Blog Archive 2023 Sep
Fri Sep 1 = Last night, at about 3am when I got up to pee, I also installed the cord channel cover across the master bathroom doorway to my
- elliptical
- Pro-Form Cardio HIIT
.
The question: Would Roomba be able to handle it. Later in the day I did a test and Roomba was OK with it.
- I started off this morning, before eating breakfast, with some booking calls. (Didn't get around to the elliptical until 9:15 pm.).
- Just before leaving this afternoon,
Under the auspices of
- Duet
- The organization I support and through which I take non-driving seniors shopping and to their doctors' appointments
,
to take Myra to the bank, I made a booking call and booked an American Legion show in Panorama City, CA for March 2nd :) All that gave me a record score of
204 on
- The Booking Game
- a game I devised to score when I work on booking comedy shows
.
- On the way home I stopped by a Walmart for some tuna, Dollar Tree for some batteries and hair styling gell, Anytime Fitness for an arms workout and Albertson's, armed with rain checks, for Broccoli and grapes.
- The pulse bars (Elliptical Pro calls them the Console Bracket) wiggle a little on my elliptical so I got out my tool box, removed the upper rear cover (Elliptical Pro calls it the Front Cover) and found that it would take a special size, maybe metric, of Allen wrench to tighten them, so I put everything back together, still wiggling a little.
- Got to bed at 10:59 for 9 hours of sleep
/p>
Sat Sep 2 = This morning I made some booking contacts. When I'd get tired of sitting, I'd lay out 50 of my business cards or stamp them on the back with my QR code. This time I had only 4% duds that I had to restamp.
- Around noon my big project was to create a poster for
The Wayward Tap House when I'm around home here in Phoenix. Getting that done and making 80 microposters took me until about 2:30 this afternoon.
- Got to bed at 11:00 for 8:11 hours of sleep
Sun Sep 3 = What an excellent morning, although it did not start out that way.
- I got up to pee at about 7 this morning and decided to stay up and make a booking phone call to an Elks lodge in Maryland. Being my eighth try, I finally got in touch with the person they told me to contact. She told me that she was no longer the person and I should phone the lodge on Tuesday :(
Then things started to look up with everything going like clockwork until my deadline at noon:
- submitted a long shot to Villages Entertainment in Florida for late May
- designed new microposters for Wednesday's open mic at
Stir Crazy
- did my semi-monthly grocery shopping at Winco Foods
- got flax seed meal and Hebrew National 97% fat free beef franks at Walmart
- bought a metric Allen wrench set with holder at Harbor Freight, the oposite direction
- bought cottage cheese, nectarines, plums and peaches on sale at Fry's
- got home in time to get everything carried in and put away
- practiced the input sequence for five minutes to sign up for Wednesday's open mic before others could
- was so fast I got in at Stir Crazy's signup at noon
- After sunning and lunch I took it easy and made a new poster for Wednesday's Stir Crazy show:
- That was not very hard, but it takes a little time to also make microposters for a show, so I made another poster with no date to use with microposters. After printing out 10 sheets (8 microposters to a sheet), I decided my microposters should have a space to stamp the date so I redid the poster. Then I decided I should add "Be sure to tell Lou when you arrive" so I'll know how many guests I have and maybe get 7 minutes rather than the standard three. After all that, here's the final microposter with the date stamped in:
- I tried the metric Allen wrench set and none of them were the right size for the wiggly pulse bar bolts on my elliptical.
- I finished the evening off with a light fast legs workout at Anytime Fitness, followed by a shoulders-down shower.
- Got to bed at 10:49 for 9:10 hours of sleep using position therapy rather than my CPAP to monitor myself and to stay in practice.
Mon Sep 4 = After breakfast, trying to increase my efficiency, in spite of my
- Mac
- the MacBook Pro I got in May 2023, with an m2 Max processor 64GB of memory and a 2TB SSD hard drive
,
I reorganized my Firefox browser's tabs (now 11) for the things I access most frequently. I've got plenty of memory for that.
- Next was using MailChimp to send out 473 emails for my shows this Wednesday and Thursday. I also put blips up on FaceBook & Twitter.
- The saga of the Wigley Pulse Bars on my
- elliptical
- Pro-Form Cardio HIIT
continues. After some calculations that almost strained my brain, I went to Harbor Freight for a set of 13 SAE allen wrenches. None of them were the right size for the bolts but one of them was close enough to sort of work. The pulse bars still wiggle.
