Fri Jan 1 This morning I got a phone call from Christian Canese a kiteboarding friend who now lives in Idaho. We got off to a good start until my audio kept cutting out for him :( All the time I could hear him just fine.
- My Jabra Stealth phone Bluetooth headset has been missing since about Wednesday. It is still on and connected to my phones when I am home, so I know it is not lost in my van. I downloaded a Jabra app for my phone that could help me locate the headset, but installation requires that you press a button on the headset.
- On this evening's trip I did a short slow heavy torso workout at LA Fitness and did my grocery shopping.
- It took me five minutes to take down my outside Christmas lights (bring the LASER projector and its controller in).
- Got to bed at 11:40
Sat Jan 2 After breakfast this morning I straightened up for:
-
George & Cindy
my younger brother and his wife sold their house in Mesa, Arizona and are now in Christopher Creek.
's
visit on their way up to Christopher Creek. What a neat hour we had, talking about my LED signs, JUGGLING, online banking and whatever else came to mind.
- This afternoon, it was
Urban Beans time, where I hosted the weekly variety show. It turns out that the performers were all comedians, except for the last one who did a rap. Unfortunately this week the cabling for the PA system was missing the iPhone connector so he had to do it without us hearing his beat. He was pretty good anyway. Thanks, Bernard!
- This evening's project was an attempt to locate my Jabra Stealth phone Bluetooth headset by observing where it connected and disconnected with my two phones. In and around my house it was connected. Across the street it disconnected. I still have no idea where the headset is :(
- Got to bed at 10:55
Sun Jan 3
- I dug out my old, bulky and somewhat uncomfortable Triumph V8 Bluetooth headset and got it charged and going. From a call I made to
George
my younger brother who lives Christopher Creek, AZ with his wife
's
voice mail, my voice sounds pretty clear.
- For my trip out today, I bought some Yoplait yogurts on sale at my nearby Albertson's. On the way home I couldn't resist stopping by my Anytime Fitness for a short light full-body workout.
- This evening's project was to finish, tweak and email Opener Instructions to Liz Frisius... the first comedian to open for me :)
- Took a hot bath and got to bead early, needing to get up early for my eyes appointment tomorrow.
- Got to bed at 8:46 :) For the first time, I caught all three balls of a 3-ball cascade, which set a JUGGLING RECORD for me during the 3-minute practice session after my 3:13am pee.
Mon Jan 4 = This morning Dr Dee locked the lens in my left eye, so it can not be changed. It is 20/20. Although she said that I have 20/20 in my right eye, I still do not see as clearly. She thinks it is due to a dry eye, so I will be using lubricating eye drops four or more times per day to see if that takes care of the problem. We'll find out when I see her on Wednesday.
- On the way home from the eye doctor I stopped by Walmart for the eye drops but forget to pick up the free Hostess Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cakes that I usually use for my Monday night treats... with coupons I received from Hostess.
- I phoned Louise and John in London, England (yes, UK) at a cost of US$.09. Her email is the same as my personal email with a period added, which email ignores. That means for over a year I have been receiving information about her subscriptions, merchandise orders, deliveries etc. Louise will stop using that email address, thank goodness. All I need is someone else's emails cluttering my email box.
- This evening I created a spreadsheet of 25 messages in five categories to use with my goLEDgo sign before comedy shows.
- I tweaked my Basic Economy routine for possible use tomorrow night at Rick Bronson's House of Comedy. It will be my first time onstage there in almost four years :)
- Got to bed at 10:48
Tue Jan 5 = This morning I rearranged the messages for my goLEDgo sign and created a display sequence, that will include 25 messages announcing my show. The exact same message and display method should not repeat for about an hour.
- I found it! The Jabra Stealth phone Bluetooth headset. I lay on a sleeping bag when I sun. The Jabra fell out when I unrolled the sleeping bag to sun at noon today. Surely glad I noticed it.
- Since the House of Comedy' advertised open mic was canceled I went to Walmart to get four more boxes of Hostess treats and found that Walmart does not sell NiMHi AA cells except with a charger. I just need two AAs for my Reiner Speed-i-Jet date printer. The Reiner Customer Service says old batteries may be the reason the printer is losing its date.
- I did a couple things this evening that did not require much brain power: wrote a sequence file for my LED sign's messages and input 18 emails into my fan email spreadsheet.
