Month: March 2022

–Mowed the lawn. Finished tearing down old trellis in back.

–Swapped blade locks between Shiro Arctic Storm and Mars Valley. Both work fine now. Going with Mars (at the moment) as it’s better centered. I’m fickle, though.

–Finished repairing Southard Daws on which I broke a tiny screw. Filled the (too large after drilling out the broken piece of screw) hole with steel epoxy, drilled with new cobalt drill bit, tapped. Had to shorten AND reduce head diameter of new screw, but all is good now.

–Parker Doric pen and pencil set came in. Thinking of cleaning out the pen ink tube and refilling with syringe, as this seems to be the only Parker pen that doesn’t take a standard Parker refill.

–Bit driver handle came in, fairly nice. On another AliExpress purchase, they seem to have my Indian Wells address. Crap.

–Went around and around with Ilya from rusblades on paying for a knife and (my real aim) several sets of screws. Turns out BofA won’t send international wires to Russia. Crap.

–Played with knives. MAY have gotten the lock on the Arctic Storm to engage reliably. Much selling to do. Prices seem to be going down on facebook, up on eBay (except for the $650 Ursus I paid $1,150 for).

–Got 11 sesame and 2 plain bagels at Noah’s.

–Lots of stuff came in: 2-56 screws for fixing Southard Daws; Shiro radiator bead; Riaan Manser P6 knife (really beautiful); Simpsons faux ruby Centenary Colonel XXL (gorgeous brush, and I was able to polish out the chip in the base (not perfectly, but darn well)); license plates for Mini Cooper.

–My back is considerably better, maybe 80%.

–Played with knives. After hours of back-and-forth, decided on the blue Quantum 1 and the “crazy micarta” Elmax F95–due to centering and action. Then another nice F95 popped up on eBay. Crap.

–Grace discovered (caused) some sprinkler issues by the bamboo. Will try and fix tomorrow.

–Went to the Folsom farmers market with Grace; got stuff.

–Took a shower.

–Parker Doric refill came in. Looks like every other Parker refill, but way too fat to fit in the pen. I’m guessing nobody makes those skinny refills any more.

–Called Devon’s about the 1803 I dropped off for service SEVEN MONTHS ago. They said it had been there for 10 days and apologized for the mis-communication. I picked it up. (a) It does not look like a Rolex service: scratches on the caseback and under the lugs, and a small ding on the “fat” part of the case at the crown. (b) The service card said date of service was 12/2/21: Devon’s has had that watch for four months! What a friggin’ disaster. Off to eBay I guess.

–Made pizza for dinner. Pretty good.

–Dropped off the red Sub at FedEx.

–Shirogorov Hati came in. Too small. I really have to stop buying knives without knowing how big they are.

–Red Submariner came in. Magnificent watch (perfect on the Timegrapher), but the lume was just like on a Steinhart. I know Rolex came first, but I just couldn’t handle that lume. So I’m returning it.

–After breaking several drill bits, I finally got the broken screw out of the Southard Daws backspacer. I re-threaded it, but it’s not perfect. Might have to get longer screws to make it work right. Could be tough, since two screws go into the same hole from opposite sides–which may be how I broke a screw off, come to think of it. Longer screws might meet in the middle of the backspacer before they fully tightened down.

–Got 10 Rolexes sorted out, ready to send to Kirill Yuzh for consignment. Decided to keep a nice 5513 from 1967, with fabulous meters first dial/hands, fat (though polished) case, original rivet bracelet, long 5 insert. Lug holes are still round and sharp, so it wasn’t heavily polished. Decided to sell the Sea-Dweller: very nice watch, but we’ll stick to Subs. Also selling the Daytona and Bluesy: just too much money to keep tied up in things you can’t live in or drive.

–Got about 13 more Shirogorovs coming in. Time to start selling.

–Shirogorov pivot finally came in from Russia.

–Southard Knives stuff came in: refinished blade for the Daws XL (I installed; broke a small screw in the process) and beautiful new Tolk, nicely centered.

–Shirogorov F95 “Mars Valley” came in, with SRBS. Managed to get it open (not easily) without damaging anything. Pretty nice now.

–Took a shower.

–Green Samsung S10 came in. Doesn’t seem nearly as deep a green as the S10e I broke. It too had trouble with hearing aids until I reinstalled them.

–Made a pizza for dinner, on the stone. Really unexciting.

–Right hearing aid got disconnected from phone. Several attempts to pry out the contacts had no effect–until I unpaired then reinstalled the aids.

