RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

What a great meme! But you’ve got to be a bit of a Trekker to get it.

Whenever a young person asks my advice about good albums that epitomize the classic rock vibe, I always tell them to start their research by listening to the first four Van Halen albums. One of those songs is “Feel Your Love Tonight” from the very first Van Halen album – which I’ve been singing all week.

 

Monday the 30th – DOUBLE 8’s! – Today’s the day my dad turns 88, so I gave him a call to see if he got the package I sent him yet. He said he picked it up at the UPS store and hadn’t opened it yet. Later he sent me a great pic of him with some of the birthday cards he received from all over the world. I put a blast out on Twitter and Instagram asking my followers for cards. I got the idea from my two sisters, who had put his picture in the local paper along with my parents’ mailing address. I figured I’d help spread the word as well. Many of the people he used to know, work with, hang out with, etc. have all passed away. So it was nice for him to get some exciting cards from other parts of the world! He was elated! He was also elated to get the Johnny Carson cue card in the mail (see last week’s Wally’s Week)! I did some video editing, worked around the house, relaxed, recorded a ton of auditions, grabbed a short nap, and then got up later to record a few more Wally The Elf bits for “Christmas Across the Lands.” I wrote Wally’s Week and then hit the hay.

Tuesday the 31st – A BLUSTERY DAY! – When I got up I had hoped to get out and do my 2 mile walk. But it was a cold, windy, blustery day. Not good. So I stayed inside, recorded some auditions, and later I had dinner with my friend Emily, whom I hadn’t seen in a few months.

Wednesday the 1st – WEDNESDAY WALK! – The weather had improved greatly, so I put on my walking shoes and headed out for a stroll. Gotta keep that blood pressure down! I walked to the post office, and then to CVS to pick up some supplies. I spoke with Christine, my pharmacist, and told her I had been diagnosed with mildly high blood pressure. She suggested drinking lemon water. I had never heard that before, but hey…she’s the pharmacist. Not me! I’m gonna try it. I went over to the grocery store and picked up some veggies, and lemons! I walked home and Roxy was very energetic. Which is great to see in a 14.5 year old dog. I called my “adopted grandma” Shirley to see how she was doing, and the report wasn’t very good. She HAD been released from the hospital on Monday. But because of continued breathing problems she went right back into the hospital on Tuesday. She’s expecting to get out by the end of the week, and then she’ll be moving in with her daughter and son-in-law in Palm Desert so they can keep a constant eye on her. I did some more video editing and then went to bed.

Thursday the 2nd – FOG AND FRAMES! – Even though I felt kind of “out of sorts” (tired, foggy, numb) I decided to drive over to Michael’s crafts to get my Johnny Carson cue card framed. The finished piece is going to be really nice, and will not only include the original Carson cue card my buddy gave me recently, but I ‘m throwing in a few other items that I received from friends over time. One item is a mint condition bottle of Johnny Carson’s signature cologne “Here’s Johnny” along with the companion box. I also recently came across a “Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” pencil I had in my stuff. This pencil has an eraser on both ends! If you remember at all, Johnny liked to drum along with the band on his desk with a pencil. I can’t remember where I got this item, but it’s a very cool collectible. It’ll look great framed with the original cue card! When I left Michael’s the framing girl came running after me. She asked if I had forgotten to leave the cologne and box with her. I didn’t think I had, but after digging around in my bag I realized that I had completely walked out with it! Kinda hard to frame something if I don’t leave it with them! Like I said…foggy brain! I honestly think it’s the medication I’m on, as that is one of the occasional side effects. But when I got home and looked through my bag, I realized that I had also taken the pencil back with me. Oh well. It’s a good excuse for a walk back to Michael’s! I tried to call Michael’s to speak with the framing girl to let her know I had it, in case she was going out of her mind trying to find it, but their phones weren’t operating correctly and kept hanging up on me when I attempted to speak with a live person. I drove to my box to get my packages, and then headed home. While I was at Michael’s I bought a two-pack of 11X14 frames to frame two pieces of artwork from my childhood. One is a picture of me at six months old, and the other is a silhouette of my profile that we did in kindergarten. But when I opened the two-pack, the frame underneath the other one had broken glass. I don’t usually like glass in my frames anyway, so this gave me a good excuse to have some Plexiglas cut that I could use in them instead. Later I picked up my friend Bianca for dinner at Ernie’s Taco House. I hadn’t seen her in a while so it was nice catching up. I got home and did some work and grabbed a nap. Later I did my nightly auditions, made a salad and watched another episode of “The Incredible Hulk” from the second season Blu Ray boxed set.

