Tue Feb 1 = This morning I submitted publicity kits to Office Depot to be shipped out to my comedy venues in Parker (western Arizona).
- According to my van, my Kia key fob battery is low. The fob still works from accross most parking lots, so being economy minded, I will not change the battery until the fob's range is noticeably reduced.
- This afternoon I phoned my daughter, Anne, and got some good suggestions from her public relations point of view for my new brochure and then reworked some of it again, the final result being:
Revisions are not trivial because each one means converting it to a JPG for my website, a PDF for printing and a version for emailing.
Now 100% of my comedy profits go to research for Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia.
- At solar noon I lay in the sun, but only for 12 minutes, trying to conserve energy.
- I finally moved a project from a back burner and dug out an old picture from the Navajo Indian Reservation in 1967 when I won the blackest beard contest for their centennial celebration. Of course I added the picture to the Lou is getting older section at the bottom of About Lou - Dee Ann, stand up comedy instructor at Stir Crazy way out west in Glendale, has a comedy class starting tonight. Since I did not get a reply to my email inquiring if the class was really full (slow email, not Dee Ann's fault) I drove the 23 miles to learn that the class was already over-full. I was prepared for that possibility, so enjoyed the drive back home and got some other things done.
- Got to bed at 10:15
phoned me this morning. We decided that my $1000 donation for this year will go to resupply their car magnets and refrigerator magnets
- I took my first bite out of the biggest I have ever had: 14.7oz of red bell pepper, from 99¢ only.
- Nate Lopez from an El Paso VFW phoned me and, regrettibly had to cancel their show.
- Got to bed at 10:02
Thu Feb 3 = I spent all morning on date-printer stuff, like new NiMH rechargeable batteries for my Speed-I-Jet 798 after it lost its date again after 2 days and then, after the the control button quit working, a replacement for the whole printer. By noon, I had a printer ordered from Walmart at 33% the cost of the Speed-I-Jet. The new one should be here in a week.
- All afternoon and up 'til bedtime was spent relearning how to modify the New Faces ticket Rob Greene sent me. I tried Libre Office, Draw and Paint but finally settled on GIMP (Graphics Image Manipulator Program) - very powerful, but also extremely unintuitive. Here's the result:
I finished off the evening by making detailed instructions for the process; hopefully saving time in the future.
- Got to bed at 10:18 with the volume up on my Sangean radio, set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen, so I was awakened early. Got up anyway.
Fri Feb 4 = At 1:34 this morning I became a new man. Why, because I decided to!
- I was letting all the posts not replying to my contract emails and voicemails get to me, along with my putting off reading about and recalculating my van oil changes, reading the depressing book, Being Mortal by Atul Gawande about what happens as we age, getting very drowsy at my computer and taking long naps.
- So after my 1:30am pee, I went out to my van, retrieved the instruction books and researched the oil changes and decided I was not going to let the other things bother me so much.
- This morning after breakfast I looked at some positives, like the slick new CB Live tickets I made and my newly refilled cinnamon/ginger/nutmeg shaker.
- I spent much of the rest of the day trying to contact the unresponsive posts, not caring a whole lot if I offended them by expecting them to return the contracts for the shows to which we had already agreed.
- I did work in a brief heavy slow legs workout at LA Fitness.
- Got to bed at 9:58 with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen.
Sat Feb 5 = This morning I prepared MailChip bulk emails for the Thu Feb 24, 2022; 7:30pm;
CB Live show I'll be in at Desert Ridge.
- A test email I sent from MailChimp to myself ended up in my Promotional email folder rather than my primary folder. Not good, so I made a minor change that hopefully corrected the situation. It could be that most of my fans have not been seeing my emails. No wonder I don't get more to come out.
- At solar noon I sunned for about 20 minutes
- The Anytime Fitness down the street was where I did a brief heavy slow arms workout.
- This afternoon I read up on a 1031 Exchange, which might apply to some of the land I am selling (three empty lots).
- When I get drowsy, instead of taking a long nap, as a new man I am forcing myself to be more active around the house and to limit my nap to 14 minutes. We'll see how that works.
- Got to bed at 11:03 with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen.
Sun Feb 6 = This morning I went to Harbor Freight for new NiMH rechargeable batteries for my Reiner-speed-i-Jet-798 date printer and then to Esporta Fitness for my third day (arms) brief heavy slow workout.
