Month: January 2022

–Played with knives. Laconico with ghost jade scales had some corrosion on blade in pivot area. Cleaned it up with ScotchBrite belts, and after 14 attempts to perfect the action it started feeling quite rough. Might look for some new washers; might toss it.

–After EZ-Off-ing the Erie, I ran a couple of seasoning cycles. Noticed some pitting on the inside walls that I hadn’t seen before. (a) Maybe I never looked; (b) maybe it was covered by grunge that came off with electrolysis; (c) maybe hot cheese caused the pitting. The appearance will improve (I hope) as it gets more seasoned.

–Got Clementines and broccoli at the Folsom farmers market.

–After some major hassles last night, I got the new black Samsung S10e updated to Android 12 this morning at 2 AM, after reflux awakened me. The green S10e doesn’t yet seem to know about Android 12, possibly because the new black one was sold as a Verizon phone (completely unlocked!) and Verizon phones have some special privileges.

–Fixed (again) the fans under my laptop. Smooth and quiet now.

–Bought some Ethereum. Done for now: $10k each Ethereum and Bitcoin, $5k each Algorand and Polkadot. Rich soon.

–Shirogorov Brothers knife came in. Very nice.

–Took a 5.75 mile ride around the ‘hood on the InnerLight. Nice.

–Fercal bezel adjuster came. It might actually have helped compress a retaining ring and expand a bezel. My fingers are so raw it’s hard to tell.

–Garmin came in that lets you change the wakeup phrase. I’m sticking with the other one (Alexa-ready) for now: I like the voice a little better, and it seems somewhat snappier, with better comprehension. We’ll see.

–Walked to Dr. Cripe the dentist. All good. Stopped at Bel Air for dessert and cream.

–Brad Southard flipper came in. As I hoped (from the sales video), the action is really superb. By comparison, I hurt my fingertip flipping the Shirogorov on the way to the dentist. Took the Southard apart and cleaned it up a bit, noted two extra screws after reassembly. Took it apart again and found where they went.

–Battery charger came in. Will try it on the Erie spider skillet tomorrow.

–Took the pump off the Livietta, did not disassemble it, put it back on. Still sings. Also showed really long splooshes today. The problem has to be in that solenoid assembly. I give up.

–Went to FedEx to drop off 5513 for hand relume by Ridley.

–Second Garmin came in. STILL WRONG! I really need to slow down when ordering stuff. This one won’t let you customize a wake-up phrase or (hard to believe) save a home address. It does integrate with Alexa, which might be why it was so expensive. I bought a third which I know is correct. Right.

–Switched from iPhone back to green Galaxy (noticed scratches on front glass of black Galaxy). This after ordering a black iPhone. When will it stop?

–Had trouble buying Bitcoin this morning, maybe because it would have left < $2k in BofA. Transferred a bunch from savings to checking and succeeded with Bitcoin this afternoon.

–Played a little with the “exhaust” tube on the Pasquini. Still squeals.

–Made pizza for dinner, with mozzarella “pearls,” cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, bell pepper. Darn good.

–Got Clementines and broccoli at the Folsom farmers market.

–Crypto prices seem to be rebounding a bit. A guy on reddit showed a very cool chart: how long it takes Bitcoin price to come back after a correction. Maybe a dozen data points since 2018, with early rebounds taking ~12 months, more recent ones ~2-3 months, with a definite downward trend. Promising.

–Went to BofA in Carmichael to get ATM card working. Works.

–Stock market is tanking and–unfortunately–crypto is going down at the same rate. Was hoping they were a little less correlated. Bought $5k of Bitcoin at Kraken. Didn’t seem like seven days since last purchase, but I’ll have to check history.

–Finally got bagels at Noah’s. Expensive.

–Took a shower.

–Some progress in online finance: Tried again in Edge to set up a link between BofA and Heritage. Failed again. Went to Safari and succeeded immediately. Don’t know what it is about Edge–ad blocker perhaps–but it has given me problems. So I now have Edge and Safari in the dock–Safari for Kraken, BofA, Heritage, Vanguard; Edge for everything else. Took a little setting up, but it works fine.

–Played with watches, got some more thoughts (and crystals) sorted out.

