Susan Boyle - Britain's Got Talent 2009

I saw this on CanadaAM this morning and had to immediately go online to check out this YouTube clip of her week 1 performance. Susan Boyle is absolutely amazing! Clicking on the title should take you to the YouTube link. All I can say is "WOW"! Go Susan go!

April Fools Visitors

I decided to go out to a movie on April Fools and went to see Knowing starring Nicolas Cage. It was ok but not great....just another sci fi flick with a very familiar plot line.

I got back to the RV around 4:30 pm and while putting away some groceries, my neighbour comes knocking on the door. Asks me if I had been expecting any visitors this afternoon, to which I replied, no. A cousin perhaps, says he? Not unless someone from California was in Sebring for the day. How about South Africa!?, says he. Holy (fill in your word here)!, says I.

Turns out my cousin from South Africa was visiting her daughter and son-in-law in Bradenton. We hadn't seen each other since 1975 and I had no idea her daughter was living close by. So a few phone calls and text messages later, we connected and I spent the day with them in Bradenton yesterday. We had a great time. Pictured above are my cousin Sue on my left, and her daughter Sam on my right. Sam's husband, Mark behind my camera. Hoping we can all get together in London later this fall if plans come together.

Bite Me!! (Everglades Style)

Here are a few more photographs from our recent trip to the Keys. This cruise ship was at the pier in Key West. The colour of the water and sky were amazing. It left Key West after sunset and another cruise ship arrived early the next morning at sunrise.

This corner store window caught my eye on way back to our bed and breakfast.We stopped in at a Gator Farm on Hwy 41 on the way back to Sebring and enjoyed a great air boat ride into the everglades. I saw this baseball cap in the gift shop. Nice!!

Florida Flywheelers

I spent a very enjoyable afternoon at the Florida Flywheelers antique engine club located at 7000 Avon Park Cutoff Rd in Fort Meade, Florida. This is a sprawling 240 acre property which has many pieces of vintage farming equipment on display. Much of the equipment has been fully restored which makes for an excellent parade of antique tractors. There were lots of antique engines, pumps, saw mills, and a period village with many old buildings on display as well.

Here are five guys putting a dismantled Model T Ford back together in running condition in less than 4 minutes!Get a load of this bad boy 1952 Ford.

I've got more photos but this will have to do for today.

Karen, I'm sure Elson and Merv would like to see some of these old tractors. Tried as I might though, I just couldn't find an old Case tractor like you guys used to have.

Chris Is Here

Chris arrived Jan 10th to spend her days off with me. We had a great visit which included several mornings of pickleball here at Tanglewood. Yesterday, some of our friends from Peace River came over to play. We played until 11:15am and then cleaned up so we could head on over to Homer's Buffet for lunch. They offer a great smorg for $8 each.

Today, we took it easy and decided to go back to Highlands Hammock State Park for an encore visit. The park is only a 10 minutes drive from Tanglewood and costs $4 per car to get in and stroll the grounds. It was cooler and overcast today which made for some great photographs without the usual harsh shadows we see when the sky is clear and the sun is shining brightly.

Here is Chris sitting at the base of a 1000 year old oak tree. The tree measures an astounding 36 feet around at the base.

This is a shot of towering cypress trees refected in the swamp water along our favourite trail inside the park. (Edited in Photoshop CS4)

We met a couple of ladies in the car park who told us which trail to check out if we wanted to see some alligators. We had to drive a short distance to the north edge of the park and follow along a river before we saw a couple of small gators sunning themselves in the shallow water. You'll have to check out Chris's blog to see pictures of the gators though. She had the longer telephoto lens and managed to get some nice shots. I stalked this great egret as it fished in the river for it's lunch. This is a hand held shot at 1/20 second, so I am pretty pleased with how crisp the focus is.

Hope you like the photographs. If you do please leave a comment at the end of this post.

