Happy Memorial Day!

Sometimes cell phone pictures leave alot to be desired and the pictures from the jazz Festival this year are testament to that fact. Darla and I were working Sunday night when the pix were taken and we didn't want to have a camera with us. Besides, our little Canon Cool Pix took a swim with Samantha while we were in Vegas and is no longer working. You can see a picture of the house with the chocolate base and white trim. Our painter is S L O W and has been working on the job since Thursday last week, he hopes to have it finished tomorrow. He actually misjudged the amount of base paint and has to go back to Kelly Moore tomorrow and buy five more gallons to finish the house. He has three sides completed and only has the front and the tall part of the North side of the house left to paint. He is very good and only uses one worker, but certainly wouldn't win any speed contests. The picture of Benihana's is Joni and her fiancee. We met them on the day that I was in San Francisco with some of the staff and one of our Executive VP's was in from Detroit.

The Jazz festival was a great time and Darla worked it with me this year. The picture of her and I is after our shift and I am finally having my first beer, ergo the big smile. There is a picture of Peter and I. Pete was feeling no pain last night. The picture of Darla and the two women is Pete's wife, Vicki and their daughter, Jenna. Darla and I worked both Saturday and Sunday night and the night shift is generally pretty easy. We do the bar stocking and drive around to the six venues in Old Sacramento (in a golf cart) and fill any orders they have for more mix or booze. Saturday, we were done by 7 PM and spent an hour watching one of Darla's Silpada gals' group, the Black Catz sing and perform. Melody is a wonderful singer with a good personality and a great voice. We enjoyed the show and headed home early as I had another round of golf Sunday and then we were heading right back down to the Jazz festival.

Sunday night was more of the same, but we stayed on and partied with Pete and his family until about 11:30. They totally get into the event and wear beads and have a grab bag full of light up glasses and masks and hats, kazoos, and some unmentionable party favors that resemble parts of the female anatomy. Pete spends $100's of dollars on hotel rooms, booze, beer and snacks for his family. I couldn't half finish a beer before he was topping me off last night. I was feeling no pain by the end of the night and Darla drove home. They also have beach balls that they blow up and bat around the venue. Some of the revellers don't enjoy the experience as much as us as they get hit in the head with the ball or it spills their booze. One gal yelled at us to take it outside. We were in an area outside under the freeway called Freeway gardens and she was smoking a cigarette. We yelled at her to take her cigarette "outside". She responded by popping the ball with her cigarette. Nice. Matt from work joined us last night and one guy grabbed the ball and was trying to pop it and Matt batted it out of his hand. The guy looked at Matt and said, "oh, I'll get you later." Matt said, "what's wrong with now?" and the guy crawled off to the rock he was sitting behind. We had a ball.

I did get in two days of golf and shot 40+44 on Saturday in the practice round and then 44+40 in the tournament on Sunday. Bob shot a glorious 37+34=71 on Sunday in the tournament to take low gross. He was hot and eagled number 16. I came on finally at the end of the round and had back to back birdies on 16 & 17 (and won $36 in skin money). We have our Net Amateur championship on this Sunday and I am up to an 11.4 index which gives me 12 strokes. I'm playing to it as evidenced by my scores this weekend.

The office continues on our hot streak and we bettered our 2009 May by over $30,000 in net income. The office is smoking so far this year and I will take the gang out to lunch again this month. We have exceeded our budgeted income every month this year. It is fun stuff going to work every day.

Darla and I went to the Home Depot today and bought the Weber Genesis gas barbecue (you can see it in the picture above). It is $799, but completely stainless steel, including the grill itself. They put it together and one of the manager's delivered it a little after one this afternoon. We also bought a new throw rug for the family room, inspired by Jennifer's nice area rug in her home. Darla and I eat most of our meals on the table in the family room while watching television, it being just the two of us and I tend to be a bit of a pig and slop about, so Darla wanted to get a rug to put down in the area in front of and around the sofa sectional. I also bought some new screen material for the sliders and some wood for the enclosure around the air conditioner. That has seen better days and with the freshly painted house and pool deck, I decided to tear out the old one and rebuild it. Darla is out painting it right now with the quart of paint we bought to test the color on our house.

Well, I need to try out that new barbecue and have to say so long for now. I give thanks for the men and women that wear the uniform of the United States of America (unlike Barack Hussein Obama who blew off the service at Arlington National Cemetery today so he could return to Chicago..I'm PRAYING for one term and OUT). I am proud of Jennifer's service. I know she has changed her mind on the Iraq and Afghanistan offensives, but she served admirably her four years and it helped to make her the person she is today. God bless the USA. Ciao.

It has been a very mild Spring for Sacramento

You can see by the top two pictures that we are ready for Summer, but the weather has not so far cooperated. We have had an unusually mild Spring with only one day over 90 degrees and no 100's as of yet. The pool has not heated up to a usable temperature, although both Darla and I have been on the pool in the pool lounges reading so far this year. The water is still in the sixties and COLD. We hope to see some hot weather around the corner, but after a weekend in the low seventies, we are supposed to see rain and cooler temperatures Tuesday thru Thursday. I have to be in San Francisco for a meeting on Thursday and hope the wet weather holds off. The only saving grace is that I park in the office building that we are visiting and only brave the elements at lunch time. Eventually, the warmer weather will be here and we will look back on these cooler days with some lament.

I have a tri tip on the grill right now and I have decided with my $99 grill that I'm going this week and buying one of the nice big stainless steel grills at Home Depot. The grills at Peace canyon were so nice in Vegas and this POS in my backyard has got to go. We barbecue a lot and have family coming over on Memorial Day, so I'm inspired.

