–New hearing aid batteries around 8:30 AM.

–Migrating vstat.com from Namecheap ($5/month) to Hostinger ($2/month). Kinda scary.

–Left hearing aid went out around 8 PM.

–Bought a Cheburkov knife on eBay.

–Got decaf beans at Peet’s; ordered caf beans from Black Sails; got fruit and sundries from Smart & Final.

–Was going to get a haircut, learned Samantha has gone to El Dorado Hills. Later I guess.

–Took Grace for big shopping at Bel Air.

–Played with knives: big success. Used the heat gun and much cleverness to swap scales between Arctic Storm and Mars Valley. As a bonus, both knives are now well-centered. Even better, I swapped out the small scale screws (which had some damage) with the inside screws that hold the clip in place. Voila! Not even sure which one I want to sell now.

–FWIW, the iPhone has detected my hearing aids quickly and perfectly for a week or so. I dare not try going back to the Android. And, housing has completely cratered in Pacific Grove. 1 bed, 1 bath, under TWO MILLION yields four homes, none of them desirable. Holy crap…

–Got some gun bluing at Sportsman’s Warehouse. Forgot you can’t blue polished screws.

–Had a brief (15-20 minutes) power outage today.

–Got bagels at Noah’s.

–Downloaded and watched “Love and Monsters.” Fantastic movie. The scene with Mav1s and the sky jellies is one of the best 4-5 minutes in filmdom.

–Played with knives. Learned that the Shiro Quantum 2’s (One Bear and Three Bears) are identical, down to th washers behind the bearings. It’s a mystery, all right. Meanwhile, marred a little screw on the F95 Zero for no good reason. Crap.

–Played with watches: Started to swap hands on the Rolex Day-Dates. Decided not to. Couldn’t get either stem back in. Off to Ridley. Crap.

–Two Shirogorovs came in: Quantum Gen 2 and F95 Arctic Blue. Learned some things: (1) There’s zero difference between “one bear” and “three bear” knives. I really need to find out why the COA cards differ. (2) Numbers engraved inside the knives bear no relation to serial numbers on the COA and box. They’re more like part/batch numbers. (3) The two Arctic Blues are identical wrt box label and COA, but have different blades/back spacers.

–Watched the Disney movie “Jungle Cruise.” Not bad at all.

–Went to Tom Elken’s wedding. Quite religious (Episcopal). Not a soul there I knew. Came home right after the ceremony.

–Grace agreed to go to the wedding.

–Searched the web and learned that all our lizards (out because of the drought maybe) are Western Fence lizards.

–Grace said she’s not going to the wedding. Said she told me this yesterday at Party City. She didn’t.

–Andre de Villiers Butcher flipper came in. Smaller than I had thought (my fault), severe lock stick, not well centered, lots of light scratches, doesn’t remotely fall shut. A piece o’ crap.

–Paladin shaving brush in “red” came in. Kind of orange-ish actually. Now I have three (two green and a red) that I don’t care for. Crap.

–Tried several times to connect both hearing aids to the Android, with the thought of leaving them on at night so they would stay connected. Failed. Fired up the iPhone and got them connected. What a disaster these things are.

–Took Grace to Party City to buy bubble machine for Tom’s wedding. Talked her out of it.

–Pool pump filter basket was almost completely plugged with plant buds; pressure was near zero. I cleaned it out; great improvement.

–Pen refill came in. Supposed to be 4mm, was 2mm. Tossed. Erasers came in. Shaved one down to fit metal holder, it went too far into handle. Stuffed one into the holder, seems okay. Won’t take a lot of pressure, but it’s okay. Pencil leads came in (had already gotten some at University Art).

–Reg Barber tamper handle came in. Nice. Spent some time removing polyurethane from my cocobolo handle, then polished it. Nice.

–Cleaned up out back a little. Took a look at the dry rot in one of the patio cover beams. Turns out it was in two of the patio cover beams, and more extensive than I want to tackle with epoxy. Will call Cal-Pro.

–Went to the Sunrise farmers market with Grace; got stuff.

–More dog poop on sidewalk in front of house–second time in a week.

–Went to University Art. No luck on pen refill, but got a fine frame for Barker’s “Boatride Sunset.”

–Took a shower.

–Played with pen.

–Mowed the lawn. Finished tearing down old trellis in back.

