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Blog Archive 2018 Nov

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Thu Nov 1 = From the new T-Shirt feature on my website I ordered two shirts to make sure things work right. I also got my oil changed at C&R Tire. Up-coming maintenance concerns are going to be transmission seals, both sides; Left CV boot; leaking valve cover. On the way home I stopped by Discount Tire and had them up the tire pressures to maximum for the tires.
- Tonight was comedy at Improv Mania in Chandler and then, way late, at Spinelli's Pizza in Tempe.

Fri Nov 2 = Today I double checked that I had my 22-year old van covered for collision with Amica Mutual... so I'd have the coverage on my rental car in Charleston next week. Related, I confirmed that my Citibank MC card covers rental car damage as secondary insurance. That is good, since I have a very high ($1k) deductible, which they would cover.
- This evening I did a workout at LA Fitness. Then did my semi-monthly shopping late... not under the auspices of
Duet
The organization I support and through which I take non-driving seniors shopping and to their doctors' appointments
 with Willie because she is having cateract surgery tomorrow. I mailed her a get well card, hoping she will Get Better Soon, which I corrected to, See Better Soon.

Sat Nov 3 = I finished reading The Joy Of Imperfection: A Stress-Free Guide To Silencing Your Inner Critic, Conquering Perfectionism, and Becoming The Best Version Of Yourself! by Damon Zahariades. I recommend it and started implementing some of his ideas while still reading the book.
- I booked a Thrifty rental car through HotWire for my Charleston, SC to Savannah, GA drive for comedy and, around noon, lay in the sun for 20 minutes.
- This afternoon I went to a
Duet
The organization I support and through which I take non-driving seniors shopping and to their doctors' appointments
 Leadership Partner Reception. It was nice to finally see their new office space. Their old location was in such bad shape that it had to be razed. Unfortunately their rent costs had to go way up.
- This evening, as a reward for keeping my nose to the grindstone today, I sewed up a second, small, squishy pillow for use in my van. I made both pillows from a larger monster one. These little ones are perfect for my pillow needs. I had enough white pillow beads left over to fill a gallon zip-lock bag.

Sun Nov 4 = I have been spending quite a bit of time organizing my stuff and contacting comedy clubs for appearances on my spring/summer road tour.
- Today I checked the 10-day forecast for Savannah GA. Too bad I have no space in my carry bags for an umbrella, because it is likely to rain every day while I'm there but Sunday. Dollar Tree, Here I come!

Mon Nov 5 = Today I paid the balance of about $15 for insurance on Stan's Sherman duplex in Hutchinson.
- This evening I did a harry test of five video cameras to determine where to best use each during my comedy shows. I simulated a poorly lit audience for low-light performance. Then I simulated a dark room with a bright stage.

Tue Nov 6 = Today I tried to locate, online and by making phone calls, any open mics for Stand Up Comedy in Charleston and Savannah (found none), updated my Garmin GPS maps and the software to version 8.80.
- On the trip I am packing my GPS, dash cam, t-shirts and video cameras... all in just carry on.
- Tonight I caught up on this blog and did a trial packing of my bags. I;ll have to unpack my computer to use one last day.

Wed Nov 7 = Today I finished packing with time to spare. DesignAShirt did not have my shirts ready in time for me to pick up in Tempe.

