Blog Archive 2024 Mar
Fri Mar 1 = Today was one of the best departures I have ever made - with one exception. Part of the reason it was so good was that I planned on leaving in the early afternoon which gave me time to pack everything in my van, starting with nothing in the van.
- I tried something new and it worked pretty well. First "carry-out" was things accessible from the driver's side, including things like the tech drawer, office drawer, dresser drawer, kitchen utensils drawers, tool box and toilitries drawers.
- I then backed the van into the garage for the "second "carry-out" of all my comedy stuff that goes inthrough the back hatch like my video box, merch box, bags for my PA system, stage lights and patch & adapt connectors plus a mic stand and speaker stand.
- After getting the van packed I rebandaged my left hand because the second oclusive cover had started to leak and took a 20-minute nap to make up for lost sleep last night.
- I wasn't sure it was a good idea timewise, but a wonderous thing happened as a result. On the way to California I stopped by to see Nancy Palmer in West Phoenix, who I met at the car show on Wednesday. She producs the car show and makes T-shirts. She will be able to make my T-shirts for $3 less than Design-a-Shirt, which will mean more money for the
Banner Alzheimer's Foundation
- ... and the biggie: Nancy booked me to open for the band at the Westgate Car Show the next three Wednesdays after I get back from California.
- I made it to the Cracker Barell in Rialto, CA for the night, for their famous chocolate cake and ice cream and my waitress as a new fan - second from a Cracker Barell. The first was David West in Stevenson MD (on Kent Island).
- The exception: Although I tried three times my custom comedy sweatshirt
never made it into my van, and I can't stop by Kohles or anywhere else to buy one to wear because there are only three in the world: in Anchorage, Chandler and in my house back in Phoenix.
- Got to bed at 11:40 for 9 hours of sleep with 2 pees in Rialto CA
Sat Mar 2 = This morning I drove to Beeverly Hills where Renee Silverman took a bunch of publicity photos of me. She has a fantastic business and also became my latest fan (first pic)
Had a great show - only 12 in the audience (second pic) but they laughed a lot at
American Legion Post 817;
13553 Reedley St;
Panorama City, CA 91402 -
- Got to bed at 10:37 for 9:51 hours of sleep at the Hollywood RV Park (a great place) making up for last night
Sun Mar 3 = Good show with an audience of 22 at
American Legion Post 176;
602 Pico St;
San Fernando, CA 91340 and a new fan:
- Got to bed at 10:37 for 9:51 hours of sleep with 2 pees. It was forecast to be down to 43 degrees, and I figured the covers just right, with 2 layers of comforter, a giant towel and a baby comforter on my feet.
Mon Mar 4 = Interesting show with an audience of eight slotted comedians (signed up online for "slots" during a specific hour) at the little
The Hollywood Comedy. I had 10 minutes of on-stage fun.
- I never heard from
Comedy Store PotLuck Open Mic for which I put in, so I parked three hours in the parking lot of LA's Durant Branch Library to eat supper, take a short nap and then go inside and upload my tomorrow's YouTube Short and get 3 new fans who work at the library (1st pic).
- After the library closed I drove to the Van Nuys Home Depot for a double carabiner and two new fans (2nd pic). Later at "home" (Hollywood RV Park) I
combined a small bungee cord I had on hand with the new double carabiner to make a retainer for my computer case so it does not fall out when I open my passenger-side sliding door.
- Got to bed at 12:30 for 9 hours of sleep
Tue Mar 5 = Tonight's open mic was at the little
Comedy Blvd, with soft chairs, in LA. The audience was only five comedians, but they interacted, were supportive and a lot of fun. Dante, our host gave each of us seven minutes, although we were slotted for five. One of them became a new fan:
- Got to bed at 12:03 for 9 hours of sleep with 2 pees; my last night at the Hollywood RV Park.
Wed Mar 6 = I got off from the Hollywood RV Park around 1pm after breakfast and updating my blog for the last few days, for which I had gotten behind.
