Blog Archive 2024 Jun
Monthly highlights:
- Toured Vanderbilt's Biltmore Mansion and Gardens in Asheville, NC
- Started using size strips and a folding form for T-shirts
- Standardized my merch display
Sat Jun 1 =
I had a Cracker Barrel lunch and spent five hours catching up on my website, including a new total of my fans of 1,511 (112 May). and updating my appearances to 1,458; at 387 venues; in 207 cities. All that makes me feel I have accomplished something. Oh, yes, my toaal audience count is 41,069.
- After getting another fan I got gas at Costco in Durham and drove to the Williamston, NC Walmart, the closest free overnight spot to OBX
- Got to bed at 11:02 for 9:10 hours of sleep
Sun Jun 2 = Before hitting the road I switched my magnetic car signs from
Veterans Tour to
Comedy-n-Sunset I arrived on Hatteras Island at Kitty Hawk around noon. There I renewed my acquaintance with some of the fine people in the store and put my poster up on their door and got a new fan.
- I met Marton who was going upstairs to the restaurant, for their entertainment with his guitar. As fellow entertainers, we immediately hit it off and he invited me up to do a few minutes of comedy. Neither he nor I realized, that would ruffle the feathers of Crystal, the manager. She nixed my comedy, which was OK with me, but embarrassed for her to involve the owner of Kitty Hawk Kites.
- Heading south, picked up the box of T-shirts that I had had delivered to Kitty Hawk Kites in Avon, put my Comedy-n-Sunset posters up in the usual places, skipping some that typically don't see much traffic. I added one at Dillon's Corner in Buxton.
- At Dollar Tree I found Mona, an employee there, who got off work at 9, who agreed to let me borrow her sewing machine to make a
- dead cat
- a furry microphone cover designed to reduce unwanted wind noise
for my camera #5.
- This evening's BIG project was to process the T-shirt order and sort them into my Merch Box and Shirtcase
- About bedtime I drove about 12 miles up to Burger Burger in Avon to get Mona's sewing machine at 9:30. She had not been able to get it threaded and working. The agreement was that I'd return it to her at Dollar Tree at 4:30pm tomorrow.
- I could tell that Mona was a little uneasy, not sure if she'd ever see her machine again. Traumatic; like a mother sending her kid off for his first day in kinderarten.
- I spent a good, dark and quite night in the Frisco Campground at spot P058, probably the best camp site in the park, with good until about 10am and again starting about 2:30pm.
- Got to bed at 10:51 for 8:56 hours of sleep
Mon Jun 3 = This morning I got up early at 7:45, went to the Billy Mitchell Air Strip terminal for cell phone service and called in to
Jody In The Morning at Beach 105 in Nags Head, NC and chatted about my kick-off Comedy-n-Sunset show tomorrow. Jody aired the blip about 19 minutes after I called in.
- After breakfast I made a
- dead cat
- a furry microphone cover designed to reduce unwanted wind noise
for my fifth camcorder using Mona's cute little cute $90 Singer M1000 sewing machine.
- At 4pm I headed north to the Avon Dollar Tree to return Mona's sewing machine to her, all threaded and working, did a little grocery shopping and told people about tomorrow's show.
- I had supper down at the
- Haulover
- The Haulover Day Use Area south of Avon, NC - sometimes called, Canadian Hole.
, told people about tomorrow's comedy show and got two more fans.
- Below: Camcorder; Camcorder w dead cat; Singer M1000; fans
- Got to bed at 10:45 for 9:17 hours of sleep at spot P058.
Tue Jun 4 = This morning I fully charged my five camcorders
- I phoned United Healthcare and found a dermatologist office in Charlotte, NC that is "in network" and even the same organization as my office in Phoenix.
- Most of the rest of the day was devoted to comedy.
- For the first time, I sold two T-shirts at the 3pm Merch signing at
Kitty Hawk Kites in
Avon.
- My show,
Comedy-n-Sunset, started a little after 7pm with an audience of 28 adults, teens and kids and ran about 40 minutes, after which we watched the sunset. After packing up my five cameras and audio recorder I found some money under my windshield wiper.
- No one showed up at Kitty Hawk Kites to buy T-shirts after the show.
- At the merch signing I got three new fans and at the comedy show I got five new fans:
- Got to bed at 11:33 for 8:39 hours of sleep at the Frisco Campground spot D001 before the van started to heat up.
Wed Jun 5 = I can't believe I was so dumb when I reserved last night's camping spot - full morning sun with spot D001. I don't know what I was thinking. This morning's first project was to go to the government website and change spots for the rest of my stay here, and to extend my stay by three days to take me until I head north for my "Westbound" shows.