It was a nice quiet weekend this past weekend which makes up for the fun packed weekend we had last weekend and the very busy weekend upcoming. I played poker on Friday night (won about $25) and golfed Saturday 41+44=85, not bad coming off two weeks of inactivity. Darla had a Silpada gig up in Paradise and I went over after golf and picked up some plants to put in the front planter by the pool. Darla prefers flowers, but plants tend to hold up better to the chlorine in the pool and aren't as fragile when beach balls and things land on them. I took a couple of pictures of the plants. I moved the annuals that we had planted there and put them in two large planter bowls and placed those on either side of the pool.

Back from a delicious dinner of barbecued tri tip and fried rice. Darla has the bug that was with me last week and didn't eat dinner. I cut the meat on the small cutting board and while I ate the juices from the cut meat ran out onto the counter and down the front of the microwave to the floor. Always so nice after a big meal to have to clean and scrub the counters, floor and microwave. There really is no correlation, but I'm blaming the cheap barbecue.

I added more pictures of Miss Samantha. You can see the fifth picture down where she is fighting her tiredness to stay awake and watch Lilo and Stitch. The blue blanket is Darla's and one night when Jennifer was giving Samantha a cookie, Samantha said, "Look, Mommy, I'm Cookie Monster!" She is so smart. She also loved the animals at Bonnie Springs and you can see her big grin as she looks at the little goat. We had so much fun and are already talking about our next trip to Vegas where hopefully we can introduce Samantha to her Great Grandma and Grandpa Lyon.

Speaking of Dad and Shirley, they are back from their world cruise through Europe and Russia. Their itinerary showed them flying home last night from London after their marathon trip. I remember talking to Dad last year about how they were going to slow down and not take so many trips away. I guess they are only going to take two month long vacations this year.

I also talked to Randy this week and he is planning a trip either to Vancouver or Lake Tahoe for

his 50th birthday in August. Shirley didn't want to be in Vegas in August because it is so HOT. I'm up for either venue. Tahoe would be nice because then maybe Jen could join us and celebrate her 30th birthday as well.

I talked to our house painter tonight and he is finishing up a job in Auburn and will start on our house on Wednesday. Darla and I have picked a milk chocolate brown with white trim for the house. It should go with the roof that has alot of charcoal and browns in it.

I said next weekend will be busy. We have dinner Thursday night with Joni, Darla maid of honor in our wedding. She is getting married and we will meet her fiance for the first time. Saturday is golf and then Darla and I will work the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee in Old Sacramento Saturday night. We will work as liquor runners, bringing booze on a golf cart to the different bars in the outside venues in Old town. Pete's Mom has been in charge of the liquor service for years and this will be the second time I've worked the gig and the first for Darla. Sunday is the Memorial Day golf tournament for our club and Darla and I will again work the jazz festival on Sunday night. Monday, we have family over for a barbecue and get together. In the middle of all of this, Darla has another Silpada party. Whew!

Well, this is short, but it is already 8:30 and I want to join Darla on the couch. We want to call Dad and Shirley and that will happen either tonight or tomorrow. I hope you are all well, it was nice to be back in church this morning. be good. Ciao.

Happy Birthday to my Bride and What a week in Vegas!

Back from the land of Las Vegas and a fun and enjoyable week with Miss Samantha, Jennifer and Mike. With the kids both out of work, we were able to spend days with them and get some serious pool time in. Jennifer bought Sam an inflatable boat, a beach ball and a new shirt style "ring floatie" that was perfect for her in the water. The pictures above sort of capture our trip. The picture of Darla and I with the shocked look on my face was just after I got the bill at Macaroni Grill. Actually, just kidding, I'm just a dork in pictures. The picture of her and I with the same color shirts was taken at the Town Centre Mall when we went with Jennifer to do Darla's birthday shopping. I babysat Sam while Mom and Darla shopped. She is getting much better in public and had only a couple of outbursts which were quickly extinguished. She is a real "Mommy's Girl" and always wants to be close to Mommy. I snuck her away for a couple of walks and we looked at all of the birds and plans in the condo complex.

The condo ended up being very nice and we will keep it in mind for future trips to Vegas. The one bedroom condo with a full kitchen, laundry room and master suite is only $79 on hotels.com and $119 for the two bedroom unit. The resort has a full pool, large spa, a gym, covered parking, a social area with coffee, pool table, computer room and sitting area. It appears to me that this was at one time an upscale apartment complex that has been converted to time shares. The complex has gated access that is now left open at all times. The office is 24 hours. The complex also has full enclosed garages for the full time tenants. The location near Tropicana and the 215 freeway is about 15 minutes from Jennifer and Mike and not far from the Red Rock casino and the Suncoast casino.

We arrived late Wednesday night and by the time I got the car and found the condo it was after midnight. I didn't believe that the 215 crossed Tropicana as the streets run parallel downtown, but the freeway curves back north. I got off on Rainbow about five miles from the Tropicana off ramp and drove over to Tropicana and turned the wrong way ending up back at the strip. I turned around and took Tropicana 12 miles west through umpteen traffic lights before driving over the 215 freeway on my way to the condo. It was a bonehead moment that was quickly forgotten.

We got a couple of meals out with the kids, including Chili's one night and the Macaroni Grill one night. We also had steaks at the kid's apartment one night and a tri tip at our condo the last night with Mike's parents, Michael and Linda in from Livornia, Michigan, a town coincidentally that borders that of my home office in Farmington Hills. They are very nice folks. Linda was a bank VP and Mike worked for AT&T until his retirement last year. We were warned by Jennifer that they are staunch Democrats, so I met them with the greeting, "Obama's an idiot". Well, not really, but we avoided talk of politics. I did give Jennifer a bad time that I had overheard Linda saying, "Well, I knew she had tattoos, but that's ridiculous." Jennifer fell right in and smacked me when she realized I was kidding.

