Month: May 2024

–Walked to Dr. Cripe’s office for part 2 of crown on #3 tooth. Went fine. Will go back on 6/6 for part 1 of crown on #4 tooth. Not getting a root canal. Hope none is needed.

–Successfully “hid” the journal under /public_html/Journal, so going to wsf.ac just brings up a big “403 Forbidden” screen. It was not easy. Going to wsf.ac/Journal brings up the journal, all logged in, hit “New” to start a new entry. Going to wsf.ac/Journal/wp-admin brings up the Admin panel, again all logged in. I guess one would have to know that Journal was a sub-directory on wsf.ac in order to get there. Going to wsf.ac/sahara.jpg (after copying the photo to public_html) brings up the photo. Good.

–Went to see Jasleen Agroia RN in Dr. Firoz’ office. BP was 136/6x; the flunkie taking it said “BP is good.” So did Jasleen. I argued that it was high (and it is, according to the recent AHA/ACC guidelines); no, it’s good she said. She put in a 90-day prescription for 25mg Losartan. I argued that 50 is standard. No, she said, 25 is good. I asked her for a copy of Dr. Bellinger’s telemetry/EKG findings. She looked it up, mentioned the word “stable,” printed out one page from Sac Heart that said absolutely nothing about findings.

–Lunch at Jersey Mike’s.

–Stopped at UPS for Olympus VF-2 viewfinder. Was reminded it doesn’t fit M9, just 240. Put it on the 240. Useless, as recalled (I tossed the previous one).

–Got a bag o’ bagels at Bel Air.

–Paid State Farm bill for BMW, $527ish.

–Went to physical therapy in Folsom. Robert took me into the gym where PT is located and put me on 4-5 machines. Hoping I would sign up for a membership I guess.

–Took Grace shopping at Smart & Final.

–Spent some more time on the Silca pumps, to no avail. Finally did the correct google search (blowby) and learned that I’ve over-lubed and thus softened both leather gaskets beyond usability. After some more research, I discovered that Pista and Superpista pumps (anything prior to 2008) take the smaller 28mm (731) gasket–after ordering a 731 and 741. Even further, I discovered that Silca now has specific different washers behind and in front of the leather gasket; I don’t think either of my pumps had this setup. So, I ordered $48 worth of lube, washers, etc. from Silca, and told Heritage (who thought it might be fraud) all was okay. I had also ordered another restored Pista pump on eBay, from the same guy in Southern Cal who sells under 6 different names–I did this before all the gasket stuff, thinking I had to. Pretty soon, WE GOT PUMPS!!

–Rode around Lake Natoma with Tom Elken. Been a long time since I rode there, and I would have made a couple wrong turns without him. The blue Silca pump, though it does work when tested with a finger over the nozzle, didn’t seem to put air in the tires. The black one worked like crazy and filled ’em up toot-sweet.

–Put gas in the Honda.

–Red Baron for dinner.

–Watered plants; fertilized camellia.

–Went to Bel Air for cream, pizza, dessert.

–After mastering the Leica M11, went back to the CL. Figured it out pretty quick, took a couple abutilon pics, like it. M11 has the megapixels, and CL has the viewfinder. The CL also seems a little more fun, and is more compact.

–Took a shower and shave.

–FINALLY got the M11 set up (I think the CL is set up too, but it’s hard to say no to 60 megapixels.)
—-Known lens: focus mag. will start automatically; power can be adjusted with thumbwheel.
—-Unknown lens: Press the little top button to start focus mag., adjust power with thumbwheel.
——After exiting focus mag. with little top button (if used), thumbwheel adjusts exposure comp. (via shutter speed) with permanent real-time preview. Whew!!!

–Rode the canal on the Innerlight. Decent weather, still tiring.

–Barbecued pork chops and corn.

–Played with bike pumps a bit. Got them both going good.

–Played with new digital tire gauge. Cannot get consistent readings from it. Old age and lack of practice probably. Will look for a clamp-on gauge.