–Swapped blade locks between Shiro Arctic Storm and Mars Valley. Both work fine now. Going with Mars (at the moment) as it’s better centered. I’m fickle, though.

–Finished repairing Southard Daws on which I broke a tiny screw. Filled the (too large after drilling out the broken piece of screw) hole with steel epoxy, drilled with new cobalt drill bit, tapped. Had to shorten AND reduce head diameter of new screw, but all is good now.

–Parker Doric pen and pencil set came in. Thinking of cleaning out the pen ink tube and refilling with syringe, as this seems to be the only Parker pen that doesn’t take a standard Parker refill.

–Bit driver handle came in, fairly nice. On another AliExpress purchase, they seem to have my Indian Wells address. Crap.

–Went around and around with Ilya from rusblades on paying for a knife and (my real aim) several sets of screws. Turns out BofA won’t send international wires to Russia. Crap.

–Played with knives. MAY have gotten the lock on the Arctic Storm to engage reliably. Much selling to do. Prices seem to be going down on facebook, up on eBay (except for the $650 Ursus I paid $1,150 for).

–Got 11 sesame and 2 plain bagels at Noah’s.

–Lots of stuff came in: 2-56 screws for fixing Southard Daws; Shiro radiator bead; Riaan Manser P6 knife (really beautiful); Simpsons faux ruby Centenary Colonel XXL (gorgeous brush, and I was able to polish out the chip in the base (not perfectly, but darn well)); license plates for Mini Cooper.

–My back is considerably better, maybe 80%.

–Played with knives. After hours of back-and-forth, decided on the blue Quantum 1 and the “crazy micarta” Elmax F95–due to centering and action. Then another nice F95 popped up on eBay. Crap.

–Grace discovered (caused) some sprinkler issues by the bamboo. Will try and fix tomorrow.

–Went to the Folsom farmers market with Grace; got stuff.

–Took a shower.

–Parker Doric refill came in. Looks like every other Parker refill, but way too fat to fit in the pen. I’m guessing nobody makes those skinny refills any more.

–Called Devon’s about the 1803 I dropped off for service SEVEN MONTHS ago. They said it had been there for 10 days and apologized for the mis-communication. I picked it up. (a) It does not look like a Rolex service: scratches on the caseback and under the lugs, and a small ding on the “fat” part of the case at the crown. (b) The service card said date of service was 12/2/21: Devon’s has had that watch for four months! What a friggin’ disaster. Off to eBay I guess.

–Made pizza for dinner. Pretty good.

–Dropped off the red Sub at FedEx.

–Shirogorov Hati came in. Too small. I really have to stop buying knives without knowing how big they are.

–Red Submariner came in. Magnificent watch (perfect on the Timegrapher), but the lume was just like on a Steinhart. I know Rolex came first, but I just couldn’t handle that lume. So I’m returning it.

–After breaking several drill bits, I finally got the broken screw out of the Southard Daws backspacer. I re-threaded it, but it’s not perfect. Might have to get longer screws to make it work right. Could be tough, since two screws go into the same hole from opposite sides–which may be how I broke a screw off, come to think of it. Longer screws might meet in the middle of the backspacer before they fully tightened down.

–Got 10 Rolexes sorted out, ready to send to Kirill Yuzh for consignment. Decided to keep a nice 5513 from 1967, with fabulous meters first dial/hands, fat (though polished) case, original rivet bracelet, long 5 insert. Lug holes are still round and sharp, so it wasn’t heavily polished. Decided to sell the Sea-Dweller: very nice watch, but we’ll stick to Subs. Also selling the Daytona and Bluesy: just too much money to keep tied up in things you can’t live in or drive.

–Got about 13 more Shirogorovs coming in. Time to start selling.

–Shirogorov pivot finally came in from Russia.

–Southard Knives stuff came in: refinished blade for the Daws XL (I installed; broke a small screw in the process) and beautiful new Tolk, nicely centered.

–Shirogorov F95 “Mars Valley” came in, with SRBS. Managed to get it open (not easily) without damaging anything. Pretty nice now.

–Took a shower.

–Green Samsung S10 came in. Doesn’t seem nearly as deep a green as the S10e I broke. It too had trouble with hearing aids until I reinstalled them.

