I don't have a lot of time today as I was out last Thursday and Friday and I have to pick up a branch visitor at the airport at nine o'clock. Most of my home office visitors rent a car and drive over to the office, but this visitor is a 23 year-old woman named Katrina, who is the home office marketing advisor for the company. She is the daughter of our Phoenix Branch Manager and cut her teeth setting up the marketing department in Phoenix. She has devised marketing folders and advertising calendars for Phoenix and done a great job. She is taking that experience on the road now as part of the Home Office marketing team and will be coaching each office in the proper protocols of marketing and what to discuss when in front of an agency.
The world did manage to cave in with my absence last week. My Personal lines underwriter had given notice and I allowed her to stay on and get her desk cleaned up prior to leaving. She is moving over to the retail side of the business and will not be a competitor to us, so I saw no harm in that. Her former assistant had been promoted to an underwriter position late last year and Mary had a difficult time with the transition. She was very unhappy and finally found a job with Nationwide. Well, Darla and I went off on our marketing foray in Mendocino county last week and Mary decided to tell some of her agents about her reservations regarding her replacement and Renee found out about it and confronted her. The shit hit the fan as they say and there was a full fledged cat fight in the office. What a mess. Mary ended up walking out and not returning. It was chaos and I obviously can't leave without all hell breaking loose. Perhaps I learned a lesson that when an employee gives a two week notice, that they are essentially terminated at that very moment?
Darla and I had a great time and it was a nice drive around Clearlake and over to the Mendocino county area. One of my agent's has an assistant whose mother is the groundskeeper at Fetzer vineyards in Hopland, California. Fetzer is a commercial vineyard that makes decent wines, although in a production setting. The vineyard has world class gardens and the gardener, Faye, won a gardening award in London last year that had never been won by an American before. We had an appointment to tour the gardens at Fetzer with Kaye on Friday morning at eleven, but it rained. We will take the tour in May when I drive back over for an annual golf tournament in Eureka. I will make a point to schedule and keep the appointment. Darla and I stayed at the Fairfield Inn in Ukiah and it was a brand new hotel located near the airport in Ukiah. The airport is basically a paved stretch of land for small commuter planes to land on.
I did not manage to golf this weekend, although I had a tee time on Saturday. I awoke at 7:30 and was showering when Boyd called. Although it had stopped raining, Boyd looked at the weather channel and there was a huge storm heading our way. We decided to skip the golf lest we get caught out on the course in a severe rainstorm. Well, the rain managed to skirt to the north of us and it was dry all day and I moped around the house, cleaning the pond and repairing a light fixture and buying a new floor lamp with Darla. I was mad that I decided to skip the golf, especially given that Boyd is retired and golfs everyday. For him, it was a day without golf, for me, it was a week without golf. I do have a tournament (the Super Bowl tournament) on Saturday.
It is a full week for me with visitors in at work and poker Friday night at my house. It's Super Bowl weekend and we will just make it a party with poker, golf and football.
David just bought the car stereo for his car yesterday. It is a Pioneer system that allows him to control his MP3 player through the stereo. He still needs to buy a subwoofer and a set of front speakers for the truck. David is unbelievably methodical in buying anything, so getting this was a big deal.
Well, I have to run to the airport. I hope all are well. Stay close to the Lord and he will keep you from harm.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Monday, January 23, 2006
Monday and the Living is Easy
Back to the grind on a Monday morning. It is another cold, clear and crisp morning that makes you glad to live in Northern California. I know it's 80 degrees in Tampa and LA and Austin, but I like the seasons and although all of the deciduous trees are still barren and only the winter flowers are in evidence, it is still a beautiful time of year. The grass is green and all of the evergreens are so healthy after the rains that we've had. The oak trees are all in their element and stand stately against the blue of an early morning sky in January. Luckily I can observe all of this from the warmth of a heated office building as I look down on the world from my second story lair. It is about 40 degrees outside and the breath of the worker bees is evident as they hustle from their cars to the cocoon of their offices.
I played golf on Saturday in Nicolaus and even had a brief rainstorm on the drive through the delta to the course. It was overcast and cold and the golf carts didn't have windshields and therefore we weren't shielded from the wind. There was a slight breeze, but it was overcast and COLD as we made our way around the course carved out of farmland along the banks of the Feather River in Sutter County. The land is actually lower than the level of the river and protected by levees. When it rains hard as it did last weekend, the lakes and ponds on the course "boil" and overflow their banks onto the golf course. The back nine of the golf course had been under water and closed since the New Year and was just opened for play on Saturday for our tournament. To say that the conditions were a bit sloppy would be an understatement. Most of the field of 60 golfers really struggled with the conditions. Our struggles were further compromised by the placement of the pins on the holes which were at the highest points to allow drainage away from the hole and so that the golfers wouldn't overly trample the low lying areas of the greens. There was not a straight putt on the course. By the way, what do you call a putt that looks straight, but isn't? A "Rock Hudson".
I managed to keep my game on the track (so to speak) and although I had two double-bogeys across the course of my round, I was able to sprinkle in a birdie and alot of pars for an 83. I won my flight with the low gross and also won 4 skins for $28.
As Dad put it, I prattled on last week about losing my wallet. I think it may be an age thing. Darryl turned 50 over the weekend and he lost his cell phone at a customers on Friday. I tried to call him to wish him a Happy Birthday, but couldn't reach him. Darla had her friend, Joni, visit this weekend and they shopped while I golfed on Saturday. I returned home and took the girls to dinner out at Shanghai Fats, the Chinese restaurant out at Thunder Valley casino outside of Roseville. Thunder Valley is an Indian Casino, but managed by the Station Casino group out of Las Vegas. It is a beautifully designed casino and you would think that it was a smaller casino in Vegas, if not for the venue in Lincoln, California not far from the waste recycling facility for Placer County. I managed to lose my car keys as I was playing video poker. They slipped out of my pocket unnoticed by me and I didn't realize it until we were ready to leave about 9:00PM. Darla went to the security booth as I took her keys to get the car. As she was putting in a lost items claim, someone walked up with the keys and had found them on the floor in the Non-Smoking video lounge.
Cheryl had a huge party for Darryl for his 50th birthday. She arranged a golf tournament as well as a surprise party for him Saturday night. I talked to him before my golf match on Saturday and he had found out about the golf tournament because Cheryl had sent invitations from their home computer and one had bounced back. She didn't know he knew and I couldn't very well ask him if he also knew about the party on Saturday night. I'll talk to him this week and find out. Dad and Shirley flew in for the party and to get out of Vancouver. It had rained for 33 straight days by the time they left and Dad was waterlogged and cranky and ready for the sun. I told him he sold his digs in Phoenix too soon. He said that they kick themselves now as it is 80 degrees and beautiful in Arizona in January and he could be working on his tan and golf game instead of bailing water out of the trunk of his Cadillac.
Darla and I are going up to Ukiah on Thursday and Friday. I have to make the trip for work and she decided to join me. It is a bit of a hick town along Highway 101 in Mendocino County. That area is "Big Trees" country and it will be nice to be up among the giant redwoods for a few days. She will have to cool her heels on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning as I do my marketing schtick, but she should be able to relax at the hotel. We are staying at the Fairfield Inn and Suites hotel and she should be able to relax. I will enjoy having her along for the company. I haven't traveled alot since joining Burns and Wilcox, but plan to make more marketing trips this year to develop relationships with some of the outlying agents.
Funny how little things can make a big difference. I installed a halogen light at the inside door of the garage on the wall by the switch to the garage door opener. The builder had installed a light bulb base, about the cheapest light fixture known to man. I had installed a couple of shelves above the new roller cabinet and tool chest and it was blocking some of the light from the 40 watt bulb. I installed a new 150 watt halogen light and directed the light at the ceiling to increase the light in the garage and what a difference. Amazing what $9.99 and a little time will do. I've been slowly upgrading the fixtures in the house and outside and now have all new lights throughout the house. The only thing left is a motion sensor light that I'd like to install by the garage so if we walk at night, a light would come on. It will also help David and Daniel when they get home at night.
David did find and buy a new car. He was able to find a 1995 Chevy Tahoe. It has a stepside, Vortec V8 engine, Flowmaster exhaust and new tires. He bought it for $7,000 out the door..tax, license, etc. They had it listed for $7,999 so he got a good deal. He was supposed to go out this weekend and get a new sound system for the car and a sub woofer. We'll see tonight. He brought it over on Thursday night to show me and said that he'd put $20 of gas in the tank and it only filled it up about 1/4. Yeah, I like my Mustang. $25 fills it.
Well, work awaits, the phone calls have already started with several employees out sick on this Monday morning. Oh, the joys of being the boss. Take care, be well and stay forever at the foot of the cross. Ciao.
I played golf on Saturday in Nicolaus and even had a brief rainstorm on the drive through the delta to the course. It was overcast and cold and the golf carts didn't have windshields and therefore we weren't shielded from the wind. There was a slight breeze, but it was overcast and COLD as we made our way around the course carved out of farmland along the banks of the Feather River in Sutter County. The land is actually lower than the level of the river and protected by levees. When it rains hard as it did last weekend, the lakes and ponds on the course "boil" and overflow their banks onto the golf course. The back nine of the golf course had been under water and closed since the New Year and was just opened for play on Saturday for our tournament. To say that the conditions were a bit sloppy would be an understatement. Most of the field of 60 golfers really struggled with the conditions. Our struggles were further compromised by the placement of the pins on the holes which were at the highest points to allow drainage away from the hole and so that the golfers wouldn't overly trample the low lying areas of the greens. There was not a straight putt on the course. By the way, what do you call a putt that looks straight, but isn't? A "Rock Hudson".
I managed to keep my game on the track (so to speak) and although I had two double-bogeys across the course of my round, I was able to sprinkle in a birdie and alot of pars for an 83. I won my flight with the low gross and also won 4 skins for $28.
As Dad put it, I prattled on last week about losing my wallet. I think it may be an age thing. Darryl turned 50 over the weekend and he lost his cell phone at a customers on Friday. I tried to call him to wish him a Happy Birthday, but couldn't reach him. Darla had her friend, Joni, visit this weekend and they shopped while I golfed on Saturday. I returned home and took the girls to dinner out at Shanghai Fats, the Chinese restaurant out at Thunder Valley casino outside of Roseville. Thunder Valley is an Indian Casino, but managed by the Station Casino group out of Las Vegas. It is a beautifully designed casino and you would think that it was a smaller casino in Vegas, if not for the venue in Lincoln, California not far from the waste recycling facility for Placer County. I managed to lose my car keys as I was playing video poker. They slipped out of my pocket unnoticed by me and I didn't realize it until we were ready to leave about 9:00PM. Darla went to the security booth as I took her keys to get the car. As she was putting in a lost items claim, someone walked up with the keys and had found them on the floor in the Non-Smoking video lounge.
Cheryl had a huge party for Darryl for his 50th birthday. She arranged a golf tournament as well as a surprise party for him Saturday night. I talked to him before my golf match on Saturday and he had found out about the golf tournament because Cheryl had sent invitations from their home computer and one had bounced back. She didn't know he knew and I couldn't very well ask him if he also knew about the party on Saturday night. I'll talk to him this week and find out. Dad and Shirley flew in for the party and to get out of Vancouver. It had rained for 33 straight days by the time they left and Dad was waterlogged and cranky and ready for the sun. I told him he sold his digs in Phoenix too soon. He said that they kick themselves now as it is 80 degrees and beautiful in Arizona in January and he could be working on his tan and golf game instead of bailing water out of the trunk of his Cadillac.
Darla and I are going up to Ukiah on Thursday and Friday. I have to make the trip for work and she decided to join me. It is a bit of a hick town along Highway 101 in Mendocino County. That area is "Big Trees" country and it will be nice to be up among the giant redwoods for a few days. She will have to cool her heels on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning as I do my marketing schtick, but she should be able to relax at the hotel. We are staying at the Fairfield Inn and Suites hotel and she should be able to relax. I will enjoy having her along for the company. I haven't traveled alot since joining Burns and Wilcox, but plan to make more marketing trips this year to develop relationships with some of the outlying agents.
Funny how little things can make a big difference. I installed a halogen light at the inside door of the garage on the wall by the switch to the garage door opener. The builder had installed a light bulb base, about the cheapest light fixture known to man. I had installed a couple of shelves above the new roller cabinet and tool chest and it was blocking some of the light from the 40 watt bulb. I installed a new 150 watt halogen light and directed the light at the ceiling to increase the light in the garage and what a difference. Amazing what $9.99 and a little time will do. I've been slowly upgrading the fixtures in the house and outside and now have all new lights throughout the house. The only thing left is a motion sensor light that I'd like to install by the garage so if we walk at night, a light would come on. It will also help David and Daniel when they get home at night.
David did find and buy a new car. He was able to find a 1995 Chevy Tahoe. It has a stepside, Vortec V8 engine, Flowmaster exhaust and new tires. He bought it for $7,000 out the door..tax, license, etc. They had it listed for $7,999 so he got a good deal. He was supposed to go out this weekend and get a new sound system for the car and a sub woofer. We'll see tonight. He brought it over on Thursday night to show me and said that he'd put $20 of gas in the tank and it only filled it up about 1/4. Yeah, I like my Mustang. $25 fills it.
Well, work awaits, the phone calls have already started with several employees out sick on this Monday morning. Oh, the joys of being the boss. Take care, be well and stay forever at the foot of the cross. Ciao.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Please pray for Jay
I find Jason's ordeal in the hospital to be almost unbelievable. He has been in UC Davis Medical Center since November 14th and can't seem to get out of the place. This is his third stint in ICU and his original hospital stay was to be three to four days. He is 25 and a fighter, but sometimes prayer can overcome what free will cannot. Jason is a good friend of Jennifer's and a former boyfriend. We visited him in the hospital over Christmas when Jennifer was home. Here is the update from Jay's best friend, Arthur:
Hey Jenny,
Hey, I hope your trip is going good and you made it over there safely. I just wanted to give you an update on Jay & his condition. Unfortunately he is STILL in the Hospital and his condition has taken a turn for the worst since you went and saw him. On 01-02-06 the doctors told him he had a hole in his air way and that is the reason he hasn't been able to swallow. Apparently when the kemo was killing the tumor in his throat, it also put a hole in his “wind pipe” (for lack of a better word). So on 01-03-06 they went in a put a stint in his throat in order to help him swallow and start to get rid of the infection in his lungs. Well over the weekend of the 01-07-06/01-08-06, the stint slipped out of place. So on 01-09-06 they went in and did a MAJOR surgery in order to hopefully solve the problem. So he is back in ICU and well I’m not going to lie to you, this is the worst I have seen him since he has been in the hospital. So that is the story in a nut shell. Please do me a favor and forward this e-mail to your dad and advise him and his church group to keep praying for Jay, he could use ALL of prayers he can get right now. Of course if you have any questions or I can better explain anything, just drop me a line and I will do so. Please realize, I have been working & going to the hospital pretty much everyday & don’t always get a chance to check my e-mail, (Which is the major reason I haven’t written you sooner to tell you about Jay) so bear with me if I don’t get back to you right away. Also, I know its impossible, but try not to worry Jay is a fighter I have no fear he will get through this, just keep praying for him as we all are. So that is the latest, I will keep you updated as his condition gets better. Be safe & I will talk to ya soon.
