Darla and I were both exhausted this morning and slept in missing church. Our pastor is still on vacation and we had a guest speaker, a Christian attorney that Darla and I both know. I'm sure it would have been a good sermon, but we needed our rest after a busy couple of days. Well, that's it for now. i hope to have some pictures of Miss Samantha and Jennifer next week. I hope you are all well and enjoying your independence. It's a great country that we live in. Ciao.

Summer arrives with a BANG

6:15 PM

109 degrees officially, but it was 118 degrees on my car thermometer when I left the Golf course today and it only cooled to 113 degrees by the time I got home. The 118 degrees was the temperature on the hot pavement of the parking lot, but it didn't cool dramatically on the drive home. The pool is at 86 degrees and we need some relief. It was 103 degrees yesterday and we had Darla sister, her boyfriend and Darla's Mom and Dad over for a swim party and tri tip on the grill. We ate outside and thank God we have the new canvas and metal gazebo with zippered netting on all sides. It was hot when we ate at 6:30, but we didn't have bugs and we all sat in wet swimsuits and enjoyed the dinner before hopping back in the pool afterward. So, this is what it feels like to live in Vegas, eh, Jen?

Golf today was absolutely brutal. I walked the course against Darla's better judgement that I should have taken a cart. I haven't been walking at night lately with Darla's broken foot and I'm getting a little soft around the edges. I think I lost about five pounds in water weight today. I played really well on the front side while I was fresh, but withered down the stretch and shot 38+42=80, a net 71. We endured playing behind one of the slowest members in the club and he exacerbated his reputation with a 13 on a par five. He was lining up his putt for 13 like it was the last hole of the US Open. We were hooting at him. I had about 215 yards into the hole after a great drive and came up just short of the green after waiting about ten minutes to hit the shot. I hit a nice chip and had a tap in for birdie, but I'm a tempo golfer and don't do well with waiting. I did pick up two strokes on my Eclectic score ( the year long tournament that keeps track of your best score on each hole) and I'm now at 32+34=66 on the year. I was so hot when we finished the round that my clothes were absolutely soaked through. There was very little breeze on the course. I guess I'm out of shape, because Bob walked the course as well and shot a 33 on the back side for a 73. I will play golf on Friday morning at 7:30 (the July 3rd holiday) and again at 7:40 AM on Saturday.

Darla is inches away from winning her trip to the Mayan Riviera in Mexico in January of next year. She needed $5,000 in sales as of last week (it includes her whole team of 20 reps) and she is right at the finish line with two days left. I'm excited about this trip as it is at an all inclusive resort in Riviera Maya and that includes all drinks, food, golf, massages, activities, etc. Last year there were over 550 reps at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas and as of last week only 205 reps had qualified for Mexico. Darla said , "Make that 206" as she says she is in. The only problem I have with the trips is the amount of vacation we get. I want to spend time in Las Vegas with Jennifer and Samantha, we take our yearly trip to Nuevo Vallarta, have another week of time share time each year (one in Puerto Vallarta and one in Hawaii every other year), plus we take the annual trip to Lake Almanor that comes up July 11th - 18th this year. I only get three weeks of vacation plus another week of sick time. I guess it is a good problem to have, eh? I'm proud of her. What pushed her over the top was her last push sale, which if you look at the picture of her on her scooter was called "Boot scootin' savings!" She has a scooter and is in a walking boot. We've invited Jennifer and Samantha to join us for part of the trip to Almanor this year.

8:45PM

I just got out of the pool. I washed the 300 and was dripping wet when I finished and not from the hose, so dove in the pool and cooled off. It is supposed to get down to 85 degrees at midnight tonight and down to about 70 degrees at 4 AM (About Vancouver's high temperature yesterday). It looks like the heat wave will break on Tuesday with a forecast high of 96 degrees and an overnight low of 63 degrees. Nice.

