Mon Jun 1 = Seventy-five years old today! Happy Birthday,
Stan
Stanley, my older brother who is a machinist for Eaton Corporation in Hutchinson, KS
!
- Before Breakfast I did a beach run for 4:27 with an ending pulse of 164.
- Out of curiosity, I asked a highway mower man why, when his tractor was way off of Highway 12, he placed cautionary traffic cones in the bicycle lane where the cyclists had to go into the auto traffic lanes to dodge the cones. He explained that they were required by law to put the cones on the white line. Thanks, attorneys for forcing people to be unsafe in order to be legal!
- This evening Greg, my neighbor, across the street back in Phoenix, phoned and adjusted the drip times for my drip system from 1:40 every five days to three hours every two days. Thanks, Greg.
- Spent the night down south in Frisco.
Tue Jun 2 = Today I drove over 100 miles to cover 58. Starting, this afternoon, from the Frisco Hatteras Mitchell Air Strip, with a few stops, I drove up to Radical Kiteboarding to ride for about 40 minutes with Charlie (lives in Frisco and is from Japan) on my Naish Custom Fish 5'2" x 17.5" surfboard with no footstraps with 15.7m Epic Renegade Infinity. It was a good call, although Charlie was saying it would be too much kite. I made all but three jibs near the first of my ride. This was only my sixth kiteboarding session this trip, due to lack of wind and my stand-up comedy. Thanks for letting us use your facility there at Radical, Ed!
- I ate supper on the way on down to Avon to pick up my stool and do the comedy show. The audience count was 23 - sort of spread out. The people standing at the edge of the parking lot seemed to laugh more than anyone else.
- After the show I drove (first time since my OBX arrival) all the way up to Manteo where I spent the night at the rest stop south of Manteo in anticipation of doing the JetPak tomorrow morning.
Wed Jun 3 = Rain! No JetPak today. Butch, Audrey and I rescheduled to a time good for all of us: Saturday morning at 10:00.
- My van's cruise control has been intermitent and the air bag light stays on. I checked and found no blown fuses, so arranged to have OBX Chrysler/Jeep look at it. The key diagnostic was discovering that the horn did not work. All that pointed to the clock spring, which replacement did the trick. Thanks Melissa, Nora and Steve for working me in.
- I spent some time at the Manteo Library, drove to Kill Devil Hills' Ramada Inn to scope out the OBX Comedy Club venue, went to the Outer Banks Sport Club for a shower and a little workout, then back to the Ramada Inn for the show. The host, Dylan Vettalna was good with his initial 16 minutes. Jimmy Robertson was the feature with 27 minutes and John Knight was the headliner - a hit with 52 minutes of signature mocking cynicism and a deadpan cutting edge. He was the only one who did any audience interaction, and he did quite a bit of it. None of the three used any notes.
- Spent the night at the Highway 64 rest stop south of Manteo
Thu Jun 4 = This morning I arranged for Scott to video my JetPak with his quadcopter drone equipped with a GoPro camera. A little after noon I went to Jockey's Ridge where I met Audrey and spoke with Alex about GoPros and met Mike and Steve.
- Back down to Avon for tonight's comedy show. Everyone must be on Island Time because I had no audiance at 7:30. Scott arrived with his drone, which he demonstrated for me and the other two audience members. Since the comedy show started late, it was only about 20 minutes long until sunset.
- This evening I watched these two videos in preparation for my JetPak experience on Saturday:
Strapping In and the Basics for beginners 4:23 minutes
Basic Flight Training (excellent video) 13:34 minutes
I left my computer on all night to finish uploading the comedy video from Tuesday. Spent the night in Frisco
Fri Jun 5 = It was interesting speaking with Scott Cahoon who is going to do the video of my JetPak with his drone quadcopter. He says he uses Windows Movie Maker, which is pretty simple to use and free, although not too powerful. I'll be reading some reviews and maybe try it. I DO need a basic video editor.
- KITEBOARDED with Charlie at Frisco Wood Campground. He rode his foil board and I was out two hours with my 15.7 meter kite. The first hour was with my surf board and the second hour was with my Axis twin-tip.
- While at the Hatteras Mitchell air strip I phoned Ted Devens the new Deputy Director of Aviation for North Carolina. We discussed some issues. He seemed to appreciate my input and will take care of the big gate, out-of-date charts etc.
- I drove up to Kitty Hawk Kites in Rodanthe for the night - half way from Frisco to Manteo for tomorrow's Jet Pack experience.
