Month: December 2020

–Took a couple pics with one-day-old batteries in the N Digital, useless. Returned it, over the seller’s vehement objections.

–Wolfman satin finish razor came in: flawless. Feels good in hand, too. Wish I could heft a few of these razors without knowing their prices to see if this is just a sort of Tiffany effect (I paid a fortune, it must be good).

–Tristan da Cunha cap came in. A little small, but cool.

–Opened all heating vents everywhere. Reset temps and times.

–Both Contax cameras came in. Working model didn’t work well until I put new high-end AA batteries in. Now everything seems to work. Photos are dim and (perhaps) red-toned; I hope to remedy at least the dimness with a 1.4 lens just ordered from Japan (current lens is a Vario 3.5). Not as scuffed up as I had feared. Non-working one has a great case, but doesn’t write to memory. Also (as I recall from a previous non-working N Digital) it will not go into RAW mode using the “Custom Settings” or “Custom Modes” menus (that is, it won’t go into RAW mode at all–just defaults to jpeg). Found a guy on youtube/instagram who might be able to swap bodies, but that’s probably too risky, especially given that the working one isn’t really bad.

–Thor tamper came in. Sort of ugly wood (I knew that), heavier than expected, works fine.

–Grace is in a snit.

–Bell Brothers came by at 8 AM and got the heat pump running. I don’t know when they might have shown up if I hadn’t called them yesterday.

–Went to Black Sails (twice) to pick up the coffee I ordered yesterday.

–Painted black numbers in on the Gillette red dot, and a red ring on the Eclipse Red Ring. Came out pretty good.

–Recycled all the Christmas wrappings/boxes.

–Took a shower.

–Swept the ashes out of the fireplace. Didn’t help much with the odor.

–Went to Target and got a HEPA air purifier. Didn’t do much either.

–Went to the Folsom Blvd. farmers market for almonds, mandarins, radishes.

–Made a THICK crust pizza for dinner.. Turned out pretty good.

–Opened Christmas presents with coffee cake and coffee.

–Had apple pie and ice cream for dessert.

–Went to Bel Air for eggs. Dropped off a Christmas card for Imelda.

–Put a Christmas tape on the reel-to-reel, got it playing.

–Replaced hearing aid batteries at 8:30 AM.

–Rolex diamond dial Day-Date was supposed to be here by Noon; not here at 5:30.

–Left hearing aid battery went out at 5:30 PM.

–Bell Brothers heating guy came this morning (early). Turns out we have two heat pumps (not one pump/three zones). The second is only accessible via the hatch on the house wall above the garden. The “sequencer” on that failed, and will be replaced for $350. Whew!

–Downloaded and watched “Bad Boys for Life” on the TV. Glitzy, but preposterous. Bad guys not only didn’t shoot straight, a lot of times they didn’t even shoot. Etc.

–Did some shopping at Bel Air. Haven’t seen Imelda in a fair while.

–Tried to take some photos of the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction with the Leica Q2. Crappy. Movement on some, out of focus on many; camera seems to focus beyond infinity.

–Horrible electrical smell this morning. Seems the motor for the family room furnace baffle burned out. Other two zones still working. Bell Brothers will be out Tuesday to check it out. Meanwhile, radiators in the living room.

–Went to Taylor’s Market for New York steaks, blue cheese crumbles, Acme bread for Christmas.

–Bought two Contax N Digital cameras: one that works but has a scruffy bottom and zero accessories, and one that doesn’t work but has a manual and some plugs (probably not the plug I would need to lock up the mirror, though).

–Bought a Blackland Blackbird razor, machine finish.

–Masamoto KS carbon came in (two weeks late). Had a really hard time chiseling off the grotesque plastic handle, then discovered it had a hollow spot on the blade. Tossed it.

–Compared the Rolex diamond dial I just returned to others on eBay. In hindsight, it’s laughably fake. There’s a beautiful black diamond dial available, but it only fits five-digit Presidents (18038 etc.). Don’t know if I want to buy it and keep it in the chest for a watch someday or not. Kinda like the 5512 “tritinova” dial I have: it could be a long time and a lot of money before I find an appropriate vehicle for that.

–Accidentallt found Thom Brogan at Badger and Blade last night. He responded “yessir” to a PM asking if that was THE Thom Brogan, but went silent when I asked if he wanted to resume our correspondence. (1) He may think I was responsible for the downfall of Fred’s Cutlery Forum. (2) I have the vaguest recollection of a nasty exchange on a blog of his post-Fred. It’s been over a month since I’ve heard from Lee Elliott too, after he went on and on about how he was going to dedicate some time each day for corresponding. Nobody likes me.

–Went Christmas shopping for Grace at Oto’s, Sakura (near Osaka-Ya) and Staples. Done, I hope.

–Roasted caf and decaf beans.

–Spruced up outside a bit.

–Took a shower. Had a nice shave with the Blackland Tradere razor and Personna “red” blade.

–BIG shopping at Food Maxx.

–Got on the phone with Xfinity. Our one-year deal is up, with the rate going from $120 to $193. After a while, settled on same service at $145 ($105 plus a lot of fees, taxes, etc.). Could be worse…

–Got bagels at Noah’s.

–Got Rolex Day-Date back from Ivanov’s for $10. She said nothing was done, everything was fine. Not true. (1) That screw was seriously wedged in. (2) That wedged screw had a dome top; the new screw is flat, as it should be. (3) There are a couple of noticeable gouges around the screw hole that weren’t there when I took it in. Anyway, I put the watch back together with the original black dial and hands, and it runs great.

–Marie for dinner.

