Sun Oct 1 = My work and practice paid off. I'm on Wednesday evening's 7:00 show at:
Stir Crazy; E-206 Westgate Entertainment District; 6751 N Sunset Blvd;Glendale, AZ If you come, please tell me when you arrive so I can count you as my guest... and get 7 minutes instead of 3. You might want to get Tickets ahead of time because this show frequently sells out.
- What a piece of design technology! A lady had a sleek folding stool at one of my comedy shows back East. She used it to get up onto the high bar chairs and I borrowed it to adjust one of my high cameras. I figured it could help the
guests get up into my van so I ordered one. It arrived today from Amazon. It cost about the same with delivery as one at Harbor Freight except my stool is more compact, better engineered, easier to operate easier to cary and not ugly black.
- In the comedy department, took the day off from booking but outlined some topics for the October open mics I plan to attend.
- For this evening's trip I bought bananas at the 99¢ Only Store and then did a slow hevy torso workout and got these two new fans at the Moon Valley LA Fitness:
Mari Jones; Moon Valley LA Fitness, Phoenix AZ 10/1/23
Robert Loa; Moon Valley LA Fitness, Phoenix AZ 10/1/23
- Got to bed at 10:35 9:15 hours of sleep when I woke up needing to pee before my alarm
Mon Oct 2 = A little after solar noon, after the clouds cleared, I lay in the sun. This afternoon I updated my Brother color laser printer's firmware, installed a new black toner cartridge and cleaned the LED aray lenses.
- Three weeks after sending out seven contracts for scheduled shows I have received none back, so today started touching bases with my contact people. Various things happened like being busy, in the hospital now and a contract ending up in a spam folder.
- Of course I vote for the salad. While booking I ran across this sign on the FaceBook page for The American Legion Post 18 in Opelika, AL:
- After supper I made a new batch of six of my
Frosties
The The 9oz chocolate/cinnamon protein treat, that I mix up six at a time, which is my weekly reward for doing a heavy legs workout
.
This is the only thing I use my Ninja blender for.
- Got to bed at 10:55 for 8:55 hours of sleep
Tue Oct 3 = This evening I went to some stores for groceries on sale and then to Mouontainside Fitness for a light full-body workout,
poster trim
weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
,
a shower and these new fans, making a total so far of 912 fans.
Zach H & Gabe P; Desert Ridge Mountainside Fitness, Phoenix AZ; 10/3/23
- It took me a half hour to find how to delete things in Gimp because Apple computers do not have a delete key, and another half hour to figure out how to draw a straight line. Gimp is a very powerful image editor that is also very complicated.
- Got to bed at 11:35 for 8:21 hours of sleep
Wed Oct 4 = This morning after breakfast and after attempting three booking phone contacts I sent out five contracts for shows in Texas and Florida. It took me an average of six minutes each, after I found and corrected two minor errors on my Tour Schedule.
- Under the auspices of
I took Maria to her doctor. She lived a ways away and her long appointment put me a little behind so I only had time for a nap before scooting off to Glendale for the Stir Crazy show without time to stop by a gym.
- There was a big car show at Westgate so Stir Crazy didn't have a full house. I did three minutes about hearing aids for my Christmas present. The comedy show was a good one with these comedians, listed in their approximate order of appearance, but not pictured that way:
- When I got home, even after several trys, my garage door would open only about three inches. Walking through the house into the garage revealed that the west torsion spring was broken. The door was too heavy for me to budge by hand and the garage door opener and I working together with a rope could only get the door up about five inches.
- I put the door back down and locked my van up for the night out in the driveway.
- Got to bed at 11:12 for 8:58 hours of sleep
Thu Oct 5 = The project this morning was a time-stealer, but needed to be done: I watched some videos on replacing my broken garage-door spring and decided I could do it myself for about $60, because I have done it before at another house. I also decided that it might be a better judgment for me to hire it done... depending on the cost. After phoning several companies I had it done for about 10 times the money, but it was finished in less than an hour. I did negotiate for about half the original quoted price. Patrick replaced both springs, the three tube-shaft bearings, cables, winding drums and lubricated everything. Thanks goodness for my emergency fund.
- In the booking department, I worked out show details with two venues and, due to the venues being in different time zones, made some booking phone calls which put me late leaving on today's trip.
- I didn't get away in time to do any grocery shopping, but did down a
Frosty
The The 9oz chocolate/cinnamon protein treat, that I mix up six at a time, which is my weekly reward for doing a heavy legs workout
on the way to the Colonnade LA Fitness for a very brief slow heavy legs workout and to eat my supper sandwich, banana and pecans on the way to
The Wayward Tap House.
- Getting there later than I had hoped, I was about the 15th comedian. For some reason the comedians shy away from the first two slots so they were still available for me. I decided slot two was better than slot 15 so I took it. There weren't as many audience members there for my set, but at least I did not have to wait until late to go up.