Thu Nov 8 = My long, long day without much sleep started by getting up early at 11:50pm last night and heading to Sky Harbor Airport Parking, on my way to Savannah, GA. The red-eye from Phoenix to Charlotte, NC went pretty well, especially considering I got American Airline's Basic Economy. My loading group was the last (#9) even after standby. I changed planes in Charlotte NC for the flight to Charleston SC where I rented a Hyundai Elantra which I had reserved at an off-airport Thrifty Car Rental location.
- I spent about an hour at a S Charleston Best Buy, picking up the two tripods I had ordered online and then pouring over their display to find tripods that would fit in my carry-on luggage. I found one that goes all the way up to 63 inches, but is only about 14" when folded. It has a fluid pan feature which is a big plus. Not a plus was its cost, at $100. It was a whole lot more than my old Goodwill tripods back home in Phoenix and about 3 times as expensive as the two I had just picked up. I exchanged one that I had just picked up for a 63' one.
- Because I was drowsy, I stopped about four times on the drive to Savannah. Stopping in Sheldon SA at the Circle C Express turned out to be a disaster... almost. The store is is not in a good neighborhood, being fortified with steel mesh doors and a bullet proof cashier's cage. The disaster was locking my keys in the car.
- I got distracted getting out of the car to ham it up with about five older Black guys near the parking lot. They were delightful. It was not delightful when I went back to my car and noticed the keys laying on the driver's seat... with all the doors locked. Fortunately I had my cell phone on me, my wallet and my 4-color Bic pen. It took me about an hour of making phone calls to find George Williams (843 812 0651) who, after about a half hour arrived and got the car open in about 15 minutes. I recommend George. His price was reasonably so I gave him a $5 tip.
- It was late by the time I stopped by a Walmart to get a little food and linens and got to Tom Paris's house where they put me up for the night on a mattress in their Studio. Thanks, Tom and Kathy!

Fri Nov 9 = I finally got in a workout... at the Savannah Planet Fitness... heavy legs.
- This evening Tom talked to me about my routine for tomorrow night and loaned me Stand-Up Comedy: The Book by Judy Carter and recommended I read Chapter three. I read most of it, took notes and tweaked my routine - particularly the start and the end. I had one of the best night's sleep in a long time with only one pee and a maximum sleep of 6:20. I was a little cool, having to add my fooded sweatshirt over my feet and my big towel over my top part.

Sat Nov 10 = Today's big event was the reason I flew here to Savannah: The 9th Annual Savannah Comedy Revue Contest. I rode down to the venue, Bay Street Theater, with Tom.
- When we get to The Bay Street Theater who do I see but Andy Slye, who I know from the Phoenix comedy circuit. Here he is with Tom Paris (the producer of The Savannah Comedy Revue) and me.
Pool area
- Later Tom said he was shocked that I did so well, although I didn't place in the competition. Hey, it is my first official competition. Tom ran a good show. A bonus was having official and impartial judges. For my 4:30 minute set, I got 6.24 laughs per minute, which matched my goal. However, the audience was laughing only 17% of the time (my goal is 30%), which indicates there wasn't a whole lot of A laughs.

Sun Nov 11 = I had a headache most of last night and today. In spite of that I did a 41-minute heavy, slow arms workout and a two-minute treadmill run resulting in an ending pulse of 137 at Planet Fitness.

Mon Nov 12 = Today at the Planet Fitness in Savannah I did a did a 47-minute heavy, slow torso workout resulting in an ending pulse of 83.
- In the locker room I met an ophthalmologist and learned a little more about cataract surgery. He said that the success rate is ordinarily in the 90%'s with accurate focus etc. After radial keratotomy , my concern, it is sort of a crap shoot to get the right focus with the success rate reducing to about 75%, although the lens does clear up. Focus, if necessary, can usually be corrected with glasses. At this time RK patients are not a good candidate for the new flexible lenses with which the eye can adjust, on its own, from close to distance.
- After Planet Fitness I went to the library for a while, Dollar Tree and Applebee'sĀ® where I picked up dinner for Karen, Tom and me. (Tom did not want to go out to eat).
- We had a delightful dinner, talking about their acting careers, auditions, politics, the news, Tom's tools and his projects. - Before bed, Tom and I went over most of the judges' results for the show. It was instructional and interesting, to say the least.

Tue Nov 13 = Today's job was getting home to Phoenix. That meant driving from Savannah to Charleston, flying to Phoenix with a stop at Charlotte NC, taking a shuttle to Sky Harbor Airport Parking and then driving home.

