–Took Grace shopping at Smart & Final.

–Played around with the Leica SL (601). Got it set up as well as it can be for me: can only program one thumb wheel, shutter speed for me. ISO needs a button push then a thumb wheel. Still, magnification is easy and works well, it seems have anti-shake, and it takes nice photos.

–Bought a Konosuke BY “Mount Stubborn” stamp on Reddit. Kind of scary: I thought they were rare, but within one minute of posting the WTB I had three sellers hounding me. The one I bought wasn’t the cheapest, but it is absolutely gorgeous and flawless. In other news, my offer on the eBay Kramer knife has had zero response. Asshole.

–Italpizza Cheesy Pizza for dinner. Delicious.

–Went to UPS to drop off the Kramer Carbon knife that I’m returning to Amazon.

–Stopped at Bel Air for milk and cream.

–Roasted some Brazilian coffee beans.

–Sabatier came in from eBay (seller got it at Bernal Cutlery). Unbelievably fine, straight, blemish-free blade and a nice handle. What a treasure!

–Bob Kramer Carbon came in. Feels good in hand, but has a small bit of pitting. Will try to return.

–Went to see Urology PA Neasha McNear at UC Davis Health on River Park Dr. Pain in the ass getting there, but visit was fine. Next visit will be back with Christine Oeur in Elk Grove, who’s been on maternity leave.

–Got a Blaze Meat-Lover’s pizza for dinner. Pretty good.

–Second Braun 380 shaver came. I destroyed the first taking it apart to clear a blemish I thought was inside. It was outside. Today’s Braun came with a blemish that was definitely on the inside. I took it apart after seeing a video that suggested I could do it without marring anything. Like the first, I broke a tiny plastic tab at the start, so just went ahead and mauled it. Blemish was utterly unreachable anyway. The plastic on these things (as on Homedics toothbrushes) is either really crappy and/or degrades fast with age. I don’t see how a pro could reliably open one of these up for battery replacement without breaking something.

–Tried for third time to get Libre Office going nicely on the Mac. Can’t be done. As it turns out, LO on Windows machines splits out all the executables so you can run them independently; not so the Mac. Grrrr……[edit] Turns out Reddit is alive with complaints about Microsoft sneakily trying to force everyone who bought Office to start renting it. And true to Reddit form, there’s a post detailing step by step how one can wipe out all traces of Microsoft from one’s Mac, then download (from Microsoft) the latest pre-rent version of Office 2021 (for which you have to have had a valid license) and install it such that Microsoft never bugs you again about upgrading, updating, etc. Yay!!

–Took a shower and shave.

–Pizza for dinner. Not great.

–Went to New York Bagel Cafe for….bagels.

–Went to Corti Brothers for jam. I checked out Hooverville Orchards’ website, and it really seems that they’re all baked goods now, and nothing but.

–Kind of a nothing day. Watched the 49ers lose; sharpened one of Grace’s Mac knives.

–I did manage to get (accidentally) get rid of the obnoxious Instagram notification icons that have been plaguing me for weeks. Google AI couldn’t do it, despite a 3 or 4-level deep dive into IG. IG forced me to change my password because I had logged in on another device.(?) It then locked me out for some reason, and forced me to get Whatsapp on my phone to get a code. Code never came, and and I bumbled into changing my password—-and the icons were gone! FB and IG are just crap, but they have marketplaces that no one else has.

–Stouffer’s lasagna for dinner.

–Went to UPS to pick up the (Chinese) Leica Q2 thumb grip.

–Stopped at Bel Air for milk, dessert, cheap Yoplait ($.49 each for 10+).

–Cheefarcut sharpener came in. Took some doing to set up (marred the clamp; may buy another), but it works quite nicely in terms of putting a nice sharp even edge on Kenny’s knife. The stone and strop that came with it are super high quality. But: after standing for an hour or two, I’m completely wiped out. Crap.

–The two Sabatier knives came in. Kinda crappy. Also a Griffin spin stick, $450, came in. Also kinda crappy.

–Two Konosuke BY gyutos came in today. One was pristine, the other had some patina. I spent a fair bit of time polishing both with uchigumori slurry. They look fabulous now.

–Went to Bel Air for some sales items. There was a big U-Haul truck parked in front of the former Rite-Aid store; I hope a business is moving in.

