Month: May 2026

–Paid State Farm $688.42 for the Beemer.

–Took Grace to the Sunrise farmers market for all kinds of stuff.

–Korean BBQ pot pies for dinner.

–Tested Biotar, Prakticar and Takumar at f2.0 on Sony. Sharpness and (especially) contrast increased in alpha order. Biotar is pretty crappy. Need to test bokeh at wide open to see if Biotar is worth keeping. Just did that, and Biotar seems the winner. None was really pleasing, but Biotar had a little more contrast and saturation. Go figure.

–Went to UPS to pick up the Montblanc pencil. It’s very nice–extremely complicated (10+ pieces), but works great.

–Stopped at Bel Air for milk and cream.

–Revived the Sony AR7 IV and V, for the umpteenth time. They both blew the SL2-S (Super-Multi Coated-Takumar 50) out of the water on a test using the Tristan da Cunha card. Will test the V again when it’s dark, though I’m sure I’ve done that several times already. [edit] Arrgghhh…Leica is still king of the dark. Tested tonight at f1.4 and f2.0 on the SMC Tak. Sony is darn nice and much less noisy than the Canon, but the Leica just beats it. The clincher: reading the house number behind the speed limit sign. Clear and crisp with the Leica, presumably due to less denoising needed. So it seems to come down to when I want very crisp detail–day or night. Probably night. [edit2] On a whim, I installed DXO again and used its “Deep Prime” noise reduction to process the Sony image. It made a big difference, and could tilt things toward the Sony.

–Used the vise and roto-tool to get the “new” stainless lemon squeezer to close all the way. Nice work if I do say so.

–Didn’t do much. Waiting for Montblanc pencil to arrive (out for delivery) so I could walk to UPS. It didn’t.

–Walked to UPS to pick up crankset. The cog is okay, but the cranks are super heavy, like steel. Will look for something lighter (and in the U.S.). Stopped at Bel Air for chocolate chip cookies.

–Drove to UPS to pick up S.M.C. Takumar lens. Took a couple of abutilon pics. Absolutely fabulous. Sharp, saturated, etc. It won’t outdo the Summicron, but I’m anxious to compare it with Rikenon, Contax, etc.

–Got my after-visit summary from the stress test. Not as bad as I had feared. Looking forward to ablation.

–Went to Davis Cardiology in Folsom for my echo stress test. Not good. Was gasping quickly on the treadmill, and they had to stop the test before completion because my arrhythmia was out of control. More tests coming–electrophysiology, maybe angiogram for clogged arteries. Gettin’ tired of all this…

–Thunder, lightning, hail and a bit of rain around 5:30.

–Went to Bel Air for stuff.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Worked on plants: trimmed and watered the big one out front, tossed the dead basils, took the chopstick support off one succulent because it seemed to want to lean. I’ll let it and see what happens.

–Two doves were in the fountain today, taking (minor) baths. Yes!

–Weather is nice. Went nowhere, did little.

–After several days of the basil plant looking really good, today it saggy and sad looking. I did some searching and decided to divide it up among several pots with a soil/sand mix and leave them outside. They still look pathetic. I have no idea what turned that from champion to near-dead in one night.

–Had the Walmart bettergoods cheese pizza for dinner, along with some of Jan Muehlbauer’s peppers I harvested. I liked it; Grace was less enthused. At least it’s an always-available alternative to the salty, greasy Red Baron/Motor City pizzas we’ve been relying on.

–Yes, another warm day.

–Went to Barnes & Noble looking for another NYT puzzle book. They had a dozen: Easy, Sunday, and Clever. Nope.

–Stopped at Walmart to pick up a couple of bettergoods (their store brand) pizzas, allegedly the same as Italpizza–made in Italy, wood-fired, etc. We’ll see. Stopped at Bel Air for barbecue stuff: Harris Ranch beef burgers (a necessity since there were zero turkey/chicken patties; delicious with nice smoked flavor), corn, Claire’s potato salad.

–Barbecue for dinner. As mentioned: delicious.

–Hot day: 90 at 6 PM.

–Took Grace shopping at Smart & Final.

–Tended to plants a little. While I was watering a little succulent on the stand, the hose broke off a stem on the huge purple succulent from Kenny. Dang! It’s in water now, may come back.