A. Williams
Hey Jenny,
Hey, I hope your trip is going good and you made it over there safely. I just wanted to give you an update on Jay & his condition. Unfortunately he is STILL in the Hospital and his condition has taken a turn for the worst since you went and saw him. On 01-02-06 the doctors told him he had a hole in his air way and that is the reason he hasn't been able to swallow. Apparently when the kemo was killing the tumor in his throat, it also put a hole in his “wind pipe” (for lack of a better word). So on 01-03-06 they went in a put a stint in his throat in order to help him swallow and start to get rid of the infection in his lungs. Well over the weekend of the 01-07-06/01-08-06, the stint slipped out of place. So on 01-09-06 they went in and did a MAJOR surgery in order to hopefully solve the problem. So he is back in ICU and well I’m not going to lie to you, this is the worst I have seen him since he has been in the hospital. So that is the story in a nut shell. Please do me a favor and forward this e-mail to your dad and advise him and his church group to keep praying for Jay, he could use ALL of prayers he can get right now. Of course if you have any questions or I can better explain anything, just drop me a line and I will do so. Please realize, I have been working & going to the hospital pretty much everyday & don’t always get a chance to check my e-mail, (Which is the major reason I haven’t written you sooner to tell you about Jay) so bear with me if I don’t get back to you right away. Also, I know its impossible, but try not to worry Jay is a fighter I have no fear he will get through this, just keep praying for him as we all are. So that is the latest, I will keep you updated as his condition gets better. Be safe & I will talk to ya soon.
A. Williams
Monday, January 16, 2006
It's Really 2006
Doesn't it feel like it's been 2006 forever? Some years I have trouble writing the new year on checks and correspondence. This year has been easy for some reason. It is an odd "left brain" thing, but it works for me.
I lost my wallet last week. I'd had it on Monday because I remember I had to run out to my car and get it when I was dealing with someone on the phone on a credit for an online retailer that I'd returned some product to. I also had it on Tuesday, when I grabbed my wallet to bring with me when I went to the gym. We searched the house and my car and couldn't find it. It was Wednesday night and I was looking for it to put with my things for Thursday morning. I admit that I hate to carry a wallet. I have a money clip and have carried one for years. The wallet is superfluous unless I need a credit card. I try to leave it in my car, which is a problem if I find myself in Darla's car or a store and I decide to buy something and I don't have enough cash. It is a source of amusement with Darla as I've left my wallet in my desk a number of times and had to make the trip all the way back to the office. Wednesday night I made that trip again, this time to no avail as I searched my office at nine o'clock at night and came up empty. I was leaving for Chico on Thursday morning to see agents and needed my wallet to buy lunch and to drive. I got home and took about ten minutes off by myself to think about my movements and where I might have left the wallet. I asked God to clear my head and help me. I walked outside and looked on the planter at the front of the house. I often sit there to put my shoes on before I leave the house. My wallet was sitting in the bushes where it fell the night before when I set it and my car keys down when I put my shoes on before leaving for the gym. It had rained Wednesday, but the wallet had fallen under some bushes and hadn't hit the ground. It was dry and I was again thanking God for answered prayer. And, yes, I am a bonehead.
It is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day here in the US. Another excuse for the federal government to take a day off and another holiday loudly ignored by US businesses. There is no postal service today, the banks are closed and the stock market is dark today. The roadways here in Sacramento were barren of cars on my early morning commute as the University is closed today and this is a government town. The public troughers are all sleeping in and enjoying another paid holiday as those of us who actually keep the economic engine oiled and running are at work. I have about 3 or 4 staff off today as the kids are out of school.
It was a nice weekend, although it rained on Saturday and ruined my planned golf outing. I snuck out yesterday and played a quick 18 holes at Diamond Oaks in the afternoon. It was clear and cold with a bright blue sky and sunshine which always looks so much cleaner after a rainstorm. I joined up with a couple of guys and played 18 in 3 1/2 hours. I shot 42+41=83, but played from the white tees as the guys I was golfing with were certified hackers. I am signed up to play in my first tournament of the year this coming weekend.
Darla and I will venture up to Ukiah next week for two days. I have to go up on business and will stay over night and Darla said she'd go with me. She has so much vacation time and likes to tag along on my business trips. I will be traveling more this year as I concentrate on writing new business and want to get out and meet my agents in some of the outlying areas. I will be up to Redding next month for another overnighter and she may join me there as well.
I will be leading our life group tonight and I brought my Bible to prepare for the lesson tonight. I have made a commitment this year that I will leave work early on Mondays to relax and prepare for life group. I was far too rushed on Monday nights, often getting home at 6:15 and leaving for life group a half hour later after gulping down a quick meal. I am in the office at 7 everyday and will leave work by 4:00 PM on Mondays. Our leaders, Kim and Connie, are both busy with extra work. Kim has taken on a college class which he will be teaching nights at Sierra College. Kim is a high school teacher, so this is extra curricular so to speak and I offered to take some of the leadership of the life group to help him out. Connie is teaching and going to school at William Jessup University. The life group is a blessing to us and we have used much of the time we have together to pray for each other and for our friends and family. It is powerful to be part of a group that prays fervently. We have prayed for most everyone who reads this Blog, so if you have felt the power, it may have been coming from us.
David continues to look for a new car. He is bound and determined to find a late '90's 2 door Tahoe. The cars are rare and expensive (about $10,000), but it is what he wants. Like college, Cal Poly was and is his only goal, David knows what he wants and won't be dissuaded. He is lucky in that he has his Grandma's Cadillac to drive while he looks for a car. He's found three, but two are too expensive and one has three people interested. The price is $8900 and he hopes to look at it today.
Darla did not get the promotion at her work, but she scored well on the interview and her superiors say it is just a matter of time before she moves into management. They want her to continue to apply for openings as they come up. There was scuttlebutt that the management team wanted a man for the job, and lo and behold, a man got the position. Amazing that, eh?
We had our Heating/Air/Plumber back out for the third time. We continue to get an odd humming noise after we run the water. We thought we'd corrected the problem with a new expansion tank installed off the water heater a couple of weeks before, but we continue to get the howling in the pipes. It rattles at least three times and is as loud as a foghorn. Mike Votaw himself came out and now thinks we have a problem with the pressure regulator at the front of the house. The valve regulates the amount of water pressure in the house and he thinks it has developed a leak. More money..what the hey.
Well, work awaits. The troops are slowly trickling in and I have to do payroll this morning, so I'd best get at it. Have a great week and God Bless. Ciao.
I lost my wallet last week. I'd had it on Monday because I remember I had to run out to my car and get it when I was dealing with someone on the phone on a credit for an online retailer that I'd returned some product to. I also had it on Tuesday, when I grabbed my wallet to bring with me when I went to the gym. We searched the house and my car and couldn't find it. It was Wednesday night and I was looking for it to put with my things for Thursday morning. I admit that I hate to carry a wallet. I have a money clip and have carried one for years. The wallet is superfluous unless I need a credit card. I try to leave it in my car, which is a problem if I find myself in Darla's car or a store and I decide to buy something and I don't have enough cash. It is a source of amusement with Darla as I've left my wallet in my desk a number of times and had to make the trip all the way back to the office. Wednesday night I made that trip again, this time to no avail as I searched my office at nine o'clock at night and came up empty. I was leaving for Chico on Thursday morning to see agents and needed my wallet to buy lunch and to drive. I got home and took about ten minutes off by myself to think about my movements and where I might have left the wallet. I asked God to clear my head and help me. I walked outside and looked on the planter at the front of the house. I often sit there to put my shoes on before I leave the house. My wallet was sitting in the bushes where it fell the night before when I set it and my car keys down when I put my shoes on before leaving for the gym. It had rained Wednesday, but the wallet had fallen under some bushes and hadn't hit the ground. It was dry and I was again thanking God for answered prayer. And, yes, I am a bonehead.
It is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day here in the US. Another excuse for the federal government to take a day off and another holiday loudly ignored by US businesses. There is no postal service today, the banks are closed and the stock market is dark today. The roadways here in Sacramento were barren of cars on my early morning commute as the University is closed today and this is a government town. The public troughers are all sleeping in and enjoying another paid holiday as those of us who actually keep the economic engine oiled and running are at work. I have about 3 or 4 staff off today as the kids are out of school.
It was a nice weekend, although it rained on Saturday and ruined my planned golf outing. I snuck out yesterday and played a quick 18 holes at Diamond Oaks in the afternoon. It was clear and cold with a bright blue sky and sunshine which always looks so much cleaner after a rainstorm. I joined up with a couple of guys and played 18 in 3 1/2 hours. I shot 42+41=83, but played from the white tees as the guys I was golfing with were certified hackers. I am signed up to play in my first tournament of the year this coming weekend.
Darla and I will venture up to Ukiah next week for two days. I have to go up on business and will stay over night and Darla said she'd go with me. She has so much vacation time and likes to tag along on my business trips. I will be traveling more this year as I concentrate on writing new business and want to get out and meet my agents in some of the outlying areas. I will be up to Redding next month for another overnighter and she may join me there as well.
I will be leading our life group tonight and I brought my Bible to prepare for the lesson tonight. I have made a commitment this year that I will leave work early on Mondays to relax and prepare for life group. I was far too rushed on Monday nights, often getting home at 6:15 and leaving for life group a half hour later after gulping down a quick meal. I am in the office at 7 everyday and will leave work by 4:00 PM on Mondays. Our leaders, Kim and Connie, are both busy with extra work. Kim has taken on a college class which he will be teaching nights at Sierra College. Kim is a high school teacher, so this is extra curricular so to speak and I offered to take some of the leadership of the life group to help him out. Connie is teaching and going to school at William Jessup University. The life group is a blessing to us and we have used much of the time we have together to pray for each other and for our friends and family. It is powerful to be part of a group that prays fervently. We have prayed for most everyone who reads this Blog, so if you have felt the power, it may have been coming from us.
David continues to look for a new car. He is bound and determined to find a late '90's 2 door Tahoe. The cars are rare and expensive (about $10,000), but it is what he wants. Like college, Cal Poly was and is his only goal, David knows what he wants and won't be dissuaded. He is lucky in that he has his Grandma's Cadillac to drive while he looks for a car. He's found three, but two are too expensive and one has three people interested. The price is $8900 and he hopes to look at it today.
Darla did not get the promotion at her work, but she scored well on the interview and her superiors say it is just a matter of time before she moves into management. They want her to continue to apply for openings as they come up. There was scuttlebutt that the management team wanted a man for the job, and lo and behold, a man got the position. Amazing that, eh?
We had our Heating/Air/Plumber back out for the third time. We continue to get an odd humming noise after we run the water. We thought we'd corrected the problem with a new expansion tank installed off the water heater a couple of weeks before, but we continue to get the howling in the pipes. It rattles at least three times and is as loud as a foghorn. Mike Votaw himself came out and now thinks we have a problem with the pressure regulator at the front of the house. The valve regulates the amount of water pressure in the house and he thinks it has developed a leak. More money..what the hey.
Well, work awaits. The troops are slowly trickling in and I have to do payroll this morning, so I'd best get at it. Have a great week and God Bless. Ciao.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Why I admire Warren Buffett
Quote from Warren Buffett on how to become a millionaire: "Start with a Billion dollars and buy an airline."
Monday, January 09, 2006
Bumming on the first full work week of 2006
It is indeed the first full work week of the year. Things have started a little slow for me, but Pete in the office is following up a strong December with a great January. Anthony continues to write a lot of new business and the sky is blue here in the Sacramento office of Burns and Wilcox.
The weather is actually also blue skies and should be a nice Winter Day in Sacramento with highs in the low 60's and plenty of sunshine. We have a brief rainstorm coming in tomorrow and Wednesday and will be back to nice weather after that.
I did not play golf this weekend. Our club had the annual Captain and Crew scramble tournament and I just don't like to spend four and a half hours on a golf course and not post my own score. When I was on the golf club board I tried to get them to change the tournament to a 2 best ball format, still having A, B, C & D players in a team, but playing our own ball and posting the two best net scores. The group was sold on the scramble format. It is one of the most popular tournaments of the year and the higher handicap guys love it. Not me. I have golf set up for this weekend and will play in my first tournament of the year the following weekend when we play Rio La Paz, a course outside of Sacrmaneto in a little town called Nicolaus, near Yuba City.
I don't know if I mentioned before that David had a car accident in December. He rear ended another car on a rain slicked roadway. Apparently, he was moving pretty fast as his airbags deployed, and with a 1994 Mustang, the airbags deploying is tantamount to totaling the car. The cost to replace the airbags is $3,000 and the car's retail value is about $3500. The guy that he hit was not at all concerned with the damage to his older Honda, which was slight and we haven't heard from him. I was going to have David eat the loss, but Darla checked with Geico and because David has been driving for two years without an accident or moving violation, he can turn in the accident, they'll pay for it and our premium will actually go down because he is now 18 and Darla and I no longer have any liability when he is driving.
Darla finally had Geico come out to the house and pick up the car last week. A tow truck driver picked up the car and was to take it to Golden State Collision Center, about five minutes from our house. That was Tuesday. When Darla hadn't heard anything by Friday morning, she called Geico. They hadn't heard from the Collision Center and when they called, said the car wasn't there. Darla was a little panicked when she talked to me and I told her to change the claim to a theft..that our car was stolen by the Insurance Company!! They made a call to the tow company and found out that the doofus who picked up the car, dropped it in the parking lot at the collision center and didn't tell anyone. Genius. We should find out today what amount we will get for totaling the car. David is looking for new cars now as he is driving his Grandmother's Cadillac.
Jennifer is back in Korea, although they lost her luggage. I haven't talked to her since last week when she arrived, but I assume the luggage showed up the nbext day. She said it is freezing in Korea. Jen, we found your sunglasses at our house. Let us know where to send them or we'll hold them until you get back in March. She said her MP3 player was a nice companion on the 12-hour flight back to Korea.
