Category: Uncategorized (Page 12 of 29)

–Went to Home Depot to get replacement handles/locks for the three sliding glass doors. Installed, with some difficulty. All good.

–Went to Ken’s Bikes in Davis to get a new tire pump and Kimo Tanaka’s contact info so I can ask him for a new set of decals if I repaint my bike.

–Spent a while with neighbor Kenny (who went by “Jason” as a professional singer/piano player) trying to set up his upstairs TV. Sort of succeeded, but not fully. He had a card table outside his house with “free clippings” from his succulents. I got some and planted them. They’ll die shortly.

–Switching from Edge to Chrome. Microsoft signed me up for a “cash back” program without my knowledge, and it persisted after two attempts to opt out. Screw ’em.

–Rode the InnerLight 14+ miles to River Bend Park again.

–Picked up the Sea Dweller superdome at UPS. Installed it. It’s quite “super” (high), but unlike the $300 True Dome, (1) it came with zero scratches, (2) it didn’t crack when installed, and (3) it does allow the retaining work to work. Fingers crossed.

–Picked up the old Bull Cheka Shamwari at UPS. It’s a mess, as I knew: scratches on scales and blade, broken blade tip, but worst of all (undisclosed) is significant lock rock. While scrutinizing it, I noticed the detent ball was pretty messed up. So I knocked it out, measured it (1.58mm or 1/16″), and ordered some ceramic balls from Skiff. Fingers crossed.

–Played with photo editors in an effort to drop Lightroom. Bought ACDSee and Affinity. Affinity looking good at the moment–extremely smooth. For reasons I can’t fathom, it only does haze removal on jpg’s (which show up as single layer called “background image,” not RAW’s, which just come up as “xxxxx.rwl.” I tried for a while to add a background image, but failed.

–Hearing aid batteries failed and were replaced with Kirkland batteries around 3 PM—almost six days.

–Picked up Gareth Bull Miura at UPS. Useless: no clip (can’t carry, and super-hard to flip without something to hold on to); smooth-opening means off-center and blade play, while centered is virtually impossible to open (too tight); lots of marks on blade, mostly from loose blade hitting liner.

–Picked up Sea Dweller gasket set at UPS. Replaced only a couple of gaskets. Turns out the $300 True Dome crystal, which was super tight to get on, had cracked (too small inner diameter). Further, it apparently was so oversized (outer diameter) that it stretched the retaining ring when I assembled it. Reverting to the old crystal was not possible: the retaining ring was now oversized and would not hold the crystal tightly in place. I spent a while with the Fercal resizing tool trying to reduce the size of the retaining ring–to no avail. I finally ordered another superdome crystal from Hong Kong, hoping it has the right inner diameter to be tight without cracking, and the right outer diameter to hold the crystal on tightly. What a mess.

–Went to Smart and Final for muffins, fruit. Stopped at Bel Air for bagels and cream cheese.

–Homeless person spotted a week ago in Discovery Village (stealing a package) is still around.

–Re-potted several cacti. Probably killed them.

–Took a shower and shave. The NOS Ever-Ready Streamline razor worked fine with a single-edge (shaving) razor from Rite Aid. Really looking forward to the Gem blades I ordered.

–Went to the Sunrise farmers market for cherry tomatoes. Put together another compote, which is cooking as we speak.

–Watched Netflix movie Heart of Stone. Much better than expected.

–Replaced hearing aid batteries with Ray-O-Vacs around 9 AM.

–Quarterly tax auto-pay went through.

–Took Grace to Sutter Urgent Care (Firoz’ office) in Folsom for a blood test. Went to Whole Foods and got stuff.

–Stopped at UPS to pick up clock radio (pretty nice), Truedome Sea Dweller crystal (looks a LOT like the crystal that came on the watch, which I suspect is a service crystal), and Ever-Ready Streamline razor (cool, looks NOS).

–Left hearing aid battery (Ray-O-Vac) died around 9 PM (five full days).

–Rode the InnerLight on ARP west to River Park–14.5 miles. Kinda tired.