We also took Samantha, Mike and Jennifer to Bonnie Springs, an old ghost town and petting zoo in the hills of southern Las Vegas. They had been there before when Sam was five months old and John bought Samantha a deputy sheriff's badge and Jennifer wanted to get one like it for Samantha. we tooled around the park arriving from the parking lot in a little train on a looped track from the parking lot. Sam loved that. We watched a reenactment of a hanging that didn't finish before Sam got fussy sitting in the sun at a rickety old picnic table. The whole resort is a little cheesy, but the actors play it up for laughs. The deputy of the town got kicked out of the Marshall's office and ended up moving into the outhouse, where he does "alot of paperwork and keeps logs of his work". It was that level of humor, but enjoyable nonetheless. Jennifer found the badges, but they didn't have one for Samantha and most were rubbed kind of blurry from too many hands touching them. She finally picked one that was pretty clear, but didn't have Samantha's name on it. The clerk, a fifteen year old ditz told Jennifer she could fix it and ended up rubbing off he name with a nickel and hand printing SAM in felt pen. It was only $2, but Jennifer complained all the way home. We laughed.

Sam enjoyed the animals, although much like the Las Vegas Zoo this place was a bit of a ghetto petting zoo with pot bellied pigs, several goats and a deer that liked to chew on your clothes. They were the only animals in the "petting " zoo save for chickens and roosters. The rest of the animals, chinchillas, guinea pigs, lynx, foxes, birds of many varieties and even llamas were kept away for the kids. they had a large pond next to the restaurant that had turned green and was full of ducks and tortoises that Samantha seemed to enjoy. It was a hot and busy afternoon, but she hung in there like a trooper.

It was hard to say goodbye and getting harder as Sam becomes more vocal. She said goodbye and gave us hugs and kisses, waving to us as she walked back to the car. I'm sure she woke up this morning asking if they were going to Gramma and Papa's to swim as they did every day we were there. The weather was very nice ranging from 78 to 92 degrees during our visit. It was very windy last night as a storm rolled through and was howling between the condos. We awoke to a calm and clear day today and had packed up and on the way to the airport by 6 AM.

We had a great trip and plan to be in Vegas every three or four months to visit, even on just a long weekend as Samantha is growing up so fast. Michael is excellent with Samantha, which was surprising and a nice surprise to his folks. Michael being 36, single and never married. Jennifer has a good relationship with Michael and is lucky to have him as a partner raising Sam. We really enjoyed ourselves and I'm tired, kind of like a man who has been visiting with a two year old for six days. I can definitely recite lines from Lilo and Stitch, Little Mermaid and Alvin and the Chipmunks as the videos were on constantly in our condo.

Darla and I stole away for some grownup time on Sunday night, her birthday. We went to Bills's Steakhouse at Bill's Casino and both ate the prime rib. We gambled afterward, winning big early and watching it whittle away before stopping for dessert about 10:30 PM. We then went back and frittered the rest of our stash away and left empty handed, but having enjoyed ourselves.

Hopefully, we will be back in August to celebrate Jennifer's 30th birthday and Randy's 50th birthday. I need to check in with Randy and Cake soon to see how plans are shaping up. It would be nice to go early and play a golf game while we are there. Hopefully, they are up for the trip. Well, that's it for this week. I will, of course, add more pictures next week. be good and count the many blessing that our Lord and Saviour grants you every day. Darla and I just enjoyed our little blessing named Samantha for the last week. Ciao.

Las Vegas (and Sammy) Here We Come!!

No pictures this week, but I will make up for that next week. The blog will be late as we will be in Las Vegas from Wednesday until Tuesday the 18th.

It is Mother's Day and I stop yearly to give thanks for the 43 years that I was blessed to have Alice Lyon as my mother. She was funny, forthright, gregarious, outgoing, tender and tough all at once. She lived with four men who could be introspective and moody, yet she shined on all of us like a Summer sun. If I was ever in a bad mood, I had only to pick up the phone and Mom had me laughing within just a few minutes. We lost her way too early in both her life and ours, but she did shine bright for the time she had on earth and is likely drawing a crowd up in Heaven as the life of that party as well. Of all of the compliments that I can give Darla, the biggest is that she reminds me of my Mom with her constant laugh, positive outlook and sunny disposition. I am doubly blessed to have had a great Mom and a wife that herself is a tremendous mother. Happy Mother's Day to all of the Mom's in my life, including Jennifer who is turning into a GREAT Mother to Samantha.

We, of course, look forward to our trip to Las Vegas this coming week and our visit with Miss Samantha, and Jennifer and Mike. Darla and I are staying at the Cliff's at Peace Canyon, a condo complex in the Summerlin area of Las Vegas, well off the strip, but close to Jennifer. We couldn't get any family or friends to join us on this trip which is probably a condition of a rotten economy. At least that's how I prefer to view it. It will be Darla's birthday during our trip and I've told her to find a show that she wants to see in Vegas and that I will take her for a nice dinner and a Vegas show on Sunday night. It is supposed to be in the high 80's and low 90's while we are there. Nice.