Darla and I are planning a trip to Las Vegas for my birthday. We actually have some friends in Las Vegas that weekend for Nascar weekend in Las Vegas. I agreed to go with the provision that I don't have to go anywhere near the rednecks or the track. I'll play golf, blackjack, slots, etc, but I don't do NASCAR. We'll also be in Vegas in 2007 for my 50th and Dad's 70th birthdays.
Darla and I were able to get another dump run in this weekend. We were putting the Christmas gear away and decided to clear out the attic. I threw away old draperies and pictures, boxes, junk that had piled up over the years. I got back from the dump run (and the truck was jammed by the way) and noticed that I had neglected to haul the old garage door opener, which still sits on the side of the house. Oh well.
Darla is home today (she works out of the house two days a week) and we are having DirecTV out today to install the HDTV antenna and install a new HDTV receiver and TIVO. I am moving from the 80's to '06 in one fell swoop. We are really enjoying the new big screen DLP TV and will enjoy it even more with HDTV hooked up.
Well, I am off to a new week and all of the work that that entails. I hope all are hale and hearty and walking in the shadow of the LORD. Ciao.
The weather is actually also blue skies and should be a nice Winter Day in Sacramento with highs in the low 60's and plenty of sunshine. We have a brief rainstorm coming in tomorrow and Wednesday and will be back to nice weather after that.
I did not play golf this weekend. Our club had the annual Captain and Crew scramble tournament and I just don't like to spend four and a half hours on a golf course and not post my own score. When I was on the golf club board I tried to get them to change the tournament to a 2 best ball format, still having A, B, C & D players in a team, but playing our own ball and posting the two best net scores. The group was sold on the scramble format. It is one of the most popular tournaments of the year and the higher handicap guys love it. Not me. I have golf set up for this weekend and will play in my first tournament of the year the following weekend when we play Rio La Paz, a course outside of Sacrmaneto in a little town called Nicolaus, near Yuba City.
I don't know if I mentioned before that David had a car accident in December. He rear ended another car on a rain slicked roadway. Apparently, he was moving pretty fast as his airbags deployed, and with a 1994 Mustang, the airbags deploying is tantamount to totaling the car. The cost to replace the airbags is $3,000 and the car's retail value is about $3500. The guy that he hit was not at all concerned with the damage to his older Honda, which was slight and we haven't heard from him. I was going to have David eat the loss, but Darla checked with Geico and because David has been driving for two years without an accident or moving violation, he can turn in the accident, they'll pay for it and our premium will actually go down because he is now 18 and Darla and I no longer have any liability when he is driving.
Darla finally had Geico come out to the house and pick up the car last week. A tow truck driver picked up the car and was to take it to Golden State Collision Center, about five minutes from our house. That was Tuesday. When Darla hadn't heard anything by Friday morning, she called Geico. They hadn't heard from the Collision Center and when they called, said the car wasn't there. Darla was a little panicked when she talked to me and I told her to change the claim to a theft..that our car was stolen by the Insurance Company!! They made a call to the tow company and found out that the doofus who picked up the car, dropped it in the parking lot at the collision center and didn't tell anyone. Genius. We should find out today what amount we will get for totaling the car. David is looking for new cars now as he is driving his Grandmother's Cadillac.
Jennifer is back in Korea, although they lost her luggage. I haven't talked to her since last week when she arrived, but I assume the luggage showed up the nbext day. She said it is freezing in Korea. Jen, we found your sunglasses at our house. Let us know where to send them or we'll hold them until you get back in March. She said her MP3 player was a nice companion on the 12-hour flight back to Korea.
Darla and I are planning a trip to Las Vegas for my birthday. We actually have some friends in Las Vegas that weekend for Nascar weekend in Las Vegas. I agreed to go with the provision that I don't have to go anywhere near the rednecks or the track. I'll play golf, blackjack, slots, etc, but I don't do NASCAR. We'll also be in Vegas in 2007 for my 50th and Dad's 70th birthdays.
Darla and I were able to get another dump run in this weekend. We were putting the Christmas gear away and decided to clear out the attic. I threw away old draperies and pictures, boxes, junk that had piled up over the years. I got back from the dump run (and the truck was jammed by the way) and noticed that I had neglected to haul the old garage door opener, which still sits on the side of the house. Oh well.
Darla is home today (she works out of the house two days a week) and we are having DirecTV out today to install the HDTV antenna and install a new HDTV receiver and TIVO. I am moving from the 80's to '06 in one fell swoop. We are really enjoying the new big screen DLP TV and will enjoy it even more with HDTV hooked up.
Well, I am off to a new week and all of the work that that entails. I hope all are hale and hearty and walking in the shadow of the LORD. Ciao.
Monday, January 02, 2006
New Year, Same Old Life
I just had a contractor out to the house to replace a damaged potable water expansion tank. The tank is only there because it is required by the City of Roseville. We have water meters in Roseville and the tank is added to the hot water heater and allows water to flow out of the hot water heater into a 5 gallon expansion tank. The tank has a bladder and expels air as water is let into the tank. Ours was installed in January of 2004 when the hot water heater was installed. We immediately heard a hammering noise which was intermittent when it was installed. Recently the hammering has increased to a deafening "fog horn" sound and it was apparent that the tank had been compromised, likely a ruptured bladder. I finally got the plumber to come out and replace the tank at a cost of $406. At least they offer a two year parts and labor warranty, which Home Depot did not. In fact, they put me in contact with the manufacturer of the tank, a Canadian company called Watts Regulator. Watts told me that their product only has a one year warranty and I could get a plumber to replace it. Thanks for nothing.
This follows on the heels of the hot water heater rusting out in the rental house in Galt. I had that repaced last week by Lowes for a cost of $744. As the title indicates, it is a New Year, but the same old problems and headaches abound.
Jennifer is on an Asiatic flight to Korea as I write this. She spent the New Year holiday in Las Vegas. She was met by John, her friend from Korea and Atlanta. John lives in Vegas and invited Jennifer to come and spend the holiday with him. John had told Jenn to wear comfortable clothes on the plane, that he had a surprise for her when she landed. Jennifer guessed that he was taking her "quadding" out in the desert. She was wrotng. He drove her about 20 miles out of Vegas to a small airport where they went skydiving. It was a tandem dive, meaning both John and Jennifer dove out of the plane strapped to the stomach of a trained diver. I think John was a little presumptious that Jennifer would go along with the game, but when you have climbed 350 foot towers together without anything more than a small harness attached to the structure, I guess you can read the other person pretty well. Jennifer said that the experience was AWESOME and that she can cross one more thing off her list of things to do before she dies.
Jenn had trouble getting to Vegas. She had a package deal that flew her on United from Sacramento to Los Angeles and then to Vegas. Why? I have no idea as there are 50 flights a day from Sac to Vegas direct. Anyhow her flght was 6:00 AM out of Sac and I dropped her at 4:45 AM Friday. She got stuck in a large line outside and was told to go inside to show her credit card (It was an Orbitz deal). She got stuck in an even longer line inside and missed her flight. She was P.O.'ed to say the least. She ended up paying an extra $100 and took a direct flight to Vegas on Southwest, arriving at about the same time that she would have from Los Angeles. It all worked out and she stayed at the Mandalay Bay Casino and partied at a street party on the Las Vegas Strip, ringing in the New Year with fireworks, bands and confetti. She loved it.
Again, this morning, she had trouble with United, who told her that she could not fly to Korea without a Visa. Korea only allows visitors to stay for 30 days without a Visa and her Visa is being issued by the US Military at Los Osos Air Base in Korea. Her Visa should be there when she arrives. The problem is that her return flight to the states is scheduled for March 10th, which is over 30 days. She didn't have that problem in December as she was there for only 21 days and got an automatic 30 day Visa. It turns out that she got to the Asiatic desk and they told her that she'd have 30 days to get an extension Visa in Korea. The United employee was being a little overly diligent, especially given that she wasn't flying on United Airlines to Korea. Jennifer is loving her new job and got her fitrst paycheck before she left and said "I want to stay overseas all the time." Her per diem makes a big difference.
Jennifer likely will not move to Georgia. Because she will only be in Georgia three of four weeks at a stretch, she's decided to stay at an extended stay resort while in Georgia. She can stay for about $50 a day. That would be $1400 for a 28 day stay as opposed to paying $800 a month for an apartment that would be empty most of the time. She also would not have to pay for utilities, garbage, phones, cable, etc. It makes sense to me as she'll be overseas 9 months out of the year and on Vacation for one month of the remaining three. In other words, she will pay about $3,000 for an extended stay hotel versus $9,600 for an apartment she wouldn't use. Smart girl.
Jennifer and I spent Thursday, December 29th together. I took the day off. She needed a ride to the airport Friday morning and I volunteered, so I picked her up Thursday morning and we spent the day together and she stayed over at our house. We went together to UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento to visit her friend, Jason. Jason has a tumor in his throat that is cancerous and is being treated with chemotherapy. He went into the hospital on November 14th for a three day stay and was still there as of January 1st. He had a shocked reaction to the first round of chemo and ended up in intensive care for three weeks. They started him on a high dosage of chemo and his body went into shock and he coded. When he finally got out of IC and back into a regular room, a nurse gave him codeine in pill form which he was not supposed to have. The tumor has lodged in his throat and pushed the larynx, and vocal cords out of place. He can't even drink water. The pill went down his throat and lodged in his lungs, which promptly collapsed and he was back to Intensive Care for another ten days. When he finally got out, he contracted shingles and was in isolation for 10 days. He is finally ready to get out. They implanted a "J" tube into his stomach for feeding on the day we went to see him and we waited several hours for him to get out of surgery. Jay looks good in spite of having lost 50 pounds (from 188 to 138) and also having lost his hair to the chemo. He has a good attitude and he and Jenn are still the best of friends.
We had a quiet and relaxed New Years with games and another Prime Rib on Sunday. The boys are currently at their Dad's playing a board game with their cousins. Darla is in watching "Million Dollar Baby" on our new big screen tv. We ended up buying a 50" Samsung DLP HDTV projection television. I did my due diligence research and found the Samsung to have the best picture as well as the best warranty. I then bought an extended 4 year warranty through Best Buy. I don't usually buy the warranty, but the DLP bulb burns out about every three years and the new technology could have some problems. I'd rather be safe than sorry for $395. The television is great and replaces our 20 year old Panasonic 27 inch console tv, which now resides in our bedroom. I watched the NFL games yesterday and was in my element with the nbew television. Very nice. I hear Darryl also bought a new Samsung for his house. Nice choice.
Randy and Chris were at the Cotton Bowl today, where Randy suffered through his teams' 13-10 loss to Alabama on a waffle field goal of 46 yards as time ran out. The ball looked like a dying quail as it just sailed over the crossbar for the win. We visited by phone with Randy on Christmas day as well as Darryl. I couldn't get ahold of Dad, but they called and talked to us on New Year's Eve as they were into their second course of hors de 'oevres and cocktails. They had finished the martinis and were in the white whine portion of the evening. It was great to hear from them.
This is it for me at work. I will NOT return to home office as other than a Branch Manager. We finished the year strong and have some solid goals for 2006. I earned a nice bonus and will push for a Manager bonus as well. The Sacramento office finished the year about $150,000 in profit after having lost money the last five years. Pete Morrison is beginning to hit his stride and Anthony is doing better than anyone imagined. His year end bonus will be in the five figure range, which is huge for him.
Well, Darla is calling me to join her. I'll try to get some holiday pictures on the blog later today. I hope all are well and firmly in the footsteps of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
This follows on the heels of the hot water heater rusting out in the rental house in Galt. I had that repaced last week by Lowes for a cost of $744. As the title indicates, it is a New Year, but the same old problems and headaches abound.
Jennifer is on an Asiatic flight to Korea as I write this. She spent the New Year holiday in Las Vegas. She was met by John, her friend from Korea and Atlanta. John lives in Vegas and invited Jennifer to come and spend the holiday with him. John had told Jenn to wear comfortable clothes on the plane, that he had a surprise for her when she landed. Jennifer guessed that he was taking her "quadding" out in the desert. She was wrotng. He drove her about 20 miles out of Vegas to a small airport where they went skydiving. It was a tandem dive, meaning both John and Jennifer dove out of the plane strapped to the stomach of a trained diver. I think John was a little presumptious that Jennifer would go along with the game, but when you have climbed 350 foot towers together without anything more than a small harness attached to the structure, I guess you can read the other person pretty well. Jennifer said that the experience was AWESOME and that she can cross one more thing off her list of things to do before she dies.
Jenn had trouble getting to Vegas. She had a package deal that flew her on United from Sacramento to Los Angeles and then to Vegas. Why? I have no idea as there are 50 flights a day from Sac to Vegas direct. Anyhow her flght was 6:00 AM out of Sac and I dropped her at 4:45 AM Friday. She got stuck in a large line outside and was told to go inside to show her credit card (It was an Orbitz deal). She got stuck in an even longer line inside and missed her flight. She was P.O.'ed to say the least. She ended up paying an extra $100 and took a direct flight to Vegas on Southwest, arriving at about the same time that she would have from Los Angeles. It all worked out and she stayed at the Mandalay Bay Casino and partied at a street party on the Las Vegas Strip, ringing in the New Year with fireworks, bands and confetti. She loved it.
Again, this morning, she had trouble with United, who told her that she could not fly to Korea without a Visa. Korea only allows visitors to stay for 30 days without a Visa and her Visa is being issued by the US Military at Los Osos Air Base in Korea. Her Visa should be there when she arrives. The problem is that her return flight to the states is scheduled for March 10th, which is over 30 days. She didn't have that problem in December as she was there for only 21 days and got an automatic 30 day Visa. It turns out that she got to the Asiatic desk and they told her that she'd have 30 days to get an extension Visa in Korea. The United employee was being a little overly diligent, especially given that she wasn't flying on United Airlines to Korea. Jennifer is loving her new job and got her fitrst paycheck before she left and said "I want to stay overseas all the time." Her per diem makes a big difference.
Jennifer likely will not move to Georgia. Because she will only be in Georgia three of four weeks at a stretch, she's decided to stay at an extended stay resort while in Georgia. She can stay for about $50 a day. That would be $1400 for a 28 day stay as opposed to paying $800 a month for an apartment that would be empty most of the time. She also would not have to pay for utilities, garbage, phones, cable, etc. It makes sense to me as she'll be overseas 9 months out of the year and on Vacation for one month of the remaining three. In other words, she will pay about $3,000 for an extended stay hotel versus $9,600 for an apartment she wouldn't use. Smart girl.