–Shiro tool pen came in from Monkey Edge. Nothing hugely special, but nicely done and fills the need for a Shiro bit holder so I can sell the other one.

–Continued cleaning up after painting. Tore down vines and trellises at the back fence.

–Still haven’t heard anything regarding the shave biopsy on Tuesday. Also can’t really tell what the thing on my right cheek is doing. It sort of acts like it’s scabbed over and will go away, but it’s different from most of the crap that afflicts my face.

–Painters came today. Everything’s got plastic on it, so we can’t go anywhere or see out the windows.

–Fixed my left hearing aid so the Samsung could it: there are two small copper prongs that contact the battery when the compartment is closed. I levered them up a bit so they make stronger contact with the battery. Risky, but it seemed to work.

–Went to the dermatologist’s PA. She took a biopsy of a dark spot on my left temple, and told me to watch a new vaguely pimple-like thing on my right cheek. Crap.

–Left hearing aid battery went out around 8 PM.

–Got bagels at Noah’s.

–The duck couple from last year reappeared in the pool. Took off for no apparent reason after I took a few pictures.

–Quiet day. Back may be a little worse.

–Brad Southard finished polishing the blade I sent him AND will sell me a nice Tolk for a total of $600. Time to do some profiteering…

–Back is better.

–Played with knives, to no avail. (Can’t seem to improve stiff detent or off-center blade on Shiros).

–Walked to Bel Air for cheese, cream cheese; Rite-Aid for anti-fungal, toothpaste, deodorant, inhaler.

–Had breakfast at Country Waffles, dropped off taxes at Finton and Finton, joined Grace shopping at Food Maxx.

–Took a shower.

–Finished compiling tax documents for Curtis Finton.

–Got the pivot unscrewed yesterday on the Shiro F3 using the “apply pressure to blade while unscrewing” method. Messed the pivot screw. May have it sand-blasted, may buy another screw (ali express?).

–Back has hurt for the last two days, after I did some pre-painting cleanup yesterday. Hope it’s not for long.

–Moved stuff away from house prior to power-washing.

–Chatted with a redditor about swapping my Shiro 111 for his Arius w/ nice scale. Signed up for imgur account so I could send pics. He asked for video, so I politely dropped out. Guess I’ll have to learn how to take videos. Could be an excuse to get (much) better with phone, though I don’t see how I can get around the difficulty of typing in 1.5 square inches.

–Sold some stuff in Grace’s Stanford IRA at Vanguard, as it seems likely they will be sending out an RMD check soon.

–Shirogorov F3 Elmax gray came in. Great feel and centering; action is a tad stiff. Tried briefly to open it up with polyimide tape: no dice.

–Went to Roseville Cyclery (now Mike’s Bikes) to get a receipt for the Sirrus I took to Goodwill. Turns out the missing receipt was in the 2020 tax folder, as I deducted the bike last year. Crap.

–Drove to Bel Air for milk, cream, apples, sumos.

–Samsung phone lost the left hearing aid again. Replaced batteries, was in the process of switching back to iPhone when the S10e found the HA. Seriously frustrating.

–Played with knives.

–Walked to dinner at Jack’s Urban Eats, then got dessert and such at Bel Air.

–Played with knives.

–Grace is still in a super-scary snit.

–Trying to figure out Grace’s inherited IRA distribution. Called Kathy Purcell (Grace exploded) to get a Raymond James contact. Wrote him, he said they didn’t deal with the account. Later sent him a pic of a Raymond James document from the account with his name on it. HA!!

–Walked to Bel Air for dessert.

–Put the TV back together.

–Did an incredibly stupid thing at Kraken and sent all ethereum and bitcoin out into the crypto void. Metamask found the ethereum, but not the bitcoin. Spent hours trying to figure out how to get it back. Failed.

–Grace is being super-weird, claiming I unhooked the wireless TV extender and wired the TV back up. I didn’t. I’m pretty sure she did it in a snit when I failed to appreciate the genius of her experiment.

–Took Grace for a blood draw in Folsom.

–While cleaning debris off the roof, Grace discovered a 3-foot long piece of gutter mesh that had (apparently) blown off a second-story section of gutter. I called Cal Vintage to come and replace it.

–Bought my 9th Shirogorov (or so). This one has some nice inlays on the scales.

–Took a Shiro apart and replaced the ball bearings with some from Boca Bearings. Could not detect a difference. The blade will move toward center as you tighten the pivot (as with nearly all knives); the difference is that when centered and tight, the Shiro still opens and closes easily.

–Made pizza for dinner.

–Robert Barker paintings came in. Nice.

–Took Grace for big shopping at Bel Air.