–Took Grace to S*T Strawberries for strawberries, zucchini, tomatoes, blackberries.
–No swim: pool is only 83 on this cloudy day.
Month: July 2022
–My back, which has been hurting for a month or two, stopped hurting today. Totally unpredictable.
–Took a swim.
–Tom Elken and I drove our cars (Mustang, BMW M235i) to Ione. Had donuts at tar Donuts. A little nerve-wracking following him on hills and curves, but the Mustang is a really really super car.
–Made a pizza. Best yet: thawed dough ball, home-made sauce, fresh grated mozzarella, 12 minutes on the stone at 450. I believe I’ve been seriously overcooking pizzas in the past–22 minutes in the cast iron skillet, maybe close to that on the stone. This one was close to perfect.
–Went to The Gun Range to pick up checks for consigned guns.
–Trying to get tough with Lee Elliott over the money he owes me. I really don’t know what his problem is.
–Shirogorov-style pivot bolts came in. Beautifully machined, but they only work in the F3. They fit in a couple other models, but there’s blade play (pivot shaft too small).
–JB Weld high-temp silicone came in. Fixed Grace’s (from her mom) leaking pan, I hope.
–Went to take a swim, but spent most of the time scraping off algae. Added a bunch of chlorine.
–Rode with Tom Elken in El Dorado Hills. Beautiful place–thanks to a whole lot of watering.
–Scheduled a visit to the Stanford Court condo for sale, then the woman (who bought it in October for $520k and just listed it for $550k) decided to withdraw it from the market. Crap.
–Took a swim.
–Put the Mustang in Sport+ mode and drove around White Rock/ Grant Line. Killer car.
–Barbecued turkey burgers and corn for dinner. Yum!
–Put camellia oil on my knives.
–Did a third seasoning cycle with flaxseed oil on the spider skillet.
–Spent a while getting the universal garage door opener in the Mustang to work. Several “official” sources were useless. Finally found ONE post at a Mustang forum that described the (ridiculous) procedure.
–Made pizza for dinner. Pretty good.
–Took Grace in the Mustang to Old Sac in search of a William Glen kitchen store. Turns out the article highlighting it was a year old, and (as Siri knew) the store was gone. We still managed to get some Christmas gifts at an art collective.
–Took a swim.
–Took the Mustang to Osaka-Ya. Car and navigation (via Apple CarPlay and Siri) were magnificent.
–Took a swim.
–Played with the Mustang a bit. Turns out my thinking re Mustang + Siri was muddled. Bottom line: I can use the car’s speakers to hear Siri, and Siri could play music on the phone through the speakers, but that’s about it. If I ask her to navigate she’ll do it, and I MIGHT hear her voice directions, but of course she can’t take over the screen in the car. So then I tried out the car’s navigation system. The interface is really bad. Crap.
–Took a swim.
–Went to Carmax Roseville and bought the 2017 Mustang. $46,000. Super-nice car. Hope there are no surprises lurking.
–Made pasta with tomato compote for dinner. Yum.
–Got up early. Went to Noah’s for bagels. Then to SiteOne for a manual anti-siphon valve. They only had 1″ (I think our pipe is 3/4″), but it was simple (one rubber washer instead of several) and too large is better than too small. It worked fine, and required very little tightening to stop the flow.
–Took a swim.
–Finally fixed the sprinklers for good: when I replaced the anti-siphon valve I neglected to connect the white common wire to the four solenoid common wires. Duh. All god now. Except:
–Grace heard water running into the pool, so I turned the spigot off, hard, and broke it. Turned off the water main and looked at it; it’s completely indecipherable to me, with at least three rubber gaskets where one would do. Discovered fairly quickly on the web that it’s not a pool-specific thing, but rather another irrigation anti-siphon valve–manually-controlled in this case, not solenoid. Pretty sure SiteOne will have what I need to repair it, early tomorrow after a trip to Noah’s. Meanwhile, the house water is off.
–Took Grace to the Sunrise farmers market. Bought much.
