Category Archives: Movies, TV, Podcasts

3/15/2020 – HAL, Coronavirus, drinks, dinner

Sunday

Slow start to the day. Read NYTimes Sunday edition on paper. Cancelled tennis date with Ted because it only got to 42 degrees. Went to Carol Pledger’s house on East Allen for a get together with Emily and Lisa Dolan. Just a check in about library matters. Friday’s announcement of program and event cancellations graduated to a full shut down on Wednesday 3/18 thru the end of the month. Lots of talk about the coronavirus pandemic. The Hudson City School District announced their closing so we followed suit.

225 Warren Bar & Grill

Texted Dave Drake about drinks at Swoon. It closed at 4pm so we met for a drink at 225 at 4:30pm. Only 5 or so people at the bar. We practiced social distancing at the end of the bar.

Came back to 114 for a dinner of bacon and gruyere quiche with spinach and asparagus. Talked about memories of family, cousins,…. he left about 8pm. We listened to music before another chapter of Major Crimes.

3/4/2020 – work, AD, tennis

Wednesday 

Worked on UTMH stuff for Leon Greene, met with documentation team, talked with Seth. No Somml telecon.

Spent several hours watching documentary The Century of the Self: the engineering of consent– documentary written by Adam Curtis BBC 2002. History of public relations in the 20th century – Freud, Bernard, et al. Very good summary. 4 hrs long. Took extensive notes. This will contribute to an emerging new model of what’s going on that starts with the rise of the individual in the wake of capitalism.

Tennis at Total Tennis.

2/1/2020 – Peabody Essex Museum, Linda Larson, Torrey

Saturday

Breakfast with Linda Larson. She was in very good form. Ending her poetry book series and moving on to a memoir. Also spoke about the Naming Project in which her suggestion of renaming schizophrenia as Altered Perception Syndrome is gaining ground. Helped her out after breakfast with some computer problems.

Putnam Square, Cambridge

Off to Salem MA for the Peabody Essex Museum. Main objective was an exhibition of Jacob Lawrence’s American Struggle panels. Not very persuasive.  Other work seen at the Peabody Essex.

Lunch at Turner’s SeafoodsDropped off Esther. Went to another movie in Arlington. Just Mercy.

Mass Ave. Arlington near theatre/

Coffee before the show….

Arrived at Bill and Nancy’s at about 7:30.

Nancy not quite present

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

6/14/2019 – DOG, UTMH, RBC, Narcan at HAL, tennis, drinks at Ted and Anne’s house

Friday

Spent most of the day hanging end of newest DOG show. UTMH telecon with Troy Web, Matt Almeida, David Ackerman. Migrated website from diary.markorton.com to markorton.com. 

Emily Chameides sent me a text message at 4pm:

Just had to call 911. Found someone passed out in men’s room. Greenport Rescue and HPD responded and they revived him. Glad we caught it in time.

I was in the car going to play tennis. Saw the ambulance already at the library. I responded later. She replied:

Yes. Glad they came quickly and revived him. We have narcan but I called 911 first and they came so quickly. Glad I didn’t need to administer.

I stopped by her house on 5th on my way home from tennis. She was sitting on her stoop. We chatted about the incident for a few moments, the emotional burden of finding unresponsive bodies and then deciding what to do. She and Paul have Narcan training. But she pointed out that this guy was really big and it happens that they get aggressive when revived. But the Greenport Rescue came so quickly that she didn’t need to work that over too much.

Tennis was a first outing after the trip and illness, first time in just a day shy of four weeks. Trouble striking the ball squarely. Volleying OK. Ted was like the Energizer Bunny. I was fairly dead. Only played for an 45 minutes. 

Drinks with Ted and Anne. Ted had made a big plate of deviled eggs. Shared notes of our trips. They had taken ten students from Marist to Paris for ten days. As usual the conversation was loud, abrupt, back and forth.

Ended evening with another The Closer. 

5/12/2019 – rain, cold, DOG, drinks at Swoon

Sunday

Cold, rainy, rain. Breakfast at Rivertown Lodge with Dave and Daniel Drake. Food so-so. Conversation buoyant.  

DOG had some visitors despite weather.

Worked on new keynote capitalism essay. Biggest new claim concerns the ubiquity of regulators in every system except the economy.

Then a bunch written on the What Matters essay. 

Drinks at Swoon with Dave. Talked about Karen’s book project. Maybe pre-sell 500 copies.

Watched more Unforgotten and The Closer.

5/3/2019 – work, drive to NYC, Nyla lacrosse, documentary

Friday

UTMH work in the morning. Met with Tony Kieraldo to develop new social media program. David A. Has already indicated he doesn’t want to spend money on it even before seeing the proposal. Turns out he is once again funding the company so this brings out his craziness about money. Then, telecon with a private equity firm. We aren’t mature enough to be of immediate interest. David once again closed the door with his closing comments. A pointless exercise. Seth and I had a telecon with Troy Web about project status. Then lunch with David. He once again expressed himself about the social media campaign. This despite the fact that the revised proposal won’t be forwarded for review until Monday.

Jumped in car at 1 pm for ride down to NYC and Nyla’s lacrosse game at Horace Mann. Talked with Matt Almeida on the way down.

Across the street from the field….

Trinity won the game 8-7. Nyla scored 3 goals. Girls lacrosse is a strange unsatisfactory game.

Drove into Harlem in time to get to the Maysles Documentary Center for a showing of The Feeling of Being Watched by Assia Bondaoui. Andrea had tickets.

This is a personalized story of the investigation of FBI surveillance and harassment of a Muslim community outside of Chicago in the late 1990s into early 2000s. Very good. Discussion following was also stimulating. Mentions of “politics of respectability” – reminds the same in the history of civil rights earlier. Also the need to get beyond the objective journalism trope.

Back to Andrea’s about ten pm.

 

4/16/2019 – cold, work, web project

Tuesday

Still feel pretty crappy. UTMH team meeting was short – 30 minutes. No Ole, Wexelman or Gayle. 

Reading Elizabeth Kolbert’s New Yorker piece, “Under Water – can engineers save Louisiana’s disappearing coast?” (4/1/19).

These two maps jump out as a starting point.

Wrote up a description of the HAL  Fundraising Committee for next Saturday’s board mtg.

Spent rest of the morning and most of the afternoon updating transferred posts. Categories and tags. 

Reviewed Karen’s book presentation for tomorrow. Only needs better sense of Parker’s condition, capabilities….

Made chicken salad for dinner.

Watched MidSomers Murders followed by a Veep. 

4/11/2019 – HAL, tennis, TV

Thursday

Met with Emily Chameides at the library. We’re going to make this a regular deal. Complete review of all the issues. Emily is on top in a firmer way than just a few years ago. 

Tried out making a travel book for the 2011 road trip. First on Lightroom. Too much work. Then tried Blurb’s app. Too much work. Told Karen that I wouldn’t be making a book. 

Great tennis lesson. Volleying. Slice serve from new stance. Cross court drill. Move towards ball. Don’t wait for the ball. 

Watched a few minutes of Russian Doll. Remembered that Harvey and Betsy said it picked up. So watched two episodes. Jury is out. Then something else. Then a couple Veeps. 

Black bean gorp. Leftover chicken.