Kona Hawaii 2012

 

Obviously, a lot of pictures from the trip. We had a ball. The hotel we stayed in for the Park, Sleep and Fly was fabulous, in Millbrae and had underground, secured parking for the week and the total cost was less than $140. The trip to the airport on Monday from the hotel was flawless, although the driver of the van was listening to the Steve Harvey radio show and there was a bit on it where they take letters from the audience to a therapist and one lady had met a guy online, met him in the city, didn't like him, had sex and got bruised and hurt. Steve Harvey was merciless on this woman, telling her that she should have run when she thought he was ugly, but let "Robbie Rough" take her to bed and cause her pain and suffering. That she was ignorant and careless. The driver was embarrassed, but the 12 riders on board wouldn't let him turn it off.

The condo on Kona was a block from the beach and two blocks to the restaurants and shops on Ali'i Drive. The condo had two bedrooms with a Junior suite in the back with it's own mini kitchen and bathroom. Darla and I claimed that. It had it's own lanai outside the room with a table and chairs and was nice and quiet. The boys like to stay up late and we couldn't hear the TV from there. The condo was stocked with boogie boards and snorkel gear, beach umbrellas and coolers. Darla's brother, Steve, lives just five minutes east of the condo and we were able to get extra snorkels, boogie boards and umbrellas from him. Our flight was delayed from 9 AM until 11:30 on Monday, so we relaxed at the airport and started on our vacation books.  It was mid afternoon when we finally got in and we set up camp in the condo and then went down to the city front and found a nice pizza place to have an early dinner (we were two hours ahead on our stomach's clocks). We then went and did our grocery shopping for the week, loading up on milk, sodas, chips, breakfast items, lunch meats and some hamburger for tacos one night for dinner.

Tuesday we checked out the area, driving down to a snorkel spot and relaxing at the beach. We drove home for lunch (barbecued hot dogs) and then took the boogie boards out for a trip to Magic Sands beach. We relaxed back at the condo and had dinner. Wednesday was our ATV ride and we decided to be up early for the ninety minute ride to Waipaio. We wanted to stop halfway up and have breakfast at Hawaiian Style Cafe that was highly recommended by a co worker. The food was enormous, excellent and the service lightning fast. The pancakes were plate sized and the omelet's 4 eggs. David and Daniel both opted for Hawaiian fare with Portuguese sausage and brown gravy over their eggs. Odd. Darla and I stuck with traditional fare, although Darla had the Macadamia nut and banana pancakes. Good stuff.

We were lucky enough to get an ATV ride with just our family and two guides. The property is a 600 acre cattle ranch and their land extends from the ocean up to the mountains above. We rode up into the ranch lands encountering a small herd of wild Wapaio horses and some donkeys along the way. The ranch is huge and has 300 head of cattle on the ranch. They also have three large ponds of tilapia fish that they raise and sell to the restaurants. From there we ventured back to the barn and loaded up on bananas, sodas and snacks. We took those with us and headed to the lower part of the ranch along the coast. You can see some of the pictures from the coast after the ATV shots above. We were out for three hours and finished up tired, but thrilled with the experience. From there we drove into town and had lunch at the Big Tex drive-in, famous for their malasadas, which are a Portuguese doughnut rolled in sugar. Eaten hot, they are downright tremendous. We drove from lunch to Akaka Falls and then on to Hilo before heading home.

Thursday was another beach and snorkel day and we drove about 45 minutes to "Two Steps" beach, so named because the beach has two steps that have been worn into the lava and is a perfect spot to get into the water with your snorkel gear. I'm not big on the whole snorkel experience and tend to take on too much salt water. The boys and Darla were in the water for hours and I ventured out about 20 feet, saw the sights, and was back out of the water in about ten minutes. There was a large sea turtle that found it's way up on to the lava rock for a nap.

