Sat Oct 1 = Before fixing breakfast this morning I paid my property taxes which were due by Oct 1st. I got them paid at 8:57, which was 11:57am Sep 30th Arizona time.
- I topped off my Panasonic camcorder's battery, updated this website and got off. Navigating to the
Café Votiv in in Vienna turned out to be a piece of cake so I arrived three hours before showtime. Good chance to catch up on this blog and research making my T-Shirts available online.
- Speaking of which, I signed up for Shopify that will hopefully take care of the payment and orders, and for Printify which will hopefully take care of printing and shipping the T-Shirts. I say hopefully because I'm just getting acquainted with how the whole process works.
- Tonight's comedy open mic at
Café Votiv was great. It was in a plush lounge which was filled with a crowd of about 33.
- Got to bed at 10:33
Sun Oct 2 = I just about did not make it to Prague today. After getting everything packed up I didn't have time for breakfast at the hotel as I had planned so walked directly to Vienna's Central Terminal to buy tickets to Prague. The first guy at the OBB train ticket office gave me a number to get assistance (about 40 higher than they were serving at the time)... but didn't tell me I was at the wrong railway office.
- When I got to the office of the correct train (RJ) the agent said he could not sell me a ticket because the train was full and there was no way I could get to Prague in time for the comedy show scheduled at 5pm. I decided to go up to the train platform and see if I could get on board in case of a cancellation.
- A nice lady had heard of my plight and caught up with me and showed me how I could get train tickets to Prague from a ticket machine. I bought tickets for the RJ-74 train to Prague and for the return tomorrow and made the train.
- My seat partner was Phillip who works as a caregiver in Vienna but lives in Brno which is about halfway to Prague. He rides the train a couple times a week and was a good find. Through him I learned about reserved seats, schedules, train information screens and a bunch of other things.
- In Austria the train topped out at 71mph (115kph) and in Czechia topped out at 99mph (160kph)
- On the five-hour ride I got my blog updated through the train's wifi, updated my show numbers and got my new Past Tour Schedules page ready to put live on the Internet. I should get that done tomorrow.
- Touch and go was tonight's comedy because
The Globe Bookstore And Café in Prague had canceled their Sunday night open mic comedy shows and Samatha, my contact, never told me about it. I text'd her and got no reply.
- Instead of comedy they had a book signing and poetry. After that, at 10pm, they had an open mic for the spoken word. Marco, the host and organizer graciously let me open that segment with seven minutes of comedy. As a result I did my first comedy appearance in Prague (my 181st city), first in Czecia (my seventh country), and first at The Globe (my 341st venue). I got acquainted with Michael Sito, the owner of the awesome place. I knew he was the owner because at various times he was operating a broom, bussing and rearranging tables, was wearing a sport coat... and had holes in his jeans.
- Got to bed at 11:53, needing to get some sleep on the train to Vienna tomorrow.
Mon Oct 3 = I lost at the hotel but won on the train.
- After about a half hour I made no headway in getting the Czcchia Hotel to honor the price agreed on for me by Priceline.
- Taking Tram #5 from in front of the hotel and walking, I made it to the train station in time to figure out the platform system and get up to Platform 5s before the train arrived. I got on a car that was not too full and lucked out again. The special area I wanted was available and not reserved. That was club seating because there is a table with an outlet for my computer. Each car has 8 of these areas. This one was located at the center of the car where there is less wheel grinding noise when the tree goes around curves. I even got a seat facing the front! We departed about 12:20pm.
- From the station in Prague I had both power and Internet so researched editing of my logo as a vector file (SVG) for highest resolution.
- I am so proud of myself. I found the magic number in the svg (scalable vector graphics) file for the color and changed it from black (000000) to white (FFFFFF). Just like magic my logo became white, and with ultimate resolution: no jaggies... and found out that Printify accepts svg files! Here are the results:
- Comedy tonight in the basement at Charlie P's in Vienna was epic with an audience of 56. I found good locations for my tripods, and all four of my cameras worked. My main concern was that the batteries would last, which they did. I got four good video recordings. The audio would have been good if there had not been so much noise coming down from the rowdies upstairs.
- I left shortly after the halftime break and got back to the hotel to make up some sleep.
- Got to bed at 11:17
Tue Oct 4 = I didn't sleep in as late as I had wanted, but did get a generous night's sleep.
- I left the Ibis Hotel Viena Hauptbahnhof right at their noon check out time, walked to the Central Station, ate a chicken salad from Burger King there, bought train tickets from their confusing machine and got on the eastbound REX 8 train.
