. I was late, having miss-set my alarm. The extra sleep was good for me, trying to get over my cold/sore throat. Fortunately my tardiness did not interfere with Denise's schedule. The twist is that we went to the Sears Outlet store where she bought a futon as an extra bed for company. I was able to get it home for her because the futon fit in the back of my van.
- On the way home I stopped by the new 13th St & Bell Fry's to check with the pharmasist for his suggestion of something that might stop my post-nasal drip without drying out my sinuses, which gives a whole new set of problems for me. As a result of his advice, I have startted taking a Loratadine, 10mg, tablet every other day. He said that he would rather take a pill than something like Nasonex, the opposite of my current idea.
- Tonight was my first appearance at Stacy's Pampered Pig, a very interesting place. The show was hosted by Bobby Johnson. This is the first time I experienced having to ask for a drink of water before I could contine my routine. Sort of a scary idea.
- It took me 44 minutes to upload and do the initial analysis for tonight's media files.
Thu Feb 2 = I lay in the sun for about 20 minutes at noon and went to see my optometrist. My prescription has changed insignificantly, my field of vision is pretty good and my macular degeneration is still stable.
- On the way back home, I stopped by C&R Tire. It looks like I am going to need a motor mount installed. Bad news: it is expensive; Good news: it will have a lifetime warranty. I left my van there so they can get to it first thing in the morning.
Boy do I have a bad cold/sore throat. Here's what I plan to do:
take one Loratadine 10mg tablet every other day
Flush out my sinuses with distilled, non-iodized saltwater
sleep with my torso elevated to about 20° on pillows
get lots of rest
take Nyquil at bedtime
run my house AC fan 24/7 with a new, high performance, filter
Fri Feb 3 = C&R Tire had my van ready and picked me up. Thanks, guys! On the way home I stopped by Home Depot for a #9 performance furnace filter, by Walgreens for some Nyquil and by Albertson's for some plain salt.
- I was miserable most of the day (make that all day). Even after taking a couple of naps, trying to get back some energy, I found that I was dozing off while trying to email some comedy clubs. I didn't feel like going anywhere, but I forced myself to go to StankUp Live this evening to see Steve Rannazzisi and to pass out some tickets. At times, this evening, I couldn't even talk.
- I had a little fever this evening 100.1° F, about 3.5°
above my normal
Sat Feb 4 = Today my third 60w LED light arrived, as did some double male RCA adapters and a 90° 2.5mm male to 3.5mm stereo adapter. It didn't take long for me to get the LED light installed over my north kitchen cabinets, so now I have nice indirect lighting.
- This evening's BIG project was to figure how to combine four video files into one video with synchronized audio. You see, when my Canon camcorder is recording, after about 33 minutes and 4gb, it starts a new file. It never misses anything, but making a single video of all those files is a little more complicated.
Sun Feb 5 = I tore up my bed today, laundered the sheets, started using a new fitted bottom sheet and washed my 30 pair of socks along with some other whites.
- Which will come first: 1) my first 760mph hyperloop ride or 2) my buying a self-driving van? Stick around and you'll find out. 9:33 video
- This evening I tackled the big job of finishing the two-hour video from January 16th when I co-hosted the show at Lawn Gnome with Lou Moon. I am not particularly proud of the result, and I did it to work out the kinks in producing a two hour video (2:12:54). Here's what it involved:
- VIDEO: For camera #1, I used a special big battery with my Canon camcorder. Although the camcorder does not have a limit on the length of a recording, it starts a new file after each four gigabytes or 33 minutes. Camera #2 was my Nexus 6P cell-phone. It was necessary to manually start a new file three times due to the software's limitation. There was no Camera #3, which would have been an audience cam.
- AUDIO: I got the PA output of the entire show recorded on my Zoom recorder, but the line-out from the sound board was so hot that the whole recording was horribly overmodulated, even with the Zoom's input volume turned down to zero. (I'll have to try a 12 db attenuator next time). My audience mic got a better quality recording, but did not include the whole show.