- Traffic was slow all the way to Huntington Beach where I visited my good old friends, Judy and Lloyd. They have a few tortises that are in hibernation right now. Tommy, the oldest one, is probably older than Lloyd. Judy and Lloy became my latest fans - Lloyd my first 100 year-old fan. Congratulations, Lloyd!
- For the night I drove, in the dark and the rain to the Rialto Cracker Barrel for the night. I wasted some time driving around their parking lot, trying to figure where the best place to park would be with morning shade. It didn't matter, because it was overcast all night and morning. I'll have to start paying attention to the expected morning cloud cover in the future.
- Parked in my van with their Internet, before going to bed, I scheduled the posting of my Thursday YouTube short for tomorrow morning.
- Got to bed at TIMEforHOURS hours of sleep
Thu Mar 7 = I spent about $20 on a healthy, late, Cracker Barrel breakfast, hung around until about 11am and got some more reels posted on social media.
- Then on to Phoenix with some rain which turned to a really ugly, dark, dense thunder cell.
- I stopped by my Moon Valley LA Fitness on the way home for a
- poster trim
- weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
,
poo and light full body workout (my first gime in a gym in about a week due to my California tour) and two new fans:
- I did not unload my van when I got home because Josh might want to interview me with the van in Tour Configuration.
- Got to bed at 11:55 for only 8 hours of good sleep (because I accidentally got up an hour early) with my CPAP. Got up to pee only 1.5 times.
Fri Mar 8 = I always have fun when United Healthcare sends out their healthcare professional for my annual "House Calls" visit. Today was no exception. It's standard for them to ask you to draw a clock, which I did, then to set it to a certain time. I asked if it was AM or PM, which question she did not unerstand until I noted that it was a 24-hour clock.
- The goal was to take cover shots of myself for my future social media reels. In preparation I downloaded 75 adjectives for emotions and an emotional wheel to give me ideas for facial expressions.
- Next was experimenting with the new
Sensory VoiceSelfie app on my phone. I took pictures in my bedroom, the great room and in the library. Best was the library for good
catch lights and background to be removed on my phone by
Background Eraser.
- Then came the "dirty" work; taking a total of about 165 pictures in six different
comedy shirts with different expressions.
- Next will be to make the backgrounds transparent and crop the results with GIMP.
- After California, it certainly was good to see a mostly blue sky and get some vitimin D as 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
.
- After supper I projected my budget through August to cover my next tour, unloaded all but the comedy stuff from my van and caught up on this blog.
- At night when I get up to pee, instead of reading Mark Twain, I am reviewing the material for the shows on my upcoming tour, emphasizing ways to keep track of how far I got when I left off. This should help me when I get distracted during a show, which can happen quite easily. Also I will be working on my seven-minute part of Friday's show.
- Got to bed at 12:21 for 9:09 hours of sleep with 2 pees
Sat Mar 9 = This morning I made the above poster and 48 microposters for Friday's show. I got the aspect ratio wrong, but no one will notice or care.
- I reorganized my social media approach that will hopefully help me to get my head around it all. My approach mainly involves a separate page for each medium (sheets made out of dead trees, called paper) to keep track of my posted reels and shorts. Most troublesome is Meta (FaceBook).
- After supper I made my grocery list then filled it along with a gym visit. The 99¢ Only Store raised it price of bananas to a penny more than Winco. In the future it will be a relief, not feeling compelled to stop by The 99¢ Only Store, which is usually out of the way to Winco.
- Got to bed at 11:55 for 9 hours of sleep (longest sleeping stretch, 4:38 :) and 2.5 pees
Sun Mar 10 = Last night's middle-of-the-night idea was to use my phone's screen-shot feature to show an example of the selfies I took for cover poses. You can see the result on Saturday's Blog.
- Come and laugh at me at my last "big" appearance before my National Tour:
- Fri Mar 15, 2024; 8:30pm;
Cruisin'7th;
3702 N 7th Street;
Phoenix, AZ 85013
- This evening I prepared a MailChimp email for the show and got everything ready to send, after I created a new audience of 467, all local from Phoenix.