- After supper I stamped my websites secure QR code on the backs of 50 more of my business cards then headed down to:
- EōS Fitness, since most of the other gyms were closed. I did a light arms workout and met Daniel and Cristin, who became my latest fans:
| Daniel Mora; EōS Fitness; N Phoenix AZ; 9/4/23 |
 |
| Cristian Rodriguez; EōS Fitness; N Phoenix AZ; 9/4/23 |
|
The first image with Cristian is the original as cropped. Can you tell what two advanced Android photo features I used for the second image? In the process I almost lost my thinning quiff. In case you wondered, the file size for the first image is 44k and for the second image is 126k, 2.86 times as large.
- Got to bed at 11:00 for 8:59 hours of sleep
Tue Sep 5 = This was a pretty good day for booking. I was busy. I added two shows to my 2024 chedule. While trying to figure out what my
- Mac
- the MacBook Pro I got in May 2023, with an m2 Max processor 64GB of memory and a 2TB SSD hard drive
was doing with files and their locations, it took me 37 minutes for the first one. It took only 8 minutes for the second one. I tied my record, scoring
204 on
- The Booking Game
- a game I devised to score when I work on booking comedy shows
.
- Due to apparent weird things the two large external computer monitors I use here at home turn black, although my
- Mac
- the MacBook Pro I got in May 2023, with an m2 Max processor 64GB of memory and a 2TB SSD hard drive
thinks they are connected. The culprit was the USB dock overheating to about 110° F. All I have to do is to keep it at about 106° F by increasing the airflow around it rather than have it sitting flat on my desk.
- I went over and timed my stand up comedy routines for tomorrow night's show at
Stir Crazy. Two routines: one for 3 minutes and an extended one for 7 minutes if I have three or more paying guests.
- After supper I went to Planet Fitness for a light torso workout and these three new fans:
| Cory; Planet Fitness, N Phoenix, AZ 9/5/23 |
 |
| Diego Cano & Anthony Tamayo; Planet Fitness, N Phoenix, AZ 9/5/23 |
 |
- Got to bed at 10:43 for 8:58 hours of sleep before an early alarm
Wed Sep 6 = The early alarm this morning was at 7:40 to take Richard to his dentist under the auspices of
- Duet
- The organization I support and through which I take non-driving seniors shopping and to their doctors' appointments
. While waiting for him I worked a little on my website with my Mac and got these two new fans:
| Joy Rogatsky & Jenny Trudeau; Greyhawk Dental, N Scottsdale, AZ; 9/6/23 |
 |
- Back home I ate lunch, fixed supper and stowed it and a Protein Frosty in my van refrigerator, took a nap, added five new fans to my fan webpage (took me an average of five minutes each for the three pictures) and took off to the west for
Stir Crazy, publicing the show, doing a brief slow heavy legs workout, my
- poster trim
- weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
, taking a shower and getting these two new fans at the Arrowhead Mountainside Fitness.
| Douglas McDowell; Arrowhead Mountainside Fitness, Glendale AZ; 9/6/23 |
 |
| Daniel Sanchez; Arrowhead Mountainside Fitness, Glendale AZ; 9/6/23 |
 |
- At Westgate traffic was slow due to a
Drake concert. Parking was $30 or $25 for parking farther away and getting more exercise. Guess which one I chose. Later I found out that there was a complicated way I could have had my parking validated by Stir Crazy so it turns out that I donated $25 to the City of Glendale.
- The comedy show was a good one with these comedians, listed in their approximate
order of appearance, but not pictured that way.
- Left over for this show, I have 13 microposters that are now out of date. That is 1.6 pages of 8-up posters. Not too bad and better than running out.
- Got to bed at 10:56 for 8:41 hours of sleep
Thu Sep 7 = The main thing I did today was bookings. Right now I am working mostly on the San Franando Valley of California in March and Maryland in late June. Booked two new shows...
- At noon I sunned under the beautiful blue Phoenix sky.
- This evening I made lemonaide. My schedule was running tight, but on the way to The Wayward Tap House for tonight's open mic I had to fill up with gas at Costco.
- At the tap house, about a half hour before the show was scheduled to begin, we were apologetically informed that their Wi-Fi was down, not expected to be up for maybe three hours, they could not use their register, could not sell anything, would be closing and there would be no comedy show.
- The lemonaide: I circulated around the gathered patrons and comedians hocking my T-shirt and sold one.
- More lemonaide: On the way home I stopped by the East Camelback LA Fitness for a heavy arms workout and got home in time to catch up on some computer work.
- Got to bed at 11:10 for 9 hours of sleep
Fri Sep 8 = This afternoon I used my new self-inking QR stamp to add my website's QR code to the back of 50 more of my business cards. Due to less-than-good inking, I had to double check about 5 of the QR codes with my phone and had to to redo two of the 50 that could not be read. That is 4%. So far after stamping the backs of only 150 business cards, the stamp is not doing so well. I reinked the ink pad. We'll see if that improves things. (Saturday I did 50 more cards and it was a little better and I learned, good news, that the stamp did a better job when I did the stamping quickly. That will save time).
