Showing posts with label geekstuff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label geekstuff. Show all posts

Monday, March 25, 2024

Good Show - Personal Best, Episode 273

There's nothing like a deadline to get things done! That's what our live YouTube show is for me. We've been doing it for so many years now that I have muscle memory for what it takes to put a show together. 
First, the topic
I need to come up with a topic by Friday morning and hopefully have a sketch of the outline. It's good if I can have the review questions written before I go to bed Friday night - start with the end in mind. If I know what I want people to know at the end, it's easier to put the lesson plan together. 
Then the materials and the learning
Saturday is a work day - find if I have  any existing videos that teach what I want. If not, then I need to record at least one. I really like the combination of live presentation with recorded segments. Then Sunday is putting finishing touches on the slide show and practicing the timing. 
This week I came up with the topic early Monday, perhaps too early because that allowed time for doubts to arise before Friday. The topic was google slides. Not a normal topic for us because our audience doesn't normally make presentations. But I just discovered some new AI features that I thought would e cool to show, and google slides is a good way to use photos in a slideshow with features that google photos doesn't have. 
While thinking about it Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday - I realized how much I didn't know about google slides, so I started learning. Hold on! I seem to be in process of building a class that could go for several hours here! No. Should I change topics? No. My point is that google slides is for other things, not just presentations. Let's stick to that. But I have to show a little of the basics. Ok, my outline is
Google slides basics
Use an extension for google photos slide show
Using new AI for creating a picture
Now it's Saturday, pressure is mounting. I need to make at least one video. I spend hours and I don't like the result 🙁 
I didn't have anything done on time, but it still came off perfectly
Sunday morning I got nothing! But the show must go on. I focus on my end result and crank out 2 new videos
I write the review questions. I come up with an idea for Jim to show how to collaborate with google slides. 
It's 2pm and we go live. 


It was great! It's almost like we know what we're doing after 273 times!! This was one of our very best. I ended up being very happy with my content, and Jim's production skills have gotten top-notch. No glitches. Great sound. We have fun and I think the people watching us do too.

Here is the link to watch the show: https://youtu.be/j4NN3KLkNGI Or you can always just go to YouTube.com/@geeksontour, open the Playlist for "What Does This Button Do?" and find Episode 274

I felt the same way after this show. I always review how it went and think of some things I could do better but I couldn't thnk of anything! The audience asked some really good questions too. It was a good topic! I might even say we've reached our peak. It reminds me of the FMCA rally at the Ohio university where all of our seminars were perfect. 


Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Starting a new Podcast

 What's a podcast? Well, the term has changed over the years. Apple made the iPod in the early 2000's. It's main purpose was to play your music collection. The device advertised that you could have 1,000 songs in your pocket. Then people came up with the idea of recording people talking, like radio talk shows and recording them like 'songs.' "Podcasts" was born.

Fast forward to the YouTube era and podcasts could also be video. We started doing our live YouTube show "What Does This Button Do?" in 2014. Now, 9 years later, we have 260 episodes and YouTube suggested that we use their new classification of Podcast for it. On our YouTube channel, you'll see a menu item for Podcast and the only thing there is our Button show.


We're doing pretty well with our Youtube channel - just passed 10,000 subscribers! And, we're actually earning a few hundred dollars a month. It's got our attention. We won a review on YouTube Channel Reviews and they had lots to say - some good, and lots of suggestions for improvement. We took it to heart and made lots of changes - like the new banner art. It's really fun to have this outlet for our creativity and learning.
Meanwhile, we also told Tech for Seniors that they need a photo segment in their show and I'd be happy to do it. They said yes. We needed to come up with a name for it, I wanted it to be catchy, but friendly and I turned to my trusted sidekick - ChatGPT, Bard etc. to come up with something. Instead of asking it for a title for a segment of another show, I decided the best word to use to describe what I wanted was a title for a "podcast." We weren't really doing a podcast, but it's kind of like a podcast? It was a regular segment on a particular topic delivered every other week. As we continued tweaking a title, I decided I kinda liked the idea of making a podcast! We have one podcast listed on our YouTube channel, why not 2?
So, we produce the 10 minute video for Tech for Senior, they use it on their Monday show, then we can repurpose it and post it on our YouTube channel maybe a week later and call it a podcast.

