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Arizona Lou

Blog Archive 2016 Mar

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Wed Mar 2 = Today I worked on enough video to find out that coordinating my video and audio sources was hopeless, bought staples at Fry's Food's first-Wednesday-of-the-month 10% senior discount and did a heavy, slow legs workout at LA Fitness. I bought a Giini GN801W 8" electronic picture frame from Goodwill. I downloaded the instructions from the Internet. The frame is now paging through the 1100 or so images from my website, at a three second interval. It's kinda neat to see memories from all my trips etc/

Thu Mar 3 = Today I sprayed Roundup on my weeds, washed my van, scrubbed the tires and polished headlights.

Fri Mar 4 = First thing this morning I Moon Juiced my myoporums and silver sage, at the beginning of the drip cycle so it would be deeply watered in.
- This was a tech day, with my Passport Ultra Portable External SSD Hard Drive, WDBBKD0020BWT-NESN arriving by Fedex, and my Huawei Nexus 6P phone arriving from Google by the USPS. Also I researched TVs online, mainly with Consumer Report.

Sat Mar 5 = Did a slow, heavy arms workout at Fitness 1. This afternoon I had a comedy session with Bryan Ricci. I went through my entire 40 minute routine. I did not use my notes, and probably would have done better if I had. Later we went to the Tempe Improv where he was the feature comedian. It was the first time stayed for two consecutive shows (thanks Bryan) to compare how the comedians switched things up between the shows. Interesting.

Sun Mar 6 = My phone number finally got ported over to Google fi; with one day to spare before my prepaid Straight Talk ran out. So I'll be moving from Straight Talk's $42.50 per month ($47.00 with fees) with their 6-month discount, to Google fi for $43.94 per month ($20 for calls, texts & support + $20 for 2GB of data) with additional features, including tethering. I can use my old phone as a motion-sensing smart alarm & general maps and for reference while on Wi-Fi.
- This evening I checked out some possible places for me to do comedy in Las Vegas when I'm there visiting Stacie, my niece. I also used a 4-lb sledge hammer to crack open the old, supposedly waterproof submersible, 12v water blue pump that I had been using for my van's running water system until it quit working while I was in San Diego the last of January. Out ran a bunch of semi-rusty water.
Pump
- Later I went to LA Fitness for a heavy torso workout and a shower.

Mon Mar 7 = I never made it to the gym today, but I DID make it to my garage to check and adjust the tire pressures to 33psi... and out to my mailbox.
- I certainly have a lazy brain. I find myself doing lots of things that I ordinarily would not want to do to avoid working my brain. My goal today was to develop a new routine of holding things. Instead I redid my Comedy-n-Sunset poster,

Tue Mar 8 = Today I finally figured out how to send up smoke signals... with my microwave oven... accidentally, of course, by baking a potato with an extra four, making the time 44:44 rather than 4:44. The potato that started out at about 4 ounces ended up at .5 ounces, 1/8 it's original weight. It didn't look too bad on the outside, but was totally dry and black on the inside.
- I did not make it to my appearance at Dos Gringos this evening for my debut of Holding Things, but DID get 20 Arizona Lou Tempe Improve tickets made, did a light, fast legs workout at the Moon Valley LA Fitness, fixed two meals for tomorrow, packed and aired out the house from the smoke signals.

Wed Mar 9 = This morning I got off at 9 , headed for Las Vegas to see my niece, Stacy, her husband, a chaplain in the air force and their 8-month old Rocco. I worked on comedy routines most of the way.
- Rocco! What a guy, so cute I can hardly stand it, and just full of personality. He's lucky to have such good parents.
- This evening was my first comedy appearance in Las Vegas: eight and a half minutes at Coffee Tea Or Me . It was a fun show, but started late, at 10pm.

Thu Mar 10 = Around noon, Stacie and I tramped all around the Las Vegas strip, getting tickets for tonight and seeing Bodies... The Exhibition at The Luxor. It was unexpectedly interesting and very educational.
- This evening, while Rocco was at the babysitter, Dave, Stacie and I saw some excellent comedians at The Laugh Factory in the Tropicana: Christine Steadman (host), Erik Myers (Feature) and Don Gavin (Headliner).

Fri Mar 11 = Stacie and I hung around until afternoon. I ordered a bunch of things from Amazon that I had accumulated in my shopping basket, so they would arrive after I'm back home. I got away, headed back to Phoenix around 3pm and arrived back home about 9pm. What a trip! Seemed as though I had been gone a month, we did so much in the three days.