–Played around with my journal on WordPress, trying to make it private. No luck yet. Did successfully use phpmyadmin in control panel to dig out of a couple holes. [Edit] Finally got it to where vstat.com IS my journal and anyone but me who navigates there will be confronted with a login screen. If I really wanted to do something with vstat I could register wsf-journal.net or some such and move the WordPress site there. Given the power of imgur.com to host pics and videos (for selling) though, it’s not clear what I’d do with vstat. Maybe virtual statistics——–there’s a thought!

–Rode with Tom Elken in El Dorado Hills.

–Took Grace shopping at Food Maxx.

–Put new Ray-O-Vac batteries in the hearing aids at 9 AM.

–Took a shower and shave. Used an old Gillette head on a Cooncat Bob handle. Head was quite aggressive. Surprisingly, that may be what I want: extra care resulted in zero nicks, and it was an incredibly close shave–my cheeks are totally smooth, which almost never happens. The second pass felt like there was no blade in the razor, because the first pass was so close. Complicated, though: I’ve tried four times to tolerate a Blackland razor, but I just can’t: it feels like a dull blade is at right angles to my face. Much to learn…

–Went to harbor Freight, mostly for a switchable magnet to use in blade polishing. Got it. Didn’t work. It holds the blade, but I found I could exert much more pressure (with control) just using my hand. Oh well…

–Papa Murphy’s pizza for dinner (finished off the gift card from Mark Solich). Good.

–Right hearing aid battery died around 8 PM (almost five days).

–Rolex 1665 Sea Dweller came in. Took it apart, cleaned it up, put it back together–with great skill and good tools. Runs fast, but nicest one I’ve ever seen.

–After lots of trouble setting up the Razr phone, went back to the Galaxy since the Razr doesn’t seem to pick up the hearing aids as quickly. Plus the Galaxy just has an all-around better operating system implementation, seems to me. Wish it came in magenta.

–Sent the proper forms via email to Cal Pro for fence repair.

–Stopped at Bel Air for bagels, milk, cream. Tap to Pay failed (with Razr this time).

Went to Jasper’s again for dinner. Woman said she is 56, man is 60, they are unrelated, and man wants to retire after 36 years there. She’s not sure if she’ll stay on or not, she said. (I’m guessing she knows and is just being cagey.)

–Saw Dr. Bellinger re heart: all good.

–Cleaned up papers etc. on desk.

–Put new hearing aid batteries in at 9 AM.

–Went to Costco for hearing aid check. Lots of gobbledygook, got some domes to try. Learned that one removes domes/molds the same as one removed receivers in the Resounds: depress a tiny button and the wire+receiver pulls right out. This is good, because the alternative I was facing was trying to yank out the wire from the speaker itself–way too risky. So now I have two complete sets of receivers: one with molds and one that accepts Philips domes (not available on the web) and also Starkey/Oticon domes (easily available). The domes she put in are too large (they hurt), so I ordered some smaller ones. Unfortunately, aids are tuned differently for mold/dome, so I might get sub-optimal results just switching by myself without tuning. She was shocked at my four-day battery life, suggested I might want to send the aids back to Philips. We’ll see.

–Went for a bike ride with Tom Elken in El Dorado Hills. Nice day, nice ride.

–Left hearing aid battery went out at 9 PM–four days +.

–Went to Chalk It Up. Pretty good, great weather, good food truck hamburger for lunch. Grace’s arthritis is acting up, so she didn’t go.

–Stopped at Smart and Final for fruit and muffins.

–Rained last night. Gave me a chance to wipe off the Weber.

–Made pizza for dinner.

–Got a refund from eBay on the first Galaxy Flip.

–Switched back to the iPhone to see if (1) the Philips hearing aid app had any more bells and whistles. It doesn’t. I have a theory (will test) that the app adds absolutely nothing: I can use phone settings to answer all calls on hearing aids; there are no wind noise or “venue” choices in the app; etc. It MIGHT be required for the TV box, but I doubt it; (2) Apple Wallet works better than Google Pay.

–Barbecued beef burgers and such. Tasty.

–Went around and around and around with eBay on the Sea Dweller–three different customer service reps. Unbelievable difference in competency. Last one said to ask seller for invoice. I did. He said “Will do.”