I had my annual "over 50" exam with my MD two weeks ago. I picked a very small Indian woman named Uma as my personal physician precisely because she has small hands and (by definition) small fingers. Uma found my prostate to be a bit "hard" during the exam and suggested that I see a Urologist. She set me up for a second opinion "just to be sure" and has also scheduled me for a colonoscopy sometime this Summer. All the fun begins when you turn 50 and it all seems to center around your rectal area. What the Hell is with that? At any rate, I went into the main Kaiser Hospital campus in Roseville to see the Urologist. It turns out the Urologist is a man that could either have become a Urologist or crushed rock into diamonds with his bare hands. The man doesn't have hands, he has mitts. He came out and shook my hand, swallowing my tiny hand into his huge paw. I noticed that he had a splint on the middle finger of his right hand. My sense of curiosity is almost as strong as my sense of humor and I asked him if the broken digit was a workplace related injury. He smiled and held up his index finger and said, "Oh, no. This is the money finger." The site of his finger that looked more like a croquet stick than a finger made my blood run cold. He lubed up and gave me the exam as my back straightened like a card table. It turns out that I have an unusually small prostate and that is why my PSA tests are always so low. My doctor was likely feeling my urethra rather than my prostate. He tells me that I'm one of the lucky ones, but I had a bit of trouble believing it as I walked bowlegged out of the office on my toes with my spine straighter than it has ever been. Who needs Bowen therapy, when you have Doctor "Mitts" working for you?

The final round of the individual championship at our golf club was on Saturday and all of the good feelings that I've had about my game lately disappeared in that 4 and a half hours. I shot 46+44 and although my driver was crisp all day, I couldn't chip or putt to save my life. I hit one approach shot with a sand wedge from 105 yards that must have travelled 140 yards in the air. If I had a 40 foot putt, I'd hit it 25 feet and then blow my second putt 10 feet past the hole. I missed at least six putts inside of five feet and had to par the tough 425 yard 18th hole that is forever dead into the wind to save a 90. When I came into the clubhouse after my round, the guys in my flight all wanted to know how I did. I told them it was a good news, bad news round. The good news was that I shot a 79. The bad news was that was my net score. I don't know where I ended up in the tournament, but likely 5th after my blowup. Very disappointing and I'm actually looking forward to a week off the golf course this week.

Friday night was our fundraiser at the River Cats game, Sacramento's AAA baseball club that is the farm team for the Oakland A's. I went out on the field before the game and presented the large check to the Ronald McDonald House charities and Dan, our First VP, threw out the first pitch, actually getting the ball over the plate and into the catcher's mitt. Jeff and Linda were my guests and we had 189 strong at the game. It was fun, but so cold. We had 82 degrees during the day, but once the sun went down and the wind started rolling in off the river, it got nippy. I left my coat in the car and sat freezing. Linda shared her blanket with me and Jeff and I warmed up a little. We left at the start of the ninth inning with the locals down 10-6. If it had been a warmer night, we would have stayed. Darla had a Silpada gig, so it was just me. I had to carry the 3 foot by 5 foot check from the car to the game and some 10 year boy came up to me as I stood in line and asked what the check was for. I told him I didn't have any cash and wrote a check to get into the game. His parents didn't think I was funny. I guess seeing Bill Engvall this Spring inspired me.

My office is on a hot streak and we had another great month in April and I bought the staff lunch on Friday. We are on track for a record year with revenues and profits well ahead of 2009, which was our best year ever. Pete's assistant gave her notice this week and will move to Switzerland with her husband. The last three employees that I've lost have all moved overseas, Dinda to Korea, Ben to Thailand and Toni-Anne to Switzerland. What are we the UN? Hopefully we can find a good replacement for Toni-Anne who is a business graduate from UC Davis and very bright. She has helped Pete grow his book dramatically this year.

The deck guy showed up Saturday and touched up the stain job in the back yard. It is a nice variegated look and now I have a warranty for the work, which is nice. We are on the schedule for our painting contractor in early June and I look forward to seeing the house and shed repainted. I also want to install some pavers along the garden areas on the side and front of the house. I thought about a mow strip, but the Edgeguard pavers are nice and a tan color. As a homeowner, your work is never done.

Well, that is it for this week. Be good to each other and I'll write another epistle after our trip to Vegas. Be well. Ciao.

We now have a roof over our heads

Okay. I will get to the blog entry tomorrow night. I played two days of golf and got home after 6 PM tonight, so no entry tonight. I cherish my marriage and will get to this tomorrow night so check back. You can see a montage of photos, some of Alicia's baby shower, some of the new roof and the re-stained pool deck and some of the irrepressible Miss Samantha from a play date this weekend with her Mom. Ciao for now.

Monday May 3rd, 2010

Yes it was a crazy busy weekend and week as I had a two day golf tournament over the weekend and we had dinner with one of my clients at their home in Serrano on Saturday night. On top of all that, Darla had a baby shower with her sister, the roof was finally put on during the week and finished today and the back patio was stained. Jennifer sent me a new picture of Sammy at play with one of her cats and I added that as well.

Whew, I'm tired just thinking about it. The pictures from Alicia's shower were taken on Darla's I Phone and turned out pretty good. The picture of her with the diaper was from a game where the girls melt a candy bar into the diaper in the microwave and Alicia had to pick the candy bar by examining the contents and even sniffing. I suppose that somehow prepares her for motherhood, or simply is a reason for her friends to laugh at her.

Saturday night we had dinner with my agents, Jeff and Linda, at their home in Serrano. They bought the house form the bank and it belonged to a 25 year old man of middle east descent who was handed the keys and the title to his home by daddy and spent two years racking up untold bills, taking out numerous home equity loans on the house and getting into the party scene and drug scene before finally losing the house to the bank. Big surprise that a spoiled middle eastern boy would screw up that badly. Jeff and Linda have spent the year that they have owned the house remodeling and have a beautiful 5400 square foot home with a showpiece 1400 square foot master suite. Linda fixed a marvelous dinner of seafood pasta in a light Alfredo sauce and we drank wine and enjoyed our visit immensely. As Darla said, when it's our turn to have you over to our house, we'll take you out to dinner. We are not social climbers at all, but this house was incredible.

