The Holidays are Here

It is amazing to me how fast the Fall has come and gone. It seems like we were just swimming and relaxing in the pool two weeks ago. Oh, wait, we were, but that was Nuevo Vallarta. Dad and Shirley are in Hawaii and I lost their e-mail that said when they would be back. I know they left the week that we were in Mexico. Darla has the tree up and the house decorated, but I won't put the lights on the house until next weekend. It has to be December for me before we start burning the Christmas lights on the house.

The boys were home for Thanksgiving and they ventured out Thursday night to get the Black Friday deals. What a marketing gimmick the retailers have come up with and how the American public follows in line like sheep. WalMart will bring in 25 42 inch tvs and sell them for $199 and 500 people will show up with pepper spray in hand to try to get one of the loss leaders. I've learned to do almost all of my shopping online and tomorrow is Cyber Monday, another gimmick, but one that they can't limit quantities on. I'm in the market for a new laptop as I'll be working this next year as the handicapper for our golf club and want to be able to use a laptop to store all of my handicapping tools and programs on. I was thinking of getting an HP laptop, but Daniel talked me out of it and has me looking at a Lenovo. He had all sorts of problems with his and now Darla's has a short in it where you have to have the lid open about eight inches for the screen to turn on. Both David and Daniel have Lenovo's and swear by them. We'll see.

We had a very nice holiday weekend with temperatures close to 70 degrees once the sun came out. Friday was gorgeous with a bright blue sky and warm temperatures. I woke up about *;00 AM and realized that I had forgot to put out the trash the night before and ran out to see if it had already come. It had. The day was so nice that I threw on some sweats and washed the 300 for our trip to Paradise and Darla's folks for our one day late thanksgiving celebration. Darla and i had fixed a small turkey on Thursday and watched NFL games all day. I think Darla was on overload by the time Baltimore had wrapped up their game against the Niners.

The drive up to Paradise was nice, but it got colder and more overcast the farther north we went. It had rained overnight in Paradise and everything was fresh and clean and the sun finally showed it's face about 2 PM. We ate a big helping of Thanksgiving fare and I promptly fell asleep on Earl and Francis' very comfortable recliner in the living room. The guys were playing cards and I said that I'd catch the next game, that I was just going to close my eyes for a minute and woke up 90 minutes later. I gave Earl a bad time as we hadn't been up to see them since Easter. I told him that and he said that we never come see him. I told him that I come up every time I get invited.

I did play golf on Saturday and unlike Friday it was foggy, wet and cold. i played with Boyd, Matt and Darren and I shot 41+44=85. Matt shot 81, Boyd had his regular 78 and Darren shot 94. It was good being out with the guys and I enjoyed getting a little exercise after all the heavy meals of the two prior days. I then went out and raked leaves off the side street side of our house. I have six trees on that side and they are all shedding their leaves at a frantic pace. I raked them into piles on the street and the city should be out Monday to pick them up. Darla and I went to church last night.

Today we just relaxed and I watched football as Darla put up the holiday decorations. I went out at halftime of the afternoon games and cleaned up around the pool and vacuumed up leaves from the interior side yard of the house next to the garage. I sprayed down the deck and realize that I will probably have to put another coat of the stain down on the patio next Spring.

The picture of Samantha is from Jennifer's FaceBook and a picture taken by John and shared with Jennifer. We Skyped with Jennifer and Samantha last Tuesday and we only saw flashes of Samantha on the screen as she somersaulted by. She was standing on her head on the couch in the back of the room and we were laughing at her and I think she decided to put on a show for us. The Skype experience isn't quite up to the energy level of a three year old. Samantha will turn 4 later in December. Jennifer flew out to Dallas and spent thanksgiving with her Mom while Samantha spent it with John and his family.

Well, that is it. I have some boxes top put back up in the attic and Darla is fixing turkey tacos for dinner. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Remember as you face the hustle and bustle of the holidays, remember the words of C.S. Lewis: "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." Amen to that. Ciao.