Pickleball Crawl

Tanglewood had their first annual Pickleball Crawl this morning. Wayne Roswell came up with different crazy rules for each game. Most people played at least 7 games. Different rules included such things as reverse scoring, lobs only, no backhands, kitchen area only in bounds, paddle in wrong hand, etc. A good time was had by all. Good job everyone!

These players enjoyed the tangerines from trees in Bill's back yard.
Paddles all lined up and ready to go for the morning's activities. We played until 12:30 pm when the pizzas arrived.
The final event was the pickleball crawl line dance on the old courts led by Sherrie. Well done ladies and gents. Thankfully, the photographer didn't have to demonstrate his two left feet. Phew!!!

Happy Birthday Louise!

We had a "little" get together for Louise this afternoon. Marcel managed to invite just about everyone and I think we kept it a surprise as well. Another birthday and a great reason for even more socializing. Happy birthday Louise. Seize ou soixante et un? Thankfully, I managed to squeeze everyone into this one picture.

Torrey Oaks RV and Golf Resort

On Saturday afternoon, a bunch of Tanglewood pickleballers headed over to Torrey Oaks in Bowling Green, FL for a pickleball scramble. Jean and the Torrey Oaks crew did an excellent job of organizing and hosting the afternoon. We all played at least 3 games and then had a potluck afterwards on the patio. What a nice park. Ken and I took drive around on a golf cart. Lots are big with many of them lining the golf course. Costs for golf are quie reasonable too. Eighteen holes with a cart for less than $25.00. Still lots of sites available but apparently they are expecting 35 coaches to arrive in the coming days. The park is new and comes with every possible amenity. Please click on the title to link to the resort's website.

Here are a few photos of the many faces at the scramble. Congratulations to the mens and ladies winners pictured above.

The Bail Out Is Coming

Got this in my RSS feeds this morning from Jonathan Chevreau who puts out the Wealthy Boomer. Wonder what he is trying to say?

Elf Yourself

Jim and Jane......more likely Jane.....have been busy getting into the Christmas spirit. Jane sent the above link to me the other day and I enjoyed a great laugh watching it. This morning, I even saw the gang on Canada AM showing their rendition of Elf Yourself on CTV. Also good for a laugh. Just click on the title to go to the link.

Some of the Tanglewood bunch headed over to Peace River for a little pickleball this afternoon followed by the mandatory happy hour. We dodged a little rain on the way over and also while there. Courts were a little wet but they dried off quickly enough.

Peace River was only about one third full in my estimation. I managed to take a few photos down by the river. Stumpy, the alligator, was there but too well hidden under a fallen tree in the river to make good subject matter. These two turtles were perched on a log nearby basking in the sun.
Let me know what you think of the jingle.

Pickleball Tournament

We had a great tournament at Tanglewood today. The weather was a little cool to start with this morning but it warmed up into the high 60sF by the afternoon. All four courts were busy with the men's matches conducted on two courts and the ladies matches on the other two courts.
Competition was good on both sides with many hard fought matches. All entrants received a goodie bag containing a free ticket for lunch, a raffle ticket and other nice things from the tournament sponsors.
Travis and I played reasonably well but lost our first draw on the "A" side of the tournament to Marcel and Al unfortunately. That put us on the "B" side against Bob Hughes and his partner Pat. We were fortunate to beat them after losing the first game. Our next oponents were Bill and Marvin. We won that match in two straight games which then pitted us against Jimmy and Jim in the gold medal match on the "B" side. They are both great Tanglewood players and outplayed Travis and I in the "B" final. It was a long day and neither of us had much left for that last match. Travis and I both walked away with the silver medal which we thought was pretty good for not having played too much together yet this year.

Rich Donald (pictured above) and Al Goldberg won the mens "A" event in a hard fought final match. Congratulations to them. Sorry, but I don't have all the results. I was too busy playing, taking photos and having a good time. We even had our own clowns who managed to keep everyone in stitches with their antics. Good job girls!