Friday the 3rd – TREK TREAT! – The maids came over late in the afternoon to clean Planet Wallywood. I did a few auditions while they worked. When they finished I walked over to Michael’s to drop off the “Tonight Show” souvenir pencil for my framed piece. While I was there I also discovered some amazing galaxy print poster board! I bought three pieces of it to use in some displays around the house! I also had the framing girl cut two pieces of 11 X 14 Plexiglas for my frames. My buddy Jim Ojala came over to pick up the three boxes of jars I had for his effects studio. Then I worked around the house for a bit. I took a quick nap, and then got up to do more auditions. I decided that a good place to hang the galaxy poster board was on my “Star Trek” shelf! I had a model of the Enterprise that I had made several years ago, and it was hanging in the display case. I took everything off the shelf, cleaned it really well, mounted the galaxy paper, and then put everything back. It looked great! I did some miscellaneous work around the house, which included mounting and framing the two pieces of art from my childhood. I moved some stuff around on the wall and found the perfect spot for them. I literally worked all through the night on this stuff. I also prepped two bank deposits for next week, updated all of my music players, made a salad and watched another episode of “The Incredible Hulk.”

Saturday the 4th – SADDER-DAY! – When I got up in the afternoon I got a notification that my “adopted grandma” Shirley had passed away overnight. After her initial heart attack last week she never really fully recovered and went downhill from there. She would have been 96 on the 28th of February. While it’s sad news, I took a little solace in the face that she had a good, productive, long life at 95. I also took heart knowing that over the years I’ve known her, we had a lot of great adventures together. So I’m not too sad about her passing, as I know she’s in a much better place surrounded by constant love and light. In the evening I took a walk to the grocery store to get some items I needed. On the walk back I noticed a kid in a white Toyota trying to get out of a tight spot in a parking lot. Somebody parked a really nice, new Corvette close behind him, and without somebody to spot him, getting out of that space without hitting the ‘Vette would be impossible. I told him I’d spot him and help him get out of that space. It took a while, but we did it. He thanked me and he was on his way. I call it the “Lew Wingert Good Deed of the Day.” Recently my dad has said that his goal is to do one good deed every day. It doesn’t have to be a big one, but he’s always on the lookout to do nice things. I continued walking home toward a giant, gorgeous, silvery full moon overhead. Since several jets had just flown overhead moments before, their chem-trails framed the moon in an eerie, but picturesque presentation. As I headed down my street to go home, there was a biker gang that drove down the street past me. There were close to a hundred Harleys in the line, and the rumble of the powerful bikes were setting off car alarms on the street. It was pretty impressive. I came home to make some calls, shower, and to take Roxy out. She’s doing pretty well, considering. She’s a little wobbly on her feet sometimes, but that’s a given considering her age. But personality wise she’s still alert, present, and very engaged in life. I took a short nap, and when I got up I decided to hang some artwork upstairs in my vanity area. There are 3 lenticular photos I have in my collection of Marvel heroes. It’s the terrific artwork from the 70’s-era comics and I bought them years ago at Hobby Lobby. Since I had to make room on my wall to hang my childhood artwork, I decided to remove the Marvel pieces and hang them upstairs. There was Spider-Man, Captain America and Iron Man. I got them hung equidistantly and they all looked amazing! As I start to bring new pieces into the house to hang on the wall, I’m going to need to be very discerning about which of the older pieces in my collection should stay or go. I already took down a signed “Family Guy” cast and crew poster that no longer “speaks to me” and put it in storage. Now I’m eyeballing several other pieces around the house that probably could be removed in favor of newer acquisitions. When the Johnny Carson piece comes in I’ll really need to do some clever rearranging. Since it was the first weekend of the month, it was another one of my “Laurel and Hardy Theatre” nights. Though now I’m moderating my traditional meal just a bit to more closely align with my doctor’s orders. Instead of covering my Chef Boyardee with a full can of sauce, (which is FULL of salt!) I used only ¾ of a can. I tried putting on only half a can, but it was too sparse. Instead of covering it with 30 pepperoni slices, I used only a dozen or so. Same went for the summer sausage and sauerkraut toppings. I’m not going to get rid of the foods I enjoy entirely, but I’m going to moderate them considerably. And you know what? The food was still entirely enjoyable! However I noticed that the pizza bakes a little more quickly now that there are fewer items on it! So it got a wee bit overdone. The next movie in line was “Air Raid Wardens,” which has a heavy World War II theme. I found it very funny, and had remembered seeing it as a kid. I only have about six more movies to go before I’ve completed my Laurel and Hardy film collection.