Wet Leaves, Fires and cooler weather

We are definitely not in Mexico anymore as the weather in Northern California has turned wet and cold. Darla and I have been burning a fire in the fireplace the last few evenings and she has a big pot of chicken and asparagus soup on the range awaiting dinner. She just ran out to get us some hot french bread from the store to go with the meal. I just came in from muscling wet leaves out of the gutters, sidewalks, driveway, flowerbeds and lawn and putting them in piles on the street for pickup by the city. If we don't get a heavy wind between now and pickup, my plan may actually work. There were some high school kids across the street playing a game of tackle football and they were completely muddy and having a great time. Their parents won't be too thrilled when they get home and drag mud throughout the house, though.

I did get in a game of golf yesterday between rainstorms. It was actually fairly warm just after we teed off, but the winds blew in and the clouds with it and the sun left us and the temperature dropped pretty substantially on the back nine. I managed a 40+44=84 and got a $20 gift certificate to the grocery store for my troubles. Darla was quick to glom on to the gift card and took it with her to get supplies tonight. It was our Turkey Shoot tournament and I stayed late with Gary to post scores for the tournament. I have been asked by the incoming President of RGC to take over as Handicapper this year and I was working with Gary to see how the job has change din the nine years since I held the position. Not tremendously, actually, just a better use of technology and handicapping programs. I will take over in January and have asked Darla for a new laptop for Christmas. I have the desktop here at home which is getting dated and I can use the laptop for the Handicap Director position with the club. Gary has been great in showing me the ropes and I told him that I'd keep the position warm for him this year. He has been our handicapper for about seven years.

I had to run by the new office site this week to take a look at some possible temporary space that we may occupy before we move into the new redesigned space. Our current landlord has a trigger in our lease that allows them to increase our rent 100% if we decided to stay over. Our leasing agent had a meeting with them on Friday to see if they would waive the trigger and they can continue to see some revenue for the space past December 15th. I'm not willing to pay $18,000 a month for 5500 square feet. Our new lease is only $8,500 for 4000 square feet. Hopefully he made some headway as I really don't want to move twice. Obviously, if we have a fallback position and they realize that they are about to lose us, they will come to their senses. I would think it would be better to have three or four months at $9,000 than another vacancy in their 60% occupied building. This is a new owner that just bought the buildings in Rancho Cordova in June. I've included some pictures of the building as well as some pictures of my cute little granddaughter.

The boys will be home this week and we will celebrate Thanksgiving. They will be with their dad on Turkey Day as the Niners are on that night and we will go up to Darla's folks in Paradise on Friday. Daniel is a short timer as he will graduate in December, although he will walk in the ceremony in June. Hopefully, he finds a job quickly, maybe with Cal Trans or the Army Corps of Engineers. David has two more quarters left and will graduate in June, although he is two years older than Daniel. I think he just likes school.

We tried to Skype with Jennifer and Samantha on Friday, but Sam wasn't interested and frustrated her Mom too much. Jennifer is enjoying her job and will finally get to spend some time in Vegas working now that her company hired another tech in California. She was not happy being away from Sam so much during the week. Check out her Facebook page, they were making cupcakes this afternoon.

My Underwriting Manager, Pete, has been invited to Home Office (Headquarters) for some training and an opportunity to meet all of the Home Office managers and underwriters/departments. It will be a good trip for him and now he'll have some idea of what I do when I'm back there. He flies in December 4 and flies back on the 7th and he will be busy from 7AM until 10:00 PM every night. I look forward to hearing how he handles the jetlag. That trip follows his annual trip to Cabo San Lucas, where he leaves Thanksgiving Day and returns the following Thursday.

Well, Thanksgiving this week. I will return to the blog next week with pictures and tales of all of the overindulgence. Hope all of you have a blesses Thanksgiving as well. Just remember WHO give thanks to, eh? Ciao!

Back in the Country after a fun trip to Nuevo Vallarta

Back home after a fun trip to Mexico. Stan and Mary Frazer are friends that Darla made when she and Mary worked together at Alta. Funny thing is that I met both Stan and Mary when Jennifer was in middle school and she was friends with their daughter, Lindsay and they lived close to Diane. They still live in Folsom. They were great travel companions, open for everything and ready to travel, swim, drink or eat.

