Tag Archives: David Drake

1/18/2021 – Monday – lots of chatter

more work on this very slow framing job….

Knees and hips troubling.

Short walk to post office only to find it closed for MLK day.

Work on essay about Jonathan Haidt’s TED talk about origins of moral values and liberals and conservatives. Response to Ellen Feldman.

Arrange HAL Exec Comm mtg.

Talk with Andrea Geyer about help organizing her finances and digital life.

Dave Drake and son Danny came by. Sat for an hour chatting.

Zoom with Linda Larson.

Ruth Tamaroff and Michael O’Hara came got drinks at 5:30. Left just after 7pm. Michael told a very long story about his travels to Willits CA in 1971.

12/24/2020 – Thursday – Christmas Eve

Slow day.

Wrestled with installation on new Mac-Mini in office. Strange flashing on screens. Can’t seem to replicate conditions.

 We were planning a dinner outdoors with Dave Drake and Hazel Matera. Cancelled due to virus concerns for Hazel. We had leftover duck and fixing from earlier meal with Dave.We didn’t wait up for Santa Claus. Lots of rain over night melting away the snow.

12/6/2020 – Sunday – walk, Leiden Zoom, dinner with Dave and Hazel

Snow on the Catskills already….

Went for a walk. Not our usual  route. Down  to  the Promenade, then on to the water  treatment  plant,  up 2nd to Robinson. At end of 3rd walk down steep hill and back up to Washington St. At the Fire Station walked around to County Social Services building this revealed a path across the eastern end of Oakdale Park. Through the woods to clamber on up to Oakwood Blvd. Along Oakdale Beach on 6th St on to Warren and then home. 3 1/2miles.On Robinson St.

Past the County Social Services bldg. to the path around the eastern end of Oakdale Park.

A lot of this was new territory for us. And new perspectives on well know ground.

Zoom with the kids in Leiden

Jesse scored in the top ranks for selection to the high schools in Leiden.

Dinner with Dave and Hazel

Karen roasted a beer can chicken, made tomatoes and cabbage stew, and I made faro. Dave brought his homemade butter nut pecan ice cream. Temperature was 30 degrees. Dinner lasted for 1 1.2 hours. With the 2 hours with Ted and Anne Saturday looks like a tank of gas lasts for around 4 hours.


More Brokenwood tv

4/18/20 – Saturday – library, exercise……

Up early. Listened to Only a Game podcast.

HAL Board of Trustees mtg – active, happy meeting. Received $58,500 PPP money from SBA. Good for 2 1/2 months salaries etc. Lots of talk about new fundraising strategies. Emily made extensive report on our online library programming.

Went to Letterbox Farm to pickup order of eggs and greens.

Karen participated in Balance for Seniors from the library. I did my exercises for the first time in weeks.

Ordered grab bars and other bathroom stuff from Amazon. This will allow us to make the first floor bathroom safe for us to shower in. Short term fix without all of the work planned for a walk in shower.

Karen made meatloaf and sautéed spinach. We drove a portion over to Dave Drake. Had lengthy drinks with Ted and Anne.

Watched the first 30 minutes of China Moon (1995). Gave up at that point. Back to Person of Interest

4/17/20 – Friday – various and list of Zoom meetings

Sent notices out to HAL board. Spent most of morning doing digital housekeeping.

Also time spent learning new things about Notability. Interesting feature of recording a lecture or meeting while making notes. The notes are synced to a time stamp during the recording. So, you can tap on a note and it moves the playback to that point.

Bought lunch at Cascades.

Talked with Kim Bach outside her store Verdigris. She complained about lack of workers to help with her online business. Her part time employees are financially better off on unemployment than coming back to work for her part-time. Continue reading →

3/18 – 4/7/2020 – Coronavirus Isolation

Wednesday 3/18/2020

Hudson Area Library closes; all programs stop.

Friday 3/20/2020

Gov. Cuomo announces shit down of all non-essential businesses.

Saturday 3/21/2020

HAL hold first online Board of Trustees meeting; library closed

Tuesday 4/7/2020

Today marks the end of the third week of isolation. Excepting for a couple of trips to the grocery, bank, and liquor store we have had no contact with any one closer than 6 feet.

Walks

Fortunately for us we have been taking daily walks, sometimes lengthy enough to be called hikes. It has been remarkable how few people we see during these walks. You might think that people would be getting out for exercise, air, nature…. maybe this reflects how sedentary we have become as a society. Our walks have mainly featured a route up Warren St. around the hospital and then back down the hill to home – about 2.5 miles (4K). We have extended and varied this to make it both longer and more challenging. 

Here are reports for a few.

Continue reading →

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.

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. 

12/15/2019 – pre-Christmas dinner

Sunday

We had a dinner for 14 people. Dave Drake cooked the duck breast and red cabbage. Karen made various dishes as did Mark. Anne Bertrand-Dewsnap made a desert, others brought wines and hors d’oeuvre. Ed, Meredith, Maggie and Parker came up from NJ. Ted and Anne came too. Pauline Decarmo, Susan???? Unfortunately none of Dave’s kids came.

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.