- My Brother Laser printer had a faded area to the left when printing in B&W, so I slapped it around a little (hit it on each side in an attempt to spread the toner out a little better). Didn't work so I took out each of the four cartridges and shook them up with my special pattern. It improved the print.
- I created tickets for my, as yet unconfirmed, appearance at CB Live on the 24th and was printing them out when I got rough with my printer. I changed the date, enlarged the fonts on the bottom half and enlarged the QR code since they will be in the form of microposters.
- A little before 9:30 this evening I rushed off to LA Fitness for a heavy torso workout. I got home in time to get to bed a little early, then realized I had forgotten to include the lemonaide in yesterday's blog. By the time I got that done and re-uploaded the revised blog, I...
- got to bed at 11:25 for 9 hours of sleep until the alarm I had Alexa change to later.
Sat Sep 9 = Before going to the kitchen to fix breakfast this morning, I completed and timed my morning routine. It took 8 minutes to:
- complete my Pixel 4a's SleepBot for the night
- open the blinds
- turn on the master bedroom lights
- shave
- brush my hair (what little is left)
- put on deodorant
- pee while reading a page of a Mark Twain speech before congress, on my Kindle
- update the night's paper sleep record, which includes the time sleeping, the pee and the bedroom temperature
- run on my
- elliptical
- Pro-Form Cardio HIIT
for two minutes
- record the run
- As the result of the above, I reset my regular morning alarm to 7:52. The idea being to get my days off to a good start and get to the kitchen in time for the automatic news that starts at 8am.
- Some experts say you should make your bed when you first get up to give you a sense of accomplishment and set you up for a good day. Well, I don't make my bed because, in the summer, there's nothing to make and in the winter it is a waste of time. I figure the above morning routne accomplishes the same thing, requiring focus and discipline... and saves time... unless I spend 20 minutes on this blog bragging about my morning accomplishment.
- After some additional research I bought Apple's Pro Apps Bundle which includes the Final Cut Pro video editor which I need. It should work well with my
- Mac
- the MacBook Pro I got in May 2023, with an m2 Max processor 64GB of memory and a 2TB SSD hard drive
and, according to the instructions I downloaded, can sync by audio :)
- I left no stone unturned, rechecking the information for my 2024 tour venues. I had to adjust the data for four venues to assure that all the dates for my 2024 shows were correct, that all my progress notes were correct and up-to-date and all were entered properly on my Google Calendar. What a job. Always my calendar grid and website are correct.
- Also I reorganized "Progress" field for my Booking spreadsheet and now was all set to begin sending out contracts, which I did - 11 of 'em.
- I am trying to think of the best name for my California tour in March. What do you think about "Veterans Appreciation San Fernando Valley Tour 2024" - too long, eh?
- Tonight I did a light arms workout here in my home gym.
- Got to bed at 10:56 for 8:56 hours of sleep. Since I am experimenting with drinking more water during the day, I had to get up and pee 4.2 times :(
Sun Sep 10 = This morning's project was to make a show "poster" that will display on a 16:9 TV since many venues want to do that:
The poster does not include "Veterans Appreciation National Tour" because there wasn't room for it without a cluttered look. Hopefully most of the people who see it will already know.
|
Harbinger Balance Trainer
|
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- Keeping my body going, I spent a little time balancing, well trying to balance, on my Harbinger Balance Trainer (more information in
Health and Fitness on my Smart Stuff web page).
- A little after three o'clock this afternoon I quickly slapped together most of a sandwich to eat on the way to eastern Mesa to see
- George & Cindy
- my younger brother and his wife (who had a masive stroke) who live in east Mesa, Arizona
.
George was feeding Cindy. Cindy seemed to be in a pretty good mood and chuckled a lot but still can not put a sentense together. We visited for a little over an hour.
- On the way home I stopped by Mountainside Fitness for a light arms workout.
- Back home I read about 9 more pages of the instruction manual for FCP
- Later I got too drowsy to function at my computer so I did a "moving around" project that had been on the back burner for about a month... moving the Credenza in my office six inches to the east so I can keep my computer bag at the end by the wall. That project involved removing some of the heavier contents, removing some drawers and a little waddling of the Credenza. COX had installed an Optical Network Terminal (ONT) box on the wall blocking where I used to put the case
- I did my brushing and flossing early while watching the first part of SNL (Saturday Night Live) and some of Jimmy Fallon's monologues from the Tonight Show - all reruns.
