Fri Mar 1 = Interesting day of activities. I got up early to deliver the sleep monitor down to the Valley Sleep Center, then to C&R Tire to drop my van off. Instead of taking me home, I had them drop me off at my neighborhood Anytime Fitness where I did a heavy arms workout and then ran home, about a half mile.
- At home, without a car, I made some camcorder low-light tests and processed the video from last night. I got my best audience shots yet at Improv Mania with my new Panasonic HVC 770 HD camcorder, which is supposed to be pretty good in low light conditions. The audience at Improv Mania is really dark.
- From Amica, I received a little over $500 in dividends for my various insurance policies. That is the advantage of having insurance from a mutual company. Any profit they make comes back to the owners... us policy holders.
My USB Show Cards, with a flip-out USB connectors
Sat Mar 2 = A big project was analyzing all the laughs in a 52-minute show I did on
last summer. This is one of the video files on my new USB Show Cards. I'll use the information to tweak my full show routine.
- It took me seven minutes to add, to my Comedy Home Page, the Poster and Free Ticket for my
Stand Up Live appearance in downtown Phoenix, scheduled in two Wednesdays (March 13th)
Sun Mar 3 = Bad and good news: Bad: I received an email from the
Oak City Comedy Festival in Raleigh, NC that I was not accepted as one of their 2019 comedians. Good: I volunteered to help out with the festival. Hopefully they can use some of my skills in audio, video, video editing, web design and cleaning toilets.
- I processed a 5-minute video from 171207 in 24 minutes, including relocating an audio file from another appearance.
- I finished and filed my federal and AZ income tax returns. It took a while because I decided I should avoid a possible red audit flag by depreciating the
Dahlia
my Phoenix rental house located on Dahlia Drive
remodeling. I'll be receiving a considerable refund because Dahlia was empty for about six months during 2018, reducing my income for the year.
- Other things I did was to make 10 more of my Stand Up Live tickets, 36 more show slips to pass out and to do some recreational sewing (modifying three pair of my new swim briefs, which were not brief enough to suit me).
Mon Mar 4 = This evening I did 6 minutes of my Don't Understand routine at the Tempe Tavern. As usual, hardly anyone (almost all comedians) laughed. Then, at The Devil's Advocate, 5 minutes of the same routine got some consistently good laughs - especially from a couple that are fans of mine. Later, out on the front sidewalk, they bought one of my USB Show Cards. The second one I have sold so far.
Tue Mar 5 = Tight schedule today. I almost got everything in. At 11 this morning I scooted off to the Biltmore Valley Sleep Center for the result of my home sleep study which was done using a ResMed Apnealink Plus/Air Portable Polysomnographic testing device which measured my heart rate, oxygen, respiratory airflow and effort to determine my level of sleep apnea..
- Then on to C&R Tire for an alignment for which I waited. They were a little slow so that put me about a half hour late to..
- the Go To Sleep Clinic, where they educated me on mouth appliances to aleviate my obstructive sleep apnea on my trips. They used a little high tech 3-D camera to take a digital impression of my teeth to be used later to make my appliance, if it turns out that my insurance company will cover it.
- At this point, I could not get to Tony Vicich's 5:30 Comedy Schools class in time, so I stopped by a McDonalds for supper (a chicken salad with my 100% whole wheat bread and a banana) and to update my website, then to Tony's 7:30 class a little early. The class lasted until 9:30 and it was too late to go to an open mic.
- Before bedtime I processed a video from one of my appearances at the Magdalena Grand in Tobago, about 1.2 years ago. It took me only 17 minutes, a record so far.
Wed Mar 6 = I lay out in the sun today (a day early) because we are forecast to have clouds tomorrow.
- Toso's had a good audience of 15. My Juul and Holding routines were well received.
- At the Woodshed there was big crowd of 37. My holding routine was a lot of fun.
Thu Mar 7 = This morning I finished watching the last of the Jimmy Fallon Tonight Show videos, back to the first part of May, 2018, that were recorded while I was on my last tour in the spring.
