Blog Archive 2015 Jan
Thu Jan 1 = HAPPY NEW YEAR! Flew my heli around noon; mostly not much power. The only other RC pilot was Craig, with his good-sized helicopters.
The day after Christmas I about froze off my you-know-whats, doing comedy outside at the Firehouse Gallery. (They are saying Loou, not Booo)
Fri Jan 2 = This evening I registered with LA Fitness under the Silver Sneakers program so my nationwide use of LA Fitness gyms will be paid for by my health insurance company rather than by me.
- This was after going all over the place looking for good quality 4x6" cards for my new Venue Contacts File. All I found was cheap flimsy cards at Office Max, Target and Walgreen, and none at all at 99¢ and Dollar Tree.
- It took two Goodwill stores for me to find three queen-sized flannel sheets to use as freeze-protection covers for my natal plum shrubs. It should be a lot easier covering them, rather than using twin-bed sheets.
Sat Jan 3 = This morning I made my electronic shopping list and took Denise, the
- Duet
- The organization I support and through which I take non-driving seniors shopping and to their doctors' appointments
neighbor I take grocery shopping, to Winco. On the way home I stopped by Fitness 1 for a light arms workout.
- I spent most of the afternoon polishing off the writing of the Boneyard/Yoga routine I plan to use at CrackUps on Wednesday.
- This evening I joined six other ham radio operators way down in Chandler for our weekly hamfeast, then came home to work on this last week of my blog.
Sun Jan 4 = Today I adjusted the tire pressures in my van tires to 33psi. They were all down to 31.5psi. I figure consistency is a good thing - no leaks.
- My
- Dahlia
- my Phoenix rental house located on Dahlia Drive
tenant phoned that the hall bathtub faucet broke and needs to be replaced - not too bad, after about 44 years.
Mon Jan 5 = I spent much of today practicing and minor tweaking my Yoga/Boneyard routine for CrackUps on Wednesday.
- Kelly Paper does not have index cards (glad I phoned before I went) so I have settled for thin flimsy ones that I finally got at the
- PVCC
- Paradise Valley Community College
book store. Tonight I printed the unruled sides with the blank format for my Comedy Contacts & Bookings in light gray.
- I drove 40 miles this after LA Fitness and supper, down to Stand Up Live and back for a comedy class that didn't happen. I don't think they or their affiliated Tempe Improv have their act together for comedy classes. I'd better stop there. I
did get more tickets so the trip wasn't totally wasted.
Tue Jan 6 = This morning I took Arlene to see a doctor under the auspices of
- Duet
- The organization I support and through which I take non-driving seniors shopping and to their doctors' appointments
.
While I was waiting, I tweaked my CrackUps routine, worked on this blog and got started on the monthly roll-over for the blog - for the first time, doing two months at once and trying to not strain my brain too much (it worked well and I saved some time in the process). When we got to her home I gave her a few laughs with my Boneyard comedy routine for CrackUps.
- For the first time I used my
iCharger's Motor Drive feature to bench test my
- Nano
- fourth type of RC micro helicopter: Blade Nano CPx that has a tail rotor, no flybar and true collective positive and negative pitch
.
It is the first time I have found a power source with enough umph that also controls and measures the exact voltage and current. My Nano #8 took between 80mA (sitting, bound) and 2600mA (100% idle up and maximum negative pitch). Oh, yes, I fried my Nano #6 main circuit board with an iCharger setting of 4.16v and 5A. Next tme I'll go for 4.0v and 4A. For my reference, the information is in C:\Users\Louis Self\Documents\Instructions\Heli Nano CPx Notes.txt.
Wed Jan 7 = My
FLIR thermographic camera is acting up - again, and I just recently got it back from the manufacturer, having sent it in... for the same problem.
- I washed my van, including the windows, inside and out,with my new Karcher vacuum squeegee. The only place it had a little problem was on the rear window with its compound curve.
- On my way to do comedy this evening I did a heavy, slow legs workout at LA Fitness.
- At the CrackUps Comedy Club I did my Yoga and Boneyard routines. CrackUps is always supportive and helpful, suggesting that I was giving the audience a clue of what was coming before my punch lines. I'll have to work on that. One guy suggested that I stick with my Old Man routine.
Thu Jan 8 = Tonight I appeared on Tempe Improv's New Faces. It was a big, enthusiastic crowd of over 300. It was a good show until Jim Holland &
band
took over the stage, went into the audience and caused a fight. They ended the show early. I felt sorry for the three remaining comedians who did not get to perform.