- Got to bed at 10:41
Wed Jan 6 = After some more visual acuity testing here at home I decided that my eyes were just about perfect the way they were. My right eye does not quite focus at infinity but close enough that I still will have good depth perception without glasses. I will be able to read most things, including my computer screens, without reading glasses. I think it is a win/win. I went in for a 1pm appointment and at 3:30 Dr Dee locked in my right eye. That means, tomorrow at 3:30pm I will no longer have to use the special UV light-filtering glasses that I have had to wear all the time for one month and one week. :)
- I stopped by the Colonnade LA Fitness for a short slow heavy legs workout and treated my self to one of my protein frosties on the way to the stand up comedy open mic at
El Charro Hipster where I spent five minutes trying to make the announcement of my Coolidge show funny. I got a few laughs and a couple of applauses.
- It appears that I will be in Phase 1B for the COVID-19 vaccine. They say that scheduling will begin on Monday, 1/11/21.
- Got to bed at 10:34
Thu Jan 7 = This morning I spent/wasted about two hours trying to get the software on my computer to work for my goLEDgo digital sign. That included downloading and installing WinZip to unzip their quirky "rar" compressed files. So far nothing has worked.
- Lori Appleby Hoke from Duet AZ sent me this picture from my last year's project for them. It included two of these table-top banners and 300 of their popular retractable ball point pens. We'll see what we come up with for 2021. As you may know, in addition to my annual project, all profit from my comedy goes to Duet. It is neat to be able to help out such a worthy organization.
- At both Adventurous Stills and Improve Mania I announced my Coolidge show with as much funny as I could come up with. The audiences seemed to enjoy it, even if it was like a 5-minute commercial.
- Got to bed at 10:31
Fri Jan 8 = I spent most of today getting my goLEDgo sign working with both the remote control and with my computer. By about 4 this afternoon I had it all programed for my tour... and Friday's show in Coolidge. I may take the sign to Urban Beans tomorrow and get some feedback.
- My right eye has improved since Wednesday's lock in, although I am not seeing as well with it as before the lock in.
- This eveing I scooted over to Planet Fitness for a
poster trim
weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
,
shower and short slow heavy arms workout.
- Tonight I added an Art Linkletter quote as one of my LOUisms right under:
You learn nothing from your successes except to think too much of yourself - Dee Hock I know enough about a lot of things to be interesting, but I'm not interested enough in any one thing to be boring - Art Linkletter
- Got to bed at 10:45
Sat Jan 9 = This morning I touched bases with Doug, my contact for my comedy show: Fri Jan 15, 2021; 7:00pm;
American Legion Post 54; 408 N Main St; Coolidge, AZ 85128. So far they have presold 15-20 tickets. We're all looking forward to the show.
- On this afternoon's trip I stopped by Dollar Tree to exchange a toothy Poo Doo Splat Ball for a tongue-out one so I'll have one of each of the three faces. The balls are as disgusting as they sound, fun to play with and are OK for juggling practice at 90 grams and a little smaller than my favorite squishy bead balls. In my JUGGLING practice I promptly lost the toothy ball.
- We had a good variety of talent on our
Urban Beans Show.
- On the way home I stopped by the Colonnade LA Fitness for a short slow heavy torso workout, thus ending my 3-day heavy gym sequence.
- After bedtime I impulsed, spending 2 hours researching GPS receivers since the Garmin Nuvi 2589LMT I bought, almost six years ago on 2/2/15, frequently thinks it is on a different road.
- Got to bed at 12:13am :(
Sun Jan 10 = There were two messages on my LED sign that weren't formatted to suit me so I re-did them. Now everything works as perfectly as you can expect with a sign of that size.
- This evening I ran my van through the $5 automatic car wash. Tomorrow I'll switch my front door magnetic sign from generic comedy for Friday's show.
- Got to bed at 10:33, needing to get up early tomorrow to sign up for a COVID-19 vaccine.
Mon Jan 11 = Do you have any idea how hard it is for a comedian to get up at 5:50am! That's what I did because they were supposed to open scheduling for COVID-19 vaccines at 6am, which deadline they did not meet. Then it took me 3.5 hours to wade my way through the Maricopa County Public Health Department website and the quirky Arizona Department of Health Services website to actually make the appointment... for tomorrow at 2pm way out at the Cardinals stadium in Glendale.
