Category Archives: 2019

8/2/2019 – house, work, tennis, HAL event, drinks

Friday

Saw a do-it-yourself video about a drop down work bench. Remembered there is a 60 x 36 table top in the barn. This will do just fine. Need to get piano hinges and other hardware. Also started adding a new light over door to factory that will come on with a motion detector.

Talked with Seth. Went over to meet with Luca ??, the young guy Seth has doing odd jobs. Chatted with him about plans he has to take a year off from college. Gave him the task of finding some healthcare logistics firms to handle our biometric devices.

Tennis with Ted mid afternoon. Played well. 

In the evening I went to the library for a concert, Music in the Stacks, given by Aston Magna.

The Schubert song cycle Die Schoenberg Mullerin was a forty five minute extravaganza of twenty poems about nature and lost love. Sung by a tenor Frank Kelly who had memorized the whole thing. Here is section of one poem as an example:

Everything was played on period instruments or reproductions of period instruments as in the forte piano.

Janissary bells. A fourth foot pedal actuates these bells.

The natural horn was amazing but also disconcerting with its muffled sound when the hand in the bell was used to change pitch.

 

8/1/2019 – prostate biopsy

Thursday

Went up to CMH and met up with Dr. Subudhi, the urologist. Karen went with me. The biopsy was moderately uncomfortable, but as expected it only took perhaps ten minutes of so. Went home and spent the rest of the day snoozing, reading, doing very little. Watched more videos about prostate cancer topics. Results of my biopsy should be available in a week. Then we’ll see what decisions need to be made.

I’m really annoyed with Seth because he told everyone at UTMH about the biopsy. I’ve received notes from Wexelman, David, Ole…. But maybe I should not be so annoyed since I also told David rather casually the other day in an email about scheduling some meeting.

Saw a video about making a drop down work bench for the barn. I can use the dining table we retrieved from the alley.

Made a tofu dish for dinner. Onions, green peppers, red pepper, bok choy, chopped tomatoes (canned), tofu, tikka masala sauce. Combined with leftovers. Bulgur, meatloaf, cauliflower and cheese.

7/31/2019 – HAL,UTMH, tennis, HAL

Wednesday

Early breakfast. eEllen Liburt came by to talk about her professional website  

Met with Bill Stenehjem about HAL board. He is mostly interested in programming.

UTMH – various with Seth.

Tennis with Ted. Karen is teaching her online course  

Met Dan Ronsani at library to talk about what he wants to do on the board,

Smoked some weed and had too much drink.

 

 

 

 

7/30/2019 – HAL, clean up, tennis lesson

Tuesday

Did some of the standing exercises with the exercise bands….monster walks….These Indian clubs showed up in the mail:

Ducked out of the UTMH team meeting today. Cannot stand the blather…. Caught up on HAL stuff. Set up meetings with board members…looked at ellenliburt.com website in advance of tomorrow’s meeting with Ellen. Spent time getting ready to transfer the new UTMH website to the domain. Also watched more videos about prostate cancer and treatments, especially robotic prostatectomies. Updated my exercise protocol pages.

Sudden, quite violent thunder storm with hail descended at about 1pm. Power went out. Took Karen to library on the way to Saugerties. Tree limbs and trees down over in Catskill.

Tennis lesson at 3pm. Worked on hitting backhand crosscourt. Spent a lot of time on crosscourt rallies, both forehand and backhand.  Ended with serve. Saif seemed pleased that my toss is finally high enough to slow down the swing of the arm and racket. Ted Dewsnap showed up for Saif’s next lesson as I was leaving.

Put a big pile of recycling out. Got rid of many computer boxes that have been upstairs in the barn for ten years. Started working on new motion detector light over door to office. Will come in handy when the shorter days return in a couple of months. 

Karen made a real meatloaf with a mixture of veal, pork and beef. Excellent.

More Boston Legal

7/29/2019 – exercises, puttering, HAL, nonfiction book group

Monday

After breakfast did exercise routine. Puttering. Created some questions for the book group meeting on White Trash. Karen was off in Cambridge at Soup Group. Greeted one of the 50 photographers in the gallery to see her work. Read more of Stalingrad.

Broke up the many computer boxes I had brought down from the 2nd floor of barn. First step in a clean out. 

Met with Emily Chameides at the library at 5pm. Talked through lots of issues. 

Nonfiction book group at 6 pm. 8 people attended despite promises from four or five more to show up.  Two new people: Anna Maria Assevero and Peter Daley. She has joined the library board. He is a friend of Erika and Nick from another book group. Good discussion. 

