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Reflections on June 8th, 2012:

Moving into the rest of our life………… Over the last several years Alice and I have been “wintering” with our motor-home at a campground i...

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

New Years Eve, 2015-2016 plans....

A few months ago friends of ours (Donna and Murray Boutilier) suggested that we spend New Years Eve at Jetty Park in Port Canaveral.  We treked to the Park with them and made reservations....we'll be in the Park on the 30th, and out of the Park next to the shipping canal on New Years Eve.  Long story short, this just appeared in Florida Today under alternative things to do in Brevard County: 1. Park it at the Port
Rent a private cabin at Jetty Park Campground, Port Canaveral. See cruise ships arrive and depart (New Year’s Day is a Friday this year, and that means ships), check out the flora and fauna, let the kids play on the playground, stroll on the beach and watch the sun come up over the ocean. You may get a pretty good glimpse of the holiday goings-on at the Cove and at sea, too.
Each cabin sleeps four with a queen-sized bed and a set of bunk beds, and has a grill and picnic table outside, a half bath and air-conditioning within. Costs are $55.50 Mondays through Thursdays and $83.25 Saturdays and Sundays.

NOTE:  We'll not be the cabins, but in our Motor Homes.....
Tim Macy, senior director of recreation at Port Canaveral, said parks will be open this New Year’s Eve and, “I would say it’s close to full, and the closer you get to the holidays, the number of calls soar. So reserve soon.”
So, we're all booked in and planning on cooking a bit of a feast....what a nice way to bring in the New Year!!  Surf and Turf....can't get much better, and Publix had a nice sale on the lobster tails :).

Thursday, December 24, 2015

Merry Christmas from the Payette's of Titusville

Christmas, 2015
Merry Christmas, and our wishes for a wonderful New Year, from the Payette's of Titusville Florida.  Our family and friends are the best gifts we could ever receive.  Bob and Alice

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

The Falcon Has Landed! Epic Views of SpaceX's Amazing Rocket Landing

The Falcon Has Landed! Epic Views of SpaceX's Amazing Rocket Landing:

The video in this post is amazing....shows the launch, "on board" video, the scene at SpaceX in California, and then the landing of the first stage back at Cape Canaveral.  We watched the launch from our upper deck at our town home here in Titusville.

'via Blog this'
The landing back at Cape Canaveral....

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Thursday, December 17, 2015


Alice and myself went to the flea/farmers market in Deland yesterday.  I snagged five orchids, some eggs, fresh corn, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, grapes, a large bag of grapefruit and lots of other stuff...all at very reasonable cost.  As an example, the orchids total cost was $21.00.....the veggies and fruit were about $2.00 a box.

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Our Space Coast Sams Chapter just returned from our Christmas Camp-out at Camelot RV Park, in Malibar FL.....

This photo is from our Saturday morning community Chapter breakfast, cooked and
prepared by our Chapter officers for all members.
Our Space Coast Sams camping Chapter just returned from Camelot RV Park in Malibar FL, where we had our annual Christmas camp-out festivities.  It was a great time!

Photo's from Google Photo's here: https://goo.gl/photos/qkErzepK7smG6Gb9A

Short video clip here: https://goo.gl/photos/xx7uDVsYcNAQ4o588

We are looking to expand our membership base in 2016....visit our website at www.spacecoastsams.org!

Sunday, December 06, 2015

Hard to believe it's December, and we're getting ready to head out for our Christmas campout.....


We'll be heading out Thursday to Malibar Florida (Camelot RV Park) where our Space Coast Sams will have our annual Christmas get-together.  On Saturday morning the Chapter Officers cook and serve breakfast for the group, and in the evening we have a nice catered supper with charitable raffle activities following. It's always a nice way to end the calendar year with the Chapter, and a pleasant reminder that here, in Florida, we pretty much camp twelve months of the year which is wonderful.

Monday, November 30, 2015

Snowbirds are starting to flock in :)....


Ken and Sandy Wood, our friends from CT who are wintering at our old snowbird haunt Manatee Hammock here in Titusville, dropped by yesterday evening to say hello.  They are doing well.  Late December they'll fly back to CT for Christmas then return thru April.  A few weeks ago other friends, Jerry and Jo Lambert from our old Camping Chapter, arrived at their winter digs in Clermont FL and we had a nice lunch visit with them.  A few others from our old group are on the West Coast (Jo and Dean Paradise, Alton and Marie Exley) and Mike and Pat Breen will get to Titusville after the first of the year.  Others dip in and out as the weather in the Northland deteriorates and they get sick of it.  Of course we got so sick of it we put up roots here and haven't looked back.  72 deg on the porch now, going up to the low 80's.  We can live with it!

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Thanksgiving 2015 musings...