- This morning I sent out 501 emails to my fans who live in the Phoenix area, publicizing Friday's show in Coolidge. I'll be lucky to get three people to come out for the show from the emails. I don't like to send out unnecessary emails so will probably not send a reminder later in the week.
- I also downloaded my bank statement and called Garmin about my old Nuvi 2589LMT GPS that keeps losing its way.
- My trip this afternoon involved three stops. At Dollar Tree, I bought two more Poo Doo Splat Ball to use with my JUGGLING practice. I am certain to find the one I lost here in the house, since I went out and bought a replacement.
- At Hobby Lobby I bought three colors of tan poster material, hoping to match the background color of my website when I take pictures of stuff. This, and the subsiquent tests wasted about 1.5 hours and resulted in the craft wrapping paper I already had on hand being the closest match. The not-very-good result is the Poo Doo Splat Ball picture above.
- At Fabric Depot I bought 18 inches of an expensive furry leopard-patterned fabric. This evening I used it to make two padded pouches. One for my LED sign, an the other for its power supply, axillary cables and such.
- Got to bed at 10:43
Tue Jan 12 = Last night I made what may be an important decision. Instead of getting rid of all but the funniest punchlines, I'll keep the flow and cohesiveness of my show going by eliminating some topics. Which topics depends on the audience. The topics I keep, I'll fine tune, so my show will become sort of a cross between stand-up comedy and a one-man show.
- This morning I made a double-corrugated screen protector to top off my goLEDgo sign transportation bag (pictured above).
- Before bedtime, I went over my show bits for my Fri Jan 15, 2021, 7:00pm show in Coolidge for the
American Legion Post 54. I eliminated some of the bits and finalized show.
- Got to bed at 10:43
Wed Jan 13 = Had a busy morning adding 12 messages to my LED sign, all connected with my merchandise, bringing the total to 48 different messages. The serial interface for my computer saved a lot of time for the project. It now takes the sign 2:50 minutes to loop through all the messages and about an hour for it to duplicate a message with the same entry transition.
- On the way to
El Charro Hipster I stopped by Harbor Freight for a Phillips screwdriver to add to my LED Sign kit and by LA Fitness, Colonnade for a
poster trim
weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
,
shower and a short slow heavy legs workout. I misplaced my Protein Frosty so after returning home I thawed another one from my supply in the freezer.
- I took my LED Sign to show off and for feedback. While waiting for the show to start I updated my website with this blog, the monthly Blog Rollover and made an addition to Some of Lou's Favorite Comedians. I offered to buy dinner for the first 10 comedians that committed to going to Coolidge on Friday.
- Got to bed at 10:33
Thu Jan 14 = Cox Internet went down yesterday and is still down so and I never got around to updating my website. I intended on using my Pixel 4c as a hot spot.
- On the way to do comedy I went to a gym for a short slow arms workout.
- It was a small but fun group at Adventurous Stills. My friend Peter Jordan was the host. I did my Middle Child/Stan routine.
- The Improv Mania show was hosted by my friend Zac Allen, from Montana. The audience of 19 appreciated my Airline Bathroom set.
- Got to bed pretty late, at 11:45 after Flonase.
Fri Jan 15 = Big Day! This morning I got everything loaded up for my two-day trip with stops at:
American Legion Post 54 in Coolidge to unload and set up some stuff for tonight's show.
Arizona Fitness Club in Coolidge to join. They helped me obtain a Renew Active number from United Healthcare so it cost me nothing. Renew Active should also allow me access to gyms across the country.
Took a 30-minute nap in my van in their parking lot
Back to Post 54 for a sirloin steak and to do the comedy show with Liz Frisius. After the show I sold a RECORD OF $120 of MERCH. Liz was a great help with my packing up from the show..
Donna Riglon; Victoria Ausbern; Lou at American Legion Post 54, Coolidge, AZ; 1/15/21
- To bed at 10:18, in my van, parked in back of the American Legion Post 54, with a ceramic electric heater to keep the chill off.
Sat Jan 16 = I drove up to southeast Mesa.