–Spent the day making (1) tomato sauce from San Marzano-like tomatoes and (2) tomato compote. Made pizza with the sauce. Added sugar to both sauce and compote. Not my best work.
–Took a swim.
–Rode with Tom Elken to canal tunnel to test headlight. Worked okay. Tested new seat also. Worked okay.
–Took a shower.
–Walked to UPS to drop off a package for brother Tom with some old Farrell photos and letters in it.
–Took a swim.
–Took a swim.
–Had dinner at Jack’s Urban Eats, then to Bel Air for all the stuff Grace/I couldn’t find at Food Maxx and Smart & Final.
–Got lunch at Togo’s. Pretty nice. Then to Smart & Final for lunch fruit and sundries.
–Watched Tomb Raider 2018. Not great.
–Okay, so my epiphany regarding Shirogorov 3 Bears blade polish was premature. Turns out I only have one 3 Bears blade (the blue Quantum 2) that really reflects; the other three or four are pretty standard.
–Loft light/fan has been coming on randomly for two days. Coincidentally, I played with it yesterday to brighten it. I believe: our light and a neighbor’s use the same remote code, so theirs started going on/off when I was playing yesterday. When they turn theirs off, mine goes on, and we’re in this loop. Tomorrow I’ll turn off power and change the code in the light-mounted sensor (and remote, of course). Betcha that works.
–Played a lot with knives and made a huge discovery: Shirogorov 3 Bears knives differ from 1 Bear knives only in how the blade is polished. It’s subtle, as all their blades seem to be finely media-blasted, but I had two knife pairs to compare, and it’s definitely noticeable: the 3 Bears blades are a little smoother, a little brighter. For example, you can count chandelier bulbs in a 3 Bears reflection, but they’re more like big yellow smudges on the 1 Bear blades. I need to publish this.
–Took a deep breath and swapped the Shiro White Storm scales to a knife with better cosmetics. All good.
–Tom Elken found “cheap” lodgings in Seaside for Monterey Car Week, so off we go.
–Went to S*T Strawberries for strawberries, blackberries, tomatoes.
–Finally sent in a “change of direct deposit” to Northern Trust, Sutter’s benefit manager. Not sure why I didn’t do it until now.
–Went to SiteOne landscaping supply on Folsom and got an Irritrol valve assembly. Installed it (got soaked in the process) and the leak appears to have been cured.
–Decided to order a white 2017 Mustang GT with leather and navigation from Carmax.
–Patched the green float and Megaduck; both were deflated later.
–No swim; pool was acting up. Added water and chlorine, scraped the sides.
–Rode the Humbug Trail in Folsom with Tom Elken.
–Took a shower.
–Got bagels at Noah’s, decaf beans at Peet’s.
–Grace noticed an emitter emitting around 8 AM (after an apparent OK watering at 5). I noticed valve #1 was leaking (again), watched a video, then tightened the solenoid (which was loose). We’ll see.
–Took a quick swim (water was cool on the deep end).
–Barbecued pork chops, corn and tomatoes. Good stuff.
–Rode the canal on the InnerLight, with a flashlight taped to my helmet. Flashlight helped in the tunnel, but the fierce breeze going out seems to have dehydrated me.
–Rode the InnerLight to the river, took a quick video. It does seem higher, and is moving fairly fast.
–Going crazy thinking about cars. The thing is, they’re like pets: once you decide on one and get it, it’s really hard to get rid of it.
–Rode the canal with Tom Elken.
–Opened many wonderful presents.
–Went to S*T Strawberries for strawberries and tomatoes.
–Shirogorov Hati Club knife in. Nice. A bear (heh heh) to take apart; squeezing the blade closed worked again. Can’t believe the convolutions I went through with tape and such when this method seems trivial and foolproof. The small screw was really tight and showed a tiny hint of deformation afterwards, so I swapped it out with a screw from another knife.
–Days later, The $100k I moved from BofA to Chase (cost $3.00) finally showed up.
–Took a swim.