Month: April 2023

–Started recording blood pressure. Bad this morning (high pressure, low beat rate); vastly better this evening.

–Picked up toothbrushes and another Sham at UPS. This Sham has carbon scales with lots of voids and chips. I was going to fix with super glue. As usual, I got impatient and put a ton of super glue on at once. After much sanding, I gave up and soaked the scales in acetone. On the bright side, blade and action are perfect, so I just need some new scales.

–Went with Grace (mistake) to the Sutter lab in Folsom for a blood draw. Got results later: all good.

–Went to Costco. Got a new receiver wire for my left hearing aid (staff member couldn’t open it; I did). Still can’t hear Grace.

–Got takeout for dinner at Jack’s Urban Eats.

–Walked to UPS to pick up new Galaxy S10. Spent a long time updating it and getting rid of all the crap.

–Left hearing aid receiver wire seems to have gone bad (again). Will check at Costco tomorrow.

–3.3″ Shamwari brown micarta liner lock came in. Great blade and action.

–Shamwari came in that’s been at Gareth Bull’s shop for several months. Looks like he “repaired” it exactly as I would have: five minutes with a couple of needle files. (Early on he mentioned his milling machine. No way, Jose.) He did apologize, though, and didn’t charge me for return shipping.

–Back is feeling better.

–Basil plant appears to be flourishing indoors 24/7. Who knew?

–Learned last night (email) that the sun spot near my navel is a squamous carcinoma. Did not sleep much. Learned today that it’s in situ, meaning slow-growing, easily treatable. Could have used topical fluorouracil, but opted for another surgery, May 30.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Slow day. Cleaned up a little, moved some extension cords around.

–Went over to Sherry Stults’ house and installed App Cleaner; removed 50GB of (mostly) leftover junk from software installations. Mind-boggling.

–Cleaned up the garage considerably.

–Picked up Nymble X V2 at UPS store. Blade not centered.

–Picked up Mustang mirror at UPS store. Got the frame out successfully, then broke a connector. Spent a long time trying to fix it. Will find out tomorrow when epoxy hardens. [edit: Tried it tonight; epoxy was hard. The two warning alerts I was getting earlier (something blind spot and something else) did not reappear. Obviously need to test it while moving.]

–Dropped off 7205 bracelet at FedEx for Rolliworks to add link.

–Took Grace big shopping at Bel Air.

–Gareth Bull finally responded on facebook and will be returning my repaired knife shortly. I was ready (and looking forward to) going ballistic on him. At least he apologized for the delay, which improves my overall feelings about his knives.

–Picked up new Oral B toothbrush at UPS. Will save the old one, since it started to work again. New one seems a little more aggressive, but one has to push the button 3 times to get it to highest speed. It also pauses briefly every 30 seconds (brushing nag), which is disconcerting.

–Back is really bad. Worse after a long session of stretching.

–Marie for dinner.

–Called Ally Bank to confirm (yet again) a wire to Kirill Yuzh.

–Picked up the Hilberg Shamwari clone at the UPS store. Really amazing knife–perfectly centered, drop shut, satin blade, etc. It’s heavy (steel, not titanium I guess) but that’s the only minus–for about 1/15th the price of the real thing.

–Basil plant is looking good so far, perhaps because I bring it indoors every night.

–Grace’s foot still hurts after three days. Took her to Sutter Walk-In on Sunrise. They said to go to Sutter Urgent care in Roseville. After a LOT of waiting (and an x-ray) they said she has degenerative arthritis, and prescribed an NSAID.

–Dinner at Jack’s Urban Eats.

–Went to the Sunrise farmers market for tangerines, apples, broccoli, onions, basil plant.

–Got a pizza for dinner at Papa Murphy’s.

–Broke the passenger side mirror on the Mustang while backing out. Can’t find it online. Biked to a Mustang shop on Folsom; he couldn’t find it in house or online either. Guess I’ll be paying a dealership mucho money.

–EMP EDC Nymble X version 2 came in. Nice blade, except the sharpener really messed up and changed the angle a lot at the tip on one side. I tried belts, then the Ruixin, then belts again. It looks a little better, but still kinda crappy and not sharp. I think I got lucky with one blade on the Ruixin; all others have come out sort of multi-beveled–and I can’t detect it until the knife is out of the sharpener.

–Went with Grace to a credit union where she could deposit her RMD through to Stanford FCU.

–Picked up the Specialized with new tires (Schwalbe Balloon) at Bob’s Cycles (quick work). Tires don’t look all that huge, but they’re 50mm (compared to original 38mm), which is as large as I’ve seen people install on these bikes. I put the original handlebars back on and it rides like a dream. It’s going to be a chore getting that bike on the wall, so I started lifting weights again.