There I helped
George & Cindy
my younger brother and his wife sold their house in Mesa, Arizona and are now in Christopher Creek.
move about a hundred boxes from a storage unit to the new house they just bought.
At 1:30 I drove to Urban Beans in Phoenix where I had a vegan breakfast burrito as my second meal of the day and hosted the open mic.
Family at Urban Beans 1/16/21; Photo by Nick
Becky, my niece came to see the show :)
Last stop was back home to unload and to eat a salad and a banana.
- Got to bed at 10:52
Sun Jan 17 = Today was a big video editing day... practically the whole day... from Friday's show.
In the process I learned:
CyberLink PowerDDirector-18 may slightly change the length of audio files that it produces
Have my opening comedian use a body mic like me
with CyberLink PowerDDirector-18 you can switch audio sources in the middle of the MultiCam process by pausing
I need to take my Zoom recorder to use with either the PA system's record function on in front of one of the speakers
Use my stage lights when the stage area is a little dark and/or increase the exposure of Camera #1
- Got to bed at 10:45 and caught all three balls during my 3:00am pee/JUGGLING practice :)
Mon Jan 18 = This morning's project was to phone Cox Cable and see if they can do anything about their lousy Internet service. It has been out since Wednesday. I got hold of Daniel, working at home in Omaha.He was helpful in scheduling a supervisor tech to come out tomorrow and see if they can figure how to fix its being down 27 times since the first part of November. He also gave me outage credits for those 27 days. Thanks Daniel. I hope this fixes the problem.
- This afternoon I had my last appointment with ophthalmologist, Duncan who said that I am seeing 2020 now and doing fairly well with reading, and that my vision is better than most cataract patients after RK.
- On the way home I joined Mountainside Fitness Gym under Renew Active (similar to Silver Sneakers only maybe better).
- After updating my website, including my Past Appearances, with their Wi-Fi I did my
poster trim
weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
a couple days early, met Mark, took a shower and got in a short slow heavy legs workout. I am impressed with Mountainside... and they have gyms all over the Phoenix area.
- Got to bed at 9:02; back up at 1:10am to go for a COVID-19 vaccination way over in Glendale. It involved almost an hour of driving and a little over a half hour there. Never got out of my car. I got back to bed at 2:57am
Tue Jan 19 = In the wee hours this morning I went back to bed after getting:
Vaccine Administered: Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19
Manufacturer: Pfizer
Lot Number: EL1284
- I spent most of this morning trying to schedule my 2nd Pfizer dose.
- A Cox tech, Kahled Al Mesbahi, came out this afternoon and was unable to fix our neighborhood's Internet. He confirmed that my Internet outage was due to a distribution problem and that my house cabling was good. Now Cox need to get someone out to fix their distribution problem :( - This evening they DID fix the problem. By bedtime I had the full Internet for which I am paying. It's nice to not have to tell Alexa things two times... or three... or four... or five times.
- This evening I did a short slow heavy arms workout at Planet Fitness Gym and bought some Romaine lettuce on sale at Bashas.
- I took 16 snapshots from the video from Friday's show in Coolidge. Guess which one I'm going to put on Youtube? You'll see tomorrow.
- I got to bed late trying to schedule my 2nd Pfizer dose. I found no help in the information they gave me after my first dose last night.
- Got to bed at 11:01 with nothing but a little pain at the COVID-19 vaccine injection site.
Wed Jan 20 = This morning I sort of impulsed while watching President Biden's inauguration and decided on the one of 15 pictures to use on Youtube for Friday's show, which I uploaded last night. Here's the 1:09 result:
- The Arizona Department of health could have told us on the handout they gave us after our COVID-19 vaccine, but NO! I had to negotiate several telephone trees and find an obscure place on their website for:
All January and February appointments at State Farm and Phoenix Municipal Stadium are now full.
If you received a first dose at State Farm Stadium, you will receive a Dose 2 eligible invitation - be assured that you will receive these invitations for self and family member(s)/dependent(s) shortly.
- I didn't do a workout today but DID make it to El Charro Hipster to do some new stuff on the inauguration and a report on my Friday Coolidge show. I was 20th to sign up, went up at 9:45, so didn't stay for more than about three following comedians.
