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Blog Archive 2016 Oct

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Sat Oct 1 = This morning I weighed a delightful1 138.4 lb, which is about 2.5 lb less than before my bowel cleanse. I'll plan on eating 80% of my diet to reduce to 138.0, which should take care of the little fat that has developed in the area of my navel.
- I spent about 2 hours analyzing and reconfiguring my four computer screens. I felt I was wasting time, but my efficiency certainly goes up with them.
- This evening I went to see a comedy show at StandUp Scottsdale for the first time in nearly two years, but at their new Papa Chulo's location. It was good to see Howard Hughes, the owner, again. Headliner, Brody Stevens, was off the wall, weird and great. They had three other comedians, including a 13-year-old boy.

Sun Oct 2 = My weight was up to 140.1 lb this morning. Maybe yesterday's 138.4 was a fluke.
- I tried something new for pre-emergence, which keeps my weeds down: pellets or granules. Supposedly they can last a long time before rain comes to activate them, vs the pre-emergence spray liquid that I have been using, which has to be watered in by hand, if not by rain, within 20 days of its application. The new Scott hand-crank spreader I used barely made it to the end before its gears started jamming.

Mon Oct 3 = Late this morning, under the auspices of
Duet
The organization I support and through which I take non-driving seniors shopping and to their doctors' appointments
, I took Josephine to her doctor's appointment in Scottsdale
- I made several stops on the way home. First was at the 32st & Bell LA Fitness for a slow, heavy, arms workout. Since it had been a while I went light for my first two sets of each muscle.
- At Fry's Food & Drug I bought some peaches and grapefruit juice and learned why no stores have grapefruit now. They're out of season. I didn't know there WAS a season for them.
- At Home Depot I exchanged the bad Scott spreader for an identical new one. In about four months, when I make my next pre-emergence application, I'll know if it also jams. I saw a guy there that couldn't say enough good about using the pellets. He gets them cheap at Walmart in an application jug and applies them with a walking spreader.
- For my Comedy Writing Workshop tonight here at Toso's Bar and Restaurant, no one showed up, so I worked on this blog, on my checking account and my comedy for the Monday Night Madhouse show this evening. Also I got a salad with chicken to finish off my supper. Never any time to waste. Aerial took good care of me.
- By the time I appeared on the Monday Night Madness show, the audience was down from 10 to four, but they were a good group and we had fun. I believe, with small audiences, they deserve the best I can give them. It is not their fault that the rest of the people left after their friends appeared. I did some callbacks for comedians who were no longer there and, for the first time, my new Viagra bit.

Tue Oct 4 = My cute and little Sony ICD-UX560 arrived today. First thing after setting its time and date, I did an hour-long test recording. It synchronized perfectly with my Zoom recorder, which means it will also synchrinize with my videos :)
- This evening I appeared at Rick Bronson's House of Comedy for the first time since the middle of August. Rob Maebe ran a good show with 13 comedians and a paid audience. I did my new Viagra bit. I had to scrounge in my mind to fill the 7 minutes and ended up going 7:46 without ever getting the light. Usually I prepare more than enough material.

wed Oct 5 = I'm probably the only guy that can spend 36 minutes adjusting the tire pressures for my van, but I did have to get out my wheeled compressor and plug it in.
Tonight was the first Improv Mania Level 2 class, and a good one, with random passing multiple objects in a circle. Then, on stage, an imaginary kitchen, petting zoo, International Space Station, and scene change with spontaneous groups of three.
- Before the class I went to Gangplank where Scott helped me understand Facebook a little more. After the class I updated the Future Appearances from October 6th to 27th on my Comedy web page, using NotePad++ as always. That about sprained my brain because some of the entries were three weeks old. I was able to get my mind around it after I turned off the word wrap and started a new section with a grid of the Tuesday and Thursday repeating shows. That, and typing some of this blog took me two hours and 30 minutes. Boy am I slow! On the way home I ate the Protein Frosty I had taken. Since it was supposed to be my reward for doing a Wednesday workout..
- I had to do my heavy, slow arms workout, so did it here in my home gym. I got to bed about 1:45am, but kept credibility with myself by doing an abbreviated version of the workout.