My golf this weekend was amazing. It was nice Saturday, low eighties and I took advantage of the conditions and shot a 41+39=80 and shot the low gross in my flight for a $35 daily prize. Both Boyd and Bob struggled and I was proud to hang on and shoot a good score. Bob shot 86 and Boyd shot 44 on the front and left after 9 holes. Our treasurer came up to me before the round and handed me an envelope for $32 from the master's tournament skins last month. I birdied number 14 and won $28 on Saturday. Sunday was a completely different day and it was WINDY, with gusts up to 40 MPH. We had a lot of dropouts and WDs during the round and some big scores. one guy went from a 81 on Saturday to a 99 on Sunday. I struggled in the wind, even dunking one in the pond in front of the 10th tee which is only 180 yards to carry. The wind was dead in our face and I popped it up enough to have the wind kill it and dejectedly watched the splash. I had a very uneven day that sort of matched on my scorecard the direction of the wind. I had an 8, three sixes, two birdies and a 43+43=86. I also won $22 in skin money and went from third net on Saturday to tied for second and maintaining my lead by one stroke on the gross side. My flight pays one gross payout and the rest net. I can't win the net barring an implosion by the leader, a 16 that shot 82 and 85 for a -9 score. I'm even par and tied with three other golfers. I have my eyes on the gross prize. I got pushed into the B Flight this tournament, which ranges from my 11 up to 17 handicappers. One of the other 11's was one stroke behind me gross Saturday. He shot 14 over on the front nine yesterday, posted his card on the scoreboard with a large WD written on it and walked off the course. I'm looking forward to Saturday. The driver is working well right now.

I went out with several members of the golf committee of the Insurance Agents and Brokers group that I am on the board of Thursday and we played Lincoln Hills, the Hills course. I drove the first green, a 295 yard par four and started with a two putt birdie on my way to a 39+41=80. Bob joined me and we had a ball in the 80 degree temperatures.

Friday night is our annual fundraiser, a Sacramento River cats AAA baseball game. We will present a $5,000 check to the Ronald McDonald House NorCal charity and throw out the first pitch. It is $1 hot dog and ice cream night and Jeff and Linda will be my guests at the game. Darla has a party for Silpada and will bag out on us. I hope to get some pictures down on the field of us presenting the check. I set up the fundraiser this year and was going to throw out the first pitch, but the First VP has a 10 year old son and he wants him to see dad throw out the first pitch. I was happy to accommodate him on that and will boo lustily if he doesn't get it over the plate.

The roofers were out today and installed the gutter guards on the house. The city inspector was also out and signed off on the final roof inspection. They did a nice job and cleaned up well after themselves. Well....actually I went up in the attic on Saturday to get something down and a pile of dirt and debris rained down on me when I opened the pull down stairs. The roof was completely removed including the plywood and alot of the debris remains in the attic. I will take a shop vac up there in the coming weeks and clean off all of our belongings that are now caked with a layer of sawdust and tar paper.

The deck turned out very nice, but there is a defined color change in the pavement next to the house and I've asked the landscaper to come out and re stain that area. He wasn't happy as I worked him pretty hard on the price and he was contracted for only one coat of stain, but already had to put on two coats to get the color right. I think he was planning to skimp close to the house, but it is almost a palpable line of dark and light stain. I wouldn't leave it like that if I did the work and I won't let him either. I owe him $750, so he is motivated to finish the job right. The stain is a very mottled and variegated look and really what I wanted when I stained it, but it always looked like paint when I finished the job.

Darla and I have contracted with our friends who own Auburn Painting to repaint the house. With a new toupee on the roof, we decided to have the face lifted as well. Darla and I are arm wrestling over colors right now. The house is currently a blue gray base with white and cobalt blue trim. I want to stick with essentially the same colors, but change the window trim to the cobalt blue now that we have white gutter. Darla is okay with the blue, but wants a tan base color. She usually wins in these things. Jeff with Auburn painting won't be able to start for two weeks, so we have time to fins the right colors.

David sent me a great video of the implosion of Texas Stadium. Check it out at this website: http://www.dallascowboys.com/farewell/Texas_Stadium_Implosion.cfm You can move your position around and watch the demolition in a 360 degree arc from the middle of the stadium. Cool stuff.

Well, that's it for this week. I hope everyone is doing well. I think often of Dad and Shirley on their trip and hope that they aren't without water or have an invasion of mice or some other calamity on board the ship. They do manage to have some interesting vacations. When there shower leaked at the condo in Mexico last year, I thought "Oh no, here we go." but they managed to pull it together and have a great trip. Here's praying that their trip is going smoothly. Be well. Ciao.

A wifeless weekend

Bob's daughter, Stephanie, sent me some more pictures from Reno and I added those along with a picture of one of my underwriters, Pete, and his wife Vicki. We took them out to dinner at Redhawk Casino in Placerville to celebrate a really good month that Pete had in March. Pete is a kick and we had a great time harassing the waiter and waitress and eating some really good food. We ate at Henry's steakhouse in the casino and they had aged beef and great appetizers, salads, sides and wine. We enjoyed it all and then did a bit of gambling and met them back upstairs to listen to some good country music from a local band that was playing.