- I found a good window seat, facing the front, in club seating with a little ܧ table sticking out from the wal for my computer, a power outlet, Internet and, it turns out, on the shady side of the train.
- In Bratislava, the capitol of Slovakia, it took me a while to find my way down to the tram. It didn't take too long to get to the Dolce Vita "hotel" once I got on a tram that was in service.
- The "hotel" wasn't realy a hotel but small appartments, with no front desk and no way to contact anyone. It took me three trips with my luggage up three stories and the help of a lady running a sweet shop on the ground floor to find someone who came and checked me in.
- My room was sort of in the atic. I had two skylights and two little windows about knee high. I had free wify, courtwsy of the city of Bratislava.
- The comedy group at the Internalational Bar include people from several countries and one of the bar's owners. It was a fun and supportive group. They really liked my set. Dominik, the host, gave us each a generous five minutes He let the comedians go on for seven or nine minutes. I never saw him give anyone "the light."
- I sold three T-shirts and got these comedians as new fans:
Comedians: Oscar Brophy (Ireland), Branislav Bruder (Bratislava, Slovakia), Thom Lovelock (Wales), Lou, Dominik Antal (show host from Slovakia); International Bar, Bratislava, Slovakia 10/4/22
221004 David Ortiz, comedian from Spain; International Bar, Bratislava, Slovakia 10/4/22
- Got to bed at 11:39
Wed Oct 5 = This evening was my last appearance of the tour; at
Isaac's pub here in Vienna, Austria. Eric James, the shows producer, saved my brain and some time. He graciously arranged for a car to pick me up at my hotel. I enjoyed the luxury of feeling like a celebrity in a lemo... but in a Uber with a driver who spoke no English.
- The small audience of 24 at Isaac's laughed quite a bit and I got five good quality recordings that are unusable because one of the comedians stood in front of my primary camera that was on a tripod behind the bar.
- After the main show I was part of a panel of the six comedians who performed at the show, answering questions that were submitted by audience members.
The comedians/pannel (L-R) Jacob Liss; Lou; Regi, host; Aislinn Kane; Eric James, producer; Samatha Lackner, arranged my Central European Tour
- Got to bed at 11:47
Thu Oct 6 = I started a fantastic day with only an orange because Samatha Lackner, who initiated my Central European Tour, invited me to brunch with three others. We enjoyed the good food and good company overlooking the Danube. It was also my first subway ride in Vienna - most crowded public transportation I saw on my trip.
- Brunch over the Danube: Aislinn Kane, Lou, Samatha Lackner, a friend, Eric James (note the zip liner in the red helmet whizzing by). (The second image is the original, taken with my Android Pixel 4a in the challenging condition combining shade and sun. To get the final result, I used five generations of the [Dynamic] button.
The third image, taken on the way to the subway, is like many of the trams I rode on this trip.
- Walking from the subway back to my hotel, I stopped by the nearby Aldi for some final day food and by a post office to mail some cards back to friends in the USA.
- The rest of the day I spent packing and arranging things for tomorrow's flight back home to Phoenix.
- Got to bed at 8:42
Fri Oct 7 = I woke up to pee at 5:23 this morning and, since it was about a half hour before my alarm, decided to stay up for an early start. That gave me time to take a quick shower in addition to fixing a good breakfast, pack up and head for the train to the airport
- The flight from Vienna to Phoenix went well with two hours in Chicago for immigration etc. Global Entry and TSA Precheck saved me lots of time and concern about making the flight to Phoenix.
- I got acquainted with Ray Banntewicz in the galey area during the Austrian Airlines Flight. He is a born comedian who has had a stroke but hasn't done comedy yet. I encouraged him to try, and gave him some resourses that at are the bottom of my Comedy Home Page. Ray bought a T-Shirt.
- When I got home to Phoenix, my cell phone didnt work for phone calls, even after I rebooted the phone and tried several other things, so I had to borrow a nice lady's phone to phone for the shuttle to pickup me up and take me to van in the unattended parking lot (but it was cheap).
- When I got to my van, it seemed like it took me forever to locate its key and fob. When I DID the fob would not work - battery must be down. Neither did the spare fob in my van work. Things didn't go any better after I got my van started and drove to the exit gate. I had no idea where my parking bar code was. This after a thorough search of my roller bag. Fortunately there was a help button. I paid the lady at the other end of the speaker with my credit card and she opened the gate and let me out. I learned that after a tour my brain will be so full of experiences that I won't remember anything about when I left, so I will put the information on my electronic calendar where It will smack me in the face when I need it.