- I made a video of my set, plus two others' at their request. I suggested, if they wished, instead of paying me for the videos, to make a donation to
Duet or their own favorite charity.
Fri Jan 9 = Today I worked on my 3rd Street Theater routine (yoga), did a heavy, slow arms workout at Fitness 1, cycled my
- Nano
- fourth type of RC micro helicopter: Blade Nano CPx that has a tail rotor, no flybar and true collective positive and negative pitch
flight batteries, R W X, twice using my fancy helicase iCharger setup and modified my sleeping situation.
- The key for a good night's sleep is for me to not be cool or too warm and, at the same time, not have to add or take off covers at night. In the winter the temperature of my master bedroom varies by about three degrees F. The magic combination seems to be: sleep under a flannel sheet, a bedspread, two baby comforters over my feet and a second flannel sheet on top of all that. So I have appropriated, as the top flannel sheet, one of the queen-sized sheets I bought as freeze-protection covers for my natal plum shrubs.
Sat Jan 10 = This morning I flew my
- Nano
- fourth type of RC micro helicopter: Blade Nano CPx that has a tail rotor, no flybar and true collective positive and negative pitch
at the
- RC Park
- Coyote Basin Park where guys fly electric RC airplanes and an occasional helicopter - east of the 101 Pima Freeway and Cave Creek Rd in Phoenix
.
The flight batteries still don't have a lot of power, but that did not keep me from breaking both landing skid rails. A little work with my new hot glue gun took care of the situation.
- This afternoon I drove up to
Rick Bronson's House of Comedy for Tony Vicich's first introductory stand-up comedy class there. The class is for rank beginners. I went just to support comedy and to support Tony.
- I'm shifting my
stand-up comedy approach by reducing my appearances to about once a week but spending more time writing, tweaking my routines and developing new ones, via some comedy classes.
Sun Jan 11 = I went to my first series of four comedy classes at the Comedy Spot in Scottsdale where I met Dee Anne for the first time. I took a series of classes there last Jnuary under Sean, the owner, also an excellent instructor, emphasizing performance. Dee Anne is an excellent instructor who emphasizes writing, which should give me a good balance. Today I presented my Yoga routine for evaluation and got some good feedback from Dee Anne and the other students (a big thing was the effective use of pauses).
- This evening, I did my revised Yoga routine on stage at the Third Street Theater at the Phoenix Center for the Arts. I was guilty, again, of trying to cram too much in, by adding my boneyard routine, so was rushed at the last and went a little long. The performance is now the fourth video on my
Comedy web page.
Mon Jan 12 = Today I sprayed the weeds in the front and worked on comedy and, this evening, did a heavy, slow torso workout at LA Fitness.
Tue Jan 13 = This morning I worked out a system with Eva, at
- Duet
- - An excellent organization that provides needed services to old people in the Phoenix area.
that will allow comedians to easily make a donation in exchange for my videoing their routines.
- I paid my two credit card bills and, this evening, did a light, fast legs workout at LA Fitness.
Wed Jan 14 = This morning I went out to the
- RC Park
- Coyote Basin Park where guys fly electric RC airplanes and an occasional helicopter - east of the 101 Pima Freeway and Cave Creek Rd in Phoenix
to fly my
- Nano
- fourth type of RC micro helicopter: Blade Nano CPx that has a tail rotor, no flybar and true collective positive and negative pitch
and to show off my new, high-tech helicase. They think it's cool. The most frequebt question I am asked is, "Why don't you get a bigger helicopter... or an airplane." It wouldn't fit in my case!
- Also today I laid in the sun some, rode my exercycle fast for two minutes, sprayed the weeds out back (not too many of 'em) and responded to a scam phone call, one of those robo calls.
- The robo recording named my credit card processor and said that I qualified to reduce my interest rate (immaterial, since I carry no balances). I phoned my credit card company directly, found out that the robo call was not legitimate, so phoned them any way. I'm not too proud of it, but I kept the, somewhat ignorant, gentleman on the phone for 20 minutes, found that I had to have $5,000 of credit card debt to qualify for their
plan
- and they weren't even related to my credit card processor.
Thu Jan 15 = You can see a video of my latest performance. It is the fourth one on my
Comedy web page, doing my tweaked Yoga routine. I am tweaking it some more and excited about using it at
Rick Bronson's House of Comedy on Tuesday, the 20th.
- This afternoon I did a pressure test and determined that my new helicase will hold a partial vacuum for 3.5 minutes and did a light, fast arms workout at Fitness 1.
Fri Jan 16 = Our HOA management company is ACMS. For years us homeowners have been paying our quarterly assessments through ACH auto drafts. Something changed because we had to set the ACH up all over again with a different bank. Since ACMS has not been sending us statements, this morning I phoned them to get my account information for setting up with the new bank, ugh!
- Off season, my
van's running water system has to be run occasionally so the pump does not freeze up. Today, after three weeks, it would not go (dry) with the 12.20 volts of my van battery, so I had to punch it with the 13.25 v of my van's
house battery. Next I'll see how two-week intervals do, just using the 12v battery.
- This evening I did a little shopping and a light, fast torso workout at LA Fitness and personally publicizing my 7:30pm Tuesday comedy appearance at
Rick Bronson's House of Comedy.
Sat Jan 17 = Big deal! I charged my Kindle Touch today... but I did it through this new little
Mini OLED USB Detector/Tester/Meter that measures capacity in mAh, power in W, Current in A and Voltage in V. Taking my Kindle battery (original one) from one bar to full charge took 2W and 1486 mAh.
- The hamfeast tonight was in south Mesa at the Golden Valley Chinese Restaurant. Good company and food as always. I went home with a enough extra food for my dinner on Monday.
- A little
- Nano
- fourth type of RC micro helicopter: Blade Nano CPx that has a tail rotor, no flybar and true collective positive and negative pitch
repair today. I used hot glue to repair the landing gear and two canopy posts and replaced the bent feathering spindle with one from my Nano #6.
Sun Jan 18 = This morning's activity was a comedy class at the Comedy Spot in Scottsdale. It lasted until about 3pm. Then I rushed to the northwest for a retirement reception for Al and Joan Stempski, my long-time realtor.
Mon Jan 19 = This morning I flew my Phoenix RC simulator at home and then my
- Nano
- fourth type of RC micro helicopter: Blade Nano CPx that has a tail rotor, no flybar and true collective positive and negative pitch
at the
- RC Park
- Coyote Basin Park where guys fly electric RC airplanes and an occasional helicopter - east of the 101 Pima Freeway and Cave Creek Rd in Phoenix
.
Batteries R and W were low on power.
Tue Jan 20 = Worst
COMEDY experience to date - mostly of my own making. I did most of my revised and well rehearsed Yoga routine at Rick Bronson's House of Comedy this evening. The crowd of 24 was not very responsive to me or most of the other comedians. They gave me the light early because I was not connecting with the audience too well and I kept going - a real no-no. They had to play me off the stage. That means they started the music while I was still talking. Not good. After the show both the producer and the host chastised me, and I deserved it.
- Naturally I was a little down in the dumps, but felt better after passing out a couple of my "Upcoming Appearance" slips at Albertson's on my way home, picking up some produce that was on sale. In life, even when you hit a pot hole, you've got to hold steady and keep with a plan... if it's a good plan.
Wed Jan 21 = Eight
- Nano
- fourth type of RC micro helicopter: Blade Nano CPx that has a tail rotor, no flybar and true collective positive and negative pitch
flights this morning. Right after breakfast I flew my PhoenixRC simulator a record 26 1/2 minutes with a new twist, all at Lakeside: flying THREE helicopters, starting with the largest. 1) T-Rex 700 G3; 2) Blade 130x; 3) Blade Nano CPx I topped off flights with each heli with a good landing! Then out for the real thing.
- The first four flights were at the
- RC Park
- Coyote Basin Park where guys fly electric RC airplanes and an occasional helicopter - east of the 101 Pima Freeway and Cave Creek Rd in Phoenix
.
Steve and I took turns flying our helicopters, he was flying his Blade 130x. After the flights I accidentally left my iCharger on CHARGE instead of STORAGE CHARGE. I noticed it when I checked the finished voltage after my heavy arms workout at Fitness 1. What to do with the four fully-charged batteries? Go back into their aerobics room and practice more precise hovering and altitude control.
- I watched a video this evening of a guy doing flips and inverted with his
- Nano
- fourth type of RC micro helicopter: Blade Nano CPx that has a tail rotor, no flybar and true collective positive and negative pitch
- indoors. He emphasized being smother and more gentle with the collective pitch control (that's the left joy stick) when doing 3-D aerobatics. I'll try that my next flights. It should load down the motor less, keep the RPMs up and yield better performance from the batteries.
- This evening I also signed up for the Arizona's Funniest Comedian competition preliminaries in Tempe.
- I did a little figuring on my past 128 comedy appearances, so far, in about 12.5 months. To get the same number of appearances through the Tempe Center for the Arts classes, it would take about $38,000 and over 14 years. To get the same number of appearances through the Comedy Spot classes would take almost $13,000 and about ten years.
Thu Jan 22 = I got so preoccupied this evening, starting a new web page for my HeliCase #2 and adding a
Construction Zone
for last spring's
Kiteboarding/Comedy Road Trip on my
Trips web page, that I forgot about the monthly
- ARA
- Arizona Repeater Association (ham radio operators)
meeting. I
was happy with my accomplishments, though.
Fri Jan 23 = Around noon I took Carol, my
- Duet
- The organization I support and through which I take non-driving seniors shopping and to their doctors' appointments
neighbor, to a doctor appointment. Since we were there 20 minutes ahead of time, the office was closed. I went back to my van, set up my office and spent the hour or so of waiting, working on this blog. All that took a good chunk of the afternoon, after which I came home for a short nap, logged some post-flight battery voltages for my
- Nano
- fourth type of RC micro helicopter: Blade Nano CPx that has a tail rotor, no flybar and true collective positive and negative pitch
,
fiished this blog and shuffled some money between accounts.
Sat Jan 24 = This morning I flew my PhoenixRC Simulator and then the actual
- Nano
- fourth type of RC micro helicopter: Blade Nano CPx that has a tail rotor, no flybar and true collective positive and negative pitch
at the
- RC Park
- Coyote Basin Park where guys fly electric RC airplanes and an occasional helicopter - east of the 101 Pima Freeway and Cave Creek Rd in Phoenix
.
Most of the flight batteries were running out of power - not enough to get off the ground, so I suspect it might be a problem with the heli.
- This evening I drove down to the Black Bear Diner in Gilbert for our weekly hamfeast. Being only five of us, we had a chance to get better acquainted than before.
Sun Jan 25 = Dee Anne, the instructor for the Comedy Spot class gave me more than my share of time, and she and the other students helped me with some stuff. Thank you Dee Anne and students! Next class I'll try to take a little less time to make sure the others get their share.
- My Aunt Juanita died at 8:40 pm this evening. She had dementia and several infections, including pneumonia.
Mon Jan 26 = Today I did my light, fast torso workout at LA Fitness. I am making it to the gym pretty regularly nowadays.
Tue Jan 27 = Today I did my slow, heavy legs workout at LA Fitness.
Wed Jan 28 = Today I did my heavy, slow arms workout at Fitness 1.
Thu Jan 29 = The main event this morning and the first part of the afternoon was the memorial service for my Aunt Juanita way out in Apache Junction. The tone was solemn with overtones of humor and good family fellowship. Of course I took advantage of Sharmin's offer for family members to make some comments. Sharmin accused me of never passing up an opportunity for stage time. Well...
- Rene Harte, who is running the
Arizona's Funniest Comedian competition, Facebooked me cool tickets, with my name.
I have arranged it so you can take a picture of this ticket with your phone, show it at the box office and gain free admission. Also I'll start printing the tickets on card stock, cutting them into tickets and passing them out to people who want to go.
- Late this afternoon I applied preemergence spray, front and back yards. Perfect timing because the next 48 hours we got .6 inches of slow rain - perfect for activating the preemergence.
- In the middle of the night my master bedroom smoke alarm went off (full blast, not just chirping) when the electricity went off for about two hours. The sound was ear piercing. I had no choice but to bring my A-ladder in from the garage, climb to the top in order to get the smoke alarm down from the vaulted ceiling. Disgusting!
Fri Jan 30 = It took some courage for me to appear at the Firehouse Gallery this evening because it was my first since my bad experience on the 20th of January. Firehouse went fairly well, although I'm still working on getting my comedy mojo back. Matt Micheletti runs a well-organized show and does a good job of communicating with the comedians through FaceBook.
Sat Jan 31 = This morning I took Denise shopping at Winco Foods under the auspices of
- Duet
- The organization I support and through which I take non-driving seniors shopping and to their doctors' appointments
.
It is always my preference that we stay together while shopping, but she scooted off somewhere on her electric scooter. It's a big store and she was nowhere to be found when I was ready to check out. I decided I'd let her do the worrying instead of me. It worked out well, because she had already checked out, gone outside to look for me, then came back in, found me and we went on our merry way.
- This evening I stopped by the Moon Valley LA Fitness for a heavy, slow torso workout on my way to the weekly hamfeast; this time in this area at Codfather's Fish and Chips. Talk about a grease! Every time after we go there, I have to set my clothes out on the back patio for a couple of days so the greasy smell will air out of them.