–A gray, cool, slightly drizzly day. Great reminder of what life on the coast would be much of the time.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Cleaned up my room a bit–put cameras away, cataloged fidgets, etc.

–Worked on the Watanabe gyuto. I maybe found a really nice procedure for polishing/emphasizing kasumi: moisten the coarse diamond hone, rub the uchigumori stone on it to create a slurry, use a small square of worn ultra-fine 3M sanding sponge to rub the slurry into the blade. Straight up and down motions work, but leave lines (not scratches, just lines). Circular rubbing up and down the blade seems to create a very nice finish. It only took 20 years to figure out…

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

–Motor City pizza for dinner with the 49ers. Yummy!

–Had a showdown between Leica SL2-S with its huge 50mm lens and Sony A7R V with its small, light, cheap 55mm lens. Both are extremely sharp, Sony shows a little more noise, but for now the Sony controls are much nicer. Even with auto everything I can use the top dials to change shutter speed and ISO. Add in 2.5 times the resolution and half the weight and the Sony wins.

–Figured out (thanks to Reddit) how to get AI noise reduction working in Lightcraft. It’s a pretty astonishing program: ultra fast, most of the capabilities of Lightroom, easier to navigate. It does (in my hands, anyway) seem to produce a harsher high-contrast photo, and often one or two controls will have almost no effect. But they’re working on it.

–Did some knife polishing. Nothing astounding yet, but progress is being made.

–Played with cameras. Both the SL2-S and the A7R V are something of a mystery to me.

–Made a pizza. Not bad.

–Got a call from UC Davis Dermatology: Could I come in early? I did, 10 AM, got the treatment. Major burning/stinging for the first 5-10 minutes (of 16), alleviated by a small handheld fan. Now we wait and see.

–Got money to burn, so I’m buying another Konosuke BY without the Mount Stupid kokunin.

–Replacement switch came in for the Timemore grinder. I installed it–not that hard but not easy either–and it seems to work. Poorly designed switch I think.

–Bought a Konosuke BY from Saul Diaz via reddit r/TrueChefKnivesBST.

–Tried checking things out at UPS, and it’s a horrible mess. Partly my fault, as I apparently flipped a switch a while back that told them to send everything to the UPS store. I unflipped that today, but it’s still a mess. For example, I had two accounts: wsf7147 (apparently only via Firefox) and wsfarr (apparently only at Chrome). The Chrome account would not allow a straight login; they flip to a screen that forces login via social networking site (FB, IG, etc.), which doesn’t work. It seemed as though I successfully changed password, then deleted ALL Chrome cookies and tried again: same result. So for now, UPS is only accessible via Firefox.

–Took Grace shopping at Smart & Final.

–Went to Creekside Endodontics for a consultation. Back lower left tooth is apparently eating itself from inside (resorption), possibly as a result of an impacted wisdom tooth pressing on it long ago. The nerve is alive and there’s nothing to be done except keep an eye on it. Eventually it may have to be extracted and replaced.

–Put up a “Buying” post at subreddit r/truechefknivesBST for a Konosuke BY with even cladding. Got a hit an hour later from a guy in NJ. He posted a video of a BY with quite even cladding, selling for $820. I’ll buy it, after seeing a confirmation video from him tomorrow. Pretty amazing.

–Creekside Endodontics said they would charge me $960 for the consultation. I blew up, called to cancel, and was informed that Delta would cover part of a $2,100 bill and I would pay $960–for consultation AND same-day root canal. Okay. Thing is, I don’t think a root canal is the issue here, but we’ll see. Then I had to fill out a 127-page medical history + legal forms, on my phone. Gettin’ real tired of the way medicine is going.

–Went to UPS to pick up (a) a Faith Evermore spinner (great design, too small), (b) an LIC EDC Smoothie spinner, (c) an Uchigumori stone I ordered from Bernal Cutlery. The stone has promise for polishing cladding, but there will be a learning curve. The Smoothie spun okay twice, then sort of quit. I used all of my bearing tools trying to get the bearing out (and crushed a plastic collar to death), then put it in the vise and used big Channellocks successfully. The first Fushi bearing I put in it sort of failed quickly, and the second seemed to work. Very hard to press in. The spinner also has some judder when spinning, and does not spin for a really long time. My theory is they drilled the hole too small, so the bearing gets deformed, tilted and/or crushed when inserted, thus affecting spin.