- Poster Day: I spent yesterday and this morning getting all my ducks in a row and everything organized for making posters for my shows scheduled in April. I got nine of them made.
- Next I assembled the posters, instructions etc into electronic publicity kits and got them emailed.
- Making mistakes is human and I anticipate making a few. With the nine publicity kits sent out, I felt pretty good making only one mistake. I put the wrong date on one of the posters, but the lady at the post did not notice. Not too bad - especially since I caught the error and sent her a corrected poster.
- Humor always helps out. Here's what I emailed her: I've got some ocean front property here in Arizona for you, because you did not notice that I got the wrong date... She replied, You're right I didn't notice but you can keep the ocean front property lol. - Got to bed at 9:57 with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen.
Mon Feb 7 = This morning I researched Alzheimer's research at Banner, Barrows and Mayo. I am looking for a good place for my comedy profit donations.
- Seventeen percent of the emails that I sent for the show on the 24th were opened by the recipients. That is a lot more than usual, hopefully because I got more of the emails into people's Primary email folders, rather than their Promatons or Spam folders.
- Today I learned that a good way to get veterans' posts to reply, when post phone calls, cell phone calls and emails don't work, is to send a text message. Why didn't I think of that before? (You don't have to answer that).
- Got to bed at 9:48 :) with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen.
Tue Feb 8 = This morning I organized booking contacts for tomorrow, spoke with Lisa from Banner Alzheimer's Institute for information about their research.
- I also phone Juanita and re-sent an email to Keith and Juanita at KLPZ 1380 in Parker because the mail server could not deliver the one I sent yesterday.
- For today's trip, my first stop was to Ken Garff Kia for a couple new drain plugs and required crush washers. Then to Walmart to find they had no oil filter for my van, then to O'Reilly's Auto Parts for the filter, then back to the Walmart.
- What a Walmart mess! The last time I got my oil changed was in Terre Haute, Indiana. Walmart there used an after-market drain plug and did not use the prescribed crush washer. Today, at the Bell and 19th Ave Walmart they did not have the oil filter and, after I got it, said if their was a drain plug problem I would be responsible for towing charges to have the situation fixed. Makes me wonder if it is worth the money saved at Walmart compared to that of the dealer.
- On the way back home I stopped by Winco Food for needed broccoli crowns (they usually have the best quality) and then by LA Fitness for a brief light fast full body workout.
- I installed the new hair clippers head that I received, yesterday, from Wahl in Sterling IL. Excellent service, as my clippers were about 25 years old and they did not charge me for the head. I am certainly sold on the Wahl Clipper Corp.
- Got to bed at 10:01 with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen.
Wed Feb 9 = Last night I set a JUGGLING record with 21 consecutive two-ball cascade catches.
- This morning I got a text from one of the slow veterans posts explaining that they were still working on a venue for my show there in April. I am happy to work with them and be flexible and certainly appreciate it when they keep me in the loop with communications.
- I lay in the sun for 20 minutes at solar noon.
- This afternoon I went to Desert Financial to get deeds notorized for the three new Wittmann lots from the property I am subdividing, went to Esporta Fitness for a brief heavy slow legs workout, had a protein frosty, went to Fry's for non-white berries on sale and went to Toni's to help her with her computer. With her computer I went where I had never gone before... reinstalled Windows on a computer. Next thing for Toni will be getting her on the Internet.
- While I was driving home, Kelly Smith , of the Mayo Clinic's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center in Jacksonville, FL. phoned. Coencidentially, I will be doing a show in Jacksonville on Saturday, May 14th.
- Since I did not have time to do it at the gym, this evening I did my
poster trim
weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
, turned on my water heater for about 10 minutes and took a hot bath.
- I have decided to quit putting all my posters up on my Comedy Home Page. That no longer makes sense with 50 shows on this year's Veterans Appreciation National Tour. I will still send costom-made posters to the venues where I will be doing shows. On my website, I may put posters up for venues where I am returning for a second year.
- Trivia: The first Cray supercomputer in 1975 cost $7.9 million ($33.7 million in 2021 dollars) and had about the same specifications as today's little $35 Raspberry pi.
- Got to bed at 10:00 with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen.
Thu Feb 10 = Today I created a new email address, info@arizonalou.com but still haven't worked out all the kinks, like being able to compuse emails from it through gmail. I figure those emails will be less likely to land with spam and junk emails.