Timing of everything had to be within a few thousands of a second for good synchronization. So I had to:
Butt the four Canon videos together and produce the result as a single video
Synchronize the three cell phone videos
Trim the Zoom recording after the point where I started the audience mic
Butt the two audio tracks accurately together.
Produce the whole thing into one video with Cyberlink PowerDirector 15
Mon Feb 6 = Visiting on the telephone with my daughter and my daughter-in-law, I got some ideas of techniques to deal with my sinuses. The first idea was a netti pot, which flushes out the sinuses. The second one, and the one that I am trying, is a NeilMed sinus rinse.
Tue Feb 7 = This morning my 2-hour Lawn Gnome video finally finished uploaded to YouTube...after 36 hours. It was an interesting experiment. Here is the 2:12:54 result:
- At newn I lay out in the semi-sun for about a half hour.
- Experian is wasting my time trying my patience. About a week ago I attempted to get my free annual credit report, since I had my credit report with them thawed to get an Amazon credit card. After running me through lots of stuff, they said they could not issue the report, but could send me a letter with instructions. Yesterday I received the letter which told me to go to experian.com/viewreport and follow the instructions. Their unfriendly website, without sufficient space for the requested information, sent me through a whole bunch of certification questions, again, then said they could not give me the report and:
To receive your personal credit report by mail, please mail us this letter (or the information in it), along with one copy of a government-issued identification card, such as a driver's license, state ID card, etc., and one copy of a utility bill, bank or insurance statement, etc. Make sure that each copy is legible, displays your name and current mailing address, and the date of issue (statement dates must be recent). We are unable to accept credit card statements, voided checks, lease agreements, magazine subscriptions or postal service forwarding orders as proof.
WHAT A PAIN, EXPERIAN!! A human with even a small brain would instantly know that it was me. Of course, they then said, Our document upload service is temporarily unavailable. Later it said it would only accept PDF & TIFF files, but not until AFTER I tried to upload the normal JPG files. After that, their website refused to accept my PDF files, although they were below their 15 MB maximum. I ended up printing out and mailing in the documents to prove who I was. I'M MAD!! Settle down, Lou and relax... OKay.
- This evening I went up to The House of Comedy. A lot of comedians were there when I arrived, about 45 minutes before the show, so it was already booked up. Rob Maebe, the host said he will put me on as one of the four pre-booked comedians for next month's show. While there, I visited with David Facey, the manager, and had a good talk with Eric Biez about his showcase the last Tuesday of each month. I'll keep working, meeting my goals and improving. Some day... I'll get on.
Wed Feb 8 = I decided to use Chop and Wok tonight as a dress rehearsal for my Fitness/Gym routine for tomorrow. This is my first visit there since they moved the open mics from Thursdays to Wednesdays. It went pretty well and Charles Engle was his usual congenial host. I arrived about 7:30; plenty of time because the show didn't start until about 9pm. With their Chinese menu, Chop and Wok does not have salads so, still smelling of grease, I went home and had green beans.
Thu Feb 9 = Today I emailed about three clubs for possible bookings. I also planned so see weekend comedy shows on Friday and Saturday and pass out tickets & information about my appearances at The Tempe Improv and Stand Up Live. I'm looking forward to seeing Jo Koy and Craig Robinson those two nights.
- Comedy this evening was at Improv Mania way down in Chandler - a 40-mile drive, each way. I stopped by the Chandler, Dobson, LA Fitness for a quick shower on the way. It was a fun show (not the shower) with a relatively small audience of 29 Ryan "Macho Man" Johnson did a good job hosting. My Fitness/Gym routine was well received. I was given 5 minutes and took 4:52.
- In bed tonight I probably set a record by going 5:36 hr without getting up to pee, having to get up only one time. Back to bed after that pee, I went back to laying flat in bed instead of being propped up with pillows to about 20°. The original purpose of propping myself up was to avoid a sore throat with post-nasal drip, which seems to be past.