- I got home about 7:30 (4:00am Vienna time)- about 2½ hours after the plane landed. It is good to be back with Alexa, my four computer screens, my custom bed and CPAP.
- Got to bed at 11:15
Sat Oct 8 = Today was unpacking and recouping from 15 hours of flying and nine time zones of jet lag.
- I spent four hours trying to phone in to the Leo Laprote national talk show and spent 20 minutes laying in the Phoenix semi-sun - the first time in about two weeks.
-
George
my younger brother and his wife, Cindy, who live in east Mesa, Arizona and have a mountain place in Christopher Creek
phoned that Cindy had a pretty significant stroke yesterday and now is in the hospital.
- Got to bed at 10:52
Sun Oct 9 = I learned about gallium nitride power supplies and chargers (GaN). They are more efficient, produce less heat, can handle higher power levels, charge faster and are smaller than silicon-based chargers.
- Again, I spent four hours trying to phone in to the Leo Laprote national talk show.
- This evening I went to LA Fitness for a light fast full-body workout, a
poster trim
weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
and shower, and then to Winco and Safeway for a week's of groceries until my next official shopping trip on the 15th.
- Got to bed at 11:52
Mon Oct 10 = This morning I got a phone call from Security Title that the paperwork was ready to sign for 5.3 Acres of vacant desert land that I am selling and that it would cost $135 for a notary to bring the paperwork up to me. Naturally I elected to drive down for the signing... to Gilbert; about a 96-mile round trip It took a little over an hour to get everything signed, including some senseless lawyer speak. It amounted to about 50 pages of documents.
- I found a new gym that was on the way home.EōS Fitness is in the old Bally Fitness building that they completely remodeled. I joined the gym under RenewActive through United Healthcare and did a light full body workout. EōS has gyms all over the valley, as well as in other western US states.
- At times, this evening, I was too drowsy this evening to function. so went to bed early.
- Got to bed at 9:51pm
Tue Oct 11 = I spent most of the morning working on getting my T-shirts for sale online. I watched a video from Printify (who coordinates printing and shipping the T-Shirts) on how to set up an account with Etsy (who takes the payments). It appears I may need a T-Shirt store in both places, but have no idea how they interact.
- A somewhat expensive decision today. I decideded to get three more Sony HDRCX405 camcorders like the one I have been using in videoing my comedy appearances for a month. The new camcorders will do the job well, are compact and light-weight.
- But first I had to make sure they would sync up with my body mic recorder, so I recorded an hour's worth of videos using five audio and video recording devices. The result was good.
- This evening I did a medium full-body workout at LA Fitness, trying, for the past three days, to get my body in shape for my heavy three days starting Wednesday.
- This evening I put new elastic in my favorite gym shorts because they haven't been staying up very well.
- Got to bed at 9:55
Wed Oct 12 = This morning and much of the day I spent researching Sony HDRCX405 camcorders and found them pretty much the same price everywhere. I wasted over an hour on the phone with people who barely spoke English to make sure I would be getting a high dynamic range version. No one seemed to know for sure. A key factor was to get my hands on three of them soon because I want to use them in a week on Thu Oct 20, 2022; 7:00pm at the 60+ Comedy Contest;
Cactus Jack's Bar & Grill in Ahwatukee; in south Phoenix -
- The 45 and 180 day clocks started ticking at 1:00 this afternoon for my 1031 exchange, because that is when the passing of my 5.3 acres to Richard A was recorded in the Maricopa County Courthouse.
- After supper I replaced the battery in my van's fob. For about two months my van has been telling me that the fob's battery was low, but the fob still worked from across parking lots so I figured it did not need to be replaced... until I arrived home from Europe. Then neither my primary nor my backup fob's batteries worked. Good thing I had read the procedure for getting into my van and driving it. Otherwise I would have been stranded in the airport parking lot with no one around and without a working cell phone.
- I enjoyed using my "new" fob on the way to Best Buy to pick up the three camcorders and then to LA Fitness for my first heavy legs workout since leaving for my Central European Comedy Tour last month.
- Of course when I got home I had to start my new camcorders charging.
- Got to bed at 11:00
Thu Oct 13 = Part of figuring out my new camcorders this morning, which use micro SD cards, was better understand SD cards.