- I went to Cave Creek Rd EōS Fitness, for a slow heavy arms workout and four new fans.
- It took eight minutes to add the four pictures to my website
- Got to bed at 11:24 for 8:56 hours of sleep and 2.4 pees
Mon Mar 11 = Today was mostly external hard drive day. I checked five of my 2 and 5 TB external hard drives for some missing files of my show recordings. Most of the files are acessible only on my little Windows
Alcatel - The little Alcatel Plus 10 10" Windows 10 computer I bought to get me by in Tobago in 2017 after my Dell laptop died. Its 32-bit operating system with a x64-based processor is tight, with only 2gb RAM and a 32gb SSD hard drive, but the 128gb micro SD card helps.
because I backed them up from 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 that died on tour in Texas in April, 2023
with EaseUS which compresses them in a proprietary bundle. The only missing files are from five of my shows a year ago.
- I picked four preliminary photos from Renee Silverman's photo shoot (ReneeSilvermanPhotography.com).
- Social media pushed my bedtime into the wee hours. I already had the two video reels for this week split into segments, but still had to change them to vertical format which ment to crop and pan. I also had to add titles (which did not happen automatically), remove the VeedIO watermark, make covers for Instagram, upload tomorrow's video to YouTube and schedule it to post at 7am.
- Got to bed at 1:27am for 7:34 hours of sleep with one pee
Tue Mar 12 = This morning was social media time, then at noon 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
.
- Maybe a little late, after supper I watered the four new plants that I had put in yesterday.
- Never got around to a gym, or to taking a nap to make up for last night, so went to bed "early" and slept late.
- An extremely handy feature I discovered on my Echo Dot is the ability to tell it to set an alarm for a specific interval, such as eight and a half hours, in which case the dot will calculate the correct time and tell you when it will sound the alarm. Then at any time you ask, "What is my alarm" and Alexa will tell you how many minutes left until the alarm.
- Got to bed at 10:46 for 10.5 hours of sleep with 3 pees.
Wed Mar 13 = This morning after checking my email and putting in a contact to Blue Line Av at the Johnston Regional Airport (KJNX) in Smithfield, NC to fly a DA-20 or 40 on June 1st when I am driving by on tour, I phoned Morris Self in Lowe's KY. I learned he has cancer and his mother, my cousin Nancy, has advanced Alzheimer's and dementia and they are shutting down their Bronco One pallet-making machine business.
- This afternoon I made a fresh batch of
- 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
and then headed out.
- On my way to the gym I stopped by a Walmart and bought a powered USB-3.0 hub to use with my
Alcatel - The little Alcatel Plus 10 10" Windows 10 computer I bought to get me by in Tobago in 2017 after my Dell laptop died. Its 32-bit operating system with a x64-based processor is tight, with only 2gb RAM and a 32gb SSD hard drive, but the 128gb micro SD card helps.
,
which USB port does not have enough juice to run a USB-powered external hard drive dependably.
- Today was a good Fans day. I got the four guys who cut back my bushes (first photo) and six at Mountainside Fitness as well as doing a brief heavy legs workout, poo,
- poster trim
- weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
and shower there.
- Back home I started the
Alcatel - The little Alcatel Plus 10 10" Windows 10 computer I bought to get me by in Tobago in 2017 after my Dell laptop died. Its 32-bit operating system with a x64-based processor is tight, with only 2gb RAM and a 32gb SSD hard drive, but the 128gb micro SD card helps.
,
backing up all my show media files from a 2TB Crucial SSD to a 2TB Segate HDD.
I prepared tomorrow's social media postings, which put me very late to bed.
- Got to bed 1:10am for 9 hours of sleep and 1.6 pees.
Thu Mar 14 = I had a mild headache most of the day. No wonder, after a short night it took most of the morning to do some social media postings. Never did get Meta (Facebook) or X (Twitter) to cooperate.