–Trying to prep for Christmas: took all art upstairs, put up the manger scene, moved the upstairs fireplace grate to the downstairs fireplace and added an extension to the damper handle. Still hard to close.

–Left hearing aid battery quit around 8 PM.

–Bad day.

–Bought Belgian coticule at The Shave Nook. Five messages from the seller came in unnoticed by me (and they don’t send email notifications). Finally saw the messages and paid for the stone.

–Communicated with eBay dealer who sold me the fake(?) Rolex diamond dial. Turns out I’m too late (61 days) to do a standard eBay return, so he’s going to send me a FedEx label.

–Went to Devon’s at Roseville Galleria to pick up the Rolex Day-Date that came back from RSC because of “non-Rolex” dial. Did some Christmas shopping. Had lunch at MacDonald’s on the way home.

–Took the Day-Date movement to Ivanov’s to ask them to free up the (incorrect) stemlock screw they installed.

–Overcast day, with a few tiny sprinkles.

–Tossed Titoni watch: date change only goes halfway, even after complete disassembly. Had the usual problems with stem reinsertion, but seemed to fix it by pulling the dial and fiddling with the mechanism from that side.

–Firefox started acting up–wouldn’t bookmark sites. After a lot of fruitless hair-pulling, I switched over to Microsoft Edge. Seems to work okay.

–Konosuke petty came in; nice. Used oven method to remove stock handle and replace it with a nicer Kono petty handle. The blade literally slid out of the stock handle while sitting in a 225 oven. Unbelievable.

–Found a Blackland Tradere razor for sale at Damn Fine Shave. Needed 10 posts + 2 weeks before I could PM seller, so asked John Gnagy (whence I obtained the Simpson Centenary brush) at Badger and Blade if he could PM Tradere seller with my email address. It worked! Tradere on the way.

–Saw a large hawk land and take off under the poolside bird feeder. Probably after a rat, but didn’t seem to catch it.

–Titoni watch came in. Super nice.

–Made blueberry muffins for dessert.

–Boxed and labeled 7 Christmas packages; dropped them off at the post office so I could get a receipt.

–Clean air (for a change) and 70 degrees got me out on the bike. Nice ride.

–Mergress razor came in. Beauty.

–Cleaned pool pump strainer, long overdue. Added chlorine to pool.

–Took a shower/shave. Rocnel razor is heavy (thought I would like heavy more than I seemed to), felt smooth most places but very aggressive on my upper lip. Closest shave ever, with one small self-healing nick. I wonder if the weight is why so many guys put tier-2 handles on tier-1 heads. Probably not, just personal preference for different handle styles.

–Went to the farmers market at Folsom and Sunrise (light rail station parking lot). Pretty nice, lots of produce, minimum gifty stuff. Got some great mini-tangerines, oranges, and some Winters Fruit Tree dips/jams for Tom/Kati and me.

–3-way valve (discharge or exhaust valve) runs constantly into the drip tray on first shot from Maximatic, not on second. I believe it’s because I’m using too much coffee, too finely ground. Hoping it goes away with the bigger grouphead using (proportionally) less coffee/coarser grind, as I have no idea how to access the valve and really don’t want to dig into that machine.

–Puy gas in the Honda.

–Did a little Christmas shopping at Bed Bath & Beyond. Had lunch at Five Guys.

–Mowed the lawn, cleaned the birdbath, sped up the aux 2 pump to (try to) make the pool sweep move faster.

–Called Cerini Coffee (it was clear they weren’t going to follow up on Monday’s email). They will have a 54mm group head for me in their next shipment, and sent a label for returning the 49mm group.

–Grace almost destroyed the new oven door hinges trying to close it on the pizza stone, which I hadn’t pushed in far enough. We fixed it, but it wasn’t easy.

–Successfully moved the TV into the living room, using the J-Tech wireless extender.

–Heard from Devon’s Jewelers that Rolex refused to work on the Day-Date, since the (diamond) dial was not a Rolex dial. Contacted eBay seller, who said he would take the dial back. He also said the dial came from a watch that had been serviced by Rolex. He’s either a great liar, or Rolex is messed up.

–Finally convinced Borealis to send me a black bezel. I destroyed the black one on the “swap” watch while removing it yesterday, so I hope I can make this change without damage. I ordered a Bergeon crystal lift after seeing a video where someone used it to remove a bezel, also a set of bezel dies (delrin-lined) for pressing the new one in. Here’s hoping.

–Made pizza for dinner (couldn’t shop because Grace was waiting for FedEx(which never came).

–Got 13 bagels at Noah’s for $8.00 MINUS 10% senior discount. First time that’s happened in many visits. Do I look older now?

–Went to Devon’s in Roseville Galleria to drop off two more Rolexes for service (in Dallas, I was told)–rhodium Datejust and 5513. Got receipts. Don’t recall getting a receipt for the white gold 1803 I dropped off a couple weeks ago. Will call.

–Black-dialed Borealis Estoril came in–very nice. Swapped cases with my blue-dialed one (fewer nicks) and noticed that bezel is also blue (very dark) on that one. Tried to swap bezels. Rolex bezel tool failed to remove black bezel. eBay tool got it off, but one side came up much sooner than the other, and bezel was cracked beyond redemption at the end. The eBay tool has done that before I think–lifting the moving screw side much earlier than the stationary side. Don’t know if there’s anything I can do about it. Will try the other eBay tool (sharp wheels rather than blades), but not on the Estoril.

–Had a late lunch at (outside) McDonald’s.

–Cerini Maximatic stuff came in. Turns out the 54mm group head I ordered was exactly the same (49mm) as the one now on the machine. ‘Twould be a shame if they didn’t have a 54mm group.