- Got to bed at 10:47 for 9:11 hours of sleep
Mon Sep 11 = I did some booking this morning but did not book any additional shows.
- Today at solar noon I lay in the sun for 20 minutes.
- Of course it didn't work like they said in their instructions. In spite of that I got Final Cut Pro (FCP) downloaded and installed on my
- Mac
- the MacBook Pro I got in May 2023, with an m2 Max processor 64GB of memory and a 2TB SSD hard drive
. To familiarize myself with
- FCP
- Final Cut Pro X the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
.
I started working with the five media files from my last 5-minute set from El Charo Hipster. I found that, at least initially, trimming the files with QuickTime Player before I imported them into FCP was more efficient than doing it in FCP.
- Got to bed at 11:09 for 8:50 hours of sleep
Tue Sep 12 = After an early lunch I scooted off to Mountainside Fitness for a
- poster trim
- weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
and shower. No time for a shower.
- My ENT in the Sunnyslope area was the next stop to check out my left ear. While waiting I updated this blog.
- Next was LA Fitness for a light workout and and three new fans:
- Then on to Safeway for bananas that were on sale for 39¢ a pound and Yoplait yogurt at 37¢ each with a digital coupon. I couldn't get the digital coupon to work and the store lady a had to call the manager twice to get the job done. What a mess!
- Last stop was Dollar Tree for some tall kitchen trash bags since my last one is hanging out in my tall kitchen trash can and to forget a a get well card for my borther.
- Here at home I ate a late supper
- I have just about decided that my Christmas present to myself is going to be hearing aids. It pushed me over when I had to ask the ENT secretary to repeat herself.
- Of course I started researching hearing and hearing aids. So far as the hearing, this is what I came up with: The first audiogram charts common and other speech sounds sounds. The
speech banana encompasses common conversation. The second audiogram is my hearing (X=left ear and O=right ear). Even my right ear (good ear) is deficient. Audiograms plot the louder sounds at the bottom.
- Got to bed at 11:06 for 9:01 hours of sleep
Wed Sep 13 = This morning I took Marcia "marsha" to her doctor's appointment under the auspices of
- Duet
- The organization I support and through which I take non-driving seniors shopping and to their doctors' appointments
.
My phone sent me to an address that was 2.1 miles west of where I was to pick her up. At Marcia's doctor's office, while waiting for her, I researched hearing aids and found that there are only two that include hands-free phone use, which I need, and both are behind-the-ear models.
- After dropping Marcia off at her house I went by Dollar tree for a get-well card and by Esporta Fitness for a heavy arms workout and Bob, a new fan:
| Bob Cafarella; Esporta Fitness, E Bell Rd, Phoenix AZ; 9/13/23 |
 |
- Word from MailChimp: of the 470 emails I sent for last week's Stir Crazy comedy show, 465 were delivered and of those 136 (29%) were opened.
- It took me most of the afternoon to figure out the parcils and property taxes for the raw desert land I own out west. Now I am prepared to plunk down over $2k the last of the month for the first half of my county taxes :(
- I didn't get very far reading the instructions and trying to do multicam processing with
- FCP
- Final Cut ProX the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
so I started watching a video that was supposed to show how to do it. After about three minutes of video it was my bed time.
- Got to bed at 10:55 for 8:56 hours of sleep
Thu Sep 14 = This morning I sequenced things that I need to do to decide if I really want to go to Europe next September. The trigger is IFA in Berlin Germany.
- This evening I phoned
- Rose Anne
- My X wife who lives in Payson by a lake
for her take on the idea since she has traveled all over the world. Her recent trip to Europe got pretty frustrating with all the flight delays. She suggested the train to get around the continent.
- My
IRIScan needed new batteries and, with them, would not power on. It's about time as I have had it about 7.5 years.
- I was given an unwanted, but appreciated, gift this evening: five hours. Before leaving for my gym/comedy trip I phoned the Wayward Tap House and Adrian there said, "It doesn't look like we're having a comedy show tonight." That little phone call saved me a 40 mile drive with slow rush-hour traffic. All the time I had spent on the new routine for tonight was not wasted. I'll have it ready for next time, which hopefully will be next week. If they keep canceling their shows, I may have to consider another open mic as my Phoenix home base.
- So this evening I never made it out of the house but got other things done:
- researched a replacement for my IRIScan
- paid off all my credit cards
- tried to resolve checking account
- organized some things for my possible tour of Europe
- Got to bed at 11:13 for 9:02 hours of sleep
Fri Sep 15 = The government keeps reaching its hand into my pockets for taxes. Today I paid over $4k in quarterly estimates. Why? Because I sold my rental house last year. Then at the last of this month I'll pay over $2.6k to Maricopa County for my semi-annual property taxes.