As I was writing this, Darla sent me a picture of she and her Mom from the event she did up in Paradise. Frances showed up and helped Darla run the booth at one of the local parks in Paradise. Darla was gone last night ansd stayed with her parents. Also, Diane and Bob were in Vegas last week and sent some pictures of Samantha for us. Nice. Jennifer is trying to grow Samantha's bangs out, but they need to be cut. I remember that Jennifer had the same hair as Samantha and it was always a struggle.

You can see the snow still up on the mountains in Reno. It is hanging around a little longer this year and we have another storm blowing in this week. I'm also in the middle of a re roof and right now we have new plywood, gutters and felt paper on the roof. The storm is due in Tuesday and the roofer is hoping to get the inspection signed off and the new shingles up on Monday. The crew has done a great job and cleaned up well after themselves, but the crew that put the felt on Saturday took the scraps and jammed them in my garbage can. Not cool. Hopefully they get done Monday or we will be living with a large garbage bag on our house through Wednesday when the storm is supposed to blow out of here.

I have also signed a contract to have the back patio stained by a landscaping professional. I got tired of doing it every year and now have a warranty that it will last. They plan to be out on Thursday and do the stain and seal.

I played golf yesterday and today in the Roseville City Amateur. I played okay yesterday, but finished poorly, shooting an 85. Today, my tee time was 9:40 AM and I got to the course about 9 AM and checked in and went to breakfast at the grill. Just as my breakfast sandwich arrived, they called me to the tee. Apparently, the time had changed overnight to 9:16 AM. and the genius in the pro shop didn't share that with me. I rushed over to the tee and teed off. We couldn't find my drive in the right rough, that borders the driving range and is choked with driving range balls and I had to take the walk of shame back to the tee and hit another shot. I really wasn't ready to go and was getting hot. I ended up with a 7 on the par 4 and shot 44 on the front side. I called it a day and withdrew from the tournament. I had a splitting headache and my game was not up to my standards and there was plenty I could do back at the house.

I was out last night at Thunder Valley Casino and had gone in order to watch one of our local athletes, Urijah Faber fight in a WEC event. It is mixed martial arts and the event was televised on pay per view. The casino had the fight on their television monitors that are all over the casino. He was pretty soundly defeated, although it was by decision and at 30 his career is likely over. I stayed on for a bit at the casino, lost about $50 and headed home.

I worked on the yard, repaired a sprinkler line, planted some more groundcover around the pool where the Goof-Off that the landscaper used to strip the stain from the concrete leached into the plants. Our groundcover is extremely hardy and I can clip and replant the groundcover to fill in any spots that are a little thin. I also cleaned the pool and added chlorine and brushed it. I also managed to find time to fall asleep for a couple of hours on the couch in the living room. It was about 80 degrees today and a great weekend.

Up soon for us is our trip to Las Vegas in May. Our friends have bailed on us and if Darryl and Cheryl don't end up joining us we may have Mike and Jennifer join us over the weekend if we don't end up with friends as we have a two bedroom condo just off the strip.

Dad and Shirley are off to Europe and another marathon cruise. They left from Florida yesterday and will be on the water until Thursday crossing the Atlantic.

I did get the Modesto office shut down last Thursday. I picked one guy to take the file cabinets. he was waiting for me when I got there, but decided not to take them as they were "bigger than they looked in the pictures". I was planning to do a walk through with the property manager at 11:00 AM, so scrambled and called three people on my list getting voice mail for all of them. When I was calling the fourth, one guy called me back and was there in fifteen minutes. He had a dolly and a Ford Ranger. He jammed all three of them onto the back of his pickup, tied them down and was gone. I did the walk through with the landlord and gave her the keys and fairly danced back to my car and waved goodbye to Modesto as I drove back to the office.

Well, the update is short on content, but big on pictures, so i will call it a night. I hope all is well with you and Spring is taking hold. The warmth of the sun does fabulous things for the psyche. be well. Ciao.

A Warm weekend in RENO

It was a great and relaxing weekend away. Darla has been working so much with Silpada and her Arco Arena gig, that it was nice to have a weekend with each other. My friend, John set up a nice hotel suite for us at the Silver Legacy. Reno has improved in that the El Dorado, Silver Legacy and Circus Circus casinos are combined together and you don't have to go outside to go between the casinos. The weather was borderline Hot with 77 degrees on Saturday and 81 degrees yesterday. The temperature feels even warmer because you are in the high altitude.

We got up to the casino about 6:30 on Friday night and hooked up with Bob and Debbie for dinner. It was Bob's 59th birthday and we celebrated by going out to dinner at the Steakhouse at Circus Circus. We had originally made a reservation at Sterling's in the Silver Legacy, but switched out when we found out that they charge about $45 for your steak and everything else is ala carte. The Steakhouse at CC is very nice, upscale and they serve you your salads at the table adding whatever you want to the salad. Bob had a Caesar salad and they prepared that table side with anchovies and the whole shooting match. Circus Circus has a fixed price menu and Bob and I both had the Steakhouse burger. Sounds kind of boring, but the burger is served on a huge Kaiser roll and is made from ground New York steak and filet mignon. It truly was a steak burger and you don't ruin the flavor with ketchup and mustard. A little steak sauce and salt and pepper was perfect. The fixed price menu is $18 and includes appetizers, main dish and a dessert. We all left stuffed. The casino was crowded as Tony Bennett was playing in the showroom and a bowling convention was in town. I fit right in with my gray hair.

Golf Saturday was a little rough for me as Darla and I stayed up until 2 AM gambling the night before and I was awake at 6:30 AM and couldn't get back to sleep. those free drinks from the night before were playing with my nerves and I four putted the first hole for a double bogey. I did birdie number two and ended up with $36 in skin money. That, unfortunately, was the highlight of the weekend. I struggled both days shooting 94 on Saturday and 92 on Sunday.

