Month: October 2024

–Re-caulked the shower. Messy, but I think it’s done.

–Nightmare crypto: (1) Looked like Kraken added my $1,000. Tried to withdraw, ran into confusion, ended up adding another $1,000 by mistake. Must steel myself to wait two weeks or so before trying to zero out Kraken. (2) Installed Rock Wallet on the iPhone. Seems fine. (3) As many redditors predicted, Coinbase saw suspicious activity and suspended all trading. I sold everything into cash, and am currently allowed to send $1,300 to Ally out of $16,000 in the account. Like Kraken, I’ll have to wait an unspecified period of time. (4) Opened an account at Gemini after deleting all cookies and using wsfarr@gmail.com as my email. (5) Opened an account at Crypto.Com on the iPhone. Went fairly smoothly. Will have to decide which one to work with long-term: Crypto.Com/Rock Wallet on phone or Gemini/Trust Wallet on laptop.

–Had a “video visit” with Dr. Rakesh Parikh today regarding colonoscopy. We could see each other and I could hear him, but he couldn’t hear me. He called, asked a few questions that had been asked before, and that was it. No follow-up on scheduling yet.

–I now have Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana at Coinbase. I FINALLY (maybe) settled on Trust Wallet as my wallet. It holds many different things (unlike Metamask) and has a dead simple interface (unlike Coinbase Wallet). For example, with one click I can see the “receive” addresses for all the crypto they support. Not possible In Coinbase or Kraken I don’t think. My Kraken $1,000 deposit from Ally finally went through. Really curious to see if everything going forward will take that long. And Coinbase, which allows lots of purchase power, is pretty sketchy in the details. For example, I “own” $2,500 in Ethereum, but when I try to move some to Coinbase Wallet in order to clear it out, it tells me I can only move ~$450–not enough in Coinbase Wallet to sweep it all out to Trust Wallet. Very tricky stuff. I can’t complain too much though: it did allow me to buy a lot of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana at whatever the price was right then. Really hoping transactions will be quick and complete once the trial period is over.

–Took Grace shopping at Smart & Final. Not my favorite grocery store.

–Red Baron again for dinner.

–Went to New York Bagel Cafe for a dozen sesame bagels.

–Went to KP Market for Murcott tangerines, Fuji apples, smoked Gouda cheese.

–Picked up a tungsten fidget spinner at UPS. It’s heavy alright, but has lots of scratches and came with noisy bearings. Put some good sealed/lubed bearings in and it’s better (and quiet), but not what I was hoping for. Somebody must make these zero play, but I sure can’t find ’em.

–Caulked Grace’s tub. Tried to caulk mine, but used Clorox first and didn’t really clean out the old caulk, so it looked terrible. I’ll try again tomorrow.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Went to the Oktoberfest at the Discovery Village clubhouse. Hoping to chat with Jan and John about their leaving, but John wasn’t feeling good, so they didn’t make it.

–Got tired of hassling with Kraken delays and opened a Coinbase account. In 15 minutes I was able to buy $5,000 in Bitcoin. Turns out I can’t do much with it for a while, but Coinbase is still way ahead of Kraken for customer friendliness. Also turns out that when I added a Coinbase wallet, it showed the $10,000 I sent into the ether (heh heh) a couple years ago. Even further turns out there are lots of reputable recovery firms available now, so I’ll look into getting it back. Not likely, I know.

–Hey–actually succeeded in sending $10 Ethereum from Metamask to my Coinbase wallet, where it became almost $20, I guess because Metamask was showing the value from years ago when it was left over from all my previous crypto escapades. Yay! [edit] Okay, it just dropped to $10 in Coinbase. As usual, I have no idea what’s going on.

–Picked up a third Paradigm 2020 razor at UPS (Grace drove). Looks nice.

–Sac Gastroenterology called to set up a consult for colonoscopy.

–Nancy (Thorndike) Greenspan responded to my ACDS pics enthusiastically, and said she identified all but one person. Results coming.

–Fixed a leak (looked more like a cut) in the back patio sprinkler system.

–Another slow day. Played around a LOT with Kraken authenticators. Ended up with Duo Mobile. Simple; works. Google works, but they show dozens of (identical) codes; only the last (different) one works. Authy might work, but they locked me out for a month after several installs.

–Slow day. Spent a long time last night and this morning trying to settle on a platform for crypto. Back on Kraken again. It really is head and shoulders above the rest.

–Got many appointments set up for cataract surgery/followup, and was told I need a colonoscopy soon. Crap.

–Rode the ARP with Tom Elken.

–Heard from Kenny that Jan and John are leaving for a retirement home in Folsom, due to Jan’s bad eyesight. Crap.

–Took a few cuttings from the abutilon and put them in water. Just dreaming.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Took the BMW to Hooverville for jam and pastry. Jam went from $9 to $10, and no sour cherry.

–Took Grace shopping at Bel Air.