Sat Jun 6 = Awesome day with Butch Stone and his OBX JetPak, Randy, his assistant... and Scott Cahoon of Hatteras Island Phantom Photography (PO Box 19, Rodanthe, NC 27968; 252 473-7505) who took all the pictures and videos (some with his quadcopter drone) except JetPak Butch, The Pro, which was taken by me. The JetPak is like having 250 horsepower strapped to your back!
Learning the JetPak controls from Butch on the pontoon boat
Are you ready?
Start your engine for your first try - Butch controlling the throttle 1:07 minute video
I Can Fly! The power module (white on the right) is a 250hp Jet Ski engine hooked to a fire hose.
OBX JetPacking with Arizona Lou See Lou at his highest at 3:45 minute into the 5:08 video.
Butch shows off a little while Arizona Lou has a rest 24 second video
Lou Biffing it (crashing) and making like a submarine - five times 54 sec
Late this afternoon I drove down to Avon to promote my Tuesday Farewell Comedy-n-Sunset show.
Sun Jun 7 = KITEBOARDING today was my first ocean session from Ramp 34 north of Avon to just before the Avon Pier with Charlie to his house. His wife, Pat provided our transportation back up to my van. Good people who happened to be setting up his kite on the beach at the same time.
Mon Jun 8 = I spent most of the day helping out at Hatteras Mitchell field downloading Windows Movie Maker and using it to prepare a JetPak video which I uploaded to this Blog page.
Tue Jun 9 = Lasts for this trip today:
- My last sound ride was from Salvo Day Use Area to
KHK
Kitty Hawk Kites kiteboarding center in Rodanthe, NC.
with my 8 and 5'2" surfboard, practicing jump-on starts and jibes.
- My last (and only second) ocean ride was the .8 miles down south from the washout to The Bath House. The ocean was pretty high so I spent most of my time chasing my board in the surf. I never did get out, but got up and rode for a few seconds three times before getting clobbered by waves. Good practice for the Dominican Republic.
- My last comedy show at Haulover was to a group of nine - three generations. The audience was good.
- I drove up to Rodanthe, on my way home for the night.
Wed Jun 10 = Getting off Hatteras Island was more of a challenge than it should have been. Early this morning, when no one was going to need the restroom, I took time to give myself a haircut and cut my hairs. I realized that I had left my special water hat 30 miles down south of Frisco at the Bath House. Made the 60-mile trip to find the hat nowhere. After checking with some of the parks people I concluded that someone has a new hat.
- As long as I was passing the Billy Mitchell air strip I stopped by and added map links to all my upcoming appearances. I don't know why I did not think of doing that sooner.
- Back up at Kitty Hawk Kites in Rodanthe, I inflated all four of my kites to let them dry out thoroughly. Mistake - it was around noon when I did it... without sunscreen, which probably lead to my later problem.
- I took a nap while the kites were drying and applied sunscreen before rolling them all up.
- Then I headed north to Kill Devil Hills, stopped by a couple of thrift stores looking for a black hat (found none) and then to the Outer Banks Sports Club for a shower and workout. Both before and after the workout I was really dragging. Must have been the sun with no sunscreen.
- I drove east on 64 to Williamston, NC for the night. As usual I ate supper on the way, but that didn't work out as my stomach was kinda queasy. I put the remainder of my sandwich etc. in the refrigerator. At bed time I had a little fever (100.5) so went to bed early (9:30) and got up late (8:30) to let my body catch up. I should have used the sunscreen this morning!
Thu Jun 11 = Still running a little fever of 99.1 just before noon this morning. I drove to Greensboro and signed up as #2 for the 4-minutes of open mic. It was $5 for both audience members and comedians. Charging admission means that the comedians are a little more serious about their craft and the audience members are more likely to stick around for the last comedians. As with my first appearance here (May 5, 2014) it was a good audience. I did mostly material that was new to this venue.
- Spent the night in the Thomasville, NC Walmart parking lot back by the auto service bays where there were trees to provide shade in the morning.
Fri Jun 12 = After breakfast I drove to Charlotte, scoped out Mama's Caribbean and then hung out at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Plaza Midwood Library until they kicked me out when they closed at 5:00, then in their parking lot for supper, working on this blog and analyzing some of my past comedy shows in preparation for tonight's show at Mama's Caribbean.