Our computer printer went out this week and I scoured the repair blogs and the Epson site to find a fix. The printer shut down and has an error message saying "Take in for Service." What I can tell from the blogs is that there is an ink overflow pad that gets full and needs to be replaced. I called around and everyone wants $100 minimum to service the machine. Epson said we could ship it to them and they'd do it for $35. I said, "bunk" and ordered a new HP Wireless All-in-one Printer on Amazon for $99, no tax and no shipping cost. the advantage with this is that Darla's HP laptop will be able to print as well. She is forever sending work items to my e-mail to print. Now, she will be able to print from the living room and I can still print from my desktop computer, which also happens to be an HP.

July 4th is around the corner. We have been invited out boating on Friday with Alicia and Don and I will rush back from golf for a day on the lake. I hope you are all well. The speaker, Vince Antonucci, was great today at church as advertised and we encourage Jennifer to try out his church in las Vegas. I hope you are all well, hale and hearty. Ciao.

Father's Day 2009

Happy Father's day to all of the fathers out there. We all do our best and it is often inadequate, but we try. Guiding and directing children is difficult and doubly so in a world that has slowly eroded the fabric of life. Values and morals are less important to the world in 2009 than they were in the 60's. There is a small demographic that is once again introducing values and boundaries to their kids and I applaud them. I see the respect and the honor given to parents and others in authority at our church and I give thanks for that. We had a nice service this morning and a video of a young boy watching everything his father did, from how he played with him to how he acted when he got in a small fender bender and how he handled his family's bills. It was powerful to see the influence that a father has on his young child's life.

Darla roused me a minute ago and told me to get in and work on my Blog. I had taped the US Open golf and was watching it and relaxing. When it ended, she sent me in here to update the blog.

Sorry that I haven't had any new pictures for awhile. Things have been so busy at work that we haven't done much but relax at home. I was in Scottsdale last Sunday-Tuesday night. I was able to learn alot about the company that put on the seminar and was able to come back and share that with the Underwriters. I was also able to have lunch with one of my contract carriers after the seminar on Tuesday and dinner with several underwriters and my old boss, Emery, who is now the Pacific Division Manager of our largest carrier partner. Wednesday I had about seven hours to get caught up on work and then was off to the airport to pick up our CEO and a Product Manager from HO. Harvey was supposed to go with me, but got stuck in traffic and I had to make the airport run myself. The plane from Salt Lake was due in at 5:24 PM and was on time when I left the office. I got to the airport early and parked in the Cell Phone lot waiting for a call. 5:30 came and went and I finally started the loop around looking for my passengers. Five trips around and I started to panic, thinking perhaps they expected me to meet them inside. I quickly parked the car and ran in to the airport to find the flight delayed until 6:05 PM. We went to dinner with a retailer that night and I finally got home at about 10:30 PM. I was up early the next day and at the hotel to pick them up at 7:15 AM for a breakfast meeting with another agent.

We went in the office, visited with the staff and had lunch brought in (one of the ladies bought meats and cheeses, breads, condiments, veggies and drinks from Whole Foods). The cost of the lunch was over $200. I had my sit down and was told to increase the writings in the office. We will do close to $500,000 in profit this year, but can always do better. The afternoon was spent looking at buildings.

My boss is a real estate mogul owning over 100 properties as a landlord and has little patience for brokers. We met two of them and he carved them up pretty well. We then looked at new office space for two hours, before I drove him to a local former military base where he met a Net Jets for a trip to Las Vegas and a Net Jets event. It looks like best case we will stay in our space for one more year and then move to a larger space. The company is in an acquisition mode and we may buy more of our competitors and need more space.

The Product manager stayed over another day until Friday and I carted him out to one of my retailers for lunch Friday. I told him in the morning that I had to get some work done at my desk before we left and was able to get about three and a half hours in before we left. He had a 4 PM flight, so I had to get him to the airport by 3:00 PM and just drove back home after that.

It was a tiring week and left me WAY behind at work. It is the company's 40th anniversary and we are having a celebration on Tuesday afternoon. I have to go out and get cake and ice cream. Baskin Robbins here I come.