–Replaced hearing aid batteries around Noon—five days. These are Kirkland batteries. Hoping a brand name lasts longer.

–Won the 1665 Sea Dweller on eBay for a stupid low price of $14,101. When I went to pay, I got an error message saying “Seller does not ship to California” (seller was supposed to ship to the authenticator anyway). Messaged seller (who’s sold many watches, all through the authenticator he said) and he professed ignorance, said he would call eBay. I called eBay hours later. They replicated my problems, said they hadn’t heard from seller, suggested I ask him to call them OR send me an invoice. Still waiting.

–Heard from Pacific Skin Institute. Sarah Diane Whalen is leaving them (for parts unknown), so my October appointment will be with a nurse named Olga Karaputa. Great.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Made pizza with Grace’s birthday pizza dough from Williams Sonoma ($18). Box contained flour and (lots of) salt, but not the promised yeast. Made dough, made pizza, it was fine, though salty.

–Went to Bel Air for cookies. Tried Tap to Pay with (new) Ally account. Got the checkmark, but the terminal did not react, much as it was with Heritage with a live checker yesterday. Went BACK to Heritage account, will try again some day.

–Went to Bel Air for fruit, burger patties, corn, Grace’s juice, gallon jugs of Crystal Geyser. Used Tap to Pay, my phone said it worked (switched from Heritage to Ally last night after talking to an Ally help person), but it didn’t show up on the register, so I had to use a card. Grrr….

–Barbecue for dinner. Tasty, but both sets of old corn cob holders (Grace got for her birthday) were pretty useless. Grrr……

–Resurrected the Leica SL2. Fine camera when you’re not using one of the monster L lenses. Tried the 50 Summicron M f2 (with adapter), really liked it. tried the 28 aspherical with adapter (it was already 6 bit coded), not wild about it. We’ll see.

–Walked to Bel Air for bagels and cream cheese.

–Took Grace to dinner at Jasper’s—which, it turns out, is closing to turn into a taqueria. Crap.

–Replaced hearing aid batteries around 2 PM–four days.

–Polished the new McGizmo waterproof flashlight–was a mess, looks great now.

–Motorola Razr came in. Good shape. Took some doing, but finally have it set up better than the Galaxy. Still working on getting apps to front screen May not work for all.

–Stopped at Bel Air for pizza and dessert.

–Dropped off the Cremina groupheads for chroming at Sherm’s.

–Put gas in the Beemer.

–Sac Heart called at 2:00 to cancel my 3:55 appointment and reschedule. Great.

–Went to Costco to pick up new hearing aids. They are loud, but will take some getting used to before I know if they really help comprehension.

–Eufy battery came. Machine makes chirping noises and lights up when plugged in, but does nothing (yet) when taken away from charging station. Oh well…

–Went with Grace to Smart & Final for lots of stuff.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Not much, really.

–Went to Folsom farmers market for tomatoes (they were out of dried apricots).

–Fried pork chops in Erie spider skillet. Not bad.

–Went with Grace to the dentist. One big cavity filled, one temp crown fitted. Lots more to come.

–Marie for dinner.

–Had Chromatic Coffee’s Opus for breakfast, after rave reviews for a dark roast at home-barista.com. Don’t like it.

–Took the Beemer to Placerville, first for jam and apple pie at Hooverville Orchards, then for lunch at Mel’s Diner. I stopped in at Old Town Grill, but there was a line and it seemed un-air-conditioned.

–Old Shamwari came in. Pretty rough shape. I cleaned it up a bit, then put the (heavily scratched) bolsters on a Bergeon satin wheel and made them wonderful. Posted in facebook with before/after photos and got a huge response.

–Super hot day.

–Picked up the Samsung flip phone at UPS. Nice but (as I of course knew) it doesn’t do anything different except flip. And it only sees the left hearing aid.

–Got bagels and cream cheese at Bel Air.

–Doug of Douglas Electric came over with Sal and replaced five smoke alarms. These are now hardwired (as they were), interconnected (ditto) and have 10-year lithium batteries.

Picked up Kob Knobs and Cremina at UPS. Cremina seems workable, though it looks like I’ll have to rechrome the grouphead. Took forever to get the lever pin out of the piston rod—I had to cut it with a hacksaw, then drive it out. Machine seems only to be missing the lever and portafilter.