- My Comedy T-Shirt order arrived this morning. FedEx actually left the box at my BACK SLIDING DOOR. Thanks, guys.
- I added 24 emails to my list, which now totals 322 subscribers for the Phoenix area.
Fri Mar 8 = First thing this morning I took my van to C&R Tire to redo the alignment. I had them drop me off at Anytime Fitness so I could work out and then run home. At Anytime Fitness I talked with Frank who is needing back surgery. He is always for exercise and rehab instead of surgery, but has been told that there is no other solution for his condition. His symptoms are lower right back pain and a numb right foot. WOW! Sounds like me, with occasional lower right back pain (with no apparent cause) and a numb right pinky toe.
- About 4pm I got a call from C&R that my ignition would not turn on. This is the same problem I have had previously, which the lock guy that installed the new ignition cylinder (after I drove all the way down to southwest Phoenix to have him fix it) said was not a problem. Now, with the weight of a mechanics shop, maybe he will get the cylinder fixed. Unfortunately, my van will have to spend another day in the shop: six days in the last week or so :(
- After I composed the email announcing Wednesday's show it took me 18 minutes to send it to the 322 subscribers through Mail Chimp. Hopefully 10 of the recipients will come to see me.
- Six samples of plastic bags for storage and marketing of my USB Fob Show Cards arrived from uline.com. After some testing and trying out, I have decided on their 4x6 flat, open, shrink-to-fit bags, Item #S-6833. I'll get a pack of 500 (their minimum) of them ordered tomorrow.
- In the financial department, I restarted automatic monthly investing in Admiral Shares of Vanguard's Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSAX)... about 2/3 of what my house payment was before I paid it off. This dollar-cost averaging makes good finiancial sense.
- I got to bed early (11pm) to be ready for the roofers tomorrow. I didn't know what time to expect them so I put my clothes on and got back in bed after my 6am pee.
Sat Mar 9 = My doorbell rang at 8:15 this morning. Al day there was a lot of noise and banging as the roofing crew of three worked. They started stacking all the concrete tiles up on the roof, a section at a time, removing and replacing the underlay, putting drip rails along the edge, replacing the broken tiles and put everything back. Everything is being done according to the new building codes. The roof will have a 10-year warranty.
- Since I had no transportation with my van in the shop with a bad ignition cylinder (thanks Rego's), I got two videos processed in 13 minutes for Toso's 5-minute video last Wednesday and 35 minutes for my 30 minute video from Mechanic Falls, ME.
- I wish my health care plan did not send me broken links for paying my bill. I got 500 - Internal server error.
There is a problem with the resource you are looking for, and it cannot be displayed. I tried it three different ways.
- I pland out my comedy routines for this week - three different ones at these locations.
- This evening I processed the 41 T-Shirts that arrived Thursday. I wasn't running very low, didn't need to order yet but they had a special on, so I took advantage of it. They made and sent the wrong shirts and I did not catch it in the ordering: Hanes Tagless 100% pre-shrunk cotten, instead of the Hanes Tagless Eco-Smart Comfort Blend I have always gotten. Both types look pretty much the same. I'll check with them on Monday. Probably I'll end up keeping them and just telling people that I have Hanes Tagless. Of course I would prefer to have all the same, but nothing in life is perfect.
The largest backpack that will fit under an airline seat
Sun Mar 10 = The roofing crew arrived this morning bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, hearaled by a ring of my doorbell at 10:32. I was NOT bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, planning to sleep in until 11:30 because I stayed up late last night processing my new T-Shirt order. I got up, with less than nine hours of sleep anyway, had breakfast and started my day, which included starting to pack my, yet unused, backpack (right) that has compression straps, a computer pocket and contains 17 pockets and such, including 11 zippers.
- Right on schedule, for a change, I got paying off all my credit card balances scheduled.
- At noon I lay in the sun, rode my exercycle, worked on this blog and then took a nap. The last couple of days I've had a headache. Missing out on sleep doesn't help much. The nap was interrupted. The roofers must have been dropping my concrete roof tiles into place because there was so much slamming in different locations up there that some of the items on my walls spontaneously rearranged themselves and my overhead kitchen lights flashed off and on and finally off.