We had some issues early on in the trip. We flew out Sunday morning at 6:00 AM and ran into our neighbors from behind us who were on their way to Cozumel. Our flight was to Phoenix and we had a layover there. When I walked off the plane, I went to the Departures board and saw the flight to Puerto Vallarta was at Gate A-7. We went and had our travel docs checked and approved at the gate and then went to have breakfast. We finished and ran to the gate and were boarded after having our boarding passes checked. We were one of the last groups on the plane and we had another couple already in our seats. I called the flight attendant over and she checked both their tickets and ours and said the seats had been "double booked", but there were plenty of seats available and we just moved up three rows. As we were getting ready to push back from the gate, I looked out at Gate A-9 and saw our flight number and Puerto Vallarta as the destination on the neon sign on the Jetway. We were on the wrong plane!! The jet pushed back and we took off.

When we arrived, our luggage was not on the plane as we were on the wrong flight. We waited for the correct plane 90 minutes later and our bags (and my clubs) were not there either. We filled out lost luggage paperwork and took our carry ons to the resort. Darla and I had packed swimsuits and tank tops in the carry-on and were able to swim, but I had to miss golf on Monday. They called us Sunday night and wanted to know where to send our luggage. I told him Nuevo Vallarta and he said that we did not check in for our flights and they pulled the luggage off the plane. I told him we checked in on the earlier flight and to send it. He said they had no record of that and how did he know we were in Puerto Vallarta? I told him we checked in on a US Airways flight and perhaps the TSA might be interested in how lax their security was in Phoenix. He told me our luggage would be on the first flight in the morning and would be delivered to our resort.

We had to go without our toiletries and went out Sunday night and bought toothpaste and a toothbrush, deodorant and some sunscreen. Stan and Mary bought swimsuits and other clothes as well as toiletries and plan to bill it to US Airways. We spent the day at the pool and our luggage finally arrived at 4:00 PM. The bags and some of the clothes were wet and we found out that it had rained in Phoenix the night before. We called and told them to add that to our claim.

It got much better after that and we had a nice meal Monday night after getting to clean up and Darla having all of her hair products and makeup.

We bought the meal plan again this year and were able to get 6 dinners and 6 breakfasts for $300. It's a great deal as the dinners include an appetizer, main course and dessert. We ate well and had 4 dinners at the resort and 3 breakfasts. We did go offsite to PV for lunch one day on a bus tour of PV which included a tour of the city, the set of the Night of the Iguana (from 1963!!!), a tequila factory tour and a lunch at Las Cascedas. The first five pictures are all of this venue. The food was good and the views and the ambiance even better.

Darla and I did go to the member's update, which is an excuse to upgrade your time share. We tried to upgrade to the Grand Bliss when we were with Dad and Shirley, but did upgrade this year to the Grand Luxxe. I get free golf and Darla gets 2 for 1 massages and spa specials. The Grand Luxxe has a larger suite and a junior suite on the lockout that includes a small kitchenette and a living area. We have two weeks that can break out to a month if we use the lockout. We are very happy with the deal that we got and the resort is expanding to become the largest in Mexico and they will add two more golf courses, one designed by Greg Norman and the other with Tiger Wood's new course development company. The Greg Norman course is being graded now and is expected to open in 2012 and will be exclusive to Grand Luxxe owners. I can access any of the courses, but Mayan and Grand Mayan members will only have access to the current course.

They now have 18 holes open and it was worth the wait as the course is a nice combination of wide open fairways, sand, waste bunkers, water and the jungle surrounding it all. I played twice and shot 81 and 83. Stan is not a golfer and shot 122 and 124, but seemed to really enjoy himself.

Bob and Debbie were along with us, but unfortunately, Debbie was sick a big part of the trip and missed out on a lot of our stay.

We did make it up to Buscerias, the small Mexican village about twenty miles north of Nuevo Vallarta. We really like Claudios, Maison Bay, a restaurant on the beach that makes large margaritas and great Mexican food. We went there with Dad and Shirley . We found out that they have a special on Fridays that includes (for $20) all of the margaritas you can drink and all of the Mexican Food you can eat. We were there on a Thursday and our bill for 6 of us was $114, which was less than the special and we had a shrimp stuffed avocado appetizer that was to die for and the girls had coconut shrimp that they really enjoyed and the guys all had mixed fajitas. We will go back next trip as well. We were all a bit loopy after two margaritas and a double shot of blue agave tequila that was on the house.