Fri Feb 10 = I added my new 5% Amazon/Chase credit card to Mint and, for the first time, paid all my credit cards (all two that had balances) from the Mint website. How handy to have everything laid out on one convenient screen.
- This evening was kind of a bummer. I drove to the Tempe Improv to pass out tickets and show slips to people who were interested and to see comedian, Jo Koy. He's really good. Nothing worked out. I was down on the sidewalk to the north of the Improv and Chad, the manager came down, saying he appreciated my initiative... but... got some complaints and that I would not be permitted to pass out my tickets any more. If I had been more on my toes, I could have suggested that there will always be a few complainers, that he could suggest to them that I was legitimately appearing at the Improv and that he would speak with me. Of course I could tone it down a little. Maybe I will have a chance to discuss it with Chad another time. It turns out that there were no more tickets for the 7:30 show, so I didn't even get to see Jo.
- I went back home and processed my video from my last House of Comedy appearance - my Fit Routine.
Still experimenting, I produced four five multi-cam versions of my set with ducked audience audio. Hopefully next time I'll be able to scoot right through the videos. It wasn't until I got home that I realized that I had left my orange comedy clipboard, leaning against the wall to the left of the Improv's entry doors. I'll probably never see it again.
- Instead of going to bed on time, I tested and analyzed the new 12db attenuator that arrived today in the mail. I think 24db would be better for use with my Zoom, but the 12db will work. An audio source that would be too hot at a zero volume level, now is about right at a volume level of 2.
Sat Feb 11 = At noon I lay out in the sun for about 20 minutes. It was an ideal situation: slight breeze, thin overcast that let most of the sun through but widened the UV source.
- Later this afternoon I went to The Tempe Improv, found my clip board and talked to Chad, the manager. I learned that the owners were the ones who made the request that I not publicize my Tempe Improv appearances there.
- I then went to Stand Up Live in downtown Phoenix, armed with tickets and Show Slips, in case it worked out for me to give them to interested people. I talked to the manager, who said it would be alight to pass them out down on the side walk to people waiting for the second show. I tried to be lower key with my approach and gave out about 100 tickets.
Sun Feb 12 = I vacuumed the house today. My motivation was something to do while I listened to podcasts I had downloaded into my Sony ICD-UX560 voice recorder.
- Wanting to improve my audio recordings, I read some details from the 269 page Help Guide for the Sony ICD-UX560 voice recorder that I use as my audience laughter microphone. Bottom line: Take the recorder off of scene mode and manually set the build-in microphones' sensitivity and stereo separation.
- The Third Street Theater at The Phoenix Center of the Arts was my comedy target tonight. It is always a supportive audience - tonight, about 51. Before me was Daniel, on crutches due to a deteriorating disease, who made a passionate appeal for us to support each other in spite of life's challenges. How do you follow that... with comedy? The audience enjoyed my Fit routine, but, understandably, was pretty reserved in the laughter department.
Mon Feb 13 = Early this afternoon I did a light full-body workout at LA Fitness, Moon Valley then, did my semi-monthly grocery shopping at Winco Foods, but without my shopping buddy,
,
because she is under the weather.
- This evening I did my Fit routine at both Lawn Gnome in Phoenix and Devil's Advocate in Tempe. Advocate was interesting. It was a good show but, thanks to a couple people that had a little too much to drink, a fight almost broke out. Ben, the host handled the whole thing beautifully.
Tue Feb 14 = I did my Fit routine at Dos Gringos, then, over at Grand Avenue Pizza, my Arizona Lou routine. The latter was a dress rehearsal for tomorrow night at Stand Up Live. The former is what I plan to do next Wednesday at The Tempe Improv.
- After the comedy, it took me an hour to download and organize the 19 media files from my four appearances of the last two days.