–Made a pizza for dinner, on the stone. Really unexciting.

–Right hearing aid got disconnected from phone. Several attempts to pry out the contacts had no effect–until I unpaired then reinstalled the aids.

–Shiro tool pen came in from Monkey Edge. Nothing hugely special, but nicely done and fills the need for a Shiro bit holder so I can sell the other one.

–Continued cleaning up after painting. Tore down vines and trellises at the back fence.

–Still haven’t heard anything regarding the shave biopsy on Tuesday. Also can’t really tell what the thing on my right cheek is doing. It sort of acts like it’s scabbed over and will go away, but it’s different from most of the crap that afflicts my face.

–Painters came today. Everything’s got plastic on it, so we can’t go anywhere or see out the windows.

–Fixed my left hearing aid so the Samsung could it: there are two small copper prongs that contact the battery when the compartment is closed. I levered them up a bit so they make stronger contact with the battery. Risky, but it seemed to work.

–Went to the dermatologist’s PA. She took a biopsy of a dark spot on my left temple, and told me to watch a new vaguely pimple-like thing on my right cheek. Crap.

–Left hearing aid battery went out around 8 PM.

–Got bagels at Noah’s.

–The duck couple from last year reappeared in the pool. Took off for no apparent reason after I took a few pictures.

–Quiet day. Back may be a little worse.

–Brad Southard finished polishing the blade I sent him AND will sell me a nice Tolk for a total of $600. Time to do some profiteering…

–Back is better.

–Played with knives, to no avail. (Can’t seem to improve stiff detent or off-center blade on Shiros).

–Walked to Bel Air for cheese, cream cheese; Rite-Aid for anti-fungal, toothpaste, deodorant, inhaler.

–Had breakfast at Country Waffles, dropped off taxes at Finton and Finton, joined Grace shopping at Food Maxx.

–Took a shower.

–Finished compiling tax documents for Curtis Finton.

–Got the pivot unscrewed yesterday on the Shiro F3 using the “apply pressure to blade while unscrewing” method. Messed the pivot screw. May have it sand-blasted, may buy another screw (ali express?).

–Back has hurt for the last two days, after I did some pre-painting cleanup yesterday. Hope it’s not for long.

–Moved stuff away from house prior to power-washing.

–Chatted with a redditor about swapping my Shiro 111 for his Arius w/ nice scale. Signed up for imgur account so I could send pics. He asked for video, so I politely dropped out. Guess I’ll have to learn how to take videos. Could be an excuse to get (much) better with phone, though I don’t see how I can get around the difficulty of typing in 1.5 square inches.

–Sold some stuff in Grace’s Stanford IRA at Vanguard, as it seems likely they will be sending out an RMD check soon.

–Shirogorov F3 Elmax gray came in. Great feel and centering; action is a tad stiff. Tried briefly to open it up with polyimide tape: no dice.

–Went to Roseville Cyclery (now Mike’s Bikes) to get a receipt for the Sirrus I took to Goodwill. Turns out the missing receipt was in the 2020 tax folder, as I deducted the bike last year. Crap.

–Drove to Bel Air for milk, cream, apples, sumos.

–Samsung phone lost the left hearing aid again. Replaced batteries, was in the process of switching back to iPhone when the S10e found the HA. Seriously frustrating.

–Played with knives.

–Walked to dinner at Jack’s Urban Eats, then got dessert and such at Bel Air.

–Played with knives.

–Grace is still in a super-scary snit.

–Trying to figure out Grace’s inherited IRA distribution. Called Kathy Purcell (Grace exploded) to get a Raymond James contact. Wrote him, he said they didn’t deal with the account. Later sent him a pic of a Raymond James document from the account with his name on it. HA!!

–Walked to Bel Air for dessert.

–Put the TV back together.

–Did an incredibly stupid thing at Kraken and sent all ethereum and bitcoin out into the crypto void. Metamask found the ethereum, but not the bitcoin. Spent hours trying to figure out how to get it back. Failed.

–Grace is being super-weird, claiming I unhooked the wireless TV extender and wired the TV back up. I didn’t. I’m pretty sure she did it in a snit when I failed to appreciate the genius of her experiment.

–Took Grace for a blood draw in Folsom.

–While cleaning debris off the roof, Grace discovered a 3-foot long piece of gutter mesh that had (apparently) blown off a second-story section of gutter. I called Cal Vintage to come and replace it.