–Went to Staples to pick up some Post-It notes, but–though the sign was still there–Staples has been replaced by a kitchen/bath store and a bedroom/mattress store. Crap.

–Sold and sent a second knife (Kono Fujiyama 240) to Kevin Cao. I hope the knives make it to Sweden: Pirate Ship was way too cheap and easy for those transactions.

–Getting distinctly cooler over the past couple days.

–Got bagels and bagel dogs (for Grace) at the New York Bagel Cafe.

–Stopped at Bel Air to pick up a Monday special: five donuts/pastries for $5. Hard to beat.

–Put a new, much bigger battery in Grace’s solar ornament hanging outside my shower window.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Finally finished the transaction selling my Kato workhorse to Kevin Cao in Sweden for $1,400. Kind of a pain in the ass, EXCEPT for Pirate Ship. With easy-as-pie input, they shipped UPS Expedited, $1,000 insurance, for $43. No customs forms or anything. Unbelievable.

–Made a pizza for dinner using bread flour (super-manageable dough), mozzarella, boiled-down Cento tomatoes, and some of Jan’s peppers–one of which was really hot.

–Didn’t do much besides taking pictures of knives to sell.

–Doing a lot of work with lights and cameras trying to sell some knives to a guy on Facebook.

–Watered plants.

–Gold River real estate is going down the tubes. In 3Q26, TEN homes sold on Gold Country Blvd. Worse (much worse) 1973 Discovery Village–3 beds, 3 baths, 2100 square feet–sold for $490k. Our house–2/2/1600–sold for $551k four years ago, and is apparently worth just that today. Kee-rap!

–Went to Corey Bafford, dentist. He found what might be an abscess or something that would rot a tooth from the inside, so referred me Creekside Endodontics, where I’m pretty sure a $2,000 root canal awaits.

–Got the Konosukes cataloged (more or less) and sent Kevin Cao some pics of two Fujiyamas that I would sell.

–Took Grace shopping at Bel Air.

–Italpizza for dinner. I put pepperoni on it; probably shouldn’t have.

–Went to see Tiffany Wong, dermatology, in Folsom. She was serious and somber this time, as opposed to the first visit where she was bubbly and vivacious. Oh well. She did get me a referral to the office in Sacramento where they do the blue light therapy.

–Continued cataloging my Konosuke knives–all 13 of them. It’ll be a miracle if I get them all classified correctly.

–Moving all my kitchen knives from one closet to another, and updating the catalog. Lotsa nice stuff there.

–Imitation Italpizza for dinner. Not so hot.

–Picked up DMV placard application at UC Davis Health. Submitted online. Firefox failed 5 times. Chrome succeeded first time. Proof:

Thank you. We have received your information, and your application is in our queue. Your application ID is: DMV-VO:8182758

–Put the purple leaf succulent cuttings in soil in one of the Pot Stop pots and watered them.

–Grace is back in a mood.

–Went to the Folsom farmers market looking for another Ambrosia cantaloupe, but their season is done. Lots of other melons, but too risky for me.

–Went to Costco for new hearing aids. New tech there was stiff at first, but opened up after I charmed her with my wit and repartee. I’ll be getting the newest Philips model–9050–rechargeable with silicone ear molds. She tuned my present aids based on the hearing test, and it’s noticeably better.

–Stopped at Bel Air for milk and dessert.

–Biked to UPS to send off Matteo Diolaiti’s birthday present.

–Took Grace to Bel Air for lettuce, then to Grocery Outlet for pizzas.

–Paid property taxes of $7,055.38 out of the Heritage checking account.

–Destroyed a Fordite spin stick trying to turn it into a couple of beads.

–Went to Crate and Barrel at Roseville Galleria for some Chemex filters. Then to UPS to pick up some drugs from Amazon. This is the same Amazon that stated firmly that drugs could only be delivered to my house. Gotta make sure Amazon and UPS have only my home address. Then to Brainy Zoo in Fair Oaks for a birthday present for Matteo. Closed. Then to Bel Air for cereal and cream.

–Tried hard, but could never get Android Auto working in the BMW. The car seemed to recognize the phone, but would never connect. This could be hard to sort out.

–Went back to Brainy Zoo later and got the toy.

–Marie for dinner.

–Went to New York Bagel Cafe for bagels and brownies.

–Watered plants.

–Spent a long time looking for a shower head of specific design for Kenny, only to find he already has one (completely different).