–Went to Bel Air for pizza dough and pepperonies. Made pizza for dinner. Duh.

–Finished re-doing the back sprinklers. Totally wiped me out. Had to take a two-hour nap.

–Did much work on sprinklers in back patio. As usual, lines were already installed. Put a riser/emitters on the two bushes by the barbecue. With a lot of cutting and patching, put emitters on the three bushes in back. Then discovered another line and decided to redo everything and put emitters on that line. Grace took a look and noted that the line I used was actually a soaker line, with emitting holes every foot or two. Exhausted and pissed, I quit for the day. Tomorrow I’ll go back and redo what I first did, with emitters on a new line, then block off the soaker line. Only good thing was discovering a cut off line buried 3-4 inches deep, which I’m sure was responsible for the low emitter pressure I noticed at first. Blocked it.

–Picked up the Caran d’Ache pencil at UPS. Nice, but not thrilling. Then to Bel Air where I got ciabatta rolls and jam, and used Google “tap to pay” on my phone. Worked like a charm.

–Walked to Bel Air for stuff, forgot my wallet. Walked home and drove back. Grrr…..

–Walked to Bel Air for potato salad and corn. Forgot wallet. Walked home, drove back and paid. Installed Google Pay. We’ll see.

–Barbecued burgers and corn for the second day in a row. Good corn this time.

–Washed sheets.

–Worked some more on the Cremina grouphead. Got it to where the piston has full motion, though there’s a slight hitch at the end. Now to get the grouphead chromed and the machine reassembled.

–Went to Costco to look at hearing aids. Pretty thorough discussion; buying a Philips with custom ear molds.

–Took a shower and shave.

–I cut and fitted tubing to take AC condenser water away from house.

–Made tomato compote. Perhaps because I used Early Girl rather than cherry tomatoes, it came out really soupy. But also super delicious, the very definition of umami.

–Fixed sprinklers in front and side after a trip to Home Depot.

–McDonald’s Hazel for lunch.

–Went to Folsom farmers market for tomatoes and squash.

–Then to Bel Air for bagels.

–Took Grace for a DEXA scan at Sutter Imaging in Carmichael.

–Started moving money from CIT Bank to Ally. (1) Tried to use Zelle at CIT Bank to send $800 to a guy for a knife. Got a blowup error message. Sent it via Ally without a problem. (2) CIT Bank has been requiring one-time passcodes (via text) for a while now. I asked them why–especially since I say each time “Yes, this is my private computer”–and they just responded with robo-speak about different devices, IP addresses, time of day, etc. Ally and CIT both have their issues, and CIT has higher interest rates, but their interface is not good.

–Rode to River Bend Park. It is huge, though not as picturesque as I had thought at first. Might scout out alternate locations for picnic with Tom and Sandy.

–Bought a frozen Motor City Detroit Deep Dish Pepperoni pizza for dinner. Once again, pretty good.

–Went to Sac Heart to return the belt case for the telemetry unit.

–Then to Jersey Mike’s for lunch.

–Returned the Bioflux telemetry unit to Sac Heart. Forgot to bring the stupid belt case. Back tomorrow.

–Watched “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.” Really really liked it. Sad to hear he’s gone.

–Rode the ARP with Tom Elken. Good ride.

–Simpson Eagle G3 Manchurian LE faux ebony came in. Removed a couple of small scratches, inadvertently putting a large groove in in it. Managed to mostly polish out the groove. Unfortunately (since it came from Sweden) the guy put it in the wrong Simpson box. Will swap, I guess.

–Went to Bel Air for potato salad, bagels.

–Watched the movie 65.

–Went to the Folsom farmers market for tomatoes, dried apricots, squash.

–Set up sprinklers in front and side areas to run 10 minutes on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday (Sac county says 3 times a week max).

–Got all drippers hooked up and working in the side yard. Yay!

–Downloaded and watched Tomb Raider (the one without Angelina Jolie)–apparently for the second time in not too long. The memory continues to go.

–Played with side sprinklers, got four drippers workng.