- This evening, my Colonoscopy routine went over fairly well at the Phoenix Center For The Arts' Third Street Theater.
Mon Mar 11 = I got my tire pressures checked, 10 days after my first-of-the-month goal. Comedy tonight was at the Tempe Tavern and Devil's Advocate doing my Juul and holding bits. Devil's liked it. The Tavern was it's usual non-laughing audience. Makes for good practice and builds character.
Tue Mar 12 = Doctor's appointment regarding my TMJ and some spontaneous back pain. I was approved for a Stanford/Hartford study for back pain at a place called Egoscue.
- Tonight was my last Comey Schools class before NYC and the Gotham Comedy Club there. After the class I drove over to Grand Avenue Pizza where there was no Hash-Tag Open mic... maybe due to the rain. Five of us comedians showed up at varous times. If they had all shown up at the same time I would have had the show.
Wed Mar 13 = Early this morning I took my van in to C&R Tire - still trying to get the alignment right. They did not have it ready so loaned me their Ford pickup truck after taking me around to three different car rental places and finding nothing, due to Spring Training.
- I met
George & Cindy
my younger brother and his wife who live in Mesa, Arizona
at the Tempe Sweet Tomatoes. We had a good visit and pretty well filled our bellies.
- Then on to
Stand Up Livein downtown Phoenix
for my Horses Juul Holding Anemometer routine. My five minutes was not spactacular, but it did give me some good video and helped me improve my video techniques, using four cameras.
Thu Mar 14 = Today I was inducted into the Stanford-Harvard Spine Care Trial at an Egoscue Spine Center, which is determining if correcting one's posture results in reduced back pain. Goodness knows, I need better posture. Of course the whole thing resulted in a new comedy bit for me!
- I tried the new Egoscue bit at Improv Mania in Chandler. It was well received by the young, responsive audience of 18.
- Before going to bed, I started my
XPS
Dell XPS-13 computer with 13.3" touch screen, 60WHr Integrated Battery, Windows 10, Intel 7th Generation Core i7 CPU, 16gb memory and 1TB SSD
backup process.
Fri Mar 15 = Today I mostly got things organized for my NYC trip and went to a gym. Also I cut hairs and took a bath, six weeks after last time. I don't usually do it that soon, but want to look dashing for New York City (NYC) and give my hair a chance to grow out a little before Fargo, ND.
Sat Mar 16 = I had to recharge my new Logitech MX Anywhere 2s mouse today after 34 days. This was the first recharge since I bought the mouse new. It should be good if I recharge it the first of each month.
- I paid William Patterson for the roofing job they completed Thursday here on my house. The Patterson Roofing crew did a good job.
- Under the auspices of
I took Willie shopping. We did not go yesterday because she was experiencing considerable pain from a recent eye injection. I also ran my van through a touchless automatic car wash - went for the big bucks: $9, which included using brushes on the wheels (which didn't really need it).
- In the obstructive sleep apnea department, I custom fit my newly arrived SnoreRX mouth appliance to my mouth. Tonight I tried it out some in place of my CPAP machine. I don't know if the SnoreRX stopped my snoring, but it certainly was problematic. The big issue is that I can't swallow with it in my mouth. I am not sure how much better choking on saliva is than snoring.
Sun Mar 17 = Busy prep day: I set up credit card travel allerts, got my new backpack completely packed, arranged for my Sky Harbor airport parking, figured out how to use public transportation to get from JFK to my hotel Tuesday evening and entered 15 new fanemail addresses.
Mon Mar 18 = Today I finished my packing, including my computer after I updated my website. I had a research appointment at Egoscue and then headed early down toward Tempe to meet the locksmith guy who replaced the ignition cylinder which has been getting stuck and not turning for the past six months.