Interoperability of host devices and cards are shown below.
Secure Digital High Capacity; Max file size = 4GB results in "chaptering" of long videos
SDXC
2GB - 2TB
exFAT
Secure Digital eXtended Capacity; in 2022 max size available was 1TB
SDUC
2-128TB
exFAT
Secure Digital Ultra Capacity (not yet in use in 2022)
- After supper I went to theEōS Gym for a brief heavy arms workout then went to Office Max for three 64GB micro SD cards, on sale for $8.99 each, to use with my new camcorders.
- Armed with the new cards I performed a 1:42 hour sync & battery duration test for the new camcorders, recording my TV and sync claps along the way.
- I keep Amazon busy. Tonight it was ordering a micro SD card holder
- Got to bed at 10:41
Fri Oct 14 = I started this morning off by setting up my four Sony HDR CX405 camcorders on tripods and both of my Sony ICD-UX560 voice recorders in front of my TV fir final synchronization and battery duration test recordings. The camcorder batteries lasted about 1:45 and all five of the devices synchronized nearly perfectly.
- Before leaving on this evening's trip I made 8-up microposters for The First Annual 60+ Comedy Competition.
- The trip was to Ace Hardware on West Union Hills for some bolts for my bracket project, followed by LA Fitness for a heavy torso workout.
- Of course I need to make brackets to stack two of the camcorders on each of the two tripods for recording my shows, so I researched annealing, bending and tempering aluminum. I figure I can bend the flat aluminum bars I have by heating them to 1050° F with my heat gun and then quench them to make my brackets harder and less susceptible to flexing in the wind during my OBX beach shows.
- I engineered the bracket with a paper pattern.
- Got to bed at 10:38
Sat Oct 15 = I got a bug this morning, courtesy of Leo LaPorte, the Tech Guy while listening to his Tech Guy radio/podcast show, to replace my two used computer monitors with a big one, so I put it on my ToBuy list. If the monitor ends up at the top of the list, I'll buy it, but after Thu Oct 27, 2022; 7:30pm; 60+ Comedy Contest;
Cactus Jack's Bar & Grill; 4747 E Elliot Rd; Phoenix, AZ. The best monitor for me wold be: 43" Dell 4k 4hdmi+,ultrasharp, 3840x2160, 1k:1 contrast, 38.1x22.2x2.3 wo stand, brightness 350 cd/m2, Energy Star 75w/.5w (use/standby), from Dell $785. I considered a touch screen until I found that it would cost betweek 1-$2,000 more.
- I found a broken video link on my Kiteboarding Home web page from when I was on the Weather Channel, found how to watch the video directly using a YouTube URL, screen captured the video and then found that I already had the video as a backup on my hard drive. Here is the video after I eliminated the black bars and changed to my picture:
- This afternoon I embarked on a 3½ hour trip, stopping byEōS Fitness. Then my
partner and I went on a shopping expidition in three stores and got everything on our respective lists. Joan is fun to shop with and pretty spunky for a 91 year old.
- This evening I laid out a camcorder bracket on my ¼ x 1 x 5¼" aluminum bar and cut it to length.
- Got to bed at 11:38
Sun Oct 16 = This morning I resolved that I WILL keep a regular sleep schedule and see if I can quit being tired all the time. This after getting to bed so late last night. Watch the times I get to bed in the future to see how I do. You will be my accountability partner.
- After breakfast I finished up with a couple project on my Kiteboarding Home Page by making the first video visible and eliminating the black bars on it and the second video. Note to self: 16:9 = .56 and 4:3 = .75.
- At solar noon I lay in the sun on my back for 10 minutes until a big dark cloud came over so I saved laying on my stomach for tomorrow.
- Most of the rest of the day was making brackets for my new camcorders. The neatest part was knowing when the aluminum brackets were annealed to the proper temperature for bending without cracking. It took three tries with my propane tourch to get two brackets. One bracket I got too hot and it melted where I wanted to bend it.
- The neat part? Just use a candle to deposit black carbon soot on the almunium. When it reaches the proper temperature, the soot disappears. Then bend away. After bending the aluminum I hardened it by quenching in cold water.
I added this to our Technology web page: We record our comedy shows with these Sony HDR CX405 camcorders starting in late 2022. These are light weight, small, have easy-to-navigate menus, have good 4K resolution, wide zoom range, high dynamic range, good low light performance and, importantly, each can record an entire show as one file. Four of these on two tripods give us a good set of videos for our multicam productions. We made the aluminum bracket for the top camera (second picture).