–I finally got accepted into The Daily Fidget Marketplace on Facebook, a couple days after getting into TDF. Comeback almost complete.

–Got bagels at New York Bagel Cafe; Grace got some meat at KP Market; then to Safeway on Folsom for various stuff.

–Stopped at UPS to pick up the Homedics Power Dent Smart Sensor toothbrush. Disappointing: runs on standard (non-rechargeable) batteries, runs slowly, and has a great head that won’t fit on other Homedics toothbrushes.

–Finally got into The Daily Fidget and TDF Marketplace on Facebook.

–Grace had nothing to make for dinner (again). I went to Bel Air and bought a pre-made pizza crust, put some frozen tomato sauce, cheese and pepperoni on it and baked it. Not so great.

–Took a 13.4 mile bike ride with Tom Elken in El Dorado Hills. Very tiring for some reason. Could be the heat; could be I’m slowing down a bit.

–Picked up another Dunhill belt at UPS. The reverse on this one (brown on the first, too limiting)–ink blue–is hard to distinguish from the black side. Also no roller. Good quality belts though. Got dessert at Bel Air (unbroken chocolate-dipped peanut butter cookies).

–Italpizza Cheesey Cheese pizza for dinner with fresh basil. Darn good.

–Went to see Dr. Nandyal in Roseville. I got an ECG and a referral to a stress test in Folsom. Gettin’ tired of this stuff.

–Stopped at a Mr. Pickles for lunch. Soggy, fatty bacon.

–Stopped at Green Acres in Citrus Heights. They had three new-to-me rosemary plants. They all tasted kind of bland. I bought a small Originalis, and will strive to make it thrive.

–Put air in car and bike tires.

–Put bike rack on Honda, put bike on rack. Ready to ride in El Dorado Hills tomorrow.

–Walked to the Town Center in Tevas to check out the first day of the new farmers(?) market. It was a bust: 10 vendors, no fresh fruit or veggies, prominently displayed t-shirts with slogans like “I am fucking amazing” on them. Hope it gets better. P.S. The Outback’s white fence was gone, front door was open, and there was a group of 3-4 people maybe going in to take a look. Hoping it turns into something not a drive-thru.

–Put my bike back together so I can ride it while waiting for another month for the Amazon (China) parts to arrive. I spent a long time looking for the parts, thinking I could get something a little different much sooner, but 90% of the stuff on eBay and Amazon seems to be the same brand–from China.

–Tended to my plants. The water meter, stuck deep, indicated they were all quite moist. Fair enough, but they sure don’t look like they’ve been over-watered.

–Mailed off Grace’s card+check to Kathy; only by chance discovered later that she wanted it sent to Jan. Went back to UPS, retrieved it, resent it out to Jan. Whew!

–Picked up Martin de Candre Vetiver shave cream at UPS; rare and expensive. Smells pretty good. Hoping I can use it long-term. Also picked up the second adapter needed to mount the Zeiss Prakticar lens on the Leica SL2-S. Somewhat to my surprise, given that one of the adapters has glass in it, IT WORKED! Learning only now (of course) that the lens is pretty fuzzy at f1.4. Oh well, quest achieved anyway.

–Went to Lowe’s and tasted two brands of rosemary; didn’t like either. Went to Home Depot and tasted two more (may have been the exact same brands); didn’t like either. Went to Smart & Final and tasted a fourth brand: didn’t care for it. Bought a basil plant. I’m really wondering what’s going on with me and rosemary. I guess I’ll try some of the smaller ones at Green Acres. I’m not optimistic.

–Italpizza Cheesy Cheese pizza for dinner. Delicious, as expected.

–Went to UPS for (a) Echelon slider (fine, but needs stronger magnets), (b) Kipon adapter (one more and I can mount the Prakticar on the SL2-S), (c) Scrat knitted coaster (cute!).

–Barbecued for dinner: turkey burgers, corn (good!) and red potatoes with rosemary butter. Not really fond of the new rosemary plant (Tuscan Blue); flavor just isn’t up to previous rosemary varieties, whatever they were.