- As of this show, I started trying something new. Tell whatever happened to me the last few days and try to make it funny. The audience was fairly responsive to the idea, the birthday card I sent my 50-year-old daughter, my broken torsion spring and, of course, my T-shirts.
- I left the show a little after nine and, having made my grocery list in Google Drive, I kept on my shopping schedule by doing my grocery shopping at Winco on the way home. At this time of the night the store was not crowded so shopping was fairly efficient... and I found a good way to get rid of the T-shirt cash I have collected: Winco, since they do not accept credit cards.
- Got to bed at 11:03 for 8:56 hours of sleep
newsletter I discovered an interesting TED talk about a continuing 75-year study of longevity, happiness and brain function. The subjects who started as boys are now in their 90's. The study has found that, by far, the number one factor was having relationships with other people. The people did not necessarily always get along, but had to be able to depend on one another. I think of Jackie Gleason and The Honeymooners.
- For my comedy shows, sending out contracts has the disadvantage of, in many cases, slowing the booking process by requiring board or membership approval. The advantage of doing the extra work is that more people at the post are involved and the show is more likely to be supported.
- This evening I went to Anytime Fitness for a slow heavy arms workout and and sold a T-shirt to Jonathan, who became my latest fan:
Jonathan Wade; Anytime Fitness N Phoenix, AZ; 10/6/23
and then on to Albertson's for romaine lettuce and grapefruit.
- Back at home it took me four minutes to add Jonathan to my fan web page. Then I organized my hearing aid research, already knowing which one I want.
- Got to bed at 11:24 for 9:01 hours of sleep
Sat Oct 7 = I spent all morning doing more research on hearing aids by deciding which on-line resources to check with.
- This afternoon I added this panoramic to my Smart Stuff web page. It kept my brain working to format it into a table.
It is my little gym at home. Instead of saying the gym is in my master bedroom, you might say my bed is in a corner of the gym.
Left to right is:
Rowing machine
Latt bar, suspended from the cealing by a rope
Modified dip stand that I use primarily for inverted shrugs
(on which climb about 150' in two minutes every day)
Articulating bench
Power Block weights
Nordicflex Ultra, body-weight multi-machine
Calf roller (behind the Nordicflex)
- This afternoon I went to Moon Valley LA Fitness for a brief slow heavy torso workout and these new fans:
Jason Jaruvang; Moon Valley LA Fitness, Phoenix AZ; 10/7/23
Johnny Strmic; Moon Valley LA Fitness, Phoenix AZ; 10/7/23
- After checking that there was no rain forecast for the next 10 days, on the way home, I ran my van through the neighborhood automatic touchless car wash.
- After a late supper I located a map and list of the European US military bases. With additional online digging around I found contact information for some organizations that entertain our troops and sent out five emails. I call 'em long shots - probably won't result in any shows, but you've got to try.
- Got to bed at 11:06 for 9:13 hours of sleep
Sun Oct 8 = This morning I sent out three long-shot mails, to do shows for our military in Europe.
- I could have gone all over north Phoenix looking for a Walgreen or CVS that offered the Pfizer COVID vaceen, but instead got smart and found it along with a flu shot a half mile away at the nearby Osco Drug Store inside my neighborhood Albertson's. Beth Jordan there gave me both. She remembered me from last year. I don't have anything planned for the next couple of days, in case I get low on energy after the vacines.
- Also waiting for both vacenes was an older couple (still younger than me) Ron and Nancy. While we were waiting I visited with Ron about his BTE (behind-the-ear) hearing aids. He had a regular sealed dome ear piece in his left ear and a sealed custom ear mold in his right ear, he said because it was needed due to the shape of his right ear. Ron said the hearing aids were for the birds! Well not quite. He said, when he went outside, he could now hear the birds chirping and that the hearing aids changed his life. I believe he said he got them from Miracle ear (which, by the way has low ratings from Consumer Report).
- After Osco I drove to the nearby Anytime Fitness for a brief light torso workout and a new fan:
Shirley Kauziok; north Phoenix Anytime Fitness; 10/8/23 Fitness
- Because I think learning PHP will stimulate my brain and because PHP may be useful on my website for a new input email list form I would like to add, I started an online class for PHP from w3schools.
- This evening I spent most of my time working on possible images of me for my T-shirts. Several people have suggested that I would sell more T-shirts if I had my picture on them, because that's what they want.
- The problem is, printing a regular image on a dark (navy) shirt without having a solid panel of white Plastisol behind which the wearer would sweat (see the first row of six pictures below).
- Printing white on dark navy image might look weird (see the second row of six pictures).
- Re-doing everything with a dark background gave the 3rd set of four pictures.