–Helped Kenny replace his fountain pump filter. Success!

–Went to Bel Air for corn, milk, cream cheese, lunch cheese, dessert, Zone Perfect bars.

–Went to Creekside Endodontics for my root canal on tooth 3. Fairly uncomfortable, fairly quick. Some pain and pressure sensitivity hours later, even after a strong ibuprofen.

–More hilarity tonight comparing M11 and CL. I don’t seem to be able hold any thought in my mind for more than a day. I had dismissed both cameras tonight after testing them with a fully stopped down Biotar–for bokeh, you know. Unbelievable.

–Red Baron for dinner.

–Went to Creekside Endodontists (Scott Young) about tooth pain. They took some CT scans, and I got a long explanation of things. As best I could make out: teeth 3, 4 and 5 need root canals. We’ll do 3 tomorrow (mostly because it’s already been started, I believe), then wait until benefits are available to do 4 and 5. $390 consult fee at Creekside, $1,865 for the root canal, $1,300 at Cripe for the crown.

–Leica CL Paul Smith came back from Leica Repair. Looks and feels good. Having second thoughts about it though. Turns out the left wheel ISO control (for exposure) which I really liked only works with an L lens. I won’t be using many L lenses on the CL, given what the Q2s will do. With a manual lens (even one that’s recognized by the CL), the left wheel controls exposure via shutter speed–not my favorite thing. I can control ISO with a menu, but it doesn’t do that instant lightening/darkening of the viewfinder which allows me to pick an ISO that works along with a non-blurring shutter speed. Even focusing with the CL–the one HUGE advantage it has over M’s–isn’t turning out to be all that miraculous. Leica may have gotten it right with the M11 and I just haven’t figured it out yet–like the really high ISO’s were done to allow fast shutter speeds. I just wish that Visoflex worked better.

–Had another physical therapy visit with Robert.

–Leather washer came in for Silca bike pump. I put both of them together and they work fine. Given they’re the same inner dimeter, It sure seems like the NOS one moves a lot more air. It is a few inches taller, but still…

–Tom Elken hurt his hand and canceled the bike ride.

–Went to see Olga Karaputa at Pacific Skin. She froze 7-8 things on my face and head. I’m in great shape now.

–Tooth still hurts off and on. Made an appointment for a $390 consult with Creekside Endodontists.

–Played with bike pumps. Turns out the “leather” washer in the blue one was not. I swapped in the leather washer from the NOS black one and it now pumps/holds perfectly. Further, there’s an ad on eBay for another blue one, also in southern California, using the same pictures as the one I bought. Sucks…

–Looked at Kenny’s fountain pump. As he said, it would work for a small swimming pool. Decided to get him a new filter (which I did on Amazon, for one-third the price of Leslie’s Pool) and hopefully we can fix it up.

–New single-prong moisture meter came. The first three plants I tried it on all looked about the same (good). But the three succulents I tried it on were all down toward dry, so it looks like the meter works.

–Took a shower and shave. Went back to Iridium Super blades (in a Fat Boy) and they just blew away the Spoilers that a guy gave me with a brush purchase. I don’t see how there could be a better blade.

–Actually unbelievable: Got the 3 M9’s and the M-E all squared away, decided to keep the Black Paint (!) M9. Put the Biotar lens on it to get a bokeh shot, then realized–for literally the 8th time–you can’t focus a non-M lens on an M9. Put the Leica 35mm on it (King of Bokeh), then discovered I couldn’t focus on an abutilon flower that was in the shade–you really need a contrasty vertical thing to focus on. So: (a) wait for the Paul Smith CL to return and try to overcome the metering issue, or (b) buy another Olympus VF-2 viewfinder (tossed the first one) and see if it is an improvement over the rangefinder. Grrrrr…… [edit] Okay okay okay: read a little in Leica Forum and revived the CL, I believe. We know the right thumb wheel does two levels of focus magnification. Turns out the left wheel does ISO. I put the Leica 50 lens on and went out on the front patio to take a pic of the abutilon. With Auto ISO, it defaults to making the scene way too bright (overexposed) for me, anyway. I thumbed the ISO down and the picture in the view finder got darker and darker as ISO decreased. I took a couple pics at more than -1 EV (CL thinks it’s way under-exposed). Pics came out great–for me, anyway. So: looking forward to the Paul Smith. Keep an M9? I don’t know. I just bought an Olympus viewfinder on eBay, so we’ll see how it works, but I’m guessing the CL will outrun the M9 in every way. We’ll see. [edit 2] Took a couple of night shots with the CL They came out nice, but the exposure meter was pretty much maxed out at -3 EV. I really wonder if there’s a way of resetting the meter so I don’t have to abuse it so much. Doubtful.