- Got to bed at 10:21
Thu Jan 21 = This morning I tried to order an extra power supply for my
XPS
Dell XPS-13 laptop computer with 13.3" touch screen, 60WHr Integrated Battery, Windows 10, Intel 7th Generation Core i7 CPU, 16gb memory and 1TB SSD
from China for $35, but their PAY NOW button was broken. I clicked it twice then sent them an email. It would be a shame if I had to order it from Dell at the tune of $90.
- I made a bunch of phone calls to photographers for head shots.
- On the way to comedy, I stopped by Mountainside Fitness Gym for a short slow heavy torso workout, thus ending my three days of heavy.
- Peter Jordan hosted the open mic at
Adventurous Stills tonight where I combined some old and some new stuff with UBOM Coolidge Vaccine Inauguration T-Tits.
- Jesse Ever hosted the open mic at
Improv Mania
where there was a good crowd for a similar set of ?79 Wrinkles Coolidge UBOM Vaccine Inauguration T-Alive.
- Got to bed at 10:49
Fri Jan 22 = Tonight's comedy for me was a new spot:
Sozo Coffee House in Chandler. I learned that it is not always a good idea to decide on your material ahead of time. I did my Basic Economy routine which relays my experience with a seat partner who was a BBW (Big Beautiful Woman). Following my set a BBW sung a sad song about the problems of a plus-sized woman. Come to think of it Lori, the owner, was also gravitationally gifted. After the show, she requested that I not return, since I was so insensitive to the audience. I suspect she has made a similar request of other comedians. Bottom line: Now I am a little humbler and a little smarter. At least I did comedy in my 303rd venue. Before my time to take the stage, I took a 45-minute nap in my van in the parking lot.
- Got to bed at 11:30
Sat Jan 23 = The management company, AZCMS, for our homeowners' association finally sent me the financials, which I requested on December 7th, 46 days ago. By state law, they're required to send them within 10 business days. In my opinion, AZCMS does not generally follow the rules very well.
- Rain was the main weather ingredient for today. It stopped for the Urban Beans variety show I host outside on the patio every Saturday. The sun even came out for a while. If you believe in God, you could say He likes me, because after the show was over it started to rain again :)
- On the way home I stopped by Winco for some sweet pickle relish and Fry's for grapes on sale. I had run completely out because they were not on sale anywhere for a week.
- I got drowsy at the computer this evening so turned to JUGGLING and set a RECORD. For the first time I did it twice in a practice session: caught all three balls of a 3-ball cascade :)
- Before bedtime I started my computer backing up with EaseUS, in anticipation of installing UFRaw tomorrow morning so I can work with RAW camera files.
- Got to bed at 10:30
Sun Jan 24 = This morning my computer was all backed up so I could install UFRaw, which I can use to process RAW files from photographer, Steven Fellheimer. I took a couple of test pictures with my Panasonic DMCFZ150 camera in both RAW and JPG formats. The first time for me to take a RAW picture with the camera that I have been using for 8.8 years. I spent most of the rest of the morning learning to use the UFRaw software with my test pictures. I liked the 12mp JPG photos better than the RAWs. They were sharper and much better all around... and take a lot less disk space.
- After lunch I swept the kitchen floor, vacuumed and took a bath, all in time to chill out for a few minutes before the photographer, Steven Fellheimer arrived to set up all his equipment and take my pictures.
- He took 355 pictures, totaling over 5 Mb with his Canon 5D Mark III. They included head shots, waist shots and body shots with green, white and black backgrounds.
- This evening I divided the pictures into seven folders according to background color (green; white; black), distance (head; to waist; full body) and RAW images.
- Got to bed at 10:55
Mon Jan 25 = Last night I decided that, next time, I could get the headshots I want with less time and less money if I took my own like I did seven years ago. That means I'll be researching pop-up backdrops.
- So I did and ordered a kit of two, two-sided hoop-types. The two sides on one is chroma blue and chroma green. The other one is black and white
- This evening I worked on my Royal Sovereign RSB-1510 Bluetooth LED Sign. It is still not communicating with my Android phone.
- I spent the last hour before going to bed working on the 355 pictures from Sunday's shoot.
- Got to bed at 10:25
Tue Jan 26 = I was going to submit something to The Tonight Show, so produced one minute of one of my videos and uploaded it to Youtube. The problem is that I had trashed my YouTube reference file, or so I thought. It turns out that I had trashed only a shortcut to the file and the file was safe, and up-to-date.