I did manage a golf game this weekend. We played at Ancil Hoffman, which is one of the oldest golf courses in the Sacramento area and also has the most trees. It is also home to the infamous Reagan Governor's mansion that was built in the late seventies and never lived in by a California Governor as Jerry Brown took over the state and Governor "Moonbeam" railed against the excesses of government and refused to live in the mansion. It was built entirely by donations, but Jerry felt the cost of just upkeep and security on the mansion was a waste of money. He had a small apartment in downtown Sacramento and lived on a mattress. He was and he is a goofball, but he had Linda Rondstadt as his girlfriend at the time and Mike Curb (of Curb records in Hollywood) as his Lieutenant Governor. My driver was not behaving on Saturday and I was pushing shots all over the place. When I do that it is because my arms get too far from my body. I figured it out on number 8 and finished par-par on the front for a 45 and managed a 40 on the back for an 85. I wasn't happy, but better a 45+40 than a 40+45, eh?

I talked to Jennifer this weekend and she is working three ten-hour days on her off weeks with Samantha as they attempt to have the City Center Casino open in December. She also worked overtime Saturday and was praised by the GC for her hard work in getting the new fiber optic network up and running. I received a card from Jennifer for Father's day, which I appreciate, but I got a card from Samantha with her scribble on it that really touched my heart. Thank you, Jennifer.

Our pastor is taking a family vacation next week and we will have a pastor from the Verve church in Las Vegas come and preach to us. We saw a hilarious video of their pastor, Vince Antonucci, today and I'm trying to get Jennifer and Dina to try out the church. We will see him next week and report to Jennifer. Here is his YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V2RHG5c3HM&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Evinceantonucci%2Ecom%2F2006%2F01%2Fvideos%2Ehtml&feature=player_embedded

I hope you are all happy and healthy. I'll write more next week. Ciao.

Just a Quick note

It is Saturday afternoon and I just got back from golf. Darla told me she'd meet me on the pool, but she isn't home, so I thought I'd add to this now. I leave for a three day seminar in Scottsdale tomorrow. It is unbelievably busy at work. I've been putting in 60 hour weeks and now I know what Darryl feels like every week. Ugh. The last time I worked this many hours was when I was a struggling stockbroker, before Darla and I got married.

Darla and I both had setbacks physically this week. Darla went in to have her cast removed and they x-rayed her foot and found that the bone has still not healed and is split. Darla has put entirely too much pressure on her foot and will need surgery if it doesn't heal over the next four weeks. She is in a metal and canvas walking boot now and has been told to stay off her foot. Why they put her in a boot if she is supposed to stay off the foot is beyond me. She wanted to be completely healed, but really was poor about staying off her foot. She drove way too much and her injured foot being her left foot, she put tremendous stress on her foot just getting in and out of her car. She had to step down onto her foot to get out and push off on that foot to get in the car. She is going to take some sick time and work from home to try to rest her foot. The injury was to her fifth metatarsal bone and it is still split. The bone has grown closer together, but the stress of being on the foot caused the bone not to heal. She's frustrated with Summer coming and the prospects of surgery in July, so she is going to heal herself and when Darla sets her mind to something, it generally gets done. Also, with her Silpada business, she put on a big "Cast Off" sale for her customers and didn't want the cast put back on.

I went into my dermatologist for my six month cancer screening after the basil cell carcinoma was cut off my back and it healed well. He checked me out and saw a spot on the top of my right hand. I thought it was a bug bite, because it showed up on my hand, crusted over and then began to itch. I was treating it with Calamine lotion for the itch. He took one look and said, that is a precancerous growth, I'll burn it off. He got his can of whatever it is to burn it off (they actually freeze it) and started to apply the spray. I said, "you might want to clean off the Calamine lotion first with antiseptic" He said, "We'll burn right through that." As he applied it, the calamine lotion liquefied and started to boil and my hand was smoking. He looked at me with a smile and said, "I haven't seen that before." I thought I was in Canada talking to Dad's doctor. People were knocking on the door seeing if there was a barbecue. I think they smelled chicken cooking.