- What are your thoughts? Feedback? Opinions? More ideas? - thanks.
(sorry for the high resolution images)
- Got to bed at 11:09 for 8:51 hours of sleep
Mon Oct 9 = I spent much of the morning organizing and searching for contact information to use with eight US military bases in Europe for a possible trip next September.
- My other booking efforts paid off, as I booked two shows for veterans in Alabama: One in Jasper and one in Opelika, helping me score 140 on
The Booking Game
a game I devised to score when I work on booking comedy shows
.
- This evening I got an email from Google that there were two problems with indexing a video on my website. One was that this video (https://www.youtube.com/embed/vGM7Diru8O0) was too small. I don't think they meant in file size because this video is 4:55 in length and longer than some of my other videos. In case they meant in dimensions, I increased it by 10% from 560x315 to 616x346 pixels. I do not understand why they're picking on this video, because my Delmarva Life video below it is 560x315 and did not get tagged.
- The same video was "outside the viewport," which does not make sense to me because it is located the same way on the same web page as other videos that did not show that error.
- Got to bed at 11:08 for 9:02 hours of sleep
Tue Oct 10 = Today I organized military contacts for Europe and made some booking followups but did not book any new shows.
- I received a phone call from Injoy Hearing (injoyhearing.com). Chris Adams, the sales manager there, answered a bunch of my questions.
- I was so proud of myself with my preparation for the middle-of-the-night phone calls for possible comedy in Europe. I got a bad phone number for a family support center in England, so had to look up the the expected foreign number format, rearrange some digits, add the country code for The UK and the US International exit code. It worked!
- This evening I went to Mountainside Fitness for light fast arms and torso workouts and a new fan who rides a 2020 motorcycle - the same year as my Kia Sedona.
Ryan Gelb; Desert Ridge Mountainside Fitness, Phoenix AZ 10/10/23
- Got to bed at 8:32pm for 8:51 hours of sleep with 1am phone calls to Europe, which took 3:18 after figuring out the dates for the various locations.
Wed Oct 11 = Professor David Pizarro called in to the Ask The Tech Guys show. He did this TED Talk about how the disgust factor can enfluence our political and other viewpoints... and vice versa.
- That lead to this TED talk by Dan Ariely who very entertainingly explained why we willingly make some really bad decisions.
- I got a phone call from Brent Peterson, one of the owners of injoyhearing. That made me feel important. He answered a couple of my questions and offered some extra perks if I go with them for my new hearing aids.
- This afternoon, using some of the ideas I thought of in bed last night, I worked on a humorous introduction of Dan Wagoner, the instructor for this weekend's
FIRC
Flight Instructor Refresher Course I have to take every two years to renew my CFI license
.
- I didn't get today's nap in until after 6pm, because it wasn't until then that I was getting super drowsy. They say napping that late can interfeer with one's sleep. We'll see how that works out tonight.
- This evening I went to the Moon Valley LA Fitness for a brief heavy legs workout.
- Got to bed at 11:21 for 9 hours of sleep
Thu Oct 12 = This is the second time I had to recharge my little finger-print padlock (first padlock image) so the battery lasted an average an average of a little over 4 months. Normally the lock's LED flashes green and then the lock opens. When the battery is getting low the LED flashes red twice before it flashes green and opens. When the battery is too low, the lock close, but springs back open when you try to close it.
- These locks can be programmed with two administrator finger prints plus 18 others, enough for dry digits, wet hands, friends and family. You can get fingerprint padlocks in a variety of sizes.
- After supper I went to Crunch Fitness at 19th Avenue and Bell for a brief heavy arms workout and these two new fans:
Nicole & Anthony Herman; Crunch Fitness in north Phoenix; 10/12/23
- Got to bed at 11:18 for 8:59 hours of sleep
Fri Oct 13 = A phone call this morning saved me over two hours. The sales manager of Injoy Hearing (injoyhearing.com), Chris Adams, phoned from Overland Park, KS and said that he is allowed to offer a very special deal to one customer per month, and that he was offering it to me. I had planned to phone the four hearing aid company finalists on my list, make my selection and order the hearing aids from the winner. Chris's offer made the decision for me and I immediately ordered the hearing aids from him and saved the two hours. I'm excited.
- For my online T-shirt orders, I added a payment card to my Printify account. They wanted me to click to establish an email link. I didn't understand what that was all about so did not click the button.
- Taking after
George
younger brother who lives in Mesa, Arizona
,
I started a garden... sort of, with this little garden set from Banner Health. You put 1.5 ounces of water in a cup, drop in the little compressed soil disk, watch it expand and then plant the seeds from the little envelope.