- Then on to Devil's Advocate. I got there about 6:40 to sign up for the comedy open mic which starts after 9pm. I was still way down on the list at number eleven. This is one of the most popular open mics in the valley. My new Egoscue routine was a hit.
- I left Devil's before 10:30, organized a few things for tomorrow's big day and got to bed at 23 minutes after midnight. Got a pretty good night's sleep using my CPAP, although the night was a little shorter than I would have liked.
Tue Mar 19 = Things went pretty smoothly, getting to NYC, except I left my information packet for the trip in my van at the Sundance Airport Parking lot. I did not realize this until the shuttle was already on the way to Sky Harbor. I did OK with the information I had on my cell phone for the flight, the AirTrain, Subway and the hotel. No one knew. I also have my major appearances on my website and on my electronic calendar. However, it might be a little different getting along the next three days without the additional notes I had about other comedy venues.
- I am impressed with Hotel Henri at 37 W 24 St. It was economical by New York City standards, has about 125 newly remodeled and squeeky clean rooms and has, all free:
a safe with an air shock lid
coffee
bottled water
rope lights under the bed and behind the bed board
four large mirrors
6 x .75 inch vertical cylindrical bullet lights on the headboard that turned on when you pulled them out at the bottom
glass-enclosed shower
membership in Equinox Gym, about an 8 minute walk from the hotel
umbrella
king-sized bed
Wed Mar 20 = I am eating random and weird meals while here, trying to get a balanced diet. The Equinox Gym is a neat 3-story affair with lots of well-maintained equipment and towels.
- For comedy, I took a walking/subway combination down to
The Lantern Comedy Club; in Greenwich Village. It was sort of a trial for tomorrow at Gotham to see how my old man routine would go over. Since the audience was all comedians, there was only moderate laughter.
- On the walk back to the subway I stopped by the Greenwich Village Comedy Club, just in time to see a show with about eight comedians doing ten minutes each.
- On the way home I found a McDonalds and got their Sausage McMuffin With Egg to round out my meals. After producing the video from The Lantern, I got to bed a little after 2am EDT. Hey, that is 11pm, Phoenix time!
Thu Mar 21 = At the Gotham Comedy Club, what a neat, sold out crowd of 80 for the their small room! I failed to start my Camera #1 so did not get as good of views of me doing my set as I would have liked. I thought the crowd was a little on the though side. Here, see for yourself:
- Here is the lineup and the comedians:
Fri Mar 22 = By riding the subway and doing lots of walking, I had a heavy torso workout and then headed for comedy back at The Lantern for a 4pm open mic, then went back to the hotel, then to The Laughing Buddha for their 10:30 pm show (video is below).
Sat Mar 23 = Gym and tourist day today... and flying home: Of course I did lots of walking; from my hotel to the gym; back to my hotel; uptown to the Empire State Building (built in 1930, but ultra modern) where I caught the view from the 82nd floor (below), how things looked back in 1930 when they were just getting started on it and my view, walking to it from 5th Avenue near the Marble Coggegate Church (on the left).
I walked back to my hotel to pick up my backpack then headed to the airport. Good thing I started as soon as I did. One of the subways was not operating, so I had to leave the subway at the Penn Station, walk about a quarter of a mile to Macy's and back down to take a different subway... which, later, stopped for about a half hour due to a medical emergency somewhere on the train.
- I did make it for my flight in time with about 20 minutes to spare. I tried to sleep on the flight home because I'll get to bed at 5:00am New York time.
Sun Mar 24 = Give me an A+ for my New York City Trip. I came back at the same weight as when I left, ate fairly healthy meals, worked out at a gym every day, made four comedy appearances and took the NYC subways (no Lyft or Uber) and walked... and walked... and walked. The whole thing only cost me about $1,400 for everything.
- Due to somewhat loose and urgent stools, I restarted taking a probiotic, acidophilus (Lactobacillus acidophilus), a bacterium found in the mouth, intestine and vagina,.
- I spent all evening trying to recover a very important file I thought I had accidentally deleted with one of my video processing folders. Turns out I had done the right thing and moved the file to a safe location. WHEW! At least I learned a lot about recovering deleted files and got EaseUS installed on my computer for when I DO do something stupid.