Feeling VERY thankful for the gifts we've received .... family, health, and living in the semi-tropics that we love so much in our retirement.  We're very thankful for our friends and camp-mates here, which has made our transition from CT Snowbirds to full-time Florida residents so much easier and more pleasant.   I'm thankful for the climate that lets me putsey with the plants all year long....And tomorrow we'll be thankful for the turkey with trimmings and key lime pie and our Chef son David taking care of all the food preparation.  What's not to love? :).






Monday, November 23, 2015

We arrived home yesterday from the Florida Good Sams Fall Rally, held at the Southern Palms RV Resort in Eustis Florida....

It is always SO nice to get away for an extended weekend in the camping rig....time to re-acquaint with friends from Space Coast Sams (www.spacecoastsams.org), meet new folks from other camping Chapters, and do something totally different for a few days :).  This is a link to a Google Photo's album from the event: https://goo.gl/photos/Nw6Hkxy7HYC5PxpS8 and this is a link to a short Google Photo's Video from the same event: https://goo.gl/photos/2g4D5yeq9gu8d9TJ6 . Total video time is 1.50, and is a representation of 50 slides/video's.
Our next Chapter outing will be to Camelot RV Park in Malibar Florida, where we'll have our annual Chapter Christmas dinner and festivities, hosted by the Chapter officers. It's always a good time!

Friday, November 06, 2015

Made camping reservations for New Years Eve for Jetty Park at Port Canaveral....


We are arriving at Jetty Park on December 30th....camping with Murray and Donna, and on the 31st we'll be moving out to the outside perimeter rough camping area that borders the Jetty inlet. That will be "dry" camping for the day and evening, but we have the generator for power. It will be nice to be right next to the water and be able to watch the cruise ships and Navy boats enter and exit the Port.

Not In The Park picnik concert, Melbourne Auditorium with the Melbourne Municipal Swingtime Band

https://goo.gl/photos/TYnx4Yx8aUaFMrRr6  Attended a free "Not In The Park" concert/dance at the Melbourne Auditorium with Murray and Donna....nice time, great music!
https://goo.gl/photos/SCtXJLjZaZedzzvG8

Monday, October 26, 2015

Attended the Vero Beach Oktoberfest on Saturday with Murray and Donna...



We camped overnight at the Fairgrounds in Vero Beach for their Oktoberfest...nice seeing Murray and Donna who have been in New Hampshire all summer working on their son's camp.  The music was pretty good in the afternoon, but it went to "noise" in the evening.  The beer was good and cold, until they ran out, and the sausages were great. https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOMuJYYRhNyNr-mQLqkpdFafwKrPegqSIFlmAiE

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Memories From The Shoebox, Clip 3

This is Clip 3 from our Memories From The Shoebox photo scanning efforts: https://goo.gl/photos/Td1MvNs6z6T4f9Qm6 .  Each clip has 50 photo's I've chosen as somewhat representative of the total....so far I've scanned about 1750 snaps, some in frames, some loose, and some in albums.  I've cleaned them up a bit with Google Photos but some of the originals have deteriorated a bit.

Monday, October 12, 2015

Memphis, the musical

From our FB posting:


Robert R. Payette feeling blessed
11 hrsTitusville, FLEdited
Alice and myself just got back home from seeing Memphis The Musical http://henegar.org/shows/memphis-the-musical/ at the Henegar Center for the Arts and we were blown away. What a show! Great acting, the music was superb and it left you clicking your heels feeling good about most everything smile emoticon. They are doing wonderful regional theater there, and it impressed us enough so that I ordered up Main Stage tickets for their upcoming Smokey Joe's Cafe, Nice Work If You Can Get It, and Big Fish. This area is a theatrical treasure...between Titusville PlayhouseMelbourne Civic TheatreThe Historic Cocoa Village Playhouse (CVP)and the Henegar there is such a variety of theatrical offerings so as to make one feel very blessed:).

Memories From The Shoebox, 2

This is our 2nd "From The Shoebox" Google Movie of memories: https://goo.gl/photos/imc2RuhVG7rTdzLp6

Tuesday, October 06, 2015

Am working hard with a new program to digitize old photo's, Photomyne...and it's a GREAT app!

Like most folks we have lots of photo's in albums, frames, shoe boxes and God knows where.  Years ago, using a flat-bed scanned I digitized my Vietnam snaps and some of the older Payette family photo's, but it was difficult since some were attached to album pages, some were framed etc.  Today I purchased an app called Photomyne (l use the IOS version but it's also available for Android smart phones) and I went to work scanning....today we did 645 photo's, and I think I'm getting the hang of it.  The biggest problem is working with glare, but that's a learnable process.  I hope to make good progress on this project in the next several days. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photomyne-album-scanner/id951627022?mt=8
Additional Info:   The beauty of this process is you can have the scanned images put into your smart phone photo folder, and if you've set up Google Photo's they will then be automatically uploaded to your Google Photo account in the cloud. After the images have appeared on all your computers, i-pads, phone's etc you can then delete them off the smart phone to save storage space....no muss, no fuss, no storage expense and they're safe.  Email me at r.payette2@gmail.com if you have any questions on the process I can help with.

