Drone Time for Pro Shop

Don's been busy with his new drone plus he's learning to use Movie Maker.  Nice job, Don!!  Check this out.  Make it full screen to fully enjoy the view.

Pro Shop 1

Memorial Weekend

It has been a lovely Memorial weekend.  Even little Gracie was dressed for the occasion.

Our two "Ranger Bobs" said traffic was very quiet.

Bob Daniel and Bob Herinck

Tom and Mary Williams enjoyed the lovely weather.

We caught Art McCoy, Gary Lambert, and Mark Kenner discussing upcoming events for the ProShop.  

Don and I took a ride out Florence Blvd to see how the Phoenix Mart was coming along.

It is certainly a large building!

It's quite a ways back from the road but when we zoom in, we get a better idea of how big the place is by looking at the trucks and how small they look in comparison to the building.

Memorial Day Weekend

Thank you to Sherry and Dave at Site 986 for the nice Memorial Display on their patio.

Remember to take time to honor our veterans. 

Stay safe this weekend and enjoy some family time.

We have a contractor here to trim the palm trees that require climbing.  Sorry I missed them when they were up in the trees but I watched the clean up process for a while.  Hot job at 102 degrees this afternoon.

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Art McCoy

Fernando stopped to introduce us to Art McCoy who is going to be in charge of overseeing construction of the ballroom and proshop this summer.

Art McCoy and Fernando Luna

Welcome aboard, Art!!  Consider us your paparazzi for the summer.  

Art says we'll see plenty of action starting June 1.

Art McCoy

Pictures never do it justice but we have had such beautiful weather these past few weeks!  We enjoyed coffee on the patio at 66 degrees this morning although we're expecting upper 90s this afternoon.

Time to eat and greet again!  We enjoyed a very nice chicken luncheon yesterday catered from the Golden Corral.  All food definitely has to be catered for the summer as the kitchen is obviously nonexistent.

It's still surprising to see the big turnouts at this time of the year.  Our summer population seems to have grown.

All staff members get "volunteered" to help at these events.

Nancy Paupst (Sales) and Dora Rocha (Housekeeping)

Ed and MaryAnn Brown (Activities) with Donna Cox (Mailroom)

Pre-Construction View of North 40

I call the north corner of the resort to be "the north 40" which we understand will be under major construction this summer to create home and RV sites plus another swimming pool and pavilion structures.  It will also have what desert dwellers call a "green belt" meaning a path of grass and trees for a walking and fitness trail.

It will be fun to watch it all happen and what better way to do that than by Don's new drone.  I usually groan at each of his new electronic gadgets but I must admit that this will be FUN.

Here's his first pass over the area.  It's almost 10 minutes long but future ones will be shorter.  He has plotted the course to view the work as it is completed.

If the above embedded file doesn't work, try clicking on the link below which will take you directly to You Tube.

Before Construction

Phone Lines

From Gary Lambert regarding the old Palm Creek phone numbers:

Here is a compilation of information Gary has gathered on the necessary steps to keep your existing site numbers. 

Dear Resident,

Below is a cut and paste of several answers I have compiled in trying to understand what it will take to get your current site phone number ported over to whichever service you choose.

The service is currently with a company called Integra. They are also known as Electric Lightwave.

From our Telecom consultant: “I want everyone to understand that this is not a mobile-to-mobile consumer port. This is a business to consumer port (challenge 1) plus may add complexities of business land-based services to residential mobile services (challenge 2). Easy porting has been set up for high volume, consumer transactions. This is neither. Business porting requires exact documentation, scheduling, and is not typically done from business to consumer. I only point this out to help you set their expectations as this is a lot different than talking to Verizon or Costco.”

In general, here are the steps that must be followed (it may vary somewhat by company):

·         Each resident should obtain the winning carrier’s paperwork with the number in question to allow Palm Creek to release the number to them.

o   The name on the paperwork for Palm Creek as the entity releasing the number (SUN COMMUNITIES OPERATING LP DBA PALM CREEK GOLF (900301)) must match your Integra bill or it will be rejected by Integra as Name Mismatch. If the winning carrier insists on a bill copy, just give the resident a copy of the first page of the most recent bill. (Request from Gary if required).