–Cranked up the Veepeak/Bimmercode app on the iPhone (it wouldn’t connect with the Samsung, possibly because I didn’t have the Veepeak pushed in far enough) and (a) turned off Auto Start-Stop and (b) defaulted to starting in Sport mode. Quick scare when I first tried to start it– it demanded that the key be placed near the steering wheel–but it was fine after that.

–Ordered yet another iPhone SE 2020 (black) from Apple. I love the Samsung, but the Apple is smaller; I figured out how to open it without the passcode; it worked with Bimmercode; it handles calls better in terms of automated hearing aid/earpiece/headset transitions; etc.

–Things continue to fall apart:

–On the brighter side, the Rolex bezel remover came in; blades are nicked up, but I’m working on them. The On-Board Diagnostic tool came in; I bought the Bimmercode app on my Samsung and will probably brick the Electronic Control Unit tomorrow. Ha Ha! Just kidding!

–Went to Noah’s for bagels. Skeleton crew and no sesame bagels.

–and that’s about it…

–Tested the Mini: putting it in Sport mode after starting does disable the auto-stop function.

–Still can’t buy crypto at Kraken (seven-day $10k rule, though it seems like today would be okay). [edit] Tried again at 8:30 PM and was able to buy $5,000 Ethereum via BofA. Still can’t set up transfers at BofA for Heritage: they seem to be looking for ATM card info instead of checking/savings account info. Guess I’ll try it in person.

–Bought and installed Bimmercode on the Samsung; ordered an OBD (on-board diagnostic) connector from Amazon. Should allow me to do many things to the Mini, like starting in Sport mode.

–Took the Mini to the Folsom farmers market for clementines and broccoli, then to Black Sails for coffee–he hadn’t put it out yet. Went back a couple of hours later and got it.

–Took a shower.

–Got a call from Vanguard and sorted out my login problem. It was not–as I suspected–a case of all new accounts having a seven-day hold. It seemed to be the the ad blocker in Edge. I white-listed V in the blocker and all seems good. It looks like I could get access to Grace’s accounts, but I’d need her phone for the 2FA.

–Tried to buy some bitcoin at Kraken, was told no: $10k max in a rolling seven-day period (I was able to buy $5k Algorand yesterday via Heritage). This is getting surrealistic.

–Picked up the Mini Cooper S at Niello. They initially wanted to add a $5,000 “market adjustment” and a $995 tracking device. I put the kibosh on those pretty quick. Car is small, nimble, not terribly powerful, and may have a front-end wobble of some sort. All in all it seems sort of anti-climactic: nice new car, nowhere to go.

–Called support at Vanguard (got the number from google, not Vanguard). The good: I got a tech on the phone pretty quickly. The bad: she wasn’t terribly knowledgeable, and apparently it’s fairly common for new accounts to be on hold for 7 days–except for Grace’s. Super annoying how I’m not being allowed to move/access my money.

–Takada santoku came in. Nice polish, but feels kind of sterile factory rather than hand-made. Will sell or something.

–Not a word–phone or email–from John Escudero at Vanguard. I emailed him yesterday after our call, and left him a voice message today. Very disappointing. [edit] John called around 3 PM, introduced us to a tech who walked us through the elaborate procedure of setting up the transfers, which should be final in a week or so. Meanwhile, I had to use Safari to log in, perhaps because I had the anti-paywall extension on (not clear), and now I have a hold on my account. The delays in my attempts to organize/optimize my finances are really getting obnoxious.

–Went to Costco with Grace for water, polish sausage, pasta, peanut butter pretzels, toilet paper. Then to Bel Air for apples, milk, cream cheese, cream cheese.

–Spent a while trying to figure out how to order pickup pizza at Il Forno Classico. Gave up and ate Marie (so to speak).

–Got a call from Niello BMW: the Mini Cooper is here. Will pick it up on Thursday.

–Kraken said all okay after I sent them a carefully posed photo last night. Then I tried to buy Algorand: nope. Turns out it IS the fault of Heritage, or its ACH. Can’t wait to be rid of that bank.

–Koenig knife came in. About the same action as the Shirogorov, but nicer blade.