Fun with Photos

A Podcast from Geeks on Tour. 10 minute episodes answering your questions about taking, making, keeping, and sharing your lifetime of photos.
  1. How can I fix my dark photos?
  2. What is the best way to take Fireworks photos?
Those are the 2 we've done so far, we're waiting for a third before we create the podcast. My 3d topic is scanning old photos. I figure I'll show just snapping photos of old photos, using my phone, using Google's PhotoScan app, and maybe a minute on that cool Photomyne app that can capture a whole page of an old photo album at once. Lo and Behold, I look at Google Photos where it links out to PhotoScan and there's Photomyne as well. COOL! My main objection to photomyne in the past was tht it was dificult to get the results into Google Photos. Now, it's automatic! I will definitely use that! And, I never would have known about it if I hadn't taken it upon myself to do more teaching!

I Love my work!
I Love my life?





Thursday, April 09, 2020

Day 21 #StayHome - newsletter is done

Today is Thursday, that means a 7am toastmasters meeting, and I'm toastmaster today. I'm at my standing computer desk upstairs, Jim is in his studio downstairs. Another Zoom meeting. There are a few difficulties but overall it's so wonderful to be able to get together while we're all sequestered at home.


Ok, I've got to get the newsletter done today. With all the zoom meetings we've been having and teaching I decided to dedicate this issue to Zoom, which means that I am determined to finish my Zoom course on Thinkific so that I can announce it in the newsletter. I'll tell ya, my boss is such a slave driver!

Why do I have to do this? I mean nobody would notice if I send a newsletter or not, but I've created a newsletter every month since February 2004, I haven't missed a month. I'm driven, I can't help it. Anyway, I got it done. Apr 2020 News: Zoom online meetings issue

Jim has made every meal we've eaten during this #StayHome time. He's driven too! So when he suggested that we take advantage of Flanigan's ribs to go, I said that sounded like a great idea. He ordered online and drove to pick up the order. He said that once he pulled into the parking lot, he didn't even have to get out of the car. Someone greeted him asked for his name and order number, took his credit card and came back with the ribs. I made a salad and we had another delicious dinner.

Then we went for a walk. Gotta stop and smell the roses!
I know .. not a rose. I don't know what it is, but I just tapped the Google Lens button from within Google Photos and it reported that this is a Starburst bush.



Bad News

US Corona virus cases: 467,887 Deaths:16,642

Good News

There's some great humor coming out of the obsession with Zoom meetings.




   

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Thinking about our Business

People love the logo on our t-shirts: Geeks on Tour. It's a rare waitress/waiter that doesn't ask us about it. "What is Geeks on Tour?"
Well, it's our business. We're Geeks, and we tour the country teaching technology to other travelers. "Cool," they say. "What exactly do you teach?" Well, we started traveling in a motorhome in 2003 and saw the need for fellow travelers to understand technology. We've both been computer professionals since 1983, teaching people how to use their computers, but now it's almost all about smartphones and tablets. Google Photos is our real specialty, it's the best way to manage all those thousands of photos we take these days.
By this point one of two things is happening:
  1. Their eyes are starting to glaze over and they just want to know if we're going to be ordering dessert.
    or
  2. They're getting out their phone and want to ask us some questions about a problem they're having, and they're full of questions about our lifestyle
Our business is hard to describe because it is uniquely ours. We never designed exactly what the business was, we just kept evolving.
People who do know our business often don't get us. Some think we only teach newbies how to turn it on, what is a text message, how to send an email - real beginner stuff. Others assume we are experts and can troubleshoot any problem they're having with their device. Neither is correct. We get quite a bit more advanced than for beginners, and, although we're pretty good at troubleshooting problems, that's not our focus.
We are Geeks Who Teach. We don't wait for people to ask us questions, we come up with lessons meant to teach concepts about these devices and help people continually get better at using their phones and tablets. We have a specialty in Google Photos and teaching people about taking great photos with their phones and then what to do with them. We teach on our website. Our travels around the country are more for promoting our website. We make our living from people subscribing to the website.

  • We are not for everyone. We don't teach business applications, just the fun stuff like pictures and maps. We used to say we teach how to Plan, Preserve, and Share your travels. But, you don't have to be a traveler to want to learn this stuff. 
  • We are for people who really like to learn. They think these devices are fascinating and they want to know all they can. Not just how to do the basics, and not just how to fix specific problems. We find our biggest fans are other teachers. They understand. Teachers like learning! That's why we do it - our passion is learning. The best way to learn is to teach.
  • We are not for young folks, they don't think smartphones are fascinating - they just are! They are digital natives who don't question what to do with them, they just dive in.