–Made pizza for dinner.

–Well, you won’t hardly believe it: back to M9 (M-E specifically). Just don’t want to deal with the (de facto) dual metering system of the M10, where exposure changes depending on whether or not Live View is active. It’s even worse: with LV off, the metering is “mostly center-weighted,” the manual says, even though it pretends to let you change to spot or multi. So stupid. Took a couple of great shots of the abutilon with the Leica 50 and 35 lenses. I suspect they’ll look cartoonish when compared to more modern photos, but they work for me at the moment.

–Picked up a digital tire gauge at Amazon and started taking readings on the Beemer, to see what happens with the plugged tire.

–Got apples, mandarins, coffee (Philz and Peet’s) at Bel Air.

–Kenny gave us another plant: a really beautiful succulent. Guess I’d better go look at his pump.

–Second Silca pump came in–totally rebuilt. Looks good, but either it’s really low capacity or leaking or something, as nothing seemed to happen after many pumps (needle goes up and back, but doesn’t seem to go higher with every pump). In contrast, The (larger) NOS pump just works like crazy. Guess I’ll buy another rebuild kit (seller already did one rebuild) and see what’s up.

–Got a tomato from Jan Muehlbauer; we gave her cuttings from our abutilon. Kenny is going to give us something–iris, maybe.

–PSA test came back super-clean. I’m good to go for a while.

–Going back to the CL. Tried the M10-R with Visoflex after the CL’s bad night performance. The Visoflex just won’t cut it. In addition to giving a jumpy, dark image, it times out after five seconds or no focusing. The CL viewfinder is bright and clear, and will stay magnified until you reset it to normal. And again, putting viewfinders on M cameras just seems to be defeating the purpose. It would be nice to get the CL to work at night. We’ll see. [edit] Okay, back to the M10-P Safari. I had to underexpose the CL by 3 thirds to get a reasonably-lit shot at night, and it still sucked (noise, washed-out colors, etc. Brought out the Safari and got my infinitely-repeatable, 1/30 second shot: under-exposed, but trivially brought up to perfect in Lightroom, rich colors, etc. I don’t get it: these cameras have the same-size (if not the same) sensor. Why are exposures so different? Will still need the Visoflex for non-M lenses, but that should be okay. [edit 2] I’m reminded that the Visoflex changes the exposure–under-exposing the night shot like the CL did. Easy enough to fix: focus using Visoflex, then turn it off and take the shot. Annoying, though. I’ll look into it.

–Barbecued: chicken burgers, corn, tomato, Bel Air antipasto salad. Yummy!

–Picked up a Gareth Bull Shamwari “Gambler” at UPS. Pretty nice.

–Went to Bel Air and got an antipasto salad and corn for barbecue–maybe tomorrow (see below).

–Took Grace to the Sutter Lab in Folsom for (our) multiple blood tests, urine sample, PSA.

–Went to Dr. Cripe to look into my pressure- and cold-sensitive tooth. Sandy had me come back at 3:30, whereupon they took an x-ray and decided to cap the tooth. Dr. Cripe there was a lot of decay inside, and the adjacent tooth also looked bad. I might need a root canal, “but we’ll wait and hope for the best.” He gave me a referral to an endodontics group. Not clear if I’m supposed to go there and get evaluated for a root canal, or go there only when severe pain/sensitivity kicks in. For now, I think I’ll wait. Cripe drilled quickly and a temporary crown was installed. Back in two weeks.

