–Hearing aid batteries failed at 1 PM (5 days, 4 hours (Ray-O-Vac)). New batteries (Ray-O-Vac) in around 1:15 PM.
–Watched an episode of Captain Midnight and decoded the message at the end.
Month: September 2023
–Fence repair guys finally started. Found more damage (of course) and wrote “more rot but customer did not want to repair” on the invoice to cover themselves; I worry the HOA will not accept this as a full repair.
–Motor City pizza for dinner. Good as usual.
–Went to Staples to get a new printer toner.
–Picked up the near-NOS Cremina at UPS. It didn’t disappoint. Unmarked, many accessories (FOUR filter baskets), all gaskets supple. Turned it on, it idles between .6 and .9 bars, no leaks. One issue: at first the sight glass didn’t work. After a couple of heating cycles, it worked. And a miracle: I took off the OPV fitting as a start to remove/unclog the sight glass. I decided not to pursue it, as it would have required major disassembly. I put the OPV back on, AND IT DIDN’T LEAK! I’ve had so much trouble with these, and the Orphan Espresso copper crush washers that turn into confetti—truly a miracle. Descaling now, on Barb Garrott’s advice. Espresso coming up!
–Took the InnerLight frame to Bob’s Bikes so they could remove fork and bottom bracket: $30. Then to Perfect It for neon green powder coating: $250, two weeks.
–Went to Jasper’s for milk shakes and deep-fried Oreo cookies. Decadent, but tasty.
–Went to Perfect-It powder coating. They will mask, neon green seems to be the right color, $250, two weeks. Started taking the bike apart, will let Bob’s Bikes do bottom bracket and fork.
–Picked up Van Deventer knife at UPS. Another IKBS bearing knife from South Africa. It’s okay, still can’t match a Shamwari for fiddling with.
–Dropped off Noah package and Rooney package at UPS; picked up cheap taps and a POS Chinese-made Paradigm razor.
–Put new hearing aid batteries (Ray-O-Vac) in at 9 AM.
–Went to Bel Air for bagels, milk, dessert.
–Left hearing aid battery died at 9:30 PM: four days and six hours.
–Went to Home Depot to get replacement handles/locks for the three sliding glass doors. Installed, with some difficulty. All good.
–Went to Ken’s Bikes in Davis to get a new tire pump and Kimo Tanaka’s contact info so I can ask him for a new set of decals if I repaint my bike.
–Spent a while with neighbor Kenny (who went by “Jason” as a professional singer/piano player) trying to set up his upstairs TV. Sort of succeeded, but not fully. He had a card table outside his house with “free clippings” from his succulents. I got some and planted them. They’ll die shortly.
–Switching from Edge to Chrome. Microsoft signed me up for a “cash back” program without my knowledge, and it persisted after two attempts to opt out. Screw ’em.
–Rode the InnerLight 14+ miles to River Bend Park again.
–Picked up the Sea Dweller superdome at UPS. Installed it. It’s quite “super” (high), but unlike the $300 True Dome, (1) it came with zero scratches, (2) it didn’t crack when installed, and (3) it does allow the retaining work to work. Fingers crossed.
–Picked up the old Bull Cheka Shamwari at UPS. It’s a mess, as I knew: scratches on scales and blade, broken blade tip, but worst of all (undisclosed) is significant lock rock. While scrutinizing it, I noticed the detent ball was pretty messed up. So I knocked it out, measured it (1.58mm or 1/16″), and ordered some ceramic balls from Skiff. Fingers crossed.
–Played with photo editors in an effort to drop Lightroom. Bought ACDSee and Affinity. Affinity looking good at the moment–extremely smooth. For reasons I can’t fathom, it only does haze removal on jpg’s (which show up as single layer called “background image,” not RAW’s, which just come up as “xxxxx.rwl.” I tried for a while to add a background image, but failed.
–Hearing aid batteries failed and were replaced with Kirkland batteries around 3 PM—almost six days.
–Picked up Gareth Bull Miura at UPS. Useless: no clip (can’t carry, and super-hard to flip without something to hold on to); smooth-opening means off-center and blade play, while centered is virtually impossible to open (too tight); lots of marks on blade, mostly from loose blade hitting liner.
–Picked up Sea Dweller gasket set at UPS. Replaced only a couple of gaskets. Turns out the $300 True Dome crystal, which was super tight to get on, had cracked (too small inner diameter). Further, it apparently was so oversized (outer diameter) that it stretched the retaining ring when I assembled it. Reverting to the old crystal was not possible: the retaining ring was now oversized and would not hold the crystal tightly in place. I spent a while with the Fercal resizing tool trying to reduce the size of the retaining ring–to no avail. I finally ordered another superdome crystal from Hong Kong, hoping it has the right inner diameter to be tight without cracking, and the right outer diameter to hold the crystal on tightly. What a mess.
–Went to Smart and Final for muffins, fruit. Stopped at Bel Air for bagels and cream cheese.
–Homeless person spotted a week ago in Discovery Village (stealing a package) is still around.
–Re-potted several cacti. Probably killed them.