Anyway, we've been thinking about how to impart all of that in some simple card. Here's what we've come up with, let us know what you think. This is two sides of a "Rack Card" (what I'm holding in the photo above) designed using Canva.com.



Further your computer education**Subscribe to the Free Geeks on Tour Newsletters**

Watch our Weekly Online Show on Learning Smartphones and Tablets!

Thursday, February 02, 2017

Teach and Learn - Google Photos

This week we're staying at Riverside RV Resort in North Port, Florida. This is where the Peace River gets wider in preparation for emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. It is beautiful here. This is the 3d year that we've been invited to stay and do a "Geek Week" giving some of our seminars and classes.



Yesterday was an all day, all night, Google Photos day. In the afternoon we had a 3 hour personalized teaching workshop for 4 people with iPhones.

I love these small groups because I really get to connect with individual questions and learn what is important to people and how they learn.

And, I am challenged with each different phone and each student's goals. For example, Pat had an iPhone 6+ and that camera had the live photo feature where it takes 3 seconds of video along with the still photo. She wanted to be able to isolate one frame of the video portion as the still. I've always thought this should be the main purpose of the live photo, but in practice it can't be done. I promised to figure it out and write it up in our newsletter. I have figured out one way, but I'm still looking for a better way. It will be in our February newsletter. When it's done, you'll find it on our Newsletters page.

Then last night we presented a Google Photos seminar to the Sarasota technology user group. STUG. It was an hour drive, and we only had one hour on the agenda, but it was well worth it! I love these big groups because I feel all the energy. I get to show my excitement for the Google Photos product and I don't have to deal with any of the problems because we're only showing my phone, not dealing with any of theirs.

When you squeeze an orange, you get orange juice, the true essence of the orange. When you stress a person, you get their true nature. Or at least that is what I believe.

This seminar stressed us. We were already tired from the day, there was no time for jim to set up equipment because there was another seminar immediately before us. Jim had to set up while the previous presenter was still talking. And this class takes plenty of set-up. A computer, projector, sound system for computer. HDMI cable to project the iPhone screen, document camera to project the Android phone screen. While Jim was doing that, I recruited volunteers to pass out the paper handouts and got mentally prepared to present two hours of material in one hour.

It went great.

We felt squeezed, and our essence came out. Jim was ready with our standard PowerPoint introduction displayed, but I threw most of that out in order to get straight to demonstration. He joked with the audience as he deftly took each demo I threw at him and projected it on the big screen, bouncing between iPhone, Android, and computer. I let my passion show and boiled down all the features of Google Photos to get across the message that this is a game changer in the life of a photo taker. You can see the seminar description here.

We couldn't take all their questions, for lack of time, but we took enough to know that they were engaged. And there were some great questions.

At the end, we got raucous applause, and nearly 20 people were lined up to buy our book and/or become a member of Geeks on Tour. How cool is that?

After the meeting we had time to talk to people and one woman told me how it distressed her that Google Photos knows her face and she didn't like the fact that I took pictures of the group which I might post on Facebook ... or Blogger! I told her there's just not much you can do about other people taking your photo in public places. But, when someone asks not to be photographed, the photographer should honor the request.

I made sure that she is not in the photo above ... but she is in some of the other photos that I like, which got me to thinking ... how do I blur a face? I have a tutorial on how to blur a face with Picasa. I know it can't be done with Google Photos, but how about the companion photo editor Snapseed?  Hmm, I'll work on that one too! I did find out how to do it, but it doesn't blur it enough ... the healing tool makes her totally unrecognizable, but it looks a little funny. I see another tutorial in the works!

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Live Broadcast from Walmart Parking Lot Studios!

We were scheduled to present a Google Photos seminar to the Quad Cities Computer Society in Moline, Illinois on Monday night.

QCS-googlePhotos

imageWe were in our RV in New Jersey, and Monday was a travel day for us. We left the Jersey shore and headed south to go home to Florida. We planned to spend the night at an Elk’s Lodge in New Castle, Delaware after a stop near Atlantic City to visit with Jim’s Aunt Julie.