–Bought my 9th Shirogorov (or so). This one has some nice inlays on the scales.

–Took a Shiro apart and replaced the ball bearings with some from Boca Bearings. Could not detect a difference. The blade will move toward center as you tighten the pivot (as with nearly all knives); the difference is that when centered and tight, the Shiro still opens and closes easily.

–Made pizza for dinner.

–Robert Barker paintings came in. Nice.

–Took Grace for big shopping at Bel Air.

–Bought and paid $550 for a Southard Tolk on reddit, “A+ condition.” Through an incredible bit of luck searching for the URL for my spreadsheet, I found that the seller had bought the knife on reddit 3 months ago: $340, B+ condition, with modded bearings, snail trails on the scales and a scuff on the blade. I got a quick refund, as the seller had “forgotten about the snail trails,” and the rating, the mod, the scuff, etc. What a major asshole.

–It’s a whirlwind life…

–A gray day.

–Cleaned the Erie skillet; organized batteries and charging cables.

–Fiddled some more with Koenig Arius. Can’t get it perfect; will sell.

–Talked at some length with a Vanguard retirement guy. No surprise: we need more info on Misako’s IRA before they can figure out the RMD. Surprise (to me): Grace has to take the RMD on her standard IRA this year.

–Went to Staples and got a couple of chair mats. Useless: they’re really thin (for floor or low-pile rug) and so the chair wheels just sink in and make depressions.

–Turkeys were massed in front of our house again at twilight. Grace and I tried to scare them off, but they are perfectly persistent: if they see any opening to our driveway, they just sort of ooze around you and head back. One would need a dog or a large posse to get rid of them–if that’s possible.

–Shirogorov Quantum v1 came in. Mind-bogglingly perfect, and I can even move the pivot!

–Made pizza for dinner. Had to grate some cheddar–not my favorite pizza cheese.

–Continued refining watch collection: what to keep, what to sell.

–Nike Pegasus’s came in. Nice shoes, but mighty large.

–Shirogorov tool set came in. Since I had found the missing bit from the first one I didn’t really need it. Played around with both a bit, messed one up and tossed it.

–Turkeys on the roof again tonight.

–Took Grace shopping at Koreana Plaza.

–Bought a $35,000 Daytona (2000, white dial, full set, unpolished) from Kirill Yuzh. Unbelievable.

–Re-re-bent the frame lock on the Koenig and got it perfect.

–Continued buying knives.

–Went to Folsom farmers market for mandarins and lettuce.

–Went to Bel Air for dessert and cheese.

–Dove into the cataloging of folding knives.

–At Grace’s request, re-hooked up the HDMI wireless extender, to see if it fails with distance/obstructions.

–Cal-Pro came today to do some repairs prior to painting. They also (for an extra $1,200) fixed the chimney cladding, thus bringing into complete HOA compliance.

–Shirogorov/Chris Reeve collaboration knife came in. ANOTHER ONE IS TOO SMALL. I have to stop buying these too-short knives.

–Dropped off the Sea-Dweller at FedEx for Phil Ridley.

–Sea-Dweller date is partially stuck. Got a picture.

–Got some frozen dinners at Bel Air. Still no cream or cream cheese.

–Went to Noah’s for bagels. Surprisingly, got them quickly.

–Took a shower.

–Walked to Bel Air for dessert and lunch cheese.

–Watched the Super Bowl. Bad guys won.

–Went to Folsom farmers market for clementines and a giant cauliflower.

–Spent a long time trying to polish the blade of the 3-Leg Dog knife. Was about to give up when I tried the extra-fine Bergeon satin wheel. Worked pretty well–mostly because (I think) the steel is incredibly hard. Polish attempts just sort of muddied up the blade, whereas the wheel kind of smoothed everything out without really hazing the polished parts. I’ll still sell the knife: it has fabulous action, but the blade just isn’t finished to the same standards.

–Got a couple of subs from the new (to me) Baguette Up in the Jasper’s/Smart & Final center. Was shocked to find that the sandwiches were really superb: great bread, great fillings, etc. Truly a find.

–5513 and Sea-Dweller came back from Phil Ridley. Nice.