These cameras replace two older, heavier camcorders and two cell phones as camcorders.
- Before bed I worked on resolving my checking account and updated my T-Shirts sold, through Slovakia, giving a total of 844 shirts sold so far.
- Got to bed at 9:54 :)
Mon Oct 17 = Bright and early this morning I woke up to Alexa's alarm, which now I have now set for 7:47am every day. For me that is early! That gives me enough time to pee, weigh, shave, exercycle and maybe log my night's sleep before the Sangean ATS-909 radio in the kitchen automatically turns on for the 8:00 news. All this is part of my new program for sleep hygiene, consistency and getting up and getting moving.
- At solar noon I finished yesterday's sunning by exposing my back side for 10 minutes.
- This evening, after checking the 15-day weather forecast, I took my van through my favorite and near-by automatic touchless car wash and, for the first time since I bought the van, washed the engine, which had become a little dusty.
- On the way home I did a light fast arms workout at Anytime Fitness where I got a new comedy fan. Maybe he wanted to show how much bigger his muscles are than mine, which he did:
Brad H; Anytime Fitness; N Phoenix; 10/17/22
- My Jabra Stealth Bluetooth headset finally arrived and I put it on an overnight charge. I actually received two of 'em.
- Got to bed at 10:01
Tue Oct 18 = This morning I researched the Jabra Talk 45 Bluetooth headset and found it to be a little better than the older Jabra Stealth Bluetooth headset that I received yesterday - and about half the price. Well, I ordered a Talk 45 for same-day delivery vs the 10-day delivery for the Stealth.
- I am going to have to whip myself into gear for booking my next tour. It seems that I'll do almost anything to avoid making the booking phone calls, like today, ordering the Jabra Talk 45, and going out and visiting with Lance Tyrner, my landscaper who stopped by to work on my yard, balancing my checking account and working on this blog.
- I finally did get around to a booking phone call.
- A signature was required for me to receive a mysterious goLEDgo chasing color LED sign that I did not order... in a damaged box with the original addresses cut out... the third time this year. After some online digging I found the phone number and phoned Amazon. Happiness, from South Africa found nothing under the tracking number and said Amazon would contact me about it.
- Yea! I finally got my T-Shirts available online HERE but won't add a link from my Comedy Home Page until I work out a few refinements to the listing.
- My Jabra Talk 45 arrived and I did a series of tests comparing its noise canceling mic with that of the twice-as-expensive Jabra Stealth. I could tell no difference.
- Never made it to a gym today.
- Got to bed at 9:59
Wed Oct 19 = This morning I sorted my albums into stacks:
Album #1; 8GB on an 8GB flash drive - I only have one of these left
Album #2; 16GB on a 16GB flash drive
Album #2; 16GB on a 32GB flash drive, to serve as a possible future Album #2.5s
Album #3; 16GB, the "cleaner" version of my album
- This afternoon I went to LA Fitness for my
poster trim
weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
, shower and very brief slow, heavy legs workout and then scooted on for comedy having my weekly post-workout Protein Frosty on the way.
- I got to El Charro Hipster in time to be reminded that they are no longer having weekly open mics, but only on the last Wednesday of each month.
- To avoid losing my mind and since I do better with graphics, I made this calendar chart or my Viena trip. It includes rows for comedy shows, traveling, a hotel in Vienna and hotels elsewhere:
- Got to bed at 10:06
Thu Oct 20 = This morning I went to Etsy online, the shopping website for my T-Shirts.
Searching it, I got:
Search for:
Rank
Out of hits
Arizona Lou
First
999
Arizona Lou T
First
766
Arizona Lou Shirt
First
924
Arizona Lou Comedy
First
992
Arizona Lou Logo
Second
530
Favorite Old Man
Fifth
1,464
Comedy T
Sixth
15,746
America's Favorite Old Man
Did not show up
520
Comedy T-Shirt
Did not show up
520
T-Shirt
Did not show up
6,843,078
Shirt
Did not show up
11,338,826
- I wanted to take a long nap in preparation for being out late tonight for comedy, but only had time for 24 minutes.
- I left home in time to stop by anEōS Fitness on the way to tonight's 7pm show and 9pm open mic at
JP'S Comedy Club
way down in Gilbert, but not in time to include three freeway accidents on the 101. No gym, but I did make it in time for the 7pm show and, of course the 9pm open mic.