Sunday the 5th – MAHNA MAHNAWESOME! – My pal Drew had me come back to his workshop to do some more work on my Mahna Mahna replica Muppet. He finished covering the head, and we started in on making the body. We also did some work making the nose, but to get it right is very difficult. We worked for about 3 hours, and he gave me the head to take home and work with. I need to design the eye cones for the head, but to the right size I wanted to have the head in my possession to measure it properly and make sure the eye cones I design would be in the proper size ratio. I stopped at Burger King on the way home to get some food. Again, I ate the entire sandwich, but only had a few of the onion rings. Normally I would have devoured the entire thing! Moderation is the key, I think. When I got home I found out that the battery back-up for my computer was beeping. It was a long continuous beep, and I had no idea how long it had been going. I felt bad for my cat Spook if he had to sit there and listen to that for an hour. Roxy’s hearing is mostly gone so that didn’t matter. But I believe that alarm sounds to let you know the battery is out of juice, and that it’s about to shut off. It’s an alarm that gives you the chance to shut off your computer correctly so you don’t lose any data. So I honestly don’t think it had been going off for very long. Luckily I had the new one I bought recently standing by. So I installed it, and removed the old one. I opened up the old back-up and removed the old battery to get the part number. I found the correct battery on-line and ordered a new one. I’ll use this back-up as a…ahem…back-up, in case the power goes out and I need to power some lighting with it. I’ll most likely keep that one upstairs. However, when I started plugging my computer implements into the new back-up system, I realized that the back-up system was very poorly designed. Considering that the plugs on my router and modem have very oblong casings, this means they wouldn’t fit in very well. When plugged into the back-up, the oblong casings are so big they cover up other outlets that I need! On Monday I’ll head to the hardware store and buy some sort of little 3-outlet attachment that has the profile of a single plug, but has the capability to accommodate three different implements. I got a short nap, and then got up later to record my auditions, record another Wally the Elf bit, and start in on making test pieces for the Mahna Mahna eye cones. I couldn’t decide between cones that were 2 ½” in diameter, or cones that were 2 ¼” in diameter. One thing I’ve found in puppet building, sometimes an eighth of an inch or less can make a world of difference. I took photos of both of them pinned on the head and sent them to Drew for his opinion. I did some more work around the house and hit the hay.

And how was YOUR week??!!

PIX FROM THE WEEK


I think this size has the perfect “squish spread” – so I’m going with this design!

I received two original Johnny Carson “Tonight Show” cue cards from a buddy of mine, but each card had writing on both sides. So you can see just how cool these are, these are the cards.



My mom created this little photo collage for my dad’s 88th birthday…

…and here he is with his birthday cake.

He’s pictured here with just a few of the many great cards he received in the mail from all over the world! He was blown away!

Some costume items came in for my Nate Atez (long A, long E) puppet I’m working on VERY cool stuff!

I rearranged my “Star Trek” shelf a bit, and it looks like the Enterprise landing party beamed down to the planet of oversized props!

The new pieces I just hung include a picture of me at the age of 6 months, and a silhouette of my head in kindergarten.

RIP Shirley Huegin..our “adopted grandma.” She fit in so well with our oddball little group. We’ll miss her dreadfully, but know that she’s in a much better place.