·         An authorized Palm Creek person will sign the paperwork (Integra can reject the request if it is not signed by an authorized person). This will be Gary Lambert

o   The resident signs the form as well accepting ownership of the number

o   The resident then submits everything to the new carrier and if all goes smoothly, the number ports and comes off your bill and onto theirs.

Usually the signatures and bill copies are only good for 30 days. Once we cancel our account with Integra all of those numbers are no longer available to be ported because they are back in “general population”.

Please email me your filled out forms from your new carrier, and I will complete my part and return to you. Email is preferred, and my email address is Glambert@suncommunities.com. We anticipate cancelling the account with Integra on or about July 1^st, so please act now if you want to keep your site phone number.

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(from Sue).....My Opinion:

It seems to me that it's a whole lot easier to just use our cell phones and forget about these specialized site/phone numbers.  

Palm Tree Trim has begun

OMG.  It never occurred to us that someone would be out washing our stop signs (all outdoor signs).  Never gave that job a thought before.  Here's our favorite Dora, Housekeeping Manager, busy at work.  Thank you, Dora, for all the work you and your team do to keep our resort so lovely.

Great Blue Heron fishing at the lake.

Greens being aerated.

Yesterday was the first day of the tree trimming process.  Here's about 14 trees trimmed and only 2000+ to go.  LOL

Fernando's goal is to get 60 trees trimmed per day.  

There are close to 3000 trees in the park!!!

All the oleanders along the berm on Granite are completely gone.

It will be an exciting summer to watch the change in this area.

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Mississippi

The young man from Mississippi came running into the store and said to his buddy, "Bubba, somebody just stole your pickup truck from the parking lot!"

Bubba replied, "Did y'all see who it was?"

The young man answered, "I couldn't tell, but I got the license number."

Ballroom Floor

Whoa.........it's no small task to pull up the floor in the ballroom.  It was interesting to watch the process.  There is a black plastic moisture barrier on top of the concrete base.  Then two layers of thick plywood were nailed into place............with MANY nails by the looks of it.  First they saw through a chunk and then pull it up with big crow bars.  All must be pulled up and removed to put in a new floor.  Whew!

My knees would definitely disqualify me for this job.

Ballroom, Bye Bye Barbie, and moving a palm tree

Work on the ballroom progresses.  Looks like the next step is to tear up the entire floor.  First they saw through it and then remove the flooring in chunks. 

Up at the north 40, we saw evidence of removing some of the oleanders along the berm on Granite Street.  Don't know how much they plan to remove so we'll be watching the progress.

Uh Oh..............Barbie Rasmussen is leaving us and will be moving back to her home turf in the Show Low area.  Thank you, Barbie for all your help in the past.  

Here's a posting of a drone video where they dug up one of the palm trees at the north 40 and they're using it as a replacement at a site where one had expired.

Big tree to be cruising down the street.

Cactus Flowers

Still nothing exciting to see regarding construction but our weather has been absolutely gorgeous!  Perfect temps and lots of sunshine.  Weatherman says triple temps are on the way but we're loving this cool below average stuff.  

Because it is such a joy to be outdoors, Don doesn't even complain (much) when I yell at him to stop for a cactus flower picture.  This one was cute as one last blossom held out while the others had obviously expired.

This one has pretty red flowers.

This crazy potted cactus with its long crooked stem is showing off too.

Such a huge variety of landscaping here.  I never tire of watching it.

Lorraine & Jerry Walden at Site 2014 posted this picture on Nextdoor.  Awesome!!

I've never seen so many blossoms at the top of a saguaro before.

Beautiful scene from someone's backyard.

We say THANK YOU to our hard working, dedicated crew that keeps this place so nice.

Clint spends MANY hours on a mower.

Faustino is a master with a shovel and gets a lot of hard assignments.

The golf course and the lawn bowls area are getting aerated.

Need to open the soil so nutrients and water can get in.

Here's the exciting news!  Don bought a new drone!!!  We're going to have some FUN taking videos and pictures for the blog.  Will give him some practice time and then will be able to post pics from a bird's eye view.  We wanted to make sure we weren't violating any rules or privacy things so got clearance from Kevin Flynn to take pictures over the construction area.

Here you can see us practicing in front of our home.  Awesome!