- At night, the couple of times I typically get up to pee, I practice my routine for the next day. I use my Sony ICD-UX560 voice recorder as a timer and my Sony ICD-PX312 voice recorder to take any notes about the run through. The whole thing usually takes a little over five minutes. Before going to bed tonight I HAD to improve the beginning of my Arizona Lou routine, which I got done before doing a light full-body workout here at Rockwood and hitting the pillow.
Wed Feb 15 = I lay out in the sun at noon and then sprayed Roundup on all my weeds in the back yard in my Speedos and then in the front yard in some more conservative shorts.
- I got my checking account resolved before leaving for the gym for a brief, heavy legs workout on the way to Stand Up Live to participate in their New Faces show. It was a fun show. I didn't have very many guests there, in spite of passing out 135 tickets, each one good for two or more guests. Maybe passing out tickets at the respective comedy clubs on the weekends is not a very good idea. I DID tie my record by selling 5 T shirts, and set a new record by selling four of them by credit card.
- At home, before I went into the house, I replenished the shirts I sold from my T-Case. I stayed up late tonight (Thursday morning) to upload the five media files from tonight's show. Also I started the backup of my
Vaio
Sony Vaio Duo 11 computer with 11.6" touch screen, Windows 10, 8gb memory and 256gb SSD
so it would continue during the night when I was not using the computer.
Thu Feb 16 = Today's big project was changing some files on my website so Comedy would show up before Kiteboarding with web searches. You can skip over the following unless you're interested in how it all works.
To accomplish that, on my end, with various website files, I had to:
index: renamed to home
comedy: renamed to index
new comedy: created to redirect to index for any legacy links
pagetop: adjusted links to the new home.html & index.html
Then going online to GoDaddy, my hosting company I had to:
Sign into GoDaddy
Louis (@ the top right of the page), click on
My Products
Domains [Manage]
ARIZONALOU.COM, click on
Forwarding [Manage]
[/] (click on edit pencil & change to new redirect
[Edit] [Save] - it will take between 5 min & 48 hours for the change to take effect
- It will take one to three months for the search engines to catch up with my changes.
- On the way to tonight's comedy I stopped by the LA Fitness at 63 E Southern in Tempe for a quick, heavy arms workout. I gave out about four tickets for the Tempe Improv Wednesday next week. After last night's poor turnout at Stand Up Live, I am emphasizing quality of contacts, rather than quantity of tickets.
- I was apprehensive tonight about doing comedy after my poor guest showing last night, and it was my first time at Spinelli's Pizzeria on S Mill Ave in Tempe. I decided I'd be kinda flexible on what I did, and have fun. It went pretty well. I probably did as well or better than most of the other comedians. It was a small, but fairly attentive audience of 16.
Fri Feb 17 = My cute little 4" x 8" portable body scale has been getting increasingly flaky after four years, so this morning I quit using it. I returned to using the full-sized Taylor Lithium Electronic Scale (7407) I got years ago at Goodwill. It takes more space in my little bathroom, is too big to take on my trips but is faster than the smaller one.
- George Katkus is a young man (19) from Alaska who is trying to get a variety open mic started in south Phoenix. I went down to support his show, but no one else showed up except his friend Ian (21). Both of them are teaching English to members of the community down there. Good for them!
- Since there was no show I came home, cut my hairs and then bought relish, bread & BBQ sauce at 99¢ Only then went to the gym for a shower. No time to work out before they closed.
- This evening I sent emails to two clubs: Tucson & San Antonio.
Sat Feb 18 = My main accomplishment today was to send an email to Laffs Comedy Club in Tucson, hoping they will think I'm good enough and book me in May at the beginning of my 2017 comedy tour.
- This evening I drove way out west to a party. It was interesting.
Sun Feb 19 = This afternoon I made signs to put on my T-Shirt Case, All Profits to Charity. Do I feel stupid, though. I ruined the signs and would have ruined my laminator if I had not used the carrier, when I put the signs through to dry the paper first. What was I thinking? Of course the laminator's heat melted the toner from my LASER printer and smeared the signs, DUH! Of course I had to remake the signs. Tomorrow morning I'll see if it was stupid to use Shoe Goo to glue a sign to the front of the shirtcase.