I have some pictures of Samantha and Jennifer that I will save for next week. Jen's job is going well and she is enjoying having weekends off. I will check in with all of you next week. we got home at 11:00 PM last night and we were both pretty tired today. Be well. Ciao.

The Blog will leave for a well deserved Vacation next week

Back from Detroit and the Manager's Meetings and it always reminds me of why I live in California. Not that the weather was terrible, just cold, frosty and some rain. It was 80 degrees today with a bright blue sky in Northern California. You can't beat it. The pictures above are of 1. Sammy from Jennifer 2. A picture of Anthony and I with the Michigan office Underwriting manager and a good friend of Matt from my office. (We sent him the picture on Anthony's iphone to let him know we were thinking of him) 3 & 4. Pictures of Darla with the boys from her trip to SLO this week. (She was there Thursday-Saturday). 5. The large and expanding pile of sh*t heaped upon Americans from Barrack Hussein Obama (or a picture from the coast of San Luis Obispo)

The meetings this year were really good and the energy of the meetings was helped by the 12 KELP trainees that joined us, including Andy from my office. All of the management trainees are in their twenties and all have great innovative ideas and aren't afraid to express them. One of the young guys from Los Angeles was discussing the use of social media in insurance and said that when he thinks of insurance, he thinks of a bunch of gray haired guys in suits and ties. Harvey and I looked at each other and rather loudly objected to the obviously dead on description. Anthony from my office really enjoyed himself and was very engaged with the other Branch Managers in discussing marketing and agency penetration and agency profiling. He took a lot of notes and is coming home with a renewed energy about his book of business and he is starting a new marketing campaign for year end with his agents.

It was a long five days and I flew into Detroit in a middle seat next to a "church lady" from Modesto. She was a "chatty kathy" from the minute I sat down until I pretended to fall asleep. She made a comment during the security briefing that her friend has said that she wishes she had an on and off button like cell phones. Really? Really? I turned to my other seat mate for some respite, but he was a twenty year old white guy with shoulder length dreadlocks and he smelled of dirty hair. It was brutal.

The first day is always the worst and no exceptions this year as I went to bed at 11:00 PM (8:00 PM my time) and tossed and turned until about 1:00 AM. I wasn't altogether rested or thrilled when the alarm went off at 7 AM. I handled five forty five minute sessions on use of our Centers of Excellence in Home office with our SR VP in charge of brokerage and our Chief Underwriting Officer. I was asked to take part in the sessions and bring a Branch perspective to the use of these brokerage facilities. I talked about how our office has grown from $6.6 Million in premium (and a loss of $580,000) in 2004 to $17.5 million in premium (and a profit expected to be close to $1,000,000 this year). Part of our success has come from our reliance on co-brokering of accounts with our VP of Brokerage operations in SF and our use of the Centers of Excellence. We don't have the markets in house to write professional liability, excess liability and environmental coverages and it was a natural for us to turn to these centers to write our business. We are in the top three of premium writings with all of the centers. It was an interesting chance to contribute to the education that goes on at the meetings and also a nice chance to share the story of Sacramento with all of the branches. They have seen me up collecting awards at the meeting, but this put some specifics to the reality.

We did win the Bronze Award for Division 2 this year and I was again shut out in the Branch manager of the Year awards. Each of the Branch Managers of the year winners this year are all not producers and only handle Branch Management. They are able to mentor some of their younger producers more effectively and do more hand holding because they don't have any production responsibilities. I can't ignore the quote requests and phone calls at my desk, but will keep growing the branch and making money and see if that is enough.

Anthony did win two awards, the Director's Award for production over $550,000 in income and New Business Award for being in the top 10 of underwriters in the company in new business production. It was nice to have him there and have him be able to go up and collect his award from Alan himself.

Saturday was longer than it had to be as we started at 8 AM and went non-stop until 3:00 PM. We bussed over to the airport and took a flight from Detroit to Salt Lake City and then changed planes for our trip to Sacramento. We were able to grab a hamburger while we were running between planes. I got home at 10:15 spent and exhausted. Darla and I slept in until 8:30 this morning and I did yard work and skimmed leaves from the pool. I didn't get the car washed, but will run it by the car wash tomorrow.