- Meanwhile I spent a lot of time trying to recover the lost file from non-existant locations. What did I gain in the process?... learning how to recover individual files using the EaseUS backup software, which seems to be pretty quirky. Now I feel much better, knowing that my EaseUS backups are really backups and that I know how to get to them.
- For the last few days our weather has been like Seattle; cloudy and rainy. It is expected to clear up for tomorrow so, hopefully I'll catch up on some vitamin D.
- This evening I changed headshots two times for the top right of my website pages. They involved cropping, leveling and reducing the file size. The main goal was to get rid of the glasses.
Here they are: #1 Since 2015; #2Up for about an hour today; #3What is up there now.
- This afternoon I booked a full-length show in Yuma in western Arizona for Saturday, March 13th. It will about a three-hour drive for me. I will be able to get two in one trip if I can get another show on Friday the 12th.
- Got to bed at 11:08 :(
Wed Jan 27 = The desktop on my
XPS
Dell XPS-13 laptop computer with 13.3" touch screen, 60WHr Integrated Battery, Windows 10, Intel 7th Generation Core i7 CPU, 16gb memory and 1TB SSD
has gradually filled up with icons to programs and files I use frequently so, this morning I did a purge, so I have space for about 20 additionals to speed up opening the files I need.
- Since I don't use much hot water, I decide it was time to quit paying to keep 30 gallons of hot water at 130° F all the time, so I am moving the thermostat on my water heater (gas) down from Hot, which is its highest setting. This change will coenside with my meter reads, so we'll see if it makes a noticable difference in my gas bill next month. If I wanted to be really scientific I'd track the heating days during the month and account for the weather and heating my house, but I've got comedy to do!
Here's how it is shaping up:
Setting
Temperature
Hot
130° F
full hot at the Kitchen Sink
B
120° F
full hot at the Kitchen Sink
A
110° F
full hot at the Kitchen Sink
A
98° F
full hot bath water draw in hall bathroom
- I found HumbleDollar a financial website that is recommended by Clark Howard. The website will likely give you more information than you want, but might be a good place to start.
- Got to bed at 10:28
Thu Jan 28 = I would like to do a free benefit comedy show for the new Santan Valley American Legion Post 97, but for over two months it has been impossible to contact them through their website, by phone or by email. This afternoon I tried texting one of the officers. We'll see if that works
- My old GPS, a Garmin 2589LMT, is still getting lost and often thinks it is a quarter mile away on different road so tells me how to navigate back onto the road where I am already. This morning I ordered a Garmin DriveSmart 55 NA LMT-S from Best Buy for curbside pickup. Then, as a back-up plan, the same unit from Walmart for $20 less to be delivered Tuesday, Feb 2nd. On the way to my optometrist appointment I picked up the GPS at Bet Buy and immediately returned it. They could not give me a price match because Walmart's price was from a third party vendor. - Then on to LA Fitness on West Northern for a
poster trim
weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
, shower and a short slow heavy legs workout.
- On to Dr Jeff Pyrate's office to have the first eye exam since my new lenses were locked in after cataract surgery. My eyes are doing well.
-
Adventurous Stills in Tempe for their seven-minute open mic was my next stop.
- Next came
Improv Mania
for their five-minute open mic. There were over 30 comedians signed up. Dave, the owner, also hosted the show. He must have known something that I did not because after being shifted around on the list several times, he finally put me up with no notice. I DID sell a T-Shirt to one of the new comedians.
- I had to leave the show early to get to Winco Foods in Chandler for minced garlic, broccoli and dry roasted almonds. With all those stops, I:
- Got to bed at 11:54
Fri Jan 29 = First thing in the morning light, armed with a hand mirror, I evaluated a number of locations around my house for the best location for taking new head shots when my pop-up backgrounds arrive on Tuesday. Then I took a few test pictures with my Panasonic DMCFZ150 camera to settle on the camera distance and the zoom.
- This afternoon I mixed up 2 pounds of garlic/mustard for my odd meal sandwiches. It should last me five to six months.
- In todays big trip, I traveled, in the rain, about a half mile to Anytime Fitness (where I found that my membership had already been transfered from New Orlieans where I first joined years ago) for a short slow heavy arms workout and next door to Albertson's for eggs on sale. Their large eggs weight about 17% more than those from Winco.
