–Yet another dismal day. Apparently there’s a stubborn fog cloud that’s been hanging over the Central Valley for a while.
–Went to the farmers market for mandarins and apples.
Month: November 2025
–Another dank day.
–Re-covered the Weber and watered plants in back. Discovered (via Grace) that the already-once-replaced sprinkler head in front is leaking again, below ground level. This is getting very annoying.
–Picked up the Kickstarter bit driver at UPS. It’s okay, a lot of sharp edges, but the big issue is the spinning top is held in place by six set screws. I had to take it apart of course. Putting it back together so that it’s balanced when spinning is a seemingly impossible task. I’m not even sure it was well-balanced when new. I might wait a bit to see if the maker puts out a video showing how to balance it; I might not.
–Also picked up a couple sets of Modusworks Retcore buttons–one SS and one aluminum. Better-looking than the brass ones they came with, and I can put those on other spinners as they are very nicely shaped and dished.
–Was going to revive the Leica Q2 Paul Smith–it’s so pretty. My first shot was major blurry. Looking things up, I re-re-re-discovered it has no image stabilization. In fact, few Leicas do. Unbelievably frustrating.
–Thanksgiving. Kind of a dark and dreary day. Cold too. Barbecued a turkey breast and finally got some smoke flavor. Took about 65 minutes at 350-400.
–Got a traffic ticket for the first time in decades. Went up on a “sidewalk” near Olson to catch a green light. Kind of Mickey Mouse, but legit I suppose. Hoping traffic school will make it disappear.
–Picked up gift-makings for the alley at Walmart (photos and bags) and the Post Office (stamps). Ordered cards from Amazon. Stopped at Bel Air for coffee.
–Indy Thicc Baby Yeti in mokume came in. Fabulous spinner in looks and action. Also snagged a hyper-rare Magnus spinner on eBay.
–After much effort, got the new iPhone working in the Beemer. The trick was to turn off the new one, turn on the old one, delete the old one, then sync up the new one. Siri is back!
–Went to Hooverville for jam for neighbors for Christmas, a little for us, and a couple small key lime pies.
–Took a shower and shave.
–Second iPhone SE3 came in. Less scratched than first, 94% battery health rather than 93%. Spent a while setting it up. Still have stuff to do–there are way too many options. In a quandary about swapping in the new genuine Apple battery. Improvement might be minimal, and there’s risk.
–Made a pizza with the usual plus Jan’s pepeprs and a farmers market tomato. Best one yet.
–Another do-nothing day.
–Bought a couple of Hermes wallets (heh heh) from Dubai.
–Cleaned up the back patio plants a bit.
–Found and bought a genuine Apple battery for the iPhone SE3. The new OS wouldn’t stop nagging about the non-Apple battery.
–Sunny day. Got mandarins and apples at the Sunrise farmers market.
–Not much else.
–Stomach issues again this morning–diarrhea, a little nausea.
–Took Grace shopping at Smart & Final.
–Played with magnets some more. Got the Magnus Crinkle almost good.
–Dank day, though not a ton of rain.
–Won a Baby Yeti spinner in mokume this morning. Same maker where I won a timascus Yeti back in January when I was new to this hobby.
–Played with magnets a bit. Very frustrating, as I lack a great way of keeping 8-10 bins of them separated while I sort them out.
–Swept up outside a little, anticipating more rain.
–Went to Bel Air for milk and stuff Grace needs.
–Picked up a canarywood Reg Barber tamper handle. Seriously plain and uninteresting. Tossed it. Finally got my Modusworks buttons back from Jeremy Piper. Picked up my second Magnus Crinkle slider. Found out it would accept 6×4 magnets, so I put those in on the ends. Works pretty decent now, and the new one, though identical to the old one, has a nicer finish.
–The new after-market iPhone battery appears to be pretty robust, showing 94% at 6 PM after doing a few things on the phone today. I ordered a second identical iPhone on eBay, so I can put the battery in that with (hopefully) less internal damage.
–Red Baron for dinner.
–Played with sliders. Tried hard to reconcile everything. Almost succeeded.
–Walked to UPS to pick up the Magnus Superdimple. Impressive design, not the best sliding action, but better after I re-did the magnets.
–Noticed the iPhone battery, which early on had seemed to drain really slowly, was draining fairly fast. Decided to swap in the after-market 19,800 mah (right) battery. Had some issues; a screw holder broke so I didn’t replace a small metal plate; but eventually I got it back together successfully. Apple didn’t like the fake battery (of course). It’s charging now. Fingers crossed it doesn’t go down 25% in a day.
–Read up on Fellow/other electric kettles. Turns out Fellow has a fairly bad reputation in this area. Along with their buggy grinder, I can’t say I’m impressed. Looking into a Hario kettle.