Wed Nov 14 = Today I added my famous inverted shrugs, which I still do, to my Smart Stuff web page.
- I made six batches of my protein Frosties, ate one batch but, alas, did not go to a gym.
- The two T-Shirts I ordered from my home page, as a test of their availibility through my website, arrived today. Good quality digital printing of my logo on youth sizes YxS (the smallest size available) & YL.
- I did process the two new tripods I bought in Savannah, getting the instructions, receipts and notes organized and on 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
.
- My after-bedtime project was 45-minutes of paying off all my credit cards.

Thu Nov 15 = Phoenix TV Chanel 3 has taken the 4:35 minute video clip (of my kiteboarding appearance from 11/3/2011) down from their website, so I have a blank spot on my Kiteboarding Home Page. I learned that the only place the clip is available is through News Exposure in Chicago, costing $595/$150 for the professionally edited digital segment and $445 for 7 years of monthly archival fees. I talked them down to $425. I hope Santa is good to me this year because, otherwise, I can't afford the video at $100 per minute.

Fri Nov 16 = This afternoon I took Willie grocery shopping under the auspices of
Duet
The organization I support and through which I take non-driving seniors shopping and to their doctors' appointments
- This evening I, in my louonstage.xls file, checked all my past venues for formatting to make them easier to search and find things.

Sat Nov 17 = I never made it to a gym today, although I did take the sun screens off four south and west windows of my house. It brightens up the house for winter and collects more solar heat during the winter days.

Sun Nov 18 = This afternoon I met
George & Cindy
my younger brother and his wife who live in Mesa, Arizona
for a classical concert by the Scottsdale Philharmonic Orchestra. We sat so close that we were able to visit with some of the musicians before the concert started. It was awesome. I nabbed the best free seats by arriving an hour and 40 minutes before the concert.
- In preparation for my nephew, Shane's, visit tomorrow, this evening I finished cleaning off my surfaces, which included the kitchen counters, kitchen table, office desk, desk return and the credenza (mostly).
- Before going to bed early (at 11:25pm) I ate some of tomorrow's breakfast since I can't eat anything 12 hours before my fasting blood test tomorrow morning.

Mon Nov 19 = First thing this morning I went to my Doctor's for a fasting blood test. They're checking to see if my iron is still a little low.
- Back home, Shane my nephew, drove over from southeast Mesa for about five hours of etching out. What fun, his being an engineer and my being interested in science and technology. We covered magnetic resistance, heat transfer devices from laptop computers, Internet cameras, nutrition, Alexa, 3-D printing, electric bicycles, RC helicopters and airplanes, garage door springs, printers, lable making printers, and Shane's hybrid Chevrolet Volt, which I got to drive around some. He really liked my automated home and took notes on a lot of things we did.
- This evening's big project was to crosscheck my immunization list (EventsLou.xls file) with my doctor's.

Tue Nov 20 = Under the auspices of
Duet
The organization I support and through which I take non-driving seniors shopping and to their doctors' appointments
 this morning, I drove Arlene to her doctor. My last time with her was over 2 1/2 years ago. Arlene is still getting around. She had a fall several months ago (got roughed up a little but didn't break anything) so is now using a walker. She doesn't see too well so has to be careful, as she says, to not run into walls. She is a good gal and always seems to keep her sense of humor.
- While waiting for her I checked off my last month's check register. Then, this afternoon, I got the account resolved. Yea! I had let it get a little behind... since January!
- This evening I did my first comedy in 11 days, since Savannah, GA. At Dos Gringos and The Tempe Tavern, due to few comedians signing up, we were given longer sets. Catalina Sports Bar had a full list. At all three venues I did versions of the Old Guy/Yoga routine I did for the Savannah competition.

