Category Archives: Tennis

3/5/2020 – weight, work, tennis

Thursday

Weighed 218 this morning down from 222 on 1/9/20 when we returned from Europe. Close to weight when I graduated from Taft in 1965. Did exercise routine.

Spent most of day at UTMH. Leon Greene came for a product demo with Brandon and James. He has an easy touch with people. Very assured without being obnoxiously so. Chatted with him about corporate jobs, weight and exercise. Turns out he once weighed 260. He’s about 6’3” weighing he says 235 now. Doesn’t look like it. I will have a private chat with him next week.

Sspoke with David A about Troy Web’s run away billing for software development. Seth was completely over wrought about the ongoing train wreck with them. Also discussed CMH’s move to become a 3rd party provider of RPM services…..

Wrote emails to Michael Chameides, Michael O’Hara and Kite’s Nest about composting. This may be my next big public project…..

Tennis nets are up at the school here in Hudson. Earlier than I ever recall. Ted and I will play there on Sunday. Weather should be in high 50s.

Made another batch of bran muffins with raisins and apricots.

Received first test of my place mat series.
Made tofu vegetable gorp for dinner. Karen declared it good.

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.

2/23/2020 – Sunday – art project, tennis, Morgan-Orton sale, drinks

Breakfast at Bob’s then shopping. More work on sorting pictures for the table mat project. Initial designs.

Temperature over 50 led to tennis at CGCC. Turned out to be a bad outing. Couldn’t get moving at all, very dead legs. Ted felt the same. Nevertheless played for almost two hours.

Beginning of the End of the NJ Era for the Morgan-Ortons

88 Briarwoood Drive East is on the market….

Drinks at Swoon. 

2/14/2020 – Friday – old portrait, UTMH, tennis

Karen got up early to go to NYC. Train cancelled due to derailment at Penn Station. Decided to cancel trip. She returned to working on the pile of old boxed materials from the barn.

Found prep school photo of me in box of Orton family photos recently brought in from the barn.

Confab with David Ackerman about marketing materials and contracts. Leon Greene has been signed up to start work, hopefully as CEO soon.

Ted picked me up for tennis at Old Chatham Tennis. 5-7pm. Break through night. Served very well because I consistently threw the ball high enough to slow down the back swing. 2 sets 6-3, 6-2.

2/4/2020 – UTMH, tennis…

Tuesday

UTMH team meeting….meet Leon Greene, CEO candidate with David Seth and Cameron. Very broad experience in tech and software, bright, good strategic mind. Need to work out future compensation issues before starting four month intro engagement.

Tennis lesson with Saif. Rapid ground stroke drills, serve, toss ball high, slow down the swing from rear drop position, hit up on ball for depth. Knee pain of last week gone.

1/30/2020 – DOG, web project, tennis, dinner

Thursday

Got up at 5:30 am. Worked on updating DOG website for the next season. Then worked more on the timeline here.

Tennis lesson at 11 am.

Troubled left knee was concerning. But once I got going it proved to be just a little annoyance occasionally. Saif introduced the idea that I should be flicking my wrist during my ground strokes. I seem to have interpreted earlier instructions to indicated keeping the wrist immobile during the stroke. Flicking the wrist involved letting the racquet drop below the ball and the flicking the racquet in an upward direction as the arm carried through the stroke. Will have to work further on this.

Big revelation was the time we took with my serve. He pointed out that I am rushing the whole arm motion from then time I toss the ball in the air. Now that I toss the ball quite far up I can slow down my back swing and the wind up to only accelerate during the last quarter or so of the whole swing path. This worked wonders. I hit one ball after the other over the net most landing in very close to the service line. I also had time during the serve motion to think about where I was hitting the ball.

HAL Meeting with Mayor Kamal Johnson

Held meeting with the mayor to provide him with an overview of library operations, future plans, and budget. He is very young, Emily did her usual good job. Gary Sheffer spoke about the History Room. Theresa Parsons chimed in; Bill Stenehjem was present. Toni Koweek represented the Friends and gave a longer than necessary description of their activities. Very good meeting. He is quite familiar with the library but hopefully this gives him a better view of ours issues and the overall program.

Dinner with SJ Williams and Pauline Decarmo

Went to Barnwood. Were horrified at the announcement that there was no fried chicken available. Did eat our dinner. Lots of chatter. Followed up with visit to Dave Drake at Swoon for drinks. Very crowded at the bar. Pauline and I talked about her billing practices. 

