Friday – 9/2/11
Went for a tooth cleaning. Ann, the dental hygienist, is a runner. Should have guessed. Tall thin runner’s body. Teeth OK.
Finally took an axe to the new RiversideBusinessCoach.com website. Reduced the number of pages by 50%. One page for big topics. Only business coaching process pages got a bunch.
Talked with Angela Gonzalez, library director candidate. Not polished but showed some energy and passion. Set up talk with Bruce George tomorrow.
Got lease for 217 Warren from Nick Haddad. Some further changes. But he signed the final draft.
Two people visited the gallery. The Jeff Jacobson show had been a complete failure both in terms of visits and sales ($0).
Went to Walmart in search of lawn table and chairs. Came back with six chairs. Purchase table online.
Saturday – 9/3/11
Tennis at 8am with Chris and Kendall Brown. Kendall does not have very good eye hand coordination. Not enough time playing with balls. She does seem to tolerate instruction. Spent 15 minutes or so just hitting with Chris. Will play again tomorrow AM.
Spent a lot of time playing with NoteTaker HD.. Working out how this facilitate note taking on he iPad.
Very interesting discussion with Bruce George, candidate for Library Director. He was extremely well prepared. Passed him along to Theresa Parson. He is a top candidate. Hope we can catch him.
Only two visitors to gallery.
Esther and Rose Hanig arrived about 2:30.
Set up new chairs on patio. Then added two of the gallery’s trestle tables. Sat around and chatted for quite a while. Caught up on Cambridge politics and shared stories about Hudson.
Dinner was extravagant. Hors d’oeuvres with Scotch. Then had steak, festive Indian cauliflower, Esther’s tomatoes with fresh basil and olive oil, potatoes and peas.
Walked up to SpottyDog for music but did not stay since at 8:15 the musicians were in place but no audience. Looked like the show might not start ’till much later.
Retired early to AC and Kurlansky’s Cod.
Sunday – 9/4/11
Played tennis with Chris Brown at 8am. He left at 9 or so to pick up Kendall to play with her. Better arrangement all around. I ran a mile around the courts.
Breakfast, read paper, write business blog entry. Mostly ignored conversation deck outside my door. Don’t have patience for all of the details of Esther’s stories.
Talked with Howard Saunders about how to import addresses in Excel spreadsheet into AddressBook.
Opened gallery. Lunch. 3 visitors. Interesting young man who is working engineer for building entry control systems for ASEA Brown Boveri. He wants to get into management. Says he is bored by engineering. Shared my similar story.
Worked on forwarding businesscoach.us.com to new RiversideBusinessCoach.cpm site. Updated business cards. Need to update LinkedIn.
Helped Howard S. With Facebook problems.
Nap. ….
Went to dinner at Vico’s. Then for dessert for Rose and drinks for Karen and Esther at Swoon. Too much chat.
Monday – 9/5/11
Tennis with Chris Brown at 9am (rain delay).
Hanigs left at 10:30.
Drove to Spencertown Academy Bookfare. Bought some management books. Main event was Howard Saunders on his book “Axeman who will be 70 in 2010″. Very interesting and entertaining. Lots going on on each page. Art, politics, personal history.
Took a nap.
Took down Jeff Jacobson show. Very disappointing for lack turn out and sales.
Dinner at 7:30 and in bed by 9:30.
Wednesday – 9/7/11
Karen is in Winchester teaching. Set up new website for HBC. imthinkingofhudson.com
Talked with Theresa Parsons about Galloway proposal to build space for library in the Armory (5th and State).
Telecon with Eric Galloway and Henry Van Ameringen at 2:30. Amazing conversation. They will build up to 12 k space at their cost. 30 yr lease at $1/month rent. We get to develop program reqmnts. Much more. This their statement of doing something significant for Hudson. Here the notes that I later sent to Eric for confirmation.
09/07/2011
Notes of Teleconference
Attending: Theresa Parsons, Mark Orton, Eric Galloway, Henry Van Ameringen
Subject: Hudson Area Library at Armory (State and Fifth, Hudson, NY)
Eric and Henry proposed and discussed with Theresa and Mark the following for the Library:
- Build out at expense of Galvan of 9,000 to 12,000 sq. ft to suit library’s purposes.
- 30 year lease at $1/month. Library pays its pro rata share for utilities.
- Existing owner will continue to occupy Armory for six months. Construction can begin month seven.
- Library is responsible for developing the programmatic requirements for the space. Galvan is responsible for technical implementation of the design.
- Space will meet current handicap accessibility and environmental standards. Energy efficiency will be an important feature of the project.
- The Library will stay at 400 State St. until the Armory is ready
- Galvan Foundation will occupy a room at 400 State St. – the Children’s Foundation Room is currently proposed – until the Library vacates.
Talked with rest of Board. Then told Nick Haddad.
Nancy Phillips stopped for a visit and night over. Karen forgot my birthday. Had our traditional Hostess cupcakes. Pretty normal.
Thursday – 9/8/11
The irony of the reviled developer Galvan investing so much in the Library while all those who mouthed words about “saving” 400 State St. without coming up with any real cash has to be noted. Whatever their motivations Galvan (Galloway and Van Ameringen), they are making a very real and significant contribution to the city.