- I have been researching portable wand document scanners and hearing aids. I almost do not need the scanner because my cell phone has a powerful document scanning feature but, unfortunately only creates PDF files and not JPGs.
- Got to bed at 11:14 for 8:38 hours of sleep
Sat Sep 16 = This afternoon I made some preliminary phone calls to local travel agents for my possible European trip in about a year. I actually spoke with one human being.
- Nine days ago I put in for the CB Live New Faces show, but never heard back. Today Rob Greene, the producer, sent me an email saying that he had computer problems and that I am down for the show so I posted announcements and tickets (that I made over a week ago) on FaceBook and Twitter. Y'all come if you can:
- In my email list I purged two who requested to be unsubscribed through MailChimp and prepared an email to send out for next Sunday's show.
- This afternoon I checked out all the comedians appearing tonight at the various comedy clubs in the Phoenix area and bought tickets for my first choice, headliner Robert Kelley, at Stand Up Live. Since the 7pm show was sold out I opted for the 9:45pm show and 3 naps to make up for last night's deficit and to prepare for being out late tonight.
- I never made it to a gym today :(
- Tonight's show was awesome. The host was my comedian friend Zac Allen, originally from Montana; the opener was Xazmin Garza, originally from New York, who I saw at the Stir Crazy open mic on the 6th; and the headliner, of course, Robert Kelly. He interacted a lot and did a lot of good natured "picking" on audience members, including me, sitting right by the stage, stage left. Toward the first he asked what I had done today. Of course I responded with, "I got up!"
- I was honored to sell Robert Kelly two T-shirts, to have him as my latest fan and a chance to adjust a photo for a horrible lighting situation:
Experiment: First pic: original lighting
Second pic adjusted in Android cell phone:
Filter (Ollie twice); Adjust (tint, skin tone, brightness & contrast)
Comedian Robby Kelly; Stand Up Live; Phoenix AZ; 9/16/23 |
 |
- Leaving the CityScape parking was a challenge. Left or right? Who knows!
In addition to this confusion, the 2nd St exit was blocked indefinitely by a staff member who did not have his card to exit. Fortunately there ws no one in line behind me so I could back out and find another exit with the confusing arrows.
- Got to bed at 1:06am for 7:56 hours of sleep
Sun Sep 17 = My target was the Sunday morning gym crowd at Mountainside fitness for passing out tickets for next Sunday's show. Instead I spent most of my short morning getting this Blog updated and adding stuff to my website.
- After lunch and a sleep-catch-up nap I figured out how to send the emails I had prepared, announcing next Sunday's show, using MailChimp. Sent out 170 of 'em.
MailChimp's system gave my email 7 out of 9 (78%) for following their Best Practices
- 2 out of 2 for Typography (Lookin' good)
- 3 out of 3 for Links & CTAs (Awesome)
- 1 out of 1 for Text & Cisuals (Great work)
- 1 out of 3 for Skimmability (try and use 25 or fewer words per sentence)
- This afternoon I finished off the balance of the $100 Walmart gift card I had won by filling out one of their surveys, by ordering a MABOTO Portable Handheld Wand Wireless Scanner to replace the defunct IRIScan I have had for over seven years.
- I didn't make it to Mountainside until time for the Sunday evening crowd. I got in a light fast legs workout and got three new fans:
| Erick Huese; Mountainside Fitness, Desert Ridge, Phoenix AZ; 9/17/23 |
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| Anthony Pollicino; Mountainside Fitness, Desert Ridge, Phoenix AZ; 9/17/23 |
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| Angelica Rayon; Mountainside Fitness, Desert Ridge, Phoenix AZ; 9/17/23 |
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- Got to bed at 10:50 for 9:02 hours of sleep
Mon Sep 18 = My printer started working, unexpectedly and I didn't know how to clear the queue so it printed about six pages from the last couple of days.
- In spite of my headache, this afternoon before supper, I went down to EōS Fitness, for a light fast arms workout and a new fan:
| Zack Haller; EōS Fitness, N Phoenix AZ 9/18/23 |
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- Got to bed at 10:50 for 9:02 hours of sleep. It was the first time this season I put on covers (no fan at last)... a sheet. My bedroom got down to 83.6° F. Because of the headache, during the night I checked my oral body temperature several times. By morning it was up to 98.6° F, which is a little high for me.
Tue Sep 19 = Since I have had a mild headache for the last couple of days, I took it a little easy today. Since I was scheduled to get some sun for my vitemin D I sunned, but only 8 minutes a side rather than my usual 10. After the sun I rode my elliptical the same two minutes and but at a level of 11 instead of 12.
- This afternoon, and again this evening I had my first visual anomalies (its unusual for me to have two in one day) in almost three months.