Jennifer and I spent Thursday, December 29th together. I took the day off. She needed a ride to the airport Friday morning and I volunteered, so I picked her up Thursday morning and we spent the day together and she stayed over at our house. We went together to UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento to visit her friend, Jason. Jason has a tumor in his throat that is cancerous and is being treated with chemotherapy. He went into the hospital on November 14th for a three day stay and was still there as of January 1st. He had a shocked reaction to the first round of chemo and ended up in intensive care for three weeks. They started him on a high dosage of chemo and his body went into shock and he coded. When he finally got out of IC and back into a regular room, a nurse gave him codeine in pill form which he was not supposed to have. The tumor has lodged in his throat and pushed the larynx, and vocal cords out of place. He can't even drink water. The pill went down his throat and lodged in his lungs, which promptly collapsed and he was back to Intensive Care for another ten days. When he finally got out, he contracted shingles and was in isolation for 10 days. He is finally ready to get out. They implanted a "J" tube into his stomach for feeding on the day we went to see him and we waited several hours for him to get out of surgery. Jay looks good in spite of having lost 50 pounds (from 188 to 138) and also having lost his hair to the chemo. He has a good attitude and he and Jenn are still the best of friends.
We had a quiet and relaxed New Years with games and another Prime Rib on Sunday. The boys are currently at their Dad's playing a board game with their cousins. Darla is in watching "Million Dollar Baby" on our new big screen tv. We ended up buying a 50" Samsung DLP HDTV projection television. I did my due diligence research and found the Samsung to have the best picture as well as the best warranty. I then bought an extended 4 year warranty through Best Buy. I don't usually buy the warranty, but the DLP bulb burns out about every three years and the new technology could have some problems. I'd rather be safe than sorry for $395. The television is great and replaces our 20 year old Panasonic 27 inch console tv, which now resides in our bedroom. I watched the NFL games yesterday and was in my element with the nbew television. Very nice. I hear Darryl also bought a new Samsung for his house. Nice choice.
Randy and Chris were at the Cotton Bowl today, where Randy suffered through his teams' 13-10 loss to Alabama on a waffle field goal of 46 yards as time ran out. The ball looked like a dying quail as it just sailed over the crossbar for the win. We visited by phone with Randy on Christmas day as well as Darryl. I couldn't get ahold of Dad, but they called and talked to us on New Year's Eve as they were into their second course of hors de 'oevres and cocktails. They had finished the martinis and were in the white whine portion of the evening. It was great to hear from them.
This is it for me at work. I will NOT return to home office as other than a Branch Manager. We finished the year strong and have some solid goals for 2006. I earned a nice bonus and will push for a Manager bonus as well. The Sacramento office finished the year about $150,000 in profit after having lost money the last five years. Pete Morrison is beginning to hit his stride and Anthony is doing better than anyone imagined. His year end bonus will be in the five figure range, which is huge for him.
Well, Darla is calling me to join her. I'll try to get some holiday pictures on the blog later today. I hope all are well and firmly in the footsteps of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
The Ghosts of a Christmas Just passed
It is Tuesday and it feels like Monday. Christmas has come and gone and some of the memories still ring loudly on the first day back to work. The highlight of this Christmas, for me, was going to Christmas Eve service with Jennifer, Alicia and Darla's parents joining our family. I told Jennifer after the service that the best present she could give me was going to church with me. The service was very well done with Christmas carols and drama interspersed. There was no sermon, per se, and there never is on Christmas, so I didn't even bring my Bible. The message was about the gift of everlasting life and it was told powerfully through the eyes of a mother who is spending her first Christmas without her married daughter, and a soldier in Iraq who is away from his family at Christmas.
We then returned home for a repast of Prime Rib and all of the other foods (salads, potatoes, rolls, etc.) Steve, Darla's brother, and his daughter, Taylor, joined us for dinner and then spent the night. Jennifer also stayed over and was there in the morning to open gifts and share in the family togetherness. It was a great Christmas. Darla decided that my Barbie tools are passe' and bought me a new roller cabinet and tool chest combo for the garage. My old one was worn out and the rollers were shot. The new one has drawers with ball bearings and I bought liners for each of the drawers. The boys bought me a new cordless drill that doubles as a screwdriver. I put in a couple of shelves in the garage above the roller cabinet to hold the WD40, and cleaners and waxes and tire treatments and car wash, etc. The things that gather in a garage and were stored on top of the old roller cabinet and were always a mess. Jennifer bought me some golf gear (hat, Nike jacket and golf towel) from The Lakes golf course in Osan, Korea. It is definitely unique and the jacket is first cabin. She did a great job in choosing gifts, which she always does and gave the boys some nice clothes and Darla a new padfolio and Cross pen for her work. I bought Darla a set of pearl earrings and a necklace. She had bought herself a slew of gifts (mostly sweats and jackets) and had told me not to buy her anything, but I don't listen. We bought David a new wakeboard case and a new neoprene vest that matches the jet ski. Daniel got the laptop as a combo birthday and Christmas gift. He also got some clothes. We bought Jennifer a new MP3 player that will hold up to 12,000 songs. She spent a big part of Christmas Eve downloading songs onto the computer and uploaded them after she opened the gift on Christmas day. I had her research the players before we bought one. She ended up with a 30 GB Creative Nomad Jukebox player and is having fun loading it for her trip back to Korea.
I'm planning to take Thursday off to spend with Jennifer. Darla and I are looking to buy a new tv. Our console in the living room is about 22 years old and we want a new widescreen DLP HDTV receiver. We are looking to go about 42" in diameter. Friends have told us to go larger, but our current tv is 27", so 42" will seem huge to us. I may play golf in the morning and have lunch with Jennifer and then go tv shopping.
We are in the rainy season. It rained so much over the weekend that I had to drain the pond in the back yard and again fix a clog in the downspout of the gutters, this time in the front yard. I waited for a lull in the weather and then bundled up and got on the ladder. Sure enough, the downspout was clogged with leaves and twigs and when I pulled them out the water all rushed to the downspout and caused a geyser that drenched me. I couldn't jump free of the water as I was up on a ladder. The joys of home ownership.
Well, that is it until next week. Jennifer will be off to Las Vegas for the New Year's Eve festivities. She is staying at Mandalay Bay and will ring in the New Year in style. Hey, to be 25 and have the world as your oyster. Not bad...I'd take that gig. Hope all are well. God Bless each of you and keep you safe into the New Year. Happy New Year all. Ciao.
We then returned home for a repast of Prime Rib and all of the other foods (salads, potatoes, rolls, etc.) Steve, Darla's brother, and his daughter, Taylor, joined us for dinner and then spent the night. Jennifer also stayed over and was there in the morning to open gifts and share in the family togetherness. It was a great Christmas. Darla decided that my Barbie tools are passe' and bought me a new roller cabinet and tool chest combo for the garage. My old one was worn out and the rollers were shot. The new one has drawers with ball bearings and I bought liners for each of the drawers. The boys bought me a new cordless drill that doubles as a screwdriver. I put in a couple of shelves in the garage above the roller cabinet to hold the WD40, and cleaners and waxes and tire treatments and car wash, etc. The things that gather in a garage and were stored on top of the old roller cabinet and were always a mess. Jennifer bought me some golf gear (hat, Nike jacket and golf towel) from The Lakes golf course in Osan, Korea. It is definitely unique and the jacket is first cabin. She did a great job in choosing gifts, which she always does and gave the boys some nice clothes and Darla a new padfolio and Cross pen for her work. I bought Darla a set of pearl earrings and a necklace. She had bought herself a slew of gifts (mostly sweats and jackets) and had told me not to buy her anything, but I don't listen. We bought David a new wakeboard case and a new neoprene vest that matches the jet ski. Daniel got the laptop as a combo birthday and Christmas gift. He also got some clothes. We bought Jennifer a new MP3 player that will hold up to 12,000 songs. She spent a big part of Christmas Eve downloading songs onto the computer and uploaded them after she opened the gift on Christmas day. I had her research the players before we bought one. She ended up with a 30 GB Creative Nomad Jukebox player and is having fun loading it for her trip back to Korea.
I'm planning to take Thursday off to spend with Jennifer. Darla and I are looking to buy a new tv. Our console in the living room is about 22 years old and we want a new widescreen DLP HDTV receiver. We are looking to go about 42" in diameter. Friends have told us to go larger, but our current tv is 27", so 42" will seem huge to us. I may play golf in the morning and have lunch with Jennifer and then go tv shopping.
We are in the rainy season. It rained so much over the weekend that I had to drain the pond in the back yard and again fix a clog in the downspout of the gutters, this time in the front yard. I waited for a lull in the weather and then bundled up and got on the ladder. Sure enough, the downspout was clogged with leaves and twigs and when I pulled them out the water all rushed to the downspout and caused a geyser that drenched me. I couldn't jump free of the water as I was up on a ladder. The joys of home ownership.
Well, that is it until next week. Jennifer will be off to Las Vegas for the New Year's Eve festivities. She is staying at Mandalay Bay and will ring in the New Year in style. Hey, to be 25 and have the world as your oyster. Not bad...I'd take that gig. Hope all are well. God Bless each of you and keep you safe into the New Year. Happy New Year all. Ciao.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Darla
Darla has decided that waiting for me to be promoted is like bad oral surgery: painful and unneccesary. She went on an interview yesterday with her company for a Supervisor position. It is a new unit in Roseville and is a very sought after position. She is up against five other service coordinators and two supervisors who are interested in a lateral move. She went out this weekend and bought a new suit for her interview and handled herself brilliantly during the interview yesterday. She will find out later this week if she is accepted for the position. She has mixed feelings about her chances, especially given the interest of the two supervisors. Often, these things are political, but I think the time is right for Darla to move into Supervision. Whether it is this job or another like it, she will soon be commanding a unit at her job place and we can commiserate on the inevitable calls from our employees feigning illness on a sunny day. I wish her well and good luck in the process. In many ways, she would be ideal for the position, given her training in Early Autism and her well rounded experience. I'll let you all know how it goes. Put Darla on your prayer list as she waits to hear the outcome. Ciao.
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Snow in Detroit...a blizzard of work on my desk
I am back from the Home Office visit that I made last week. I thought I was prepared for the cold, but it is hard to prepare for 8 degrees and snow flurries. We had a bit of snow everyday and a full fledged snow storm on Thursday to see me off and back to Sacramento.
I flew in on Sunday night and the sight of the snow piled up on the sides of the runway caught me a bit unaware. I knew they'd had some snow, but I really wasn't prepared for the raw cold. I had played golf on Saturday in our last tournament of the year and it was sunny and 68 degrees on Saturday. It was 17 degrees with a wind chill factor of 12 degrees when I landed.
The golf was great, in fact I shot my best round of the year with a 37+40=77, which included a chip in for eagle on number 5. I won low gross in my flight with a 77 and took low gross in the Eclectic tournament which is the year long tournament that tracks our best scores on each hole throughout the year. We play by flight and I shot a 63, which gave me a net of 50 for the year. I'll have some money in the pro shop after the first of the year and may shop for a new hybrid club to replace my 4 iron. The hybrids are so easy to hit.
Of course, I bragged to anyone who would listen in Detroit that the weather was so nice back in Sacramento and how could they live in such a cold environment? The Thursday storm left the parking lot a slippery mess and coated most of the cars with a six inch blanket of snow. The one item that we don't see out here is heated seats and they all seem to have them in their cars. It is a welcome luxury to sit in a warm front seat when it is 8 degrees outside.
The week was great and I got some excellent training as well as a chance to bond with many of the upper level Managers. It is apparent that they all have my back and have lobbied for my promotion. I still have the boss to convince, but it is obvious that he is beginning to thaw. He wants to see the Sacramento office get off to a good start in 2006 and will be ready to pull the trigger if we do get started strong. Our budget is actually built with a heavier lean to the later months for our stronger premium months, so it is quite doable that we could meet and exceed our budget in the first quarter. We are making money now and that is just a start.
We are having a good month and our Christmas party at our house a week ago last Friday was a nice way to thank the staff for a great 2005. We had most of the staff here save for our Personal Lines Underwriter who is still mourning that she had her assistant promoted and now has to do her own assistant work. Our accounting person, Audra, had six crowns put on her teeth on that Friday and was at home in pain while we all celebrated here. She had told me that she would be there, but I had no plans to see her. I had one crown put on and was down for the count earlier this year.
The trip back from Detroit was an ordeal. Getting out of Detroit was delayed because of a crew change and then we had to wait on the tarmac while the plane was de-iced. That is an interesting process as a lift truck sprays a hot solution on the wings, tail section and engines before takeoff. The steam fogged up the window as we watched the lift trucks work both sides of the plane.
I arrived in Phoenix a half hour late, but with plenty of time to catch my 10:47 PM connection to Sacramento. I was in the very back of the plane and had to wait to deplane. When I got out, it was about 10:20 and I raced to the Departure board to find my gate. There, in color, was the word "Cancelled". I walked to the America West Courtesy Desk and saw over a hundred people in line to talk to the two harried clerks. I bypassed that office and went back down to ticketing to see if I could catch another flight. The Sacramento flight was cancelled beacause of weather at the originating sight of the inbound plane. The best they could do was seat me on a plane the next morning leaving for Sacramento at 8:10 AM. I had to wait and collect my luggage and then had to grab a hotel room and spend the night. nIt was about midnight (2 AM Detroit time) by the time I got checked into the hotel. I stayed at a Super 8 dive motel for $50 and at that price, it was still a ripoff.
I finally arrived home, tired, beat and sore at ten o'clock Friday morning. I ran by the house, showered and then went into the office. It was a long week.
Jennifer will be home on Thursday and we will spend Christmas Eve here with the boys. I'm anxious to hear some of Jennifer's stories from Korea. I've already heard that she spent a weekend in Seoul and met a group of Canadian guys. They had a good time together along with one of her friends from the unit. She sent on some pictures.
I spent part of this morning after church cleaning out gutters on the house. I have gutter guards up on the house, but they are optional as small pieces of leaves and branches find their way into the gutters and clog the downspouts. We have a Winter storm under way with rain and wind and three of the gutters were clogged, one so bad that the weight of the water pulled a portion of the gutter loose from the roof. I had to repair that all in a driving rainstorm. Nice, eh?
Well, that is the news for now. Have a great Christ-Mas day and remember that Christ is the reason for the season and that if you are unhappy with your worldly gifts, know that the best gift we will ever receive was the gift of everlasting life bought by Christ's death on the cross. Ciao.
I flew in on Sunday night and the sight of the snow piled up on the sides of the runway caught me a bit unaware. I knew they'd had some snow, but I really wasn't prepared for the raw cold. I had played golf on Saturday in our last tournament of the year and it was sunny and 68 degrees on Saturday. It was 17 degrees with a wind chill factor of 12 degrees when I landed.