Well, the Dallas game is on, I need to barbecue some chicken and we want to try and Skype with Jennifer and Sammy tonight to see her Halloween costume. Jennifer leaves for a week in Temecula training for her new job on Tuesday. She started last week and has already been climbing towers and took a bucket truck up to replace a module on a cell tower Friday. She is loving it.

As mentioned, we fly out for vacation next Sunday for a week in Nuevo Vallarta, so will be a week off on the blog and then return with vacation pictures. I hope you are all well. Ciao.

Off to Detroit for the Manager's Meeting this Week

The pictures above are of Yocha Dehe Golf Course in Brooks, CA, a Troon facility and one of the best kept courses in Northern California. I was invited to play by one of my agents, Caleb, who is a member of the Summerhays family. His father is a golf coach at one of the local high schools, his sister, Hannah, is an Assistant Golf Professional at Yocha DeHe and he has an Uncle, Bruce, who was on the PGA and Senior PGA tours and two cousins, Daniel and Boyd, who currently play professional golf, Daniel on the PGA and Boyd on the Nationwide tour. So, there I was at 8:30 on Thursday morning playing in a group with Hannah, Caleb, and Chris, another Assistant pro at the course. The only good thing is that my round was comped. The first tee sits high up on the mountain above the practice facility and the sight that you see when you tee off is the first picture above. I pulled my drive dead left into the number 9 fairway. I was able to blast a 6 iron to the front of the green and made par to match Hannah. Hannah's drove from the same tees that I did (we played at 6700 yards) and was routinely right next to me or slightly behind. She can hit the ball for a 24 year old. Caleb and Chris were bombing their drives to about 300 yards. I ended up shooting 43+43=86 against matching 77s for Hannah and Caleb and a 78 for Chris. We were the first group off the tee and felt like we had the course to ourselves.

We finished in 3 hours and 20 minutes and I invited everyone to lunch. There were four of us and the total bill for four sandwiches, drinks and sides at the golf course grill was $15.88. Hannah and Chris have their food comped by the course and Caleb and I got a 25% discount. I left a $10 tip and got out of there. Caleb paid me back for that "expensive" lunch with a $90,000 account that I'm working on for his office right now. This was the fourth time I've played Yocha Dehe and I swear it gets more immaculate every time I play it. The greens were smooth and fast and the fairways pro tour conditions. There wasn't a bad lie anywhere in the fairway and the course, being a resort course, is fairly wide and user friendly.

I leave for Detroit on Tuesday morning and five days of intense meetings. This year I will help to lead one of the breakout sessions on our Centers of Excellence. We have six in house centers of expertise where underwriters can send in their accounts for quotation. The VP, Marla, that is putting on the session called and asked me to join her, because my office is in the top three of three of those centers and she wants me to talk to the other managers about how I have grown my premium writings through the use of the Centers of Excellence. I worked up five examples of accounts that have been written through the COEs and will help Marla lead the 45 minute breakout sessions on Wednesday afternoon. There will be five groups that will sit in on our session that afternoon. It should be fun.

My office has grown from a branch writing $8,000,000 in premium and losing $600,000 a year in 2004 to one that will write $18,000,000 this year and be close to a $1,000,000 profit. It is a good story and certainly one that lends itself to job security. Anthony from my office will be there at the Manager's meeting this year as one of the top producers and Andy is there with the KELP Management Trainees for a two week session (KELP stands for Kaufman Emerging Leaders Program). Anthony will be speaking to the KELPs on Tuesday about his success as an underwriter with the company, how he started out as an Assistant and is now in the top 25 of producers in the entire company. Anthony will also be involved in the Manager's portion of the meetings and Andy will be at the Awards dinner on Friday night at the Henry in Deerborn.

The office continues to do well and after missing our budget lunch last month are back on target to exceed our numbers again. We are already over a$1,250,000 in written premium and $200,000 in income. The team continues to work hard and make it happen. Fun stuff.