- This evening, something else weird, I had trouble with words. I could only stammer at the Mountainside Fitness Trainers' Counter when I tried to explain what I had lost: the grip stick I use for forearm exercises. Also there were some other things that I was aware of not being able to verbalize to myself. This lasted about a half hour or so.
- I did my
- poster trim
- weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
,
took a shower, did a light fast torso workout and got two new fans:
| Lawson Key; Desert Ridge Mountainside Fitness, Phoenix AZ; 9/19/23 |
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| Nino Veronese; Desert Ridge Mountainside Fitness, Phoenix AZ; 9/19/23 |
 |
- Einstein got 10 hours of sleep a night. In my case, since I have been having a mild headache the last three or four days, I decided I would try getting more than 9 hours of sleep at night by going to bed earlier. So tonight I...
- Got to bed at 10:12 for 9:30 hours of sleep
Wed Sepp 20 = While I was sitting in my throne room taking care of business, I received a phone call from Brandon at Esporta Fitness that they had found my grip stick. He said he would leave it at the front desk for me. Thank you so much Brandon!
- I pretty much finished my hearing aid research. Also I spoke with my audiologist by phone and, as always, learned some stuff. Phonak, the company that makes the Phonak Audeo Lumity 90 hearing aids that I have my eye on, also makes the Phonak Berto-P (The Phonak Berto L is coming but no better than Berto P), a half-shell in-the-ear hearing aid that has cell phone hands-free capability, and is neither rechargeable nor waterproof. So back to the Phonak Audeo Lumity 90.
- Custom ear moulds are not typically used nowadays (although covered by my insurance) because the hearing aids come with about 20 different tips and one of them is bound to fit.
The hearing aids come with an anchor (sport lock). The only time people have had trouble with the aids falling out is when doing sprints.
Rechargeable batteries last about 17 hours and can typically be recharged during a nap.
- On the way to the gym and shopping I stopped by my nearest hearing aid dispensary and got acquainted with the secretary and some of their offerings. They even offer special plans for helping people who bought their hearing aids online and would like help with the setup etc.
- For a possible Europe tour, I made a spreadsheet of 19 countries with latitudes of their capital cities. Then it was easy to sort north-to-south for routing insights.
- In preparation for tomorrow night's show, I have been trying to learn the sequence for my new and different Alzheimer's set.
- Got to bed at 11:02 for 9:57 hours of sleep
Thu Sep 21 = Ya gain some and ya lose some. On the way to this evening's comedy, I picked up the grip stick I had left at Esporta Fitness, left a thank you note there for Brandon and did a quick arms workout.
- In the losing department I had the little expensive Sony ICD-UX560 digital recorder, that I use as a body mic during my comedy shows, around my neck on a lanyard. In the process of bench presses, inverted shrugs etc it fell off of the lanyard's hook into my T-shirt. At the end of my workout, it was nowhere to be found. Fortunately I have a spare, which I bought a couple years ago when my original got "lost" down in my van on a road tour.
- Down at the Wayward Tap House, before the show I got a new fan:
| Gavin Peltz; Wayword Tap House, Phoenix AZ; 9/21/23 |
 |
- For my set, I did a new Alzheimers routine about every-day activities. After the show these two reporters (writing about Alzheimers for The Arizona Republic Newspaper) each bought a T-shirt and became my latest fans:
| Sahana Jayaraman and Caitlin McGlade; Wayward Tap House, Phoenix AZ; 9/21/23 |
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- Got to bed at 10:24 for 9:28 hours of sleep
Fri Sep 22 = At 8:20 this morning
- George
- younger brother who lives in Mesa, Arizona
's
open hart surgery started. He is certainly in my thoughts and, yes, prayers. (After about two hours they put him back together and he is doing well). I am sure God couldn't have done it without me :)
- I spent way too much time checking the prices of the Phonak Audeo Lumity 90 (BTE) and the Phonak Virto Paradise (ITE) hearing aids. I think I will be going with the former. The latter is not nearly as popular, is not waterproof and also has a higher return rate by purchasers.
- This afternoon I dumped out my entire gym bag, repacked it and found half of what I was looking for: the power supply for my 4TB backup drive. I did not find the Sony ICD-UX560. Dumping and repacking wasn't a total waste of time because, while I was doing that, I listened to Rich on Tech which is one of my
Favorite Talk Shows . Also my gym bag is lighter and better organized now.
- This afternoon's Europe project was probably a waste of time, but I mapped all the open mic locations & days listed on
BadSlava. Next will be to locate English comedy clubs.