- This evening I went to Esporta Fitness for a heavy torso workout and five new fans:
Friends; Esporta Fitness, E Bell Rd, Phoenix AZ; 10/13/23
Mindy Dally & Andrew Carr; Esporta Fitness, E Bell Rd, Phoenix AZ; 10/13/23
- Got to bed at 11:00 for 7 hours of sleep until my 6am alarm for the 7:30 beginning of the
FIRC
Flight Instructor Refresher Course I have to take every two years to renew my CFI license
in Tempe.
Sat Oct 14 = I got to the
FIRC
Flight Instructor Refresher Course I have to take every two years to renew my CFI license
in plenty of time. There was not one female in the group and the average age was probably in the 60's. It was a pretty congenial group.
- Just before the FIRC officially started I introduced the event and Dan Wagner with a little fanfare. Thanks for the fun, Dan!
- Of course I took my own lunch for nutrition and to save money and time. I After lunch I took a 20-minute nap in my van, which I had parked under a canopy. That meant a little extra walking and a van that wasn't too hot for the nap.
- The last event of the day for the FIRC was a test covering the day's topics. I wasn't sure of about four of the questions, but got 100%! A good guesser I guess
- At noon I phoned Anne, my daughter, and found that
Rose Anne
My X wife who lives in Payson by a lake
had to put Sheriff Reilly down. That was her dog that would run to stop spats between Rose Anne's cats. Reilly meant a lot to Rose Anne and I stopped by and found an appropriate card to send her, got it addressed and mailed at the Cactus Station Post Office.
- I got home about 7pm for a late super.
- I was hoping to make up the sleep I lost last night, but didn't get to bed until 10:01 for 8:59 hours of sleep before my 7am alarm.
Sun Oct 15 = To save time tomorrow morning, one of the times when I got up in the middle of the night to pee, I mixed up my breakfast oatmeal.
- This morning I left home six minutes later than I had scheduled and arrived at the
FIRC
Flight Instructor Refresher Course I have to take every two years to renew my CFI license
three minutes late, and Dan starts right on time. Shame on me.
- After lunch I met this young man who is in flight attendant school and became my latest fan.
Caleb Kimmel; Fairfield Inn & Suites; Tempe AZ; 10/15/23
- Dan Wagner, our FIRC instructor started the afternoon session with this video
of Dean Martin with Foster Brooks as The Drunk Airline Pilot. If you haven't seen it before you'll laugh its entire 5-minutes:
- On the end-of-class test I got 90%. Walker Buttler, former flying student of mine, would say I over-studied a bit for the test.
- While taking care of things like a pit stop before driving the 30 miles home, I met these young future flight attendants who became my newest fans:
Leena M, Jess Brown and Sabrina G at Fairfield Inn & Suites; Tempe AZ; 10/15/23
- Because I would only have 5 miles of gas left in my tank at home home, I stopped by Costco on the way and topped off my tank at $3.999/gal and saved $9.16 over Joe Cool ARCO's $9.459/gal and $9.96 over Quick Trip's $4.499/gal.
- Back home, I had a late supper did my blog for yesterday and...
- got to bed at 10:41 for 10:21 hours of sleep, making up some for Fridy night
Mon Oct 16 = I organized my day and then spent about two hours outside the plan, reviewing some of my notes from the weekend's
FIRC
Flight Instructor Refresher Course I have to take every two years to renew my CFI license
...
good from a flight instructor point of view, but not from a keeping-my-schedule point of view.
- I subscribed to NASA'S Callback, a monthly newsletter with highlights of the last month's aviation safety and violation submissions.
- My old Panasonic HIC-V770 camcorder is a good one but does not match the four Sony HDRCX405s I use to video my shows. Instead of selling the Panasonic, I have decided to use it, when appropriate and when I can get someone to operate it, as a roving fifth camera for audience shots. Although It only records 30 minutes without splitting up the files, it does have pretty good low-light performance and a fairly wide dynamic range.
- I got out the three batteries I have for the camcorder: Battery A (standard capacity at 1940 mAh) and B & C (high capacity at 3880 mAh). Battery C wouldn't even turn on the camcorder so I put it on an external charger. A and B showed 3/4 bars, which is OK for storage.
- It took me 2:40 to pay do my monthly credit-cards payoff. That included getting distracted and doing other things online like, to my Favorite Comedians web page, adding Ron White (good writing and delivery; drinks and smokes on stage). Here is his short
Near Miss Plane Crash video.
- Got to bed at 12:33 for 8:57 hours of sleep
Tue Oct 17 = It took me all morning to go through and take care of the notes I left myself on my digital recorder the last few nights.
- Elli, a grand neise, sent out a high school graduation card while I was doing comedy in Florida. Her card said she emjoyed writing. I need a writer so I gave her a phone call today. It should be pretty cool for both of us if this idea works out.
- Being inspired by the weekend's
FIRC
Flight Instructor Refresher Course I have to take every two years to renew my CFI license
,
I found the Dynon glass cockpit that competes with Garmin and prepared to add it to my Technology web page.