Friday, we relaxed in the morning and I made a quick trip to the pool for a mid morning nap before we made our way out to a beach with some sandwiches and had lunch. From there we drove the three hours to Kilauea Volcano, stopping at the famous black sand beach along the way. We stopped in the National Park to see the large lava tube that is an easy hike that you can walk through and then up to the crater where the steam and lava is in evidence. We went after dark at Steve's suggestion and were able to see the red glow that shines up from the crater at night. It was about 50 degrees there and you can see us in coats and long pants. From there  we drove back and stopped for dinner at the southernmost tip of the United States and had dinner at Hana Hou cafe, the southernmost restaurant in the United States. It is a restaurant and bakery and was packed with locals singing and dancing with the two man band at the front of the restaurant. Darla met a guy who bought a gated property. He said it has three cattle gates on the property and was as close as he'd get to a gated community.

We spent the weekend with Steve and Kirsten, spending Saturday at Kau beach where you can see the boys and Steve going boogie boarding and Darla and Kirsten trying to ruin a perfectly good nap for me. We went to their house for dinner Saturday and played bocce ball at the park across from their home before dinner. Steve then cooked ribs for us on the barbecue. Sunday we went back to Magic Sands before going to dinner at Lu Lu's in Kona. The boys went to the Kona Brewery after dinner and Darla and I went back to relax and pack for our trip home.

It was a great trip. We put over 600 miles on the rental car, a Chevy Traverse with seating for 8. We planned our food just right and had just a few condiments and some snacks for Steve and Kirsten. I will be back at the computer this weekend, but Darla and I are off to a two night stay at a Victorian Bed and Breakfast in Half Moon Bay Friday and Saturday. I hope you are all well and living a happy and healthy life. Ciao.

On the Road to Hawaii

I write this with a great deal of anticipation of our vacation. Daniel is working tonight and Darla is finishing up her fourth Silpada party in as many days. We will leave for San Francisco at about 8 PM. We are packed and ready to go.

It is Autumn and the annual deluge of leaves have begun at our humble homestead. It is great most of the time to live across from a public park. The soccer tournaments can be a bit much with traffic clogging the streets and cars parked throughout the neighborhood. That is more of an annoyance. The dropping of leaves from the grove of trees at the park that blow directly into my yard and those of my neighbors is a real pain. I spend hours raking and piling leaves in the street for the city crews to come by with the "claw" and load them into a dump truck for transport to the city mulching facility. The front yard was covered before I cleaned up yesterday and the sad fact is it will be covered again when we return from vacation. The trees are all about sixty feet high.

On top of that, I have four liquid ambers on the side of the house that are all over fifty feet high and those leaves are dropping as well. I don't mind raking those as they actually belong to me. The leaves from the park are public leaves and I feel like handing rakes to people at the park and asking them to pitch in. I don't think I'd get much cooperation though.

I did get the scores from yesterday's tournament posted on the GHIN siet today so I can leave for Hawaii with no guilt now. It was our turkey shoot tournament. I shot 40+43=83 to take third in my 12 person flight. We play for gift certificates to one of the local grocery stores. I paid $15 to play and won $25 toward our holiday turkey. Boyd took low gross in our flight and I should have won that, but stumbled on the back side. Boyd shot 81, which is off of his best. I was beating him 40 to 41 on the front side, but just couldn't keep it together on the back.

The weather has turned here with overnight lows in the 30's and highs in the upper fifties.  We teed off at 9:30 and the temperature was still in the 40's. I warmed up at the range with an ear wrap on my head. The wind was blowing and it was clear. What the wind did during the day was bring in some clouds which actually helped to warm up the air and the sun warmed the day up. I was able to take my coat off about the 8th hole and leave it off the rest of the day.

There will be no golf in Hawaii and I actually plan to take the next three weeks off from the game and completely let my heel heal. Yes I said it, heel heal. It is doing much better, but is still sore when I wake up in the morning or I'm on it a lot like yesterday. I walked the course and then worked on the yard. This is the first week that I have gone all week without my walking boot at work. I just haven't had much pain of late. Hopefully, by staying off the course for these three weeks, I will see some major improvement.

We do have plans to go up to the volcano while we are there to see the plumes of smoke and lava. We will also do some snorkeling and I will get us tickets for a 2 hour ATV tour of the coastline in the Northern Hawaii shore. I told the boys and Darla to pack long pants and old shoes for the trip as we'll be through mud and water. We will get a chance to swim at a waterfall on the trip, which will be nice. The guys will just wear our swimsuits under our pants. Darla will look for a dressing room.

