Month: October 2021

–Got the new Samsung S10e running. Turns out NO android phone works directly through hearing aids–you always need an intermediate device, like a Phone Clip (Resound) or AirComp (Phonak). I hooked up the Phone Clip. It paired, and after some fiddling I got it to work. Seems louder than the iPhone (both through hearing aids), but we’ll see. Also seems loud enough just with speaker, but that’s an N of one.

–Chopped up some branches for greenwaste and firewood.

–Sent Lee Elliott another $1,000. What a train wreck…

–Went to the Folsom farmers market for corn, squash. No mandarins yet (“they’re turning color now”).

–Barbecued some Bel Air pork chops. They were a little dry, and corn was a little chewy. Okay, so it’s the official end of barbecue season.

–Got pool shock at Leslie’s, apples/oranges/cheese/decaf beans at Raley’s, quarter-pounder at McDonald’s, sesame bagels at Noah’s.

–Squale blue/red GMT came in. Red is nice, but hands and dial markers (to my shock) are again gilt (gold). I put in an offer for a Mondia GMT in Italy. Looks to me like Squale might even make it.

–Wolbrook new “old style” dive watch came. I was wowed in the photos, but it totally left me cold in person. Too big, unbalanced, I don’t know. Seems like that’s the second time that’s happened recently.

–38mm “Batman” bezel insert came in. Has a nice “wet” look, but colors aren’t spectacular. Haven’t tried hard yet to fit it in (mangled) Squale bezel.

–The absurdly overpriced Rolex 14060 I bought on eBay from Japan ($19,000+) was rejected by the authenticators because they didn’t receive the “pamphlets” shown in the listing (the listing showed a Rolex warranty–was that also missing?). Seller tried to talk me back into it, but I declined. Whew! Gorgeous watch, but $5,000 too much.

–Stouffer’s for dinner. Good stuff. The new Marie, I guess.

–Mowed the lawn; swept up outside; trimmed some dead branches.

–The Squale blue/red GMT I bought on eBay yesterday shows as “out of stock” on my watch list, but doesn’t appear under “completed” or “sold” listings. Strange.

–Roasted some Brazilian coffee from Sweet Maria’s. Went from dark to burnt really fast.

–Bought a Wolfman titanium handle (plus razor and stand) and a vintage black-dialed Omega.

–Soaking a Squale watch in golf club grip solvent to see if I can easily remove the bezel insert. Tried to remove the bezel with the Bergeon tool and the new “gripper” tool: no dice. Those things are absurdly tight. Best bet MIGHT be the four-blade tool used very carefully to avoid bending the insert. Problem: that tool scratches things. Solution: polyimide tape. Maybe. [Edit: nope. Ended up destroying another case and bezel. There was a hint the grip solvent was working, but to change an insert would likely require drilling it in order to have something to grab on to to pull it off. The fit seems tight, even if the glue has been softened.]

–Rain stopped. Pool is actually too low now, after Grace’s panic draining.

–Made pesto pasta for dinner. Yummy of course.

–Squale Dark Knight stopped running. Took the movement out of the case then returned it. Best I can figure, what happened was I hadn’t perfectly replaced the stem before, so all it likely needed was stem jiggling. Anyway, seems to be fine now.

–Took a shower. Finding the Tabac a tad flowery, but not bad. The Gibbs razor continues to excel.

–Swapped the Squale watches back to original. Turns out all 40mm Squales have matte dials, whereas the 42mm watches have glossy dials; glossy is far better. I’ll keep the Batman and Dark Knight, sell everything else.

–Went to Panera for lunch, then Food Maxx for apples and oranges (no tangerines).

–Squale GMT Tropic came in. Great bezel, but dial was underwhelming–so I swapped it with the Dusky dial. Much better. Don’t know what I’m going to do now with the Dusky.

–Got some rain. Rain cricket says .5″, but I doubt it.

–Got a call from the Gun Range. The Python I ordered from Sportsman’s Warehouse a few months ago came in. Went there and filled out the paperwork. Back in ten days to pick it up.