The golf was great, in fact I shot my best round of the year with a 37+40=77, which included a chip in for eagle on number 5. I won low gross in my flight with a 77 and took low gross in the Eclectic tournament which is the year long tournament that tracks our best scores on each hole throughout the year. We play by flight and I shot a 63, which gave me a net of 50 for the year. I'll have some money in the pro shop after the first of the year and may shop for a new hybrid club to replace my 4 iron. The hybrids are so easy to hit.
Of course, I bragged to anyone who would listen in Detroit that the weather was so nice back in Sacramento and how could they live in such a cold environment? The Thursday storm left the parking lot a slippery mess and coated most of the cars with a six inch blanket of snow. The one item that we don't see out here is heated seats and they all seem to have them in their cars. It is a welcome luxury to sit in a warm front seat when it is 8 degrees outside.
The week was great and I got some excellent training as well as a chance to bond with many of the upper level Managers. It is apparent that they all have my back and have lobbied for my promotion. I still have the boss to convince, but it is obvious that he is beginning to thaw. He wants to see the Sacramento office get off to a good start in 2006 and will be ready to pull the trigger if we do get started strong. Our budget is actually built with a heavier lean to the later months for our stronger premium months, so it is quite doable that we could meet and exceed our budget in the first quarter. We are making money now and that is just a start.
We are having a good month and our Christmas party at our house a week ago last Friday was a nice way to thank the staff for a great 2005. We had most of the staff here save for our Personal Lines Underwriter who is still mourning that she had her assistant promoted and now has to do her own assistant work. Our accounting person, Audra, had six crowns put on her teeth on that Friday and was at home in pain while we all celebrated here. She had told me that she would be there, but I had no plans to see her. I had one crown put on and was down for the count earlier this year.
The trip back from Detroit was an ordeal. Getting out of Detroit was delayed because of a crew change and then we had to wait on the tarmac while the plane was de-iced. That is an interesting process as a lift truck sprays a hot solution on the wings, tail section and engines before takeoff. The steam fogged up the window as we watched the lift trucks work both sides of the plane.
I arrived in Phoenix a half hour late, but with plenty of time to catch my 10:47 PM connection to Sacramento. I was in the very back of the plane and had to wait to deplane. When I got out, it was about 10:20 and I raced to the Departure board to find my gate. There, in color, was the word "Cancelled". I walked to the America West Courtesy Desk and saw over a hundred people in line to talk to the two harried clerks. I bypassed that office and went back down to ticketing to see if I could catch another flight. The Sacramento flight was cancelled beacause of weather at the originating sight of the inbound plane. The best they could do was seat me on a plane the next morning leaving for Sacramento at 8:10 AM. I had to wait and collect my luggage and then had to grab a hotel room and spend the night. nIt was about midnight (2 AM Detroit time) by the time I got checked into the hotel. I stayed at a Super 8 dive motel for $50 and at that price, it was still a ripoff.
I finally arrived home, tired, beat and sore at ten o'clock Friday morning. I ran by the house, showered and then went into the office. It was a long week.
Jennifer will be home on Thursday and we will spend Christmas Eve here with the boys. I'm anxious to hear some of Jennifer's stories from Korea. I've already heard that she spent a weekend in Seoul and met a group of Canadian guys. They had a good time together along with one of her friends from the unit. She sent on some pictures.
I spent part of this morning after church cleaning out gutters on the house. I have gutter guards up on the house, but they are optional as small pieces of leaves and branches find their way into the gutters and clog the downspouts. We have a Winter storm under way with rain and wind and three of the gutters were clogged, one so bad that the weight of the water pulled a portion of the gutter loose from the roof. I had to repair that all in a driving rainstorm. Nice, eh?
Well, that is the news for now. Have a great Christ-Mas day and remember that Christ is the reason for the season and that if you are unhappy with your worldly gifts, know that the best gift we will ever receive was the gift of everlasting life bought by Christ's death on the cross. Ciao.
Monday, December 05, 2005
Cold Crisp start to the week
It is another Monday and it woke with frost on the lawns and rooftops and has morphed into a crisp, clear and sunny December day. So far the fog has only been sporadic this year and sunshine has been the norm, aside from the last week of on and off again rainstorms. The forecast is for more of the same cold, clear days ahead. We got caught up on our rainfall totals last week as it rained from Monday until Friday, clearing for the weekend.
My garage door opener was so old (circa 1987) that I couldn't buy replacement parts or new remotes. I'd ordered some parts that didn't work and finally decided to replace the old dog with a new one. Sears seemed to have the best deal with a unit that included two remotes and a keyless entry. The keyless entry is nice if we take a walk or Jennifer comes over or the boys get dropped off by a friend after school. I was a little cool to the idea of going to the mall to pick up the opener, but went online, picked out the opener, paid for it and picked it up at the Merchandise Pick-up. I never had to go into the store. It was almost as convenient as shopping online and having the item delivered to the house. The boys and I installed the new opener on Saturday morning.
I played no golf this weekend and I think it was my first golfless weekend in a couple of months. We had tickets to the Trans Siberian Orchestra's Christmas show on Saturday afternoon and then dinner that night with the Roseville Golf Club. The show was great, we got our tickets from Gary and Liz Krohn. Liz is a marketing specialist for one of the large malls in Sacramento and has connections. We had seats in the lower level to the right of the stage. It was nice. We met at the dinner location and left our car for the 3:00 PM show. We returned at 6:15 PM for the 6:30 PM party and had a drink while the board members set up. I got a gift of a session with Harry, my Bowen specialist along with a martini sampler. I'll probably regift the martini sampler in the white elephant gift exchange at our Christmas party on Friday night. We will christen our remodel project and the new carpeting with the Burns and Wilcox holiday party on Friday night. We'll have turkey and ham and all of the trimmings on Friday and will have our gift exchange after that.
Jennifer has arrived in Korea and had a surprise awaiting her. One of the guys from her team in Kuwait has also joined the Das Net group and met her at the airport. He is part of the New York based team and won't be working with her out of Georgia, but it was a nice surprise for Jen to see a familiar face in Korea. She is having a good time and sent me an e-mail to let me know that she was getting a new cell phone and buying some international minutes for the phone and would call soon. She will, of course, be home for Christmas and we look forward to seeing her.
Work here is going well and I leave next Sunday for a week in home office for some Branch Manager training. I assume this means that they are happy with the success of the Sacramento and Modesto offices. I will have to pack warm for the trip to Detroit, where there is snow on the ground and a heavy chill in the air. I don't own a wool suit, but I'm sure that I will wish that I did. I'm excited to go back and spend some time in the home office. I've been to Detroit twice for the manager's meeting, but have yet to visit the Home office site. I'm encouraged by the invitation and the continuing good numbers that we are putting up.
As I will be in Detroit, the blog will take a little holiday until I get back. Darla and I were in church yesterday and a gentleman behind us had chest pains during communion. Our church is so large that we have an emergency team of doctors and paramedics on staff that were able to monitor the man and get his vitals stable and he was ready to be transported to the hospital when the ambulance arrived. The pastor stopped the service and prayed for the man and the team working on him. Rick said that due to the size of our church that there is a medical emergency almost every weekend and the Emergency team is called into service. It is nice to be part of a church that plans for every eventuality. Well that's it this week. Be well and stay in lock step with the Lord. Ciao.
My garage door opener was so old (circa 1987) that I couldn't buy replacement parts or new remotes. I'd ordered some parts that didn't work and finally decided to replace the old dog with a new one. Sears seemed to have the best deal with a unit that included two remotes and a keyless entry. The keyless entry is nice if we take a walk or Jennifer comes over or the boys get dropped off by a friend after school. I was a little cool to the idea of going to the mall to pick up the opener, but went online, picked out the opener, paid for it and picked it up at the Merchandise Pick-up. I never had to go into the store. It was almost as convenient as shopping online and having the item delivered to the house. The boys and I installed the new opener on Saturday morning.
I played no golf this weekend and I think it was my first golfless weekend in a couple of months. We had tickets to the Trans Siberian Orchestra's Christmas show on Saturday afternoon and then dinner that night with the Roseville Golf Club. The show was great, we got our tickets from Gary and Liz Krohn. Liz is a marketing specialist for one of the large malls in Sacramento and has connections. We had seats in the lower level to the right of the stage. It was nice. We met at the dinner location and left our car for the 3:00 PM show. We returned at 6:15 PM for the 6:30 PM party and had a drink while the board members set up. I got a gift of a session with Harry, my Bowen specialist along with a martini sampler. I'll probably regift the martini sampler in the white elephant gift exchange at our Christmas party on Friday night. We will christen our remodel project and the new carpeting with the Burns and Wilcox holiday party on Friday night. We'll have turkey and ham and all of the trimmings on Friday and will have our gift exchange after that.
Jennifer has arrived in Korea and had a surprise awaiting her. One of the guys from her team in Kuwait has also joined the Das Net group and met her at the airport. He is part of the New York based team and won't be working with her out of Georgia, but it was a nice surprise for Jen to see a familiar face in Korea. She is having a good time and sent me an e-mail to let me know that she was getting a new cell phone and buying some international minutes for the phone and would call soon. She will, of course, be home for Christmas and we look forward to seeing her.
Work here is going well and I leave next Sunday for a week in home office for some Branch Manager training. I assume this means that they are happy with the success of the Sacramento and Modesto offices. I will have to pack warm for the trip to Detroit, where there is snow on the ground and a heavy chill in the air. I don't own a wool suit, but I'm sure that I will wish that I did. I'm excited to go back and spend some time in the home office. I've been to Detroit twice for the manager's meeting, but have yet to visit the Home office site. I'm encouraged by the invitation and the continuing good numbers that we are putting up.
As I will be in Detroit, the blog will take a little holiday until I get back. Darla and I were in church yesterday and a gentleman behind us had chest pains during communion. Our church is so large that we have an emergency team of doctors and paramedics on staff that were able to monitor the man and get his vitals stable and he was ready to be transported to the hospital when the ambulance arrived. The pastor stopped the service and prayed for the man and the team working on him. Rick said that due to the size of our church that there is a medical emergency almost every weekend and the Emergency team is called into service. It is nice to be part of a church that plans for every eventuality. Well that's it this week. Be well and stay in lock step with the Lord. Ciao.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Monday, November 28, 2005
Monday after the Holiday and...it's raining
That is just adding insult to injury. I anticipated the rain and hadn't washed my car so there is some good that comes from a murky, dark and cold Monday. The light from the sun has yet to do much in lighting up the sky as the dark rain clouds cover the horizon and a light rain is falling. I made it to work before the rains came and had just a mist on my windshield by the time I got off the freeway. The roads are slick and wet and the morning commute just got a little more treacherous.
We had a very nice Thanksgiving with a visit to Paradise and Darla's parents. We brought the boys and stayed over Thursday night and came home on Friday. Darla's brother, Steve, and sister, Alicia, joined the fray and even Darla's 86 year old grandfather, Andy, and his wife Liz, showed up and stayed over with all of us. The granite countertop and tile backsplash look great in Francis' kitchen. They used the same granite guy that we used and he did a fantastic job and even made a few custom touches for them. Now, Alicia is having her kitchen redone as well and using Vasile.
Darla and I slept in the fifth wheel on Thursday night and the rains came and beat on that tin roof all night long. It woke me up several times and, although we woke up at 7:30, we decided to sleep in and finally emerged at about 8:45 a.m. Unfortunately, Andy and Liz were up early and had a bad night sleeping and just wanted to get home. They'd been waiting for us to get up since about 7:30 a.m. and were on the road just as soon as I could move my car that was blocking him in. It was great seeing them, but they are getting a little old for overnight visits as they get quite confused in the middle of the night. Steve brought his dog, who growled every time Andy got up to use the rest room, which was often.
I played golf on Saturday with Mel, Bob Hand and Greg Wanee. The weather cleared over Friday night and it was crisp, clear and cold. It never got over 50 degrees and we teed off at 8:20 AM. I won $3 on a game of Wolf and we had lunch together afterward. I invited the group and their wives out to dinner, but Mel and Bob couldn't make it. Greg was in. I asked him if he needed to check with his wife and he said, "No. I'm in charge of dinner and we're going out with you." I thought that wouldn't fly in my house, but thought nothing of it. I told Greg that we'd meet at the restaurant at 7:00 PM. I worked outside when I got home raking leaves and doing some trimming. Darla was working on painting inside. She is redoing all of the interior doors and door jams in white. The original color was off white and it has turned that dingy yellow-white that looks so bad next to fresh paint..or new carpet. We finally got around to calling Greg and Carla about six as we were going to get showers and get ready to leave. Carla answered and said, "No. I'm just serving dinner. Greg got home about a half hour ago and just told me about the dinner invite. I had dinner already started." It seemed odd that they didn't call us, but I let it go. Greg called me last night and apologized. He went out Christmas shopping after golf and hadn't checked in with Carla. He said he thought Darla was going to call and set it up. Real man of the house there. At least I can see that communication is their strong suit. Darla and I ended up going out to dinner at Chevy's and our leftovers were dinner last night.
Darla and I went to see "Walk the Line" last week, the Johnny Cash movie. Excellent. Put it on your to do list.
I had planned to strip the cabinets in the kitchen this weekend and then sand and refinish them. It was a bandaid as we eventually want to have them professionally refinished and Darla wants them stained in a winter white color. We also want the hinges changed to interior hinges and then we want to install hardware. The cost for that job is almost $5000, so it is off the radar right now. When I went in to the hardware store to get the supplies, the helpful Ace hardware man suggested that I try "Howard Restore-A-Finish", a product that is applied right over the existing varnish and stain. It fills in the worn areas, the places where the oils of our hands have worn off the finish and the stain and the areas that have heat stress from the stovetop and the coffee pot. This stuff is amazing and gives the wood a clean, refinished look, all for $8.99. The kitchen looks great and the cabinets are shiny and new. Try it, if you have cabinets that are looking a little worn.
Jennifer will be over for dinner Tuesday night and the boys will say "Hi" and "Bye" to her as she jets off to Korea on Thursday. She has been home for three weeks this week and I gave her heck as she has not been over to see the boys since getting home. David was a little p.o.ed at her and Daniel is miffed as well. Sometimes the girl looks a little too inward and doesn't see what is going on around her. I've seen her the night I picked her up at the airport and the day we went to lunch and that's it. I know she's busy, but she has seen her friends and her Mom and Mom's new boyfriend and his family and hasn't made a point to see the boys or visit us. She promised to spend some time with us at Christmas. She knows I'm a little upset and Darla is unhappy with the fact that she didn't make the boys and me a priority on her return home. Don't upset the mother hen. Anyhow, I'll get some pictures tomorrow night and get them on the blog.