–Revived the Sony AR7-V (mistakenly did the IV recently; V is much better) and compared it to SL2-S. After a LOT of fussing, I got the Sony pretty darn close to the Leica on a standard night shot, but the Leica still wins. Sort of like the Canon, Sony photos seem to have a hazy/washed-out look. It could be the much higher resolution, or a result of much more drastic noise reduction, I don’t know. That SL2-S is a monster: low noise, great viewfinder, simple controls.

–Took Grace to Lowe’s for a hose, carpet cleaner, potting soil and sand. Then to Grocery Outlet for veggies, pizza, cream, dessert.

–Just saw a quickie Facebook reel where an MD described a rarely-mentioned side effect of general anesthesia in seniors: cognitive impairment. I had general anesthesia in December. I’ve been experiencing cognitive issues for a couple of months: most typically, I can’t come up with the names of people (mostly) and things. Makes me wonder.

–Watched a tree crew take down the big Coast Redwood behind the parking lot visible from our back patio. I got a walking stick and a large chunk of trunk (3′ diameter, 9″ thick). Kenny got Sterling to use Kenny’s dolly to move it to our patio. Mission accomplished!

–Took the Beemer to get gas at Fair Oaks Arco ($74), then to Green Acres in Folsom to pick up a five-gallon Tuscan Blue rosemary plant. Looks great and smells great at the moment; hope I can keep it going.

–Chicken pot pie for dinner.

–Roasted more of the Colombia beans that came with the Fresh Roast 800. Hope they’re as good as I recall.

–Went to UC Davis Folsom for my echo cardiogram. Results: patient’s rhythm is atrial fibrillation, with bradycardia. Treatment: zap heart tissue causing Afib, pacemaker for bradycardia.

–Freschetta pizza for dinner. Okay, not great.

–Paladin Moon Java brush came in. As I feared, it’ll go on the “for sale” shelf.

–Getting warmer…

–Took Grace shopping at Bel Air.

–Found out the Amazon order for crank arms/chain ring is coming from Chine, an likely won’t arrive until June. Not sure they made that totally apparent in the listing.

–Holy Margherita pizza for dinner.

–Finished polishing the Wolfman. Tossed a wheel, will likely toss some Dialux bars. May switch to Meguiar’s Swirl Remover for final polish, and Ultra-Cut for penultimate. It’s astounding how good a piece can look until you shine a flashlight on it.

–Got the crank arm and pedals off the InnerLight. Now I need the new parts. Amazon is being unusually slow.

–Won a slider drop!

–Facebook is frustrating: the two major fidget forums I’ve tried to join (several times) are ignoring me; several friend requests are being ignored; and last night FB warned me NOT to make a friend request–too many in a short time looks like spam, they said. But of course they continue to show me dozens of “people you may know” every time I go there. Grrr…..

–Started BBQ season! Bel Air had corn, bought some turkey burger patties and Claire’s potato salad. Good stuff!

–Wolfman WR1 razor came in. Spent a while on the buffer getting rid of a scratch. Had to use a Bergeon wheel, and thus re-contoured the head a tiny bit (hard to see now). I also dozed off and allowed the wheel to fling the razor to the floor. Miraculously, I can only see a scuff on the bottom which will easily polish out. I’m afraid to look any closer, since it really acted like doom for the razor.

–Set up the newly-tiled bird bath. Seems to be fine. Still need to do something about the base for the top part so it’s stable and level.

–Went to UPS to pick up Armand de Kock front flipper. Pretty nice.

–Went to Grocery Outlet to get a couple of those $4 Italpizza Holy Margherita pizzas. Had one for dinner. Pretty good.

–Spent a long time trying to sort out e-mail issues. Finally dropped Thunderbird and went with Apple mail. The interface is not as nice, but it does seem to do a lot of stuff automatically that were really complex in Thunderbird.

–Hot.

–Fed the birds, fed the squirrels.

–Roasted some dry process Brazilian beans until they got oily. Pretty straightforward, though setup takes a while. One issue: a fair number of beans got caught in the chaff filter–just a function of how it works when the fan speed is above x. Could play with fan speed, but I was doing 8 ounces, so it can’t be too slow. Grace suggested a screen that would pass chaff but block beans. Maybe.