The first video (which may have a bad thumbnail) is 18 minutes of the Dynon's Basic Operations and the second is a 40-minut review:
- This evening I went down to EōS Fitness for a light fast full-body workout and these two new fans:
Destiny Lopez & Saul Sanchez; EōS Fitness, north Phoenix; 10/17/23
- Got to bed at 11:25 for 9 hours of sleep
Wed Oct 18 = I may have made a big mistake, but hope not. My reply for Arizona New Faces couldn't be sent from my contact@arizonalou.com email address so I deleted the address from my send list, thinking I would add it back in, but was tripped up when I was asked for my name, email address, SMTP Server, Username and Password (for what??). Maybe I should have tried to send emails from contact@arizonalou.com to other email addresses to see if the problem is only with Arizona New Faces.
- Toward the end of the afternoon I went to Mountainside Fitness where I did a brief heavy legs workout, got these four new fans
Jeremy Valentine; Desert Ridge Mountainside Fitness, Phoenix AZ; 10/18/23
J. Huggins, A. Lester, S. LeMire; Desert Ridge Mountainside Fitness, Phoenix AZ; 10/18/2
and did my
poster trim
weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
.
Just before I stepped into the shower I realized that I had forgotten to get a haircut on the way to the gym, so I put my clothes back on and found a barber shop nearby and plunked down $28 for a haircut, including a tip. Then went back to Mountainside for the shower.
- Back at home, I was going to work on
FCP
Final Cut ProX the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
.
but I was too drowsey to do anything. I did seem to be alert enough to work on this blog... for a little whiile. When I got too drowsy for that, I vacuumed the library with my high-ppowered Eureka vacuum cleaner. It erased all the vacuum trails from April which were left by my
Roomba
The iRobot Roomba j7+ self-emptying robotic vacuum cleaner I bought in Jan 2023
before my last tour.
- After that I seemed to be awake enough to finish my blog for yesterday.
- Got to bed at 11:20 for 9 hours of sleep
Thu Oct 19 = You've gotta come! Tonight I am doing my famous Viagra Routine. Why? Because I can and because I have tweaked and revised it:
7:00pm; Wayward Tap House; 1028 Grand Ave; Phoenix, AZ 85007
- After checking my email I spent all the rest of the morning trying to get my brain around
FCP
Final Cut ProX the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
.
I got as far as learning how to start a new library and import media files into that library's 10-19-23 event. Why do they make it so complicated and confusing?
- After lunch I posted tonight's show on FaceBook, Twitter and Instagram:
- This afternoon I adapted one of Dustin Headlock's posters as my poster. Here's the result:
- Then I adapted that poster to 8-up micro posters.
- Then I adapted it to a ticket image.
- Then I adapted the ticket image to six-up tickets.
- Then I printed the tickets out on #80 cover card stock, added perforations and cut them into individual tickets.
- So now I am carrying around microposters and tickets. We'll see if anyone wants them.
- Tonight's comedy show at
Wayward Tap House was honoring David Kayes who is moving to Chicago to follow his dreams. There was a bunch of comedians there. Of course David was his usual, awesome, entertaining self.
- My Viagra routine only got a few laughs. I think the problem was that I was concentrating on getting everything just right, which I pretty much did, so did not relate well to the audience.
- No gym today, although I did do my daily morning elliptical ride.
- Got to bed at 10:57 for 9 hours of sleep
Fri Oct 20 = At solar noon I lay in the sun and followed up with a really fast 2-minutes on my
Final Cut ProX the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
and didn't get much accomplished with its multicam feature.
- They made me jump through all sorts of hoops to use my credit union's credit card rewards on Amazon.
- In the afternoon I made my shopping list.
- I had scheduled to do my shopping since it was the 20th, but after FCP it got late, I wasn't running out of any food but grapefruit and wanted to keep up with my gym schedule so drove 1/2 mile to Anytime Fitness for a heavy arms workout.
- Got to bed at 10:52 for 8:58 hours of sleep
Sat Oct 21 = This morning I got distracted with checking out some possible stops on my way to Olathe, Kansas from Pensylvania; got further distracted, since I am reading letters from Mark Twain, with cities along the Mississippi River; got further distracted with the Mississippi River basin and learned that it covers more than 1.245 million square miles, includes all or parts of 31 states and two Canadian provinces... less than half the size of the Amazon River basin which checks in at 2.896 million square miles.
- I explored
PHP
PHP is a server-side scripting language used for the development of a dynamic website, vs HTML which is static (originally stood for "Personal Home Page")
for about an hour.
- I spent much of the afternoon on
FCP
Final Cut ProX the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
.
Mostly ran into roadblocks because the instructional videos did not match what was on my screen.