- This was the first real show for which I used my four new Sony HDR-CX405 camcorders. Recording my set was slick!
- On the way home I went to the gym; the biggestEōS Fitness fitness I have seen so far (only the secondEōS I have ever been to), 2156 E Baseline Rd, in South Mesa.. and found a new fan:
Jace Martin;EōS Fitness; S Mesa/Gilbert, AZ; 10/20/22
- Got to bed at 11:12
Fri Oct 21 = I have been puzzled because my four new camcorders will not record with some external USB power supplies and will with others. To add to that confusion, I got some USB Y cables, hoping to operate the two cameras on each of two tripod with one cord.
- I think I figured out a way to analyze all the factors, in the form of a color-coded chart. I measured over 50 values with various combinations of power supplies, cords, camcorder power states and battery charge conditions.
- I was so wrapped up in the project that I got out in the sun late for my 15 noon minutes.
- I did go to LA Fitness for the last day of my three-day heavy workout, then back home to continue with the camcorder analysis. I was deep in research when I realized I had lost track of time and it was past my bedtime.
- Got to bed at 10:49 :(
Sat Oct 22 = Today I mostly finished my Sony HDR-CX405 camcorder power analysis and returned the USB Y-cables because they did not work like they said they would. Also I returned the overpriced Jabra Stealth Bluetooth phone headset because I got a better one for less than half the price.
- They had, accidently evidently, sent me two of the Stealths when I only ordered one. I sent one back and let the supplier know they sent me an extra. Now the extra one is in cold storage (my refrigerator) as a spare until something happens to my Jabra Talk 45.
- My trip out today was to deliver the two returns to The UPS Store. It is neat how you hand them the unboxed items, let them shoot a QR code and then they take care of all the boxing and shipping. It saves me trouble and saves lots of separate packing boxes and waste for UPS and Amazon.
- Yesterday I produced the video of my set from Thursday's show. Kinda disheartening because people thoughtlessly walked in front of my main camera 13 times, including the host who did it at least twice. For the production, that forced me to switch to the side camera 13 times, which diminished the continuity of the video.
PRODUCTION CHART
Working with these files was interesting
Item
Compared items
Result
The five source files (4 video and 1 audio)
886 MB, total of source files
Each video file
230 MB appx each
13.5% of total source files
Audio file from body mike
7.41 MB
.8% of total source files
Produced the 5:20-minute MP4 video as H.264
Gave 607.119 MB file (70% of source files)
66% larger file size than done with by H.265
Produced the 5:20-minute MP4 video as H.264
58 seconds for the computer to compile as MP4
32% as long as by H.265
Produced the 5:20-minute MP4 video as H.265
Gave 365.047 MB file (41% of source files)
60% file size than done with H.264
Produced the 5:20-minute MP4 video as H.265
150 (2:30) seconds for the computer to compile as MP4
2.58 times as long as by H.264
Note: Some computers and devices require special software to play H.265 encoded video files.
- The moral of the next story is, don't start on a job just before bedtime unless you watch the time closely and are prepared to stop in the middle of the job.
- Since I had about 15 minutes before crawling into bed tonight, I decided to email a couple of my friends about Thursday's comedy competition. That's the reason I was late when I...
- Got to bed at 10:18. In the middle of the night I sort of cheated and reset my daily alarm for later, figuring it was better to get more sleep, although off schedule.
Sun Oct 23 = It was a nearly irresistible challenge so I wasted about an hour putting together the video production chart above in yesterday's blog.
- I tempted to make a couple of confirmation contacts to veterans' posts in Texas. Never got ahold of anyone.
- The new tech Gallium Nitride (GaN) chargers are so good that I researched them and have some in various online shopping carts,pending the results of the tests I conduct with my Sony camcorders in the next few days.
- Did a light arms workout at Anytime Fitness.
- It is forecast to be a little cool tonight, 54° F, so I won't air out but will use the opportunity to do a little experiment with my Aranet-4 CO2 Detector. Theoretically, other factors being the same, carbon dioxide levels should be higher near the floor since CO2 is heavier than air, the main ingredient which is Nitrogen. Tonight at 9pm I put the CO2 detector on top of the 7' book shelf in my library. I'll leave it there a couple of days and then move it to the bottom shelf and compare the results.
- Got to bed at 9:59
Mon Oct 24 = On my Fan Webpage, four or so pictures out of the 137 evaporated. I wonder how that happened. Finding and re-uploading the missing immages fixed the problem. I hope there are not missing images on other web pages. Likely not, since I checked my Shops web page and all 171 images were there.