–Played with knives. Ruined and tossed the Shirogorov Quantum trying to get it open. On the other hand, the Shiro 111 was better centered (and still had all its ball bearings) after I worked on it.

–Walked to Bel Air for dessert.

–Riaan Manser knife in. Very nice.

–Soup for dinner.

–Walked to Rite-Aid to get some Old Spice Classic Original deodorant to replace the horrible Fresh scent I bought by mistake.

–Knives came in: Shirogorov + tool from Russia (new model, thinner than before); Holt Morpheus (small but mind-bogglingly perfect in every respect); Shirogorov 111 (big but very nice blade and action). Tool works great on two Shiros, but I still can’t break loose the pivot on the blue one.

–New(est) Samsung S10e came in. Spent hours updating the OS, then tried Smart 3D. It couldn’t even find the left hearing aid (previous Androids allow setup and adjustment in Smart 3D, but later the left HA is dead on phone calls). Really strange, since iPhones work with left and right without the slightest issue–AND the hearing aids used to work fine on Android phones. So: the left HA is failing, and only iPhones are sensitive enough to work with it???

–Finally was able to buy a digital art NFT Thing from Thingdoms at Open Sea for around $1,600. Absurdly complex process involving wallets, converting unwrapped to wrapped Ethereum, funding, sending, receiving, etc. Whoever streamlines crypto purchases is going to be rich. Got an offer of $500 for my Thing a couple hours after I bought it. And there are legions of fake Thing collections at Open Sea. I wouldn’t have known, and would have bought a cheap fake, except I put in a query at a Things twitter stream and someone actually messaged me. What a minefield……

–Went to REI Folsom and got some new New Balance shoes.

–Sold some Apple and something else at Vanguard, bought $100k worth of a good-performing real estate fund.

–Walked to Bel Air to get dessert and cream cheese. There is no more light cream cheese to be had. Here we go again.

–Took a shower.

–Played with knives all day. Had some successes, some failures. Re-discovered an astonishing Olamic Wayfarer from 2016. Unbelievable blade and action, and it appears to be on washers, not bearings. I have another that I bought for a scale swap (didn’t work), so I may open it up and see how they get it that smooth with washers (if true).

–Bought another Shirogorov (three now).

–Roasted caf and decaf beans (over-roasted, actually).

–Walked with Grace to brunch at Mimosa House. Good stuff.

–Made pizza for dinner.

–Got a haircut with Samantha at Super Cuts. $22.

–Discovered a couple of track lights above the cabinets where I’ll be storing/displaying knives and watches. Eureka!

–Played with phones/hearing aids. Too many variables: pair in bluetooth, accessibility app, and/or Smart 3D. Order matters. I should write it down, but it seems to change every time.

–Finally found a reference to “advanced” programming for the ECM PID and managed to change temp display from C to F. I’ve got the temp set close to max, and the coffee still seems not as hot as it could be. Quite possible the Livietta was way too high: ECM makes a really good latte. Hoping it’s not some issue in the E61 grouphead.

–Took Grace shopping at Food Maxx.

–Played with phones, played with knives.

–iPhone SE came in. I dropped it, twice. Ordered another. Might as well open a phone store.

–Replaced hearing aid batteries around 4 PM (they were working, but Smart 3D showed left battery was weak).

–Took a shower.

–Played with knives. Laconico with ghost jade scales had some corrosion on blade in pivot area. Cleaned it up with ScotchBrite belts, and after 14 attempts to perfect the action it started feeling quite rough. Might look for some new washers; might toss it.

–After EZ-Off-ing the Erie, I ran a couple of seasoning cycles. Noticed some pitting on the inside walls that I hadn’t seen before. (a) Maybe I never looked; (b) maybe it was covered by grunge that came off with electrolysis; (c) maybe hot cheese caused the pitting. The appearance will improve (I hope) as it gets more seasoned.

–Got Clementines and broccoli at the Folsom farmers market.

–After some major hassles last night, I got the new black Samsung S10e updated to Android 12 this morning at 2 AM, after reflux awakened me. The green S10e doesn’t yet seem to know about Android 12, possibly because the new black one was sold as a Verizon phone (completely unlocked!) and Verizon phones have some special privileges.

–Fixed (again) the fans under my laptop. Smooth and quiet now.