This evening I went to LA Fitness for shower and a full, heavy, slow torso workout.
Mon Feb 20 = I spent considerable time this afternoon getting the telephone run-around between APS and Roadway Electric, trying to get the streetlight fixed that is out in the alley behind Lawn Gnome. My audience videos there are unusable since that streetlight is the source of light for my audience cam.
- Via email, The Tempe Improv changed the time of the show from 7:30 to 7:00... with two days notice. Not too good, considering I already passed out about 35 tickets with the, now, wrong time on them.
- This evening I did my newly improved Maui routine at both Lawn Gnome (4:52, being allowed 5 minutes) and Devil's Advocate (7:54, being allowed a generous 5 minutes).
Tue Feb 21 = It wasn't until this morning that I realized that I was missing my Shirt Case (T-Shirt bag), so I did a lot of worrying, figuring how to replace the bag and the TShirts, and my credit card reader, the size dividers, the lid prop etc. I also phoned around and sent some FaceBook messages.
- I had not scheduled Dos Gringos for this evening because I didn't have any new material ready for that venue. I went to Grand Avenue Pizza and did my tweaked Holding routine. It is always a fun group of mostly comedians... and me without my T-Shirts!
Wed Feb 22 = Today I got a message that they had my TCase at Devil's Advocate which is across the street from The Tempe Improv, so I stopped by there to pick it up. Thank you Lauren and Beau. You're the best!
- As always, the Tempe Improv show was a lot of fun. I got lots of laughs. The usual 5-minute set was extended to 8 minutes because there were only 11 comedians. Thanks to Rob who gave me the light at 6:50.
- The video of my set leaves something to be desired for two reasons. Matt V., who aimed Camera #1 for me thought he knew better than to do it the way I asked him, so the video is obviously jerky and amateurish. Also, since I hadn't yet figured out how to control the exposure setting on my cell phone camera, its wide angle view was over exposed. All this is unfortunate, because it was a good set and a good audience. I plan to add it to my press kit anyway. It will have to do until I get something better.
Thu Feb 23 = This evening I went by Crusin' 7th to see Gene Moore about one of their Thursday shows, but no one was there before I had to leave for...
- Third Space to see Erin Ontko, the producer of the Thursday comedy shows there. I have never appeared there, but have heard good things about the show. Third Space is across the street from Grand Avenue Pizza, which has Tuesday night comedy open mics. Erin booked me for March 16th on the 7:30pm show.
- Next stop for the night was Spinelli's Pizza in Tempe. I only had four minutes in the Open Mic portion of the show, but one gal in the audience said she was cracking up and that I had improved. Maybe that's why she bought one of my T-Shirts.
Fri Feb 24 = I evaluated about eight logo files and selected one to put at the top of all my web pages so I'll have two logos: the original one linking to my Kiteboarding home page and the new one linking to my Comedy home page. I hope you like he change.
- Thanks to Leo the Tech Guy I figured out how to set and lock the exposure for the Camera MX camera on my Nexus 6P phone.
- The Phoenix Open Mic at 5pm in the Green House did not happen... again this week. No participants except George, the producer and me. No audience. About 14 people of the same mission group as George arrived at 8pm for delicious crock-pot chicken and veggies. Since I had already eaten supper without vegetables, I ate my vegetables and sampled the delicious shredded chicken. Three of the the people had to head back to Tucson so I put on a 22-minute clean comedy show for the remaining 11.
I was all ready to go to bed when I decided I ought to analyze my past sets at the Herberger Theater and decide what I am going to do Sunday. That took an hour but will allow me to go over the routine when I get up to pee tonight.
Sat Feb 25 = AT 6:13 this morning I woke up with a wet dream. It was awesome. Probably my first one in 10 years. The best part is it wasn't wet... all the fun without the mess! You young guys: there is hope for you when you get older.