- I contacted one of the American Legion Posts on my 2023 schedule to confirm their show in April. My contact person texd back that the officers decided to pass on the show. Good news is that I will have another available night. Also the post didn't seem to have it's act together very well.
- With a little skill and a lot of luck I got signed up for the Stir Crazy show on Wednesday, Oct 26, 2022; 7:00pm;
Stir Crazy; E-206 Westgate Entertainment District; 6751 N Sunset Blvd;Glendale, AZ - This evening I ordered the latest technology: a little 20w GaN charger that will easily run two of my camcorders on a tripod. I also ordered another pair of USB Y-cords. I'm embarased. The ones I have now work, but are to big and cluncky to keep in my video box while on tour.
- I did a filal check of the video system I plan to use for recording Thursday's show.
- Got to bed at 10:09
Tue Oct 25 = Today Lance Tyrner's crew fixed two main line leaks in my front yard drip system. The system is showing its age
- I got 20 minutes of sun at solar noon.
- 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
did not load Windows correctly so I had to do another reboot, which was a little slow.
- Got to bed at 9:59
Wed Oct 26 = In anticipation of being out late for comedy tonight, I took a 40 nap.
- Most of the rest of the day was for comedy: preparing my set for tomorrow's 12-minit contest and paring it down to 3 minutes for this evening at the
Stir Crazy comedy club in the Westgate Entertainment District of Glendale.
- As always, it was a fun and packed house with this good group of comedians, in order of schedule:
Lamar Mitchel (host), Anthony Thornton, Joseph Marino, Emmanuel Sam, Jesus Pinon, James Mozingo, Samuel Emmitt, Kingsley Amukamara, Dawson Inglehart, Randhal Rosie, Ian Estrada, Steven Tye, Arizona Lou, Mary Upchurch, Dylan White, Carl Medina and Saskia Bee:
- I started off the evening by selling two shirts before the show and eight more after.
- I did something for the first time that was pretty cool. Since I got all cash for my t-shirts and since a credit union was on the way home and since they had an ATM with a cash counter, I stopped by and deposited all the cash I got for the shirts and a donation for Alzheimer's research. Didn't even have to count it!
- My new 20 W Gallium Nitride (GaN) wall chargers arrived today. I'll use them for the first time, each to power two of my Sony HDR-CX405 camcorders for the entire 2-hour show tomorrow night.
- Got to bed at 10:08
Thu Oct 27 = I wasted a trip to north Scottsdale for my Arizona Urology Specialists appointment in spite of text messages confirming the appointment. Their office left me a voice message at 8:55am, only 3:45 before I left for the appointment. Voice mail, being slow sometimes, I didnot receive the message in time. I am sure their office would feel free to charge me for not canceling an appointment in time if I did it with such short notice. Ah well, stuff happens!
- The cancelation gave me some extra time so on the way home I stopped by Mountainside Fitness for a brief slow heavy arms workout
- It was not as long as I wantted, but I took a 47 minute nap, expecting to stay out late tonight for comedy.
- On the way to the 60+ comedy competition I stopped by St Joseph's to visit
George & Cindy
my younger brother and his wife who live in east Mesa, Arizona and have a mountain place in Christopher Creek
. Cindy is recovering from a stroke. She laughed some and appreciated my visit, although she can't really speak. You might say, when I arrived, she was speechless.
-
Cactus Jack's Bar & Grill way down in the Ahwatukee area of Phoenix was the scene of the First Annual 60+ Comedy Contest - I did my Alzheimer's and Yoga routines in 10:41. Since we had 12:00, I should have done my Posture and/or my Anemometer routines.
- On stage were: Bob Howard (2nd place winner), Ira Summer (1st place winner and from California), Jan Brenner (cohost), Chris Cluff, Sherie Hayes, Arizona Lou, Anthony Solimini (host) and Sandra Risser (3rd place winner):
- Got to bed at 10:21
Fri Oct 28 = I made it! I have been working on it since the first of the year and it took three months but arizonalou.com now shows up #1 for Google searches and not arizonaloukiteboarder.com:
Searching it, I got:
Search for:
Rank
Out of hits
Arizona Lou
First
18,100,000
Arizona Lou T
Fifth after videos etc.