–Bought some Ethereum. Done for now: $10k each Ethereum and Bitcoin, $5k each Algorand and Polkadot. Rich soon.

–Shirogorov Brothers knife came in. Very nice.

–Took a 5.75 mile ride around the ‘hood on the InnerLight. Nice.

–Fercal bezel adjuster came. It might actually have helped compress a retaining ring and expand a bezel. My fingers are so raw it’s hard to tell.

–Garmin came in that lets you change the wakeup phrase. I’m sticking with the other one (Alexa-ready) for now: I like the voice a little better, and it seems somewhat snappier, with better comprehension. We’ll see.

–Walked to Dr. Cripe the dentist. All good. Stopped at Bel Air for dessert and cream.

–Brad Southard flipper came in. As I hoped (from the sales video), the action is really superb. By comparison, I hurt my fingertip flipping the Shirogorov on the way to the dentist. Took the Southard apart and cleaned it up a bit, noted two extra screws after reassembly. Took it apart again and found where they went.

–Battery charger came in. Will try it on the Erie spider skillet tomorrow.

–Took the pump off the Livietta, did not disassemble it, put it back on. Still sings. Also showed really long splooshes today. The problem has to be in that solenoid assembly. I give up.

–Went to FedEx to drop off 5513 for hand relume by Ridley.

–Second Garmin came in. STILL WRONG! I really need to slow down when ordering stuff. This one won’t let you customize a wake-up phrase or (hard to believe) save a home address. It does integrate with Alexa, which might be why it was so expensive. I bought a third which I know is correct. Right.

–Switched from iPhone back to green Galaxy (noticed scratches on front glass of black Galaxy). This after ordering a black iPhone. When will it stop?

–Had trouble buying Bitcoin this morning, maybe because it would have left < $2k in BofA. Transferred a bunch from savings to checking and succeeded with Bitcoin this afternoon.

–Played a little with the “exhaust” tube on the Pasquini. Still squeals.

–Made pizza for dinner, with mozzarella “pearls,” cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, bell pepper. Darn good.

–Got Clementines and broccoli at the Folsom farmers market.

–Crypto prices seem to be rebounding a bit. A guy on reddit showed a very cool chart: how long it takes Bitcoin price to come back after a correction. Maybe a dozen data points since 2018, with early rebounds taking ~12 months, more recent ones ~2-3 months, with a definite downward trend. Promising.

–Went to BofA in Carmichael to get ATM card working. Works.

–Stock market is tanking and–unfortunately–crypto is going down at the same rate. Was hoping they were a little less correlated. Bought $5k of Bitcoin at Kraken. Didn’t seem like seven days since last purchase, but I’ll have to check history.

–Finally got bagels at Noah’s. Expensive.

–Took a shower.

–Some progress in online finance: Tried again in Edge to set up a link between BofA and Heritage. Failed again. Went to Safari and succeeded immediately. Don’t know what it is about Edge–ad blocker perhaps–but it has given me problems. So I now have Edge and Safari in the dock–Safari for Kraken, BofA, Heritage, Vanguard; Edge for everything else. Took a little setting up, but it works fine.

–Played with watches, got some more thoughts (and crystals) sorted out.

–Cranked up the Veepeak/Bimmercode app on the iPhone (it wouldn’t connect with the Samsung, possibly because I didn’t have the Veepeak pushed in far enough) and (a) turned off Auto Start-Stop and (b) defaulted to starting in Sport mode. Quick scare when I first tried to start it– it demanded that the key be placed near the steering wheel–but it was fine after that.

–Ordered yet another iPhone SE 2020 (black) from Apple. I love the Samsung, but the Apple is smaller; I figured out how to open it without the passcode; it worked with Bimmercode; it handles calls better in terms of automated hearing aid/earpiece/headset transitions; etc.

–Things continue to fall apart:

–On the brighter side, the Rolex bezel remover came in; blades are nicked up, but I’m working on them. The On-Board Diagnostic tool came in; I bought the Bimmercode app on my Samsung and will probably brick the Electronic Control Unit tomorrow. Ha Ha! Just kidding!

–Went to Noah’s for bagels. Skeleton crew and no sesame bagels.

–and that’s about it…

–Tested the Mini: putting it in Sport mode after starting does disable the auto-stop function.

