Slightly decadent......

8:24 am - Monday - June 19th - LPG&RVR - 41° F, humidity 75%, wind 6 mph out o fthe northwest.....heavy cloud cover, and raining as I write, with a forecast high today of 53° F! On this date in 2015 TLE and I hiked to the top of Mt. Tallac (elevation 9,735') at Lake Tahoe with Richard and Rhonda Entriken (fellow Newell owners)....yes, that is Lake Tahoe viewed from 9,735' above sea level......↴

Lake Tahoe

Richard and Rhonda

At the end of my Father's Day blog yesterday I advised.....well, maybe more like promised I would be watching all, or most of the fourth round of the USGA U.S. Open Sunday, and that is exactly what I did from 9 am util after 7 pm.  If you know nothing else about me you know for sure that I keep my promises.  Sorry, not much else to report for Sunday, but you know I'll think of something....lol.

Some might think sitting in one's recliner all day watching golf borders on being slightly decadent at best, or a complete waste of time at worst.  There is not much in life that will keep me indoors on a perfectly sunny day, but there are a few events that will....one of the four Major golf tournaments (Masters, PGA, U.S. Open, The Open), The World Cup, Le Tour de France, Women's World Cup, and maybe English Premier Soccer on occasion.   Otherwise, I would prefer to be outdoors most any day of the year.   The non-sporting event type things that will keep me indoors are rain, wind, snow, sleet, and bitter cold, but if the sun is shinning I would prefer to be outside.  Why is that you might wonder?  Well, I spent 42 years working as an insurance broker in my prior workaday life sitting behind a desk, and I felt like I was missing something all those years, even though I knew in my heart that all of the outdoor jobs involved getting pretty dirty each day, lots of sweat during the summer, getting wet in the winter I still longed to be outdoors.

Sometime in the early 90's I became a professional soccer referee, which was a natural progression for me being that I had spent years coaching and refereeing youth soccer for my kids.  It was a side job for me, and by that I mean I was a referee on weekends, in addition to practicing my insurance profession from Monday to Friday.  It was a nice compromise for me even though it did mean getting pretty sweaty in the summer, and rained upon once and a while in the winter.  I loved that job, and actually became pretty adept at it, and I actually made good money doing it. By the time I refereed my last soccer match on January 31, 2012 I had done Division 1 college matches, some semi pro matches, and a lot of West Coast Soccer Premier matches (U-19 guys and girls), and was considered to be an above average referee.  Many of the U.S. Men's National team members came from West Coast Soccer back at that time so I was officiating some pretty high level U-19 matches.  When I retired from insurance I decided to leave soccer, too, while 'others' still thought I was a good referee.  I knew many who continued to referee well past their prime, and it showed, and others knew it....I didn't want to be one of them....lol!

As a child growing up in SoCal my parents took every opportunity to get us (5 children) outside.  We spent  every summer for years experiencing the great outdoors via annual multi week camping trips to Lake Tahoe, backpacking in the Sierras, going to Manhattan Beach (SoCal) to body surf every Sunday during the summer when we were not camping.  In the winter we would spend between 20, and 30 days snow skiing at Mammoth Mountain in the Eastern Sierras.  My parents instilled in me their love of the outdoors at an early age, and I, as a father of 5, did the same with my children.  They didn't grow up playing video games, but were outside living life.

Wow, that was quite a digression, even for me.  Anyway, I love being outdoors, and for those few rare exceptions that I listed above, that is where I would prefer to be, all things being equal, and the river don't rise.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Father's Day!

7:27 am - Sunday - June 18th - LPG&RVR - 53° F, 61% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the north by northwest......heavy cloud cover today with a forecast high of 69° F, and rain forecast for this evening.  On this date in 2015 I was watching the U.S. Open with a cup of coffee and cold pizza.....I will be doing the same today, 8 years later, sans the cold pizza....lol.....↴ 

I has occurred to me that I often mention I am driving down to the entrance to 'flip the sign', and that perhaps you may not know what that means, or why I am flipping anything.  So, to illustrate what this means I took a few pictures yesterday.  The saying goes "a picture is worth a thousand words"....well, here are 3 thousands words worth of pictures......