- This afternoon and until after supper I made posters, poster files and media files for my six veteran's shows in May, all in Alabama. The result was 30 files of various orientations and resolutions, five for each venue.
- By evening I had not gotten much responce on social media from this morning's T-shirt bit. Maybe they see it as a commercial. Maybe that's what it is!
- Got to bed at 11:58 for 9 hours of sleep with two pees, each time reviewing some of my routine for tomorrow night. Come if you can!
Fri Mar 15, 2024; 8:30pm;
Cruisin'7th;
3702 N 7th Street;
Phoenix, AZ 85013
Fri Mar 15 = In addition for preparing for tonights "big" comedy show by reviewing my set and charging up my camcorders, today was mostly a T-shirt day.
- To the square checkout screen on my phone I added six new products; my T-shirts in various sizes with my headshot. This will help me manage inventory.
- I also inventoried the T-shirts and duplicated the spreadsheet I use to keep track of sales, so I now have one sheet for the Head design and one for the Stool design.
- Since I was out of some food, on the way to tonight's comedy show I stopped by Winco for prunes, cashews and apples. Also I donated a bunch of stuff at the Goodwill store across the parking lot.
- At
Cruisin'7th on
7th Street (surprise, surprise) we had a good show and a good audience of 45. Over half of them left, leaving 20 by the time I went up a little before 10pm.
- Got to bed at 12:38am for 9 hours of sleep with 2.5 pees
Sat Mar 16 = Although I had other things that needed to be done like emailing publicity kits, paying bills, preparing my next social reels and straightening up the house for Josh Graves' visit tomorrow, I spent the whole day working on my next T-shirt order.
- The shirt order was more complicated because, for the first time, it actually involved two orders; one for the Head Design and another for the classic Stool Design. It wasn't easy for my little brain, but I revised both of the Ordering Spreadsheets. Hopefully it will save time with future orders.
- Finding the design for the shirts is never easy on my computer, with a bunch of designs in various stages of development. I was determined, this time, to find and tag the best and final designs. The problem is that a white design with a transparent background will look blank on a white background and a black design with a transparent background will look blank on a black background, so I attempted, unsuccessfully, to move the designs to my local website with its tan background and evaluate them there.
- I did take time out to
- sun
- 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
.
- After a whole day of T-shirt constranation what a pleasant experience going to EōS Fitness turned out to be. I got in a brief slow heavy torso workout and made six new friends, four of whome became fans:
- Got to bed at TIMEforHOURS hours of sleep
Sun Mar 17 = This morning I updated
Libre Office the excellent free office suite for Windows, Mac & Linux that I depend on and recommend. While I was updating from version 7.5.3.2 to Version 7.6.5 I donated about $20. While I was at it I also updated my Mozilla Firefox web browser and donated to them.
- Josh Graves got sick on me. Good for him, He stayed home rather than spreading the crud. Josh was going to come over so I could share my
Comedy Booking techniques. Without Josh here I got other needed things done: paying bills, logging my recent shows and emailing electronic publicity kits for my six veterans' shows in May - all in Alabama.
-This evening it took me a long time to get everything found and situated, but once I got that done I was pretty hot, emailing publicity kits to the six veterans' posts. It took about eight minutes each. Now I have things organized so getting started with my July show publicity kits should go smoothly. Next thing for those 14 July venues will be to make the posters.
- Late, about 10:15 this evening, I ventured out to Anytime Fitness for a light fast legs workout and made a new friend and fan, Gavo:
- Got to bed at 11:20 for nine hours of sleep with 1.5 pees
Mon Mar 18 = - After I found aout about the feature through the
Ask The Tech Guys
podcast, I set my Echo Dot (Alexa) to adaptive listening, which should adapt to stuttering, which I do not do, but occasionally don't get my request organized before I start speaking.
- This morning I planned and printed out the details of the first week and a half of my tour, including overnight parking places, the solar eclipse, two comedy shows and an open mic.