- This evening's trip was to 99¢ Only for bananas, LA Fitness for a heavy torso workout and two new fans (below) and Winco Foods for my semi-monthly grocery shopping.
Juan Alvarez; Moon Valley LA Fitness, Phoenix AZ; 10/21/23
Mark Modin; Moon Valley LA Fitness, Phoenix AZ; 10/21/23
- I got home, got everything put away and still got to bed at 11:01 for 8:58 hours of sleep. Amazingly, I slept a record 7:52 hours before getting up at 6:42am for my single "nightime" pee! Then back to bed for 1:08 to finish off my "night."
Sun Oct 22 = After breakfast, in the booking department I did some organizing and left a couple voice messages.
- The rest of the morning was pretty good, devoted to
FCP
Final Cut ProX the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
.
I can see how FCP can be a pretty fast video editor once you get used to all its little quirks. Nothing is obvious. Various tools are hidden under little drop-down menus that are accessed by clicking on an obscure little symbol somewhere or with a specific key press.
With the aid of online videos this morning I learned to
trim a clip in the timeline
access various tools like the trim tool
adjust a multicam camera switch location in the timeline
adjust the volume of a clip using the "inspector"
- I was not fast enough to get on Stir Crazy's open mic list for Wednesday, even with autofill. Like they say:
There are 10 "Sign-Up" spots. They are 3 minutes each unless you bring 3 people, then you have 7 minutes.
These spots fill up VERY fast. Like, IMMEDIATELY.
- My afternoon recreational mental challenge was to adapt these charts from information I found with a Google search:
Bed
Mattress
Flat Sheet
Twin
38" x 75"
72" x 102"
Full
54" x 75"
96" x 102"
Queen
60" x 80"
92" x 108"
King
76" x 80"
110" x 114"
Bed
Comforter
Mattress
Full
78"-88" x 86"-92"
54" x 75"
Queen
86"-90" x 90"-100"
60" x 80"
King
90"-108" x 86"-108"
76" x 80"
You see, about a week ago I retrieved a couple of comforters from my neighbor's curbside trash-pick-up stack. I brought them in from the garage and measured them. Neither is large enough to use as my van comforter, but both will make good donations for Goodwill.
- After my light fast LA Fitness workout and a new fan
Manny; Moon Valley LA Fitness, Phoenix AZ; 10/22/23
I stopped by Goodwill, donated the comforters and other stuff, looked over everything at the store and found nothing I needed.
- This evening I got my completed video uploaded to YouTube. Here's the way the cameras were set up:
CAMERAS:
#1 Zoomed in on the comedian from the back of the room, Sony HDR-CX405 camcorder.
#2 Wide angle from the back of the room for the stage and some of the audience, Sony HDR-CX405 camcorder.
#3 Zoomed in on a portion of the audience, Sony HDR-CX405 camcorder
#4 Wide angle for the audience from the front side, Sony HDR-CX405 camcorder
#5 Stage view from the house camera near the ceiling
AUDIO:
The first 13 seconds was from the house sound system
The rest was from a Sony ICD-UX560 high resolution stereo recorder worn by the comedian as a body mic
- After the fact, I changed the settings on my camcorder #1 (the close-up camera) to increase the resolution, so next shoot it will match camcorders #2, #3, & #4.
- Got to bed at 11:10 9:03 hours of sleep
Mon Oct 23 = This morning I went over and organized the notes I took while figuring out
FCP
Final Cut ProX the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
,
hoping I will be able to make sense of them for my next project, which will be my July 29th appearance on Broadway...
Parkway Theater; 644 Broadway Ave; McKees Rocks, PA.
- It's the best five minutes of the whole day. I set my Echo timer and spent the five minutes going through the mishmash of papers on my desk. I put a lot in the trash and found four that had information to follow up on about show bookings, comedy routines and T-shirt images. As a result I got a show in Birmingham confirmed and contracted, planned my routine for Thursday's show at The Wayward Tap House and spent most of the rest of the day trying loads of different methods to create this T-shirt image using the GIMP graphic image manipulation program. Here's the result of that:
- After my Monday night treat I phoned
George
younger brother who lives in Mesa, Arizona
on my way to EōS Fitness for my light arms workout where I sold my first Show Ticket for Nov 18th and got these four new fans.
- Back home it took me 7:48 to add the three images, an average of 2:36 minutes per image, including uploading them and checking them out:
Kevin Perales. Elrich Ramirez; EōS Fitness, north Phoenix; 10/23/23
Ben Gonzales; EōS Fitness, north Phoenix;
Mitchell Rehling; EōS Fitness, north Phoenix;
- This evening I used Google's Bard to help me locate active veterans posts in north Alabama. Bard gave posts mostly in the north but was creative with some of the post numbers and locations. Some of the posts don't appear to be active. At least Bard helped me find posts in a geographic area.
