March 23, 2005

March 23, 2005

Imperial, California

DAY 278

 

Today was sunny and warm, but with a very strong wind, which made the evening feel quite cool.

Early this morning Joanne went off to another line dancing session, while I took care of morning chores, then went to shower. Mid-morning, I went to a seminar on battery maintenance. It was awful. I left after 15 minutes, and I spent 10 of those minutes wondering how to exit discreetly. By about the 15 minute mark, half the audience had left, so I no longer was concerned with making my exit discreetly. This seminar speaker was extremely poorly prepared for his topic, and very inarticulate. I went to the hospitality centre, got a cup of coffee, and sat down to read the newspaper. Around noon I returned to the trailer for lunch. After lunch, I went to a seminar on RV electrical trouble shooting. It was very good, and I'm certain that what I learned today about RV 12 volt electrical systems, and problems, will come in very useful some day. Hopefully not too soon. Joanne met me after the electrical seminar, and we went to both the indoor and the outdoor market areas to buy a few things. We returned to the trailer, I napped, then did some maintenance work. I took Bo out for an afternoon obedience training session, and he did great ! He finally gets it ! Way to go, Bo. Good dog ! I gave him a lengthy brushing session. Geez, he looks ratty most of the time. A dog with long, silky hair looks terrible after a few days of romping around the desert without a brushing. We call him a rat shit terrier because of how he looks most of the time. Which reminds me, while I was walking him early this morning, he came across a rat which had just died over night. It wasn't there yesterday. Welcome to California. Bo was puzzled. I pulled him away before he got more than just a quick sniff.

We had supper, then went to the regular evening door prize awarding. For each door prize, there are 4 small supplementary / consolation prizes given to the people surrounding the main prize winner. The man in front of us won a "camp fire in a can" thingy. Welcome to California ! ! ! As a consolation prize, since we were seated behind him, we got a huge bag of unshelled peanuts. Later, while I was gone to sit in the Ham-O-Rama performers' section, Joanne traded our bag of peanuts with some other consolation prize winner for a huge bag of flavoured popcorn.

Finally, after the door prizes, it was time for Ham-O-Rama, the amateur talent show that is an Escapade highlight. Prior to 2 weeks ago, I had never performed magic for a group larger than about a dozen people. About 2 weeks ago, I performed for the Alberta Roamers Chapter Rally, an audience of about 140. Well, tonight at Ham-O-Rama, I performed for an audience of around 2200 people. And a flawless performance it was, thank you very much. Ham-O-Rama went quite well, lasting about 2 hours, with about 20 acts. Most of the performers were singing guitar players. Apparently that is usually the case. So the organizers were really thrilled to have Marcel and Louise from Montreal do a juggling routine, and me do a magic trick. My magic trick was actually a magic trick / stand up comedy routine, which worked out very well since the woman that I picked to assist me was a good sport, and played along very well. I was less nervous tonight in front of 2200 people than I was in front of 140 a couple of weeks ago. On a stage with bright lights, you can't see more than the first few rows of the audience, so it's less intimidating than 140 people sitting on lawn chairs in the bright desert sun.

DSK