Thu Oct 6 = This afternoon, on the Clark Howard Show I learned that Android Pay (also Apple Pay) is more secure than using credit cards - even the cards with the chip. The way the banks have it set up, if someone gets your credit card they can charge anything they want. My phone must be unlocked with my finger print.
- Setting Android Pay up on my Nexus 6P couldn't have been easier. I just opened the Android Pay app, which was already on my phone, and added my credit card's CVC. Everything else, including an image of the credit card, was already on my phone.

Fri Oct 7 = Today I put in for the New Faces show at the Tempe Improv. The sign-ups just came online... pretty late, considering the show is the 23rd. This evening I drove up to Rick Bronson's House of Comedy to see Andrew Norelli, one of my favorite comedians... and one of the cleanest.

Sat Oct 8 = I spent way too much time, but am happy with the result. On FaceBook I created a group of 70 local comedians and sent them all a message about Monday's Comedy Writing Workshop. (A few days later I could not find the group anywhere. Thanks, FaceBook!)
- I added my Vivoactive fitness/comedy watch to my Technology web page.
- This afternoon I sprayed the weeds in my back yard with Round-Up.
- Via emails and phone calls, I have started seeking bookings for my spring/summer road trip, the southern portion, eastbound.

Sun Oct 9 = Infuse Open Mic at the Phoenix Center for the Arts, 3rd St. Theater was another good show. The only other comedians on the bill was a mother/son team. The son is a smart high school student who is taking some college classes... I believe.

Mon Oct 10 = At this evening's Comedy Writing Workshop I had three participants. Better than last time. Next week is the last session in the series of six. I doubt that I'll do it again soon if I do not have a better turnout.
- What a difference in audiences. At Toso's Monday MadHouse Comedy, I did my new Viagra routine again tonight and hardly got a chuckle - the same routine that did well at The Phoenix Center for the Arts and pretty much killed at The House of Comedy.

Tue Oct 11 = The monthly Windows update broke my big, vertical HDMI monitor. My computer does not recognize it. Thanks, Microsoft! Also, for the second time in about a week, my used, Neovo 19" monitor has turned up purple. Must be losing green.
- At noon, I took my van to C&R Tire for a refrigeration check. George, there found a slow leak near the bottom of the condenser. As long as it stays slow, I can live with it by adding 12 oz of freon a couple times a year. Thanks for the word, George.
- Is it luck? Life is a mixture of bad and good things and that it pays to be in the right place at the right time... and to be prepared. I went to the House of Comedy as an audience member for a pre-booked show. About half way through Ian came and asked me if I would like to go up since one of the comedians did not show up. Bingo! I quickly set up my five recording devices and did 3:47 minutes of my relatively new set on Viagra to a very responsive, paying, audience of 27. Thank you hosts, Ian and Ricardo.

Wed Oct 12 = I kicked off today's trip by driving down to Tempe to meet with Jane of the Fidelity National Title Foreclosure Division to initiate a Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure for the mortgage I am carrying on 10 acres of raw desert land I sold a few years ago. The Deed in Lieu will cost me about $1,440. The purchasers have had some unexpected medical expenses. I appreciate their cooperation, which will save all of us time and money.
- On the way from there to the Improve Mania class I stopped by a Goodwill and bought three pair of cargo pants (one dark navy and two khaki), then on to the LA Fitness next door for a quick, slow, heavy workout.