- Got to bed at 11:31 for 8:59 hours of sleep
Tue Oct 24 = This morning I started my Christmas Card to-do list: Picked the addresses. Then checked solar noon here in Phoenix for the next month to know what time to go out in the sun to optimize my vitemin D. It is about 12:12 to 12:16pm.
- I spent a good portion of the day working on bookings.
- It looks like my hearing aids will arrive Thursday, Oct 26 by 7pm. I'll probably be at
Wayward Tap House doing comedy at that time.
- This evening, at the Desert Ridge Albertson's I got a rain check for their fresh green beans for $.99/lb on my way to Mountainside Fitness for a light torso workout, a
poster trim
weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
,
a shower and a new fan:
Steven Ross; Desert Ridge Mountainside Fitness; 10/24/23
- Got to bed at about 11:07 for about 9 hours of sleep
Wed Oct 25 = Booking this morning and into the afternoon included finding posts to contact in Alabama and phoning a few. Later I booked a show in southwestern Alabama and worked out the details, all in one phone call, scoring 129 on
The Booking Game
a game I devised to score when I work on booking comedy shows
:)
- Research on laundromats yielded several not too far away. Papa's Laundromat on Cave Creek Rd is the closest; Local Laundromat on Bell Rd is next; Regal Laundries is open 24 hours, but none has Internet. A little further was the Greenway Laundromat with excellent washers in four sizes, hot driers and Internet. While my comforters and bed spread were getting clean, I added five new fans to my website, which I had gotten earlier at LA Fitness:
- Unless it's creaping dementia, I need to slow down and be a little more thoughtful. After LA Fitness, instead of going directly to the Greenway Laundry, I had to go back home for my laundry detergent and Color Catcher sheets. After getting home with the clean laundry I had to go back to the laundromat for the travel mesh laundry bag I use on tour and the Color Catcher sheets I had left there.
- Got to bed at 11:08 for 9 hours of sleep
Thu Oct 26 = This morning I decided it would make this website more blog friendly if I had the new fan pictures spread out horizontally in my blogs to match the width of the viewing screen instead of vertically. Compare yesterday's fan pictures (horizontal) to those from Monday (vertical). The change means, to find the names and locations for my latest fanas, you need to go to my Latest Fans.
- Just before lunch time I went to Anytime Fitness for a brief heavy arms workout and a new fan and then to Albertson's where I bought 5 pounds of grapes on sale for 99¢ a pound and this new fan:
- With the gym out of the way, I'll be able to leave later for this evening's comedy show and be more likely to be here when my hearing aids are delivered.
- My hearing aids did arrive in time for me to get them mostly charged up and paired with my phone. They are smaller than I expected, which is a good thing.
- I could make a daily list of things I forget. Today it would the supper I had fixed in the refrigerator to eat on the way to
The Wayward Tap House for tonight's open mic.
- Daniel Bright there was showing off his "new" motorcycle. It is FAST and that's why he likes it. I just hope he enjoys the bike to a ripe old age.
- For my set I did my politically incorrect Basic Economy Economy set.
- Got to bed at 10:48 for 9:02 hours of sleep with a rare maximum sleep of 4:28 without getting up to pee :)
Fri Oct 27 = I got up a little early this morning to make a booking phone call and the person who was supposed to be there wasn't :(
- In the hearing aid department, I got them working for listening to media on both my phone and computer. When I receive a phone call they automatically pause the media.
- The neck on my last haircut was not quite what I had expected, although it was what I had asked for. Today I researched the subject and found the lowdown on necklines for men, including what they look light when grown out:
- Since I started the morning making booking phone calls before breakfast, I didn't get around to my
ride until just before supper at 5:24pm but I did score 106 on
The Booking Game
a game I devised to score when I work on booking comedy shows
todaay.
- This evening I worked on
FCP
Final Cut ProX the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
.
for about 1.5 hours until I encountered a brick wall. Tomorrow I'll have to watch more videos to figure it out.
- I tried to find a way that I can have my favorite talk shows automatically downloaded to my Android phone so I can listen to them with my new hearing aids.
- Later than I wanted, I was getting ready to go to a gym and decided to wait until tomorrow. What to do with my extra hour of found? I vacuumed the lab, hall, office and living room with my high-ppowered Eureka vacuum cleaner, wanting to give the carpet a good cleaning before turning my
Roomba
The iRobot Roomba j7+ self-emptying robotic vacuum cleaner I bought in Jan 2023
loose on it. While I was vacuuming I wore honking ear protectors over my ears and new hearing aids and listened to Clark Howard streaming through Bluetooth from my
Mac
the MacBook Pro I got in May 2023, with an m2 Max processor 64GB of memory and a 2TB SSD hard drive
.
