Thanks, Dan, for our new website! - Farewell Miles Bart

Our new website. Click here.

New Directions has had a website for about 6 years. It was designed by Joey Moore, the then 16-yo son of one of our members. He did a beautiful job. He did it for free but I gave him a $100 tip.

Here's the old homepage:

I wanted to photograph it so I wouldn't forget it. The photo is how the webmaster (moi) loaded things on it.

Not easy. We used a now-defunct Microsoft Front Page.

My son Dan selected an easier program for me to work on. It's called WordPress. It has a nice logo - a simple W (oy! that sounds like our last president) - that is similar to the Wikipedia logo.

How many times are you on Wiki per day?

So I phoned Gate.com this morning to disconnect the old site. You always reach someone in Bulgaria, this time Nick. Then he transferred me to Rory in Vancouver.

Last nite, we had a very interesting support group meeting. Many newcomers. In my small group I told everyone I would email them the next morning so they would have everyone's email address and can keep in touch between meetings.

So many people wanted to join my next Goals Group I may need to run two of them.

I did ask myself, Do you really wanna run another one? And in the midst of the summer?

Two people made strong requests. How can I refuse them?

But the most important thing on my To-Do List today was to submit my novel to a potential agent from a small book press.



You must read the guidelines very closely. I printed out my first 50 pages, only to realize they wanted 15-20, so I sent them the first 16.

They want a cover letter.

I typed up my cover letter but my printer refused to print it.

It just stopped in its tracks. (Later on, Scott fixed it. The cord came loose. A good omen, n'est-ce pas?)

What should I do? Email my next-door neighbor and have him print it out? His mother/law is smoking right now on the back porch. I didn't know Dolores smoked! Her deceased husband was a pitcher for the Cinci Reds. Cliff Ross. 1954-1955. He played minor league ball into the '70s, according to Bill Adams, his son/law and MY next door neighbah!

Then I got a better idea.

I typed the whole thing up on my Selectric. You can't make a mistake, tho, b/c I don't have any Correct-o-Type (thank goodness I remembered that word!).

I made one mistake but it wasn't hideous. But it caused me to say in my cover letter that, oddly, my printer stopped working.

But you can't end a letter like that. It would jinx the entire reading experience.

So, I ended by saying:

A good omen, no doubt!

When signing the letter, my signature was all wobbly. I finally learned today that this is probly from my kidney transplant on April 1.

I did hand exercises from Willow Grove Physical Therapy, which has helped a lot, but there's still residual effects that I'm confident will fade in time.



Found out that Miles Bart, co-founder of the New Directions Delaware group died on April 9:

Miles Bart Obituary (from the Internet)

(Archived)

Published in The News Journal on April 12, 2011

First 25 of 136 words: Miles Bart Age 82, died April 9, 2011.
Son of Michael and Rose Bart; brother of Joan Lawsky;
father of Keith, Kevin and David; grandfather...

I had learned he was ill w/heart problems about a year ago,
tried to call him, but got no response.

He'd orig. come up to our meeting and said he wanted to start
one in Delaware.

He did a terrific interview in our Compass a few years back.
His New Directions is a wonderful organization.

A few years ago, he and some of his colleagues came up for a
presentation we held in the Lower Moreland Community Room.

What fun we all had! Afterward, we all went out to eat at
Santiago's Coffeeshop 5 minutes down the road.

Miles Bart was a master of the word. He taught me the words
'inestimable' and 'incalculable.' I refused to use the first word
b/c it was his word.

Now that he's left this earth does it fall into my hands?

The truth, in this case, is inestimable.