- This evening I emailed show contracts to two veterans' posts in Yuma for March and looked at some test pictures I had taken with my Panasonic DMCFZ150.
- Got to bed at 10:50
Sat Jan 30 = I want to use a lens with a 35mm equivalent focal length of 105mm for my portrait photos, but my Panasonic DMCFZ150 does not show the focal length on the zoom lens. I did find it in the metadata of the pictures AFTER they are taken and uploaded to your computer, so I set up the camera on a tripod 12' from my vertical blinds with 3" spacing on the slats. After I did two sets of test photos, a lot of uploading and counting slats I found the zoom location for 105mm and marked it on the lens with with a Pilot fine-point silver marker.
- The camera has to be removed from its tripod plate in order to access the battery or the SD card and I am tired hunting for a coin to unscrew the camera from the tripod plate, so I researched and ordered, from Walmart, a tripod plate with a convenient flip-up wing screw.
- At lunch I finished off my jar of strawberry preserves and started in on my fresh jar of grape jam - my favorite flavor.
- Today's trip was to the Colonnade LA Fitness for a short slow heavy torso workout to end my three days of heavy gym work.
- Then on to Urban Beans to host the variety show. It was a small group of seven performers for an audience total of 15, counting the performers, people who watched at least some of the show and two gals that were there for the last part of the show. The first half of the show was 100% guys.
- This evening I checked my stash of tripods and found that three have flip-up wing screw plates, so I switched tripods. Now, for my head shots I will be using one that has a convenient flip-up wing screw but does not have fluid joints, which I don't need for still headshots anyway.
- Before bedtime I caught up on my show logging and matching audio files.
- Then I checked my emails and spent about an hour answering Candace about kiteboarding in the Phoenix area. Instead of spending about a half hour answering such emails, I spent about an hour this evening making a complete boiler plate email with much more useful information and links. Now I've got a icon on my desktop that should save me a lot of time and help others out more.
- Got to bed at 10:34
Sun Jan 31 = It has probably been five years since I have used the Vello Wireless Shutterbos remote control for my camera. This morning I got it out, activated the batteries and plugged it into my Panasonic DMCFZ150. It worked like a charm.
My goal is to have everything figured out for taking new headshots by Tuesday when my pop-up backgrounds are due to be delivered from B&H Photo in New Jersey. I need to get posters sent out for my Yuma shows and they need to have a headshot without glasses. Also it won't hurt to have an updated photo after seven years.
The last few days I have been experimenting with the camera and learning a lot about it's various features, thanks to its 202-page manual as a reference.
Friday morning I used a hand mirror to decide the best place and blind configuration in my house for balanced lighting with catchlights
Friday I also did a series of resolution tests
Satruday (yesterday) I did a series of zoom tests
Sunday (today) I got the Vello remote working and did a series of exposure tests
The first time I hooked the camera up to a TV was the deciding factor with my eye 30" wide, with an 18" iris.
So I'll remember it all, here is the result:
Photo Style: Standard, a hair sharper then Portrait that would give a healthy and beautiful skin tone
12 megapixel images with maximum JPG quality (not the RAW files)
white balance, AUTO
face recognition ON
AF/AE Lock AF/AE
ISO 400
aperture priority, program mode where the camera sets the shutter speed
metering SPOT
f/3.5 (wide open with the 105mm zoom setting)
iDynamic OFF
iResolution OFF
zoom set at 105mm
giving a shutter speed of 1/80sec
distance to camera 56 inches
11:30am Feb 3rd
in the southwest part of my great room
lighting: all uncovered: east half of sliding door, southwest window and northeast window
new white pop-up background (I will probably even try a few shots with the black background)
- I found time to lay in the sun at solar noon and absorb some vitamin D
- JUGGLING, also is coming along. Last night at 6am, after a pee, I set a record and caught a 3-ball toss... three separate times... in a row. Also it has occurred to me that one could juggle outside to inside. This evening I found that it is called REVERSE juggling. I also saw learning to juggle with scarves, which is slower and gives one more time to figure things out. Sort of like, I would imagine, juggling on the moon. So, of course, I ordered a set of six scarves.
- Got to bed at 10:00 :)