- This afternoon I attended a
Leadership Partner Reception at the Nina Mason Pulliam Rio Salado Audubon Center. They had an interesting program and were not radical like I expected them to be.
- Before and after that I processed my video from Wednesday at The Temmpe Improv, making two versions. One was just me, for my Electronic Press Kit. The other one included the intro and outro by the fabulous host. Tonight I started the second video uploading to YouTube.
Sun Feb 26 = Today's main project was appearing at The Herberger Theater, Kax stage. The show started almost an hour late because someone else was using the stage. The record audience of 44 included about ten high school students that did some of the best acapella singing I've heard here in Arizona. I did a three-camera shoot of their performance, along with special stereo audio. For my part, at the last minute, I changed from my Don't Understand routine to my Old Man/Arizona Lou/Voice routine. It was a good call. The kids just about laughed their heads off, which was pretty good, as I followed Miles' poem about his dead dog.
- On the way home I bought some BBQ Sauce at Dollar Tree, did a light legs workout at the LA Fitness at 32 St & Bell and bought a bunch of bananas on sale at Albertsons.
- This evening I caught up on this blog, some emails, dishes from this morning and a few other things like paying my property taxes.
- I took an elevator three times today. Embarrassing, but true. This past week or so was a good one for forgetting things. I certainly hope it is not a new trend for me.
Thursday, the 17th, I left my tripod for Camera #3 at Spinelli's, so had to do without it at Lawn Gnome on Monday. Turns out it was just misplaced... in my van!
Monday I lost my T-shirt bag by leaving it at Devil's Advocate.
Tuesday, after I got home, I realized that I had left my audience mic, still recording, in the planter at Grand Avenue Pizza.
Today I arrived at The Kax Stage with my audience mic still charging in the cigarette lighter of my van on level five of the Arizona Center parking garage, a fourth mile away. Of course I had to have it, so jogged the distance... but rode the elevator, figuring I would not have enough energy and time to make it back to The Kax Stage before the show started. I made it!
- This afternoon, when I saw the mostly young audience at The Herberger's Kax Stage, I ditched my originally planned routine. The group of high school students from The North Pointe Preparatory Academy were great for my comedy... and even greater with their a cappella renditions of Crazy in Love and Glitter in the Air. - Videos are below under March 3rd. From a technical point, things to work on next time are more accurately matching the exposure and white balance on the three cameras, particularly Camera #1 and being a little steadier with the camera I was operating for the a cappella group (camera #1). Also I could have better communicated with the operator of Camera #2 about what I wanted, to get a tighter zoom... and with the operator of Camera #1 during my comedy, to keep me near the center of the picture. Due to that oversight, I could not use very much of the Camera #1 (center camera) recording.
Mon Feb 27 = I arranged with Garmin to get my Nuvi 2589LMT replaced, as about 40% of the time when I turn on my van's ignition the unit's screen does not come on.
- Rain effected today's Comedy. Both shows that were usually outside were inside. At Lawn Gnome (no amplifier) I did my somewhat revised Airline Restroom routine. It went pretty well, although my ending was a little weak.
- I was planning on doing the same routine at Devil's Advocate, but since the show was inside with mostly non-comedians as an audience I decided to do the 75 xxx AZL Voice routine that killed yesterday at The Kax Stage. Tonight, after a good start, the audience listened politely, but did not laugh a lot, even with my killer closing. I need to get better at reading audiences and adjusting. I left the show before it was over (rare for me) since I have a bad cold.
- Back home, I paid my property taxes before going to bed, still early.
Tue Feb 28 = Pretty much stayed inside today and took a long nap, trying to get over my cold and sore throat.
- I finally got the video processed from my comedy set Sunday and also of the high school acapella group. I started them uploading to YouTube during the night.
- I did venture out to Dollar Tree and Bashas for a few necessities.