- Catching up, I logged my volunteering hours in December and January for
.
- This afternoon I took a 1:17 hour long nap, trying to bank some sleep for tonight's late comedy.
- The show and then the open mic 40 miles south of here went pretty well in Chandler at JP's Comedy Club. On the way I did a brief heavy slow arms workout at Esporta Fitness
- Got to bed at 11:21 with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen.
Fri Feb 11 = With my Booker's Hat on most of the day, I have been concentrating on tying up loose ends from veterans posts that haven't been getting back to me for my April shows
- I ran across these two talented guys just about destroying their cellos with some unbelievable entertainment and music.
- I am disgusted with online electronic signing. After spending a half hour signing and initialing some documents, I was dumped out of the system and apparently will have to start all over. That will be a convenient excuse to procrastinate.
- Got to bed at 10:02 with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen.
Sat Feb 12 = Today's big project was to change from the Alzheimer's Associatin logo (left image) to a brain (right image) near the top right of my Comedy Home Page.
Of course I did it the complicated way, finding four brain images online and then making the backgrounds transparent with GIMP (Graphics Image Manipulator Program), experimenting with their "Fuzzy Select" tool, which is not fuzzy at all. It selects by color, but only adjacent collors.
I wish I had discovered this tool when converting my head shots to transparent backgrounds. No time now to redo the head shots.
- This afternoon I got my tires rotated at Discount Tire Company. They did not charge me because I have been buying my tires from them for about a half million miles and plan to get my next set from them when the ones that came on my van wear out.
- Here is 45 minutes of deadpan comedy fun and music by Victor Borge and company.
- Got to bed at 9:58 with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen.
Sun Feb 13 = At solar noon I lay in the sun for 20 minutes
- This afternoon I drove down to
Dahlia
my Phoenix rental house located on Dahlia Drive
to meet my new landscaper. He comes highly recommended. I hope he pans out.
- On the way home I got gas at Joe Cool's ARCO - the cheapest Top Tier gas in the area.
- About two miles north, I had a brief light fast legs workout at the Greenway Planet Fitness and then ran over to Food City for some kale. My last stop was at the credit union for some cash.
- This evening I organized my questions for tomorrow for the realtor listing contract for the three Wittmann lots I am selling.
- Got to bed at 10:08 with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen.
Mon Feb 14 = The new USPS Truck is like good news and bad news. They did a lot of things right, but the glairing mistake was not making them electric. EVERYTHING in the way most of them are used would save taxpayers piles of money, reduce pollution, noise, dependance on fossil fules and increase performance and efficiency ... if they were electric. What's wrong with you, Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy?
- After some experimentation I found that, compared with videos produced with Cyberlink Power Director 18, the same videos created from YouTube with Cyberlink's Screen Recorder have a file size of about 59%. I will see if I can use this information to squeeze videos onto my Album #3. I could get more videos on the album, and probably better quality, if I used H.265 HEVC file compression, but some computers are not capable of playing that format without some special software.
- This evening I did a screen recording of my Chattanooga show to possibly use on my Album #3. Although the file size is small, the video has a very slow frame rate, which means the video is jerky and unusable.
- I thought of something new to try this evening and for tonight: Instead of reading my Kindle when I get up to pee, I get ready for bed early and read my Kindle on the couch until time to crawl into bed. For my nocturnal pees, I will systematically go through my comedy routines, tweaking them and developing ways to remember where I left off - good practice for distractions during a show.
- Got to bed at 10:00 with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen.
Tue Feb 15 = Today I sent out $300 worth of publicity kits for my shows at seven American Legion and VFW posts. I am going to see if I can get a discount code from Office Depot to reduce the cost in the future.
- This afternoon I took about an hour nap, anticipating being out late tonight with comedy.
- I made my shopping list but didn't get around to the shopping at a Winco, until after tonight's comedy on the way home. That put me to bed a little late.
- Speaking of comedy, tonight was my first advanced class with
Tony Vicich in almost three years when we went to the Gotham Comedy Club in New York City. This class I am specifically working on a new Alzheimer's Routine.
- Got to bed at 11:37... but I got my grocery shopping out of the way.
Wed Feb 16 = This morning I received an email invitation for a Vergin Galactic space flight. With my land deals, comedy and everything else I have going on, I decided to decline. It would be a bargain at $450,000 with a $150,000 deposit. In case you are interested, more information is here as a PDF.