- Got to bed at 10:51 for 8:59 hours of sleep
Sat Oct 28 = A pretty good day for booking. I scored ?? on
The Booking Game
a game I devised to score when I work on booking comedy shows
by, among other things, booking a new show and working out all the details in a single phone call.
- I
sunned
I lay in the sun for 10 minutes on my back and 10 minutes on my stomach at solar noon when the sun rays are maximized for the skin's production of vitamin D
.
- With
FCP
Final Cut ProX the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
.
I got most of the multicam stuff to work but needed to trim the too-long video clips. Although I had trimmed videos before, FCP was evidently in some sort of weird mode and the trim feature was not working. So I quit FCP, and deleted the .fcpbundle file on my computer (because deleting a file was the only way I new to get rid of a FCP "library.") Then I opened the videos in QuickTime Player and trimmed them there so they would be more manageable in FCP. If you don't understand all that, neither do I!
- Got to bed at 10:49 for 9 hours of sleep
Sun Oct 29 = Start something but don't get hooked. I think I figured it out for me, for the Internet. Before leaving my computer to do something else, I will pre-typetype a Google Search term but not press "Return." That way I don't get stuck on the Internet when I should be doing something else. But I'll do that somethng else more efficiently because I know my next search is waiting for me. Today the pre-type was "Replacement hinges for Kohler toilet seat" thanks to a broken hinge on the hall bathroom seat.
- At LA Fitness I got two new fans. When I got home it took me 8:17 to put both pictures up on my website:
- WATER: Constantly trying to get a better night's sleep, this week my goal was, every day, to drink the last of 70 ounces of by 4:30pm.
- After supper I worked on
FCP
Final Cut ProX the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
.
and unexpectedly ran out of disk space 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
- and that is with a 2TB SSDrive. So I spent some time deleting video recordings from full-length shows which have already been produced or are not good enough to produce.
- Got to bed at 11:15 for 9 hours of sleep
Mon Oct 30 = Booking frustrations happen too often to suit me. I got ahold of someone who gave me to someone else who told me thaty I should speak with the manager. After five days of trying, I finally got ahold of the manager and she told me to get in touych with the commander :(
- For this evening's trip I went to the 19th Ave & Bell Walmart for eight packages of Hebrew National 97% Fat Free Franks (hard to find) and these 2 new fans:
- I had planned to go by EōS Fitness on the way home, but to save some driving and since it was on the way home I stopped by LA Fitness instead.
- Before going to bed I washed my CPAP's water chamber with distilled water with a little chlorine bleach added.
- Got to bed at 11:25 for 9 hours of sleep
Tue Oct 31 = Tour booking was a big deal today. Using AI to find active posts to contact for shows gave me a number of wrong cities or wrong post numbers. AI was a good try, but not worth the trouble. More successful was phoning posts that host district meetings. A map of the Alabama VFW districts helped. I ended up booking and working out the details for two shows.
- One fantastic phone call to
VFW Post 6495 in Levittown PA did it all: Found and talked to the honcho, offered my services, agreed on a date and woked out all the show details. The good stuff didn't stop there. The comender of
American Legion Post 88 in Mobile AL phoned and booked a show with all the details. It took me aobut 12 minutes to add it to my tour schedule with links and a map link.
- I had about 10 minutes of time to spare before lunch so I vacuumed the master bedroom with my high-ppowered Eureka vacuum cleaner, located new brush belts for it and reorganized some hats, caps and gloves on the same shelf as the belts.
- After lunch it was time for an oil change at Brakemasters, the first one there since March, due to my road tours.
- It took a $50 reinstatement fee for me to realize that the $525.00 fine I paid to the Sycamore GA court did not cover the $200 I owed the Georgia Department of Driver Services for being a "Super Speeder." Sounds cool, doesn't it, but getting in a hurry back on April 28th has cost me a total of $775.00 so far. At least my driving privileges in Georgia will be reinstated.
- I used my guillotine paper cutter to make about 800 perforated trip tabs from a stack of old tractor feed 4x6" cards I have on hand. I use the tabs to help organize the stops on my trips around town.
- This evening I set up my
The little Alcatel Plus 10 10" Windows 10 computer I bought to get me by in Tobago in 2017 after my Dell laptop died. It's tight, with only 2gb RAM and a 32gb SSD hard drive, but the 128gb micro SD card I have in it helps.
to charge and to look, unsuccessfully, for my past citation payments.
- I went to Mountainside Fitness for a light torso workout, a
poster trim
weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
and a shower. I also trimmed my toenails and put all the trimmings in the trash.
- In my bedroom I set up a system to measure the power (to the thousandth of a watt) of my
Phonak
Phonak AudeoLRL-90 fancy waterproof hearing aids bought in October, 2023 from injoyhearing.com
charging box under different conditions.
- Got to bed at 11:21 for 8:42 hours of sleep