–Pizza for dinner.

–Stop the presses! (1) Tooth with temp crown had zero reaction to much ice cream tonight. Have we finally fixed it? Maybe. (2) Took a couple night pictures with the Leica 50/2 lens on the CL. Terrible–it drastically over-exposed them. And to top it off, I just heard the Paul Smith CL is on its way back. Great. (3) Tried the M11. Ran into that issue where the camera is pointing at one thing, but the EVF is looking at something else. Sort of fixed it by brute force moving the + cursor, but the pic still sucked. (4) Brought out the M10-R Black Paint: easy, good shot. Argghhh…

–Bought a 2019 Paladin Halloween shaving brush. I used to sort of think they did one every year. Did a search. Found like 12 different Halloween brushes for 2021. So much for building a complete collection.

–Got strawberries and jam at S*T Strawberries.

–Okay okay: went back to the CL. I bought it new, the menus are nice, it has easy-access (and I believe permanent) magnification–as opposed to others’ 5-second magnification (could be wrong about that). If I ever get the Paul Smith CL back…

–Rode the InnerLight on the canal, 16.5 miles. Too much, perhaps.

–Stopped ar UPS for Lile Button Lock folder (very nice, though the web is completely silent on assembly/disassembly) and blue-anodized bit driver (also very nice; same length as my other one).

–Tooth stopped aching, even with ice cream, so I put off the visit to Dr. Cripe.

–Took Grace shopping at Smart and Final.

–Opened up a PayPal case against True Vintage Leather. Sent them > $500 9 weeks ago for a 1786 wallet; heard nothing.

–Rode 10.5 miles west on ARP with the new 14-tooth rear sprocket. Much easier; I averaged 10.0 mph. Will I build back muscles so I can go back to 15? Not likely.

–Lunch at In ‘N’ Out–darn good.

–Got soil, fertilizer, birdseed at Home Depot; plant moisture tester and roach bait at Lowe’s; milk, muffins, peanuts, frozen stuff at Smart and Final.

–Realized (a bit too late) that in moving vstat.com to Namecheap I lost everything in the bf and wsf email accounts there (mostly archived stuff from car/house sales/purchase. What an idiot. I suppose I should add back the accounts for the two people who still send me stuff at those addresses.

–Aaannnd it’s back to M11. I MAY have found advice at the Leica Forum on fixing the SD card/freezing issues, and its ergonomics are just too good–fewer buttons, simpler menus, etc.

–Went for a 10.5 mile ride west. A young guy on a single speed (rare) passed me, pedaling faster than I was. Dawned on me that I could drop back from a 15-tooth rear cog to a 14-tooth. So I did (not easy, as I had to re-tension the chain). On thinking, I “earned” the 15-tooth after years of near-daily riding. It’s possible, if I ride a lot over the next year or two, I’ll be able to move back up to the higher-geared ride. We’ll see.

–Went to the Folsom farmers market. Got oranges, asparagus, almonds, and a basil plant.

–Transplanted the basil plant.

–Tried for the Nth time to utilize the Leica M 240. Not only could I not accept it, I boxed up the M11 as well and trotted out the Sony again. All of my Leica Ms have metering issues. I’m beginning to suspect that people who use and love them don’t use auto exposure, but instead set everything manually.The M11 isn’t bad, but with its funky ISO dial, klugey EVF, etc., it has strayed far from what the M started out as. Put an adapted lens on the Sony, however, and it just works. Far too many buttons and menu lists, but most can be ignored.

–Tooth still hurts. Decided to go see Dr. Cripe.

–Had a video visit with an R.N. working with Dr. Firoz. Went okay. Going off Amlodipine and switching to Losartan to reduce ankle swelling. PSA test called for. Crap.