I did talk to Jennifer and she clarified her job. She will not get paid tax free. That perk is for American citizens who are working abroad on military civilian positions and are overseas for the entire year. As she will be going back and forth, her tax base will be the same as anyone working in the US. She still has a great job.
Well that's it for this installment. Stay well. We brought a neighbor friend to church yesterday. She is a divorcee and she was so thrilled with the service. Darla and Carol dropped me off and went to lunch together. What a blessing it is for us to see how God touches the lives of others through us. Stay well. Ciao.
We had a very nice Thanksgiving with a visit to Paradise and Darla's parents. We brought the boys and stayed over Thursday night and came home on Friday. Darla's brother, Steve, and sister, Alicia, joined the fray and even Darla's 86 year old grandfather, Andy, and his wife Liz, showed up and stayed over with all of us. The granite countertop and tile backsplash look great in Francis' kitchen. They used the same granite guy that we used and he did a fantastic job and even made a few custom touches for them. Now, Alicia is having her kitchen redone as well and using Vasile.
Darla and I slept in the fifth wheel on Thursday night and the rains came and beat on that tin roof all night long. It woke me up several times and, although we woke up at 7:30, we decided to sleep in and finally emerged at about 8:45 a.m. Unfortunately, Andy and Liz were up early and had a bad night sleeping and just wanted to get home. They'd been waiting for us to get up since about 7:30 a.m. and were on the road just as soon as I could move my car that was blocking him in. It was great seeing them, but they are getting a little old for overnight visits as they get quite confused in the middle of the night. Steve brought his dog, who growled every time Andy got up to use the rest room, which was often.
I played golf on Saturday with Mel, Bob Hand and Greg Wanee. The weather cleared over Friday night and it was crisp, clear and cold. It never got over 50 degrees and we teed off at 8:20 AM. I won $3 on a game of Wolf and we had lunch together afterward. I invited the group and their wives out to dinner, but Mel and Bob couldn't make it. Greg was in. I asked him if he needed to check with his wife and he said, "No. I'm in charge of dinner and we're going out with you." I thought that wouldn't fly in my house, but thought nothing of it. I told Greg that we'd meet at the restaurant at 7:00 PM. I worked outside when I got home raking leaves and doing some trimming. Darla was working on painting inside. She is redoing all of the interior doors and door jams in white. The original color was off white and it has turned that dingy yellow-white that looks so bad next to fresh paint..or new carpet. We finally got around to calling Greg and Carla about six as we were going to get showers and get ready to leave. Carla answered and said, "No. I'm just serving dinner. Greg got home about a half hour ago and just told me about the dinner invite. I had dinner already started." It seemed odd that they didn't call us, but I let it go. Greg called me last night and apologized. He went out Christmas shopping after golf and hadn't checked in with Carla. He said he thought Darla was going to call and set it up. Real man of the house there. At least I can see that communication is their strong suit. Darla and I ended up going out to dinner at Chevy's and our leftovers were dinner last night.
Darla and I went to see "Walk the Line" last week, the Johnny Cash movie. Excellent. Put it on your to do list.
I had planned to strip the cabinets in the kitchen this weekend and then sand and refinish them. It was a bandaid as we eventually want to have them professionally refinished and Darla wants them stained in a winter white color. We also want the hinges changed to interior hinges and then we want to install hardware. The cost for that job is almost $5000, so it is off the radar right now. When I went in to the hardware store to get the supplies, the helpful Ace hardware man suggested that I try "Howard Restore-A-Finish", a product that is applied right over the existing varnish and stain. It fills in the worn areas, the places where the oils of our hands have worn off the finish and the stain and the areas that have heat stress from the stovetop and the coffee pot. This stuff is amazing and gives the wood a clean, refinished look, all for $8.99. The kitchen looks great and the cabinets are shiny and new. Try it, if you have cabinets that are looking a little worn.
Jennifer will be over for dinner Tuesday night and the boys will say "Hi" and "Bye" to her as she jets off to Korea on Thursday. She has been home for three weeks this week and I gave her heck as she has not been over to see the boys since getting home. David was a little p.o.ed at her and Daniel is miffed as well. Sometimes the girl looks a little too inward and doesn't see what is going on around her. I've seen her the night I picked her up at the airport and the day we went to lunch and that's it. I know she's busy, but she has seen her friends and her Mom and Mom's new boyfriend and his family and hasn't made a point to see the boys or visit us. She promised to spend some time with us at Christmas. She knows I'm a little upset and Darla is unhappy with the fact that she didn't make the boys and me a priority on her return home. Don't upset the mother hen. Anyhow, I'll get some pictures tomorrow night and get them on the blog.
I did talk to Jennifer and she clarified her job. She will not get paid tax free. That perk is for American citizens who are working abroad on military civilian positions and are overseas for the entire year. As she will be going back and forth, her tax base will be the same as anyone working in the US. She still has a great job.
Well that's it for this installment. Stay well. We brought a neighbor friend to church yesterday. She is a divorcee and she was so thrilled with the service. Darla and Carol dropped me off and went to lunch together. What a blessing it is for us to see how God touches the lives of others through us. Stay well. Ciao.
Monday, November 21, 2005
Good Morning World
Our weather here in Northern California has been nothing short of spectacular for about the last two weeks. We have enjoyed cool nights in the mid 40's and daytime highs in the mid 70's. It doesn't get any better than this, eh? Today is one of those days with a high blue sky and crisp clear sunshine that early in the morning leaves a promise of good things to come. The grass is covered in dew and fallen leaves and the trees outside of my picture window are green and yellow and red, with one lone tree devoid of leaves, but strangely full of white buds as if it were Spring instead of late Autumn.
I was able to talk to Dad this weekend and they were coming home from a meal with Randy and his family. Randy left yesterday for a week in Banff, Canada and a ski holiday. Jenny flew in to Dallas and met the family and they all flew to Canada. Dad and Shirley left Euless yesterday for two days in San Antonio and some alone time on the River Walk. They will be back in Austin with Darryl and Cheryl for the Thanksgiving holiday.
We had a bit of a surprise in our neighborhood this last Friday. A CHP officer from Roseville was shot and killed during a routine traffic stop in Yolo County on Thursday and there was a manhunt on for his killers, two men in a light colored Toyota. When I got home Friday night there were news crews and police vehicles all over the cul-de-sac behind our house. It turns out that the neighborhood punk had shot and killed the officer. This kid is bad news and has caused all sorts of grief to neighbors in the neighborhood and was even caught vandalizing cars and stealing property. He is 20 years old and lived with his Mom and two brothers, both of whom are equal idiots. The story has now come out that this kid was the son of a disgraced officer in the Bay Area, who was fired after having a relationship with a victim's widow and then committing suicide when he was caught after a botched bank robbery in Fremont. The family is a piece of work with the Mom recently having been cited for driving under the influence and the son having a court date in December for violating the terms of his parole by using methamphetamines and being arrested under the influence of a controlled substance. The funeral for the officer is tomorrow at our church in Roseville. You can't pick your neighbors, but this group is serious white trash and live in the neighborhood simply because they sold their home in the Bay Area for a mint and left there in shame.
Jennifer did fly to New York on Thursday and was met by the Vice President of the company she was interviewing with. She met with the President and several of the officers for a day long interview on Friday and eventually accepted the position. The company is a military contractor and Jennifer will be a Tech Engineer Level One and will be installing network systems. Her salary is huge and she will make her money tax free while working on government installations overseas. The jobs that she is working on are all bid jobs with specific start and end dates and the teams that work on the jobs live at military installations and are on a per diem while working. The team is paid a bonus for completing the job on time, and an even bigger bonus for completing the job ahead of schedule. She will live in Georgia and will spend about 75% of her time overseas. She leaves for Korea on December 1st and will be home on December 22nd for Christmas. She will then fly to back to Korea on January 3rd to complete the work order and will be back in Sacramento by the first of March when she will make the move to Georgia. I'm proud of her although I had hoped that she would get to stay in Sacramento for awhile. This is a great chance for her to make some money and save up for a house. The company will also pay for her to go to school to get her degree which is nice, although she already has that money coming from her GI bill. She will be covered for Medical immediately and will be covered by a 401 K plan. It sounds like a great job for a young person and it will be using the skills that she has developed in the Army. This time she'll get paid very well to ply her trade, however. The company does NOT work in Kuwait or Iraq, Thank God. The website for her new firm is: www.dasnetcorp.com
I played golf this weekend in the Turkey shoot at Woodcreek golf course. It was a two man best ball. I had 14 strokes and shot a pedantic 41+44=85. Boyd shot even worse (for him) with a 40+41=81. Our best ball score was 68 which qualified us for absolutely nothing. I did win a bottle of wine for being the first person in our foursome to spot the stuffed turkey which was hiding in the branches of an oak tree on number 7. The weather was fantastic and the course is in pristine condition.
Yesterday, Darla, the boys and I made another dump run, this time with two trucks. We hauled all of the old baseboards, an old dresser, boxes, games, toys, and junk to the dump. The side yard was brimming with trash and we were able to haul it all away. As Darla said, she thinks we are actually done with our remodel. Next year we plan to have someone come in and install crown molding in the living room, family room and our master bedroom. We will also have the cabinets refaced and the master bathroom remodeled with a new shower and tile. It was the one room that we weren't able to afford right now. I will work on touching up the cabinets in the kitchen this weekend by putting a fresh coat of Honey Oak stain on the cabinets. It has a satin finish and should look good.
We will spend Thanksgiving up in Paradise at Darla's folks. We have the boys this year and will actually stay over at the old homestead and play games and watch football and eat turkey. It should be fun. Jennifer was invited, but will instead head to Palm Springs with her Mom.
Well, Happy Thanksgiving to all and take this time to thank God for all of the blessings that he has bestowed on your life. Ciao.
I was able to talk to Dad this weekend and they were coming home from a meal with Randy and his family. Randy left yesterday for a week in Banff, Canada and a ski holiday. Jenny flew in to Dallas and met the family and they all flew to Canada. Dad and Shirley left Euless yesterday for two days in San Antonio and some alone time on the River Walk. They will be back in Austin with Darryl and Cheryl for the Thanksgiving holiday.
We had a bit of a surprise in our neighborhood this last Friday. A CHP officer from Roseville was shot and killed during a routine traffic stop in Yolo County on Thursday and there was a manhunt on for his killers, two men in a light colored Toyota. When I got home Friday night there were news crews and police vehicles all over the cul-de-sac behind our house. It turns out that the neighborhood punk had shot and killed the officer. This kid is bad news and has caused all sorts of grief to neighbors in the neighborhood and was even caught vandalizing cars and stealing property. He is 20 years old and lived with his Mom and two brothers, both of whom are equal idiots. The story has now come out that this kid was the son of a disgraced officer in the Bay Area, who was fired after having a relationship with a victim's widow and then committing suicide when he was caught after a botched bank robbery in Fremont. The family is a piece of work with the Mom recently having been cited for driving under the influence and the son having a court date in December for violating the terms of his parole by using methamphetamines and being arrested under the influence of a controlled substance. The funeral for the officer is tomorrow at our church in Roseville. You can't pick your neighbors, but this group is serious white trash and live in the neighborhood simply because they sold their home in the Bay Area for a mint and left there in shame.
Jennifer did fly to New York on Thursday and was met by the Vice President of the company she was interviewing with. She met with the President and several of the officers for a day long interview on Friday and eventually accepted the position. The company is a military contractor and Jennifer will be a Tech Engineer Level One and will be installing network systems. Her salary is huge and she will make her money tax free while working on government installations overseas. The jobs that she is working on are all bid jobs with specific start and end dates and the teams that work on the jobs live at military installations and are on a per diem while working. The team is paid a bonus for completing the job on time, and an even bigger bonus for completing the job ahead of schedule. She will live in Georgia and will spend about 75% of her time overseas. She leaves for Korea on December 1st and will be home on December 22nd for Christmas. She will then fly to back to Korea on January 3rd to complete the work order and will be back in Sacramento by the first of March when she will make the move to Georgia. I'm proud of her although I had hoped that she would get to stay in Sacramento for awhile. This is a great chance for her to make some money and save up for a house. The company will also pay for her to go to school to get her degree which is nice, although she already has that money coming from her GI bill. She will be covered for Medical immediately and will be covered by a 401 K plan. It sounds like a great job for a young person and it will be using the skills that she has developed in the Army. This time she'll get paid very well to ply her trade, however. The company does NOT work in Kuwait or Iraq, Thank God. The website for her new firm is: www.dasnetcorp.com
I played golf this weekend in the Turkey shoot at Woodcreek golf course. It was a two man best ball. I had 14 strokes and shot a pedantic 41+44=85. Boyd shot even worse (for him) with a 40+41=81. Our best ball score was 68 which qualified us for absolutely nothing. I did win a bottle of wine for being the first person in our foursome to spot the stuffed turkey which was hiding in the branches of an oak tree on number 7. The weather was fantastic and the course is in pristine condition.
Yesterday, Darla, the boys and I made another dump run, this time with two trucks. We hauled all of the old baseboards, an old dresser, boxes, games, toys, and junk to the dump. The side yard was brimming with trash and we were able to haul it all away. As Darla said, she thinks we are actually done with our remodel. Next year we plan to have someone come in and install crown molding in the living room, family room and our master bedroom. We will also have the cabinets refaced and the master bathroom remodeled with a new shower and tile. It was the one room that we weren't able to afford right now. I will work on touching up the cabinets in the kitchen this weekend by putting a fresh coat of Honey Oak stain on the cabinets. It has a satin finish and should look good.
We will spend Thanksgiving up in Paradise at Darla's folks. We have the boys this year and will actually stay over at the old homestead and play games and watch football and eat turkey. It should be fun. Jennifer was invited, but will instead head to Palm Springs with her Mom.
Well, Happy Thanksgiving to all and take this time to thank God for all of the blessings that he has bestowed on your life. Ciao.
Monday, November 14, 2005
Monday and I'm dragging
Have you ever had one of those weekends where you get Back to work on Monday and you're sitting at your desk sipping a cup of coffee and contemplating the day ahead and you realize that it is the first time that you've been able to sit down and relax since you left work on Friday? I had one of those weekends.