–Dropped off the old Mac at FedEx.

–The sun finally came out today.

–I myself didn’t do much; played around with photo editors and cameras a bit. Something is seriously amiss with ACDSee: no matter what I do, I cannot get it to open automatically when I double click a Canon raw file. I believe it will open for Leica files (say), so maybe the issue is with Canon, not entirely ACDSee. Anyway, I think I’ll go through the grueling experience of setting up DXO again, and turn up monitor brightness so I can see the menus. I wish there were a really good Lightroom clone.

–{edit] For the 458th time, I’m ditching ACDSee and DXO. Their results with a Canon night shot were horrific. I’m sure they could get better (many people use them), but after re-re-re-re-installing Lightroom, the results were stupefying. I resurrected the Leica SL2-S and compared it to Canon with the Summicron 50, and though initially it looked like Leica would clobber Canon, after some work in Lightroom they aren’t that far apart. More to come.

–A dreary day, but dry.

–Went to New York Bagels for…..bagels.

–Mailed Will Cantelon’s birthday/graduation present.

–Took Grace for minor shopping at Bel Air and at Grocery Outlet.

–Had a $4 Grocery Outlet Italpizza Wood-Fired Holy Margherita pizza for dinner: really good.

–Cool, drizzly day. Weird weather.

–Went to UPS to pick up (a) spinner bearing tool. Smaller than I anticipated, very strange setup, don’t like it at all. Will likely toss. (b) Biotar lens. Clean glass, smooth focusing. Not sure about how/if f ring and stop-down ring should work. Right now they work as one: I can’t turn one without turning the other. I might have thought it would be like some Helios lenses, where ring 1 sets f, ring 2 opens it up to make focusing easier, then shuts back down to the f you set. Will look into it.

–Went around the mulberry bush again with photo editors, since I didn’t deactivate anything before wiping the old Mac, so I could reactivate on the new. Using DXO at the moment (which didn’t have the deactivate problem) and it’s looking good. Very smooth with (I assume) the more powerful M5 chip, and–as I recall–a fair amount of customizability.

–Cool and windy today.

–Got the old Macbook cleaned up–software and hardware. Turns out water is a VASTLY better cleaner than 99% alcohol. Keypad marks on the screen that I thought were permanent just disappeared with a damp cloth; also the little white spots everywhere. The screen is flawless now. Who knew?

–LIC EDC on Facebook let me in; that and Brenda are the only ones. I’m concerned about Cantelons. Best to go slow I suppose, as Google AI says FB will even monitor messages for clues that a banned user is trying to get back in.

–Went with Grace to the Sunrise farmers market. Got some good (expensive) stuff.

–Picked up the Autopoint deco pencil at UPS. Very clever mechanism, easy to refill, but it will only take a piece of lead that’s half length.

–IG and FB still working, though hearing back from friends and forums is REALLY slow.

–Started going through all my photos to resize them for this screen (same as the previous scree; I just never made the effort before). It’s going to take a while.

–After huge preparation (new Macbook, Firefox Facebook Container, new phone number, NordVPN, etc., Facebook found me out instantly and re-banned me. I have no idea how they knew. On the other hand, while I was diddling around with Instagram, (FB told me to log into IG to appeal), it offered me a new account: williamfarrell69. I took it, and it seemed to work. A while later I went to view it again, and it gave a number captcha like I failed on FB a couple days ago. This time I “listened” to the numbers, got them right, but AGAIN got this bizarro message saying “You put in an appeal on May 1.” Immediately following, it said “Your appeal was successful, welcome back to IG, we’re sorry to have bothered you.” Hands folded and raised to God: I am permanently back on IG, and MIGHT be able to leverage it to open a new account on FB. I’ll wait a little, however.

–Went to UPS to pick up a Macbook return box and an original Trillium spinner box (the last one, I’m told).

–FWIW, I did a couple of internet speed tests. Sunshine came out at 95 Mbps, while Twilight came out at 500 Mbps. This bears repeating, though I do recall that Twilight is supposed to be using the newer generation of wifi software.

–Trimmed dead branches from the Japanese Maple.

–Went to UPS for the Macbook Pro., then Bel Air for milk and cream.