- That put me late for today's big project, social media.
- It was not smart of me. After I got tomorrow's social media reels made and mostly scheduled I was late doing my usual evening routine of watching a DVR of Jimmy Fallon's monologue while flossing and brushing. Jimmy announced that a comedian was going to be on the show, so I fired my computer up again, found and watched her set. That put me to bed way late.
- Got to bed at 1:44am for 8:48 hours of sleep after three pees and sleeping in.
Tue Mar 19 = Having gotten up late, it took all and more of this short morning for me to evaluate my social media and add the new
MOLLY reel to Meta (Facebook) and X (Twitter). I believe I've got it down to the point where it won't take so long next time.
- My new Sony ICD-UX560 voice recorder arrived from Amazon. I use it as a body recorder for my shows and cannot get along without one. I had two but lost one. Now I again have a spare. Finetuning the ICD's set-up, I ran across this excellent article,
Understanding Audio Recording Formats, that explains all about MP3, WAV, PCM, LPCM etc.
- Basha's was out of fresh green beans on sale this evening so I got a rain check, some broccoli and two new fans, Frank and Brandon who are nighttime stockers for the store.
- Got to bed at 11:34 for 9 hours of sleep with three pees
Wed Mar 20 = My friend, Josh Boyle, tutored me in using AI to help with my social media. We'll se if it gets me more views tomorrow morning. We got together at his apartment
- Here is my latest camcorder test, done this afternoon (before leaving on tour in about two weeks) to check the battery endurance on the five camcorders and to see if the media rates match for audio synchronization with the Sony ICD-UX560 digital voice recorders that I use as body mics for my shows (lower right in the background). The new ICD-UX560 was EXPENSIVE!
- Mountainside Fitness was the location of my poo deposit,
- poster trim
- weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
,
shower, heavy arms workout and three new fans:
- They say it's not a good idea, but I noticed no ill effects. Tonight is the first time, ever, I exercised intensely just before going to bed. Since I had succeeded in putting my morning's elliptical run off all day, I did it then and my pulse was still ellevated when I went to sleep.
- Got to bed at 12:30 for 9 hours of sleep and 1.5 pees :)
Thu Mar 21 = I spent this morning checking on the social media reels that I had scheduled for publication at 7am this morning and to upload the reels that didn't make it.
- This afternoon I uploaded all seven media test files that I recorded yesterday afternoon, 177 GB worth. The video recordings went about 1.5 hours until the camcorder batteries were depleted.
- Keeping up with my 3-week countdown for leaving on my tour, I made 10 pages of sleep study record blanks, some blank gym workout charts and inventoried my
- OBX
- Hatteras Island and the Outer Banks off the coast of North Carolina
forecast grids.
- I finally got my shopping list made, went to LA Fitness for a light torso workout and a new fan
and then to Winco Foods for groceries.
- Got to bed at 12:26 for 9 hours of sleep with two pees
Fri Mar 22 = Today was mostly a Duet, poster and scanner day.
- After lunch,
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 Pam to see her doctor. Instead of waiting in the waiting room I went up the street to an Esporta Fitness for a light legs workout and three new fans:
- A big project was making a poster for a show that I am going to try to do in the middle of a large empty lot the evening before the solar eclipse, pictured below with an enlarged image of the lot, south of Ingram TX (30Á04'09.9"N 99Á14'30.4"W 30.069551 -99.241815):
- While I was away, FedEx delivered my new IRIScan Book 5; unfortunately a little larger but sports a 1" colored LED screen and rechargeable LI battery and scanns a little faster than my previous IRIScan.
- This evening I watered, by hand, my new plants that don't have drip feed.
- Got to bed at 11:45 for 9 hours of sleep and 1.5 pees
Sat Mar 23 = Today's main event was ordering six physical publicity kits from Office Depot with expected deliveries, all in Alabama, on Fri the 29th. It took me about 10 minutes per order, mostly waiting on the slow Office Depot website. The posters cost me a little over $275, but I think paper publicity kits with a 2x3' poster help the veterans posts a lot.