–On the other hand, the nice folks at Timemore are selling me a new complete hopper with lid for $41 shipped, to replace the one I (accidentally) tossed along with some 3D printed ones. Good folks.
–Got bagels at New York Bagels. Got some Peet’s Holiday Blend beans at Peet’s, where there is a new Jersey Mike’s. Will try soon.
–Finally got Siri sorted out on the new iPhone. Scared me a bit with the new voices, no “Um hmm,” etc., but all seems good now.
–Went to UPS for (a) LIC EDC Goldie in titanium. Nice, but like one or two other spinners, seems kind of too smooth and boring. Can’t really explain. (b) Zerofeud timascus buttons. Nice, a little scratched (I knew that), will try and re-anodize when the DC power supply comes in. (c) Magnus Sweep in brass with thicker (.5mm) zirc muffin tin plates. Working on it–might just put the plates in my existing ti Sweep.
–Took a shower and shave. Used the BBS-1 razor that’s been sitting on a shelf for years because it was too harsh. Was eminded of it by someone selling one on a forum for $2,000. Still too harsh.
–Unexpectedly (for me) dark and damp day. Football, mostly.
–Pretty quiet day. Played with cameras a little. Picked up the Jim Dunbar pocket knife at UPS. Killer!
–Brought out (again) the huge Leica 50mm L mount lens. Turns out it kicks ass–auto-focuses better at night than I can manually focus. Razor sharp, zero fringing around the globe lights, and–for reasons I completely do not understand–makes DNGs at temperature 2,750, which is perfect. All my other lenses are around 3,400, forcing me to correct. Might be worth the weight.
–Took Grace shopping at Bel Air.
–Transferred (via online check) $40,000 from Heritage to Ally.
–Home-made pizza for dinner.
–Compared Rikenon to Summicron at f2.0 on a darkish abutilon photo. The Summicron absolutely clobbered the Rikenon off-center. I suspect the same thing will hold true later with a night picture. And we’ve seen how the Rikenon distorts the shape of the globe lights at f1.2. Really wanted to like the Rikenon. Crap. I guess if you want to use large enough glass to get to f1.2, you give up a lot.
–Paid State Farm Honda insurance $377.45.
–Went to Michael’s Crafts for 3/16″ eyelets. They fit great, but I haven’t pounded one in yet. We’ll see.
–Stopped at UPS for new $226 Apple iPhone SE 2022. Working fine, charging now.
–Went to Michael’s Crafts for eyelets for my belt. Got 1/4″. Would require enlarging belt hole. Will go back tomorrow for 3/16″, which could be too small to cover the hole. Grrr…
–Stopped at UPS for: (a) NOS Rikenon 55/1.2. Compared it with my pristine other Rikenon 55/1.2. A little edge for the new one I think. Both have issues at f1.2 (of course) with distorting globe light shapes, flaring, haze, etc. Still an impressive lens: the DV speed limit sign might be the sharpest pic I have of it. (b) SS Mega Mini Mame spinner (nice, but traded buttons as I did with the brass), Slim Pillar spinner (nice, but I really don’t see the hype around it (specifically, the astronomical prices), brass Mini Mame spinner (very nice, absurdly expensive because of rarity I think). (c) Magnus Chocbar slider (nice design, but serious flyaway issues). Tried to swap end magnets, but realized my strongest 6x2s are about the same as the original 6x2s in the slider. Into the “for sale” pile. Seems I have two boxes of 6×2 strongs; one says N45 and the other N55. Turns out they’re both around 3,200 Gauss, so I combined them. Guess I bought the N55s thinking (hoping) they’d be stronger.
–Took the Beemer to Walgreen’s to pick up the prints for Kenny’s Christmas cards. Had lunch at a nearby McDonald’s. Too much food, way too salty. Back to Jersey Mike’s I guess.
–Took Grace shopping at Smart & Final.
–Red Baron for dinner.
–Quite a warm day. Should have gone for a bike ride.
–Updated the date on Kenny’s Christmas card from 2023 so I can get them printed up and he can get them out to friends. He gave us a huge jar of honey and yet another wonderful pre-baked potato.
–Walked to UPS to pick up Atorvastatin and an Indy Thicc Squatch. Nice spinner, perfectly balanced.
–Took a shower and shave, finally using Dr. Bronner’s Eucalyptus Magic Soap. Better.
–Walked to Bel Air for mozzarella, pepperoni, cookies. Made pizza. Darn good!
–Went to the Sunrise farmers market for mandarins, apples, pears, jam. Stopped at the Winding Way Arco for $3.95 gas for the BMW.
