Month: October 2025

–Waited all day for a callback from UC Davis. No dice.

–Put the Salvatore back together and pulled a shot. Everything works perfectly. I don’t think I’ll keep it though–too big, too crude in the sheet metal, and I’m finally admitting that the E61 grouphead cannot improve on the Olympia machines. Yes, it will pull a huge shot, but that’s not what I (or Grace) am doing these days.

–After breakfast at the Holiday Inn, drove back to Gold River. Got a call from Dr. Swensson’s assistant in the car, told him I would be home by 1, have not heard anything since.

–Put the Salvatore together. After seeing the somewhat crude fitting issues, I’m deciding I won’t have it long. Don’t know how I’ll get rid of it.

–Had a car tailing me as I came into the DV gate (turned out to be a guy delivering a package to Grace). Made me nervous, so I hurried the entrance to the garage, only to hear a horrifying crunch as I swiped the side. It left a really ugly brown stripe 1′-2′ long. After some cursing, I went after it with a damp rag and it cleaned up COMPLETELY! Let’s hear it for clear coat! Today, while damp-ragging the car, I discovered a scratch on the mirror that would not polish out. I got the bottle of Alpine White paint from my last Beemer, only to discover it had pretty much dried up. Ordered another on eBay. Whew!

–Drove the BMW again to Santa Cruz to pick up the Salvatore. Except for replacing the power-on light with an on-off switch, it seems Sebastian did good work. Added an over-pressure safety valve and an expansion valve that routes overflow back to the water reservoir. Good stuff.

–Had a sandwich and coffee at Java Junction, across the street from Great Infusions. Okay, not great.

–Stopped at La Selva Beach for photos and a bathroom trip to the library. That library is the most quiet, peaceful place on earth.

–Walked to Raley’s for a Cobb salad, Cheetos and a diet Pepsi.

–Feeling really dicey all day. Don’t know if I can continue Ozempic.

–Walked to UPS for iFixit kit with new iPhone battery. May swap today, may not.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Weight: 211.6.

–Another gloomy day, with some tiny sprinkles.

–Did week two of Ozempic. Hoping the vague nausea and constant acid indigestion go away soon.

–Made reservations at the Holiday Inn Watsonville for Tuesday and filled the BMW gas tank.

–Stopped at UPS for an FTO Asylum spinner in polished copper. Too small, smooth and “not there” to be a keeper.

–Stopped at Bel Air for milk, dessert, Tums, Pepto Bismol.

–Dindu much today; pretty gloomy. Reconciled spinners/sliders a bit, took a couple of pictures, made a Vicolo pizza for dinner.

–Heard from Tom Elken that we’ll be getting calls from Dr. Swensson’s office to set up our registration. Yay!

–Brass Mega Mini Mame came in. Nice, though larger and heavier than I anticipated.

–Took Grace shopping at Bel Air.

–Finally got some beautiful (focused) pics with the Prakticar 50/1.4 lens on the Canon, so I’ll switch to the Canon for now. There is a Pancolar lens with the same specs in M42 mount, but it goes for $2k+ on eBay. I have a Pancolar coming, but it’s 1.8. Not sure what it is about the Prakticar, but I really enjoy using it.

–Grace is in a really rotten mood. I can’t say anything without her arguing about it.

–Walked to UPS to drop off some spinner buttons. Stopped at Bel Air for sausage (to go with Kenny’s baked potato) and brownies.

–Played some more with the Retcore spinners. Found that wrapping the bearing in one layer of Kapton tape seemed to really help balance on the tungsten one. The way the thing is built, you can tighten the bearing cover with the bearing slightly off center, which could lead to unbalance. With the tape, the bearing is a tight fit inside the holder, so maybe…..

–Had breakfast at the Holiday Inn. Went to Top Donuts for pastries and a bagel. Headed out in a little light rain. Windshield wipers, though complex, are ultra smooth. Stopped at LSB to take a few photos of empty business buildings. Stopped at UPS for a Retcore spinner (seller had installed tungsten balls; I spent a LONG time trying to balance it. Got it decent…for now.

–Took the Beemer to Santa Cruz. A couple of minor slow-downs, a little over three hours. Sebastian Little at Great Infusions looked at the Salvatore Famosa. He later called. Controller is dead. It used to be a volumetric machine. If I had looked more closely at the front panel buttons, or looked up the machine, I might have known that. He suggested turning it into s straight espresso machine and just covering up the front dosing panel with art or logo or something. Sounds good to me. Don’t know how I’m going to get rid of the machine later though.

–Egg salad sandwich from El Patio on the beach, in the car. It was 64 in Santa Cruz, and I predicted 59 in LSB. On the nose. Overcast and foggy, a reminder of why we moved out.

–Got 3rd floor as always at the Holiday Inn Express in Watsonville. The clerk and I recognized each other.

–Heckuva day. Put gas in both cars and added air to tires.