–Took a shower and shave. The NOS Ever-Ready Streamline razor worked fine with a single-edge (shaving) razor from Rite Aid. Really looking forward to the Gem blades I ordered.
–Went to the Sunrise farmers market for cherry tomatoes. Put together another compote, which is cooking as we speak.
–Watched Netflix movie Heart of Stone. Much better than expected.
–Replaced hearing aid batteries with Ray-O-Vacs around 9 AM.
–Quarterly tax auto-pay went through.
–Took Grace to Sutter Urgent Care (Firoz’ office) in Folsom for a blood test. Went to Whole Foods and got stuff.
–Stopped at UPS to pick up clock radio (pretty nice), Truedome Sea Dweller crystal (looks a LOT like the crystal that came on the watch, which I suspect is a service crystal), and Ever-Ready Streamline razor (cool, looks NOS).
–Left hearing aid battery (Ray-O-Vac) died around 9 PM (five full days).
–Rode the InnerLight on ARP west to River Park–14.5 miles. Kinda tired.
–Played around with my journal on WordPress, trying to make it private. No luck yet. Did successfully use phpmyadmin in control panel to dig out of a couple holes. [Edit] Finally got it to where vstat.com IS my journal and anyone but me who navigates there will be confronted with a login screen. If I really wanted to do something with vstat I could register wsf-journal.net or some such and move the WordPress site there. Given the power of imgur.com to host pics and videos (for selling) though, it’s not clear what I’d do with vstat. Maybe virtual statistics——–there’s a thought!
–Rode with Tom Elken in El Dorado Hills.
–Took Grace shopping at Food Maxx.
–Put new Ray-O-Vac batteries in the hearing aids at 9 AM.
–Took a shower and shave. Used an old Gillette head on a Cooncat Bob handle. Head was quite aggressive. Surprisingly, that may be what I want: extra care resulted in zero nicks, and it was an incredibly close shave–my cheeks are totally smooth, which almost never happens. The second pass felt like there was no blade in the razor, because the first pass was so close. Complicated, though: I’ve tried four times to tolerate a Blackland razor, but I just can’t: it feels like a dull blade is at right angles to my face. Much to learn…
–Went to harbor Freight, mostly for a switchable magnet to use in blade polishing. Got it. Didn’t work. It holds the blade, but I found I could exert much more pressure (with control) just using my hand. Oh well…
–Papa Murphy’s pizza for dinner (finished off the gift card from Mark Solich). Good.
–Right hearing aid battery died around 8 PM (almost five days).
–Rolex 1665 Sea Dweller came in. Took it apart, cleaned it up, put it back together–with great skill and good tools. Runs fast, but nicest one I’ve ever seen.
–After lots of trouble setting up the Razr phone, went back to the Galaxy since the Razr doesn’t seem to pick up the hearing aids as quickly. Plus the Galaxy just has an all-around better operating system implementation, seems to me. Wish it came in magenta.
–Sent the proper forms via email to Cal Pro for fence repair.
–Stopped at Bel Air for bagels, milk, cream. Tap to Pay failed (with Razr this time).
Went to Jasper’s again for dinner. Woman said she is 56, man is 60, they are unrelated, and man wants to retire after 36 years there. She’s not sure if she’ll stay on or not, she said. (I’m guessing she knows and is just being cagey.)
–Saw Dr. Bellinger re heart: all good.
–Cleaned up papers etc. on desk.
–Put new hearing aid batteries in at 9 AM.
–Went to Costco for hearing aid check. Lots of gobbledygook, got some domes to try. Learned that one removes domes/molds the same as one removed receivers in the Resounds: depress a tiny button and the wire+receiver pulls right out. This is good, because the alternative I was facing was trying to yank out the wire from the speaker itself–way too risky. So now I have two complete sets of receivers: one with molds and one that accepts Philips domes (not available on the web) and also Starkey/Oticon domes (easily available). The domes she put in are too large (they hurt), so I ordered some smaller ones. Unfortunately, aids are tuned differently for mold/dome, so I might get sub-optimal results just switching by myself without tuning. She was shocked at my four-day battery life, suggested I might want to send the aids back to Philips. We’ll see.
–Went for a bike ride with Tom Elken in El Dorado Hills. Nice day, nice ride.
–Left hearing aid battery went out at 9 PM–four days +.
–Went to Chalk It Up. Pretty good, great weather, good food truck hamburger for lunch. Grace’s arthritis is acting up, so she didn’t go.
–Stopped at Smart and Final for fruit and muffins.
–Rained last night. Gave me a chance to wipe off the Weber.
–Made pizza for dinner.
–Got a refund from eBay on the first Galaxy Flip.
–Switched back to the iPhone to see if (1) the Philips hearing aid app had any more bells and whistles. It doesn’t. I have a theory (will test) that the app adds absolutely nothing: I can use phone settings to answer all calls on hearing aids; there are no wind noise or “venue” choices in the app; etc. It MIGHT be required for the TV box, but I doubt it; (2) Apple Wallet works better than Google Pay.
–Barbecued beef burgers and such. Tasty.