We will stay at the Marriott by the San Francisco airport and take the shuttle at 7 AM for our 9 AM flight to Kona.  We get in about 12:30 and will get our rental car, check into the condo and then head over and get some groceries at the Costco which is close to our condo complex. The condo is about five minutes from Steve and Kristin's house. Steve is Darla's brother. Darla's parents were going to be there as well, but Frances had some back spasms this last week and they decided to cancel their trip. They had cancellation insurance so didn't get hurt on the transaction.

We get back about 8:30 on Monday night the 12th and then have to get our car and drive back to Sacramento. I let Shawna, my assistant, know that I'd be in about 9 AM on Tuesday. I'm sure there isn't a lot of empathy for me coming off vacation. oh well.

Darla and I will celebrate Thanksgiving at home and then leave for a two day trip to Half Moon Bay on the coast south of San Francisco. I bought a Groupon back in January for a two night stay at a 120 year old Victorian Mansion in the old town section of Half Moon Bay. We will relax for a couple of days and eat clam chowder and fish and chips. It will be a fun trip with the boys, but I'm looking forward to a weekend away with my wife when we get back as well.

Things are going well at work. Having a lot of young people on staff is both a blessing and a curse. One of my young, newer employees made a mistake about a month ago and told one of our agents that a canceled file was still in force. That policyholder had a loss last weekend and the loss falls on me as the policy was legally canceled. The young lady feels really bad and I've told her to let it go and we are using it as a training issue in the office. The problem was more one of supervision than anything worse. Shawna was able to take the young lady out for coffee this week and talk it out. She told her that I wasn't mad about it, that I just want to make sure it doesn't happen again. The insured is a tire shop and a wheel came off a vehicle they worked on. The only damage was to the car and there were no injuries. The loss will cost us about $3500, which is not bad all things considered.

Well, I will be back to the blog late next week with pictures and tales from Hawaii. I hope you are all well and looking forward to Thanksgiving. Be well. Ciao.

Excellent weather in Northern California

An interesting assortment of pictures. Samantha dressed up as Astrid from "How to Train Your Dragon". I had to look up the photo from the movie and it is a great representation of the character. I guess Samantha loved it. Unfortunately, she was ill overnight after Halloween. She didn't have too much candy, she just got a case of the flu at a bad time. Darla said that she could sort of tell from the picture that Sam wasn't herself (she wasn't smiling).

The picture of Barrack Hussein simply points out how clueless BHO is. He wants to add a Secretary of Business to his Cabinet, which probably more or less would come as quite a surprise to his Commerce Secretary. By this time next week the campaigns will be over, the mind numbing commercials will be mothballed and hopefully Mitt Romney is transitioning for his move to the White House in January. My hope comes from the closeness of the polls showing a virtual dead heat between Romney and Obama. That hope springs from the fact that the polls are skewed to mirror the last election and the turnout that the election had. The groundswell of Hope and Change brought out the Democrats and young people in droves. The complete and total disappointment of the electorate with the economy and with BHO's job performance will more than likely significantly lower the turnout. Some of those voters are actually part of the undecided and will likely choose not to vote for BHO. Whether or not they vote for Romney is immaterial as each of those voters that fires BHO will make Romney our next President of the United States. We only have  few days to wait and see.

This has been an unprecedented year for the Presidential Debates. That first debate that BHO whiffed on was a game changer and the swell of support that came in behind Romney will sweep him into the White House. That debate will be part of high school civics classes from here on out because of the fact that it legitimized  a candidate that was so far behind and convinced so many Undecided voters that Romney could be a real Commander in Chief. Everything that Obama has done since has reeked of desperation and the two almost unwatchable debates that followed had little to no effect on the groundswell that was built on that first debate. I sure hope that Romney follows through with a win, because I can't imagine another four years with the spending and Big Government that has been the the hallmark of his Presidency. I hate to see what Wall Street and the economy will do if BHO gets another four years to further bankrupt this country.

The fourth picture is of a lighthouse on Lake Erie in Pennsylvania during Hurricane Sandy. Even with all of the pain and suffering, death and destruction that Sandy wrought, it did bring some unbelievable pictures. The power of a tropical storm is something that is almost too hard to believe. The fact that this storm came onshore and ran into a low pressure system and turned into a killer super storm.