- This evening's trip was to The 99¢ Only Store for two loaves of bread to get me by until tour and to Anytime Fitness for a light arms workout and another new fan:
- At the gym I had an excellent visit with my old time friend, Anita. We have worked out in three different gyms over the past 15 or so years. She encouraged me to do the comedy show in Texas the evening before the solar eclipse (see poster above). If I get arrested, it's your fault Anita! :)
- Got to bed at 11:30 for 9 hours of sleep with 1.4 pees
Sun Mar 24 = -I can't believe that I stayed inside all day. I started the day with my exercycle, then worked on my comedy reels and concluded the masive synchronization test I started on Wednesday.
- To finish that test, I fired up
- FCP
- Final Cut ProX the fancy video-editing software I got for my MacBook Pro from Apple in Sept, 2023
,
and started a masive multi-cam project for all seven of the video and audio files. FCP synchronized all of them perfectly.
- The closest I got to going to a gym today was doing a brief light torso workout in my home gym:
- Got to bed at 11:29 for nine hours of sleep with 1.4 pees
Mon Mar 25 = I woke up this morning by a phone call from my hearing aid provider, Brent, in Olathe KS, two hours later than Phoenix time. He said that he receive the hearing aids I sent to him, they had quite a bit of ear wax buildup and suggested I get the wax removed from my ears by a healthcare professional.
- I mixed up my appointment times and was planning to get together with Josh Boyle at 2pm instead of 11am, so had to reschedule to Wednesday
- Trying to be a good guy, I phoned Chris LaLonde, Chief Deputy of the Kerr County TX sheriff's department about doing my comedy show on April 7th, the evening before the solar eclipse. He's a nice guy and is going to do some checking and get back to me.
- For the wax in my ears, I tried to make an appointment with my PCP and the earliest would not be 'til April 19th, over three weeks, typical of Honor Health. On April 19th I'll be doing a comedy show for the American Legion Post 88 in Mobile, Alabama.
- So I went to Honor Health urgent care on 7th St & Bell (walk-in only). The provider checked my ears and said that there was very little wax build-up.
- On the way home I stopped by a Fry's and bought a
Debrox earwax removal kit, which consists of half an ounce of ear drops and a bulb syringe. I immediately started using the drops according to instructions.
- It took quite a bit of time to get my Social Media reels ready and scheduled but it went smoother than before. I used ChatGPT (AI) for ideas for titles and descriptions.
- I redid the bio at the top of my
Press Kit web page with some AI assistance. Here is the original version:
Arizona Lou was told he was too old to make people laugh. When you see his show, you will realize how wrong they were!
You may have seen him at:
Tempe Improv,
Gotham Comedy Club,
Laugh Factory,
The Comedy Palace,
Harrah's Showroom,
America's Got Talent or
The Comedy Zone.
Lou has taken his unique comedy style of dealing with life, being old, being active and still being alive, to audiences of all ages in 50 states, Washington, D.C. and eight countries. A retired science teacher of 82, he figures he does not have time to kill, so has been busy, with more than 1,400 stand-up comedy appearances before live audiences totaling over 37,800... all in nine years. Get ready for hilarious laughs and feel-good entertainment with America's Favorite Old Man, Arizona Lou!
Aside from comedy, Lou made a couple of lists: 9 Athletes Over 60 Who Can Kick Your Butt and 7 Active Senior Citizens Who Are Crushing Their Sports.
And here is the new version:
Arizona Lou, despite being told he was too old for comedy, has shattered expectations with his uproarious performances. You may have caught him at renowned venues such as Tempe Improv, Gotham Comedy Club, Laugh Factory, and more.
Lou's unique comedy style tackles life, aging, and staying active with hilarious authenticity. At 82, this retired science teacher has delighted over 40,000 audience members of all ages across 50 states, Washington, D.C., and eight countries with his infectious laughter. Lou's comedic journey continues to soar with over 1,500 stand-up appearances.