If you don’t know, many Elks lodges offer parking for their RVing members. We became Elks members during an Escapees RV Rally in Gillette, WY and, using our Allstays App to find them, we have stayed at many of them all over the country! We arrived at the Elks Lodge about 4:30 – perfect! We needed to go live on the web about 7:30 to present our seminar using Youtube Live Streaming services. We’ve stayed at this Elks Lodge before and really liked it. They have a nice big parking lot and one electric hookup for an RV. We were the only RV there.

elks

As soon as we pulled in to their parking lot we started checking our phones for Verizon signal. We have an unlimited data contract with Verizon and we find they usually have the best speeds of any service wherever we are. We turn our phones into hotspots, I connect my computer to my “Mrs. Geek” phone hotspot and Jim connects his computer to his “Mr. Geek” phone hotspot. To do a Youtube Live Streaming event you need a fast Internet connection and plenty of bandwidth. We can easily burn thru a couple of Gigabytes during an hour show.

As I mentioned, we’ve stayed at this Elks Lodge before- on our way north in July – and I remembered there being good Verizon Internet signal here. Unfortunately, I have discovered that trusting my memory is a bad idea! I was only seeing 1 bar of 4G on my phone, Jim was down to 3G on his! A speedtest by Ookla showed less than 1Mbps – not nearly enough! This won’t work. We turned around and headed out in search of better Verizon signal.

We found a Walmart not too far away (also using our Allstays app!) and saw 5 bars of 4G and 16Mbps of upload speed! That will do (upload is more important than download for broadcasting.)  Now to park and crank up the generator for electricity. Then to get the “studio” set up. We usually don’t put out the motorhome slides when we’re in a Walmart parking lot. It’s not good ‘etiquette’ to set up camp for an overnight parking lot stay. But there just isn’t enough room for everything with the slides in, so we compromised, parked in such a way that the one necessary slide was on the curb side and we put it out.

All looked good, and we connected with our audience with plenty of time to spare. Just as Jim was about to click the button to “Go Live” his phone’s hotspot crashed. No clue why. He quickly connected to the MrsGeek hotspot and we continued on! We demonstrated Google Photos for about 40 minutes then took questions from the audience. Somehow Chris’ microphone went missing early on, where DID our stage manager go?

Although we had a live audience in Moline, Illinois, anyone in the world could have tuned in because of the way Youtube works. For a worldwide broadcast from our RV in a Walmart parking lot – I think we did pretty good! Since Youtube automatically records, you can watch the presentation now if you’d like by clicking on the image below.

rv-studio

Here’s what Judi, the president of Quad Cities Computer Society wrote to us afterwards,

Chris, thanks to you and Jim.  As always you did a great job and we really, really appreciate your time and effort.

I am sorry I did not interrupt you once I suspected there was a microphone problem.  I thought at first it was a volume problem and turned up the speakers.  But we did hear through Jim's Mic and I think being able to listen to the recorded version will help catch anything that I missed.

Your presentation helped me a lot and the book is a great resource. I know now MY confusion was about the computer not syncing like the mobile devices and the book lets me read and re-read about the correct methods for deleting photos from each source.

You guys are the best--your dedication to teaching is remarkable and NEEDED by so many of us "older" adults.  I hope you continue for many more years.

Thanks Judi! Let’s do it again sometime!

Here’s a photo of our Walmart Parking Lot Broadcast Studio.

walmart

p.s. I’m writing this blog post from another Walmart parking lot! In North Carolina now.

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Photo Albums for the Blog

I've been doing some work on the way I display our history of pictures on this blog. I have a tab at the top called "Our Photo Albums." That used to be an external link that took you to a page where you could see ALL of our public photo albums using Picasa Web Albums. With the retirement of Picasa Web Albums (if you don't know about that, here's my article on it), it is unclear if that technique is still going to work.
Any individual pictures showing in the blog will not be affected by the retirement. All pictures I've uploaded over the years to Picasa Web Albums are now visible using Google Photos, and Google assures us that the link that make those pictures show up in blog posts will continue to work just fine. But, the full page of ALL public web albums is a feature that they have decided not to continue in Google Photos. They may change their minds - things are always changing at Google - but for now there is no Google Photos link to all public albums. You can get a link to an individual album though, so I have created a page for this blog where I will post those.
To make it look pretty, I take a screen capture (using the Snipping Tool in Windows) of the Album cover. I post that graphic on the blog page, then link it to the Google Photos album. I will do this each month, adding the current month's album to the top of the page.
Check it out, click the "Our Photo Albums" tab at the top of this page. You should see a February album that you can click to see the whole album, a January album, and then a link to all albums before 2016 - using the PWA link to all public albums. I'm trying to get information from Google as to whether that will continue to work.