The weather here has been in the 80's every day with overnight lows in the mid 50's. It is supposed to change by the end of the week and our daily highs will drop into the upper 50's.

Darla, the boys and I will be off to Hawaii a week from tomorrow. We leave on Sunday night and will stay at a Park and Fly hotel in San Francisco within a mile of the airport. We will stay on the big island in Kailua Kona and spend a week visiting the beaches and volcanoes of the area.  The average temperature in Kona right now is a high in the mid eighties and lows in the 70's. Not too shabby.  I'll have a blog entry next week, but the following week will be late.

I played Power Hour on Saturday at Diamond Oaks. We teed off at 7:48 AM. I shot a 42+43=85. I'm still struggling with my driver. It is off and on and I'm mixing in my 3 iron on shorter holes. We play our turkey shoot tournament on Saturday.

We finished October at work with a 17% increase in profits over October of 2011. I am lucky to have such a great, hard working staff. We have been adding employees and we still have record increases due to the efficiencies that we have built into the processes at work. Pete and I interviewed a recent college graduate this week. She graduated in December and is working for the local Fox television affiliate. I am looking at her as a replacement typist for the woman who fired herself last month. It has been a fun run with the office over the last couple of years and with the young people I have working for me, I see even bigger things in our future.

I am working on setting up a Holiday Open House for our office this year. I have the help of our marketing department in San Francisco who are working on the invitations and name tags and my assistant, Shawna, who is working on just about everything else. We will put on the dog for our agents in early December. I plan to serve hors de oevres from a local upscale Chinese restaurant and beer, sodas, water and wines.

Darla is busy with her Silpada business. She is trying to get an incentive paid by year end that will help her pay off some of her credit card bills that she has used to build her inventory. She is also working to get another one of her girls up to a Star leader. Once she has three Star leaders, she will promote up to a Manager level. I won't bet against her. We are off to Oahu and Waikiki Beach in January on Silpada. She even kicked me out of the house today and I had to run over to the local casino to kill two hours. It is all worth it though. Next up in 2014 is Portugal!!

Well, that's it for this week. I will add a quick note next week before we leave for San Francisco. We had a sermon on Saturday night about Gratitude. A UC Davis professor did a survey on success and the common denominator that was found in successful people was gratitude for the little things in life and saying thank you to those that you meet along the way. Ben Stein said: "I cannot tell you anything that, in a few minutes, will tell you how to be rich. But I can tell you how to feel rich, which is far better, let me tell you firsthand, than being rich. Be grateful - it is the only totally reliable get rich quick scheme." So be grateful for what you have. Ciao.

San Francisco Giants 2012 World Series Champions!!

Sweep tonight for the Giants in the 2012 World Series. I just got back from Detroit and there are a lot of unhappy Tiger fans at Home Office. We won the first two games while I was at the Manager's meeting and the Detroit fans were completely shocked that the giants were able to get to their ace, Verlander and Panda (Pablo Sandoval) hit three home runs in game one to set the pace for the series. It was more than fun to watch the strong pitching and timely hitting of the Giants. We've already heard how the Tiger's went cold at the wrong time after knocking out the Yankees in four games, but that theory overlooks the dominant pitching performances by the Giants. Well, we've won it twice in the last three years and done it on the strength of our pitching. randy saw it first hand two years ago and the Tiger fans saw it again during this Series. There was a San Francisco fan that tried to get into Comerica Park in Detroit tonight with a broom and the stadium officials told him to lose the broom or leave the stadium. if he was smart, he would have brought a whisk broom in his pocket. I think, given the thug nature of Detroit, that those stadium officials may have saved his life.

The Manager's Meeting was great again this year and my office received a lot of recognition at the Awards Dinner on Friday night. Peter won a Director's Award for being in the top 30 of all Producers in the company. We have 270 producers and Brokers, so that is a prestigious award. Matt and Pete both won awards for being in the top 25 of all producers in new business. We have won awards the last three years for Office of the Year, but with the increase in wind rates in the South (Houston, New Orleans, etc) and Coastal Areas (South Carolina, Georgia, Florida), it is hard to compete from a premium perspective. I have finished out of the money for the last three years in the Manager of the Year award and have lost out to the Houston manager two of the last three years. This year I was very pleased to have my name read for Manager of the year in my division. Well, I was happy until they announced later that Tony had been promoted to a Vice President position. That is my next goal and I will be working hard to reach that summit.