–Gave up (again) on the iPhone: couldn’t send or receive text messages yesterday, and battery has been draining quickly without obvious reasons. Back to Android.

–The front patio is now all sprinklered up. On to back and side.

–HD Lawn came early and replaced two sprinkler control valves for $370. Then I spent a couple of hours setting up (most of) the sprinklers in front. Looking good so far.

–Refund check for ~$3,700 came from American title. Apparently we overpaid property tax and didn’t cash the check they (say they) sent us eight months ago.

–Called Sprinkler Techs, got $450 estimate for both valves. Called HD Lawn (who did the last one for $185). Guy came out agreed to 2 x $185 for the other two. He’ll do it tomorrow. Sold.

–Sonax polish came in. Supposed to cut well and finish perfect. Tried it on a shaving brush. Finish could be good, but not too impressed with cut.

–Went to the Discovery Village barbecue. There were 20+ people there, all old, out of ~180 DV residents. Pretty good food.

–Went to the Sunrise farmers market for tomatores and squash.

–Re-replaced the battery in the smoke alarm by Grace’s bathroom. (a) It was too soon after the last battery. (b) I saw an unconnected black wire. Will bring in an electrician to sort it out.

–Took Grace shopping at Food Maxx.

–Anodized flashlight (Ted Rooney) came in. Beauty.

–Got Zone Perfect bars/bear claws at Target.

–Picked up Westclox Moonbeam. Impeccable case and movement, but alarm was 10-15 minutes off, so I took it apart and ruined it. Turns out the one I’ve been using for years is 10 minutes too. Picked up Rolex bracelet links, added them to the Day-Date. Perfect. Asher Spiro came in. Nice.

–Went to See Sarah Diane Whalen for followup. She said “all looks good,” then proceeded to freeze at least 5 AKs.

–Picked up bear claws at Panera, sprinkler stuff at Lowe’s.

–Went to Dr. Bellinger’s office to get a heart telemetry system taped to my chest. Turns out I have to wear it 24/7. Great.

–Finally managed to get Apple Carplay working reliably in the Beemer. Turns out you have to access/activate it via the Media menu, not Navigation. It is called CarPLAY after all…

–Took the Honda to Gold River Automotive for an oil change and AC recharge (been blowing warm the last couple days) Seems good now.

–Leica M-E came in. Nice condition. Charger went haywire when I plugged it in, but it seems that’s not uncommon. Might charge fine once it runs down a bit. Ordered a new (fake) battery, given that genuine (?) ones are $149. Took a few pics; not real impressed. I don’t seem to have learned that: it’s really hard to nail focus on a rangefinder, especially for close subjects. I’m thinking (and have read) that a lot of people use these cameras for street photography, with zone focus, fixed focus, etc.

–Took a shower and shave. The bronze Wolfman was great; the Simpsons “Extra Super” not so much (didn’t pick up much soap). I imagine I’ll get better with it.

–Went to Lowe’s Folsom for shrub spray heads; they had zero (online said they had 21).

–Went Smart and Final for apples, oranges, dessert.

–Put on the mosquito suit and played with front sprinklers. Miserable, but mostly figured them out. Will need to have the sprinkler guy come back and replace the other two valves: the one in front works only intermittently.

–Cooked a frozen deep-dish pizza for dinner; darn good.

–Started looking into sprinklers a little bit.

–Lunch at Subway. I finally got the actual coupon sale price, but they still had to fake it at the register. Not sure what’s going on with their inability to do coupons.

–Broken Westclox Moonbeam came in. Salvaged dial and hands as planned.

–Rolex Day-Date 18238 came in. Thought it would be fully-linked at 22, but it actually needs 24 for that. Also turns out Kirill Yuzh made a killing on that, as he only paid Tropical Watch $15,500 (listed price was $16,850) and then “traded” it to me for the red Sub I sent back, which is at LAWW for the second time.

–Took the Beemer to Jasper’s for lunch (all okay there). Then picked up sharpener at UPS (will toss). Then to Peet’s for decaf and Safeway for yogurt and dessert.

–Bought a Rolex Day-Date from Tropical Watch. No payment needed; Kirill Yuzh just “traded” it for the red Sub that I returned a while back.