The carpet installers arrived at 9 AM on Saturday as I was in the midst of pulling the last of the old baseboards out of the house. I'd worked Friday night taking down beds and packing up books and odds and ends and finally got around to pulling the baseboards about ten. I got the baseboards pulled in the study, the family room, the living room and Daniel's room and still had the master bedroom, master bath and David's room to go. I got up at seven, showered and went to work. I still had to take our bed apart and take down the stereo and television, vcr, DVD and TiVo. I did the beds and TV, etc and was finishing up David's room on the baseboards when the guys showed up. They were to be there between 9 and 11 and showed up at ten to nine. Darla showed them the work site and I frantically pulled baseboards in our room. I left one wall of David's room with the baseboard still installed as his desk and box spring and mattress were against the wall. I asked the guys if they could pull that baseboard after they moved the furniture (We paid $240 to have them move furniture). I then left for golf. Darla gave me a hug and asked why it was that I could skate during a major home improvement project. She said it with a smile, but I'm sure there was a meaning in there.
The opening for this job came on Tuesday and we jumped on it. Our carpet was delivered from the factory to the installer and they had a job fall out for Saturday just that day. I was already scheduled to play in the Tournament of Champions tournament on Saturday and we decided to go ahead. Really, there wasn't much that either of us could do while they installed the carpet, so golf was a good idea for me. Darla had to stay home and babysit the workers. They finished up about four o'clock and were good workers. They did punch a hole in our wall in the family room when the carpet stretcher slipped, but they patched it and all was forgiven. The carpet looks great and the baseboards are very modern looking compared to the narrow brown baseboards that were there before and looked so incredibly 1980's. I got to work on the baseboards as soon as I got home on Saturday and we worked until almost 11:00 that night. The mitre saw that I borrowed from Brian, our tile guy was a Godsend. Darla painted the baseboards and I installed them as soon as they were dry. Our garage was and is full of things from the boys room and the study. I still have the stereo to put back up as well as the computer in the study. The boys were with their Dad this weekend and he was irritated that Daniel spent part of Friday (Veteran's Day) at our house taking out all of the things from his closet and packing up odds and ends from his room. David came over Friday night and stripped his bed and packed up all of the loose impediments from his room before he went to Daniel's last football game.
I got all of the rooms completed with new baseboards, all except the study. I had thought I had all of the baseboards that I needed plus some leftover, but miscalculated the amount of baseboards needed for the four closets in the house. We had bought a contractors pack of baseboards, but can buy the 12 foot boards separately as well. I have about 60 feet of boards to install in the study.
My hands are swollen today, my knees are sore and even the back of my legs, behind the knee, are swollen from the knee pads that I wore most of the day yesterday. My knees were really sore after Friday and Saturday night and Darla gave me her volleyball kneepads to wear. I put them on over my sweats and they rubbed the back of my legs raw as I spent most of Sunday on my knees installing the baseboards and then caulking the whole works as well. I am really impressed with the final project. Darla picked a beautiful berber carpet for the house with a sculpted look and that combined with the already installed tile and baseboards gives the home a modern and clean look. Everything looks and smells new.
Golf was a blast this weekend. I was wildly inconsistent, shooting four birdies, three double-bogeys, a triple-bogey, five bogeys and five pars for a 42+40=82. The four birdies helped me win $29 from my playing partners in skins and bets and take second place in my flight with a net 69. I was hitting the ball great off the tee and hit some excellent approach shots, but then my game would implode on certain holes, where I'd fluff chips or shank approach shots. It was a roller coaster ride, but fun all the same.
Jennifer did make her triumphant return to Sacramento on Wednesday night. She arrived bright eyed and ready for her future. She is thrilled to be home and has several interviews set up this week and two job offers in the bank. Both as cable installers. She is holding her options open for now. I invited her to lunch today as I haven't seen her since I picked her up from the airport. She was sick on Friday with food poisoning and I was so busy over the weekend that I didn't see her at all. Jennifer was able to spend her first Veteran's Day as a vet back home, but was suffering from a sore stomach.
Daniel has finished his season of football. It was a tough season for him and for us, as he rode the bench all year behind two 260 pound linemen. He looks forward to his Senior season and a chance to start on the line. He is now looking for a job as he wants to save up some money for a car. He is sixteen, but won't get his license to drive until February.
I'll try to get some pictures up on the site sometime this week of the new carpet. Darla's parents, Earl and Frances, are having granite installed in their house this week. They have wanted to do it since they moved in and when Frances saw ours, she talked Earl in to getting it done now. It looks like they will also have the Blue Pearl installed in their home and are talking to our installer about coming up and doing the work in Paradise. I hope all are well and walking in the footsteps of the Lord. Ciao.
The carpet installers arrived at 9 AM on Saturday as I was in the midst of pulling the last of the old baseboards out of the house. I'd worked Friday night taking down beds and packing up books and odds and ends and finally got around to pulling the baseboards about ten. I got the baseboards pulled in the study, the family room, the living room and Daniel's room and still had the master bedroom, master bath and David's room to go. I got up at seven, showered and went to work. I still had to take our bed apart and take down the stereo and television, vcr, DVD and TiVo. I did the beds and TV, etc and was finishing up David's room on the baseboards when the guys showed up. They were to be there between 9 and 11 and showed up at ten to nine. Darla showed them the work site and I frantically pulled baseboards in our room. I left one wall of David's room with the baseboard still installed as his desk and box spring and mattress were against the wall. I asked the guys if they could pull that baseboard after they moved the furniture (We paid $240 to have them move furniture). I then left for golf. Darla gave me a hug and asked why it was that I could skate during a major home improvement project. She said it with a smile, but I'm sure there was a meaning in there.
The opening for this job came on Tuesday and we jumped on it. Our carpet was delivered from the factory to the installer and they had a job fall out for Saturday just that day. I was already scheduled to play in the Tournament of Champions tournament on Saturday and we decided to go ahead. Really, there wasn't much that either of us could do while they installed the carpet, so golf was a good idea for me. Darla had to stay home and babysit the workers. They finished up about four o'clock and were good workers. They did punch a hole in our wall in the family room when the carpet stretcher slipped, but they patched it and all was forgiven. The carpet looks great and the baseboards are very modern looking compared to the narrow brown baseboards that were there before and looked so incredibly 1980's. I got to work on the baseboards as soon as I got home on Saturday and we worked until almost 11:00 that night. The mitre saw that I borrowed from Brian, our tile guy was a Godsend. Darla painted the baseboards and I installed them as soon as they were dry. Our garage was and is full of things from the boys room and the study. I still have the stereo to put back up as well as the computer in the study. The boys were with their Dad this weekend and he was irritated that Daniel spent part of Friday (Veteran's Day) at our house taking out all of the things from his closet and packing up odds and ends from his room. David came over Friday night and stripped his bed and packed up all of the loose impediments from his room before he went to Daniel's last football game.
I got all of the rooms completed with new baseboards, all except the study. I had thought I had all of the baseboards that I needed plus some leftover, but miscalculated the amount of baseboards needed for the four closets in the house. We had bought a contractors pack of baseboards, but can buy the 12 foot boards separately as well. I have about 60 feet of boards to install in the study.
My hands are swollen today, my knees are sore and even the back of my legs, behind the knee, are swollen from the knee pads that I wore most of the day yesterday. My knees were really sore after Friday and Saturday night and Darla gave me her volleyball kneepads to wear. I put them on over my sweats and they rubbed the back of my legs raw as I spent most of Sunday on my knees installing the baseboards and then caulking the whole works as well. I am really impressed with the final project. Darla picked a beautiful berber carpet for the house with a sculpted look and that combined with the already installed tile and baseboards gives the home a modern and clean look. Everything looks and smells new.
Golf was a blast this weekend. I was wildly inconsistent, shooting four birdies, three double-bogeys, a triple-bogey, five bogeys and five pars for a 42+40=82. The four birdies helped me win $29 from my playing partners in skins and bets and take second place in my flight with a net 69. I was hitting the ball great off the tee and hit some excellent approach shots, but then my game would implode on certain holes, where I'd fluff chips or shank approach shots. It was a roller coaster ride, but fun all the same.
Jennifer did make her triumphant return to Sacramento on Wednesday night. She arrived bright eyed and ready for her future. She is thrilled to be home and has several interviews set up this week and two job offers in the bank. Both as cable installers. She is holding her options open for now. I invited her to lunch today as I haven't seen her since I picked her up from the airport. She was sick on Friday with food poisoning and I was so busy over the weekend that I didn't see her at all. Jennifer was able to spend her first Veteran's Day as a vet back home, but was suffering from a sore stomach.
Daniel has finished his season of football. It was a tough season for him and for us, as he rode the bench all year behind two 260 pound linemen. He looks forward to his Senior season and a chance to start on the line. He is now looking for a job as he wants to save up some money for a car. He is sixteen, but won't get his license to drive until February.
I'll try to get some pictures up on the site sometime this week of the new carpet. Darla's parents, Earl and Frances, are having granite installed in their house this week. They have wanted to do it since they moved in and when Frances saw ours, she talked Earl in to getting it done now. It looks like they will also have the Blue Pearl installed in their home and are talking to our installer about coming up and doing the work in Paradise. I hope all are well and walking in the footsteps of the Lord. Ciao.
Monday, November 07, 2005
OOPS. I did it again!
It has been over a year since I have felt even the slightest back problem. The Bowen Therapy was a HUGE success and I couldn't be happier. I get to play golf pain free. Well, that was until Saturday. We played the Allister Mackenzie course out at Haggin Oaks, Sacramento's oldest golf course and still one of the best. I took a swing from the fairway on number two and felt a twinge in my back and it was all over after that. I was able to play through the pain and even managed a 43+42=85, which wasn't bad considering that I was in pretty bad shape and couldn't take a full swing. I even managed to win some skin money at the end of the round by parring the number 12 handicap hole which was a net birdie in my flight. This particular injury seems to respond to heat and I feel pretty good after a stint in the hot tub or a hot shower or even after working which heats the muscle and relaxes it.
I woke up Sunday morning sore and stiff and even missed church which is heresy in our house. I limped around and had breakfast, but worked with the boys installing a light fixture from the kitchen in the laundry room and my back relaxed and I was even able to get up in the attic and help secure the light to the ceiling while the boys worked below me. I moved the light from the laundry room into the shed and it looks great, but we still have the same problem with a bad ballast. I may take a look at Home Depot and see what it costs to change out the ballast. I will hopefully be able to see Harry today and have him treat my back. I'm done with chiropractors, especially when the problem involves musculature and not bones.
The boys were able to help me install the new light fixture in the kichen. We had to anchor the fixture with wood and anchor bolts, so David had to climb up in the attic and attach the bolts to some 5/8 inch siding that we had left over from the shed job in 2000. The siding was strong enough yet thin enough to do the job. The new fixture looks really nice and fits the kitchen. The old fixture was a neon shop light in comparison. I don't know if Dad remembers me commenting on the light before we bought the house. I thought it was a cheap looking fixture in relation to the rest of the house. He had come out to visit us after Mom died and we were in the process of buying a house. He came with me when I met with the home inspector we hired to check out the house. Anyhow, the new fixture has a wood base with crown molding and matches the quality of the cabinets. As I mentioned, the old fixture was moved into the laundry room and looks like it fits in there. It provides more light than the old two light fixture and is better for Darla.
We took Daniel out (finally) for his birthday dinner. We ate at La Provence, an upscale French Restaurant in Roseville. I'd bought the restaurant certificate at the football banquet silent auction for $55. It included a $50 gift certificate and a bottle of French wine. Our dinner was $103 and the boys ate to their hearts content, both of them ordering a hanger steak and French fries that was listed on the menu as "Onglet sauce @ chalotes: Grilled marinated Hanger Steak, pommes frites & shallot red Côtesdu Rhine reduction." They had no idea what they were ordering, but Daniel substituted the pommes fries for garlic fries, so he scored. I also ordered the hanger steak and ate it for the second time. The portion of steak is huge and it is cooked in a wine sauce and shallots that is to die for. Darla had prawns and pasta and we all enjoyed the meal together.
Darla then took Daniel out yesterday and he finally got his birthday present, an Acer laptop computer that has enough speed and memory to handle the CAD program that is also on David's laptop which is a Dell Pentium 4 computer. Daniel has been shopping for the computer for a month and finally made his selection this weekend.
David continues to enjoy his job and drove past a building in Natomas that has a trellis that he designed installed on it. He is beginning to see some of his handiwork around town and it is pretty impressive to know that he has the talent and ability to design things from concept to reality. He spent last Monday at the pier in San Francisco eyeballing where one of his loading docks will be installed. He was there with the chief engineer of his firm and they were scoping out the jobsite for design purposes.
We have decided to host the office Christmas party this year. Dinda, who hosted the last three parties is no longer working with us, so it was probably taboo to ask her to host again. I'm not sure if I hope we get the carpet in before the party or after. Party season is upon us as we have three events to attend over the first two weekends of December with our office party, the Golf Club party and Darla's office party. We will also attend the matinee performance of the Trans Siberian Orchestra on December 3rd before heading to the RGC Christmas party that night.
We had a record month in October and brought in over $170,000 in income into the office. That improved our bottom line by over $60,000 YTD and we are getting kudos. I took the staff to lunch at the Elephant Bar last Wednesday to celebrate and we enjoyed a good "gnoshup" on the company dime.
Jennifer is due home this week. I've only talked to her briefly, but we'll get caught up this week. I'll fill you all in next week.
As I mentioned we missed church yesterday and compensated by having Darla read the first three chapters of Exodus after dinner last night. Not that we felt compelled to make up for missing church, but we missed the sermon and the Bible teaching that is so prevalent in our church. Exodus is the story of Moses and how he grew up in Pharaohs family and went on to lead the Exodus of the children of Israel out of Egypt. In fact, it reminded me a lot of a Disney movie. Be well, consider your place in the world and why you are here. Be nice to someone today. It'll freak them out. Ciao.
I woke up Sunday morning sore and stiff and even missed church which is heresy in our house. I limped around and had breakfast, but worked with the boys installing a light fixture from the kitchen in the laundry room and my back relaxed and I was even able to get up in the attic and help secure the light to the ceiling while the boys worked below me. I moved the light from the laundry room into the shed and it looks great, but we still have the same problem with a bad ballast. I may take a look at Home Depot and see what it costs to change out the ballast. I will hopefully be able to see Harry today and have him treat my back. I'm done with chiropractors, especially when the problem involves musculature and not bones.
The boys were able to help me install the new light fixture in the kichen. We had to anchor the fixture with wood and anchor bolts, so David had to climb up in the attic and attach the bolts to some 5/8 inch siding that we had left over from the shed job in 2000. The siding was strong enough yet thin enough to do the job. The new fixture looks really nice and fits the kitchen. The old fixture was a neon shop light in comparison. I don't know if Dad remembers me commenting on the light before we bought the house. I thought it was a cheap looking fixture in relation to the rest of the house. He had come out to visit us after Mom died and we were in the process of buying a house. He came with me when I met with the home inspector we hired to check out the house. Anyhow, the new fixture has a wood base with crown molding and matches the quality of the cabinets. As I mentioned, the old fixture was moved into the laundry room and looks like it fits in there. It provides more light than the old two light fixture and is better for Darla.