–Compared M11 to SL2-S. M11 can be made to work at night, but the SL2-S sensor still rules.

–Watched the 49ers lose to Patrick Mahomes again. Disheartening.

–Bought a “new” “2020” Paradigm Diamondback razor at Damn Fine Shave. After a TON of poring over my spreadsheet, it seems I have three of those: $295 from DFS a while back, $895 from eBay, and now $550 from DFS again (coming). None of them looks obviously unpolished, but—–after a ton of searching, I can’t find one photo or bit of text that shows a 2019 unpolished, let alone a comparison of the 2019 and 2020. Oh well…

–Sort of tried to revive the Leica X Vario. The nicest thing I can say about it is that it’s not a night camera. It does have shutter speed and aperture dials on top, but trying to zoom/focus with the LED is awful.

–Played with photos all day. Turned all .tif into .jpg and re-did the various albums. Good quality, less storage space.

–Took Grace shopping at Koreana Plaza.

–Started getting serious about music again. Downloaded (and bought) foobar2000 MP3 player, with 31 channel graphic equalizer, MP3 Tag Editor, Audacity, and MP3 Gain. We rollin’ now…

–Took the BMW to get bagels. Stopped to pick up Leica buttons at UPS (pretty skimpy) and milk/pizza at Bel Air.

–Went to see Dr. Liu at Folsom Eye. Seemed like a no-nonsense guy. Recommended big stent in right eye (higher pressure, more risk of damage), smaller stent in left eye, laser cataract breakup (less heat, safer). He does 800-900 cataracts a year, which is good. Will start on right eye–sometime in January, maybe. Something’s going on with access to medical care, but it hasn’t hit the news yet.

–Motor City pizza for dinner. Good, but I like Red Baron better.

–Cooler, partly cloudy, a couple of sprinkles today.

–Tried (again) to revive the Leica SL. Got all the buttons/wheel perfectly set up, then recalled it doesn’t have image stabilization. Further, a comparison with the SL2-S showed it to have considerably lower contrast/saturation, which seems puzzling. Will try again tonight. [edit] Tried again; was reminded that the SL2-S has the best sensor ever. SL goes back in the closet. Did ONE MORE Q2 vs. Q-P test. Q2 started out looking better than usual, but once again the Q-P beat it. Q2 goes back in the closet.

–Red Baron pizza for dinner.

–Rode 12.4 miles in Folsom with Tom Elken. Tiring.

–Had Rao’s frozen dinners; watched the conclusion of Reacher season 2. Pretty good.

–Tested Leica Q2 vs. Q-P again. This time I was able to get a decent night shot (back patio) from the Q2, and the camera is much easier to customize than the Q-P, but the Q-P still seems to make it easier to get good night shots.

–Leica Q-P came in. Pretty good shape. Spent a while trying to clean it with alcohol, then even it out with Nano Oil. Looks a little worse, per usual.

–Tried all day to revive the Sony. The “menu” system on that camera is so Byzantine it’s beyond belief. I never did figure out how to put ISO on the front wheel.

–Did various showdowns. The Q-P doesn’t seem to have quite the auto-focus capability of the Q2, but it held its own in daylight. At night (in back) it was another story. Tried the Sony first. It did auto ISO of 12400 and took a really bizarre, completely unfixable photo. I’m sure it could be improved, but when the SL2-S does great night pics with easy settings, it’s not worth the hassle. Shockingly, the Q2 also took a terrible pic. More fixable, but ugly. And once again a Q-P kicked butt. Super-nice picture that I would have kept exceot for all the toters in the alley. I suppose I should look at my Q again. Doesn’t have engraving on top, but (I believe) I bought it new and perfect.

–Went to Bel Air for cookies, cheese, cream, jock itch medicine, oranges.

–Started trying to organize razors and brushes again. Been a while since I catalogued anything.

–Went to Home Depot on a mission for Grace. No dice. Stopped at UPS to pick up yet another fidget spinner.

–Red Baron pizza for dinner, then two episodes of Reacher, season 2. Much better than season one.

–Drove the BMW to Black Sails to pick up coffee, then to the PO to get stamps for Grace.

–Took a bike ride to the dog park, 10+ miles. Tiring.

–Went to UPS to pick up another fidget spinner.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Picked up the Silca SuperPista pump at UPS. Took it apart, removed a lot of old grease, put it back together. Very nice.

–Black Sails coffee got roasted, but he missed my first pickup request email, so I’ll get it tomorrow.

–Sent Tom a happy birthday greeting and showed him how to get at the scanned photos at vstat.com.

–Tuned in an Amazon 49ers game on a pirate website and sent it to the TV. Worked great except no sound. Spent an hour trying to figure it out. Nothing worked until I saw some obscure post about browsers. I switched from Chrome to Firefox and the sound came  on. Absolutely unbelievable.

–Did laundry. Ironed my Selvyt cloths.

–Walked to Bel Air for asparagus, zucchini, tomatoes, milk.