October 10th:  So far we've scanned about 1025 images.  Here's a Google Plus video clip from 50 of them. https://photos.google.com/movie/AF1QipNEiHacpeD1_b3QDIsL_Xa7Mi37BzTLszZvOEPx

Sunday, October 04, 2015

Just got in from International RV Resort and CG in Daytona Beach....

My photo is here (Alice took it) as she says it's not fair that the Chapter Photographer takes photo's of everyone else, but he is not in any or many of the snaps.  Well, here it is, for better or worst. :).

We just got in from the International RV Resort and CG in Daytona Beach FL where we spent a few days with our friends from Space Coast Sams.  Here's a link to some snaps: https://goo.gl/photos/JU2P3A3FT4fGywQL8 and this one is to a short video clip from Google Photo's: https://goo.gl/photos/XS4mLYotzLWvyKPt7

It's always nice to get away for a few days, but even nicer to get back home!!

Monday, September 28, 2015

Sherlock In Love at the Cocoa Village Playhouse

From the FB page of Robert R. Payette This is an original play and we were only the 4th audience to attend this new production. Alice and myself really enjoyed it....the costuming was superb, the live orchestra and the score excellent and it had a good pace. We thinks this show will have legs! A prior musical he wrote "Build Me Up Buttercup" also premiered at The Historic Cocoa Village Playhouse (CVP) and is now scheduled to open on the West End prior to an all-England tour. Good stuff!!


Sunday, September 27, 2015

Sunday morning musing (from a FB post).....on Regional Theater.

Here on the Space Coast we don't have falling leaves in the autumn, but we do have the beginning of our Regional Theater season. Last night it was The Full Monty at Titusville Playhouse and this afternoon it's Sherlock In Love at The Historic Cocoa Village Playhouse (CVP) . Great Regional Theaters all in close proximity makes for happy snow-bird transplants smile emoticon.

The Full Monty at Titusville Playhouse


One of the major differences between a movie and a play is the play is always new and original, especially in the hands of a talented producer.  Artistic Director-producer Steve Heron did a masterful job with the Full Monty. Fantastic Regional theater....we are blessed !

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Love this advancing technology :) IOS 9

After a few hiccups we upgraded the Apple stuff to IOS 9 yesterday (2 tablets and two i-phone's), and was mildly disappointed when the OS2 upgrade for the Apple Watch was postponed due to bugs. Everything seems to work well, but there are differences in functionality between the I-pad2 and I-phone6+. and Alice's i-pad Mini and i-phone 4s.  Alice doesn't "tinker" within the bowels of the OS...does email, uses the Kindle App, plays games....so some of the changes are transparent to her, which is OK.

Sunday, September 13, 2015

September camp-out to Sanlan RV Park in Lakeland FL....with Space Coast Sams Chapter 10

Click this link to view an album from our most recent Space Coast Sam activity....https://goo.gl/photos/v5JQf3WPZuSduxKh7  The photo above is a group shot of our Chapter members who attended this event.

Google Photo's VIDEO clip: https://goo.gl/photos/EqSHjiXzoaEpwKEY9

Thursday, September 03, 2015

September and cool weather, renewed Regional Theater, and our new camping season have arrived!!

Well, it's  finally here (September) and in Florida that means changes are in the air.  Our Regional Theater has either resumed or is starting this month, our Good Sam Chapter www.spacecoastsams.org is resuming its official camping schedule, and we can look forward to it getting cooler in the next several weeks.  This is not to deny the beauty of modern-day Florida summers, with our daily "in and out" thunderstorms and showers that cool down the worst heat excesses.  Not everyone loves it here in the summer (as evidenced by  that long conga line of Snowbirds heading North in April and May) but increasingly many of them (ourselves included) decided to forgo that trip and put down roots here.  It works for us!

Friday, August 21, 2015

Our neighborhood shared cat......

Our main cat (old cat, actually) Timothy is now a neighborhood puss. He's taken to spending extended periods of time with our neighbors across the street, Bob and Marie....loves to hang out in their sunroom, follow them through the house like he lives there etc.  He USED to be somewhat of a recluse but now he's the Titus Village Social Butterfly! :).

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Vietnam Vet stats...

This information was lifted from my friend Joe Moore's FB page this morning:
"Of the 2,709,918 Americans who served in Vietnam, Less than 850,000 are estimated to be alive today, with the youngest American Vietnam veteran's age approximated to be 54 years old

Click this link for the data:http://www.nationalvietnamveteransfoundation.org/statistics.htm
This photo is of a Huey from my 13th Avn Bn (Delta), taken at Cantho Airfield, Cantho RVN, in 1965.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Looking forward to Memphis The Musical.....