–Mr. Poopy Butthole “action” figure (from Rick & Morty) came in. Pretty cool.

–Made baguettes. Not bad, but not the best. Super-easy recipe, though.

–Got bagels at Noah’s–and got the senior discount.

–Compared (again) Leica C-Lux and Lumix to Leica C. The C is fierce competitor for its size, but the bigger ones with monster zoom still edge it out.

–Played with watches a bit. Actually succeeded in swapping hands on a Squale Batman.

–Went to Black Sails Coffee “warehouse” and got talked into a medium roast coffee (he called it “medium-dark”). He may have lost some business…

–The new portafilter gasket for the Maximatic came in from Orphan Espresso. It is much thicker than the old (original?) one, and prevented the portafilter from locking in. After a LOT of filing and grinding, it works better. Perhaps independent of that (and maybe the actual cause of previous spritzes), the machine really seemed to struggle with my usual 20+ gram dose. I believe I need to (and will) drop down to 18g or so and see how it goes. A coarser grind might also help, although the shots are coming out in what seems like a reasonable amount of time.

–Replaced hearing aid batteries around 8:30 PM.

–Ate lunch at Beach-Hut Deli, met Grace at Bel Air for big shopping.

–Successfully removed/replaced bezel on Squale Batman. Bezel still came loose at an angle (had to pry it the rest of the way with a screwdriver), and insert likely would have broken if it had been ceramic instead of aluminum. I cut a bit off the decagonal spring, which made it much easier to press back on, and I did not replace the click spring–I would have needed at least four hands. Works fine now, though bi-directional.

–Squale Dusky came in. Not mind-boggling, but nice.

–Took a low(ish)-light photo of a Beretta with the Lumix and noticed that ON1 put a slight vignette on it. Tried again with the Leica C-Lux, 109, and Q2: all the same. Absolutely mind-boggling–the software won’t open any Leica file perfectly. Downloaded Capture One (again) and found it (a) opens everything perfectly, and (b) has a nice and easily-customizable interface. Choppy sliders were the problem, and they are better with hardware acceleration turned off. Go figure. Anyway, I bought it for $300. I guess you get what you pay for.

–Made pesto, then made pasta with pesto for dinner. Good stuff.

–Went back and forth with a dealer on a nice Rolex 5513. He only takes wires, I only use PayPal. No go.

–Cleaned up outside; harvested (and ended) Holy Mole and basil plants.

–My slowness of learning continues to astound me. Turns out the Squale Batman came in aluminum AND ceramic bezel inserts, and was 42mm (I can’t really handle anything over 40).

–Squale Batman came. Case has some dings, hour hand has a spot on it, dial has a major dent near the date window. Watch was said to have been serviced, and runs at 0 s/d and 0 beat error, so wondering if the dent was related to service. Hard to imagine though. It’s 42mm (for some reason I was expecting 40), so wondering if I should buy s new 42mm GMT and try to swap stuff around. Bezel insert would be the killer, of course.

–Had lunch at Five Guys, then to Safeway for apples, oranges and dessert.

–Took a shower.

–Rode the Innerlight in a winding path to the entrance of the Folsom South Canal at Sunrise.

–Grrr…played with photo editors some more, found that ON1 and Affinity both showed vignetting on (I believe an older) RW2 file. ACDSee was fine with it, and (as I already knew) has much smoother sliders than ON1. I upgraded to ACDSee 7 for Mac. Still can’t save jpeg’s at 100% by default, and it seems to lack a ton of stuff ON1 has, but smoothness and “opens anything” count for a lot to me.

–Looked online for a Panasonic Lumix TZ200 (same as Leica C-Lux, except it’s RW2 raw files can be opened by most photo editors). They’re $850 (and sold out most places), but Mike’s Camera in Sac had one for $650. I went and bought it, only to discover it had no battery. I’ll take it back Monday when they’ll have another in from a different store. Meanwhile, I put the C-Lux battery in and indeed all my editors would open RW2 files. I’m pretty much settled on ON1.