There were a couple of funny instances during the meetings this year. I was standing next to one of our professional underwriters when the opening speech by our CEO was starting. The lobby at home office is a large open space in the middle of the three story building and the people on the second and third floor can look down on the proceedings. All of a sudden there was a loud "whack" and the guy next to me ducked. A water bottle had glanced off his neck and back and was spinning on the floor. i asked him what happened and he said that someone had "smoked" him with a water bottle from upstairs. It turns out that our Environmental Director from Denver had set her water bottle on the ledge of the second story and someone had knocked it off. The CEO was unaware of the water bottle falling from upstairs and the speech went on as planned. If the bottle had hit him in the face or head or fallen directly onto the floor and burst open, it would have been a different outcome.

The second event was on Friday when my office watched the speech from the Henry by our CEO. He tends to read his speeches and they finally talked him into spending $400 for a teleprompter system. during the video of the speech, the office could see the plastic panels that are used in the teleprompter and helps the speaker keep his head up and more engaged with his audience. Bonnie in my office saw the opaque panels and blurted out "Oh my God, he has bullet proof glass surrounding him!"  Uh no, the managers are not all "packing" at the meeting.

I got home about 9:30 on Saturday night and went right into the spa. I really missed the heat and soaking relaxation of the spa while I was gone. I have trouble adjusting to the time change and spend the first few nights tossing and turning. As soon as I do adjust, I'm back to California. I went to bed about 10 PM (1 AM Eastern time) and got up at 7:30 this morning.

I had the Past President's event at the club today and really wanted to play in it, so asked for the first tee time with Neil and off we went. My driver continues to cause me fits and I have little confidence in it. I even teed off with my 3 iron on the first hole and used it on shorter par fours all day. I managed my way around the golf course after going bogey-double bogey on the first two holes and shot a 40+40=80 on the day for a net 70. It would have been even better, but I had a triple bogey 7 on the back nine, backed up by two birdies. My game is not great right now, but obviously I can manage it  to keep my scores low. Well, at least at my home course. Carmel was a little rougher.

Jennifer was in a car accident on Tuesday and I found out about it right before I boarded my plane for Detroit. Jennifer and I had not been in contact because of the issues with Darla, but I called her. She had to go to a 24 hour Emergency because of pain in her neck and shoulders. She smashed into a Hummer that had stopped abruptly in front of her because of an accident. Jennifer could not stoop fast enough and slammed into the Hummer. It totaled her truck, which we had bought her and just spent $1000 to fix when we were there in August. Her Mom flew out to Vegas to be with her and to help her get a new car. She helped her arrange financing for a Hyundai Sonata that has 49,000 miles on it. I don't know the details of the financing, down payment, etc, but we were not able or willing to help out this time around as our $3,000 went up in smoke in the accident. Jennifer did end up calling and talking to Darla and they hashed out their issues. Darla and I are still working on some things with regard to Jennifer's relationship with us and how it sometimes splits us when issues come up. Luckily, Jennifer was on her way to work and did not have Samantha with her when this all went down. I have included some pictures of her new wheels above.

Well, that is it for tonight. It is late as I watched the Giants game before starting the blog tonight. I hope you are all well and living your lives to the fullest. Ciao.

 

Off to the Manager's meeting in Detroit this week. The whole town will be buzzing because of the Detroit Tiger's presence in the World Series. We will have dinner Wednesday night at the Detroit Athletic Club downtown and it will be the first night of the World series. I'm hoping that game will be played in San Francisco as the Giants are still alive playing in the sixth game of the NLCS as I write this and they are ahead 1-0 in the game. They need to win tonight and tomorrow night to move on to the World Series. Oh, wait, they now lead 4-0. Wow.