Wed Nov 21 = Website wise today I completed got my various T-Shirt displays linked from my home page, got my latest blog updated for the last six days and got the blog's monthly rollover ready to upload.
- I made several calls to comedy clubs for my spring/summer road tour and logged the calls.
- It is uplifting for me to have clean workspaces. I have to work to keep them from getting cluttered again. The former desk clutter is stacked neatly in a paper tray on the back corner of the desk. Every day I take care of a few items from the tray.
- On the way to do comedy I stopped by Fitness 1 for trimming my beard, a shower and a workout. Standing naked after the shower there in the locker room, I spent about 15 minutes trying to open my super cool white padlock. Evidently it was worn out after six years, so I had the gym cut it off so I could get dressed and to the comedy show, by now not having time for a workout... even a quick one. The next day I started using the spare, black, padlock (pictured below) I had on hand. More information here on my Technology web page.
Padlock Padlock
- It was fun to be back at some of my old comedy haunts tonight, although the audiences were not very responsive to my sets. At Toso's I met Danielle and her husband. Danielle (pictured below) decided I was famous since I was at the top of a Google search for America's Favorite Old Man.
fan
- My second appearance was at The Woodshed in Tempe.
- On the way home I stopped by a gym for a heavy, slow legs workout. I HAD to do that because I had already eaten my Wednesday post-workout Protein Frosty on the way to Tosos... and that was necessary because the frosty would have melted otherwise.
- I have been experiencing some pain in my left temporomandibular joint (TMJ, the joints connecting the jawbone to the skull, a bilateral synovial articulation between the temporal bone of the skull above and the mandible below).

Thu Nov 22 = HAPPY THANKSGIVING! It was cloudy today so I did not lay out in the sun before heading over to
Harold and Bernadette
my X-brother-in-law and his wife
's for Thanksgiving dinner. They surely are good people. I had a good visit with them, their son, Chet (now driving a two-section 22-wheel semi trailor truck for a gravel company), and David, his son (probably a first grader). After dinner Harold and I went back to the his man cave part of his house and talked about the technology of his latest projects... mostly LED lights now and keeping track of the planets with graphic software that he wrote.
- On the way home I stopped by my nearby Anytime Fitness for a heavy, slow arms workout. There was another guy there also... on Thanksgiving night!
- This evening's big project was to delete all the
EPK
Electronic Press Kit for my stand-up comedy
videos on 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
after checking that I still had the original, full-length, videos. The EPK versions were the same videos with the introductions by the MCs edited out. Bookers only want to see me. The deletions saved me 30 gigabytes of precious hard drive space.

Fri Nov 23 = I worked real hard today on finding comedy stops in Ontario for early July on my Road Tour. If it works out, Canada will be my fourth country for comedy.

Sat Nov 24 = Stand-Up Comedy, The Book, a used book, by Judy Carter arrived in my mailbox today. This is the book that Tom Paris let me borrow in Savannah to read Chapter three.
- For the first time in about three years I went to The Scottsdale Comedy Spot... and Sean let me in after I flashed the $10 admission. I picked The Comedy Spot tonight because of the headliner, Robert Duchaine from California. He was good, with his 32 minutes. There were a total of five other comedians including the host, Rich Brown. Then there was Jay Penn with his 11 minutes of fast-paced ADD, Ben Lewis with his 8 minutes and my local comedian friend, Ben Anderson with 9:30 minutes.

Sun Nov 25 = I am a sucker for a challenge... even if it is a stupid one that wastes time. My $1 correction tape quit working, still half filled with unused tape. Of course I had to split it open, re-thread and re-attach the tape. Now I didn't waste any tape; only my time.
- I was organizing my pocket calendars all the way back to 1983 and was using the white-out correction tape to make white tabs on the covers so the years would show up in black Sharpie.

Mon Nov 26 = Tukee's Sports Bar, north of Ahwatukee has discontinued their Monday night Tough Crowd comedy shows. The show always struggled with very small audiences. Although it was quite a drive for me, I liked it because, with few comedians, we got more time.
- Punchlines on the Patio at The Devil's Advocate was the comedy show of my evening. It was a good show and they liked my improved Yoga routine. I started my set by mentioning some of the previous occurrences of the evening, which included comedian, David K and a guy yelling at each other across the fence and a fight in the alley put on by two guys that had more mojo than good sense.