Thu Oct 13 = Although I have been trying each day, there seems to be so many things to do that I don't usually make it to the gym. Today was no exception.
- Today I shifted my 3-month spring/summer road trip from June-August to May-July. That will simplify my life a lot, because I schedule my yearly physical, eye exams etc. each August.
- I paid off the balances of the two credit cards on which I had any, as always.
- I drove down to Chandler for Improv Mania's monthly open mic. Colleen, the co-owner with Dave, her husband, was the host. She did a good job and the crowd loved her. I was able to hook my zoom recorder into the line out of their PA system for good mic recording, and also place my Sony ICD-UX560 strategically for pretty good audience audio. Now if only my Cyberlink multi-cam software worked :(

Fri Oct 14 = Today I made a bunch of tickets for my Tempe Improv New Faces appearance on the 23rd and revised and printed 72 of my comedy schedule slips. I also added my cool, new, Sony ICD-UX560 to my Technology web page.
- This evening I drove down to The Tempe Improv to take in comedian Mike Kosta. He was pretty good. Of course, while there, I told people about my New Faces appearance on the 23rd and passed out free tickets and schedule slips before and between shows to people outside the club who were interested.

Sat Oct 15 = Today I made more tickets for the 23rd, drove back down to The Tempe Improv and passed out about 60 tickets and 70 of my schedule slips. Tom Simms was the host, Forest Shaw the feature and, of course, Mike Kosta was the headliner again. It was educational for me to see the same comedians doing similar material at multiple shows.

Sun Oct 16 = Today my Samsung Xpress M2835DW B&W LASER printer finished off it's first half ream of paper in 45 days. That's an average of 5.5 pages printed each day. I always try to economize. My parents grew up in the great depression and, fortunately, some of it rubbed off on me.
- I had nice phone visits with my brother, Stan, and his friend, Steve Fowler, in Hutchinson and with Bernadette, my x-sister-in-law here in Phoenix. Also I got my taxes submitted, electronically. I had gotten an extension from April 15th and the deadline is tomorrow.

Mon Oct 17 = I spent much of today preparing comedy routines for three appearances:
  1. Tonight at Toso's Monday Madhouse Comedy
  2. Thursday at The Trinity Church (squeaky clean, just in case their scheduled comedian falls into a hole)
  3. Thursday at Dos Gringos
  4. Sunday afternoon at The Herberger Theater
  5. Sunday evening at The Tempe Improv (similar to the Dos Gringos routine)
- It's a good thing I checked to see if my electronic income tax filing was accepted because TaxAct had no record of it, so I re-did the filing. All the payment information was pre-populated, so maybe I hadn't completed the process last night. Later today I received notice that my returns had been accepted by both the IRS and the AZ Department of Revenue.
- This evening I went to LA Fitness for a shower on the way for my Comedy Writing Workshop at Tosos. At Tosos I got everything set up and no one showed up by 7:20 so I did my semi-monthly grocery shopping at Winco Foods, delivered the stuff home, turned around and immediately went back to Tosos for the comedy show...
- Bobby Johnson, the producer was not there and The Mad House Comedy Show did not happen. His website was a little confusing, showing Andrew Norelli, a nationally known comedian, appearing tonight. Well, no one appeared, so I went back to LA Fitness and did a light full body workout.

Tue Oct 18 = I Moon Juiced the myoporums today, made some phone calls and prepared my Christmas card list.
- Todays trip was productive, driving down to the South Tempe LA Fitness in rush-hour traffic, doing a 23-minute heavy torso workout, going to Dos Gringos where I did 5:21 minutes of comedy and going to The Tempe Tavern for 7:07 minutes of comedy: all the time trying to perfect my Viagra routine for Sunday's show at The Tempe Improv. I forgot my camera bag, so only got audio recordings of the two shows.

Wed Oct 19 = Having an auto accident was not on my list of things to do today, so I didn't get around to it until evening. Earlier, preparing for my spring road trip, I researched ten comedy clubs in the Houston area and emailed the Houston Improv and The Joke Joint.
- Then I fixed supper to eat on the way and took off for Improv Mania in Chandler. I have a habit of watching the traffic ahead like they say you should. However I learned, tonight, while southbound on the 101 in the east valley, that you also have to be very aware of the traffic directly in front of you. In the number one lane, the gal in front of me stopped cold unexpectedly so I stopped, barely in time... almost. I contacted her right back bumper with my left front bumper, going about 3 mph. We exchanged a little paint - her red on my white and my white on her red. A little white paint on her bumper appeared to be the only result for her. My bumper got the worst of it, losing about a square inch of paint and being moved down about a fourth inch on the left side. If I had turned the wheel just a little more to the right there would have been no contact. By phone, her dad advised her to file a police report, so my drive took an additional half hour and will cost me about $210 for fees and traffic school to avoid points on my drivers' licence.
- I DID get to the last half of the improv class.