 

You see the picture of our friends from our Life Group at church, Vance and Terra Lee. We haven't been in the life group for about 5 years, but try to keep up with all of the people that were in our group. Vance and Terra Lee generally go to Sunday Service and we go to Saturday night, so rarely see them. They were at service last night and we caught up with them and invited them to dinner with us. We had a Groupon for a Pizza restaurant not far from church and had a great visit, getting caught up on each other's lives. Vance is a former Pastor from Oregon who now works for an Audi dealership in 'Sacramento. They both teach a Marriage Enrichment class at church and they invited us to join them for the next series in January.

 

Our weather has finally caught up with the calendar and a storm front will move in tomorrow and bring us our first measurable rain since early Summer. There is a Winter storm warning up in the Sierra and we are expecting about an inch of rain out of this system. I spent a portion of the day cleaning out the rain gutters and clearing some of the leaves off of the roof. I had gutter guards installed when I had the new roof put on two years ago, but dirt and debris still gets into the gutters and the downspouts will clog up on the first rain of the year. I also bought and installed new windshield wipers for Darla's Explorer and also fixed the trim on the drivers seat that had worked it's way loose. I had finally mowed the lawn yesterday two weeks after having the lawn aerated and overseeded for the Fall. The new grass had sprung up and was about 3 inches in spots. I set the mower height at 2 1/2 inches and cut the lawn and trimmed it. Today I trimmed a few of the bushes and then put down another application of fertilizer in preparation for the rain that is coming.

 

I leave for Detroit on Tuesday and Matt will go with me this year. I had Anthony along last year and that didn't work out so great for me. If Matt leaves, I will no longer allow employees to go to Home Office. In truth Matt is locked in pretty good with us. He is my Director of Branch Operations and a member of the Accelerated Management Program with the company. He is enrolled at UC Davis in their MBA program and we are paying his way. I keep close to him and he is happy with his position in the organization and can do the math. Pete and I are both in our 50's and Matt is 29. He is the future of our branch. We have a 10 AM flight to Denver and then change planes for the trip to Detroit. I will be home Saturday night.

 

I got out with Darren, Boyd and Neil this weekend and we played the Timber Creek Country Club in Roseville. My driver is still giving me issues, but I was able to use the 3 iron I bought with the Rifle X shafts on the shorter holes and managed a 42+42=84 in spite of getting into some tough spots with my driver. I can hit the 3 iron about 225 yards off the tee and can find the middle, so if the hole is 375 yards or less, I'll use the 3 iron to tee off. I will play in the Past President's event on Sunday next week when I get home. I sent off the handicap information to Neil today for the event and also sent him a report of the course handicaps for each player in case he adds anyone during the week.

 

Darla had Alicia and Lucas over today as Don is off to Las Vegas for some medical convention this week and flew out this morning. She wanted to get out of the house and visited with Darla while I watched the Dallas game this morning and worked outside. They stated until it was time for his nap and then she drove him home.

 

I haven't heard much from Jennifer lately. I had asked her to reach out to Darla and talk to her about some things that came up while we were in Las Vegas. She ended up sending her a text, but has yet to call like I asked. I don't plan to call her until she follows through on this.

 

Well, I am writing this looking at the NFL game and the NLCS game (5-0 Giants in the 5th). There isn't much news after our trip last weekend. I will check in with you after the trip this week. i hope you are all well. Ciao.

 

 

 

 

 

Pictures from Vito's in Pacific Grove

Our annual trip to the Monterey Bay area

 

We are back from a glorious weekend in Carmel, Pacific Grove, Monterey and the Carmel Valley area. The weather was perfect, the friends were an absolute joy, the food was tremendous, even our hotel was something both Darla and I really enjoyed. The golf on the other hand was historically bad for me. Darla and I stayed at a little Inn (Sunset Inn) on Asilomar in Pacific Grove that features 6 tri-plexes, all recently remodeled with fireplaces, 40 inch flat screen TVs, wood floors, Italian tile bathrooms and large overstuffed beds. The rooms were not large, but came with a refrigerator and a nice big closet, a window seat to store your belongings and a freshly remodeled look with earth tone colors. We loved it.

