Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2006

We had friends and family over for the holidays...You can click the title above and this will bring you to a small photo album from our Christmas holiday in Preston.

Click HERE for a FLASH slide show of these same photo's. Once in the slide show use your right mouse button for slide show controls (zoom etc).

Jim Shea's The 12 Days of Christmas

Hartford Courant Columnist Jim Sheas has been running a daily "12 Days Of Christmas" humor column that's I've found hilarious. Click the title link to have a look:)

Update Christmas Morning, 12/25/2006: Link to the 12th Day of Christmas Post

Recently installed "SpamCatcher"

I recently installed SpamCatcher, and I'm feeling better about Email communications. We use the version for Outlook and it seems to be doing a GREAT job of filtering out the bad stuff. What is really slick is you can "train" it easily. As an example, when you tell it to block a spam message, if that message came from Russia, Mexico, Germany...whatever, you can also block at that time any future e-mails from that country. I'm amazed at how much of the spam is coming from off-shore! At this point I highly recommend it. Click on the title to visit their web page for more information and to download.
Update 4 January 2007: 2364 total items intercepted.Update 30 Dec 2006: 2076 total items intercepted.Update Dec 24th, 2006: 1561 total items intercepted.

Update Dec 17th, 2006: SpamCatcher has intercepted 844 spam Emails since installed.

Update Dec 20th, 2006: 1166 total items intercepted

Update 26 Dec 06: PC World article on spam...good reading!

Update 27 Dec 06: 1819 total items intercepted.

Update 7 Jan 2007: 2579 total items intercepted.
Update 13 Jan 2007: 3105 total items intercepted.
Update 20 Jan 2007: 3241total items intercepted.
Update 25 Jan 2007: 3572 total items intercepted.
Update 11 Feb 2007: 4931 "caught" out of a total of 6770 posts since inception.

Thanksgiving 2006

Click the title for a few photos from our Thanksgiving in Preston.

Hospital Review Committee and Preston Board of Selectmen vote to kill Utopia Proposal.....

The deadline has come and gone. Except for the legal wrangling it appears to be over. The Preston Hospital Review Committee, followed by the Board of Selectmen, have unanimously voted to kill the Utopia Proposal due to non-compliance with several sections of the development agreement. The most glaring omission was the total lack of funding to the escrow account which was supposed to guarantee the remediation of the former hospital's grounds, and also fund four years worth of taxes to the town of Preston. Full details are in the local newspapers, the New London Day and the Norwich Bulletin both of which have extensive on-line sections on this proposed development.

Even though it was probably a pipe dream, it's kind of sad to see this come to an end this way. If it could have worked it would have been great for the entire SE CT area, and also for Preston in particular. The former Norwich Hospital Property IS a great piece of real estate, and over time we will hopefully get it developed to its potential.

Preston is a wonderful small town....click these links to see a few photos of our Preston:
http://rpayette.netfirms.com/prestonmay205/

http://rpayette.netfirms.com/prestonphotoshootmay405/

The statement was: "Show Me The Money"

and it didn't happen. Our Board of Selectman will meet tomorrow immediately after the Hospital Committee, but it looks like they're in default....protest though they will. It is never over till it's over so stay tuned...our Norwich Bulletin and New London Day are staying with the story and it's worth following, for sure.

Waiting for Utopia....

It's getting old this waiting for Utopia, but we'll be at Preston Plains school this evening at 6:00pm with everyone else to see if they made the requirements...Interesting times!!

Photos Of Norwich State Hospital found on the internet.....

This link shows some interesting photos of the abandoned Norwich State Hospital, soon to be Utopia Studio's, property in Preston.

Lockdown - Abandoned Photography : opacity.us

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Hugh Wedegis, Executive Officer New London Power Squadron, passed away 30 Oct 2006

31 October 2006:

Hugh Wedegis, Executive Officer of New London Power Squadron, has pasted away last night. He will be at Church and Allen Funeral Home @ 136 Sachem Street in Norwich, CT. Telephone No. 889-2374. Calling hours are Thursday evening Nov. 2nd from 3-7PM. A USPS funeral service will be conducted at 1800.
The funeral service will be Friday morning the 3rd of November at St Lukes Lutheran Church Ledyard, CT @ 10:00 AM.

It amazing how an untimely and unfortunate death of a friend puts perspective on what's really important in this life.

Windows Media Player 11 Released

MS Windows Media Player 11 was released today. Click the link to go to their download page and learn more about it. I've downloaded it and my impression is "Good Stuff!!".

Steam Train Ride & Riverboat Cruise

Mike Sleights reports we have over thirty folks signed up for the Essex Valley Railroad Steam train ride\riverboat cruise this coming Saturday....we're bringing the grandkids and are certainly looking forward to it!

Switching to Firefox web browser...

I recently "upgraded" from Internet Explorer 6 to their newly released vs 7. My first impression was a positive one (the tabs feature, the "shrink to fit" mode for printing web pages), and its generally clean look. My second impression was that things had definitely slowed down. It appears their anti-phishing scheme is using a lot of overhead, as are their other security upgrades.