7/28/2019 – tennis, dinner with Sue and Mark Haven

Sunday

Woke up at 5 am. Got up and read more of Stalingrad, coffee, breakfast.

Cindy Weisbart appeared for breakfast along with Karen. Got NYTimes on paper.

Left to practice serve at 9. Probably hit 250 serves. Big focus on tossing the ball very high so that I have to delay my swing and hit up on the ball. Making progress with both flat and slice.

Did gallery duty.

Cindy left for the train at about 1pm. We jumped in car at 2:30 after Pauline Decarmo showed up for gallery sitting. Stopped at Pondside Nursery to consider plants for the backyard just behind the new sun room which ironically receives almost no sun at the level of the plants. Helped by older woman who had taught at Hudson High for a career then went on to teach remedial English at CGCC for another 20 years. She knows Joan Damiani.

Left for Sue and Mark Haven’s house in Lexington, NY in the Catskill Mtns. Since we weren’t due there until 5 pm we drove beyond through Wyndham, Prattsville, Grand Gorge, then to Stamford before tracking back to Lexington and dinner. Excellent time with the Havens. Looked at the vegetable garden in raised beds. Not much there due to hedgehog rampages. Maybe my thinking about a raised bed should focus on flowers? After all we can get excellent veggies at the farmers market here in Hudson every Saturday.

Combination of conversation about aging, photography, children, current politics and good food. Returned home as sky darkened with brilliant red sunset behind us.

7/27/2019 – breakfast, shopping, tennis, reception

Saturday

Up early for breakfast at Bob’s. Shopping. Tennis with Ted. Already in high 80s. Cindy Weisbart arrived about 3:30pm. Karen cooked her famous “sesame chicken egg roll in a bowl”

Reception for 5th Annual Group Show – “50 photographs, 50 photographers, one video…” A mob scene. Very hot and stuffy. Paula Tognarelli spoke at some length. Fortunately Karen interrupted her to get an explanation about some malfeasance at another gallery that she was speaking about.

Paula Tognarelli and Steve Gentile

7/26/2019 – yard work, work, tennis, Rhiannon Giddens

Friday 

Raked yard. Checked on sun coverage for possible vegetable garden next year. Hung last of the pictures for the annual group show. Cleaned up storage rack in side room. Threw out boxes from barn storage.

Talked with Linda Larson at length. Possible laptop purchase. New poetry book. Also Harvey Meyerson who is back in Silver Spring. His recovery is quite slow. Keeler mob will be at Bantam first week  of August.

Karen left at noon for her Woodstock photo group.  

Tennis at 3:30 with Ted. Ended just after 5 with set at 8-7. Wrist felt much better.

Went to Albany for concert at The Egg. 

7/24/2019 – PT, work….

Wednesday

Corey Smith, physical therapist and sports trainer who I have worked with at CMH PT on Fish and Game Rd. several times over the past three years, showed up for a private session. I wrote him earlier about what I felt my objectives are:

Here are a few thoughts about what I’d like to accomplish.
 
Get into an every other day morning routine of exercises focused on balance, flexibility and strength. 30-40 minutes would be sustainable. I want to use a floor mat and simple tools like rubber bands and small weights. Develop a set of routines that will hit the major components of the body in a rotating cycle.
 
Do these objectives fit with your private practice? I might guess that I would need three or four sessions to get started. Then occasional tune-ups. Obviously I am open to your direction and expert advice.
 
So we got right to it. We used the exercise bands I had purchased earlier and he brought along a couple of extra toys, Indian club and exercise balls. I took notes and we took pictures so that I can remember what to do. I turned these into a document:
Now I just have to actually carry through on this exercise program.
 

UTMH

Met with Seth to prep for the meeting at 3pm with David and Cameron. Two topics: Troy Web and Ole Breuning (see Friday 7/19/2019). But, first, Seth needed to talk about his conflicted feelings about spending so much time at this point in his life endlessly working on things that may not interest him so much any more….. This is a conversation we seem to repeat regularly now. Then we got to the Troy Web mess. David and Seth confabulate the need to move on in development work with the earlier contractual commitments they made to TW for a share of revenue. At any rate I got Seth to come up with a framing statement to contain the discussion. This will be especially valuable for Cameron who is not up on all the details.

Met for an hour withSeth, David, and Cameron. Finally resolved to pay TW what UTMH owes under the contract and initiate the SaaS development project. Also, importantly from my perspective, they agreed to retain Michael Queralt and the Nicaraguan guys for the work on a future state map. David never brought up Ole. Don’t think he forgot. He and Seth are avoiding the unproductive situation with Ole. Perhaps there is also a deeper relationship between Ole and Cameron than I know about. I kept quiet.