.....the first sign points to the left, and directs those arriving between 8 am and 5 pm to the Clubhouse where they must check-in before parking.   At 8 am, and 5 pm each day I flip tat sign so the arrow is pointing in the appropriate direction.  At 5 pm the Clubhouse closes for the day, so late arrivals must self register at the 'RV Night Office'.  So, now you know what I am doing, and why I am flipping that sign.

I left for work at 7:30 am so I could be off work by 4 pm (taking a 30 minute lunch) to attend the weekly putting contest.  It was overcast, and a little chilly as the day began.  I had 6 golf carts to wash and stage left over from Friday afternoon.  As I left for work (TLE followed 10 minutes later) TLE advised me to stage 15 carts to begin the day, which I did.  Ultimately, we would rent out 21 golf carts....another good day for LPG&RVR.

We don't, as a rule, mow, or do any weed whipping on the weekends, so after making my early morning round of the golf course I decided to 'drag' the golf cart paths.  All the cart paths are gravel, and over time they get a little 'washboardy', and need to be smoothed out.  We accomplish this dragging a large steel mesh screen behind one of the utility carts until the gravel is spread out and smooth again.  There are 4 problem areas which need special attention.  The first begins near employee site #51, and runs all the way across the meadow to holes 9 and 18....probably about 2,000' feet in length.  We 'drag' them back and forth 7 to 8 times to smooth them out.  Next  up is the cart path which runs from holes 2 and 11 to holes 3 and 12....about a thousand feet of cart path.  Next there is the steep hill running from the 4th hole up to the 5th tee where the restroom is.  It is only about 150 feet long, but steep, and it really gets bumpy over time.  Finally there is the switchback cart path which runs from the blue tee box for hole #16 (the elevated 3 par tee boxes, which I mow around each week).  It's about 1,000 feet long, and has 3 switchbacks as it snakes down the hill to the 3rd hole.

After driving the golf course counter clockwise checking on the morning's golfers, I was back at the Clubhouse around 9:30 am, at which time I began dragging the aforementioned cart paths.  I was just finishing the fourth cart path (#16) when I got a call from TLE advising she needed more carts staged beyond the initial 15, so I began the long drive back arriving around 11 am to find the final two carts leaving the staging area.  I staged all 9 Club Car round nose carts, plus one of the original Club Car square nose carts for 10 in all.  After doing that I dragged the gravel which surrounds the golf cart shed, and one of the parking lots.  It was around 11:30 am when I finished so I made one more round of the course in my 'marshaling' capacity, arriving back in time to give TLE her lunch break.  During that time I decided I would not take my 30 minute lunch, but go right back to work at 1 pm so I could get off at 3:30 pm, take a shower, get a snack, and change clothes prior to the putting contest. 

I managed to get all the golf carts washed, and put away by 3:30 pm except for 3 carts, which went out late.  I headed home, showered, changed clothes, and was back just before 4 pm, and the start of the contest.  I had a feeling this would be a good day for me, and it was.  I managed to get through 7 rounds before succumbing on the 4th hole (we were tied after 3 holes) to a hole-in-one by my opponent.  I came up just short of a hole-in-one on the 4th, so entering the 5th hole I would have to either sink my putt for a hole-in-one, or hope my opponent 3 putted.....neither of those things happened, so we tied the 5th hole giving him the victory.  All that being said, my putting was so consistent, and I made all but one of my second putts, even getting a hole in one in the 5th round.  Had I won the 7th round I would have been in the final.  It was a very satisfying contest for me.

TLE and I were home around 5:30 pm, and happy to be entering our 4 day weekend.  The 4th round of the U.S. Open is Sunday, which is also Father's Day, so you know where I will be most of the day.  Coverage begins at 9 am, and will run to almost 7 pm, with the final pairing not teeing off until 2:30 pm.  Happy Father's day to all the amazing fathers out there.  The most important fathers in my life are my sons  Chris (father of Cynthia and Christopher) and Tim (father of Crosby and Bowie), my sons-in-law Rod (father of Brayden) and Nick (father of Elijah, Charlise, Jolene, and Levy), and Daniel (father of Daniel and Jameson), the husband of my grand daughter Cynthia.  You all are amazing men, husbands, and fathers, and make me proud every day!

Thanks for stopping by!