That having been experienced, on the advice of a friend, I downloaded and tested the new Mozilla Firefox vs 2.0 browser on my notebook pc. I was so impressed with it we put it on the desktop. There were some "plug in" issues that were easily resolved, and I'm now a dedicated Firefox enthusiast. It's sleek, it's fast and it's secure. What's not to love?

Our 2006 camping season is over......

Last weekend we enjoyed five days at Travelers Woods of NE in Bernardson Ma (this was the Columbus Day weekend) and that marked our official close-out of our 2006 camping year. Very much like hauling the boat, the unpacking and winterizing of the motor home is a sad affair as we've had a GREAT Spring, Summer and Autumn with her. Photo's from this last campout have been linked from our Seaport Sams website, but here is a direct link to the album: http://rpayette.netfirms.com/travelerswoods2006/
If you click the HEADLINE of this post, you'll transport to a Flash (slide-show) of this photo album.

We've just returned from our Oak Embers campout with the Seaport Sams Camping Club....

Click on the above link for an html album from our most recent camping trip, which was held the weekend of Sept 29th-Oct 1st, 2006. For a FLASH slide show of this event, click here please.

On the road for the next few weekends.....

Photo: Seaport Samers at Oak Embers Campground a few years ago.

We'll be on the road with our camping group, leaving today and returning Sunday night, then back on the road again Thursday for the Columbus Day weekend. Photos from these events will be posted either from this web log or from the Seaport Sams website.

The Deer Haven Lobster Cookout was wonderful!

Our camping club (Seaport Sams) brought 31 rigs to Deer Haven for the annual lobster cookout. Click the link above for an html photo album or click here for a FLASH slide show. Once the slide show loads, you can use your right mouse button for show controls such as zoom.

Upcoming Lobster Cookout, Sept NLPS ExCom, Highway Mariners...

We're "on the road" again 14 Sept with the Seaport Sams camping club to Deer Haven CG for our annual Lobster Cookout camp out. We have thirty rigs signed up, so it should be a great time for all. Photos will be posted to the Seaport Sams and CT Good Sam sites (links are on the right) after our return.


Last night our NLPS had its Executive Committee meeting and I came out of that very encouraged in the direction we're going as a Squadron...we're on the right course for sure!

We just signed up for the Highway Mariners Camping Club. This is a United States Power Squadron group of campers that take their motor homes to the Annual Meetings and Governing Board sessions. We hope to attend the next Annual Meeting being held 20-25 February 2007 at the Hyatt Regency, Riverfront in Jacksonville, Fla.

GREAT weekend at Sunrise Resort:)

We had a great relaxing weekend at Sunrise Resort in Moodus CT...have posted an HTML album of this event by clicking the above link. You can see a slide show of the event from this link: http://rpayette.netfirms.com/goodsamstatecampoutsept06flash/.

Off to Sunrise Resort....Sept 08, 2006

We're off this morning to Sunrise Resort in Moodus for the weekend, and we'll post photo's from the State Good Sam event on the CT State & Seaport Sams website(s) when we return. The camping weekends are starting to "count down"....counting Sunrise there are only four more weekends left on our 2006 camping schedule, then we have to turn the page and look at what's ahead. It's always a long winter for campers when you don't go to Florida!

The Motor Home has been moved to the "Launch" position...

We've moved the Motor-home to the launch position near the rear door of the house, where the lot is fairly level and we can plug her in for refrigeration cool down, packing etc. This weekend we're going to Sunrise Resort CG in Moodus CT with the CT Good Sam Club (several of us from Seaport Sams are attending). The dogs Bailey, Gracie and Daisy KNOW something is up when the motor-home is being packed and they watch us every second to make sure we don't escape without them....they LOVE camping:).

Old Norwich Hospital walking tour, December 2005

In December 2005 I participated in a walking tour of the old Norwich Hospital site in Preston. This property is slated to be the new home of Utopia Studios. Click the link above for a small photo album from this tour.

New Blog for Links and Photos applications started 4 September 2006

Today (September 4th, 2006) we've started this new blog as our medium of choice to share photos from family events, and links to our not-for-profit websites, web logs and calendars. Unlike the website, after today most everything will be chronologically based and it should be easier to navigate. (We reserve the right to add in the odd photo album as seems appropriate). It also allows me the space for the odd rant :). The link above goes to the old website, which has more family photo albums and snapshots on it then this blog at this time.

Bob Payette

Note: The photo over this post was taken in Cantho, RVN in 1965. At the time I was 21 years old and there have been a few tide changes since then for sure!

The camera I'm carrying in the photo is a Canon 7 Rangefinder, with a 50 mm 1:12 lens. We still have it, but I'm not sure how good any new photos taken with it would be without some serious practice! Digital photography has made life a lot simpler, for sure.

Scenes from our town, Preston CT

Click the above link for a slide show (Windows Media Player required) of scenes from our home town of Preston, CT.

Operation Sail, (New London CT) July 2000

Operation Sail visited New London in July 2000. Click the above link to an album from that event.

Nashville-Dallas Motor Home retirement trip June 2000

Click the link above for a photo album from our retirement trip to Nashville and Dallas with Nellie.

Vietnam, RVN 1965

Click the above link for a few snapshots from earlier days......

Photos from August 2006 trip to Northern NH for the Moose Festival

http://rpayette.netfirms.com/moosefestival2006/