Dad has been back to his doctor and had more cells cut off his body and they will have them screened for cancer. It's too much with this damn cancer stuff and skin cancer definitely runs in my family. I'll be checked yearly now by the dermatologist for skin cancer. The doctor said I have a 30% elevated chance of getting more basil cell carcinomas, now that I've had one. Lovely.

I shot 81 in the golf tournament today and was tied for fourth when I left. There were three groups still on the course. Boyd shot 77 and was tied for second. The weather was perfect, about 78 degrees with a light wind.

The boys are done at Cal Poly for the school year and will be home late tonight. Neither have jobs line up and I'm hoping they land something. I worked all during my college years and don't have a lot of sympathy for them not having jobs. I was never out of a job when I was in school and helped pay for my schooling, taking over paying for my school in my Junior year. They both tried (weakly) to get internships for the Summer, but didn't really follow up on it and will likely spend the Summer sleeping in and complaining they are broke. I hope not.

Darla is in the final stretch of trying to qualify for her annual trip with Silpada. She needs to do like $7,000 in sales this month and I wouldn't bet against her. She has until the end of June and is working hard to qualify. the trip in 2009 is to Maya Riviera near Cancun, Mexico and is an all inclusive resort.

Well, Darla is home and I need to spend some time with her. I think we are having dinner at Black Angus tonight. We have a coupon for bacon wrapped filet mignon for $13.95 and thought we'd take advantage of that. I leave at 9:15 tomorrow morning for Scottsdale. I have an Underwriting Trainee in the office, Matt, and he is leaving for two weeks in Home Office tomorrow. He was saying goodbye yesterday and I told him that maybe I'd see him at the airport. He asked me what time my flight was and I said 9:15. He said, "well, mine is 9:30. What airline are you flying?" I told him US Air and it turns out his flight is 9:15 as well and we are on the same flight to Phoenix. He will change planes there for Detroit. His tickets were arranged by our travel department in H.O. so I wasn't aware of his travel itinerary. Funny stuff. I will add more next week. Pray for me this week as I entertain my CEO Wednesday and Thursday. Ciao.

Busy Times at Work

It has been a cool week with some night thunderstorms, evening rain and sun and clouds during the daytime. We had our Big I Golf Day on Monday and had ideal weather. Darla and I were able to finish the signs and although as one person said, "It looks like someone's third grade daughter did these signs", the event went off without a hitch and I took our art project to the cardboard recycling bins across from the Fairgrounds on Monday night after the event. I also went up in the attic this weekend and cleared out any old signs for companies that have gone out of business or were older signs with an old font we no longer use. I was able to make a new inventory of signs and threw out a bunch of worn or tattered signs. Our team ended up shooting 9 under par and the winning team was a group of novice golfers including my underwriter, Pete, who likely used creative accounting to get their score down to 59. I'm not buying it. I've seen two of them play and , frankly, they look like ex football players trying to play golf. Pete left for a week's vacation to Hawaii the day after the tournament, so I haven't had a chance to harass him yet, but I will.

The merger and purchase of our competitor fell through at the last minute and another of our competitors was able to get nine of their employees to accept positions with them. They had hoped that having their talent would give them access to the book of business, but we hired the five best employees and then reached a late agreement with the former firm to purchase the book. We have rights to all of their in force business and to exclusive renewal rights on the business until July of 2010. I was over in their Rancho Cordova office on Tuesday with 5 of my staff and we picked up all of the files. I then was off to Fresno on Friday morning to pick up files from the Fresno office. The delay was because the other firm that hired nine of the employees had hired the Fresno Manager and staff and subleased the same building that the other firm was in...along with the files that now belonged to us. It is a three hour drive to Fresno and I wanted to be sure we could get access to the office. I called the trustee the night before and told him to make sure I could get in the building because I would be there at 9 AM. I borrowed Gail's F-150 King Cab and left at 6:00 AM for Fresno with Ben, my assistant in tow. Sure enough, when we showed up the manager refused to let us in. She got on the phone with her boss and he said we needed paperwork, which I produced as a cover letter from the purchased company's attorneys granting us full access to all files. We tap danced for awhile and I stood my ground, finally getting the trustee on the phone and having him convince the manager to butt out and let us in. It was uncomfortable, but two hours later we had five trucks loaded up and took the files to our Fresno office where we parted them out to Fresno and Sacramento. I had left a padfolio with my business cards and a legal pad and some papers on the receptionists window and when I went to retrieve it, it was gone. I asked the receptionist and she said, "was it the blue padfolio on the windowsill?" When I said, yes, she smiled at me and said she'd never seen it. Nothing that was in there was important, but I did have an invitation from one of the local country clubs to come out and try their course. I brought it to set up golf for Saturday, but Bob and I ended up setting a game at Cherry Island. Keeping my company property was BS on their part. Ben and I finally got out of Fresno at 2:00 PM and were back in Sacramento by 5:00 PM. I dropped him off, gassed up the truck, stopped at Office Depot to return some boxes that we didn't need and then drove up to Gail's house to drop off the truck. She will be bringing the truck to the office tomorrow and we will unload the files and begin processing them. We will have to scan all of the files into Imageright and then begin making calls to the agents. When I get into the office tomorrow the old phone lines from the purchased company will be patched into my phone system and we will begin servicing their files. A lot of work is in the cards for the next while. I will be bringing in kids of staff to handle the scanning project and paying them $10 an hour.

Bob and I did make it out to Cherry yesterday and played golf with two thirty something women who were excellent golfers. I shot 39+42=81 and Bob shot 43+39=82. The ladies were a nine handicap and a ten handicap and said that they had never played golf with any male golfers who were better than them. I think they were more than just friends (not that there's anything wrong with that), but I really enjoyed playing with two women that were very good golfers. It was a treat. At one point, the course comes in contact with a city street on the border of the course and some idiot yelled out, "You bunch of girls!" as he drove by in his beat up pickup truck. One of the women is Irish and she said, "Eh, it looks like they noticed the tits!" I instinctively looked down at my chest and they all got a good laugh out of it.

Darla is anxious to lose her cast as it is time for her to move about without the confines of a plaster boot on her leg. Hopefully, she's learned a lesson, but knowing my wife, I doubt it. She's been in the pool just about every day with saran wrap and a shower boot on her leg since the start of swimming season.

I had a golf tournament today, but woke up with an aching back and an inflamed foot where I stepped on a bee while trimming the ground cover around the pool yesterday. We went to church and then Darla dropped me at the course, where I tried to play, but gave up after nine holes. My back was aching, my foot was pounding and I even have a sore yoke (collar bone). I shot 46 on the front and couldn't make a complete pass through the ball. I called Darla and asked her to pick me up. I sat and watched Tiger play some REAL golf instead.

The pastor talked about the concept of unanswered prayer. Garth Brooks had a famous song about the subject. The pastor's story was about a man who shipwrecked on a deserted island. He prayed every day and night for a ship to rescue him, but none ever came. He finally built a small hut and kept a fire for warmth near the hut. When he was gone one day out foraging and fishing, the winds came up and reignited his campfire which spread to his hut and burned it to the ground. He was mad at God and yelled about the fire and why was God punishing him. He brooded and cursed God, but a ship showed up that same day and rescued him. When he asked how they found him, the ship captain said that they had seen the smoke from his signal fire. God works in mysterious ways.

Well, that is it for this week. I'm off to Scottsdale next Sunday and an underwriting conference. I will try to update this before I leave. I hope you are all well. Do yourself a favor and find a good church to attend. It helps get us through all that is so sad in our world and our economy. Ciao.