–Bought a brass Mega Mini Mame spinner and sold a Modusworks ti bar Thinamathing. Just heard from the buyer, who says the buttons in my video look a little too thick to be genuine/original. Great. [edit] Looked through my MW buttons (on and off spinners), found three ti sets that are thinner than what I sent out. Keeeee-rap.

–Picked up 3D printed Pancolar adapter at UPS. Didn’t come close to fitting the lens (it did go on the camera). Worked on it with a Dremel for a while, got it on. Took some pics, tried hard to nail focus. All were slightly blurry. Tossed it.

–Mokume buttons came in. They’re so highly polished you can barely tell they’re mokume.

–Tried to order dinner from Jack’s, but its various websites wouldn’t show us menus (perhaps an aftereffect of the big AWS outage). Used Doordash to see menus, but then Jack’s online ordering didn’t work. Ate a Marie pot pie.

–Took a shower and shave. Discovered some bizarre pimple-like thing on the corner of my mouth. Great. [edit] Eventually squeezed it–much blood, no pus. Gone.

–Weight: 212.4.

–Warm, quiet day. Mailed off Vinh’s birthday present.

–Started (compounded) Ozempic. Feeling slightly queasy, and not very hungry. I guess that’s the idea.

–Trimmed off dead leaves from my succulents, moved them to where they’ll get a lot more sun.

–Red Baron Brick Oven crust was chewy; looking forward to comparing it with Classic.

–[edit] Classic is better (crisper, less chewy), and Dr. Lisa Swensson agreed to take me and Grace as patients!!

–Went to Bel Air for apples, tangerines.

–Stopped at UPS for Love Nugget spinner, button extender for Retcore.

–Strange Days: Jonas Nix posted in his Facebook group that there were still Retcore spinners available in his third drop. These are the kinds of things that sell out in 30 seconds. He even waived the rule that current owners can’t get a second one–so I did. Very weird.

–Slow day. Watered plants, played with fidgets.

–Went to UPS to pick up Modusworks Rapt SGS slider in bronze. Polished out some dings. Not impressed with performance, even after putting in weaker middle magnets (too many fly-aways). Also got my Ozempic. Weird: I had to give them my home address, as they wouldn’t deliver to a PO box. Then, because it was refrigerated, UPS demanded I pick it up at an access spot—-my UPS store. Had to sneak it into the fridge; hope it’s good.

–Went to Bel Air for milk, cream, cream cheese, and pizzas–one of which we had tonight. Red Baron brick oven crust = chewy.

–Grace went nuts pretty much all day. Set up an account at CVS so she could get her drugs. Got an appointment 1/2/26 with an Iranian woman doctor in Roseville.

–I picked up Grace’s drugs and stopped at UPS for (a) a KAP ultem spinner (nice, but too light) and (b) some crystal ti buttons–nicest I’ve seen.

–Talked to Sebastian at Great Infusions, and he agreed to wire up the Famosa if I brought it in. Will do.

–[edit] Nightmare in the bedroom tonight. (1) DHL now wants $26 tariff payment for delivering the 3D printed lens adapter from China. (2) Sac County property tax site still won’t send me a “change password” link, so I have to log in using my Google account. (3) Got a bill from DMV for BMW registration with a $200 penalty, because it was due in August (I checked the license plate). Very hard to believe they sent me a bill in June (say) and I missed it or forgot to pay. Possible that Monterey BMW neglected to properly register the vehicle.

–Getting chilly: I set up the small heater in the bedroom last night.

–Took Grace to Sutter Urgent Care in Roseville, in search of a PCP. To my surprise, they extended her prescriptions by 90 days, and will do so again if needed. They also gave her the names of a few docs who might be taking patients. I don’t have details, but after a little research she seemed to think they were all just out of med school, and not worth pursuing. Seems to me beggars can’t be choosers, but that’s not my business…

–The new Modusworks Retcore spinner came in. Pretty off-balance, and after hours of effort it’s better, but not great. An interesting but flawed design, I think.

–Red Baron for dinner.

–Went to the new Gold River dentist, Corey Bafford, for two crowns and a filling. The work seemed to take longer, compared to other similar work, and was more painful. The first time I ate something afterwards, one of the temporary crowns broke, so I had to go back. Don’t know what to do going forward.

–Stopped at UPS and picked up Kenny’s honey jars. Order complete.

–Rain finally came this evening. Light, but wet.

–Got Kenny his pond light.

–Watched the 49ers lose.

–Made pizza for dinner (my dough).

–Took a shower and shave in preparation for the dentist tomorrow.

–Put in an order at Goby Meds for three months of (compounded) Ozempic, for $349. Hoping to get the belly fat down and my wind back.

–Took Grace shopping at Bel Air. Finally cashed in some of my bonus points: $9. Stopped at UPS for Kenny’s fountain light.

–Walked to UPS to pick up 1 terabyte SD thumb drive. Stopped on the way to pick up a zillion acorns. Got winded really fast when bending over. Hoping it’s due to fat hitting diaphragm–which could be reasonable since breathing while biking hasn’t changed in 20 years. Time for Ozempic.