The Henegar Presents

Memphis the Musical



October 2-18, 2015
Winner of four Tony Awards® in 2010, including Best Musical! Inspired by true 
events from the 
underground dance clubs of 1950s Memphis, Tennessee, MEMPHIS
 follows the fame and forbidden love of a radio DJ who wants to change the world 
and a club singer who is ready for her big break. Join them on their incredible journey to
 the ends of the airwaves
 – filled with laughter, soul and rock ‘n’ roll!
Presented by special arrangement with Theatrical Rights
Just secured good seats for the October 11th matinee...always nice to have some musicals "In The Bank" :).

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Never got to see The Little Mermaid tonight....

So, we arrived at the Theater, picked up a few glasses of wine and our Playbill and sat down. The General Manager and Artistic Director Steve Heron gives his opening welcome speil, the lights go down, the music starts and the curtain opens and BANG...the theater is hit by lightening and they lose the sound and light boards.....even the theater house lights. It's all cooked. Ah well!!!
Note on August 16th:  Titusville Playhouse called me at 0930 today to reschedule us for an upcoming show. Long story short, we'll be back in the audience next Saturday night, not in our normal front-row center seats, but in the Orchestra section. It's all good, and they are a GREAT organization ;).

Update, August 23rd:  We attended the 8 P.M. performance on Saturday August 22nd and loved the show.  The costuming and staging were terrific, and even though we were in the back of the theater we could see and hear everything perfectly.  Love Titusville Playhouse!!

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

We've just set up a Facebook Page for our Space Coast Sams Chapter 10: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceCoastSams  In the photo, left to right: Jim Snyder, Alice and myself, and Donna and Murray.

Saturday, August 08, 2015

Fox On The Fairway, Melbourne Civic Theater

Last night we attended the opening night, at the Melbourne Civic Theater, of a farce comedy "Fox On The Fairway".   It is a GREAT comedy that will have you laughing and grinning through the entire performance....can't say enough positive things about the play, or the excellent cast that made it come alive.  It runs weekends through the end of August.....get thee tickets!!!

Sunday, August 02, 2015

Mixing and matching technology....works for me!

Yesterday I downloaded and installed Windows 10 on my old Acer Win 7 notebook.  The process went very smooth, everything seems to work (and better) and the old girl isn't chugging as much....seems to like her new brain so to speak.  Just a few months ago we downloaded Google Photo's, which is "cross platform"...works on Windows and shines on IOS, taking all my photo's and putting them in the cloud with free storage, and very good manipulation and editing tools. Lastly, the Apple Watch has not transformed my digital life but I use it, and really like it....especially the phone and text interfaces and the reminder notifications.  So, long story short, in a very brief period of time we've utilized apps from Microsoft, Apple and Google...mixed and matched apps that make my computing life better across platforms.  Not one of those companies does everything I want and need...together and properly paired,  things work.

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Monday, July 20, 2015

Back to Jetty Park today, for the week....

A small group of us Space Coast Sams (www.spacecoastsams.org) are heading back to Jetty Park at Port Canaveral for the week.  They have an excellent deal in that if you come in on Monday, and leave Friday, you get to camp for 4 nights and you pay for 3.  Add to that a generous Brevard County camping discount and it can't be beat with a stick. Our "Official" camping season here ends in May with our Chapter, but some of us go out all summer long. http://www.jettyparkbeachandcampground.com/camp_index

This is short clip from our June 2015 camp-out at Jetty Park: https://photos.google.com/movie/AF1QipNP6YU7nJn81XZ33ahT9pU8h1UhLRXLEsTtrz--

July 25th:  Arrived home yesterday...here's a link to some snaps from our week: https://goo.gl/photos/tYRK849oNtNeKKLS7  My ONLY complaint on Jetty Park is their Internet service, which is terrible.  It's sporadic and not to be counted on and it forces you to constantly re-sign in, which for a supposedly free service is pretty lame :(.

Monday, July 06, 2015

Getting ready to hit the road....

We're getting ready to hit the road on Wednesday to Southern Palms RV Resort, where they are having a Good Sam Appreciation event for a few days....photo's will follow. The snap below is of Alice and the rig at Christmas RV storage where we keep her (the rig :) ) when not in use.
July 12th, 2015: Google Photo's snaps and video link: https://goo.gl/photos/bHAiVX5izdAFEWnSA

Click this link for a 1 minute Google Photo's generated movie from this event.

Click this link for a Google story-board from this event.

Thursday, July 02, 2015

Unexpected swimmer

Went to lunch at a friends home yesterday. Went to use the loo and found this waiting for me...