–Went at Target across the street for Coke, eye drops, Dr. Bronner’s Eucalyptus shampoo.
–Walked to UPS for yet another Modusworks Retcore spinner. Came a little unbalanced. I followed Dung Ho’s advice (Facebook): loosen screws a little on one side; press frame toward the light side; tighten screws. It worked perfectly. So much for Kapton tape and tungsten putty.
–Did some more 50mm lens comparisons. Tricky business: Helios e.g. is shockingly sharp wide open in the middle of the field, but gets really fuzzy as you head out toward the periphery. The Contax 50/1.4 wasn’t quite as good as its reputation would suggest. The Rikenon 55/1.2 was quite outstanding. The Pancolar was the weakest of the group, and the Summicron (like the Contax) seemed a little weaker than I would have hoped.
–Walked to UPS to pick up an MBK front flipper. Nice knife.
–Tried to replace the battery in the iPhone SE 2020. Broke the cable connecting the display. Crap. Spent a long time looking at Red iPhones on eBay; ended up getting an SE 2022. The 13 Mini is smaller with better specs, but it lacks the front button and has an ugly lens set on the back. Besides, the SE was $206 (compared to $600) and the seller was honest about how the battery capacity would have degraded to 83%-86% over the years. I’ll try it, and replace the battery (carefully) if it seems to need it.
–Had a bad night. (and today) with reflux, due to Ozempic. No more of that.
–Miracle: John Roth of UC Davis Health called; he’s the one who called me while I was coming back from Santa Cruz. He apologized profusely for the delay, then set us up in the Davis MyChart, and got us each a 20-minute appointment with Dr. Swensson on December 23rd. Yay!!
–Picked up the blue Osprey backpack at UPS. Nice.
–Windy, rainy day.
–Went to the nearby dentist to have have two permanent crowns installed. Pretty impeccable work. One crown replaced a Cripe crown that was done not that long ago; Barrow said a cavity had developed behind it. Okay. I also had him smooth out a rough edge on the front tooth filling he did last time. Feels fine now, but he should have smoothed it out on day one. A mixed bag there.
–Made great progress in getting a PCP. Turns out the guy who called me while I was driving back from the coast was irrelevant. I needed to call the med group in Folsom and provide written evidence (i.e., Dr. Swensson’s reply to Tom’s message saying she’d be delighted to take us on). With that, we answered some questions (SSN, insurance ID) and we’re in. They (apparently) are working to find us an appointment and will call us by Friday. I have my doubts about that and will call them back sooner. We both have logins at the UC Davis My Health website.
–Took Grace shopping at Bel Air.
–Stopped at UPS to pick up (a) drugs, (b) toothbrush heads (genuine Oral B, frighteningly better than the past two things I’ve tried which seemed to have no effect), and (c) the Pancolar lens from Ukraine. Lens is in good shape. Did a comparison at f2 of Pancolar, Contax, Rikenon and Summicron. Results were mixed, but in general the Summicron kicked butt. I was a little disappointed in the Planar 50/f1.4. The Rikenon wasn’t great, but it is a 1.2 lens. The Pancolar had its good and bad spots.
–Vicolo pizza for dinner.
–Still no call from Dr. Swensson’s office. I emailed Tom, and he asked the guy again to call me.
–Worked on the plants a bit: tossed a couple of dead ones, added soil, watered, etc.
–Picked up stuff at UPS: (a) Compoform slider (nice), (b) Pancolar lens (nice, but it has flares at night); (c) anti-popcorn bean feeder for the Timemore; really looks like it will work; (d) LIC EDC Love Nugget in crystal ti–byooteeful.
–Red Baron personal pizza for dinner.
–Weight: 213.6.
–Finally got the Sony AR7-IV working after years in the closet. Its internal button battery had died, so it kept asking for time/date when I hit Menu. Turns out if I just hit the shutter button instead, the camera works, menu and all. I suppose I should still send it back to Sony for a new internal battery.
–Trying to get more familiar with the AR7-V, though it is noisier than the Leica SL2-S, because it feels good in hand and has much higher resolution and better anti-shake.
–Went to Bel Air for milk, cream, pizza, breakfast Danish, oatmeal cookies.
–Went to the Sunrise farmers market for tomatoes, pears, squash, mandarins. Mandarins, though heavily green-tinged, are great.
–Did some test comparisons with Canon, Sony and Leica. Canon and Leica both clobbered Sony on noise, even before dark. And Leica, as I’ve probably discovered 15 times, beats the Canon. It’s too bad, as Canon has nearly twice the resolution, but noise really degrades resolution. So I’ll have to give up on the Praktica lens. There’s a Pancolar coming, but it’s not as sexy.
–Sat at home all day waiting for a call from UC Davis Health. Nope.