I was a little down in the dumps when we got back on Saturday and paced the room a bit. Darla was down getting a pedicure at the spa with Debbie and I showered and was relaxing looking out the picture window, when I looked down and saw police cars, yellow tape and a body under a tarp. Some poor schmuck ended it all with a swan dive off the ten story El Dorado parking garage. I watched as the coroner came and inspected the body, took photos and hauled him away. By six o'clock, the maintenance crew had scrubbed and power washed the lot and all signs of the trauma were washed away. We found out later when Darla went back to the spa Sunday to get a toenail touched up that the manicurist was in the garage right before the guy jumped. He was arguing with his girlfriend, cussing and ranting. His body was a good fifteen feet from the edge of the building, so he definitely jumped. It was a little freaky and I had to go meet people and drink some good red wine. It just wasn't right.

We did meet Steve and Brenda who came over to see the excitement of the suicide in our room as they were across the hall and looked out over Virginia Street. We had a bottle of wine with them along with Bob and Debbie and Bob and Vicki and then walked over to John and Camille's suite at the El Dorado. John knows the GM at the El Dorado and he fixed them up with a great suite. A hot tub was in one corner, a couch and love seat in the other and a pedestal with a pop-up 40 inch television at the foot of the bed. You push a button and it rises from the pedestal ala Jay Leno on the Tonight Show. We had more wine and appetizers with John and the whole gang and then walked four blocks over to the Old Santa Fe Basque restaurant on Lake Street directly behind Harrah's.

The Old Santa Fe is great and also has a fixed price menu. $19 for chicken, $22 for New York steak and $24 for rib eye. Darla and I both had the rib eye and they served lamb stew, steak soup, bread, green salad, beans, french fries, beef tongue, wine and our main course followed by ice cream for dessert. The party was alot of fun and we had 20 for dinner. You can see the pictures above. They also serve Pecan Punch, which is a house specialty and made of pecan liqueur, a Toscana liqueur, a splash of soda and a floater of brandy on the top. Gasoline flavored Pecan brandy, I'd call it, but it kind of grows on you. We hung with the gang for awhile afterwards and then made our way off to the poker machines. I'd say we lost about $150 over the weekend, but didn't pay for our room, so it was a wash.

Darla and I have invited John and Camille to join us in Las Vegas in May and they are trying to work their schedules out to do it. Hopefully we can make that happen, but we will be there with or without friends. Jennifer hosted her Mom and her husband and her step brother who turned 21 on Saturday night at midnight. We talked to Jennifer last night and she sounded tired.

I had one of those "oops" moments at work today. I wore khaki pants and brought a leftover barbecued chicken breast for lunch. We have cheap Wal Mart silverware in our kitchen at work and the knife I was using broke in half, flew up in the air and landed right on my crotch covered in barbecue sauce. Nice. Luckily, I have the waterproofed pants by Docker and the sauce wiped right up. I was using a wet napkin and it didn't even dampen the pants at all.

Darla and I did sign our contract to have the roof redone next week. They are putting on a charcoal colored composition tile. I have also had a company out to clean the tile and back splash on the pool and have set up to have another contractor come out and do the staining of the deck surrounding the pool. He agreed to do it for $1,300 and my cost with just materials and sealant would be close to $700. He is also giving me a 4 year warranty against peeling or fading, which is worth it . What I want is to have the work done and forget about it instead of having to worry about it every swim season.

Work is going strong. Darla and I will take my number two underwriter and his wife to dinner at Henry's Steakhouse in the new RedHawk casino in Placerville on Friday night. I personally will be celebrating the close of the Modesto office and the success that Pete has been having so far this year. He has made a strong case as a superior underwriter this year and deserves recognition.

I had over 50 calls on the free furniture out of Modesto and settled on a start up company and a guy with a big enough truck to haul the stuff. I got rid of everything except three lateral file cabinets that I have to pass off this week. I will then do a walk through of the offices with the property manager and wave goodbye to Modesto. The one guy with the startup showed up first without any help. I set him straight that I would not be moving furniture that day. He walked across the street and hired two Hispanic gentlemen to help him move. He loaded up his Dodge Ram and drove over to his shop where another guy would help him unload. When he got back, his two helpers were busy moving equipment for the other guy. Ray was furious and started yelling. I told him to calm down and he apologized after getting an agreement to have the other guy chip in part of the $15 per hour he was paying his guys. I let them take everything and told them that the only thing I needed was a desk chair for my Modesto employee who works out of her house. I put it in the corner, propped my briefcase and laptop on it and when I finally took a break and went to the bathroom, the guy with the big truck had set my stuff on the floor and was gone with the chair. I would think in the scope of things that would be pretty bad karma to steal a chair from a guy who is giving you free office furniture, but what the hey.

Well, dinner is being called and I'm hungry. I had blood drawn this morning after a 12 hour fast and I'm a little low right now. I hope you are all well. Be good to each other and Dad and Shirley: "Bon Voyage." We'll call you Wednesday night. Ciao.