- This afternoon I got my comedy stuff out of my van and replenished the shirts I sold from my Shirtcase.
- For easier acess of the shirts I am trying this idea of putting most of the other stuff on the bottom of my merch box rather than on the top of the shirts:
- Then I stashed it all in a corner of the Billy Mitchell terminal.
- Now I will be able to get to my kiteboarding equipment which is in the third row fold-down seat compartment, under all the domedy stuff.
- I like the way I organized my little refrigerater so added this picture to remember.
- A time-consuming project was copying about 10 video files from my camcorders' micro SD cards to a 5 TB HDD drive. My Mac was not recognizing the 2 TB SSD. I want to remember this screen arrangement to make the copying more efficient.
Thu Jun 6 = Good windy day with the winds from 25-35 mph with an average of 30 mph. On my way from my camp spot to
- KHK
- Kitty Hawk Kites kiteboarding center in Rodanthe, NC.
, where I'll have the best support for my first kiteboarding session in a year, I stopped by
Raise the Bar gym to join for a month. They gave me a special senior discount.
- I rented a full wetsuit from KHK and pumped up my 8m Best Nemesis kite, but one of the strut tubes had deteriorated and had a leak so I switched to my 6m Best Nemesis NXG and went out on my AXIS Vanguard 132 x 41cm board, which was a good call, for about 40 minutes.
- Disaster loomed after lunch. I went out with my Naish Custom Fish 5Õ2Ó x 17.5Ó surfboard without foot straps, which I had not ridden in over two years. It seemed like it took me forever to get up on it, but I rode it about a half mile out on a port tack and actually did a jibe and started back in on starboard. I blew a jibe and never did get up on starboard. I did succeed in getting turned around and on my back and in crashing my kite.
- It took me a little while to get the kite relaunched. In the mean time my board went it's own way, downwind. At this point I was within 100 feet of a seawall. What I should have done was to body drag back out, but instead I whistled to get someone to catch my kite. I ended up bringing it down on the shore above the seawall. A young lady in a pink bikini put my kite face down and put a board on it to hold it down.
- It wasn't easy getting up over the seawall onto shore. I had to walk a ways in the water to a pier with a short ladder.
- Of course then there was the job of getting my kite lines off all the bolts and protrusions of the seawall, get everything wrapped up and head back upwind on foot along Highway 12, about a half mile to KHK. A gentleman, also a kiteboarder, took me the last distance.
- My Naish Custom Fish surfboard is somewhere in Pamlico Sound. Hopefully someone will find it, notice my phone number and reunite the board and me.
- The evening improved. Although I did not get on for any comedy, I did tell a few people about my Tuesday comedy shows at the Rock The Cape Festival going on, on the grass at Kitty Hawk Kites.
- Heading south, I stoped by Raise the Bar gym for a brief light legs workout and to familiarize myself with their elliptical machine. The owner invited me to put some of my microposters in one of their business card holders.
- On the way back home (Frisco Campground spot D007 where there is no celular service) I checked my phone for any voice mails or messages.
- During the day I got these seven new fans. The gentleman in the second picture does not have a crooked beard. That was how windy it was:
- Trying to recover from a touogh day, I got to bed at 11:00 for 9:32 hours of sleep
- Got to bed at 10:16 for 9:30 hours of sleep in spot D007
Fri Jun 7 = This morning I drove north to visit with River, the manager of Kitty Hawk Kites' Avon store.
- On the way south back
- "home"
- Spot D007 at the Frisco Campground of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore
I stopped at Ocean Air and Ride Hatteras to let them know I want to sell all my kite equipment, except booties, harness and helmet.
- Next stop was the gym and then Food Lion.
- This evening at my
- "office"
- pilot's lounge for the Billy Mitchell air strip in Frisco, NC
I researched T-shirt folding devices (decided on one from Amazon) and size-labeling strips (decided on from storesypply.com). I'll have a chance to try out this new system for my T-shirt sales tomorrow.
- Tonight was the first time I used my van's 110v power and I've had the van over four years. Read on.
- The 20A 16.8V Li-ion Battery Charger arrived from Amazon at the Midgett Realty office in Avon. It was a little complicated but this evening I used the van's power to test it out. The charger appears to work correctly. Hopefully I'll be able to confirm its full-charge performance next Saturday at the American Legion in Asheville, NC.
- This evening I downloaded my banking statement for May 10th and discovered why the last part of the statement was missing: a quirk of BBEdit. Now I know to hit Cmd/A at the right time.