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

February Seminars

This has been a busy month of giving seminars - mostly to Computer Clubs. We are on a speaker's bureau of sorts. The Association of Personal Computer User Groups, and more specifically, the Florida Association of Computer User Groups have a variety of clubs. Some of them are independent clubs that have been around for a long time - like the Boca Raton Computer Society. I actually remember visiting the Boca Raton club back in the 80s - I probably spoke on using WordPerfect! That was my specialty back then. This month we were there and spoke on Smartphones and Tablets!

Other clubs are organized by groups who live in a particular retirement community, like Valencia Falls Computer and Technology Club. This is where Sam Wexler presides and he has taken it upon himself to let the other clubs know about us via an email blast. That is how we got booked for 6 presentations in February. Then we also presented at RV parks for 4 more seminars. Add to that our Sunday online shows, and we presented 14 seminars this month from the west coast of Florida to the east, and even one remote presentation in California.
Cascade Lakes

Nice big screens in some communities ballrooms! This is Cacades in Port St. Lucie

The ballroom was our room for the Cascades computer club


Geek Week at Riverside RV Resort.  Check out our new floor-stand banners!
Our most popular topics this month were Smartphone Basics and Google Photos, but it's changing all the time. We spend most of our time learning! We are constantly revising our list seminar topics.



Further your computer education**Subscribe to the Free Geeks on Tour Newsletters**

Watch our Weekly Online Show on Learning Smartphones and Tablets!

Monday, February 15, 2016

Work Across the State and Across the Country, in One Day!

What a day last Tuesday was! We gave two seminars: one at 10am and one at 10pm; the first one in Sarasota, Florida and the second in Laguna Woods, California!
image
We were staying at the Thousand Trails, Peace River and had to get up and be on the road by 8 in order to get to Sarasota to deliver a 10am presentation to the MiceKTeers computer club. I hate to leave any place that early - but I always hate to leave the beautiful Peace River.

Our parking spot on the Peace River
Had a good group for our Google Photos / Picasa Seminar for the MiceKTeers Computer Club in Sarasota.

Sarasota is on the west coast of Florida. On Wednesday we're booked at a computer club in Port St. Lucie which is on the East Coast of Florida, so, after the Sarasota gig, we got back in the RV and drove across the state. This time of year in Florida, you need reservations if you expect to get a site at an RV park, and we didn't even try. We found an Elks Lodge in Port St. Lucie who said, sure! We have room in the field out back. No hookups, but it was a nice field overlooking a pond and it had GREAT Internet service from a Verizon tower right next door.

Our parking spot at the Elks Lodge in Port St. Lucie
That was important because we were booked to give another Google Photos presentation on Tuesday night ... in California! We used Google Hangouts On Air to deliver the seminar remotely and, it went great. Their meeting was at 7pm - Pacific Time, which meant 10pm our time. Whew! What a Day!
Photos sent to us from the Laguna Woods, CA club where we did a remote seminar on Google Photos
Because we used Google Hangouts On Air, the whole seminar was recorded on Youtube.



It's a good thing we love what we do! And do we ever!

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Geeks on Tour ... For Sure!

We left Cherry Hill on Saturday morning in order to get to Fairfax VA where we were booked to do a Google Photos seminar for a joint computer club at 1pm. They did a nice job of promoting us:



They had a large parking area marked off for us:






It was a good group - we thought the seminar went quite well. It was also live streamed over the Internet using something called Zoom. If we get a link to a recording, we'll post it here. And here's some comments we got afterward:
We really got a lot out of your presentation.  I intend to use Picasa and Google Photos.  The others, iPhotos, Aperature and Apple Photos didn’t stir up my interest enough to really put the time into learning them.
 Today's presenters were terrific!  Both my wife and I found their presentation to be extremely helpful and very current.  Jim and Chris could not have been any better!
We left Fairfax about 4:30 headed to our next stop in Raleigh, N.C. to do our weekly streaming show, "What Does This Button Do?" We were scheduled to do this week's show at the home studio of Martin Brossman about 270 miles away. We just needed to get on down the road, so we stayed in a Walmart parking lot that night, got our grocery shopping done, and made it to Martin's by 11am on Sunday. He has a nice big driveway!