- Today I got most of my, now six, credit cards paid off as I do every month.
- Got to bed at 10:15 with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen.
Thu Feb 17 = This morning's fire to extinguish was finding my CIGNA Dental ID for my dentist appointment this afternoon. If CIGNA sent me an ID card, it is no where to be found. After some looking at my ASRS booklet, some web searching, a long phone call and more web searching, I registered on CIGNA's website, got the ID number, printed out the card and put in for a one to me mailed to me.
- This afternoon I saw my new dentist, Dr. Akhil Mehta. He's young, seems cool and has a good staff. They cleaned my teeth and found nothing of concern. They are not into using water picks as much as my old dentist was.
- On the way home I had a brief heavy slow arms workout at LA Fitness. It took me over a half hour to drive the
- In the booking department, I decided to, again, focus on Maryland veterans' posts. All I need to do is talk to someone and get them to look at my website and they know I am for real and are anxious to book me for a show.
- I hit gold: 99¢ Only had overripe bnanas for 25¢ a pound, so I bought a couple of bunches. I'll keep them in my refrigerator and eat one banana a day, and will they be tasty!
- I finally was successful implementing the new evening routine I thought on on Monday. I completed my bedtime routine early and then sat on the couch and read my Kindle until Alexa reminded me it was time to crawl into bed.
- Got to bed at 9:48 :) with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen.
Fri Feb 18 = This morning I booked a show at an American Legion in Chessapeake Beach, Maryland. That brings me up to three shows so far for July - all in Maryland.
- At solar noon I lay in the sun for 20 minutes.
- This afternoon I saw my optometrist, Dr Pirytz. My right eye is actually a little better than last time; Left eye is the same.
- On the way home I stopped by LA Fitness for a brief heavy slow torso workout. Bell Rd was closed so it took me over 30 minutes to drive the 3.5 miles home.
- Got to bed, after reading my Kindle on the couch, at 9:58 :) with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen.
Sat Feb 19 = This morning I ordered bifolcal aviator-style glasses from Zenni Optical. With the automatic darkening feature. They are costing me a little over $70, including the stainless steel frames. Ordering took me most of the morning because I kept running into road blocks on Zenni's website until I called Customer Service and they had me switch from my Firefox Browser to Google Chrome.
- Today may go down in history as my biggest contract day ever. I sent out contracts (am now calling them Booking Agreements) to 16 venues for all my May comedy shows. It went pretty smoothly except I mistyped one or two email addresses. Not too bad, since I'm human :)
- This evening, putting on my publicity hat, I ordered three publicity kits to be printed and shipped by Office Depot to veterans' posts that had been slow getting back to me for shows in April.
- Got to bed, after reading my Kindle for a couple minutes standing up, at 9:47 :) with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the morning in the kitchen.
Sun Feb 20 = Almost first thing this morning I sent emails to my previous opening comedians to see if they would like to do it again on this year's tour.
- I say almost because it is almost impossible for me to do anything without getting distracted along the way, with email or things I thought of during the night.
- This afternoon I went to Mountainside Fitness for a brief light fast legs workout and to pass out some tickets to the show I'll be in near the gym on Thursday.
- I got quite a bit done on my taxes before bedtime.
- Got to bed, after reading my Kindle while peeing, brushing and flossing, at 9:54 :) with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen.
Mon Feb 21 = I impulsed this morning and suffered a little because of it.
phoned to cancel our session because she fell and now can't sit without pain. I suggested she check out a memory foam pillow, which I looked for online. Then I impulsed , researched wheel chair cushions and ended up ordering one for myself; thin with gel to try in my office chair, my van's seat and with its couch when I am using my van as an office.
- By the time I got around to making my morning booking phone calls, I missed my contact at a veterans' post in Ocean City MD
- Tomorrow I'll check what NEEDS to be done before doing what I FEEL like doing!
- Last night at the gym someone said that Tony Hinchcliffe was his favorite comedian so tonight I watched parts of a two-hour Tony Kill Tony podcast. Entertaining, but not my favorite.
- Got to bed at 9:53 :) with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen.
Tue Feb 22 = I'm still in the thick of booking shows for July in Maryland. I spent time today working on Alzheimer's ideas for tonight's stand up comedy class.