Sat Mar 12 = The three days of mail delivered by John today, for while I was gone, included 12 Arizona Lou T-Shirts and a little 12v submersible water pump for my van's water system.
- This evening I bought an LG 43UF6400 43" 4K smart TV at Fry's Electronics. I was going to also shop Best Buy and Walmart before making my purchase, but the LG was on sale for about 20 more minutes until Fry's closed at 9pm and I knew pretty well what I wanted, although I was not necessarily going for a 4k TV.

Sun Mar 13 = This morning I checked out and configured my new 43" TV set... sitting on the floor. The TV upscales lower resolution video to 4K, and the picture is awesome.
- I made 40 more Tempe Improve tickets for my appearance in a week and went on the day's trip of six-hours, passing out tickets to anyone who was interested. The trip included: - For the show I did my new Holding Things routine for the first time.

Mon Mar 14 = I ordered stuff from Amazon, including more Dymo labels and an IRIScan Book 3 portable document scanner. I stayed up late tonight (Duh!) putting my old TV on the kitchen floor and the new TV up on my TV cabinet. I had to test it out by watching some of the Steven Cobert show. Then I found a neat graphic of the relative resolutions of TVs from VCD to 4k. I added it to my TECHNOLOGY web page. It should be online the next few days.

Tue Mar 15 = This morning I went to LA Fitness for one set,(but mostly to give out Tempe Improve tickets for my appearance on Sunday) and shopping with Denise under the auspices of
Duet
The organization I support and through which I take non-driving seniors shopping and to their doctors' appointments
.
- This afternoon my new DVR from Channel Master arrived; and it is SMALL: slightly smaller than a piece of typing paper and only a half inch thick. It took only two days to get here with their UPS free shipping. Also, the USPS delivered a package from Amazon with 2 cell phone tripod adapters with Bluetooth remote controls, a 1T Western Digital external SSDrive and a 32 GB SD card.
- This evening I drove to The House of Comedy for nothing, to Dos Gringos in South Tempe to be with my friends and do a 5:30 Holding Things routine, to the nearby LA Fitness for 15 minutes until they closed, then to the E Camelback LA Fitness to finish out the light, fast torso workout.

Wed Mar 16 = Today I got my Channel Master DVR plugged in, set up and mostly working. I also positioned the flat indoor antenna (about the size of a piece of typing paper) on the brow window above my patio door. That way it faces South Mountain where the TV stations are. With it I can receive about 72 over-the-air stations.
- Early afternoon I set up my folding table in the back yard in full sunlight with the bottom inch of the back tails of three Arizona Lou T-shirts exposed as a fade test: My late afternoon trip was to: - This evening I set up three video cameras in my bedroom. Two were cell phones using the cell phone/tripod adapters I just received from Amazon. I went through my full show routine, recording it with five audio sources, including the audio of the cameras.
- Then, not the smartest thing to do nearing midnight, I explored some of the menus and features of my Channel Master DVR after setting up its remote IR sensor and having the DVR format my new Western Digital My Passport 2T hard drive. That drive is now dedicated to the Channel Master and is no longer usable with computers. I learned one way to schedule the recording of shows and got Late Night with Seth Myers set - I think. I haven't yet figured out how to watch the recordings.

Thu Mar 17 = Today my cute little and capable IRIScan Book 3 scanner arrived by USPS from Amazon with some other things.
IrisScan
- I ordered a Digital Optical Coaxial Toslink Signal to Analog Audio Converter Adapter RCA to hook my new TV to my stereo system.
- I analyzed some of last night's practice comedy routine, organized tonight's routine for Chop and Wok and printed up 20 more ticket labels for Sunday's show at the Tempe Improv, but did not have time to apply them to the tickets before leaving.
- At Chop and Wok I cut the labels apart and was putting them on the tickets at one of the tables when I was informed that the comedy show had been cancelled for this week. Not wanting to make the trip for nothing, I gave out 19 tickets to the patrons there who were interested.

Fri Mar 18 = This evening I went to the Tempe Improv to observe Nikki Glasser. She did 57 minutes of creative stuff, almost all about sex - a little much for my taste. I liked Tom Brady, the feature's 27 minutes better. My friend, Michael Longfellow did a good job hosting with an 11-minute opener.