Quantum of Solace

We both enjoyed this movie this afternoon. I went to see it at Carmike Cinema in Sebring, while Chris saw it at South Keys in Ottawa. A much darker Bond than in past years. This is basically a sequel to Casino Royale and even has a token appearance of a Canadian spy near the end. Didn't think we had any of them! We both think Daniel Craig is a great Bond and has done a fabulous job rejuvenating the Bond story line. Carmike has a feature called Mugs and Movie. Wasn't sure what that was until I walked into the cinema showing this movie. Instead of rows of seats, it has lounge seating with tables and chairs. Patrons can order anything to drink, including beer, and also choose from a burger and sandwich menu. I had a toasted BLT with fries which was quite good and it was cheaper than a large coke and popcorn. Go figure!

Windy and cool in Sebring today but still into the high 60Fs during the day. Tonight and tomorrow are supposed to be the coolest in the quite some time before things warm up again beginning on Thursday.

Aviation Museum

We decided to take in the Aviation Museum this afternoon, once all our chores were done. We got there just after 3 pm and found the museum is only open until 5 pm. Admission fee for adults was only $6 each so we decided to give it a go. Unfortunately, we were limited to the main hangar only. The second hangar is not open after 3 pm. I really wanted to get in there to have a look at the old CF-MPG, Grumann Goose that I used to fly in while stationed with the RCMP in Prince Rupert, B.C. from 1987-1991. Perhaps another time. We did manage to get a glimpse of it through the window as we left the museum.

I've lived in Ottawa for ten years and have never gotten around to visiting the Aviation Museum which is located on the old Rockcliff military airbase at the extreme north end of the Aviation Parkway, very near the Ottawa River.

I've always been fascinated with flying ever since my parents were stationed at CFB Baden in Germany during the 60s and 70s. Like many people, I used to sit at the end of the runway and watch the CF-104s and later CF-18s fighters taking off and landing. I also took glider lessons in Germany but never soloed unfortunately. Several friends from high school went into the air force and are now retiring. I chose a career in the RCMP instead. But, like my father always used to say, "retirement is the best job I've ever had". Hard to disagree with him now that I've been retired for over 2 years.........

Busch Gardens

We made it into Lazydays by 8:30 am yesterday morning and dealt with Shawn Paul, our service advisor. He has won Best Service Advisor at Lazydays for the last two years and he was certainly a pleasure to deal with. He is easily the best of the advisers we have dealt with so far. We explained our problems to him and we promised a telephone call once he knew more. We were on our way to Busch Gardens quickly.

We arrived at BG shortly after 10 am and checked Buddy into the kennel, as we did last time. He had two other dogs for company this time.

Today's visit was a freebie for us because we had a BG Fun Card. This was a free upgrade for us when we visited here in January and is good for all of 2008. We focused more on seeing the animals and exhibits this time, rather than rollercoaster rides, as we did last time. Although, we just had to try the Sheikra rollercoaster again and the Congo River raft ride for the first time. Both were lots of fun. We were both absolutely soaked through on the Congo River ride. I thought the soaking from a water cannon was purely by chance, but as we left we the ride dripping wet, we saw a crowd gathered at the riverbank. Turns out they were paying 25 cents for single shots on water cannons. These cannons are aimed at the rafts as their passengers come down the river. Passengers wave at the shooters, very unassumingly.....and then they are blasted. We spent a few bucks returning the favor. Retribution is great!! It was a hot day so we dried off fairly quickly.

We spent time seeing the elephants and tigers. The tortoises were huge! The peacock at the top of this blog entry was showing off near the entrance to the Anheuser-Busch beer sampling site. Great beer by the way! The park was only moderately busy so we moved around quite easily. We never waited longer than 15 minutes for any of the rides.

I've attached a couple of short video clips of Sheikra. Pretty neat ride. Lots of screaming going on as you hang over the precipice.

We left the park just after 4 pm. There was a voicemail waiting for us from Lazydays. Our coach was ready as promised. We were on our way back to TTN Orlando in relatively short order. It was a long day but we both enjoyed the day out. Two more days, and then we are on the road home. Where has the winter gone?