Spent the morning working on Business Coalition website, reviewing press release for Library, writing blog entry for currentmatters [http://currentmatters.markorton.com/2011/09/idiocy-in-america/]. Nancy Phillips helped Karen with frames for SL Adams show.
Had good discussion with Danny Brundage about his new concept for web-based support tools for mentoring and coaching. Then reviewed his product outline and emailed comments.
Chamber BAH at Fingar Insurance in Georgetown.
Friday – 9/9/11
Had breakfast early, 7am, at L’l Debbies on Columbia St. Turns out this much more expensive than Tanzy’s or George and Sons. Not all that good either. Soggy poor quality whole wheat toast. Clientele is local, very.
Returned to hang SL Adams show before my 10am telecon. The show is very impressive. Great technique and astonishing relationship with subjects.
10 am Actinica appointment rescheduled to Tuesday. Pete is at MIT. Mike intensively busy too. All good.
Lengthy discussion with Matt Almeida. He is so detail oriented. But he does continue to show he can plan strategically. July and August results very good. He helped me with 301 redirect problem with old businesscoach.us.com site.
Upcoming photographer Tomoko Daido came with a portfolio to select some for the next show. She is very direct, outgoing even, would never guess that she is Japanese. Her work is small. You get close to the photos. Black & white. Traditional processes.
Long talk with Bill Coyne. He took home a paycheck this month. One month into new law practice. First time in nine months. Good pipeline. Trouble getting accounting systems in place, but e is managing finances with spreadsheet. Worked on website. He is really pleased with his results.
After shopping trip, Karen and I walked up Warren to deliver postcards. her friend Liz Buckley won’t arrive til tomorrow. Bought Indian, actually Pakistani food at Kennedy Chicken. Kind of expensive. But both chicken curry and dal were very good.
Tennis with Chris Brown tomorrow AM.
Saturday – 9/10/11
BeLo3rd Taste of Hudson event on Warren St.
Date: September 10, 2011 at 10:20 PM
Tennis with Chris Brown. Worked hard to reach every ball on one bounce or less.
BeLo3rd’s Taste of Hudson. Took money. Lots people. Great weather. Looks like a big success.
Liz Buckley visiting. Garrulous and outgoing.
DOG Reception for Shelby Lee Adams September 10, 2011. Photos by Liz Buckley.
Shelby Lee Adams. right
Shelby Lee Adams opening. All galleries below 3rd open. Good turn out. Not many of the Hudson regulars. Lots of new faces. Sold a book and a $1200 picture. 
Dinner at Vico’s with Liz and a guy from Germantown who is a sculptor and has taken fancy to Liz.
Worked on a picture of a spider’s web on the Corolla I took this morning. Used Focus app and unsharp masking. Pretty impressive what you can do with an iPhone picture.
Spider’s Web
Sunday – 9/11/11
Tennis again. A few minutes of really good wacking. The rest of the hour plus was just fun.
Fixed turn signal lamp on car. Puttered around for the afternoon. Could not figure out how to make a child theme work on Bill Coyne’s website. Liz Buckley left around 3 or so.
Went to Swoon for our Sunday drink. Shut out by a closed wine tasting party.
Stopped at 243 Warren to take picture of today’s blank white display. Met Rick Rector creator of these windows. He reads my blogs and knows that I have been taking pictures of his displays.
Monday – 9/12/11
Wrote postings in currentmatters.markorton.com. These included set of pictures of windows at 243 Warren. Added picture of laundry basket to markorton.com
Wrote PR for book signing Oct. 1. Sent notices to most of the marketing list. Wrapped up a bunch of projects funded by Columba Hudson Partnership. Invoiced.
Practiced tennis. Think I have solved the toss on the serve. Watched some of the US Open and saw how far back and over the head the players tossed the ball.
Watched last set of men’s final. Astonishing vigorous play by Nadal and Djokovic.
Tuesday – 9/13/11
Cranky start to the day. Tough getting up.
Karen gave good suggestion to change the “I” button on the new riversidebusinesscoach.com site to include text suggesting what the info is. Spent several hours implementing this idea and more clean up if site. Changed form for asking for introductory coaching session. Simplified page structure further.
Had good chat with Actinica boys. Low key. Hit on “elevator” pitch and other.
Organized library search committee meeting for 5:30pm.
Took nap from 3 to 4pm.
Meeting at library of Search Committee.
Wednesday – 9/14/11
Karen is away in Boston teaching.
Finished clean up of RiversideBusinessCoach.com website. Went for walk. Lunch from Bruno’s. Threw out lots of papers, magazines….
Went to Library Board meeting. Good discussion of Armory proposal. Board voted to pursue next steps. Still seems a bit surreal that this is happening. Will have to go visit some new libraries and study library design docs. Also need to walk by the Armory to see what it looks like inside.
Eating too much when Karen is away. Two trips to Red Chopsticks. Bumped into Ed Beatty outside and gossiped about his family, Tommy’s family. This on the way to drop off tennis racquet for restringing at Steiners.
Watched several videos about top spin and string technology.