- At Mama's Caribbean it was like seeing old friends - from May, 2014: Lovey, Claudette (the producer) and others. Claudette keeps coming out with her creative, entertaining and spicy commentaries on life. Downside is that I blew the light by over a minute. Sorry, Claudette - never again! The feature was Fable The Poet from Michigan. The show was winding down when I had to leave because it was getting late for me.
- Got to bed at 1:13am in Charlotte, south of there, at a Walmart not too far from the only LA Fitness in the area.
Sat Jun 13 = Last night I misjudged the morning shade when I parked my van, so got up at 6:30 this morning, moved the van to a tree that would give me shade into afternoon and went back to bed with my ceiling fan on.
- At the LA Fitness this afternoon I took a shower and had a relaxed-paced light full-body workout. It is the fanciest gym I have seen, with new Hoist machines, a TV lounge in the Men's locker room, a big-screen theater (with rows of treadmills and ellipticals behind the row of couches/seats and a jogging track up on the third level .
- I finished there in time to make it to the downtown library (no parking) in time to update my archived blog for May 2014 with a revised Comedy-n-Sunset poster before the library closed at 5:00. Fortunately I had it all ready to upload.
- Since I had no comedy appearance scheduled for today, I decided to take in a comedy show at The Comedy Zone, 900 North Carolina Music Factory Boulevard in Charlotte, NC. Good luck trying to find that street in your Garmin GPS. It turns out the GPS was looking for N C Music Factory Boulevard. Opener, Jason Beas had about six minutes of good stuff (looked at his note sheet on the stool four times). Feature, Mary Radgenski, did 20 minutes and glanced at her notes on the stool five times. Headliner, Sarah Colonna, did 50 minutes and glanced at her cell phone on the stool one time. Sarah had the audience rolling - more the women than the men. She is also a published author. There was no White male comedian appearing in the area.
Things I want to remember from Sarah:
I apologize... or You're welcome
I shouldn't ask the question if I don't know anything about the answer
Porn - That's what I hear.
- On the way driving to the Gastonia, NC Walmart for the night, I found a Gold's Gym nearby. The gym was unattended when I arrived, but a guy let me in. They have a neat arrangement: Evidently their members are given a key and can enter any time, 24 hours a day, for their workout. The gym appeared to be clean and well maintained. I did not do a workout, but may check back with them tomorrow.
- Warmest night yet (88° inside my van at my 11:30pm bedtime) with a forecast low of 71°. I did OK with nothing on but my little ceiling fan on high.
Sun Jun 14 = I ran it a little too tight for comfort driving to Knoxville today, considering I stopped by two thrift stores looking for a replacement black hat and Big Lots where I found Banana Boat Natural Reflect Baby Tear-Free/Sting-Free SPF 50+ sunscreen with titanium dioxide 3.6% and zinc oxide 4%. Also it rained on the way to slow traffic down some. It turns out that I arrived at the Preservation Pub with time to spare, considering the show started late. Boston, the producer/host said he'd give me ten minutes. I think he gave me the light early. My set was actually 8:17, which was longer than the rest (non-out-of-state) of the comedians. Maybe Boston felt my set wasn't connecting with the audience. Good show, Boston, and thanks!
- Spent the night about 15 miles away in western Knoxville, heading toward Nashville for tomorrow night's comedy.
Mon Jun 15 = No time to stop by a library today due to driving to Nashville. The COMEDY show at Bobby's Idle Hour Tavern was great! One of the best so far this trip. There were 20 comedians so Chad could only give us four minutes each (absolutely no music allowed), but the crowd of 55 made up for it with their support and enthusiasm.
- Spent the night in western Nashville, headed toward Oklahoma City.
Tue Jun 16 = This morning I added 12 oz of freon, and a can of leak-stop/dye to my van's AC because the output temperature was 70 degreens and I'll be heading out west where it is hot. The rest of the day was driving from Nashville to Henrietta, OK, just across the Oklahoma border, for the night.
Wed Jun 17 = I arrived at the Wake Zone water park in Oklahoma City about 11am amidst an almost continuous drizzle, fixed & ate lunch, rode about four times, hung around and had fun. It was interesting getting acquainted with the owner.
Everyone else started with a butt-scoot.
Jump start; a little hop; coasting in to shore. 32 second video edited on Windows Movie Maker by Lou Self
- Around 4pm I drove all the way down to Yukon, OK (southeast of OKC) for a tire rotation at a Discount Tire store there, then back up to The Loony Bin Comedy Club for comedy which did not happen. We got the comedians selected, order determined, rules reviewed... and then no show due to lack of an audience. This is only the second time this has happened to me... both times here.
