Author Archives: markorton

7/2/2019 – work and tennis

Tuesday

UTMH team meeting. Meeting at NYRWA to move project to next phase. Invoice UTMH. 

Tennis lesson with Saif at 4pm. Lots of work on  ground strokes, especially proper follow through with arm. Wrist bothering me more especially trying overheads. Good work on tossing the ball higher on serve. Still have not found the grove.

Waited around until 5:45 for the first of the doubles guys to show up. Once again got stuck with George and Henry because they show so early. Dreadful first set. Last set was competitive. Ted and I against Joe and George. BUT, not so smart to schedule a lesson before two hours of doubles. I was dead.

Joe and Paul announced that Bill Zvoboda had entered hospice. We took a group photo to send to him.

(left to right) Ted Dewsnap, Kevin Kelleher, Bob Gegen , George Traver, Steve Horniak, Joe Capobianco, Mark Orton, Justin Misevcis, Paul Ambrose, Frank Rosa, Henry Congegrane, Chad Silver

Today’s doubles group started out with these four guys:

(Left to right) Bill Zvoboda, Marty Darling, Joe Capobianco, Paul Ambrose – circa 25 years ago

7/1/2019 – yard work, Russian translation for UTMH, shades, lamb dinner

Monday

Spent a good part of the morning weed wacking the back yard. Also trimmed rose bush. Also work on Russian translations for UTMH RPM app. Had to check lots of entries for current language common on the Russian web. How do you say PulseOx in Russian?

Went to Marigold Home in Rhinebeck to look into shades for the Sun Room which is now overwhelmingly sunny in the early morning. Hunter Douglas shades on display. Sales person worked up a quote for us. $450 of installation costs and more than $2400 for the shades themselves. This is obviously a no go. Next stop Lowes and Home Depot.

I found a container of roast lamb from David Drake in the freezer. Made up a version of roasted cauliflower and lamb curry. Karen declared it to be very good.

6/30/2019 – Tanglewood Brass Extravaganza, tennis, drinks with David Drake

Sunday

David Drake came by to pick me up for a trip to Tanglewood for a Brass Concert. Wew especially like the percussion piece and the Symphony for Brass by Malcolm Arnold. Musicianship was extremely high. Good turnout for a Sunday morning. Demographics – average age in the 50s. We were back in Hudson by 1:30.

Pauline Decarmo minded the gallery.

Tennis

Played wtih Ted. He got ahead in our set 4-1, then I got it back to 4-5 serving for the set at 40-love when a big downpour ended our play.

Drinks

Karen came home early from her trip to Lowell MA to meet with Soup Group. We had a drink at Swoon. Also an appetizer: Roasted Cauliflower …spicy lamb ragout, shaved pecorino, herbs. Very good. Worth emulating.

Evening sun on Warren.

6/29/2019 – Bob’s, HAL Gala

Saturday

Bob’s for breakfast followed by food shopping. Drop off a big pile of UPS boxes to return last Fall’s book show entries.

Went to library at noon to help with set up for Gala Party. Moved chairs, furniture, cooking equipment, plates etc. Worked with new board member Bill Stenehjem. Nice guy. Went back at 4:30 with 240 lbs of ice. Less than the 400 lbs Betsy Gramkow suggested. But seemed that 1 1/2 lbs per attendee should work. Then worked with Gary Sheffer and Betsy to put furniture out in the rear garden for outdoor cocktails. No sooner everything set up then a big thunderstorm drowned that plan.

Party was fun. Ted and Anne came as our guests. I spent quite a bit of time schmoozing the crowd. Had interesting conversation outside around cigarrette smoking ith Shanekia MacIntosh and Zia Anger, young staff and volunteer for tech programs for kids. When we left at 9:30 or so there were still 40 or more people hanging out including some dancing. Call for the Cause raised $30k in about 15 minutes.

6/28/2019 UTMH, work, house, music at Caramoor

Friday

Drove to Rhinebeck to go to Marigold Home to look at blinds for the sun room. Now that the tree has died, the sun is overwhelming in the morning. Hunter Douglas must be to top end. Almost $3000 for blinds for the four rear facing windows. Will look elsewhere. Lowes has items that will do the job for a couple hundred.

Troy Web telecon and Matt Almeida. Then long nap.

Left for Katonah NY at 5:45. Caramoor Center for Music and Arts   and a concert by Roomful of Teeth. Music was fairly interesting, excellent musicianship, doesn’t require additional exposure.

165 mile round trip. Arrived home at 11pm. 

6/27/2019 – work, tennis lesson

Thursday

UTMH work, then more work consolidating old stuff into this website.

Tennis lesson. Worked on top spin. Saif set up a chair at mid court. I had to hit the ball over the chair and still have it land in the court. Also more work on getting toss of ball on serve really high.

Karen went off to her Woodstock critique group.

6/26/2019 – work, web projects, dinner at David Drake

Wednesday

Mostly more web consolidation. Discovered a new treasure trove of old files in DropBox.

Met with Seth about UTMH matters. Discussed Ole and his lack of production for the umpteenth time. He asked, “Should I talk with David about this?” Went to NY Rural Water Association to kick off new software project. I will be doing the workflow analysis.

Went to dinner at David Drake’s house in Catskill. Nice view out his back window.

6/24/2019 – web projects, work, tennnis, book group

Monday

PT with Corey Smith at 7:30am. Asked him about a private consult to set up a home exercise protocol using the mat, rubber bands, and weights I already have.

Spent many hours working on integrating old websites into this one. Adding many new Projects as well as posts. Lots of material to work on. Played tennis with Ted at 1pm. Felt infinitely better than yesterday’s outing. Won a set 6-1. Pretty bouncy all and all.

Non-fiction book group. Just six people. I hadn’t read the book, No Ashes…. Pretty good discussion nevertheless.