We took Daniel out (finally) for his birthday dinner. We ate at La Provence, an upscale French Restaurant in Roseville. I'd bought the restaurant certificate at the football banquet silent auction for $55. It included a $50 gift certificate and a bottle of French wine. Our dinner was $103 and the boys ate to their hearts content, both of them ordering a hanger steak and French fries that was listed on the menu as "Onglet sauce @ chalotes: Grilled marinated Hanger Steak, pommes frites & shallot red Côtesdu Rhine reduction." They had no idea what they were ordering, but Daniel substituted the pommes fries for garlic fries, so he scored. I also ordered the hanger steak and ate it for the second time. The portion of steak is huge and it is cooked in a wine sauce and shallots that is to die for. Darla had prawns and pasta and we all enjoyed the meal together.
Darla then took Daniel out yesterday and he finally got his birthday present, an Acer laptop computer that has enough speed and memory to handle the CAD program that is also on David's laptop which is a Dell Pentium 4 computer. Daniel has been shopping for the computer for a month and finally made his selection this weekend.
David continues to enjoy his job and drove past a building in Natomas that has a trellis that he designed installed on it. He is beginning to see some of his handiwork around town and it is pretty impressive to know that he has the talent and ability to design things from concept to reality. He spent last Monday at the pier in San Francisco eyeballing where one of his loading docks will be installed. He was there with the chief engineer of his firm and they were scoping out the jobsite for design purposes.
We have decided to host the office Christmas party this year. Dinda, who hosted the last three parties is no longer working with us, so it was probably taboo to ask her to host again. I'm not sure if I hope we get the carpet in before the party or after. Party season is upon us as we have three events to attend over the first two weekends of December with our office party, the Golf Club party and Darla's office party. We will also attend the matinee performance of the Trans Siberian Orchestra on December 3rd before heading to the RGC Christmas party that night.
We had a record month in October and brought in over $170,000 in income into the office. That improved our bottom line by over $60,000 YTD and we are getting kudos. I took the staff to lunch at the Elephant Bar last Wednesday to celebrate and we enjoyed a good "gnoshup" on the company dime.
Jennifer is due home this week. I've only talked to her briefly, but we'll get caught up this week. I'll fill you all in next week.
As I mentioned we missed church yesterday and compensated by having Darla read the first three chapters of Exodus after dinner last night. Not that we felt compelled to make up for missing church, but we missed the sermon and the Bible teaching that is so prevalent in our church. Exodus is the story of Moses and how he grew up in Pharaohs family and went on to lead the Exodus of the children of Israel out of Egypt. In fact, it reminded me a lot of a Disney movie. Be well, consider your place in the world and why you are here. Be nice to someone today. It'll freak them out. Ciao.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Sunday night and the livin' is easy
It is indeed Sunday night. After a Friday off and the fact that tomorrow is close for the month, I can imagine the level of stress and just plain business that will surround my desk and my being tomorrow. Throw in the added dimension of a potluck and Halloween and the blog would have fallen victim to over activity. I know my limitations and Darla just left to work out at the gym and I have some downtime, so it all adds up to a blog entry.
Darla and I did sneak out of town on Thursday afternoon. The Atlantis casino in Reno had a cheap room rate of $29 for a luxury tower room and they comped us $50 for dinner, so it was a no brainer to pack up and head to the "Biggest Little City in the World". We got up to Reno about seven o'clock and got checked in before heading down to dinner. The question was where we would eat as the Atlantis has seven restaurants. We both brought just jeans so the Seafood and Steakhouse was out as it has waiters in tuxes and they serve the salad tableside out of a crystal bowl. We opted for the Prime Rib dinner at the Purple Parrot, the casino's coffee shop and dinner house. We actually had a chicken appetizer and shared a Prime Rib, with both of us eating salad and bread. We left stuffed and spent the balance of the night playing nickle slots. We were down quite a bit early on, but I got hot and started hitting four-of-a-kinds and then we stopped about midnight to get some dessert in the coffee shop. We shared a brownie decadence, some carmel and ice cream with chocolate sauce over the thinnest brownie you'll ever see. In fact, it looked like the brownie didn't rise when they baked it. We left to play a bit more (about another hour) and Darla finally warmed up and brought us back to almost even with several four-of-a-kinds.
The next morning we both slept in until nine a.m., which in some ways was more decadent than the brownie the night before. We packed up and headed out of town by ten-thirty. We stopped off at a diner on Virginia Street called Joes that is every bit as nice as the 5 and Diner in Phoenix. Darla had a mushroom burger and I opted for a tuna fish sandwich that was made with pickles and eggs and was as good as I've had in years. The diner had pictures of all of the cars fdrom the Hot August Nights car show and none of them were as nice as Dad's '46. It was a fun getaway and we were home in time for Daniel's football game.
Daniel's team played themselves out of the playoffs with a shoddy 33-22 loss to Woodland. Woodland is now 6-2 overall and 3-1 in league. We are 4-4 and 2-2 in league, about where we stood last year at this time. Woodcreek (our team) has never finished better than 5-5 which David's team managed last year. The coach wants the players to stay focused and concentrate on winning their last two games to finish 6-4 and 4-2 in league.
Darla and I bought some stain for the kitchen cabinets. I will sand them and touch them up and we will live with them for now. Our plan will be to completely refinish them within the next year or so. Darla wants to have them stripped and redone in a winter white look with hardware on the doors and interior hinges. I can live with them as they are for now. We also bought a new light fixture for the kitchen ceiling that I will have the boys help me install next weekend. We will move the kitchen fixture into the laundry room and replace the three foot neon fixture in there. It has a bad ballast and turns comletely on only when it really wants to. Otherwise it simply buzzes and leaves you in a gloom of light.
I spent yesterday doing the baseboards under the cabinets in the kitchen. My next chore will be the baseboards in the bedrooms and the living and family room once the carpet is in. The carpet is on order and we are waiting to hear when they will come out to install. We are having them do the study and the living and family room one day and then the other three bedrooms on the next day. The boys and I will tear out the basebords before they install the carpet and then install the new baseboards once the new carpet is in. The old baseboards are dark brown and the one inch variety. The new baseboards are 3 1/2 inches by 5/8 inch white with a molding on the top edge. I borrowed a mitre saw from our tile man to do the job and it has been a breeze.
Darla and I got the jet ski moved over to Alicia's house today. We have kept the ski here and Darla has parked the Explorer outside all Summer. The plan has always been that Alicia will store it for us in her garage as she has a two car garage and only one car. Now, Darla can park her car in the garage and it won't get so dirty so fast. The Mustang has stayed in the garage during the entire Summer because I'm a bit of a fanatic about my car. We will leave the ski there during the Winter and bring it back to our house late in the Spring. I still have five gallons of gas that I siphoned out of the tank that I've told David to use for his car. The tank that we have it in is used to refill the jet ski, so has a flexible hose and ballcock to make it easy to load. For David, that's about $15 worth of gas. It would only cost about $13.25 to replace it, but I paid $2.99 a gallon at the lake in Summer for that gas.
I talked to Jennifer on Monday when she was running between planes. She had arrived in Atlanta from Paris and was leaving the Customs area and running to catch her plane to Augusta. She will be in Augusta until about mid-week and then will be home in Sacramento. She will start job hunting and following up on some job offers that she has had right away.
For anyone who didn't get the e-mail from Dad, his 46 Mercury has been featured on a hot rod website. The article is in depth and I probably learned more about his car from this article than I had from Dad. The website is:www.hotrodsandclassics.net
You'll find Dad's car as the Featured Ride. Check it out, it's a decent read.
Darla is home and fixing some chicken soup for dinner. It is homemade and I look forward to that and some fresh french bread that she picked up at the bakery this afternoon.
Darla and Alicia had a garage sale on Saturday and I asked Darla if we made any money. She said that it was really Alicia's sale so that she could clear out the garage and make room for our ski. She sold some rugs for $1 and bought a leather recliner for $150. So, how much money did I make on the sale (-149.00)? Oy vey.
Well, I'd best get on to our evening. I'll fill you in on Jennifer's triumphant return next week. Stay well. Ciao. Ken-bediah.
Darla and I did sneak out of town on Thursday afternoon. The Atlantis casino in Reno had a cheap room rate of $29 for a luxury tower room and they comped us $50 for dinner, so it was a no brainer to pack up and head to the "Biggest Little City in the World". We got up to Reno about seven o'clock and got checked in before heading down to dinner. The question was where we would eat as the Atlantis has seven restaurants. We both brought just jeans so the Seafood and Steakhouse was out as it has waiters in tuxes and they serve the salad tableside out of a crystal bowl. We opted for the Prime Rib dinner at the Purple Parrot, the casino's coffee shop and dinner house. We actually had a chicken appetizer and shared a Prime Rib, with both of us eating salad and bread. We left stuffed and spent the balance of the night playing nickle slots. We were down quite a bit early on, but I got hot and started hitting four-of-a-kinds and then we stopped about midnight to get some dessert in the coffee shop. We shared a brownie decadence, some carmel and ice cream with chocolate sauce over the thinnest brownie you'll ever see. In fact, it looked like the brownie didn't rise when they baked it. We left to play a bit more (about another hour) and Darla finally warmed up and brought us back to almost even with several four-of-a-kinds.
The next morning we both slept in until nine a.m., which in some ways was more decadent than the brownie the night before. We packed up and headed out of town by ten-thirty. We stopped off at a diner on Virginia Street called Joes that is every bit as nice as the 5 and Diner in Phoenix. Darla had a mushroom burger and I opted for a tuna fish sandwich that was made with pickles and eggs and was as good as I've had in years. The diner had pictures of all of the cars fdrom the Hot August Nights car show and none of them were as nice as Dad's '46. It was a fun getaway and we were home in time for Daniel's football game.
Daniel's team played themselves out of the playoffs with a shoddy 33-22 loss to Woodland. Woodland is now 6-2 overall and 3-1 in league. We are 4-4 and 2-2 in league, about where we stood last year at this time. Woodcreek (our team) has never finished better than 5-5 which David's team managed last year. The coach wants the players to stay focused and concentrate on winning their last two games to finish 6-4 and 4-2 in league.
Darla and I bought some stain for the kitchen cabinets. I will sand them and touch them up and we will live with them for now. Our plan will be to completely refinish them within the next year or so. Darla wants to have them stripped and redone in a winter white look with hardware on the doors and interior hinges. I can live with them as they are for now. We also bought a new light fixture for the kitchen ceiling that I will have the boys help me install next weekend. We will move the kitchen fixture into the laundry room and replace the three foot neon fixture in there. It has a bad ballast and turns comletely on only when it really wants to. Otherwise it simply buzzes and leaves you in a gloom of light.
I spent yesterday doing the baseboards under the cabinets in the kitchen. My next chore will be the baseboards in the bedrooms and the living and family room once the carpet is in. The carpet is on order and we are waiting to hear when they will come out to install. We are having them do the study and the living and family room one day and then the other three bedrooms on the next day. The boys and I will tear out the basebords before they install the carpet and then install the new baseboards once the new carpet is in. The old baseboards are dark brown and the one inch variety. The new baseboards are 3 1/2 inches by 5/8 inch white with a molding on the top edge. I borrowed a mitre saw from our tile man to do the job and it has been a breeze.
Darla and I got the jet ski moved over to Alicia's house today. We have kept the ski here and Darla has parked the Explorer outside all Summer. The plan has always been that Alicia will store it for us in her garage as she has a two car garage and only one car. Now, Darla can park her car in the garage and it won't get so dirty so fast. The Mustang has stayed in the garage during the entire Summer because I'm a bit of a fanatic about my car. We will leave the ski there during the Winter and bring it back to our house late in the Spring. I still have five gallons of gas that I siphoned out of the tank that I've told David to use for his car. The tank that we have it in is used to refill the jet ski, so has a flexible hose and ballcock to make it easy to load. For David, that's about $15 worth of gas. It would only cost about $13.25 to replace it, but I paid $2.99 a gallon at the lake in Summer for that gas.
I talked to Jennifer on Monday when she was running between planes. She had arrived in Atlanta from Paris and was leaving the Customs area and running to catch her plane to Augusta. She will be in Augusta until about mid-week and then will be home in Sacramento. She will start job hunting and following up on some job offers that she has had right away.
For anyone who didn't get the e-mail from Dad, his 46 Mercury has been featured on a hot rod website. The article is in depth and I probably learned more about his car from this article than I had from Dad. The website is:www.hotrodsandclassics.net
You'll find Dad's car as the Featured Ride. Check it out, it's a decent read.
Darla is home and fixing some chicken soup for dinner. It is homemade and I look forward to that and some fresh french bread that she picked up at the bakery this afternoon.
Darla and Alicia had a garage sale on Saturday and I asked Darla if we made any money. She said that it was really Alicia's sale so that she could clear out the garage and make room for our ski. She sold some rugs for $1 and bought a leather recliner for $150. So, how much money did I make on the sale (-149.00)? Oy vey.
Well, I'd best get on to our evening. I'll fill you in on Jennifer's triumphant return next week. Stay well. Ciao. Ken-bediah.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Specialist Lyon is US bound
Jennifer is in the air somewhere as I write this. She is on her way back to US soil after turning in her gear and bidding a final farewell to Kuwait City. She will spend about a week to ten days in Georgia processing out of the military and will return to Sacramento as an Army veteran. I know that she is excited and Dad is proud and happy to see her return. Give her a call to welcome her home after Wednesday on her cell phone (916) 475-8148.
I forgot to mention yesterday Darla's experience last week on her early morning walk. She and Missy were on their regular walk when Missy grabbed Darla and said, "Look across the street!" There was a man (about 5'1" 200 pounds) naked as a jay and standing in his driveway. They hurried away without giving him any attention. Both Darla and Missy called the police and reported the incident to find out that the guy is not only mentally disabled, but a client of Darla's firm. Now that is the naked truth.
Welcome home, Jennifer!!!
I forgot to mention yesterday Darla's experience last week on her early morning walk. She and Missy were on their regular walk when Missy grabbed Darla and said, "Look across the street!" There was a man (about 5'1" 200 pounds) naked as a jay and standing in his driveway. They hurried away without giving him any attention. Both Darla and Missy called the police and reported the incident to find out that the guy is not only mentally disabled, but a client of Darla's firm. Now that is the naked truth.
Welcome home, Jennifer!!!