I did not make it out golfing this weekend. All of my buddies had other engagements. I had planned to go out and play Saturday afternoon, but I had problems with my iPhone. I tried to upload the newest operating system and the entire phone shut down. When I called Apple, they told me I had to buy a $30 service ticket. I ended up taking it over to AT&T and they put the old OS back on the phone. The tech there said that the new operating system is designed for the iPhone 4 and the older models aren't fast enough to run the current OS. What a scam by Apple to get you to buy their new phone. My phone runs just fine on the old OS and I'll leave well enough alone. I will look to get the iPhone 4 when my contract is up next year. I ended up fooling with the upload for two hours Saturday morning and then had a bunch of yard work I wanted to get done. I trimmed all of the bushes in the backyard back and trimmed the ground cover. I also transplanted some African Daisies from one side of the pool to the back flowerbeds.

Jennifer didn't grace me with any pictures of Samantha, but if you haven't seen it, check out Jennifer's Facebook and Sam's reading of the "monkeys jumping on the bed". Very cute and well done by Miss Samantha. She gets done and before her Mom turns off the video, you can hear her say, "I want to do that again!"

Darla has made plans for the Mexico gang to get together for dinner tomorrow night at Chevy's. Debbie was out of town this weekend and I don't get home until Saturday night, so Monday it is. We will be in Puerto Vallarta in two weeks. I'm definitely looking forward to it and to seeing the redesigned back nine of the golf course at The Grand Mayan.

Well, that is short and sweet, but all the news that I have to tell. Our I Day at the Convention Center went well on Tuesday, but it is getting a little stale for me with the same groups and booths every year. It is what it is as my friend Neil would say. I hope you are all well and I will bring tales of Detroit next week. Have a good week. Ciao.

Life is Good when you spend time in Pacific Grove

We had a great time and a great weekend in Pacific Grove. Darryl arrived Friday afternoon and flew into the brand new terminal at Sacramento's Airport. The terminal is designed similar to Phoenix', in that they use both sides of the terminal building for entry and exit which makes the whole process easier and reduces the backlog at the passenger pick-up by half. We drove home and picked up Darla and were on our way to the Monterey Peninsula. Darryl was hungry so we stopped at the new Black Bear Diner in Sacramento and I had to think of Samantha. We'll have to bring her there when they visit. From there we were on the road for three hours and Darla sat in the back of the 300 and made Silpada calls while Darryl and I got caught up on work and home and family.

We arrived in Pacific Grove about 4:30 and checked into our hotel. The HoJo's is a converted condominium complex and has garages and about 2/3 of the suites are two bedrooms. Actually, to call it a suite was a stretch. It was two bedrooms with a bathroom, sink and microwave refrigerator, a small table and chairs and a small balcony overlooking the parking lot. The weather was amazing and we drove over to the market and picked up some Stella Artois beer and some peanuts and came back to the hotel and had drinks on the balcony before dinner.

Dinner was a gang of 33 meeting at the Fish Hopper in Cannery Row at 7:30 PM. We drove over about 7:10 and on the way there was a huge flash in the night sky followed by two more and then the lights went out. It turns out that three transformers blew in the Cannery Row grid and it was pitch black as we drove in eerie silence to the restaurant. We wanted to at least meet up with friends and then find an open restaurant. We used the flashlight option on Darryl's cellphone to navigate the streets from where we parked on the street to the restaurant. We hooked up with Neil and Lilly and decided to meet at Fisherman's Wharf where the Seafood Grotto could get us in at 9:00 PM. Dinner was excellent, but the owner was nice enough to give us a free seafood appetizer sampler after we had already ordered. Darryl and I ordered the Seafood sampler with shrimp, calamari, scallops and oysters. It was way too much food, but after snacking on the appetizer platter (we were starved by then), we could hardly put a dent into our dinners. The second problem was that the meal laid on our stomach like a lead weight when we tried to go to bed that night. I think all of us were suffering from being overstuffed. Darla got up about 2 in the morning and opened the windows and we felt better after that. We had talked about taking a walk when we got back to the condo, but didn't. We should have.