Don't miss your chance to experience the comedic genius of America's Favorite Old Man, Arizona Lou! Book him now for an unforgettable night of laughter.
- Got to bed at 11:59 for 8:41 hours of sleep with 1.5 pees
Tue Mar 26 = Today was pretty much a van day. About 800 miles ahead of time I got my oil changed (Brake Masters with a new fan - 1st pic), tires rotated (Discount Tire with a new fan - 2nd pic), and a new battery back at Brake Masters. I was having no problems with the original battery but it failed cranking amps tests - three times, so I replaced it.
- At Auto Zone I bought new wiper blades. When I went to install them, the premium old ones I bought about a year ago seemed to be perfectly good, even having a special deflection system, so I stashed the new ones I had just bought in my garage and decided to keep using the old ones. I am too considerate and proud return the new ones for a refund.
- This evening, while flossing and brushing and watching Jimmy Fallon's monologue, I started working my feet around in the footstraps of the twin-tip wake board I use for kiteboarding. This will toughen my feet so hopefully I won't get blisters when I kiteboard in June. One of Jimmy's guest was Mo Gilligan, Black and from London. This summer he'll be on on his,
In the Moment World Tour 2024, and doing comedy in:
- UK
- IRELAND
- usa
- Canada
- UAE
- Switzerland
- New Zeland
- Denmark
- Norway
- Sweden
- Finland
- Netherlands
- France
- Belgium
- Got to bed at 11:42 for 9:06 hours of sleep and 1.5 pees, accounting for getting up for 20 minutes to post reels on Meta (Facebook) and X (Twitter).
Wed Mar 27 = My new hearing aids arrived today so I put them in the case to charge.
- Clark Howard, my
favorite talk show host, listed the hotest job markets in the country. If you're looking for a new job or to relocate, check out one of these cities:
- Nashville, TN
- Austin, TX
- Jaksonville, FL
- Dallas, TX
- Raleigh, NC
- Atlanta, GA
- Orlando, FL
- Charlotte, NC
- Salt Lake City, UT
- Miami, FL (maybe not too much now)
- Since the
Banner Gratitude event was this evening, the dress was
Business/Coctail and I was ignorant, I did some online research and then mapped out some Goodwill stores.
- At 10:30am I drove down to Josh Boyle's so we could tech out about videography and so he could give me more help with my social media like helping me create a mor engaging bio on Meta (FaceBook).
- On the way home I had planned to stop at up to four Goodwill stores. At the first one, I found the perfect sportcoat for tonight's occasion: dark, but not black (see me wearing it in the second pic below).
- Then up to Mountainside Fitness for a brief heavy legs workout, a
- poster trim
- weekly trimming of my beard, eye brows and little quiff so I match my poster photos
,
a shower and five new fans (1st pic)
- At the lovely Banner Gratitude event I ate a month's worth of treats and met a lot of nice people including the Jameson's who also became my latest fans (second pic):
- Before crawling into bed tonight, I noticed that the new hearing aids were fully charged so of course I had to get them started and paired to my phone instead of going to bed. The new ones had the same problems as the old ones :(
- At 12:40 tomorrow morning I put my trash out tonight for the last collection before leaving on tour.
- Got to bed at 12:50am for 8:38 hours of sleep
Thu Mar 28 = This morning Chris LaLonde, Chief Deputy of the Kerr County TX sheriff's department phoned about my doing a comedy show on April 7th, the evening before the solar eclipse. He told me that the area I have picked, in the past has had several calls regarding shots fired and suicides, but not recently. I figured everyone's got to laugh, so give it a try. With some good judgement and a little luck I should be OK. He gave me his personal county cell phone number and invited me to phone if I have a problem. What a guy!
- I volunteer for duetaz.org and just donated for my annual project (yet to be determined) through Arizona Gives, which means my gift will be matched!
- This afternoon's project was to email five publicity kits for the shows I'll be doing for veterans in June.