Sat Mar 19 = This morning I had to restart my
Vaio
Sony Vaio Duo 11 computer with 11.6" touch screen, Windows 10, 8gb memory and 256gb SSD
twice to get the desktop and auxiliary screens working correctly :(
- I ran across beautiful The Foggy Dew on Celtic harp, hammered dulcimer & flute by Timothy Seaman & Ann Robinson when I was looking for Dance of the Blessed Spirits for Flute and Harp, whick Gene O'Kelly, author of Chasing Daylight, had played at his funeral.
- Looking at all the Trump protesters blocking traffic for hours makes me wonder if our country has become a country of mob rule by people who do not respect the rights of other citizens rather than a DEMOCRATIC republic. I hope those people get arrested!
- In the technology department I got both of my Channel Master IR remotes programmed to also operate my new LG TV's power and volume.
- I happened to run across a First Guitar Class on PBS TV about bedtime, hate to pass up opportunities to learn something so just had to watch the first half hour and look up guitar tuning on the Internet. That, along with going over my comedy routnes for tomorrow put me to bed about 2am. :(     During the night my old Galaxy S2 smart phone, the one I now use as an alarm with SleepBod spontaneously reset itself, losing its time and date.

Sun Mar 20 = Comedy day: preparing and then performing on the Kax Stage at the Herberger Theater in downtown Phoenix and at the Tempe Improv.
logo
- My old Galaxy S2 smart phone, the one I use as an alarm with SleepBot spontaneously reset itself, again... losing its time and date.

Mon Mar 21 = Today I sunned at noon and got the port in the jerry can for for my van's running water system enlarged slightly and rounded out.
- This evening I got some bread and cereal at 99¢ Only, vinyl tubing for my van's running water system (more suitable than what I bought at Ace) at Home Depot, and did a HEAVY legs workout at LA Fitness, Moon Valley.
- Back at home, I dug around in the bottom of my right ring toe until I extracted a sizeable sticker. Then soaked my foot in warm Epson salt water.

Tue Mar 22 = The atomic wall clock in my office was crazy this morning, showing Monday, April 11. At midnight it reset itself to the correct date. It's time of day was always correct. All my other atomic clocks behaved themselves.
- This evening I went to Grand Avenue Pizza for the comedy show on their back patio. Pretty good group, mostly comedians. I was 10th out of 15 comedians.

Wed Mar 23 = I got four stacking desk trays set up on my kitchen counter to use in getting rid of the clutter there. Next I'll tackle my office. My goal today is to get everything cleared off.
- Other projects are to get the sprinkler system repaired at
Dahlia
my Phoenix rental house located on Dahlia Drive
, where there is currently a 15-foot fountain where one of the risers is broken off. This afternoon I spent about an hour over there adjusting the sprinklers and replacing some of the nozzles. The tenant's landscaper had replaced some of the MP-2000 nozzles with Walla Walla ones that are cheaper, but use more water and do not cover as much area.
- After breakfast I hooked up the new optical-to RCA digital-to analog converter between my TV and equalizer/amp/speakers. Now I have better sound than ever!
- This evening I went to Tosos to be in an open hosted by Joe Salinas. Good group of mostly comedians. The room is specifically for comedy so that is what they expected and that is what they got. I got acquainted with comedian, Ted Falagan (who bought one of my shirts) and his wife, Emily, a writer. I also had a chance to visit with Miguel D and get better acquainted with him.

Thu Mar 24 = Later in the afternoon I drove over to
Dahlia
my Phoenix rental house located on Dahlia Drive
to meet Rogelio Valenzuela, my landscaper, who replaced one of the broken sprinkler heads that we missed.
- The world lost a great comedian, Garry Shandling today, at 66, of a massive heart attack. We'll miss you, Gary!
- This evening's comedy was at Chop and Wok. I was third out of about 15 comedians. Before my set I went around the bar and talked to the patrons, inviting them to the tables in the comedy area. No one took me up on it, but they were aware of my comedy and more attentive and a little quieter for my set. During most of the comedy show the bar crowd was louder than I've ever heard them before Some of the worst offenders were comedians. Part of it could have been that the show was not run by Josh, the usual producer/host.

Fri Mar 25 = This afternoon I did my full comedy routine in front of the mirror - took about 55 minutes. Then I spent another hour or two reviewing and tweaking. Also I typed up a list of beginning and ending phrases for each bit, to help me develop smoother transitions.
- I got the pump power cord and hose installed for my van's running water system, Model 3. The only thing I am using from the old system is the jerry can and the cap. I think it is going to be a good improvement from Model 2.
- This evening's project was to do a bunch of speed tests with my new 1T Samsung SSD (solid-state drive). I learned:

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