–Rode the canal 14 miles. Left too late: it was in the mid-90s; wiped me out.

–Yet another lost day. Getting scary.

–Took Grace to Five Guys for lunch. Tried Jasper’s, but it looked like the woman wasn’t there, and there was a line. We didn’t want to over-burden the guy.

–Took a shower and shave. Tried the Blackland Jet razor (this was at least the third time I’ve said “Well, I’m more experienced and proficient now, so I can use a Blackland without harming myself.” Bzzzzttt! Three strikes and you’re out. What an absurdly harsh razor.

–Did another odometer run. Calibration seems to be getting worse.

–Made some pesto. Not nearly as good as previous batches. Oh well…

–Rode the InnerLight 14 miles on the ARP; wiped me out. Checked this journal and found that I have in fact pedaled that bike up Heartbreak Hill three years ago. Should I try to replicate that through intense training, or give up and go to bed?

–Tried to reconcile my cameras a bit. I have cameras that need lens caps, and lens caps that don’t fit anything. Great.

–Got propane at U-Haul.

–Watched Guardians of the Galaxy 3.

–Went to see Dr. Bellinger. He didn’t say much, but set up appointments for telemonitoring EKG and echo X-ray. Some day it would be nice to get past all this doctor stuff.

–Got turkey burgers, corn, ice cream at Bel Air.

–Accomplished nothing, as usual lately. Not looking forward to cardiologist visit tomorrow.

–Another slow day at home.

–Yet another hot day. Didn’t do much of anything.

–Another hot day. Made pizza for dinner, opened presents.

–Hot day, slow day.

–Roseville ENT called re the consult. Set up an appointment in October.

–Medicines are helping; throat is much better.

–Went to Master’s Wholesale to cancel cooktop. Marc Guzman came out and said it was delivered today. He left a message for Bell’s Appliance (installer) and said he (Marc) would call this afternoon. He hasn’t.

–Throat still bad. Went to Sutter Folsom Urgent Care, saw Dr. Jackson. He diagnosed oral thrush, prescribed a couple of meds, and wants to have Roseville ENT do a consult to rule out a cancer recurrence.

–Picked up some bagels, cream cheese and bear claws at Bel Air.

–Still feel crappy. Throat is a tiny bit better. I guess it’s going to be another long cold or similar.

–Still feeling bad; throat is marginally better. Spent much of the day in bed.

–Barbecued Costco sausage, corn for dinner.

–Woke up at 6 AM with terrible diarrhea and a really sore throat (right side only). Took a long nap after bagel/coffee.

–Barbecued turkey burgers and corn for dinner. Good again.

–Went shopping at Bel Air, in part to test out out bar codes/coupons.

–Did laundry.

–Took Grace to the Roseville Sutter Imaging site. She got a couple done, but will have to go back because she accidentally took a calcium pill.

–Had lunch at Rim’s Deli. Good, not amazing.

–Drove Grace in the Beemer to Rancho Murieta, mostly to experience again the insane hilly section of Scott Road. Great fun. Lunch at Backyard BBQ (good), food shopping at the nearby Bel Air. Stouffer’s for dinner.

–Rode the ARP for 14+ miles with Tom Elken. Incredible weather.

–Picked up the McGizmo flashlight (nice, really different beam–a huge uniform circle) and the Captain Midnight 1957 jet decoder and manual (turns out they changed their codes all the time, so this decoder doesn’t work on a 1955 TV show; waiting now for the right one to come up on eBay).

–Tried to drive the BMW to Buffalo Creek headwaters, but it appears that that whole area is private Aerojet property.

–Barbecued turkey burgers, squash and tomatoes for diner. Yum!

–Rode the InnerLight on the canal for 13.6 miles. Felt crappy the rest of the day.

–Got sandwiches from Jack’s Urban Eats for dinner.

–Went to both farmers markets, got tomatoes, oranges, almonds, squash, cherries.

–Made pizza for dinner. Pretty darn good.

–Went to UPS to pick up flashlight lenses and nicotinamide.

–Went to Bel Air for corn and turkey burger patties (finally).

–Barbecued corn and turkey burgers: pretty darn good.