- Another big project was to inventory my nuts, figure how many of each type I'll need during my tour and how many to buy. Very good quality and excellent prices in the Winco bulk food department.
- Although I got quite a lot done today, I did not get my Thursday social media reel posted... nor even get one made. Maybe I'll try for once-a-week instead of twice a week.
- Got to bed at 12:05am for 9 hours of sleep
Fri Mar 29 = Today's main project was sending out 10 contracts to some of the veterans' posts in PA where I will be doing shows in July.
- For social media reels, I cropped three video clips to vertical from my appearance at The Egyptian Motor Hotel back in January.
- This evening I went to LA Fitness for a heavy torso workout and a new fan (1st pic)
- Then on to Winco's bulk food department for $75 worth of various kinds of nuts, Scottish oatmeal, cinnamon/ginger/nutmeg, flax seed meal etc. to last me for my entire tour until August when I can again return to the Winco Bulk Food Department. Buying the same things on the road in smaller quantities would probably run me over $300.
- While I was gone my sixth 2 TB SSD arrived from Best Buy (2nd pic)
- Got to bed at 12:18 for 8:34 hours of sleep
Sat Mar 30 = This morning I watched my couson's funeral at Trinity Baptist in Arlington, TX. Mary Ruth Petefish/Hanes was three years older than me. We had lost touch and I hadn't seen her in over 60 years. It was interesting learning about what she had done with her life.
- I have always had to deal with a tendency to mix up times (and numbers, for that mater) so I don't know if it's Alzheimers or dementia, but Mary Ruth's funeral was yesterday, not todlay. So I watched a video of it, which worked fine, as I could skip the piano music with the video of all the repeating pictures, some of the hymns when they sang every verse and some of the preaching.
- Josh Graves was going to come over this afternoon so I could show him all my booking techniques. I guess we miscommunicated because he thought it was tomorrow.
- No problem. I got my house straightened up (somewhat for a man cave) a day ahead of time.
- Last night I came up with the bright idea of putting the dry food for my tour in a couple fabric cold-stuff bags that I had on hand: a green one from Connor's Grocery in Buxton, NC and a gray one from my most recent
House Calls visit. They should be much better for the purpose than the paper grocery bags I have used in the past.
- This afternoon I bagged up 13 lb of nuts (green) and 15.6 lb of non-nuts (gray). It was perfect.
- Before going to bed I put in a load of laundry for a pre-rinse and an overnight soak.
- Got to bed at 12:47 for 8:47 hours of sleep
- From Google, here's my travels during the month of March, 2024:
Sun Mar 31 = I finished two loads of laundry today, right on schedule.
- Josh Graves came over this afternoon. Sincd he is booking some shows for me in July, I went over with him some of my booking techniques. We also worked out some details of his opening for me at a couple shows in Pensacola FL in April.
- Problem: I have a bunch of ice cream sandwiches that I dont really want to have in my freezer for the four months of my tour. Well, Josh being a good friend, helped me out by eating about half of them, leaving the other half for me to take to Josh Boyle when we get together tomorrow.
- The rest of the afternoon and most of the evening I worked on manually filling in the gaps of the recordings of my 1500 shows from a backup drive. The project was way too ambitious considering my time frame, so I simply copied all the files over from the backup drive to my master folder, instructing the computer to skip all the duplicate files. It was a pretty easy job since I did it with my
Alcatel - The little Alcatel Plus 10 10" Windows 10 computer I bought to get me by in Tobago in 2017 after my Dell laptop died. Its 32-bit operating system with a x64-based processor is tight, with only 2gb RAM and a 32gb SSD hard drive, but the 128gb micro SD card helps.
.
- Because of wasting so much time on the recordings it was past my bedtime by the time I brushed and flossed and I hadn't done yesterdays blog yet. By the time I got the blog done, it ws way late.
- Then I noticed that my
Countdown-To-Departure scheduled several things, including finalizing the contents of my van drawers, so I did all that.
- Got to bed at 1:27am for 8:30 hours of sleep
