Category Archives: 2015

Friday – 2/20/15

The cold is not ending. Temperature at 7am.

Met with Agi Clark at Cascades to explore possible modes for her to engage the library project. 90 minute discussion. She has owned a house in Taghkanic across the lake since 1976. Now living on Warren St. as an experiment. Background on the creative side of advertising. Not a committee person. interested in engaging the poorer parts of the community. Knows Joanie Hunt at Promise Neighborhood. Also spoke of the need to video everything we do. Perhaps get a high school student involved.

Talked with Seth about UTM. Disaster with Troy Web last week not managing Apple app licenses and loosing connection to the CMH app. New CMH website now in web developer slow down…… still spelling errors in the text. More about the aggravations with Angie Keefer. He also now had some nagging damage to right shoulder from a fall earlier in the winter.

Thursday – 2/19/15

Went to gym at 7:30 am.

Visited Albany Public Library Made Here Creative Space at Washington Ave branch (former main branch. The library is iun a former IRS building. Low ceilings, though they have made considerable improvements in its appearance and functionalities.

UAlbany students cancelled with less than one hour’s notice via email. Jan is skiing with his kids so he didn’t count in the equation.

Fortunately I could move my 2:30pm meeting to talk about their new makerspace at the Albany Public Library to 1pm.

Met with Sarah Clark and Ryan Slowey. Etsy’s main contribution was so stimulate the start of the space and a six week workshop on entrepreneurialism. Held last fall with sixteen participants. Staff funding is coming out of the regular budget. APL is a school district library so they get $42 per person for their budget from taxes. They will have official launch of the space shortly. Because of the layout the space can only be open during library hours. They don’t seem to have a very strong connection to their community and possible customer base.

Wednesday – 2/18/15

Temperature at 6:30am.

Walk in Germantown briefly on the river where Paul Stewart told me we could find access. Temperature was about 20 degrees at 2pm.

Started working on the OLD Family Timeline that was originally created at the time of our 25th wedding anniversary. Blown up and displayed at the Community Center. Last entry is 2003.

Tuesday – 2/17/15

Monday – 2/16/15

Intense cold. Strong winds.

Temp at 7am.

Paid bills.

Spent most of day old consolidating diary entries into diary.markorton.com

Noah and Nyla came by for chat. John and Stephanie dropped them off. Talk about photography w Karen. Also their favorite books.

Cooked butternut squash soup w spicy sausage & asparagus confit. Karen made salad. Joe Keenan, his wife Lynn McElroy and Dave Drake came over. Good fun.

Sunday – 2/15/15

Up early. Shovel sidewalk, again. Coffee, then went to gym. Adding mobility exercises mimicking lateral tennis steps. 25 min on bicycle L8.

Went to Opera House for CSA farm gathering signed up for Letterbox Farm. This is Faith Gilbert’s operation Met woman from herb farm who I worked with a bit last year. Talked about building business plan from the financial model out.

Had a haircut later. Very cold and windy. Snow blowing back ov er roads.

Spent time on blog entry in currentmatters about internet access in Hudson. Also spent time consolidating entries into the diary.markorton.com site.

Saturday – 2/14/15

Bob’s Diner, Fairview Ave. Greenport NY

Breakfast and shopping.

Gentrification upper State St.

Later went for a walk around the hospital loop. Snowy sidewalks.

Stopped at the Columbia County Council on the Arts (209 Warren) to look at sculpture show. “On and Off the Wall” – Sculpture – Works can be free-standing, wall-mounted, relief or assemblage. (January 24 – March 21)

The gallery sitter was one of the artists, Stepan Kubicek. SteelPuddle.com. Interesting talk with him that evolved around to the makerspace idea. His work is the free standing sculpture in the photos

Friday – 2/13/15

Temperature at 7 am.

Meeting with HAL board candidate Agi Clark cancelled due to her illness.

Spent most of morning catching up on accounting for DOE.

Walked to post office – 8 degrees. Found Valentine’s card for K.

Went to see Selma (IMDB entry), the movie. Was afraid that it might be a bad movie. Proved to be well constructed with good interlacing of personal, organizational, and public events. Meetings with LBJ featured. How many times did King really meet with him in the White House.

Thursday – 2/12/15

Drove to Albany for a UTM meeting with Belvedere Home Care for a requirements gathering meeting. Jan Woodcock led the process. Very active customer inputs from four staff & CEO/owner.

Then on to UAlbany for the regular weekly meeting with the students.

My visit to Albany Made Here Creative Space at Albany Public Library was cancelled due to illness. Will see this next week. They are building this in partnership with Etsy.

Finished last of season five of The Wire. Now have seen the entire series again. Still most compelling TV.

Wednesday – 2/11/15

Hudson Business Coalition meeting at Hudson Dev Corp at Firehouse. Two hours long because there were new people, including conspicuously Russ Gibson, co-owner of Croft House and Barlow Hotel. He reported on B&B matters. Interesting support for Lodging Tax proposal with some useful caveats, including spending some of the receipts on marketing Hudson.

Hudson-Walking-Guide-2015 Also spent time on Hudson Walking Guide – its future. Set up a strategy committee to come up with overall marketing direction. SJ Williams volunteered to organize this.

Got a chance to talk with Chad Weckler about the Etsy /CEDC support for a makerspace. We will collaborate further. He has a proposal ready to go to Galvan focused on the Van Kleeck Tire building.

Went to gym.

Mr. Wonderful's World

“I might wake up dead tomorrow.”