- My mass email-sending program, MailChimp, is being a pain. Attempting to not have to worry about cleaned and unsubscribed emails, I deleted all 502 emails in my MailChimp account. I tried several times to upload the updated 502 emails and only five ever arrived. Something is wrong, but I do not know what.
- I took an hour nap, anticipating being out late and far, far away down in Gilbert.
- Around noon I got some sun. It wasn't easy because the sun was mostly peeking around the clouds
- Tonight was one of my favorite comedy classes, the writing session with Tony Vicich, when we help one another formulate some of our ideas... lots of interaction, ideas and fun. There were about 18 there.
-Driving home, I got my teeth flossed and brushed.
- Got to bed at 11:30 with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:30. Woke up and got up at 8:13 in the morning.
Wed Feb 23 = I spent lots of time booking for my tour.
- I configured a version of the ten early signs of Alzheimer's for 3 2/3 x 8 1/2 inch sheets/cards to have available after my comedy shows. I even left the z out of Alzheimers, which Mister Roberts noticed at El Charro Hipster. By the end of the day I had corrected the misspelling.
- For MailChimp I tried uploading with other web browsers: Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. Same result as with Firefox yesterday. Still got only 1% of the uploads.
- On the way to comedy, I think I set a record for a quick
poster trim
weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
, shower and brief heavy slow legs workout... and a protein frostie, driving to the open mic.
- The open mic at El Charro Hipster was my dress rehearsal for CB Live tomorrow.
- Got to bed 9:46 :) with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen.
Thu Feb 24 = I didn't rehearse today for tonight's New Faces Showcase, figuring that overrehearsingwould take some of the spontaneity out of my five minutes.
- Kingsley Amukamara was an excellent host, my set went well and all four camera-angle recordings of my set were good, with the cameras running on battery power.
- Got to bed 10:37. I didn't catch that Alexa set my alarm for 10:30 rather than 8:30, so didn't get up Friday morning until 9:06 when I had to pee. Guess I needed the sleep.
Fri Feb 25 = Today I mostly tried to book shows in Maryland for July.
- Got to bed at 10:02, with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen.
Sat Feb 26 = Busy booking this morning, I wanted to recover the data for the Parker Arizona Elks Lodge that I had previously accidently deleted on my Bookings.xls data-base spreadsheet. I found most of the missing information in a version on my computer in one of the backup copies I had made back on Feb 8th :)
- During the day, to find my missing family-friendly Comedy-n-Sunset show from June 29th last year, I had to download 24 out of the 29 zipped Google Take-out video files (of appx 10GB each) before I got it. What a project! Although I was able to do the downloading in the background while working on other things like bookings, it still took a long time.
- I projected my budget through May - still financially solvent.
- Anytime Fitness was my target for a brief heavy slow torso workout after I drove the opposite direction to Planet Fitness to find that they close at 8 on weekends :(
- This evening I paid over $2500 in property taxes. I help support Maricopa County this way twice a year :(
- Got to bed, after reading my Kindle while flossing, brushing and peeing at 9:55 :) with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen.
Sun Feb 27 = In addition to a little booking today, the big project was getting my house ready for company. I got the kitchen counter, island and table all cleared off and cleaned. In the office I got the desk return and right side of the credenza cleared off. I got pretty much the whole house dusted and vacuumed.
- At noon I lay in the mostly-sun.
- The company,
George & Cindy
my younger brother and his wife who live in Mesa, Arizona and have a mountain place in Christopher Creek
arrived for supper, which I had waiting for them. We had a good visit.
- This is the first time I had the priviledge of their spending the night here (in the library).
- Got to bed, at 9:52.
Mon Feb 28 = It is neat to have
George & Cindy
my younger brother and his wife who live in Mesa, Arizona and have a mountain place in Christopher Creek
here for a couple days, a chance for visiting without feeling rushed. They went out for some shopping and for a walk or two. Of course I worked in my office on my booking and my website at times during the day.
- They offered to take me out to eat this evening, which I appreciated. We decided to eat in for nutritional value and more quality time together.
- Got to bed at 9:59 with Alexa's daily alarm set for 7:47 and my Sangean radio set to automatically turn on the news at 8:00 in the kitchen. Since I had company I slept with the bedroom door closed. I expected my bedroom to get cooler during the night, but it was actually not as cool as when I had the door open.