- I drove back down to Yukon, OK for the night to be on my way west first thing tomorrow morning... but things did not work out that way.
Thu Jun 18 = There was more wind than I expected so I drove back into OKC and was the only one kiteboarding on Lake Hefner for about an hour. This was my first time on the lake. The wind was unusually consistent for an inland lake. I also met an older kiteboarder, Dan and a storm chaser kiteboarder, Asa Voyles. He has a really interesting van!
- I got away from Hefner a little after noon and drove all the way to Tucumcari NM for the night. There is nothing there! No Walmart, no phone data and no weather service radio. I spent the night in their Motel 8 truck parking area - the first time not in a Walmart parking lot (except for the nights on OBX).
Fri Jun 19 = This morning I got my oil changed at Quality Lube & Tire. As they say on the T shirt they gave me, The best place in town to take a leak... - I spent most of the rest of the morning at the Tucumcari library doing my email and adding OBX Sports Club to my Shops web page. Then I wasted no time heading out. My goal to make it to Payson, AZ for the night.
- I arrived in Payson and drove into
Rose Anne
my X
's drive a little before 10pm. We had a little ice cream and visited for about an hour. I spent the night parked in her driveway - just about perfect: quiet and shady in the morning. I set my alarm to sleep in, but forgot to reset the time to mountain STANDARD time, so lost about 1.5 hours of sleep. I can take it!
Sat Jun 20 = I got up this morning on MDT which means I lost an hour and a half of sleep. Rose Anne and I had a good visit for about two hours, catching up on all sorts of things, including quilting, comedy, socializing, JetPaking, our kids, finance, politics and her pets. We still have a lot in common.
- I arrived in Phoenix about 2pm, stopped by Radio Shack for a plug for my van water system (which they did not have), by 24-Hour Fitness for a full-body workout and by Fry's Food for a couple grocery items... then home. I got the van unloaded then turned the house AC down from 88° to 82°. It took abut eight hours of continuous AC running for the house to get cool. No wonder, it was about 110 degrees outside... but it is a DRY heat.
This evening I finally got last year's spring trip finished on my Trips web page.
Sun Jun 21 = For Fathers' Day, Anne phoned from Germany. We had a good visit and I also got to visit with Katie for a while. Scott texted me.
- A little after noon I lay in the sun for 16 minutes and refilled the black cartridge of my OfficeJet 100 portable printer and made my shopping list for tomorrow.
Mon Jun 22 = This morning I took Denise shopping at Winco. Boy did I buy lots of groceries! No wonder, I had used up all my food before leaving home the 28th of April.
- This afternoon I made some important phone calls and processed and uploaded some videos to YouTube. This evening I researched ultrasonic weather stations and updated this blog, including the above Wake Zone video.
Tue Jun 23 = House stuff this morning. Rogelio Valenzuela came and replaced about 20 feet of drip line that had sprung two more leaks after I had already repaired the old line six times before.
- Ryan Miklus, from Budget Brothers Termite came and looked at my termite situation. I have about six tubes coming down from the hallway ceiling.
- This afternoon I took my van to C & R Tire to adjust the alignment after traversing the HUGE BUMP while crossing the NBSF tracks, leaving Holbrook on Friday.
- This evening I created a video of all five of my on-camera JetPak biffs and paid my first visit, in over two months, to the Moon Valley LA Fitness for a medium-weight legs workout.
Wed Jun 24 = This morning I took my van to Auto Tune to work on the AC... again. I had to add 12 oz of freon in Nashville (after 5,000 miles since their last system recharge) in order to survive the hot drive back west. They used their new freon sniffer and may have gotten closer to fixing the system by replacing both the high and low-side Schrader valves. The compressor may have a slight leak also, but it wold not be cost effective to replace it at this time.
- This afternoon I worked on comedy some and got mad at my Garmin Nuvi 885T GPS. I put in the new UpStart battery that arrived yesterday and the GPS does not work. I thought the new battery may need to be charged, so have had the GPS plugged into a computer USB port for 8.5 hours. It is still doing a continuous 42-second restart loop. Bad battery, although it is a new one!
- Please check out my evening's new addition to this web page: A video of all five of my JetPak biffs as caught on camera. It is now the last video for Sat Jun 6. It wasn't easy on my shoulders pushing the handles up to go up - especially when I started plowing through the water.
- Tonight it got late, so I did a medium-weight arms workout here at home.