–Ordered a nice Shamwari clone from China, due June 18.

–Drove to UPS to pick up Whink and the Shiro Solar System. Put a huge scratch on the Shiro handle trying to break the thread locker. Had to put it in the vise to free it, then tossed the scales and kept the rest as parts. Next time I disassemble a knife, I WILL TAPE IT UP FIRST.

–Sending the scales (blotch on one) of the latest Shamwari to a guy in Indiana for zirblasting–after seeing his work on facebook. Fingers crossed.

–Took the Specialized Turbo Vado to Bob’s Cycles (Sunrise and Fairoaks) to look into fatter tires. They had some in stock; should be ready Monday. Fingers crossed.

–Tried to rearrange the garage slightly to allow easier bike accessibility. We’ll see.

–Walked to UPS to pick up tiny painting and Shamwari. Both nice. Shamwari seems heavy: not titanium? Thick? Don’t know. Great blade and action, though.

–Rolex 1503 came in. Runs great, looks good. In an astounding miracle, I found a 13.5mm link (was looking for 13.4) on eBay. Unbelievable. Don’t hugely need it, but it would make the bracelet fully-linked.

–Rode the InnerLight to re-look at where Buffalo Creek dumps into the American River. Took me a LONG time to find it, and even longer to (re-) find the input pipes on the other side of the ARP. Mainly BECAUSE the input pipes are not on the other side of the ARP, but rather are visible only from the ROAD that parallels the ARP. Argh….

–Big day. Warm, too.

–Ally called and had me go through all details of my wire to Yuzh Inc. Just the like the first one. Another wire went straight through (can’t remember what it was for). Unbelievably annoying. I’ve pretty much run out of banks, and of course the same thing could happen again no matter what the bank. And, lest we forget, this has happened on most (maybe all) of my (much smaller) Zelle payments. Don’t know what to do.

–Took Grace to the McKinley park Garden Center Bonsai Show, which we last went to 20(?) years ago. Pretty cool.

–Worked on the InnerLight a bit, trying to get rid of a clicky noise. Lubed the chain: noise still there. Put back the original solid (non-folding) handlebars: noise gone. Crap. Will likely revert on the e-bike as well, making it really hard to store two bikes on the wall.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Started the process of buying a $7.660 Rolex 1503 14K from Kirill Yuzh. It could be too small in the bracelet (12 links) or the case (34mm), but it’s a nice-looking watch, unmolested since 1980.

–Walked to UPS to pick up my Erie Spider marble (cool) and stopped at Bel Air for cream.

–Gray day, slightly drizzly. Catalogued all my Shirogorov knives finally.

–Walked to Rite-Aid to pick up the coffee sieve at the Amazon locker.

–Downloaded and watched Red. Great movie.

–Took Grace shopping at Rite-Aid and Bel Air.

–Trying (again) to get vstat.com working so photos are available to all, journal is not. Failing.

–Took the Gareth Bull Colibri apart (again). Polished the show side of the blade with an ultra-fine 3M sanding pad. Turns out that almost perfectly replicates the finish put on by Mr. Bull. Problems: (a) there are little curvies at the plunge where it’s hard to control the pad; (b) the satin lines are not as straight or rectilinear as the originals; (c) the Shamwari logo is starting to fade a bit. All in all, though, a surprisingly good effort for a new abrasive, freehand, on a hollow-ground blade like that.

–Heard from the redditor who sold me the (stolen) $1,250 mini FSD: insurance claim accepted! We haven’t discussed yet how he’ll get me the money.

–Took Grace big shopping at Food Maxx.

–Picked up the Gareth Bull Colibri at UPS. Spent a couple of hours working on it, to little avail. (a) It’s on washers, (b) I strongly suspect something isn’t square: pivot, holes in liners, hole in blade, etc. Knife is stiff opening and closing, and I put a scratch on the show side of the blade when it hit the liner. TAPE THE BLADE. TAPE THE BLADE. TAPE THE BLADE.

–Doves sort of acted like they were nesting in the rafters in front, but disappeared. When I looked in from outside the front gate, it sort of seemed like there might be (have been) a nest in the tree close to the house. We’ll see–maybe.

–Took a short bike ride, trying to trace Buffalo Creek. Enjoyable.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Dove couple looked like they were thinking og nesting in the tree near the downspout, then I chased them off by going carefully into my bedroom.

–Went to Bel Air for coupon stuff–ground turkey, Crystal Geyser gallon jugs for $.77, etc.

–Drove to UPS to pick up Barker painting and Wakui petty. Both nice, though the petty is blue steel and thus too beautiful to use.

–Made pizza for dinner. Good.