This is a live show ... aka STRESSFUL! You have to wait until showtime to click the button that reads "go live" and, guess what! The button simply wasn't there! This was our 52d show and we'd never had this problem before. Jim had to quick set up an entirely new show stream. But, he did it! And Martin was great for rolling with the punches. We got started about 12 minutes late, but continued on with a successful show. The topic was the Amazon Echo and Martin runs a community on Google Plus about it. Click the image below to go to the community and learn more.

Here's the whole show (we cut out the first 10 minutes!) You can see all of our shows by viewing the Youtube Playlist for What Does This Button Do?


After the show, we went out for dinner and had a GREAT time with Martin. We are definitely "Geeks-of-a-Feather." He shared with us his expertise on Social Media for Business - and gave us a copy of his book. We shared with him our expertise on Google Photos and gave him our library-on-a-drive of all our videos and eBooks.



Then we got back on the road again sometime after 5. We really don't like to drive at night, and had no place we needed to be for a couple of days, so after a couple hours, we just found a rest area and pulled off. We cranked up the generator for power, threw something in the microwave for dinner, read emails for a while, and went to bed.

Home for the night - 9/13/15
Next stop, Hilton Head, where we are booked for several events. First off, a sold out hands-on class teaching people about using their smartphone cameras.


Then, a presentation for the Hilton Head Island Computer Club (click the image to view their website):


And, the next 2 days we have presentations for the Sun City Hilton Head Computer Club.

Thus is the life of the Geeks on Tour!



Further your computer education**Subscribe to the Free Geeks on Tour Newsletters**

Watch our Weekly Online Show on Learning Smartphones and Tablets!

Monday, March 30, 2015

FMCA Rally in Pomona

This is the 3d time we’ve presented seminars at the FMCA in Pomona. The first was in March, 2006 when we were still working for Coach Connect. The owners of Coach Connect didn’t even come to this one, they left us on our own to run the Wi-Fi hotspot and present the Wi-Fi seminars. The seminar coordinator also asked us to do an additional seminar on communications on the road. After that, Coach Connect didn’t go to the rallies any more, but the seminar coordinator (Mary Ann Crowley) still asked us to come and present anyway. The next time we went to Pomona was February 2008 we were Geeks on Tour by then and we gave Blogging, Picasa, Photo Story seminars in addition to Internet connections on the road. That was also the first time we saw Herman’s Hermits and loved them! So, we were extra excited this year that Herman’s Hermits were performing again.

Here we are presenting one of our seminars this year:

The special thing this year was that we enlisted help at our table. Our good friend Lynne flew down from Oregon and stayed with us. She was a great help both at our table during the day, and for having fun at night!

 

Here are the two Geeks on Tour and one ‘Geek for a Week” – Lynne always comes up with the best words!

We had a very special parking spot right by the seminar buildings. So we hosted happy hour a couple of evenings. Lots of friends here, Phil and Tracey of TechnoRV, Kim and Don of Harvest Hosts, Curtis of RVillage, and more.

Attendance was down this year, but we still had some nice seminars. Smartphones is the most popular right now. We teach basic terminology as well as demonstrating a few of the ‘oh-wow’ features like the ability to use the front-facing camera to put yourself into a picture that you’re taking of the audience. And, we had the Samsung All Cast device set up so that whatever was on our phone’s screen could be seen on the big screen projected to the audience.

I always especially like it when we teach hands-on workshops. We limit attendance to 20 and have them learn by doing. Here they’re exploring the features of their cameras by doing exercises we give them. Even if they already know the basics of the exercise, they discover other things in the process.

The weather was beautiful and everything went smoothly as planned. The best part for me was Herman’s Hermits playing again. Peter Noone may be getting older but he’s still just as cute as ever, and even cuter when he makes fun of himself for getting old. In one bit he said how exciting it was to be playing at the Fairplex in Pomona … he remembers having a discussion with fellow British musician Mick Jagger that “someday we’ll know we’ve made it, when we play the Fairplex in Pomona!” He had the audience roaring with laughter, and several of us standing in the aisles were dancing up a storm to the music. FUN time.