Thu Oct 20 = I put my van battery on a special, high tech, charger for the night, not knowing if the problem was the battery or the van, but I have needed to jump start the van any time it sits for more than an hour or so. It is not holding a charge, or something is wrong with my van's electrical system.
- At night, when I get up to pee, which is usually twice, I review and/or go through my entire Viagra routine, hoping to eventually make it flow more smoothly. I also may tweak it, which is not always a good thing. It is sometimes like putting speed bumps into my flow.

Fri Oct 21 = Before heading out to the ADOT MVD office to renew/replace my driver's licence on the way to other places, I made 20 more of my New Faces tickets to pass out
Ticket
as well as a bunch more of my schedule slips. I never got to the MDV, but went straight to Walmart for a van battery test. It needed to be replaced due to a bad cell... and it was still under the replacement warranty. Good news: That solved my van's problem! The bad news was how long it took them to get it done. I had no time to go home for supper, but barely enough time to head directly to The Tempe Improv to see headliner, Craig Gass and to pass out my tickets and schedule slips, which, fortunately I had with me. It was a good thing I had worn my comedy T-shirt. Not quite so good that I had on shorts rather than pants, but you do what's necessary.
- It was a good show, with Andy Steinberg opening the show, Alex Cooper featuring and, of course, Craig Gass headlining. I watched the first show, stayed for some of the second show and then headed home. Hopefully my ticket distributions will pay off on Sunday.
- I have made a Joke Analysis spreadsheet in which I am now analyzing about 700 punch lines for my full comedy show. It's a lot of work, but hopefully will improve my routines.
- I worked on some things when I got home and got to bed way late... a little before three AM.

- I performed a series of tests with my new Sony UX-560 to determine how best to set it up during my comedy appearances for recording audience laughs with a minimum of room echo from the PA system. The conclusion is to set the unit on VOICE, HIGH, and lay it FACE DOWN on a SURFACE with the microphones aimed at the audience. I'll give it a try tomorrow at both shows.
- This evening I added my 10-minute Viagra bit to my Joke Analysis spreadsheet and analyzed my 4-minutes at The House of Comedy on the 11th. A big job, but should help me decide which punch lines to include tomorrow evening's five minutes.

Sun Oct 23 = I have accumulated of a backlog of lower priority things that have been sitting on the back burner too long, so I may move some of them to a front burner; hopefully one each day or week, depending on the size of the item: - Comedy this afternoon was good. The audience of 16 at The Herberger enjoyed my new Viagra routine, but were in their usual poetry mode, being polite, respectful... and quiet. Next time I'll work on pumping them up to a roudy state before my routine.
- The Tempe Improv was great, as usual, with over 200 in the audience. They were very supportive and laughed a lot. Big, Black, Roman was a good host and gave me an awesome introduction. I had only 9 tickets left after passing out the rest of the 216 I made, to people who said they would come. About 2% of them came.

Mon Oct 24 = In spite of believing in Benjamin Franklin's "Early to bed, Early to Rise," I have been getting a lot better sleep since I have faced the reality of being up late doing comedy and shifting my nights from normal to getting to bed after midnight and getting up between 9 and 11am.
- At solar noon I lay in the sun for 20 minutes, made a few business phone calls and went to the DMV to renew my driver's licence.
- This evening I went to Toso's. There were about seven comedians there, but no audience and no show. We had a fun time joking around and visiting.
- On the way home I stopped by the Moon Valley LA Fitness for a full torso workout and met red-headed cancer survivor Jason and his Oriental friend, Paul.