- This evening with the help of a video, I worked on
- FCP
- Final Cut ProX the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
.
until I ran across a roadblock. Something mentioned on the video did not exist :(
- Got to bed at 10:38 for 9:18 hours of sleep
Sat Sep 23 = When I got up to go to the kitchen after a session sitting at my computer I experienced pain around the rear of the 1st Metarasal when I'd put weight on my right foot so I:
- quit putting weight on it when I'd walk
- messaged it with my massager from three different directions
- iced the foot for 10 minutes
- elevated the foot for about 20 minutes
- (by the end of the day the foot was pretty close to normal)
- I spent some time on booking - mostly for southern Alabama for late April. I am in the initial stages so far and am still trying to find the honchos.
- I had two sessions with
- FCP
- Final Cut ProX the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
.
today; each until I hit a brick wall because I couldn't find a button they said to use.
- Trying to spread the word in all directions about tomorrow evening's show, I drove down to EōS Fitness for a brief light fast legs workout and two new fans:
| Keith Renteria and Aliya Kubala; EōS Fitness, N Phoenix; 9/23/23 |
 |
- My
MABOTO Portable Handheld Wand Wireless Scanner A4 Size 900DPI JPG/PDF Formate LCD Display with Protecting Bag for Business Document Reciepts Books Images was in the mailbox when I got home :)
- Got to bed at 10:53 for 9:02 hours of sleep
Sun Sep 24 = What is a balanced fund? I didn't know but it is really simple and this morning I ran across this
Forbs Article that explainns it. It is an investment that might be a good option for more consiverative thinkers or those nearing retirement.
Recreational Distructive Disassembly is always fun for me. I impulsed this afternoon and my target was the IriScan wand scanner that quit working. Pictured approximately top-to-bottom is the:
- main body
- scan array
- RF antenna
- main circuit board with control switches
- top cover with the buttons and battery holder
- control pannel cover
- RF card holder and connector
- RF card for wireless operation
What a combination of technology! In the disassembly process I learned to look more closely for screws that held the thing together and to try peeling off the the control cover to expose more screws.
- I am complete now after doing what made sense rather than what was easiest:
- On this afternoon's trip, after getting some very large Honeycrisp apples (#2 on my list of favorite apples) at Fry's I realized that I had left the lanyard at home for my body mike; a necessary piece of comedy equipment for my shows. Driving home for it would put me behind schedule. I decided to do it anyway and drove home to get the lanyard, then back to Esporta Fitness which was across the street from Fry's. That stop was to to see if the Sony ICD-UX560 digital recorder, that I use as a body mic during my comedy shows had been turned in. The gal at the front desk found it in their drawer of expensive lost stuff. That made me complete. There was no time to work out but I checked in anyway so they would get paid for my visit by Silver Sneakers.
- Next stop was Mountainside Fitness. After my shower and fixing my hair (that was a joke) there was no time for a workout but only to scoot across Tatum Blvd to
CB Live to set up my T-shirts and cameras.
- It was an excellent, supportive crowd of about 120 who cheered all us comedians along.
- Back home I ate half of a honeycrisp and...
- Got to bed at 10:53 for 8:59 hours of sleep
Mon Sep 25 = This afternoon when I got too drowsy to function at the computer I took a nap. Later in the afternoon I got gasoline at Costco, saving $8 on my 20-gallon fill-up. Then went to Anytime Fitness for a light arms workout and to give them some feedback, being an experienced gym rat.
- This evening, when I got too drowsy to work with
- FCP
- Final Cut ProX the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
,
I went to a project that has been waiting for over 1.5 months on a back burner, my bed. Here is my attempt to convert a king-sized jersey fitted sheet into a queen-sized mattress cover using button thread: The planning, the bottom and the top:
The cover has to be jersey to be complient with my special mattress. The unknown is if the 1" pressure-point dispersing foam topper will shift, which it tended to do without all three layers tied together.
- Got to bed at 10:56 for 8:56 hours of sleep, getting up to pee only twice :)
- The white image of my mattress planning is the first official use I made of my new wand scanner. Like my old defunct IriScan it does an excellent job of white paper with both JPG and PDF file formats.
Tue Sep 26 = It surely felt good to wake up this morning in my "brand new" bed! I am trying to not sit on the edge, but as far back as my thighs will allow. Hopefully that will keep my 1" pressure-point dispersing foam topper from shifting. In case it does shift, I am sitting in the middle of the side rather than nearer the foot like I have been doing. If the topper does shift, I'll plan on rotating the mattress 180° to get it to shift back.
- Only three stops on today's trip, which was after supper: Aldi for Sauerkraut (they were out of blackberries and do not give rain checks); Mountainside Fitness for a poo, a light fast torso workout a
- poster trim
- weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
and a shower; Albertson's for red seedless grapes at 77¢ a pound.