Tue Nov 27 = I took care of some paperwork and then headed out to make, for my first time, four comedy appearances in one evening.
- Dos Gringos was interesting. There were only four non-comedian/non-staff audience members and two of them walked before I went up. Since there were few comedians signed up, Patrick Chandler, the host, gave us 10 minutes, so I had a 10 minute routine planned. He lit me after about half a minute and then walked up and took the mic from me at about 1.5 minutes. I guess he didn't like my material and thought I was dying up there. I was getting more audience response and laughs than he or the preceding comedians had. He lets other comedians go their full time or even over. At an open mic, a comedian should be able to go the full time, dying or not. I think it is time for a talk with Patrick.
- Second comedy stop was at the Tempe Tavern on Appache Blvd. There was little audience and few comedians so Jeremy Ditty, the host/producer, gave us a generous 10 minutes. Thanks, Jeremy!
- Third stop was Derek McFarland's show at the Catalina Sports Bar and Grill on N 16th St in Phoenix. They were unusually good for a bar crowd and enjoyed my Fit/Gym routine.
- Hash Tag Comedy, at Grand Avenue Pizza was canceled, so I only made the three appearances this evening.
- I knew I was going to have a short night's sleep, but not THIS short. At Catalina, I had left my little ICD recorder, still recording my comedy set, on top of their bar speaker. I didn't realize it until I was at home and getting ready for bed. Of course I had to retrieve the recorder... about 40 minutes of extra driving :(

Wed Nov 28 = What a birthday, today... including some family, some gym and some comedy!
- It started early, after a short night's sleep, driving to Mesa to meet
George & Cindy
my younger brother and his wife who live in Mesa, Arizona
to sign the final documents for selling
Stan
Stanley, my older brother who was a retired as a machinist for Eaton Corporation in Hutchinson, KS until he succumbed to a three-week bout with Myasthenia gravis in March, 2018
's Hutch properties before a notary. Then over to their house to help Cindy with some of her technology.
- On the way home I stopped by the East Mesa LA Fitness for a slow, heavy legs workout which earned me the Protein Frosty I had stashed in my little van refrigerator.
- After taking care of some business at home I drove out to north Scottsdale to meet with Bryan Ricci to coach me on my comedy. The meeting didn't work out, so I headed for...
- My comedy this evening was a show produced and hosted by Bryan at The Lounge on N 7th St. It was my third performance there. It was the usal good audience. I pretty well killed. They got wind that it was my 77th birthday and that also was a lot of fun.
- I didn't get to bed very early (1:05am) but planned on sleeping late to make up for last night.

Thu Nov 29 = Today Pedro, my landscaper, sent his son over to trim my shrubs and to take care of the crop of healthy weeds in the front and the back.
- I did comedy in Chandler at Improv Mania. The owner said he saw someone at Costco wearing one of my comedy T-Shirts. Guess they get around.
- Then, just before midnight I went on stage at Spinelli's in Tempe.

Fri Nov 30 = Today I arranged my first cruise... in the Caribbean, leaving home in a week. Talk about last minute! If the comedy works out I'll be able to add a fourth country, the Bahamas, and my 105th city, Miami, to my comedy list.
- This evening I went to Rick Bronson's House of Comedy; on High Street near the Desert Ridge Mall to see my friend, Gene Moore who was hosting, French Accent the opener with an accordion, Kevin Bennett the feature and Steve Simeone the headliner. It was a fun show. After the show I went across the street for a workout at Fitness Anytime.
- My after-bedtime project was typing the comedy routine tweaks I had recorded on my old Sony ICD-PX312 digital voice recorder, in order to free up four memory slots in which to organize my nighttime notes about comedy, things to do etc.

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