–Still can’t buy crypto at Kraken (seven-day $10k rule, though it seems like today would be okay). [edit] Tried again at 8:30 PM and was able to buy $5,000 Ethereum via BofA. Still can’t set up transfers at BofA for Heritage: they seem to be looking for ATM card info instead of checking/savings account info. Guess I’ll try it in person.

–Bought and installed Bimmercode on the Samsung; ordered an OBD (on-board diagnostic) connector from Amazon. Should allow me to do many things to the Mini, like starting in Sport mode.

–Took the Mini to the Folsom farmers market for clementines and broccoli, then to Black Sails for coffee–he hadn’t put it out yet. Went back a couple of hours later and got it.

–Took a shower.

–Got a call from Vanguard and sorted out my login problem. It was not–as I suspected–a case of all new accounts having a seven-day hold. It seemed to be the the ad blocker in Edge. I white-listed V in the blocker and all seems good. It looks like I could get access to Grace’s accounts, but I’d need her phone for the 2FA.

–Tried to buy some bitcoin at Kraken, was told no: $10k max in a rolling seven-day period (I was able to buy $5k Algorand yesterday via Heritage). This is getting surrealistic.

–Picked up the Mini Cooper S at Niello. They initially wanted to add a $5,000 “market adjustment” and a $995 tracking device. I put the kibosh on those pretty quick. Car is small, nimble, not terribly powerful, and may have a front-end wobble of some sort. All in all it seems sort of anti-climactic: nice new car, nowhere to go.

–Called support at Vanguard (got the number from google, not Vanguard). The good: I got a tech on the phone pretty quickly. The bad: she wasn’t terribly knowledgeable, and apparently it’s fairly common for new accounts to be on hold for 7 days–except for Grace’s. Super annoying how I’m not being allowed to move/access my money.

–Takada santoku came in. Nice polish, but feels kind of sterile factory rather than hand-made. Will sell or something.

–Not a word–phone or email–from John Escudero at Vanguard. I emailed him yesterday after our call, and left him a voice message today. Very disappointing. [edit] John called around 3 PM, introduced us to a tech who walked us through the elaborate procedure of setting up the transfers, which should be final in a week or so. Meanwhile, I had to use Safari to log in, perhaps because I had the anti-paywall extension on (not clear), and now I have a hold on my account. The delays in my attempts to organize/optimize my finances are really getting obnoxious.

–Went to Costco with Grace for water, polish sausage, pasta, peanut butter pretzels, toilet paper. Then to Bel Air for apples, milk, cream cheese, cream cheese.

–Spent a while trying to figure out how to order pickup pizza at Il Forno Classico. Gave up and ate Marie (so to speak).

–Got a call from Niello BMW: the Mini Cooper is here. Will pick it up on Thursday.

–Kraken said all okay after I sent them a carefully posed photo last night. Then I tried to buy Algorand: nope. Turns out it IS the fault of Heritage, or its ACH. Can’t wait to be rid of that bank.

–Koenig knife came in. About the same action as the Shirogorov, but nicer blade.

–I actually managed to buy $5k worth of Polkadot at Kraken using Heritage. Then tried to buy $5k of Algorand and got errors. Messaged them, got a quick response asking for big proof: photo of me holding a handwritten note, with drivers license attached. Did that. So far their customer service is great.

–Brewed another espresso with the small group. Still sings. Really annoying.

–Got clementines at the Folsom farmers market.

–Got epoxy at Home Depot. Filled the hole in the solenoid block, brewed an espresso. Didn’t see any leaks, but the machine sang like a canary when the pump was shut off. Don’t know whether to sell it like that (small group, singing), or put the large group on, or take it to Great Infusions, etc.

–Started looking into Morgan Stanley accounts and fees. Turns out we’re paying Dick >$2,000/month to handle our IRAs. This will stop.

–Got the $131.66 DHL charge for shipping the 5512 dial back to Italy reimbursed by the eBay seller.

–I ordered (via Kirill Yuzh) an amazing-looking 1967 Rolex 5513 fromTropical Watch: meters first dial, long 5 insert, sharp-edged case (polished), hand lume slightly lighter than dial lume (thus proving they are not recent color-matched hands), 1967 rivet bracelet, II.67 dated caseback. They don’t get much better.

–Got a call from Niello BMW that my Mini-Cooper is on the way from the Bay Area. Yay!