–Re-re-re-organized slide scans and edits. Getting there. Found a couple cool photos on an ACDS Facebook site.

–Took the BMW to Costco for stuff. Got apples, Aussie Bites, muffins, Pellegrino and Kirkland sparkling water.

–Made castiron pizza for dinner. Good stuff.

–Finished re-re-re-editing ACDS and Tom’s pictures. A far cry from when I started.

–Got the Cremina running and adjusted the pressurestat. Ready to go, though Great Infusions isn’t ready for me yet.

–Played with scans again. Seems like the latest scans hardly need adjusting in Lightroom, whereas the early ones needed lots. Could just be me. I looked briefly into tone curves, the apparent heart of Lightroom, and gave up quickly. Not something I’ll be good at for a long time.

–49ers lost. No longer got the magic.

–FINALLY got all the slides scanned. Vuescan continued to give me fits, but its Black Point slider really got the fog out of the photos–to the point where some of them will need almost no editing.

–Played a lot more with the scanner. Thought I had decided on Silverfast after doing a lot of playing around, especially with three pictures of Diann and me at Duke in December of 1968 (totally unremembered occasion). Turns out, after redoing them inVuescan, the Silverfast pics were garishly awful. That’s been happening a lot. Further discovery: rather than trying to guess how much saturation Lightroom will add to a jpg, just save it as a tiff. Three times the size, but impeccable quality. One further discovery: Vuescan has several different color levels–auto, white balance, tungsten, portrait, landscape, etc.–and it shows you how they will look before you scan. Many are identical, but some are much more (or much less) red. So, I think I might finally be almost ready to do everything over again with Vuescan –> Lightroom –> tiff. But to reiterate: it really is appalling how something can look good after a lot of LR adjusting, then look terrible the next day after I learn some new twist. Kind of like looking back on my abutilon pics: most are WAY too saturated and contrasty. Interestingly, my La Selva Beach pics seem mostly to hold up. Golden years, I guess.

–Great Infusions sold a Cremina. Further: I was all set to write to Orphan Espresso and tell them about my great find of right-sized group-to-boiler o-rings. Then I tried their too-small one again, and it went on and stayed. I give up.

–Went to UPS for Chemex filters, Cremina o-rings (perfect fit), and Osprey pack. Pack is large, has a bit of odor to it, straps are stiff, and it lacks a variety of pockets (one gig one with front/back divider. Still, great color and capacious.

–Played around a lot with scanner. Vuescan is a mess for me–tiff, dng, raw tif, dng tif, blah blah blah. Put three simple scans into Lightroom: one was dark and could not be made usable; one was okay, one was better but was covered with a haze or film. I gave up and went back to Silverfast (which came with the scanner). Got a great scan first time, which made me realize how red-tinged the Vuescan scans were. I suspect it’s adjustable, but I think I’ll just stay with Silverfast.

–Took Grace while getting bagels at New York Bagel Cafe, then to Bel Air.

–Went to Rite-Aid for RSV and Pneumococcal vaccinations.

–Played around a lot with the scanner. Found by accident that a jpg straight out of the scanner appeared to have better resolution than a dng brought into Lightroom then saved as a jpg. I dread getting deep into all the pixels/inch, bits/pixel crap, but I may have to.

–Went to UPS to pick up Cremina steam poppet, then Bel Air for coffee and cheese.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Paid $6,842 Sac County property tax (both installments).

–Had a bad night of diarrhea, which continued into the morning. Hope I’m not getting something.

–Heard from Jasleen Agroia in Dr. Firoz’ office. She recommended pneumococcal vaccine PCV20, sent in order to Rite-Aid.

–Made a pizza for dinner. Spread the dough thin on a round pan, overcooked it. Barely edible. Live and learn.

–Ordered Viton o-rings from The O-Ring Store in a realistic size for using on the Cremina group-to-boiler connection. Will never understand why Orphan Espresso uses (and sells) those seriously undersized o-rings. I believe I’ve installed one of those, correctly, the first time, once. We’ll see.

–Compared the TTArisans 75/2 lens with Helios 58/2 and Contax 85/1.4. No comparison. Helios was more saturated, Contax much sharper. The coatings are good–it doesn’t flare in my night shot–but back in the box it goes.

–Dropped off a Monterey BMW FedEx package with my signature verification signed (W.S. and William). It was sent to me a while ago, but I didn’t look at it closely enough to figure out what they were asking.

–Dropped off Matteo Diolaiti’s birthday gift at UPS. Picked up a second cheap Leica at UPS and managed to get the (NON-3D) button off intact. Put it on the SL2-S. Also picked up the TTArtisans 75mm/f1.5 copy of the legendary Zeiss lens. Weighs a ton, great ergonomics, takes a sharp picture. Bokeh to be determined later when (if) the abutilon blooms.

–Stopped at Smart & Final for a bunch of stuff. Drove the right rear wheel of the Beemer over a curb on the way out. No apparent damage.