Time to start thinking about going South!

We'll be starting this weekend to get the motor home set up for our trip South in February. The Power Squadron Annual Meeting is being held in Jacksonville Fla the week of Feb 19th, so we'll be going there and then over to Ocala to visit brother Fred and his wife Ellie. It will be a good break from this weather...as I'm typing this it's 15 deg F and downright chilly! .

Happy New Year!!

Can you believe it, 2007?

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/