Tue Oct 25 = I am reading Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You're 80 and Beyond by Chris Crowley and Henry S Lodge, his doctor. Interesting. Partly because of that, I have been slowly increasing my high-energy exercycle time from 2:00 minutes by about 20 seconds every four days. Now I am up to 3:15.
- This evening I drove down to Dos Gringos and then to the Tempe Tavern, doing my Viagra routine both places: 5:21 at Dos Gringos and 11:02 at the Tempe Tavern.

Wed Oct 26 = I took Balance Training #10347 at the JCC (Jewish Community Center) for $25 from John R Bilie, exercise physiologist. His idea is to prevent falls through some exercises and through daily activities. Interesting!
- On the way home I browsed REI for about a half hour because I was going by and don't get that direction often.
- My evening trip was to Chandler for the final class and showcase prep at Improv Mania.
- On the way home I did a full, slow, legs workout at the Dobson LA Fitness in Chandler. As expected, that got me to bed pretty late, which now has become the norm

Thu Oct 27 = Under the auspices of
Duet
The organization I support and through which I take non-driving seniors shopping and to their doctors' appointments
, I took Thomas, blind from glaucoma, to see his dialysis doctor, then headed down to Chandler for our Showcase at Improve Improv Mania It was a good show and both we and the audience had fun. On the way home I did a slow, heavy arms workout at the Dobson LA Fitness. Also I spent 3 hours trying to get Cyberlink Multi-cam working >:(

Fri Oct 28 = I got up in time to sun for 30 minutes. Later I phoned my doctor's office to schedule a flu shot. The lady explained that I would need to schedule an appointment with my doctor in the next few days for an order. WRONG! I explained that that was not necessary. The upshot: 20 minutes later I was at the doctor's office where I got my flu shot. Thank you, Consuela, Dr. Dwevidi's medical assistant. She will research it and let me know in the next few days if I need a shingles vaccine.
- I organized a possible routine for opening at the Comedy Defensive Driving class that I will be attending tomorrow. I forced myself to get to bed early, before 10pm, so I can get up early tomorrow. Also, the two times I got up to pee, I went over the routine.

Sat Oct 29 = Two big events today. The first big event was a 4.5-hour Comedy Defensive Driving School at the Metrocenter Radison. Felix, the instructor, let me open for him with 14 minutes of fun for all 50 of us. The fun continued with Felix. He also gave us lots of good information. After the class I stopped by the Moon Valley LA Fitness for a full, slow, heavy torso workout and by Sprouts Farmers' Market for some almonds, walnuts and lettuce, which were on sale.
- The second big event was driving 60 miles to
Shane
My nephew, George's son who is an engineer for a high-tech company
's in southeast Mesa for
Cindy
my younger brother George's wife
's 70th birthday celebration. Kimberlee and the others did a bang-up job of organizing everything. There were probably over 100 people there. - This evening, using my Channel Master DVR, Canon video camera, 4K TV,
Vaio
Sony Vaio Duo 11 computer with 11.6" touch screen, Windows 10, 8gb memory and 256gb SSD
and two different HDMI cables I thoroughly tested my big, vertical, Asus VE247H center computer monitor and determined that the monitor is bad.

Sun Oct 30 = Today I further reviewed the instruction manual for my Asus VE247H center computer monitor, phoned Harreine B. in Jamaica, of Asus and got instructions for sending the monitor in for repair or replacement. He said that the serial number indicated it was still under warranty, a pleasant surprise. So I got the monitor boxed up and ready to send to California.
- This evening I went to Basha's for bananas, blackberries and a yam. Then, at home, found teespring.com, as a possible replacement T-shirt company for my website if Tee-Chip runs aground.

Mon Oct 31 - HAPPY HALLOWEEN! I ran out of time to do something fancy so I scared all the trick-or-treaters by opening my door a crack, letting out a scary cry as I grabbed the door with my gigantic retched hand. A few of the kids remembered me as the neat train guy from previous. There were not nearly as many as in past years. The last trick-or-treaters finished before 8pm.
- I got really drowsy so went to bed at 8:24. Actually had a pretty good night's sleep until I got up a little before 7.

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