Rainy Sunday

The rain is not such a bad thing as the final round of the Masters was on TV and I enjoyed the show as Phil Mickelson won one for Amy, his wife who is battling breast cancer. Tiger showed up and exhibited some rust from his self imposed exile from the game, but played well, sort of as well as someone would with no real conscience. He proved that he may not be the best golfer right now, but he's still the best swinger. It was entertainment watching him struggle and try to control his notoriously hot temper. The CBS cameras only caught him swearing once and he seemed in control of his emotions most of the time. Phil was sort of lost in the shuffle with the focus on Tiger and he snuck up on the weekend and into control today with a safe and almost boring style of golf. He controlled his urge to go for the throat and only once tried a big gamble and that was on number 13 when he was behind a tree and his ball sitting on pine straw and he still hit a 5 iron 210 yards over the creek and onto the green about eight feet from the hole (he missed the putt).
Darla and I continue to work on the house and spent yesterday after my golf game driving around Roseville and Rocklin looking at roofs that have been done by our choice for a roofing contractor. His bid is less than anyone else's and that made Darla a bit wary. We were able to talk to a couple of the homeowners and get their feedback on the construction work and cleanup and have so far heard good things. I will check the Contractor's State Licensing Board and see if he has had any complaints against him, but I think after our excursion yesterday we are ready to sign a contract. This last big storm of the season (we average an inch of rain in April and go down monthly from there) will remind me of why we need the roof done as shingles from the roof litter my driveway from the strong winds and our gutters leak in about three different sections. This storm is forecast to bring over an inch of rain to the valley itself. We will have a Premium Owens Corning lifetime composition shingle roof put on with ridge vents and upgraded felt and OSB, new gutters and downspouts and gutter guards installed throughout. I have so many trees that shed their leaves annually and I installed plastic gutter guards on the gutters about five years ago that have curled up and split in places. One section of the gutter split when the downspout clogged a few years back and I used a welders glue to put it back together, which has held fine but looks like poop. I should see if I can get someone to come out and blow out the underground tubes that channel the water from the downspouts to the edge of the grass.
I am also getting bids from contractors for the pool deck. I had the boys strip off the old latex stain on the concrete, but rather than do it myself every two years, I'd like to get a professional to color the stamped concrete and seal it so that it lasts. I've had several bids that are all in the $3,000 range and involve stripping the concrete and acid staining the deck followed by a sealer. I have one more guy coming out on Tuesday that swears by the water based staining and he will undoubtedly be much less in cost.
Finally, I had a tile cleaner come out yesterday and inspect the pool. He will come out and take off all of the calcium and stains from the tile and backsplash and I will seal the tile and river rock when he is done. Darla and I are planning for Summer. We will not take a Mexico vacation this year and plan to spend a lot of time on and in the pool this Summer.
Next weekend we will be in Reno for a two day golf event. Darla and I will stay at the Silver Legacy Casino Friday and Saturday night and I will play De-Andrea in Sparks on Saturday and Wolf Run in Reno on Sunday. We have many of our friends joining us on this event. It is Bob Hand's birthday on Friday and we will find nice steakhouse to celebrate his birth. Saturday night we will get a group of about 24 together fro dinner at The Old Santa Fe restaurant in Reno. It is a Basque style restaurant and they bring out wine, soup, salad, bread, pasta, relish trays, more wine, vegetables, mashed potatoes, more wine, french fries, your main course, more wine, dessert, followed by more wine. All for $17.99 a person. I look forward to getting away with Darla. She will shop and do spa activities with the ladies while the guys golf. The blog will be back on Monday night next week as we will be gone and likely get back late Sunday. I will have pictures from our trip and I'm still waiting for pictures from Jennifer.
Tomorrow night I will take Anthony from work and we will go to a dinner with the Sacramento Kings served at their practice facility and then be given lower bowl tickets to the King's final home game of the season. I arranged a group outing this year and this dinner is for the group leaders to thank them for their support this year and I'm sure also to get us to sign up for another group event next year. My group is doing a Sacramento River Cats AAA baseball game in may this year and I'm not in charge of the fundraiser for next year so I doubt that we'll sign up for anything. The free grub and tickets to the game are nice though.
I went out and hit balls on Tuesday night. Woodcreek has $2 Tuesdays and the range balls are half price. While I was there I picked up some new golf shoes on a special size sale in the breezeway. These are $150 Footjoys called "Reel Fits". They had my size for $89 (one pair only). The shoes do not have laces, but a system of plastic laces that hook into a wheel behind the heel. You simply crank the wheel to tighten the shoes and pull the wheel out to loosen the laces. Old Man shoes!! They are great.
I played in our master's tournament on Saturday and shot 42+40=82. Kind of same old, same old with my scoring lately, but I had two birdies and shot a 6, 5, 2, 4 and 3 on the first five holes of the back side for an interesting scorecard. On the par three 12th i put the ball 37 " from the hole and sank the birdie putt ot win closest to the hole. i also won $38 in skins for my two birdies. It keeps me coming back, but I'd sure like to put up a score in the 70's soon. My last score in the 70's, a 79 in February is the only one in my last twenty scores. I range from that 79 to an 87 and most of my scores are between 81 and 84. My index is up to a 10.6 and I will get a 12 on both of the courses that we play up in Reno. I'd like to do some damage up there and maybe win a ournament for a chnge. I took 5th in my flight yesterday out of 22 golfers.
I also hosted poker on Friday night. I've been playing poker for over 25 years, some with the same guys in my group now and although I enjoy the fellowship, I'm starting to tire of some of the games. The guys like to play Texas Hold'em, which for me has been ruined by ESPN who show the WSOP nightly. I prefer to play cards from the cards in my hand and not community cards. I may need to take a break for awhile to get my interest back. Darla fixed Italian sausages with grilled onions and peppers for us Friday night and the guys loved it.
Well, that's it for this week. I hope you are all well. We went to church this morning in the wind, but before the rain started, and heard a sermon on going the full mile for Christ. The story was about Abraham's father who left with the family for Canaan, but stopped halfway on his journey and settled in Haren. A good reminder that we need to sell out to Christ at all times in our life and not be a lukewarm Christian. I hope you are all healthy and happy. Be well. Ciao.