Thu Jun 25 = This morning Jim, from TermTech (termite people) checked my termite tubes. I was impressed with the thoroughness of his inspection. I appreciated that he explained the chemicals and procedures they are using now. Chlordane, the old and now illegal chemical, lasted 30-40 years and was a repellent. It would kill the termites immediately so scare off the others. Nowadays they use non-repellents. These chemicals, like Termidor, do a slow kill so the termites keep foraging for a while and spread the poison to the termite nests and kill the whole colony. At least that's the theory.
- At noon I headed toward Sweet Tomatoes in Scottsdale for lunch with
George & Cindy
younger brother and his wife who live in Mesa, Arizona
.
It was one of those days for them. We were going to meet at noon. They arrived about 1:45. Now I don't feel so bad about the times I have been late to their house, although I do not plan to use this as an excuse to be late... ever! We DID have a good visit. This will be our only get-together between my two trips.
- I concluded the brand new UpStart GPS battery is defective and will never work in my Garmin Nuvi 885T, so gave up trying to make it work.
Fri Jun 26 = Today I mostly stayed around home, laying out in the sun 20 minutes at solar noon, organizing some receipts and guarantees, tweaking and practicing my full show and going to LA Fitness at 10:00pm and realizing that they had already closed two hours before, being Friday. I DID start checking the baggage requirements of American Airlines. I am about to take a hammer to my HP OfficeJet 100 printer because is is not staying paired with my
Vaio
Sony Vaio Duo 11 computer with 11.6" touch screen, Windows 8.1, 8gb memory and 256gb SSD
and the printer cartridges are microchipped which means that the printer balks with refilled cartridges. Gerr! Got to bed late.
Sat Jun 27 = Busy morning: I raked my front gravel, trimmed the Natal Plum shrubs out front and put all the thorn-ridden stuff in my trash can, sprayed preemergence front and back and set out both my electronic and analog rain gauges. Now I'll wait to have the preemergence activated by rain, which is forecast to be 36, 36, 29, 33, 43, 31 percents Sunday June 28 through Saturday, the 4th of July. If there is no rain, I'll have to water it in my hand (ugh!).
- I rewarded myself with a medium-weight torso workout at LA Fitness.
- I tried printing out some comedy schedules, my Vacation Countdown and a 4x6 comedy trigger outline and my Baltimore Slogans on the back... and my HP OfficeJet 100 printer worked perfectly!
- This evening I decided NOT to go to the weekly Hamfeast since it was way down in Gilbert, AZ, so checked out all the comedians playing in the Phoenix area to go to a show, the decided NOT to go to a show and, instead, print all the baggage rules for American and US Air airlines so I can get started packing my bags.
- Got to bed before 11:30.
Sun Jun 28 = Goal to day was to outline my comedy bio, but first (I hate that phrase) I wanted to see what other comedians were doing for their bios, so looked up the bios of a dozen or so from Andrew Norelli to Tim Conway. Never got to my own outline.
- On the way to and from LA Fitness, for a slow medium-weight legs workout, I DID go through my comedy-routine topics numbers five and six.On the way home I stopped by Goodwill, looking for a black hat, and ended up with a Hamilton Beach commercial blender and an Oregon Scientific RM313PA atomic projection Kids' Clock just like the one I already have, only in better condition. I'm going to start using it for my morning alarms, as it has a crescendo alarm and is easer to set than my bedside Radio Shack atomic projection Clock with just a regular alarm.
- This evening I listened to a free audio sample of The Thin Green Line: The Money Secretes of the Super Wealthy and researched and installed, on my cell phone, Battery Overlay Percent version 1.1r2 which gives me an on-screen battery condition.
Mon Jun 29 = This afternoon Dave from Terminix did a very thorough inspection of my house and found evidence of termites more places than inspectors from either of the previous two companies.
- I went to Fitness 1 for a slow medium-weight arms workout.
Tue Jun 30 = Today's trip included two comedy stops. At the Tempe Center of the Arts I had a private session with Tony Vicich who teaches advanced comedy classes there. Conclusion: I'm trying too hard on stage to do material that is not really mine and telegraphing my punchlines. On the way to TCA I stopped by Trader Joe's for a two-month supply of nuts, some of which I'll probably take with me to the Dominican Republic.
- Then on the way to do comedy at Dos Gringos I stopped at a near-by LA Fitness for an abbreviated, fast, medium-weight legs workout. My 6:48 minutes of comedy at Dos Gringos went fairly well. It was good to visit with some of my comedian friends again ater over two months.