 

I played golf with an agent at his club in Rancho Murieta on Friday morning while Darla went to court for her job. I played relatively well there, shooting an 83. Little did I know what the weekend held in store for me. I bought lunch for the guys and then drove by the office to pick up an Australian bush hat that I had ordered for my head. i have to keep the sun off my ears or I will end up like Evander Holyfield after Mike Tyson finished gnawing on him..or Dad.  The hat is wide brimmed and made to be able to roll up and it springs back to it's regular shape. The hat was $55 on line and I am loathe to roll it up, but nice to know I could if I wanted to.

 

I picked Darla up at 2:30 and we were off to Pacific Grove. The drive over was uneventful, but I pulled over in Santa Nella and had Darla drive the rest of the way. With my Achilles heel injury being on my right foot, it gets painful after long periods sitting in the car with my foot on the gas pedal. We got into Pacific Grove a little before 6:00 PM and then made plans to meet the gang for dinner in Monterey on Alvarado Street. We met, Neil and Lilly, Rick and Jan, and Tim and Sue for dinner. Darla and I shared a salad and each had a bowl of clam chowder for dinner.

 

Saturday, we were up early and off to breakfast at Toasties in Pacific Grove. Toasties is one of the best breakfast restaurants in the Monterey Bay area and the owner almost gagged when we told her 12, but she was able to accommodate us. Boyd and his wife, Jo, met us for breakfast before we headed into the 17 mile Drive and Poppy Hills. Poppy will close in April for 16 months while they renovate the course, changing several of the holes' layouts and putting in a new irrigation system. The course is 25 years old and the management figures that the system has reached it's useful life. They want to lessen some of the severe doglegs to allow the course to unfold more naturally and they will redesign all greens as well as the clubhouse, restaurant and restrooms. 5 of the holes will be completely changed and all of the holes will have the mounds in the fairways removed and additional waste areas added to the course. I look forward to seeing the changes in 2015. This will be our last shot at poppy until 2015. I did go out with a bang, shooting my highest score in 20 years with a 51+53=104. I even took a 10 on the par 5 9th that I birdied last year. I did have a closest to the pin on number 17, so all was not lost.

 

Saturday night, we all gathered at Vito's Restaurante in Pacific Grove. Darryl will remember it as we ate there with the gang last year and the boys came up to visit as well. Vito and his ex-wife, Sara, run the restaurant and Sara says Vito is a much better business partner than a husband. I read between the lines on that and gather that he is quite good in the kitchen, but not so much in the bedroom. Vito is about 60 and a body builder. No offense to my Godson, Chris, but I think the steroids have given Vito a tiny peppino. Vito came out and serenaded us with "Volare" and "That's Amore" and we had a great time. There were about 20 of us there Saturday night. Believe it or not, Darla forgot her camera this trip and I am waiting to get pictures from Neil sent to me of the dinner. I did take a few pictures of the two courses on my cell phone (Carmel Valley Ranch and Poppy) which I've included above. Bob Pando came out to play this year and stayed over Saturday night and had dinner with us, which was great. He took a picture of Darla and I with Vito and Sara and completely cut off Darla and my heads. Bob's daughter is a photographer and she didn't apparently learn the craft from Bob. Vicki was in Southern California with the grand kids.

 

Sunday, Darla and I picked up Boyd at the Lighthouse Lodge next door at 7:30 and we headed off to Carmel Valley to have breakfast with the other golfers at the Black Bear Diner. It is one of our favorite diners and we always eat at the one in Vegas. Alas, the Black Bear in Carmel Valley closed and reopened in Monterey. We had ten people joining us for breakfast and the joint was closed!. We quickly scrambled and found a great little breakfast place on Carmel Valley Road called the Wagon Wheel. We met Bob, Rick, Jan and Tim there and ate before our 9:30 tee time.

 

I played marginally better on Sunday, but was still struggling with my driver, hitting my first shot out of bounds and my second tee shot into a grove of trees before finishing with a 7 on the par 4. I shot 45 on the front and 48 on the back for a 93, but had to finish birdie -par to manage that feat. It was a difficult weekend on the golf course and I think I need a break. Oh, I'm not going to take one, but I probably need one.