1/29/2020 – web project, work, tennis

Wednesday 

Spent too much time working with a plugin to add tables of contents to web pages here and on AmericanDelusions. Decided in the end to drop it here because of a conflict with Timeline. Also talked with Karen about my spreadsheet of travel events. She added some I had forgotten back in the early ‘70s.

FaceTime with kids in Leiden
M 

Tentative travel list without Karen’s edits:

June 1982 Karen, Jonathan & Mark take Green Tortoise bus from Harvard Sq. to Los Angeles
September 1983 Mark and Karen cross Canada by train
November 1984 Karen and kids go to Virgin Islands
March 1986 Puerto Rico
April 1986 Mark in Milan (work), Paris w Harvey Meyerson
May 1986 Karen to Dueseldorf (work) then Rome and Paris
March 1987 M & K in Jamaica
August 1987 Mark to Taiwan (work) then Melbourne
February 1988 M & K Big Bend National Park
June 1988 Family in Southest
December 1989 Karen in India
June 1990 M&K Washington DC, Virginia and West Virginia
March 1991 K&M Mexico
September 1991 Karen hikes White Mountains
June 1992 K&M travel with Ed and Meredith to Glacier National park
October 1992 Karen and Andrea trip to Southwest and Albuquerque Balloon Festival
March 1995 K&M go to Paris
April 1996 K&M got to Florida, east, west Everglades
October 1998 Karen and Mark travel to blues festival and elsewhere. Helena Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Memphis
December 1999 Karen goes to Vietnam
April 2000 Karen Jackson Mississippi wi Linda Larson
June 2002 Karen Mississippi w Linda Larson
May 2005 Singapore
May 2005 Korea wedding
June 2005 Jon and Nan wedding Cambridge
April 2008 K&M Savannah and Charleston
February 2009 K&M Florida, cousins’ dinner
December 2009 K&M Hong Kong & Vietnam
February 2010 K&M Florida, cousin’s dinner
February 2011 South-Alabama-Texas-New Mexico-Oklahoma-return
December 2011 HK – Bali
December 2012 Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Penang
February 2013 California and Arizona
December 2014 Australia with Jon, nan, kids, visit Torry and Jane
August 2015 Northern CA and Sapoznick wedding
December 2015 West Coast w AJL & kids
October 2016 Road Trip – Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Chicago
February 2017 Florida road trip by car, cousins’ dinner
March 2017 Leiden, Utrecht, Maastricht, Barcelona, et al
August 2017 Phillip Johnson House
August 2017 Art Exhibit Rogers
October 2017 Leiden, Cologne Freiburg, Brussels, Antwerp, et al
February 2018 Road trip – Florida, New Orleans, Gulf Coast, cousins’ dinner
May 2018 Netherlands-Lisbon visit with Torrey and Jane
June 2018 Bus Trip – NYC – Atlantic City – Cape May – Philadelphia – NYC
October 2018 Netherlands – Sicily
February 2019 Superbowl Cambridge, Florida Cousins
April 2019 Philadelphia and Washington DC
December 2019 Leiden, Vienna, Morocco

Met with Erin Marshall and Ryder Cooley at UTMH. Lengthy discussion of document standards and user roles and permissions. Have asked Troy Web for a roles and permissions matrix. They should be able to produce this easily. 

Seth and I talked with SOMML. After what seems to be more than a year of preparatory work they have actually started to sign up patients at Albany Med. Also spoke with David about upcoming meeting with CEO candidate Leon Greene next week.

Rare completely clear sky behind the Catskill Mountains on the way to tennis about 5:30pm.

Doubles at Total Tennis. Played quite well excepting serve which featured way too many double faults. Left knee bothered me towards the end of the session.

1/23/2020 – Doctor, UTMH, Tennis

Thursday

Doctor appointment with Marilyn Miller. Talked about right wrist, left knee – minor pain there – and shooting pains occasionally in legs. Left with appointment to Dr. Shin at Fish and Game Rd for wrist and knee. Blood work for leg pains. This may either resolve or narrow that issue. Rest of test results in good shape.

More work on the marketing brochure and other. 

Tennis lesson. Saif now wants me to hit the backhand with a grip that very nearly mirrors my forehand grip. Instantly drilled lots of balls into the net, as he predicted. This new grip will greatly increase the top spin. More work on serve. Tossing the ball really high to slow down arm motion. Also keeping left hand pointed to ball for as long as possible.