–Camera Choice, Chapter 118: Going with the M11. It allows all 4 metering modes (spot, center-weighted, highlight-weighted, multi-field) with or without the Visoflex mounted. The M10s without Visoflex ONLY allow center-weighted (same with M9s, but the M10s show a menu that pretends to let you choose other modes—with no effect). Spot and multi work only when Visoflex is on. Seems to me it would be a trivial fix to gray out things that aren’t available, and only slightly harder to MAKE them available without Visoflex, as they do on the M11. But what do I know?

–Had a toothache all day. Going to be really upset if the Sunrise dentist crowned a tooth (and bottomed out my insurance) that now needs a root canal.

–Took Grace to Dr. Firoz while I went to physical therapy. As usual, she got hyper and spent the rest of the day yelling at me.

–Went to lunch at Sourdough in Folsom. Truly excellent; best sandwich ever.

–Got some coffee beans at Peet’s. Could have been a mistake. Really need to find some dark roast beans that aren’t burnt.

–Really really really windy today. This is one strange Spring. I’d be a wreck if not for the Astepro nasal spray. Yes, I get sleepy in the afternoon, but it’s worth it.

–Playing with cameras. Trying to decide between M10 Safari (with Visoflex) and Sony for odd lens art pics. I thought Sony would be a slam dunk, based on a recent shoot, but now I’m not so sure. [edit] The Safari metering system is complex. Without the Visoflex, you get standard center-weighted metering. With the Visoflex/live view, you can also get spot and multifield. Further, it changes completely depending on whether the Visoflex is magnifying or not. I couldn’t get a good night shot with the V (it always overexposed). Without it, back to normal 1/30 second good shots. Crap… Maybe Visoflex in daylight, off at night. Or M10-P Safari at day, Q2 at night…

–Tried to ride the InnerLight; too windy.

–Plaed with cameras. The Leica Summicron 50/2 CLA’d by Youxin Ye is a killer; wipes out its 35mm brother in sharpeness, contrast, saturation. Tried to revive the M 240 and M11 again; no luck. Will likely go with the Sony or the M10 Safari (with EVF) for art shots.

–Took a shower and shave. Gave up on Wald brushes. In addition to being too soft (both are synthetic knots), they seem for some reason to stream water down the handle constantly, making it messy and slippery.

–Went to Rite-Aid for allergy medicine. Prices are a joke. Got some children’s nasal spray.

–Went to Bel Air for milk and such, saw some fat corn and got it.

–BBQ for dinner. Dee-licious!

–Trimmed the abutilon a bit, cleaned out the back patio gutter and pushed down the gutter guard where it had come up.

–Dark and rainy all day, as predicted. BBQ was uncovered.

–Went through cameras again, did another shootout. Results: will keep M10-P Safari with Leica, Zeiss and Voigtlander M lenses in former sock drawer with Contax. Will keep Q2 Reporter, silver Q and Sony (with Biotar, Zeiss 85 and native Sony 55 lenses) in main drawer.

–Rode with Tom Elken in El Dorado Hills.

–Decided (for now) to go with Hodinkee M10 and Q2, plus silver Q cameras. Much as I like the Reporter, a shootout with the black Q2 and the Hodinkee Q2 gave a slight sharpness edge to those two. Edge was slight, and who knows: if I ever land a Q-P, it could be a black / green / silver lineup.

–Went to Safeway in Citrus heights for chicken patties, potato salad, corn.

–BBQ for dinner. Not bad.

–Went to first physical therapy visit for back pain. Not bad.

–Leica Q and Q2 Reporter came in. Both seem flawless.

–N.L. knife came in. Unlike previous one, it was a piece of crap–I could have done a prettier job of belt-sharpening the blade. The pivots, in addition to not fitting any tool ever made, were locked together. I scratched the scale trying to get it open, then tossed it.

–Took Grace shopping at Smart and Final.

–Took a shower and shave.