 

Darla and I left Carmel Valley about 4:30 and stopped for gas in Marina on the way out of town. As I pulled out of the gas station and on to the freeway, I hit the clear trip button on the dash board as I have to track my mileage because the gas gauge is screwy. When I cleared the trip, the entire dashboard went out. The speedometer, lights, RPM and oil, temperature and gas gauges all went dark. We were in fairly heavy traffic and I decided to wait until we got to the 156-Highway 101 split to pull off. We found a little shopping center and I parked outside the Auto Zone parts store to check to see if a fuse had blown. I opened the fuse box in the engine compartment, getting my hands black as I went and found that the fuse was intact. I inspected it, put it back in, started up the car and all of the gauges were working again. We decided to have dinner at a little Chinese food restaurant and I was able to get cleaned up.

 

We got home at 9 PM after enduring about a 30 minute slowdown on I-5 between Stockton and Sacramento because of a car accident. It was cleared to the side of the road by the time we passed it, but the rubberneckers were still holding things to a crawl. It picked right up once we got past .I had hoped to get the scores in prior to the 9 PM deadline for the GHIN handicapping system, but I missed that deadline. The indexes (handicaps) now change on the 1st and the 15th of each month.

 

Well, that was our weekend. I will try to get some of Neil and Lilly's pictures added once they are sent along to us. I hope you all had a great weekend and are ready for a good week. Be well and be nice to each other. Ciao.

 

Back from a day up in Lake Tahoe and the Resort at Squaw Creek. It was a tremendous day weather-wise with temperatures in the mid sixties after an overnight low in the 20's and a slight frost on the greens and fairways. The course doesn't take tee times until 10 AM because of the frost concerns, so we got off right on time with our 11:00 AM tee time. I met Neil, Tim and Pamas at the Park n Ride in Roseville at 8:00 AM and we packed up my 300 and we were on the road and up to the resort by 9:30. We had breakfast up at the resort and then hit some balls and putted before teeing off. The front nine is narrow and hilly and I struggled over the first seven holes before finishing the front nine par-birdie for a 49. The back nine is a bit more open and although still pretty up and down, I managed a 41 for a 90. This is my second straight round of bad front nine and good backside as I shot a 51+40=91 on Tuesday in our Day on the Oaks tournament. We had a great time today. Tim struggled to over 100 and Neil shot a 95, but Pamas shot a 79 and had four birdies during his round. The guy can play golf.

The Tuesday tournament started off a little weird as the Pro in the shop took a shot at me when I was checking in and asked me if I was skipping work to play. I told him that I was going in after the round. He told me in a loud voice that it must suck to have to go into an office every day and that he just pinches himself when he wakes up knowing that he gets to go to the golf course every day. I was pretty taken aback as the other guys in the shop all laughed.The sarcastic side of me took over and I blurted out, "When I get my paycheck every two weeks I pinch myself when I realize that I 'm not paid like a Municipal golf pro." The laughter was deafening as I walked out of the shop.

We finally got our spa fixed on Thursday and we have been in it every night since. Darla was in Lodi last night and today for a big street fair and we both got home about 6 PM today and spent twenty minutes catching up while we soaked in the spa. My Achilles heel was pretty sore after the round and that was complicated by the 90 minute drive home with my right foot on and off the gas pedal as we drove home in the Holiday traffic.

Oh, yeah, tomorrow is Columbus Day, when state and federal workers all take the day off. also funny, the powers that be in Washington want to rename the day Indigenous Persons day. I just call it regular people have to work day also known as Veterans Day, Martin Luther King Day, Cesar Chavez Day, et al.

I had a rough week at work and had to let one of my employees go after five years. It was a messy situation and it took a lot out of me. Suffice it to say the employees that remain are on the same page as I am and we will continue to grow the office and be successful. We finished the month up 16% over the year before and beat our budget handily. I hosted a barbecue lunch on Friday featuring brisket, roast turkey, mac n cheese, beans, salad and fresh baked rolls. It was outstanding and we are off to another good month in October.

I am off to Monterey and Pacific Grove on Friday and won't be back until later Sunday night and the blog will be late. I'll try to get to this on Monday of next week. I know this is short, but so is the news that is fit to share, so I'll wrap this up. Be well and have a good week. Ciao.