–Mysteries at eBay. A scenario that fits the observations (though unlikely): Joe Blow hacks my account, buys a $4,000 Squale from excessxpress and refuses to pay–So excessxpress blocks my account. When I try to make an offer on a different excessxpress Squale, I hit the block. And tonight, looking again at eBay Squale Batmen, I see a $3,000 excessxpress watch with an eBay message at the top saying “You bought this item.” Uh, no. I did buy a used Batman a day or two ago from a completely different (private) seller. So: my hacked account bought and reneged on a Batman, so (1) excessxpress blocked me and (2) eBay thinks I bought a Batman from excessxpress. Or something like that.

–Went to the post office to pick up the Bergeon bezel tool. Sellers had put insufficient postage on the package, so I paid it and recouped it from them. Tool is fine, but it still won’t touch a Squale bezel. I spent a while working on a Blu-Ray with the four-bladed tool and finally got it off–with a broken aluminum bezel insert. Terrible, terrible design. I did pull the (Mercedes) hands off for potential use on another Squale.

–Got the brakes adjusted on the InnerLight. Silent, but without a huge amount of “pedal.” And, as someone said on a bike forum, these rotors don’t seem to stop nearly as fast as (say) Avid rotors. Hoping for improvement with pad sanding, rotor break-in, etc.

–Squale Dark Knight came in. Nice, but it needs sun to really shine. Strangely enough, there’s only one other reference to this on the web: A guy in Singapore sold the “one and only” one of these in July 2019, close to the date on mine. Mysteries abound.

–Took Grace shopping to Safeway on Folsom.

–Mowed the lawn.

–Camera lug protectors came in, three weeks late.

–Played some more with photo editors (for maybe the fifth time). They either (a) don’t open RWL files (Leica C-Lux), (b) don’t have a very customizable interface, or (c) run slow and choppy. RAW Power is the only viable Lightroom alternative. It opens everything and is highly customizable–it’s just a little wonky in separating out RAW processing from standard processing.

–Took a shower and shave. Gave up on Lisa’s lavender and the vintage shave sticks: Bigelow rules.

–Rode 18 miles on the ARP with Tom Elken. Exhilarating but tiring.

–Updated the razor database a bit.

–Air quality has been really bad lately–high 120s. Supposed to get better (along with cooler) tomorrow.

–The new disc rotors came in for the InnerLight. Spent hours trying to get them working. Turns out these two-piece rotors have rivets that interfere with protrusions on the brake pads; I found that out after a whole lot of useless tinkering trying to adjust the height of the caliper. I ground down the protrusion, and it works, but (a) the rivets have some nasty scuffs on them and (b) one brake pad has a protrusion ground down. Could get new one-piece discs, new pads, etc. Crap.

–Tried to remove bezel fromSquale Batman. Destroyed bezel and case. Looking for a better bezel remover. (The three-jaw Bergeon just popped loose when pressure was applied. The four-jawed screw-type started to pull off the bezel, but wouldn’t finish and marred the case.)

–Squale GMT Ceramica Pepsi came in. Fine, but nothing special.

–Went to Sunrise farmers market for Crazy Gringo meat pies, peaches, jam.

–Polder gram scale came in. Seems cheaply built, but it should be fine for coffee beans.

–Paid State Farm homeowners policy bill of $1,736. Seems like a lot.

–Devon’s Jewelers called. Service estimate for the Rolex 1803 is $1,300; they would sell me a new bracelet for $11,000. The estimate said “The current bracelet is not appropriate for this model Rolex.” To me, that sounds like they’re saying the bracelet is legit. Yes!

–Changed thermostats from cool to heat.

–Put a new brake cable on the InnerLight. Turns out it was the wrong cable (Road instead of Mountain), but I don’t know if that explains all the problems I had. Ordered a Mountain cable set from Amazon. The front disk, which appears to be pretty flat on the truing stand, looks like a warped LP on the bike. I don’t understand, and may order new discs too.

–Walked to Bel Air after dinner for dessert and sundries.