6,470,000,000
Arizona Lou Shirt
Second
965,000,000
Arizona Lou Comedy
First after 6 Arizona Lou videos
460,000,000
Arizona Lou Logo
Second after logo pictures
47,400,000
Favorite Old Man
Only Video was 2nd
852,000,000
Comedy T
Did not show up
639,000,000
America's Favorite Old Man
First
247,000,000
Comedy T-Shirt
Did not show up
208,000,000
T-Shirt
Did not show up
1,780,000,000
Shirt
Did not show up
2,140,000,000
- My Amazon Prime is going to expire at midnight tonight so I celebrated by ordering a giant computer monitor (the same size as my TV): an LG 43UN700-B Monitor UHD 43" (3840 X 2160) IPS Display, USB Type-C, HDR10, 4 HDMI inputs, Multi-Tasking - PBP/PIP, 10w x 2ch Built-in Speakers - Black
- I'll have until Thursday to clean up my act (clean off my desk) and rearrange things to allow for my new 43" monitor.
- After supper I did a brief slow heavy torso workout at LA Fitness, Moon Valley
- This evening I finished my midterm ballot by looking up my US Senate and House candidates at ballotpedia.org and putting the ballot in the mail. This last two weeks I had studied the ballot in stages, the propositions, the judges, the city, the county and then tonight.
- Got to bed at 10:07
Sat Oct 29 = Today's BIG project was to produce a single video from Thursday's 2-hour show and then produce the same show as seven videos, one for each comedian. It went pretty smoothly, but was a BIG job that took more that three hours with the four-camera editing and such.
- I phoned
George and Cindy
my younger brother and his wife who live in east Mesa, Arizona and have a mountain place in Christopher Creek
. Cindy is in rehab and is talking a little now after her stroke.
- Got to bed at 10:09
Sun Oct 30 = After breakast and my comedy writing research I spent about 10 minutes engaged in one of my favorite recreational acitvities: taking things appart. I dived into the guts of an old carbon monoxide (CO) detector. It was interesting. Everything ended up in the trash except the sounder, which operates from 2-20v, in case I ever need one.
- My desk cleanup today involved gettng rid of four old RS-232 and Centronics computer connecting cables and some paper clutter.
- My computer speakers have not been working correctly - very quiet, so I decided to stop by Goodwill for some "new" ones. But first it made sense to find out if the speakers were really the problem. I found out that the culpret was the Kensington SD1500 USB dock I was using to drive the speakers. about 20 minutes of testing saved me some money and a little time installing a "new" system to replace my Dells.
- The Spirit Halloween Store just about knocked my sox off. It had been open for over a month and was a "necessary" stop for some black tooth paint and fake blood to use tomorrow night for my trick-or-treaters. I didn't find either at Dollar Tree or Goodwill. Spirit had the blood but not tooth paint, so I bought a black makeup crayon.
- I did a light legs workout at LA Fitness.
- Just before bed I set out my Trick-or-treat candy.
- Got to bed at 10:02
Mon Oct 31 = Arline lives about two miles northwest from me. This morning, under the auspices of
, I took her to a doctor's appointment way out west in Glendale. I seldom see a waiting room that crowded.
- They finally let her escape during the five minutes that I went to the bathroom. Since she didn't see me in the waiting room she went down the elevator to the lobby and waited for me about an hour. Of course I was up in the waiting room wondering what was taking so long.
- We finally left the office, heading for home. I wanted to stop by a 99¢ only store and there just happened to be one on our way along 63rd Ave, so we stopped by and got some stuff. The main things was over-ripe bananas for 25¢ a pound. I got home for a late lunch, about five hours after leaving home.
- A pair of my metal-framed reading glasses need to be tightened. To avoid having to look it up again I researched then added to my DEFINITIONS web page:
bolt thread lockers are liquids used so your bolts do not loosen. They come in different standard colors for different purposes:
Red: High strength, permanent adhesion. ... requires heat and force to remove
Green: High strength wicking, permanent adhesion. ...apply after parts are assembled
Blue: Medium strength, removable with torque and standard tools. ...
Purple: Low strength, easily removable....
- After supper I had time for a fast trip to Anytime Fitness for a quick, light, arms workout.
- I got back home in time to put on a few black injuries and a little blood and set up some scary Halloween sounds. I set my left computer speaker in the open office window. My subwoofer took care of the rest. I am sure the treaters appreciated the show... especially, every once in a while, 3 seconds of B&H Photo ads or such.
Candy? - Got to bed at 10:13
-
According to Google, here are the places I went on my travels this month:
