–Hung the quilt over my bed, and a couple of parking aids in the garage.
–Southard Tolk came in. Nice knife, and you can actually see the grind (it’s not stonewashed).
–Took a shower and shave.
Month: January 2023
–Walked to Bel Air for fruit and sesame bagels.
–Made banana bread for dessert.
–Played with Leica Q2. Got it mostly figured out. Great lens.
–Made pizza for dinner. Good stuff.
–Took the Mustang to the post office and picked up mailbox keys. Seems that’s standard procedure, though they didn’t mention it on my first visit.
–Stopped at Bel Air for (plain, sliced) bagels and chocolate chip cookies.
–Leica Q2 (my second) came in. Blew the SL2 with Lumix 24mm lens out of the water. It has its issues: no grip, the dreaded Leica focus knob, etc., but it’s fairly compact, has auto magnification, and takes great photos.
–Walked to Bel Air for fruit and Easy-Off.
–Still Queasy.
–Oleinikov “Solar System” came in. Perfection, as expected. Oz Roosevelt came in. Played with a LOT. Ended up going back to the original scale, as the custom one seemed to exacerbate the off-center issue. Works okay, but has an amazing in-hand feel. I just want to hold it all the time.
–Went to dinner at Jersey Mike’s, per Sterling’s recommendation. Good sandwiches I must say.
–Finally connected BofA to Heritage and paid off credit card.
–Still queasy.
–Still queasy.
–Returned the “andyfrankart” SFK to eBay seller. He claimed to be shocked, but (a) his isting did not show pics of the face that had “EDC” on it; (b) he apparently never questioned WHY it had EDC engraved on it when he (allegedly) traded a couple of knives for it.
–Took a shower and shave.
–Still queasy.
–Made bread. Good, but small.
–Still feeling queasy all the time, briefly relieved by eating.
–Stopped at Bel Air for cookies, cheese and bananas.
–Home all day, waiting for UPS.
–Feeling woozy all day, scarily assuaged by eating. Just read that 33% of those > 65 have Type 2 diabetes. Great.
–Took Grace shopping at Bel Air.
–Verified that my California Middle Class Tax Relief card is down to $0 balance. I thought it started with $600 or $800; hard to believe it went to zero so fast.
–Epoxied the 19″ x 15″ piece of glass to the outside of the kitchen sliding door. Seemed to go well.
–Successfully set up the required minimum distribution (RMD) at Vanguard, for Jan. 20.
–Marie for dinner.
–Went to University Art to get glass for the doggy door opening.
–NOS Braun shaver came in: beauty.
–Played with knives. Just cannot get Aquatic scales to work on other (nice action) Shiro F3s.
–Fed some squirrels.
–Made blueberry muffins for dessert.
–Had really bad diarrhea last night; felt woozy all day. Wish I knew what was going on.
–Two Braun Flex shavers came in. One was a tosser, but the blue-green one (a fabulous color I’ve never seen before) is near-perfect. It charged right up and gave me a great shave.
–Went to Bel Air for bagels and cream cheese.
–Second Shirogorov Aquatic came in. Swapped everything eight times, then discovered a bad sharpening grind on the new blade. These knives were REALLY rushed out, or something: loose screws, poor sharpening, etc. Ended up keeping the newer one as it came.
–Put away the Christmas stuff.
–Walked to Mimosa House for brunch, then Bel Air for groceries.
–Re-programmed external garage keypad to work; reset front gate lock to work with house key. More to come.
–Many old shavers came in. Not much remains. Got one working, with new cutter and foil. Amazing battery life for something that old (especially considering that most of them don’t even take a charge), but the shave is kind of crude. Norelco rules, at the moment.
–Made pizza for dinner. Another thick crust, though I overcooked it a little.
–Ally finally answered my query from a few days ago. Said that the $20k should have shown up by now. They’re looking into it and will get back to me. I think my case is rock solid, but it’s still scary.
–Put the vintage axe head on my new handle. Started with a pocketknife; ended with the belt grinder. Much dust. Took the cars out and blew everything away.
–Sent the Braun 5567 back to Florida for re-repair.
–Took a shower and shave.
–Played with knives a lot.
–Heritage shows that Ally “cashed” the $20,000 check I sent in with my application; Ally shows I still have $0 balance in checking and savings accounts. I submitted a help request.
–Koukin knife came in. Too small, not attractive. Ruined the pivot getting it out with a triangle bit from the iFixit tool set. $2,200 down the tubes.
–Finally attached the trickle charger leads to the Mustang battery correctly (strongly) and got it fully charged. Played some more with Android Auto/Ottocast on the Galaxy phone, but gave up: it often took 15-20 seconds for the system just to partially echo one of my commands. Hopeless. Siri rules…
–Went shopping with Grace at Bel Air.
–Soup for dinner.
–Grace left the fridge blocked open all night; it was 75 degrees this morning. Tossed the milk and cream; will see what else.
–Made pizza for dinner: best one yet.
–Vintage Braun shaver came in. Excellent condition for parts-swapping. Tried to reassemble it with that !@#$% spring, failed completely (and broke a tab off the case which ended any further exploration). Might get a junker and try to see the spring before disassembly, but I’m not sure that’s possible: I think I broke a tab on this one while pulling it apart, and the only video I’ve found shows reassembly only. Crap.
–Stopped at Green Acres for stakes and a nice pole-mounted tree saw/lopper.
–Second Shirogorov Touch came in. Not perfect action, but well-centered and no marks.
–Got more refunds from State Farm. Has something to do (I think) with homeowner’s policy mixup and multi-line discounts, but it’s getting sort of comical.
–Dank day, then rainy.
–Went to renew Trusted Traveller card, but they talked me out of it (really aimed at international travel). So I applied for a TSA Pre-Check card. Guess we need to get for Grace as well.
–Put several Russian flippers on the leather belt and really made them sharper.
–Happy New Year!
–Sunshine today. Didn’t do much: cut up some boxes, tidied up the bathroom, downloaded and watched “City of Ember.” Not bad.
–Played with the Shirogorov Aquatic a lot. Left it totally original, slightly better centered.
–Made pizza for dinner–super good.