–Thumb drive is super, with a plug on each end: one for the PC, one for Mac. No adapters needed to move files from Mac to PC. It came formatted in ex-FAT, copies files fast, runs jpg’s and videos fast. So now all potentially risky files are gone from iCloud, and thus cannot accidentally open when running XnView or VLC. Whew!

–Great Infusions responded to yesterday’s email, saying the Giemme controller on the Salvatore was discontinued and there are no modern “cross-overs.” Great.

–Took Grace shopping at Smart & Final.

–Put Kenny’s large indoor(?) gift plant into a pot outside for now. Not really my kind of plant.

–Grace is scaring me again: did nothing all day, so I bought pizza for dinner, just like last night.

–Went to UPS for desk mat (finally a nice one), Kenny’s bottle caps, and damasteel spinner buttons from NJT.

–Two emails to Salvatore with no response, so I started working on the Famosa. Soon discovered that someone had CUT OPEN the controller box, presumably to repair something inside, then zip-tied it closed. What a joke! The date on the controller box suggests it’s 22 years old. I doubt I’ll be able to find that exact one, but it’s likely someone makes one that would work in this machine. If Salvatore won’t help, I’ll have to find out if the tech at Great Infusions is still there; I’m sure he could get it running.

–Left hearing aid battery failed at 11 AM. Replaced both at 1 PM.

–Installed 5-foot outlet strip in front of fireplace. Much better.

–Sent e-mail to Salvatore last night asking about refurbishing the Famosa. No reply.

–Finally called UC Davis Health and asked point-blank if any docs were taking new patients. Answer: one, in midtown Sac, with no openings in 2025 and no calendar yet for 2026. So much for UC Davis.

–Went to UPS to pick up Salvatore Famosa. It doesn’t have a huge footprint, but it’s extremely heavy. Pretty good shape cosmetically. I didn’t try turning it on; instead wrote to Savatore and asked if he would restore it.

–Vicolo pizza for dinner.

–Nail bed of left thumb is as bad as ever. Wish I knew what this was.

–Took a walk to the Fair Oaks bridge. Tiring.

–Went to Bel Air for apples, tangerines, cheese, dessert.

–Stopped at UPS for plastic boxes and a couple of Magnus sliders.

–Spent a while tuning up the sliders. With these light resin ones, just putting the o-rings under the middle magnets seems to do the trick (they’re all 6×2 3,000g).

–The guy who sold me a Compoform slider on Facebook, which went missing via FedEx, just reimbursed me the full price–$450. Something’s a little fishy, as he never got specific about how much it was insured for, what the status of his claim with FedEx is, etc. Guess I can’t complain though.

–Nice day; didn’t do much.

–Tom Elken agreed to send my “Be our PCP” request to Dr. Lisa Swensson.

–Played with VLC subtitle size. The amount of control VLC gives you over everything is absolutely astonishing.

–Compared Leica to Canon on an abutilon shot. Huge differences to my eye, even though I’ve done this several times before and didn’t see much. Perhaps previous comparisons were all night shots–or maybe it was cataracts. For the leaves, the Leica came out much greener than the Canon–something Leica is known for. Hopefully that’s easily fixed in a preset, because: the Canon photo was MUCH noisier than the Leica’s. The SL2-S is known to have a great high-ISO sensor, but this was an afternoon shot, not terribly dark. Leica wins, I guess.

–Watched “The Lost City” for the second time. Pretty good movie, though it sort of peters out toward the end.

–Put in new hearing aid batteries at 9 AM.

–FedEx seems to have lost a Compoform slider. They said it was delivered yesterday, but UPS has no record of it. Since UPS “bulk” signed for it, blame/accountability will be interesting.

–Grace is getting scary: Firoz finally refused to update her prescription(s), and it’s not at all clear what she”s going to do about it.

–A fair amount of rain today, off and on.

–Took Grace shopping at Bel Air.

–Stopped at UPS for plastic boxes (too big; they work but take up too much space in drawer) and a Magnus resin spinner from Plants Wake You Up. Kinda ugly, didn’t slide well. Scavenged parts and tossed it.

–Made pizza for dinner. Not bad, but not my best.

–Went to New York Bagels for bagels.

–Walked to dentist Corey Bafford in Dr. Paul Cripe’s (retired) office. Michelle  did x-rays and cleaning; Dr. Bafford took a look and said “two crowns, a cavity in the front tooth, and a referral to Creekside Endodontists for a tooth with internal resorption.” This won’t be cheap, but it seems fairly straightforward (i.e., he’s not making up things that don’t exist).

–Watered plants. Took a photo and learned (maybe) that the big plant from an unknown donor via Kenny is an Arrowhead plant.

–Cloudy day with a bit o’ drizzle.

–Played with magnets. Also cleaned my desk for the first time in a long time.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Red Baron cheese pizza with Thao tomato and a little fresh basil for dinner. Yum!