- I brushed, flossed and got everything ready for bed before 10 this evening so I could phone Robby, my son-in-law from my
- "office"
- pilot's lounge for the Billy Mitchell air strip in Frisco, NC
because there is no cell phone service at
- "home"
- Spot D007 at the Frisco Campground of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore
. He recently bought an airplane so we have more in common now.
- Today I got three new fans:
- Got to bed at 10:57 for 9:15 hours of sleep
Sat Jun 8 = This morning's project, before leaving
- "home"
- Spot D007 at the Frisco Campground of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore
was to replace the retention Velcro strips that hold my van's table when it is stowed .
- As I have said before, I need to be more observant. Today's instance was mixing up a new bach of the garlic-mustard I use on some of my sandwiches. Since I couldn't find the powdered garlic I thought I brought with me, I used granulated onion instead.
- After I got it all done, I decided the garlic had to be somewhere. and took my non-nut bag out of the van's passenger feet area and, there on the bottom of the bag was the garlic. Garlic is so good for you, I added it to my mixture. Now I have a quart of "garlic-onion-mustard."
- This afternoon, thanks to Flip Folds to refold the shirts in my shirtcase andfold all 58 of the T-shirts in my spare shirt box except for 8 Lou headshot designs. The only shirts left unfolded are two for display and two for stage use (not for sale). This will make inventory super easy.
- Of course I had to reorganize the packing of my merch box:
- On the way back south I stopped by the gym for an elliptical, a light fast torso workout and a new fan:
- Got to bed at 11:21 for 8:36 hours of sleep
Sun Jun 9 = What a find! This morning I discovered two inches of unused space between my kitchen drawer stack and my bed where my kitchen scisors have been hiding for several days when they dissappered after I dropped them. Now that space houses my un-folded brochures and un-cut Alzheimer's sign lists.
- I didn't get away from the Billy Mitchell pilots' lounge until afternoon
- For July 14th, I scheduled two open mics and added them to my tour schedule. After a show was canceled on the 14th it, again, gives me my first 10 straight days of comedy.
- According to Google, here's where I went in May:
- I did my usual Sunday circuitI, promoting my show, and got two new fans in the process:
- Got to bed early at 10:55 for 8:52 hours of sleep
Mon Jun 10 = I got up early, at 7:45 this morning to phone Beach 104 and learned to monitor the station so I don't phone in the middle of a contest.
- After breakfast I drove back down to the Frisco Campground and refilled my van's running water reservoir which ran out this morning:
- Then I switched my van from comedy stuff to kite stuff and, in my - "office"
- pilot's lounge for the Billy Mitchell air strip in Frisco, NC
cought up on fans for the last couple of days.
- Today I got four new fans
- Got to bed at
- "home"
- Spot D007 at the Frisco Campground of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore
at 11:12 for 9:15 hours of sleep
Tue Jun 11 = This was a comedy day. I stowed all my kite stuff and moved all my comedy stuff to my van, recharged my camcorders and inserted all their micro SD cards.
- It was a fun show with an audience of 20, ranging from 2 to 70 years, two of which I got as fans.
- Quite a few locals came for the show, mild temperatures, little breeze and good sunset.
- Headed north and got to bed in the Rodanthe Kitty Haw parking lot at 10:25 for 9:01 hours of sleep
Wed Jun 12 = I left - KHK
- Kitty Hawk Kites kiteboarding center in Rodanthe, NC.
, eating breakfast on the drive to western North Carolina. I took a couple of naps on the way. A tree provided shade at the Godwin-Coppage Park for my first nap and where I got a new fan:
- When I stopped at a Walmart in Mebane, NC, I noticed a Great Clips nearby, and I've been needing a haircut. It turns out they were not busy, so I got the haircut and a new fan:
- Then on to Concord, NC where, at Planet Fitness, I did an elliptical and a slow heavy legs workout followed by a - poster trim
- weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
and shower in prep for my dermatologist appointment tomorrow moring. I also got eight more fans.
- Then on to a Cracker Barrel, also in Concord, for the night.
- Got to bed at 11:05 for 7:27 hours of sleep
Thu Jun 13 = To make sure I got there in time I drove about a half hour to the Dermatologist's office before breakfast, of which I ate most before the appointment.
- The doctor froze the growth under my arm, finding it a benign Seborrheic Keratosis (SK) and of no concern. What a relief!
- Before leaving Charlotte, I found a Walmart for a number of things. Surprisingly I found fat free wrapped cheese slices and a fan there, but no fat free cottage cheese. At a nearby Publix I found Hebrew National 97% Fat Free Beef Franks and another new fan.
- I noticed the Asheville Airport not far to the west of Asheville so headed there. I arrived in time to have an early supper in my van under a shade tree in their parking lot. The Flight Planning Area at Signature Aviation, the FBO there, was the ideal place for my Thursday office.
- I got a lot accomplished with my Fans and Blog web pages.
- Then I tackled a big project: going through all my receipts since leaving Phoenix and separating out receipts for my deposits of T-shirt cash and donations in an attempt to locate the reason for a discrepancy with my credit union statement.
- Well after dark I drove to the Tunnel Rd Cracker Barrel in Asheville for the night, expecting perfect morning shade, which was the case.
- Got to bed at 10:34 for 9:11 hours of sleep
Fri Jun 14 = I made it to the Black Mountain Veteras' home in Black Mountain, NC a little later this morning than I like, 35 minutes before the show. That was enough time to make several trips out to my van for stuff and to set up my PA system, since one of the residents mentioned that most are hard of hearing. I ran my PA aystem on battery and fully recharged it after the show.
- So far it is my experience that a mission of most veterans' homes is to make sure the residents ane not exposed to millitary grade humor.
- In Asheville, NC I just about did myself in with a complete tour of Vanderbilt's Biltmore Mansion and gardens. I went about four miles on foot with some running like from the parking lot to the mansion and other places.
- I was impressed by all the research and planning that George Vanderbilt and his architect, Richard Morris Hunt, did before building the place, as well as the gardens, sculptures and statues and the pipe organ in the banquet hall. My pictures are below along with that of three new fans:
- This evening in my Cracker Barrel "office" I uploaded and analyzed my videos from Tuesday's show and here's whit I learned:
What I learned from Tuesday's Beach Show :
| There was some wind shake with Camera #1. Next time I'll not have it extended so high |
Some of the
- dead cat
- a furry microphone cover designed to reduce unwanted wind noise
could be seen blowing in the wind at the bottom of Camcorder #1's video. I should have pulled the dead cat down farther. | .
| During the show my body blocked cameras B views of some of the audience. I should have had the camera farther to stage right or done all my comedy further from the audience |
- Got to bed at 11:11 for 9:16 hours of sleep
Sat Jun 15 = My first stop this morning was the Asheville Gold's Gym where I got three new fans
- Then at Walmart with some shopping, I got four more fans
- I ran across a Goodwill and checked out their suitcases and found one that should be a perfect shirtcase for my newly 12x9" folded T-shirts. It is also within the carryon luggage requirements for most airlines, and simi-soft so one might be able to fuge just a little with an airline's bag sizer.
- I arrived at Post 70 about two hours before show time to find the gate chaned shut, so I ate supper and worked on some projects. When Adjucntant, Guy Fish arrived he pointed out that, although the gate was chained, it was not locked! Well, well!
- One of the projects was my "new" shirtcase. I hadn't noticed a tiny zipper at the top around the perimeter to hold the liner in place. It was broken so I rethreaded the slider at the open end of the zipper and now it works. If I decide to, it should be fairly easy to remove the two wheels and the telescoping handle, which does not work, anyway.
- I seldom do a show for just two people. Looking at the good side, I 100% of the audience (Adjutant and Commander) bought T-shirts and 100% became fans:
- They gracously let me work in the post (with AC and WiFi) on my website before retiring for the night in their parking lot.
- Got to bed at 11:48 for 9:58 hours of sleep
Sun Jun 16 = Just about the perfect driving day. I got enough gas in Asheville to get me to the Costco in Raleigh on my way to Williamston for the night, Trying to get gas at Costco as much as possible reminds me of the road trip I made last year in a Tesla... always trying to figure out your range and where to refuel.
- Due to a slowdown as the result of an accident on eastbound 64, the Martin Memorial Library in Williamston was going to close soon after I would arrive, so I went to MCZ, Williamston, NC's Marrin County airport as my Sunday evening office.
- What a place: Perfectly quiet, no one else around, airconditioned, comfortable office chair, 110 volts, WiFi and a bathroom!
- First thing I did was to make a sign for selling my kites.
- Then it took me 50 minutes to do my monthly credit cards payoff. Then came my blog for yesterday. Also I caught up on my blog.
- A good night's sleep is important to me so I keep a nightly sleep log. In hopes of making it more efficient, using my MacBook, I moved all the files on my Sony ICD-PX370 from Folder 1 to a new folder so all my voice sleep notes will be the only thing in folder 1. In the morning I will listen to the entire folder 1 in one fell swoop at 65% speed so I can keep up as I write down the information. Then I can delete all the files at once.
- After dark I headed to the Williamston Walmart where I found 100% morning shade, parked west of one of the large shipping containers in their parking lot, a little later than I had hoped, considering I need to get up early in the morning to phone Beach 104.
- Got to bed at 11:16 for 8:31 hours of sleep
Mon Jun 17 = At 8:00 this morning they needed to move my "shade" shipping container so I relocated to the ideal spot near Walmart with good internet and the shade of a tree. Due to a Beach 104 technical difficulty Jody needed to fill some time so put my Comedy-n-Sunset blip on twice :)
- Driving to
- OBX
- Hatteras Island and the Outer Banks off the coast of North Carolina
was routine, with a stop at Staples in Nags Head to print out four Kite Sale signs and to fill up with 9 gallons of gas where it is cheaper than down south, saving about $2.70 in the deal.
- On the way to my
- "office"
- pilot's lounge for the Billy Mitchell air strip in Frisco, NC
I said, "Hi" to River, manager at the Avon Kitty Hawk Kites, and told people at
- Haulover
- The Haulover Day Use Area south of Avon, NC - sometimes called, Canadian Hole.
about tomorrow's Comedy-n-Sunset show.
- I am so excited about what I came up with tonight, after spending about an hour barking up the wrong tree. I took all the T-shirts out of my little old Shirtcase, unfolded to the 9x12" size which they were from the Kitty Hawk Kites folding "machine." They fit nicely in the new, larger, Shirtcase but were unwieldy, even with an elastic retainer, and would get mixed up and wrinkled when the case was partially full. Also there was no way to prop up the lid for display. Also the larger case would not fill the space in my van.
- The 9x12" folded shirts do not fit well in my little Shirtcase and I devised a way to fold the shirts neatly to the exact size I need, 11x8." The shirts now fit in my little Shirtcase better than ever and they won't get so wrinkled.
- The invention: an 11x20" card, piece of plastic or for my experimentation an 11x17" opened-up magazine. Now the folded shirts are all uniform, regardless of shirt size, and fit perfectly in both my shirtcase and my merch box.
-
- Got to bed at
- "home"
- Spot D007 at the Frisco Campground of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore
at 11:42 for 9:00 hours of sleep
Tue Jun 18 =
I finally got my T-shirt supply perfected, I think:
| T-shirts folded uniformly with size strips at Kitty Hawk Kites |
|
|
|
| T-shirts folded to 11x8" in ShirtCase |
|
|
- I stopped by the gym on the way south and got three new fans
- Of course today's main events were my afternoon Merch Signing and the evening comedy show.
- Tonight there were only six for an audience but they laughed at about everything. A good thing I did was to ask them how they found out about the show. I had told one couple about the show back on Thu, Jun 6th at the Rock The Cape Festival in Rodanthe. Another couple got one of my microposters at Raise The Bar gym. I had told the third couple about the show on Monday near where the show was going to be. A fourth audience member (a guy) came part way through and stayed for a while.
- After the show I got two new fans who met me up at the Avon Kitty Hawk Kites store and got one of my stickers, which I signed for a $5 donation to Alzheimer's research.
- Got to bed at - "home"
- Spot D007 at the Frisco Campground of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore
at 10:52 for 9:20 hours of sleep
Wed Jun 19 = After breakfast I drove up to Rodanthe to pick up my Naish Custom Fish 5'2" surfboard, which was found a little north of Kitty Hawk Kites the day I lost it. Thank you, good people.
- All the way driving south I tried to find a hole in the shifty clouds large enough for me to get some vitamin D at solar noon. Didn't work, but I got close and spent 20 minutes sunning at about 1:50 pm on the ocean beach opposite the Haulover Day Use Area.
- - FCP
- Final Cut ProX the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
.
was not cooperating today. I wasted two sessions trying to get its Multicam Mode to sync (by audio) for the last two beach shows that I did.
- I have known John Harris, the owner of Kitty Hawk Kites, for about 25 years, but we never got really acquainted because all our contacts have been business oriented. This evening I phoned him as just a friend. We talked about all sorts of things, including our mutual interest in aviation and retirement. What a swell guy!
- Got to bed at
- "home"
- Spot D007 at the Frisco Campground of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore
at 11:20 for 9:07 hours of sleep
Thu Jun 20 = I had a nice visit with my neighbors across the "street" in Spot D004. They had a mansion for their tent that they got on sale from Target for $40. They had it set up in a perfict place with tent shade all day, although not the best morning shade for the vehicle. They bouoght two T-shirts, one of each design.
- Speaking of designs, this morning on my phone I renamed all 20 of my Square T-shirt products to match what I will be calling them: Comedy and Lou
- On Facebook I joined and put my kites for sale poster on these groups:
- Buy/Sell Used Kite/Wing Gear (https://www.facebook.com/groups/SellYourKiteGear) - plus Marketplace
- Kiteboarding (https://www.facebook.com/groups/kiteboarding)
- Kiteboarding Equipment Garage Sale | USA CANADA MEXICO (https://www.facebook.com/groups/kiteboardingequipmentgaragesale)
- At Dollar Tree I got a neat cardboard box that is exactly the right size for my five size-strip rolls - almost, so I made a flap on the top to allow an extra half inch for the rolls to fit.
- I stopped by the gym and then Food Lion for groceries and a brother and sister as new fans:
- Got to bed at 11:24 at my new
- "home"
- Spot A004 at the Frisco Campground of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore
for 8:48 hours of sleep
Fri Jun 21 = Before leaving the campground I refilled my van's running water supply - the second time since arriving on Hatteras island.
- For today's trip north, at Ace Hardware I bought a For Sale sign, perfect for making a T-shirt folding form, at Food Lion I bought raisins and stuff and got three new fans and then went on to the gym:
- Big hairy project: Now I may have my checking account under control after finding several eroneoius entries that I was projecting to future months and finding a bad formula in my Balancing Spreadsheet.
- This evening I made an 11x22" T-shirt folding form out of the For Sale sign and used it to refold shirts from my merch box to replenish shirts in my Shirtcase.
- Since this was my treat night, I drove down to the Firsco Market for an ice cream sandwich (a little soft) and four new fans:
- Got to bed at
- "home"
- Spot A002 at the Frisco Campground of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore
at 11:00 for 9:05 hours of sleep
Sat Jun 22 = I don't know what I was thinking last year when I gave last night's camp site a 3 out of 9 for morning shade, but this morning I changed it to a 0: no shade in the morning. Because of that faux pas, I drove the camp spots on my list and reevaluated them for morning shade and adjusted my spreadsheet and printouts accordingly.
- Continuing what I started yesterday, I added Costco Gas and overnight spots to my Hatteras Departure Plan. I'll end up in Philly for a VFW show, a week from today.
- First thing at my
- "office"
- pilot's lounge for the Billy Mitchell air strip in Frisco, NC
I backed up my Mac to a Crucial SSD - took about a half hour for the 1.3TB. The Mac still is not reading my Crucial SSD "E."
- I fired up my Alcatel - The little Alcatel Plus 10 10" Windows 10 computer I bought to get me by in Tobago in 2017 after my Dell laptop died. Its 32-bit operating system with a x64-based processor is tight, with only 2gb RAM and a 32gb SSD hard drive, but the 128gb micro SD card helps.
, charged the battery up to 100% and installed updates for Windows and Firefox. The Alcatel reads my Crucial SSD "E."
- What a kick! Wayne Bilch was mowing the gras at the Billy Mitchell air strip in Frisco. He let me drive the Diesel powered mower around a little and then became my latest fan. I believe it is the first time I drove a machine with a hydrostatic transmission. This is capable of turning with a zero radius.
- Am I so proud! I resolved my checking account... to the penny! After I got the statement downloaded and the windows arranged on my computer screen, it took me:
| Minutes |
Task |
| 13 |
check off all the items |
| 6 |
the balancing act, finding my check book $3.11 low |
| 9 |
find where I forgot to adjust my water bill by $3.11 |
| 5 |
save and close all the windows |
| 33 |
Total time |
Believe it or not, I am actually looking forward to my next checkbook resolution.
- I met a couple here at the airport, flying back home to Boulder, CO. They took my comedy information to pass along to Comedy Boulder. What a deal! Aubrey emailed me the club information and the contact person, but the club did not answer their phone all evening.
- Got to bed at
- "home"
- Spot P015 at the Frisco Campground of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore
at 11:28 for 9:30 hours of sleep
Sun Jun 23 = You may notice that I did not drive anywhere yesterday, except from my camp spot to my - "office"
- pilot's lounge for the Billy Mitchell air strip in Frisco, NC
and back, about a mile each way. My van was parked in the sun all day. Of course, in spite of sunscreens in the windows and a little ventelation with both the back hatch and moonroof cracked the ven got hot inside and I had the refrigerator at 38° F. This combination tasked the capacity of the- LiFePO4
- my van's 100 Amp-hour Lithium/Iron/Phosphate/Oxygen
house
battery
. It did three - LVD
- Low-Voltage Disconnect. To avoid battery damage, it shuts off the load of my LiFeMnPO battery at 11.5 Volts.
.
In each case, from my living quarters of the van, I did a remote start, which idles the van for 10 minutes.
- I drove some today: up at Kite Point I told people about my comedy show and showed them my kite boards. Since it was windy there were q number of kiteboarders out. I sold my Naish Custom Fish 5'2" surfboard for $100.
- I hated to let all that wind go to waste and would have kited, but last night and today I have had a mild headache so decided I should not push it.
- Then I drove up to the Haulover Day Use Area where I'll do my show on Tuesday to tell the vacationers there about the show.
- Then up to Dollar Tree to tell people about the show and buy a pack of AAA cells.
- Then on up to the Raise The Bar gym. Because of the continuing headache I did only a mild elliptical and light workout.
- Next stop was Food Lion for some vegetables and to tell people about Tuesday's show (got two new fans there).
- I figured that spending extra time telling people about the show would be worth it since it is my last show of the season.
- Thanks to my contact at the Banner Alzheimer's Foundation, this evening I learned about the APOE Christchurch genetic variant which appears to delay the onset of Dementia and Alzheimer's. The leading-edge research is sponsored by, among other organizations, the Banner Alzheimer's Foundation, which gets all the profit from my T-shirt and other merchandise sales.
- While adding the above T-shirt link, I discovered that the head-shot T-shirts were missing. Fixing the problem was a lot easier than I expected. For some reason the head-shot listing had expired. Etsy then sent me an email about my new login from... Texas!
- Got to bed at
- "home"
- Spot P058 (the best spot) at the Frisco Campground of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore
at 10:54 for 8:53 hours of sleep before waking up early to call in to Beach 104.
Mon Jun 24 = Since this was a Monday in June, before breakfast, I went up to my
- "office"
- pilot's lounge for the Billy Mitchell air strip in Frisco, NC
to phone Jody on Beach 104 about Tuesday's show. I learned that it's probably better to phone in after the fishing report. Later, my - ICD
- little stereo Sony ICD-UX560 voice recorder that I use for taking notes and for recording the audio of all my comedy appearances
was unable to divide a file so I learned how to load, split up and save to mp3 audio files with
- FCP
- Final Cut Pro X the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
..
- Today's trip included Kite Point, Haulover (where I got a new fan),
Raise The Bar Gym, Kitty Hawk Kites in Rodanthe, Radikal Kiteboarding in Rodanthe, Raise The Bar Gym again and the back to my
- "office"
- pilot's lounge for the Billy Mitchell air strip in Frisco, NC
.
Altogether covering a little over 60 miles, hawking my AXIS Vanguard 132 x 41cm twin-tip board and publicizing tomorrow's show.
- At the office I took all three kites, bar and pump out of my van and repacked it for comedy. I kinda threw the kites and stuff, stacked to the cealing on top of the comedy stuff. It's a scarry thought that I might wake up dead if the kites fall down on me in the middle of the night.
- We had a thunderstorm this evening and it poured rain for a while. When it hit, these two guys were riding bicycles around the airport. I invited them into the office to dry off a little. They became my latet fans - exactly 1,600 fans now. The rain explains why they are so wet:
- Got to bed at
- "home"
- Spot P058 (the best spot) at the Frisco Campground of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore
at 11:13 for 9:04 hours of sleep
Tue Jun 25 = Following my Departure list I cramed a lot of things in today:
- Before leaving
- "home"
- Spot P058 (the best spot) at the Frisco Campground of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore
,
since I had shade there, I replenished the powdered milk in my kitchen drawer and dug out the comedy stuff for tonight's show from under my kiteboarding stuff
- Then up at my
- "office"
- pilot's lounge for the Billy Mitchell air strip in Frisco, NC
I fully charged all five of my camcorders for this evening's show
- Updated my website
- Did a sun run from my home beach
- While driving north I retrieved all the posters I had put up four weeks ago at various stores in four towns
- Did a merch signing at the Avon Kitty Hawk Kites
- Stopped by Raise The Bar gym and fixed supper in my van there
- Washed my van at the Askins Creek touchless automatic car wash
- Switched magnetic posters on my van from Comedy-n-Sunset to Veterans National Tour
- Did my last comedy show here of the season for a responsive audience of 11
- Went up to Kitty Hawk Kites in Avon to sell a T-shirt, stow the equipment from the comedy show and say, "Good Bye" to the good people there. As always, had an interestng conversation with River, the manager
- Drove up to Kitty Hawk Kites in Rodanthe for the night.
- At bedtime I discovered that I had left my nightime "apple juice" jug in a bathroom at
- "home"
- Frisco Campground of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore
.
Fortunately Kitty Hawk Kites keeps their bathrooms unlocked at night, so it took me only three trips during the night to take care of "business."
- Got to bed at 10:40 for nine hours of sleep
Wed Jun 26 = I got up early this morning and before breakfast did a
- poster trim
- weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
with an unplanned twist. I forgot to switch my clippers from the 1/8" to the 1/4" guard. By the time I noticed the mistake I had already started on the right half of my beard so had to do the whole thing at 1/8." The result is not too disastrous and it will be about two weeks until I need to do my next poster trim.
- Gas-wise, I got 2 gallons of $3.299 gas at North Beach in Rodanthe to get me to 6 gallons of $3.099 gas in Kill Devil Hills to get me to a fill up with16 gallons of $3.069 gas at Costco in Norfolk, VA.
- On the way north, I met Joseph in The Frog Island Sea Food parking lot. It is so nice now to have space in my van for... me! Thank you, Joseph for buying my three kites, pump, bar and board. I hope you get a lot of good use out of them.
- I drove up to the Camden, DE Walmart and upgraded from a 64oz apple juice bottle to a 96oz grape juice bottle for my nightime needs. I immediately started drinking the grape juice, scheduling to consume the whole thing in three days, stowing some of it in my water bottles in order to have the grape juice bottle for my nighttime needs. Also I got some new fans:
- For the night I found the best spot in their parking lot for morning shade. Another guy had parked his van there so I backed in two spots west and introduced myself to my "neighbor." He didn't understand why, with such a big parking lot, that I parked "so close."
- Got to bed at 12:05 for 9:05 hours of sleep
Thu Jun 27 = My "neighbor" may have been trying to get even with me for parking so close, or it may have been his usual moring routine. Sitting in a collapsible chair in the parking spot between our vehicles, at bout 7:00 he started talking loudly and singing songs, including Onward Christian Soldiers. Next he started reading, loudly, prayers from his cell phone. He went on and on.
- My Lectro Fan white noise machine was not charged and the USB cable was not long enough to reach to my head area,
so I reparked my van about 60 feet west and had a quiet rest of my night.
- The rest of the day did not go much better. After driving into downtown Philadelphia, I found the Lawncrest Library fenced off and closed for remodeling, although the internet said it was open. I showed a worker there how to "Suggest new hours."
- On my way to the Township Library I stumbled across the Cottman Ave LA Fitness where I got some new fans and did my first LA Fitness workout in about four months :)
- After the library closed at 8pm I had a Braunschweiger sandwich and drove to Trevose, PA to their Walmart for a fingernail file and a new fan,
then to the local Cracker Barrel for my overnight spot.
- Today I learned some things
- Always phone a library before going
- Don't trust my Garmin GPS receiver, as the maps and data are frequently out of date
- Got to bed at 11:27 for 9:03 hours of sleep
Fri Jun 28 = I got away from the Cracker Barrel this morning after breakfast and perfect mornong shade about 10:00.
- First stop was the Grant Ave LA Fitness for a heavy arms workout. My cardio was running way across the parking lot from my parking place in the shade of a tree to the gym and back. She shade of the tree turned out to be a good place to fix and eat an early lunch
- Next stop was Philiadelphia's Welsh Road Library for about 4.5 hours before time to head to the VFW to set up for tonight's 7pm show.
- The show was opposite the noisy bar in a large room. For comedy there was a total audience of eight, five of which stayed the whole time. Those who came to the show certainly enjoyed it.
- I had some good help to carry things in (Jeff) and to carry my things back out (Jimmy).
- After my van was all packed I returned to the post to work on my website. At the bar they were tossing jokes and riddles back and forth. Of course I had to join in with some of my own off-stage humor, which they really liked. One of the guys said, "Hey, listen to the professional!" What a group!
- In the post parking lot I got to bed at 12:05 for 9:05 hours of sleep
Sat Jun 29 = I drove all over NE Philadelphia to a dumpy Walmart, then to NJ for Costco Gas, then south to Salisbury, MD to a library and then to the American Legion post for my show.
- The post was very supportive but with only six in the audience. I was able to make the show more personal.
- Got to bed at 10:33 for 9:13 hours of sleep
Sun Jun 30 = At tonight's show in Reinholds, PA I did not know it but I had a special guest. He had Alzheimer's. He was a lot of fun. After the show I learned that he was having a good day, considering he was in stage 5 Alzheimer's. I learned this from his caregiver, his daughter. She said he especially wanted to come and see me. It brings tears to my eyes.
| - I came up with the ideal merch display: |
|
- For the night I parked west of the post and before bedtime, as a test, hooked up my new LiFePO4 charger and it worked beautifully.
- While last night in Salisbury was the hottest yet for this trip (I even had my ceiling fan on part of the night), tonight in Reinholds will be the coldest in a month. We had quite a bit of rain today.
- Got to bed at 11:50 for 9 hours of sleep