Saturday was golf at Pacific Grove (the Poor Man's Pebble Beach). It is a mundane front side followed by some of the world's best scenery on the back as the course winds along the 17 Mile Drive and the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Hole number 10 is right next to the Point Pinos Lighthouse, which I have pictured above. Look closely in the picture and you can see a ladder on it's side that they use to clean the windows surrounding the light dome. I guess they can't put it anywhere else, but funny that people come from around the world and see a maintenance ladder laying on it's side in the lighthouse windows.

Darryl hasn't played much golf this year, but he still hits the ball a mile and he had his memorable holes. There was a 295 yard par four on the front side that I almost drove. My ball came up about ten yards short of the green. Bob and Darryl both hit screamers to the left side of the green that hit the cart path and bounded out of bounds about 340 yards from the tee box. Darryl also hit a massive drive on the par 5 number 10 Sunday that put him in position to go for the green over water about 185 yards away. He hit a six iron to about fifteen feet and missed the eagle putt, but tapped in for birdie. It was impressive. I shot 42+42=84 and took second place for the day winning $33. Darryl got his $10 tournament fee back both days as he doesn't have a handicap and guests can't play for the prize money anyway. Bob shot 83, Boyd had 77 and Neil would have had 86, but got a little chippy on one hole and slapped his ball off the green without putting out and disqualified himself. Darryl shot 98.

Darla had the boys drive up from Cal Poly (about a two hour drive) and they had lunch together at the Fish Hopper with Rick's wife, Jan. They then went over to the Asilomar Conference grounds across the street and over to the beach and played football. Becky drove up from the Los Angeles area and drove up with them. They were waiting for us when we got home. We had dinner reservations at Vito's, an authentic Italian restaurant in Pacific Grove for 7 PM. They set us up in the banquet room and we had Neil and Lilly, Rick and Jan, Steve and Brenda and the six of us. Bob was going to join us but decided to drive home to San Jose and bunk there for the night. Vicky was out of town and I think he looked forward to the solitude at home.

Sunday was Poppy Hills and the beauty that is Pebble Beach. We had breakfast with Rick and Steve and then went and hit balls. I had a back spasm on the driving range and was afraid to hit the ball full out. I ended up weakly smothering it to the left and had that problem all day. I shot 45+45=90 on the much tougher course, but did manage to birdie number 2 which Steve quickly matched to keep me out of the money in skins. It was a theme all day as he had three birdies and some big numbers on his way to an 89 and fourth place in the tournament. Bob shot 85, Boyd had 83 and Darryl shot 101. We had a great time with good conversations, good food, fun golf on great courses and a lot of laughs along the way. I told Darryl that he has to plan to come up to Reno with us in May when Cheryl can come and enjoy the trip as well. I'll definitely rent a house up there and we can relax and enjoy the stay. Darryl, if you pay the flights out, I'll take care of the living arrangements. Monterey is GREAT, but we usually go in October and Cheryl runs the costume shop and Halloween store.

I was a little tired at work today, but got to leave a bit early as I had to run by the new office in Roseville and check out the ceiling tiles. True story, our owner didn't want to sign a lease until I confirmed that the ceiling tiles were clean and in good shape (they are). I took a picture of the 3 story building and it is the last one in the photos above. The picture of me in Darla's glasses was at breakfast Saturday morning in Pacific Grove when I forgot my glasses and my spare pair that usually resides in Darla's purse were left at the condo. The picture of Miss Samantha is from her trip to the Rain Forest Cafe in Vegas with Jennifer, Michael and Dad and Shirley. I haven't had a chance to talk to Dad since they got home, but will try to call him this week.

I leave for the Manager's meeting next Tuesday and tomorrow is our annual Insurance Conference at the Community Center in Sacramento. This year I'm going to go into the office for the morning hours and show up for lunch and work the booth in the afternoon.

Well, that was our busy weekend and I had a great time with my older brother and was happy for him to meet my friends and have a chance to play some golf. We will do it again. I had Steve and Rick approach me about maybe planning a trip to Colorado next year for a golf weekend and we may do that if the Inn is open. It would probably be me, Rick, Steve, Neil, Boyd and Bob. We'd fly in Friday morning and fly back Sunday night. I hope you are all well. Cheryl, thank you for the loan of your husband. You all be good to each other. Ciao.