–I actually managed to buy $5k worth of Polkadot at Kraken using Heritage. Then tried to buy $5k of Algorand and got errors. Messaged them, got a quick response asking for big proof: photo of me holding a handwritten note, with drivers license attached. Did that. So far their customer service is great.

–Brewed another espresso with the small group. Still sings. Really annoying.

–Got clementines at the Folsom farmers market.

–Got epoxy at Home Depot. Filled the hole in the solenoid block, brewed an espresso. Didn’t see any leaks, but the machine sang like a canary when the pump was shut off. Don’t know whether to sell it like that (small group, singing), or put the large group on, or take it to Great Infusions, etc.

–Started looking into Morgan Stanley accounts and fees. Turns out we’re paying Dick >$2,000/month to handle our IRAs. This will stop.

–Got the $131.66 DHL charge for shipping the 5512 dial back to Italy reimbursed by the eBay seller.

–I ordered (via Kirill Yuzh) an amazing-looking 1967 Rolex 5513 fromTropical Watch: meters first dial, long 5 insert, sharp-edged case (polished), hand lume slightly lighter than dial lume (thus proving they are not recent color-matched hands), 1967 rivet bracelet, II.67 dated caseback. They don’t get much better.

–Got a call from Niello BMW that my Mini-Cooper is on the way from the Bay Area. Yay!

–Spent > an hour in chat at Coinbase. I only got to chat (with three different people) because I told them my account had been hacked. Bottom line: I can cash out and close the account on Feb. 2nd. No explanation of anything, of course.

–Helson bracelet came in. It’s nice, but uses standard springpins to join the links. I managed to move a link, but it really needs a tool that will simultaneously compress both ends of the springpin. I have a request in at Helson to see what they say. [edit] I decided to keep one of the Watchcos (with date), sell the other and sell the Helson.

–Got the 5512 dial sent off to Italy via DHL at Carmichael Box Store: $131.66. Filling out paperwork (at home online) was a pain in the ass.

–Picked up a Papa Murphy’s pizza for dinner.

–Sent the Sea-Dweller off to Phil Ridley at FedEx.

–Rolex hand setting tools and gauge came in from OFrei. My four minute hands are all around .8mm and hour hands are around 1.25mm (80 and 125 on the gauge). Didn’t measure lengths or second hands. Was going to use the tools in swapping out the SWISS service dial on the 5512 for a tritinova dial, but decided it would be kind of a waste. I’ll just sell the 5512 as is for whatever I can get.

–Italian eBay seller agreed to take back the (second, mis-described) tritinova dial. He wants me to ship DHL, and says he will reimburse me. Another adventure begins.

–Another quiet day. UPS billed me $110 for customs duty on the 5512 dial; I paid. It just came in: dial and hands are luminova, not tritium. CRAP!

–Called Phil Ridley, who’s just getting over 6-7 days of COVID misery. Going to send him the Sea-Dweller so he can fix the sticky date wheel.

–Went to Sutter Walk-In Clinic Folsom for TDAP shot. Entered wrong address. Grace not available on phone. Got there 30 minutes late. Got the shot without even showing ID.

–Coinbase, for no apparent reason whatsoever, disabled my ability to buy again. REALLY annoying. Opened an account at Kraken, got verified quickly. Will need to wire money to them (I believe). Sold everything at Coinbase, but there’s a hold period before I can deposit it at Heritage (of course). Interesting that I can add an account at Coinbase, but I have to wire money into Kraken. I might be able to use a debit card to buy something at Kraken, but probably not $40k worth.

–Did big food shopping at Food Maxx.

–Took a shower.

–Got caf and decaf beans at Peet’s. Incredible amount of broken beans in the decaf (very dark roast).

–Polished the two Paradigm Diamondback razors. Not 100% clear which is 2020 (polished) and which is 2019 (less polished). And I’m still seeing fog on bright stainless that doesn’t make sense–hard to believe I left it in that state the last time I polished. Do I need to use different rouge? Clean the wheel before every use?

–Bought a tool for adjusting Shirogorov knives. Scarily, something called “Shop Pay” knew my name, address, phone number, and BofA credit card info. They also knew Rob Hagiwara’s address, so maybe this happened when I bought him a Christmas present. I deleted address and credit card, couldn’t delete the account. Scary stuff.