Mon Mar 25 = Improving an annual project, today I gathered the new balancing cable I got for my iCharger, installed the leads on my
and balanced the cells. Once I got it hooked up, it is is easier, and more accurate (cells within .01 Volt), than using the cell balancers on the battery itself. Also I do not have to give the battery a full charge, which will make the it last longer. Of course in the process I managed to hook up everything wrong. Good thing the iCharger is pretty much idiot proof.
- I scurried off to OptumCare's Deer Valley location for another interesting edition of Healthy Minds by Richard Chrislip, LCSW.
- After a brief stop by home I headed to my Egoscue Spine Center appointment for more back and posture exercises.
- From there I headed directly to Devil's Advocate for a very unusual comedy show. Getting there around 6:30, I was the 7th comedian for the show that would start about 9:15pm. The official list was not out yet, so after I went to the gym I was about 17th. The unusual part was having a drunk lady, with a few yellow teeth, yelling at the comedians during the whole show... and sometimes at other patrons. No one understood what she was saying. Probably she didn't even know. A number of non-comedian audience members stayed around just to see how the comedians would handle her... mostly with creative insults and entertaining put-downs.
- I pretty well killed and had fun with the lady, sort of defending her right to be a creep, and doing my revised the new and improved Van/Kids set, as practice for Friday at The Tempe Center for the Arts. The lady finally got kicked out, but fortunately, after I had my chance at her.
Tue Mar 26 = For comedy tonight out on the patio at Grand Avenue Pizza I did my Funeral, Boxes/Avalanche and VanKids routines. Josh Harris, the new host is giving the first 10 comedians 7 minutes each. Good call, Josh!
Wed Mar 27 = Today I decided to NOT send in my Casio HR100TM calculator. It has been working for the last five months but twice, in the past, would lock up for weeks at a time
- I did an abbreviated heavy, slow legs workout on the way to Laughter @ The Lounge for seven minute of my Hand routine at the booked show by Bryan Ricci. I got a pretty good 4-camera video of my set.
Thu Mar 28 = Today I arranged my annual project for
with Ann Wheat, acting director. It's going to be a double header: 1) Replinish one of their most popular items: magnetic refrigerator clips. 2) a neat portable 8' retractable backdrop with step and repeat Duet logos for patron photos. This is something that they have been wanting, but has not made it to the top of their need list... until now.
- Big 100-mile trip this afternoon/evening - probably too many things, but I got them in:
a session with Carson for my posture at Egoscue
Mail Chimp Meet-Up in Scottsdale (I send my emails through them)
Improv Mania to do comedy in Chandler
an abbreviated slow, heavy arms workout in a Tempe gym
Fri Mar 29 = The expensive Eargasms ear plugs I ordered arrived today in my mailbox. They are Hi Fi, which means they attenuate the sound level (15 dB) but let all the frequencies through so you can accurately hear what is going on. I tested them with my stereo turned up way loud. They worked pretty well.
- Tonight was the Class Clowns show at The Tempe Center for the Arts. This show was the culmination of Tony Vicich's Comedy Schools class. I did my 77 MinivanKids Posture routines. Here's the lineup:
Sat Mar 30 = Eureka! While I was packing up for my next road tour today, I found the little
The little 10" computer I bought to get me by in Tobago after my Dell XPS died. It's tight, with only 2gb RAM and a 32gb SSD hard drive, but the 128gb micro SD card I have in it helps a little.
computer that has been lost for over a year. It was in my van's rear under-bed long-term storage tub.
Sun Mar 31 = I finished going through the 51 minutes I headlined in Hutchinson, KS last October at the Dirty Leprechaun Lounge, noting which punch lines worked and which ones did not. That was the tedious part. Now the hard part is combning that information with similar information from the 52-minute show I did on
last summer in June, into a killer routine.
- This evening I downloaded and looked over the 632-page instruction manual for the Garmin G1000 Integrated Flight Deck