- This evening had another hour of frustration, trying to figure out
- FCP
- Final Cut ProX the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
.
- Got to bed at 10:59 for 8:53 hours of sleep
Wed Sep 27 = As usual this morning after breakfast I worked on booking for my 2024 tour. If I had more umption I'd get up early for the east coast phone calls, but I've got to get my beauty rest.
- Under the auspices of
- Duet
- The organization I support and through which I take non-driving seniors shopping and to their doctors' appointments
I took Dana to see her doctor. She can't drive for a while due to recent back surgery. She lives close to my house but her doctor is way north. On the way home we stopped by Home Depot where she became a new fan of mine:
| Diana M; Home Depot N Phoenix AZ; 9/27/23 |
 |
- - FCP
- Final Cut ProX the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
is a confusing mess of stuff, so I started an online class that explained, the way I understand it, that FCP's folders are called Events with dates as default names, subfolders are called Libraries, subfolders under Libraries are called Projects and video files under that are called Clips, unless you're talking about multicam videos, then they're called Angles and need to be given a name, usually different than the name of the Clip. All this is saved in a big blob with an extension of ".fcpbundle" instead of normal folders.
- After supper I had one of my protein frosties and earned it by going to LA Fitness for a heavy legs workout and these two new fans:
| Joseph Camberos; Moon Valley LA Fitness, Phoenix AZ; 9/27/23 |
 |
| Daniel F; Moon Valley LA Fitness, Phoenix AZ; 9/27/23 |
 |
- This evening ti took me 32 minutes to pay over $2k in property taxes to the county :(
- Got to bed in time for 9 hours of sleep
Thu Sep 28 = I had an unusual booking phone call this morning because any booking phone call TO me is unusal. All in this one phone call Cathy scheduled the show and we worked out the details:
Sun Apr 21, 2024; 5:00pm;
American Legion Post 240; 8666 Gulf Beach Hwy;
Pensacola, FL 32507 -
- This evening was comedy at
The Wayward Tap House. I couldn't believe what I saw when I arrived there around 5:40 - three empty parking places in their little 5-car parking lot. Of course I slipped right into one. In spite of skipping my gym visit I didn't get there as early as I had hoped and was about the 13th comedian to arrive. The list came out at 6pm and when I got to sign up I had my choice: number 20 or number 1. Although my favorite spot is about number 6, number 1 looked pretty good. At 81, I was pretty sure of still being around when my turn came up.
- It was a good show and I sold one T-shirt.
- Got to bed at 11:07 for 9 hours of sleep
Fri Sep 29 = This morning was mostly for Total Solar Eclipse Planning, phoning a Kerr County TX Sheriff deputy, and a realty company, trying to contact the land owner for the place from which I want to watch the eclipse. Nice people, but no dice. Finally I found a possible address for the possible property owner and mailed him a letter on my comedy letterhead with business cards, brochure and a microposter.
- I ordered all new CPAP supplies, for which I had to request a referral from my PCP doctor.
- Most of the rest of the day was spent with
- - FCP
- Final Cut ProX the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
,
watching most of three videos to figure it all out. I think I got the multicam figured out... still complicated and confusing.
- Next thing will be to figure out how to get the video from FCP to a usable format.
- Got to bed at 10:52 for 8:58 hours of sleep
Sat Sep 30 = This morning I revised my
- The Booking Game
- a game I devised to score when I work on booking comedy shows
sheet to make it easier to use. Originally my goal was to have 30 days per page, but my clipboards always covered up the heading information and I never used a page per month anyway, so I increased the top margin and shortened the rest of the page to fit the sheets of paper. While I was at it, I made it easer to follow the columns by making the wide column dividers every three columns rather than every four. The old version is below followed by the latest:
- AI (artificial intelligence) helped me decide to day which veterans' posts to contact in Alabama for the April/May portion of next year's tour. I am looking for posts that are active and take care of business. I made a number of initial contacts but didn't schedule any shows today.
- After 42 days of using the Microsoft Swiftkey on my Pixel 7 cell phone, I uninstalled it. The advantage of having a number row of keys was outweighed by the awkwardness of its use of voice.
- It was a relaxing new challenge for me to figure out how to add the first submit form to my website. If I can figure how to obtain the information, t will simplify things for people who want to be added to my email list by replacing a link on my Comedy Home page with a single-line form requesting to be added to my email list.
- While I was at it I created a web page mimiking that of Stir Crazy's Open Mic Signup so I can practice using Firefox's auto-fill. Tomorrow I'll try it out and see if Stir Crazy uses standard auto-fill code on their website.
- Got to bed at 10:57 for 8:07 hours of sleep
