Spring HEAT is on in Northern California!

 

The Heat is on in Roseville. It was 92 degrees today and we are on our way to 100 degrees next weekend. April is definitely leaving us with a taste of Summer. The average temperature for this time of year is 75 degrees, but there is nothing average about this weather.

 

It was HOT on the golf course today and I haven't played much in the last month. I finally got back out on Thursday night for the start of the Twilight league. I hadn't played in three and a half weeks and hadn't even practiced during my layoff. My hope was that I could forget all of the bad habits and put into play the tips that I got from the pro at Diamond, dale. I shot 42, but my partner, Steve, was off fishing somewhere in Oregon and I had Neil as a sub and he is just coming off his stroke and surgery, so we lost the match 12.5 to 7.5, but I had a good time and was hitting the ball pretty crisply. In fact I was on the Par 5 number two hole in two and made birdie.

 

Today was better from a golf perspective, but the heat was oppressive. I worked on the stamped concrete yesterday, prepping and re staining the concrete for the new pool year. The problem was that I didn't put lotion on my back and I burned it pretty badly. Darla was going to put lotion on, but got a call from her salon and her nail appointment for Sunday could be had Saturday afternoon, so she jumped on it. She did put lotion on my back when she got home, but by then I'd spent three hours hunched over the deck spreading stain and it was too little, too late. It was uncomfortable today, but I managed a 42+39=81, for a net 70. My 81 was tied for low gross in my flight and my 39 on the back beat his 40. This is the first day of a three day individual stroke play event and I am tied for first in my flight. I managed to get on the par 5 number 16 in two today and again settled for a birdie. My drives are long and straight and I just need to work on my short game which is the first thing to go when you take time off. The greens were aerated last week at Diamond and are still slow and bumpy and I left three putts right on the lip of the hole today and a half dozen others short, so it could have been so much better. Next weekend is expected to be in the 100's, so I better acclimate in a hurry.

 

Darla and I did spend a nice week and weekend together. We went to the show on Tuesday night and saw "42", which I highly recommend. Friday night we rented "This is 40", which I don't recommend. It is far too long and full of references to the husband wanting to kill the wife and vice versa. As you watch the movie, you wonder what these two people ever saw in each other. Saturday, we started the day with breakfast at the Black Bear Diner in Roseville and then a trip to Home Depot, before a day working on the deck and pool. I worked from home on Friday afternoon and had the carpets cleaned in the house. They were really in need of some serious cleaning and look really good now. I will be home again Monday afternoon to meet a handyman who will work on the fan and lights I talked about last week.

 

I will also be taking out the cabinets in the garage. The prior owner spent $1500 having the cabinets installed, but he was a typical California homeowner and parked his cars outside. We like both of our cars parked inside and it has always been tight in our garage. Darla managed to hit one of the cabinets today as she was pulling our her Explorer and pulled one of the cupboard doors off. We have a shed and attic to store stuff and need the room in our garage. I'm going to ask David to do the demolition next weekend. His dad may want the cabinets as he has room in his garage as he only stores an old El Camino in there and leaves his cars parked all over the street and property. The cabinets are bolted to the garage wall/ There was no damage that we can see to the Explorer as it appears that her front tire caught the door and pulled it off it's hinges. She has to pull in both of her side mirrors in order to get the car into the garage. That will be over next weekend and we'll have the appropriate room in our two car garage

 

There are screaming kids in the pool behind us as the outside temperature is still 86 degrees at 8 o'clock on Sunday night. Our pool water is at 78 degrees and will be going up this week as the temperatures continue to soar.

 

Darla and I went to church yesterday afternoon and then out to dinner last night and enjoyed a nice salad and pizza. It was a great weekend and another HOT week ahead.

 

Work continues to go extremely well. We are up 35% this month with two days left to go. I was really pleased to work with upper level management and reward both of my top producers this Spring. Both of them are happy and hopefully we will continue to have record months every month this year. Both Pete and Matt are averaging  about $80,000 a month in income this year and Pete is on track for a $1,000,000 year and Matt is tracking to $900,000. They will both be in the top 40 of all producers and Pete will be in the top 20. Life is good at work right now.

 

Jennifer was in Vegas this weekend with Samantha, but I haven't talked to her in two weeks. I've called and left messages, but for some reason I'm on the deep freeze with her. I communicated with Diane this past week and she does the same thing with her. Who raised this girl? Oh, yeah.

 

Darla and I will be in Vegas to see Miss Samantha at the end of May. We will fly in Thursday morning the 30th and stay until Sunday night at Circus Circus. We haven't seen Samantha since August and need to spend some time with her. We are hoping that she will make it to Almanor this year.

 

Well, that is it for this week. I need to spend some time with my bride. I hope you all have a good week and that our Good Lord continues to bless you immeasurably. Ciao.

Back from Detroit and 32 degrees to 90 degrees!!

 

It was a busy 7 days with Monday through Friday equaling 15 hour days from 8 AM breakfast to the Hospitality suite after dinner until 11 PM. Some of the participants were up much later than 11 PM, but they are much younger than me. The course itself was lead by a former EST practitioner, who is now a business expert specializing in Leadership. Given his background, some of the content was pretty out there, but the basics were pretty good and the outcome for myself and for the other participants was pretty positive. We ended up by the end of the week in teams and each team has taken on a change initiative for the company that will make our company a better player in our Industry. Some of the initiatives are Bonuses for Non-Producers, working to get our company on the Fortune 100 Best Places to Work list by 2015, and developing a Corporate Recruiting team, among others. The team that I'm on is developing a template for a company-wide Employee development Plan that will be implemented for every employee of the company to include educational directives, sales and marketing and training.

 

Some of the principals that we explored during the week were affirmation for our teams and those we work with, complete listening (including turning off our inner voice when communicating with others), each person having three inner strengths that are developed in childhood, teenage years and adulthood (x, y and z), and the concept of our present actions being influenced by our future desires and not from our past actions. It was all pretty zen, but it made a lot of sense in the long term.

 

I finally got out of Detroit on Saturday at 1:30 and had a flight to Dallas at 3:15PM.  I had only 45 minutes between flights and came in to Dallas at terminal D and my flight was Terminal A. Luckily, the flight was in twenty minutes early and I was able to grab a Subway before catching my plane. The guy working the counter at Subway was foreign and I ended up with a dry sandwich, because I couldn't understand what he was saying. Something about sauces, but I wanted mayo and mustard. He never understood me and it was a dry mess. The irritation to me was that the guy was middle eastern and probably Chechian and after what happened in Boston, I just didn't need the hassle.

 

I got home about 8 PM and my garment bag came through trashed. The latch on the bottom was broken and the zipper on the side was the only thing holding it together. I will be buying a new garment bag before the next trip.

 

Darla and I spent a nice day today with breakfast at the Original Pancake house in Roseville. We then stopped at the Used Bookstore in Roseville and loaded up on Stuart Wood's Stone Barrington novels and then headed home. I mowed and we both worked on the backyard, trimming and cleaning up in the flowerbeds and around the pool. We then relaxed in the sun with our books and Darla even ventured out onto the pool for awhile. the first time this year. It was 90 degrees today and supposed to be a small heatwave that runs through Wednesday.

 

I have not played golf in four weeks and will get back in the saddle on Thursday which is the start of our Summer long twilight league. I will try to get out and hit balls a couple of times between now and then. Sunday is the start of the 54 hole individual championship and I will play Sunday-Saturday and Sunday. This is the longest medal play tournament of the year and our championship for individual medal play. My game is iffy right now, but I'm hoping the layoff helped me lose some of the bad habits I had developed. I will work on the concepts that were shown to me when I had the lesson a month ago.

 

Well, short and sweet, but I have been in a conference since last Sunday and don't have much to report. I hope everyone is well. Be good. Ciao.

 

Matt and I arrived in Detroit about 7:30 tonight, an hour late after getting delayed in Minneapolis because of SNOW. It's Spring for God's sake. We were able to sit and watch a good piece of the Masters, but our flight left Minnesota at 4:25 and the playoff started closer to 7 PM. It was going on when we landed in Detroit, but we had to get our bags and meet the limo driver, so missed all of the fun. The buffet dinner (salad, lasagna, chicken breasts and fruit) was supposed to end at 8:00, but they extended it to 8:30 because so many of the guys were watching the Masters. We made it in under the wire and the dinner was somewhat underwhelming. I had a quick drink with the Birmingham, AL Branch Manager, Matt, a broker from Tampa and two guys from our Canadian arm, who flew into Windsor from Toronto and missed dinner. True to their British form (both are ex patriots from England), they were drinking their dinner. I left Matt, the Branch Manager and the two Canadians at the bar and repaired back to my room to prepare for tomorrow and to work on the Blog. Yes, I am a little anal, what's your problem?

 

You can see pictures from Burns and Wilcox's in service day with Habitat for Humanity on Saturday. We had ten people show up and donate their Saturday to helping others. Our work site was the remains of a home in South Sacramento that had been burned down in a fire last year. The Habitat crews had knocked the structure down and they had us breaking up concrete and loading all of the debris into bins for haul away to the dump. When we arrived, there was a huge pile of rubble and by the time we left at 2:45 PM, we had completely cleaned up all of the wood and debris and had about 75% of the sidewalk and driveways broken up and stored into the dumpsters to be hauled away Monday. There was a large piece of heavy equipment that had an operator picking the piles of debris up and depositing them into three large bins that were on site.  I took the gang out to pizza at Round Table for lunch for helping out.

 

We had to remove a tongue-in-groove kitchen floor and remove all of the nails and stack them up for use on another project. The home was built in the sixties and the place had been combed over pretty good before we got there. We did manage to find a television remote and quite a few black widow spiders hiding in the sub floor of the structure. The site looked scrubbed pretty clean by the time we finished. It was hard work and I ran out of gas about 2:00. The site foreman wasn't much better than me as we hung out talking and he took refuge in a wheelbarrow (see the top picture). I told him I was going to post the picture on the Habitat for Humanity website. He wasn't amused. David was there and worked concrete virtually the whole day working with sledgehammers and pry bears to break up the cement, loaded it into wheelbarrows and then hand delivered it to the containers. I'm sure he was sore and tired last night. David, Ajay and Jeff (my assistant Shawna's husband) were all really hard workers and ended up working together. They didn't know each other at the beginning of the day, but workers tend to gravitate together and they ended up working concrete almost exclusively. Jeff works for Home depot in the Contractor's Service department where Daniel hopes to get moved eventually. Right now, he is working the garden department at the Home Depot in Woodland Hills.

 

David got a job in his field and not a moment too soon. He turns 26 in May and will be off of our insurance. His old firm, Halston Engineering (he interned there in high school), had offered him a position as a purchasing agent and he turned that down as he wants to work as an architect. One of the designers was burned out and decided to move to the purchasing agent position and they called David back and he starts tomorrow as a design engineer and will also be assisting in the estimating process when they get to bid on new jobs. It's not his dream job, but he is very happy to have full time work and full time benefits.

 

Darla, coincidentally, is off to Kansas City tomorrow and her Leadership conference with Silpada. My visit this week is for the Kaufman Financial Group's Executive Leadership training. We will spend the first four days immersed in leadership training and working with Steve Zaffron, the CEO of the Vanta Group. He will be working with us on principles from his book, "The Three Laws of Performance, rewriting the future of your organization and your life." Interestingly, a lot of the principals and ideas of his study is on changing the culture of your workplace from one of apathy and complacency to one of forward thinking, positive change. To be honest, my office would be a test case for this training as it was an office DOA when I took over, with a lot of infighting and negativity. There were 13 employees when I took over and I have three left from that group and 20 new faces that work for me. Many of my employees have never faced poor results or negative performance in their time with me. They have only experienced a vibrant office with winning teammates and record profits. The idea of this seminar is to create the kind of positive vibe that is part of my office already. I guess I should just go sight seeing in Detroit, as I've seen little of this town outside of the Ritz Carlton here in Dearborn. I'm just kidding. It will be a positive week of forward thinking and goals and objectives for the future of Burns and Wilcox. I look forward to spending a week with the future leaders of this company and helping them plan for our future.

 

The agenda is pretty aggressive with the day starting at 8:00AM and the dinners each night offsite at 7:00PM. We will get back to the hotel after 9 PM most nights and later on a few of them.

 

Well, this is inarguably short, but it is almost 11:00 PM. I need to check in with my bride and then get some sleep as the coming days will be long and, at times, trying. BTW, look closely at the last picture above and you can see I snapped it just as Ajay was about to lose his load of bricks and cement. Timing is everything, eh. Have a great week. Ciao!

Jennifer Lyon got Married

 

Well, she did. It just happens to be my brother's daughter, Jenny, that  tied the knot. I'm not holding my breath that my daughter will follow on that path any time soon. I'd turn blue and fall over if I did. We had a GREAT time in Texas and Randy and Cake proved to be tremendous hosts as they put on a party for the ages. Jenny and Alex had a great time at their wedding and start off their lives as husband and wife in Thailand, where they flew off to the day after their big day. 

 

Darla and I flew in on Friday, arriving about 11:20 AM after a 6 AM flight out of Sacramento. Randy picked us up and we were checked into the Worthington by a little after noon. Strangely, Randy was busy that afternoon and Dad and Shirley were off on an outing to Fort Worth. Darla and I ended up having lunch together at the Cabo Grande Restaurant across the street from the hotel. We finished lunch and ended up taking a walk around the stores and shops in the area. We got back to the hotel about 2 PM and were unpacking when Dad came by and we visited for a few minutes. We made plans to go to the wedding rehearsal at 3:30. From there, we met for drinks at Dad's room at 6 PM.

The rehearsal dinner was fun and they had it as Joe T. Garcia's, a Forth Worth institution that was absolutely packed with people. It took Dad and I about twenty minutes to find parking. The dinner was beef and chicken fajitas with all the fixings and pitchers of margaritas. 

 

Saturday, we were up about 8 o'clock and had breakfast with Dad and Shirley at a little diner across the street from the hotel. From there we drove out to see Billy Bob's, the 6500 square foot honky tonk that features four dance floors and seven separate bars. They also have a bull riding pen that beats Gilley's, only because their ring features professional bull riders and real bulls. From there, we wandered the streets of Fort Worth in and around the Stockyards in Fort Worth. We had lunch at Riskey's Barbecue after Darla spent a small fortune of black cowboy boots with silver inlays and a western blouse. The area was filled with restaurants, bars and shops and included a cowboy museum, daily cattle drives and the unrelenting smell of animal feces.

 

The wedding itself was first class with good drink, good food, good company and a great time was had by all. Jenny asked me to do a blessing before they were pronounced husband and wife and I was happy to bring our Lord and Saviour into the discussion. I had a great time with family and friends and I could tell that Alex and Jenny were having the times of their lives, as they should have been. The venue was a three story restaurant and bar, the Reata and Randy had reserved the top two floors for the wedding. It was an outdoor venue and the weather was tremendous, with highs in the 70's and high sixties throughout the night.

 

Alex and Jenny stayed until almost midnight and then caught a  limousine from the venue to the airport hotel. When they got there, Alex realized that his bag was missing and Randy had to run up to Alex's hotel room at the Worthington and grab his bag. He drove the forty minutes to the airport and realized that the bag seemed too light. It turns out it was one of Alex's grooms man's bag and he had to turn around and drive back to Fort Worth and then to the airport. he didn't get to bed until almost 4 AM. He was so tired that he dropped the grooms man's bag at the front desk and went to bed.

 

Randy and Cake hosted a breakfast on Sunday and the groomsman whose bag was at the front desk ended up showing up in his suit and tie from the night before and looking like he'd been up all night partying. Randy had an "egg guy" and they had an omelet station set up along with breads, fruit, potatoes, scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage. It was a nice touch for the guests who had traveled to the Dallas area and were able to meet up, have breakfast and visit with each other before all heading off to our own lives.

 

Randy asked me to drive Jenny's Chevy Cruz back to Dallas and when I collected the vehicle from the valet, it was on fumes from a gas perspective. I followed dad to the closest gas station, gassed up and then we drove on to dad and Shirley's hotel in Allen, Tx. We went over to Jesse and Lori's house in Richardson and had dinner of left over fajitas from the rehearsal dinner, before saying our goodbyes to everyone and heading to the airport.

 

We got into Sacramento at 11:30 and there was a huge crowd at the tram shuttle to baggage claim. one of the trains was shut down and people were crowding to one side of the train station. Then people started pouring through to the exit only side of the station and forcing their way on. It was  basic pack mentality and I had a good laugh when the controller stopped opening the exit doors because there was no one traveling to the gates from ticketing. The other train finally got back on line and we got out of there about midnight. We arrived home about 12:30 and slipped into the spa to try and relax. Today was a little tough because we were tired. The 1 AM bed time was 3 AM in Dallas.

 

So, now, the wedding is over and next week on Sunday I leave for Detroit and the Leadership conference with my company. Darla leaves for Kansas City on Monday and her Management conference. The only good that will come from that is that we are both busy that week. I get back on Saturday and Darla gets back on Thursday.

 

Saturday David and I will work at Habitat for Humanity building a house for the underprivileged. This is a community outreach put together by one of my management trainees. It is a good use of our time and resources at Burns and Wilcox and the right way to give back to the community. There will be eleven employees from my office as well as a few spouses and children involved.

 

I will try to update this next week before I leave, but we are going to a dinner on Saturday night in Linden where Darla's high school girl's basketball team will be inducted into the high school hall of fame. They won three state championships in softball, but are being inducted for winning the state championship in basketball. We will drive to Linden for the 6:30 dinner and then home that night.

 

Well, that is the news to the moment. congratulations to Jenny and Alex and nice job, Randy and Cake. Be well. Ciao.

Easter Rainfall

 

Happy Easter to my friends and family. We awoke to some much needed rain this morning and I had to drain about four inches from the pool as it was up to the top of the tile. Some of the flowerbeds had also overflowed and there was some bark washed into the pool. I put some fertilizer down on the lawn on Friday, so it was good timing for that. I also worked on fixing the switches for the two fans in our lkiving room and family rooms. The prior owner had wired them together so that the fan switch worked both fans and the light switch worked the light on both fans. Darla and I want to be able to turn on the lights individually and don't need the light on in the living room when we are in the family room. I worked for two hours trying to figure out the maze of wiring in the switch box and now one control works both lights and the fans are on all the time. I need to get one of my electrician friends over to look at the wiring. Jennifer could do it, but I don't know when she'll be back in town. As a Handyman, I often find that paying someone to do the job beats me messing it up.

I received a nice e-mail from Neil today that was touching. He was looking at his life from the standpoint of his recent stroke and how he wants all of his friends and family to realize the sacrifice that Jesus made for each of us and to live our life to the fullest because you never know when your time is up and tomorrow is guaranteed to no one. Darla and I also heard a strong message from her Dad on Saturday night about living our life in faith and to stop chasing the almighty dollar. My life has been blessed by our LORD immeasurably and I probably work less hours than most of my colleagues (other Branch Managers). I try to work hard and smart in the 50 hours that I do put in, but do try hard to have a balance in my life. The one thing that Darla and I need to do more of and make a priority in our life is to get back into a Life Group at church. Earl was pretty convicting and he is taking inventory of his life as he gets older and freely sharing his wisdom with all of us.

 

We went to Alicia and Don's house for dinner last night and watched Lucas find Easter eggs in his backyard that were not very cleverly hidden. Don smoked a tri tip in a smoker in his backyard.The meat was great, but it was a little smokey for my tastes. Darla fixed a turkey tonight and it was a 25 pound bird she bought at Christmas time and it was just for the two of us. It was nice. We had a good weekend watching both "Argo" and "Lincoln". I liked both movies, but enjoyed Argo much more. It was well done and Afleck is a great actor.  Daniel Day Lewis did a great job with Lincoln and brought out his humor and his humanity. The time period and the story itself was just a little gray compared to Argo.

 

We finished a record month at work. I remember talking to the staff at the beginning of the month and we were staring at a budget of $300,000 net retained and $2,000,000 in premium. Both numbers are new records for my office. I warned them to work hard, but not be unhappy if we fell a little short of our goal. Our largest prior month was $1,885,000 in premium and $285,000 in net retained. We closed Friday at $2,180,000 in premium and $322,000 in net retained! I learned never to underestimate my staff. It was incredible and I will take the staff to lunch this month at the Spaghetti Factory. I was very happy with the results and the fortitude shown by my employees.

 

Jennifer is in Vegas with Samantha and texted me the two pictures above. We did Face Time with Sam this morning and she was in a great mood as she hung out with Mommy. There was one bit of sad news as the day played out and that is that Kippy, Jennifer's ex Michael's dog had a tumor rupture in his stomach last night and Michael had to have him put down today. Kipp was 13 years old and had gone blind a month ago.

 

I did end up going and seeing Dale at the Golf course this week and getting a lesson. He spent about five minutes watching me hit 8 irons and told me that I was going WAY TOO FAST. He also noticed that I wasn't bringing the back of my left hand through the hitting area square. I'm working on slowing down, taking a breath before I hit and visualizing my shot. I'm working on a new pre-shot routine and working on bringing the logo of my golf glove through the hitting zone squared up. I've played twice since my lesson and it is a work in progress. I shot 85 on Wednesday at Morgan Creek with one of the Vice Presidents at USLI Insurance. He flew in on Tuesday and found out that his license had expired. He is from Los Angeles and had to take a cab from the airport to Woodland, CA and get a replacement driver's license before he could rent a car. Saturday I played in the Diamond tournament and shot an 88. I was hitting the ball much better on the back side Saturday and shot a 41 to finish the round.

 

We are off to Fort Worth on Friday for Jenny's wedding. We are both looking forward to getting away and seeing family. The venue and the hotel both look incredible and we are excited to see Jenny and Alex tie the knot. Given that we will be gone, the blog will be late next week. I will take a week off from golf and could probably use the break. I hope you all had a tremendous Easter and celebrated more than eggs and bunnies and gave thanks to our Saviour, Jesus Christ, for dying in our place so that we can live life everlasting. Amen to that. Ciao!

A Lazy Weekend

 

Barbecued chicken for dinner. It hit 79 degrees today and it seemed the right thing to enjoy a delicious barbecue. I see pictures of Darryl digging out of snowed in Kansas City and wonder what I'm doing in California. I could be clearing driveways with my neighbors rather than finishing up three straight days of golf and trying to avoid an early season sunburn.We had barbecued hamburgers last night and I am enjoying the change in the weather. We are expecting some clouds and a chance of rain mid week.

 

You can see the pictures of Daniel and his friend working on adding some more flooring to the attic. Daniel is leaving for Los Angeles this week. He has a job with the Home Depot in Woodland Hills and will also be getting hours with Kohls. He will ramp up his job search while he is in Southern California. The guys have been working on the attic for the last four hours. What started out as a project to add some space fro his things has turned into an addition to our home. Darla is concerned  that they are actually making a new room up there and they will move in next week.

 

The other picture is of Darla and I at Benihanas. I had a $30 free dinner for my birthday and I never miss a free meal at Benihanas. We went out this last week and enjoyed dinner together on Thursday night. I also got a haircut on Wednesday and got a bit of a scalp job. I got visiting with the stylist and listening to her tale of woe about her ex husband and didn't notice the gray hair flying onto the ground. The difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is about a week. Well, if you are a man anyhow.

 

I did get out and play golf Friday at Rancho Murieta with one of my agents, Pete and one of his agents, who happens to be the son of my agent. It is a small world in insurance. The weather was changing on Friday and the wind was up. We had gusts of 25-30 MPH and it was COLD. Unfortunately, I was not up on the forecast, other than that it was supposed to be 70 degrees, and I wore shorts to the course. It slowly warmed up through the day, but the wind stayed up. I shot 85 and my agent, who is a 16 handicap, shot 84. Pete and his agent were in the low 100s.

 

I just took a break and went and looked at the attic. Daniel and his friend have added about another 16' x 8' of space in the attic for storage. Now, we'll never have to throw anything away. We can have a Christmas inventory that rivals Shirley's now.

 

Yesterday, i had a free coupon for golf at Diamond Oaks and met Darren, Pamas and Paul for a practice round for today's tournament. My game was on and I shot 40+41=81. Pamas shot 75 and Paul 83. Darren had 92. My concern was that I used up all of my good shots yesterday and would have nothing left for the tournament.

 

Well, a 42+43=85 day proved that to be correct. I was a little sore and my legs hurt after three days of golf. I rode with Boyd today, but got tired on the back nine and finished double bogey/bogey/double bogey at the end of my round. I did go in and set up a lesson with Dale on Tuesday afternoon. I have struggled with the driver lately, pulling the ball left. It got to the point today that I was aiming the ball right and drawing it back into the center of the fairway. The problem with that plan is that if you don't draw the ball, you end up in the trees. Like any golfer, I have developed some bad habits and lazy swing mechanics and need a professional to take a look at my swing and fix my mistakes. I will meet with Dale after work on Tuesday. I have a marketing game set up with one of my carriers and Gary along with Matt from my office. Hopefully, I can make some corrections and have a better round on Wednesday at Morgan Creek. I also have a Diamond tournament on Saturday with Boyd and Paul.

 

Work is going well. I've been working through reviews the past couple of weeks. It is pretty nice to work on reviews of an office that is doing as well as mine. It was overall pretty positive, but I was able to point out some areas in need of improvement. Two of my underwriters who have been a little slow to pick up their premium both had great years, one of them up 29% and the other 40%. That, combined with Pete and Matt doing so well, added up to a record year for my office. Now, I  have those four as a great base and have my Personal Lines Underwriter who was up 15% in 2012 and two newer underwriters continuing to mature and grow their books of business. Adding to that, I will have one of my Underwriting trainees start handling a new territory in April. I am in the process of hiring a new typist for the office and culling through resumes and doing interviews.

 

I have a Fantasy baseball draft tomorrow night at 6:30. It is a Keeper league and I have the first draft choice tomorrow night. Nice.

 

We are off to Dallas in two weeks and look forward to seeing family. Next weekend is Easter and we will have an early Easter dinner with the family on Saturday night at Alicia's house. Darla and I will relax at home on Sunday after going to service in the morning. We went to church this past Saturday night and it was Palm Sunday service and the pastor had the entire service devoted to baptisms. It was nice early on, but got a bit dry by the time they were working on their thirtieth baptism.

 

Well, that is it for this week. I hope you all enjoy the celebration of the death and resurrection of our saviour, Jesus Christ, this coming weekend. Be well, enjoy family time and Praise God for our life everlasting. Ciao.

 

 

 

 



Busy Week..Scottsdale, Jennifer and a New Car for Darla

Okay, admittedly I am a little worn out. I left for Scottsdale at 5:45 AM on Sunday and it was actually 4:45 AM because of the time change that evening. I sleepwalked through the morning, actually losing my driver's license for awhile (in my pocket). I had shown my id at the baggage check in and put it in my pocket with my cell phone. The DL, which has a magnetic stripe on it adhered to the face of my phone and Pete and I spent about five minutes tearing my stuff apart trying to find it. We went over to a table away from the ticketing area and I emptied my pockets. Pete finally found it plastered to the face of my phone. Just a brief panic. We got into Phoenix at 9 AM and were able to get our rental car. It was packed in Phoenix with Spring break revelers and people in town for both Spring Training and the World Baseball Classic. We drove out to Mesa and tried to check into our resort at Painted Mountain, but there was some rather large angry woman working the counter and she was adamant that there were no rooms available until 4 PM. I thought about going and getting a dozen Krispy Kremes and seeing if there were any rooms available then, but we changed in the restroom into shorts and headed over to the Brewers stadium in Surprise for the 1 PM Giants exhibition game. Our seats were great and we were located about 8 rows behind home plate with all of the scouts. There were at least 12 guys with Juggs radar guns monitoring the pitches. Most of the stars were gone off to the various teams of the WBC, but Matt Cain, one of the World Series' heroes was the starting pitcher and Hunter Pence was starting in the outfield. It was a good game and you can see how close we were to the field by the two pictures that were taken of the field from our seats. 

 

We left the game in the seventh inning and headed back out to the resort to check in. We got there at 3:40 and promptly checked into our room. The heavy set clerk was nowhere to be found. From there we cleaned up and drove into Tempe, where we met one of our former underwriters for dinner who has gone to work at another company. We were both tired and headed back to the resort early and got to bed early.

 

Monday, we were up early and headed in to Scottsdale and breakfast with one of our Underwriters, who used to work with Pete and I at Republic Western. Patti is now the Underwriting Manager for the company and is doing well. From there we drove in to downtown Scottsdale and a meeting with our largest carrier. We've been having some issues with their underwriting and how they are treating us as a $3.5 million partner. We met with the Underwriting VP and the first thing I had her do was pull our results from the last eight years. It turns out that our loss ratio is about 18% average annual and the highest loss ratio that we've had was 33%. My point is that my office has made millions of dollars for them over the years and that they need to realize that and start treating us like the true partners that we are. The new underwriter came in and we had a good visit. I went back over the profitability that we have shown historically and that she needs to let her guard down and realize that we are not trying to place substandard business with them and that our history is of good underwriting and profitability. She is new and doesn't know us and Pete and I laid it out pretty directly to her. They have been losing business recently and their competitors are gobbling up business that they have declined and we have other carriers lining up to clean up the scraps. I think we made our point and then went out and enjoyed a great lunch at Tommy V's in downtown Scottsdale.

 

From there, we drove out to the Northern side of Scottsdale and the Biltmore Country Club to meet Mike, my compatriot from our Scottsdale office, and Mike, our underwriter from Burlington. We got some range balls and warmed up after changing into shorts. Pete pulled me aside and said he was hitting balls next to Frankie Munoz, the actor from Malcolm in the Middle. He's obviously older, but I told him he was crazy. They soon called the Munoz foursome  to the tee. On the other side of me was Channing Frye, the center from the Phoenix Suns, who was diagnosed last year with an enlarged heart and hasn't played since. He had a set of custom made golf clubs that were huge. We were putting and still waiting for the Mike's when my phone rang and it was Mike asking where we were. I told him on the putting green. He said he was looking at the putting green and didn't see me. I asked him if he was at the Biltmore and he said, no we changed it to the McDowall Ranch course in Southern Scottsdale. We were about 30 minutes away and our tee time was in 15 minutes. I put the little Rav 4 that we had through it's paces and got to the course in about 35 minutes. The Mikes were on hole number 2 and we  jumped into our cart and met them on number 3. All of the warm up went for naught and I was uncomfortable and stiff. I did manage to shoot 82 with writing in two pars for the first two holes and a nice 39 on the back nine. We went out to dinner with the Mike's and enjoyed some nice Italian at Arrivadercci's in Scottsdale.

 

Tuesday was my birthday and we met the Underwriting VP and our auto underwriter from Scottsdale Insurance out at the Talking Stick Resort. The Talking Stick is a Troon resort and absolutely beautiful. I struggled a little bit on the desert course getting off the fairway a few times into the desert and seeing some larger scores because of it. I ended up posting a 44+43=87. We went from there out to lunch where we met the Underwriting Supervisor and our Commercial Lines Underwriter. I got a 911 text from one of my friends back in Sacramento and when I called him back, he let me know that my friend, Neil, had a stroke and had been taken to the hospital. It turns out that Neil had a blood clot in his carotid artery that caused him to have a mini stroke. More on that later.

 

Pete and I met the four employees from Scottsdale and had a great early dinner before heading back to the airport and our flight to Sacramento. It was a great trip, kind of short, but it was a good time with our carriers and with Mike from our AZ office. I found out that although Mike and my office write the same premium volume, that my office has more than double the profit that AZ does. That was an eye opener for me and when I called Harvey when I got back, he shared with me that our office is one of the most profitable in the territory.

 

You can also see that we visited Jennifer and McKenny in Pleasanton. We drove down on Saturday afternoon and Jennifer took Darla and I to dinner at an Italian restaurant downtown (for my birthday). We had a nice visit, but something was missing. It was Samantha!! Jennifer is working with an attorney now and hopes to have a visit with Samantha here in California soon. Jennifer seems very happy, but we need to get Sammy here and soon.

 

Finally, you can see Darla's new car. We looked at a bunch of different models from Lexus to Nissan to BMW and Honda. Darla really wanted a Navigation system and a hands free system for her phone.

We narrowed the decision down to a Ford Explorer and a Honda Pilot. Both have three rows of seats and can seat 8. The 2013 Ford Explorer with 17,000 miles on it was about $7,000 more than the Pilot, but had the Navigation system and leather seats as well as a back-up camera and the full SYNC system. Darla loves her Explorer now and she was absolutely sold on the white Explorer with black interior. We looked at the cars on Friday night and left, knowing that the Explorer might not be there when we returned today. We are both big believers in "God's Will" and left it in his hands. If the car was still available today, we would bite the bullet and buy it. We went out to breakfast this morning and had to wade through crowds of St Patty day revelers that were already out and drinking green beer at 10:15 this morning. I had to park a couple of blocks away from the restaurant to get in. The car was there and we pretty quickly worked out a deal for the car. I drove it for the first time and was impressed. Ford has definitely upped their game and I'm proud to have bought a car from the one American car company that did not take any of the Obama bail out money. They kept working hard, making changes to their models and pushing the envelope on technology, partnering with Microsoft on the SYNC system. The car is very clean and very nice.

 

I played golf on Saturday with Boyd, Ron and Pamas and had a little issue with my new driver. I was pulling the ball to the left and decided to adjust the driver to neutral from a closed face and the head got stuck and I couldn't get it fixed. I ended up playing with Pamas' driver  on the back side and shot an 88. I got home and took a look at the driver and somehow the nut got on the top side of the shaft rather than the bottom (sounds like a scene from "Something about Mary..").  I was able to fix it and the driver is great right now. I think somehow I had made the original change and put the nut on the wrong side of the head and I was lucky that it didn't break when I was using it.

 

As to Neil, he has decided to have surgery this Wednesday to have his carotid artery cleaned out. They have to cut it, reattach it to another artery, clear out the clot and then tie it back together. The surgery is fairly serious because it deals with the carotid artery. He could have opted to be on blood thinners for the next month to see if the problem cleared itself up, but his wife and daughter were worried about a recurrence of the stroke and didn't want another stroke to perhaps occur when he was driving or something. I did stop in last Wednesday and visited Neil and Lilly in the hospital. I will also go by on Thursday and see him after his surgery. The hospital is about two blocks from my office in Roseville. Neil will be down for about a month after the surgery.

 

Well, that's it for a busy week. I get the stitches out of my head tomorrow and my head is healing nicely. I'll stop by at the bank after the procedure and get the loan squared away for the Explorer.I put down a nice piece of change on the car, so the payment is nice and low. Have a great week and I will be back at the keyboard next week. Ciao. 

Spring has sprung in Roseville!

 

Spring doesn't officially hit for another couple of weeks, but temperatures in the mid 70's with low eighties on the way this week would suggest otherwise. I spent part of the day today taking out a couple of plants that we lost to frost damage this year and replacing them with a sego palm and some ground cover. You can see the blooms on our fruitless cherry tree, which was in full bloom about a week ago. The March winds have taken their toll on the blooms, but there is still a hint of the vibrant pink that stood out last week. We had a rainstorm come in on Thursday that knocked off quite a few of the blooms and then strong winds today that died out to a beautiful afternoon.

 

The other picture is of Samantha in her Karate gear. I don't know the story on that one, I stole the picture from my ex's Facebook page.

 

Happy Birthday to Dad today. I talked to them before they left for dinner tonight at Elizabeth's in Cloverdale. It sounds like they were having a great day and were able to stay away from the hospital today. They even had breakfast together out this morning. The hospital did try to get them to come in today and help out with an issue with Shirley's aunt, but Shirley stood her ground and said that it was her husband's birthday and they wouldn't be coming in to the hospital today. You go, Shirley.

 

I leave for Scottsdale in the morning. Pete and I fly in at about 9:30. We pick up our rental car and then get checked in at the Painted Mountain Resort in Mesa. From there, we drive out to Surprise and the Spring training ballpark of the Milwaukee Brewers. We will watch the Giant's game and then drive out to Tempe for dinner at a Japanese steakhouse. Monday, we have breakfast with one of our underwriters, who also happens to be a former employee of mine at Republic Western Insurance. From there, we drive into Scottsdale and meet with our underwriter and the VP of Underwriting with Colony. We will have lunch with them and then head over to the Biltmore resort in Scottsdale for golf with my counterpart at our Phoenix office and our Underwriter with Burlington.  

 

Tuesday, we will meet with our Underwriting Director and the VP of Underwriting from Scottsdale at Troon North Golf club in Scottsdale. Tuesday also happens to be my birthday and I can't imagine a greater golf course to play that Troon North, rated one of the top 25 Public golf courses in America. We tee off at 9 AM and then will clean up, get checked out of our resort and then meet our underwriter and her boss from Scottsdale for an early dinner. We have a flight back at 8:30.

 

I was so frustrated with my golf outing last week, that I ordered a new driver on Tuesday. I ordered a Callaway Razr Fit driver. It is the one year old version of the driver and the equipment that Ernie Els used to win the 2012 British Open. True to form, Callaway came out with the Razr Fit Extreme for 2013. I bought last years model for $199 and the new one sells for $399. The Razr Fit was the number one rated driver in 2012. that's good enough for me. I took it out today in the wind and hit it better than my Exotics, even with the wind. We'll see if I'm able to carry that success over to the course.

 

I should have my bonus money a week from Wednesday and Darla and I can start looking for her new SUV. She is set on an Explorer, the new model and we may end up with that, but I want to check out a number of the SUVs, including the Murano, the X-5, the Acura MDX, the ML350 and the Lexus RS 350 among others. 

 

Jennifer is home with Samantha this weekend and I'm hoping that she meets with her attorney on Monday and gets closer to getting our little girl home here in California. At least Jennifer is getting home for about 5 days every two weeks. I really miss Samantha. We haven't seen her since August of 2012 and I'm anxious for her to at least come for a two week visit to the Bay Area.

 

Well, i need to spend some time with my wife. She is not convinced that this trip to Scottsdale is a work trip and coming on the heels of the Guy's trip to Napa last week is at the least bad timing. I need to spend some time with my bride. I hope you are all well and I will see most of you at Jenny's wedding next month. Ciao.



A Quick Trip to the Wine Country for some Golf

 

 Darla was a little short with me over the last week because I overbooked her and I for work related activities and it wore us out. I had dinner with a client and his wife on Wednesday night in Folsom. We closed a big ($130,000) account on March 1st and I decided to reward them with dinner at Land Ocean restaurant in Folsom. Shawna, my assistant, worked hard on the account as well, so we invited her husband, Rick, and Shawna to join us for drinks and dinner. It was fun, but put a bit of a crimp in our week. Then, Friday night, we joined Pete and his wife Vicki for a crab feed in Sacramento. I always forget how much I don't like handling cold crab and trying to get the meat out of the legs. It is a lot of work for something that I'm not that hep on to begin with. I think this will be my last year and I may send another underwriter and her husband in my place next year. Saturday night we had dinner up in Serano with Jeff and Linda, our friends and my agents from El Dorado Hills. Linda outdid herself with Panko crusted shrimp appetizers followed by salad and a dinner of barbecued salmon and barbecued asparagus and Brussels sprouts with cut red potatoes. It was delicious. We arrived with dessert and wine at 6:30 and we didn't say goodnight until almost 11:30. We really enjoy Jeff and Linda. They have similar morals and attitudes as we do and we plan to invite them to Mexico with us in the near future. Their daughter, Clair, who works for the agency will marry on 12-13-14 in Maui and we are invited to the wedding at a private estate on the beach. So we ended Saturday tired and over committed and then...

 

I left for two days of golf in the wine country (Napa and Sonoma County) at 9 AM on Sunday morning. We met at the Park n Ride near the freeway and drove in three cars to Johnny Miller's Silverado Resort in Napa. We were going to take two cars, but Charlie, an electrician, had to stop on the way home today and do an estimate on the electrical on a remodel of a gas station in Vacaville, so took his own car. I drove with Charlie in his bright red 1998 Corvette. Charlie is 65 and drives the car like he's 18. I had to hang on whenever he passed someone or we were getting on the freeway. We all met at the Black Bear Diner in Vacaville at 10 for breakfast. From there we drove the 45 minutes to Napa and the resort. My game continues to befuddle me. I have lost the driver and shot 46 on the front and largely retired the driver on the backside and shot a 41 for 87.

 

 From there we drove another hour up to Windsor, California and theWindsor golf resort which has a World Mark condo on site. Joe and Pat are owners and got us in to two 3 bedroom condos for the bargain price of $35 per man. We slept 4 to a condo and when we got there, Doug and Neil immediately claimed the two single rooms, leaving Tim and I the room with two twin beds. I warned Tim that I snore and he said, that's okay, he uses a CPAP machine. I don't think my snoring was a problem for him as his machine, which hisses and has a high pitched whistle, kept me awake a good portion of the night. The sound is not unlike the sound you hear when an astronaut is in his space suit and is talking. I half expected to hear, "Thant's one small step for man, pssht, pssht, and one giant leap for mankind" at some point. We got checked into the condo and then went to dinner downtown at the City Cafe and had tri tip dips, sandwiches and salads for dinner. it was great.

 

This morning we awoke to a cold, misty FOG that hung on until almost 2 o'clock today. It did warm somewhat, but the sun didn't poke it's head out until we were almost done. I stayed away from the driver on the front side and shot 41, but succumbed to a couple of longer holes on the backside and shot a 46 with one pick-up and another adjustment on a hole that I shot an 8 on. I'm frustrated and ready for a new driver and some lessons from Dale at the club. My driver is an Exotics. I like it, but it has a slight crack in the face and that is really affecting my drives. I was frustrated with a pair of 87's, but truth be told there were a lot of the guys that shot in the 100's and my score was the best both days out of the group.

 

I talked to Jennifer while I was in Windsor and she will be in Vegas this weekend again and has her Mom coming in to town and they will meet with a family law attorney and start the process of petitioning the court to have Sam moved to California. I think she dragged her feet too long on this, but the truth is she is uncomfortable with attorneys and her Mom can help her manage the legal maze and get her set up with a good attorney.

 

I leave Sunday for Scottsdale and have my schedule set now. Pete and I fly in Sunday morning and check into the resort and then head to Surprise, AZ and a game between the San Francisco Giants and Milwaukee Brewers. We will have dinner that night with one of our underwriters in Scottsdale. Monday, we will be in Scottsdale with two of our carriers in the morning and then will meet the Phoenix, AZ Burns Branch Manager and one of our underwriters from Burlington Insurance in Scottsdale at Biltmore Country Club and will play golf in the afternoon and have dinner that night. Tuesday, we will meet another company and their VP of Marketing and the West Coast Underwriting Manager for golf at Troon North.Iit is also my birthday on Tuesday and I can't think of a more fitting place to have it. The Troon courses are expensive, absolutely beautiful and tremendously maintained. We fly home at 7 PM Tuesday night.  

 

Daniel is considering a move to Southern California to be closer to his girlfriend and to the emerging construction jobs in the area. His degree is in Civil Engineering and he hopes to get an internship with one of the Southern California cities. He had an interview with Home Depot last Friday for a Construction desk sales position with a store in Southern California. I don't know which one.

 

My office finished February up 20% over 2012 and I will be once again hosting a lunch for the staff in the coming weeks. Things continue to be amazing at work and I am very blessed to have the staff that I have.

 

Well, that is it for this week. I did not get the blog entry done on Saturday like I had hoped, but it was a busy weekend as documented above. I will definitely get it done this weekend as I don't have anything planned including golf. I need to get the handicaps done tomorrow for a tournament next weekend that I won't even be playing in. The cat picture above is a shoutout to the movie "Wedding Crashers" and Will Ferrell's character. The picture of Dad and Shirley is from their trip to a Hot Springs in British Columbia. The other pictures are from Windsor. Be well. Ciao.