–Went to the Folsom farmers market for asian pears, oranges, broccoli, radishes, and a couple of plants (dill seeds and a Holy Mole hot pepper).

–Took some photos with the Leica and the two Voigtlanders. I still like the Color Skopar, though managed to get pretty wild bokeh from both. Don’t know why I bought the Nokton: it’s the same 35mm as the Skopar, and not preternaturally fast. If you want to take low-light pics (probably not the smartest way to shoot a viewfinder camera), get serious. Turns out if you take the camera off Auto and set a specific shutter speed, it shows you the left/right arrows and center dot for optimizing aperture, just like 25-year-old Contax film cameras I had. Pretty amazing.

–Sped up the main pool pump and Aux2. Seemed to (a) create more turbulence and (b) send all the fuchsia blossoms to the skimmer, thus clearing the pool.

–Took the BMW to Niello for a service. All fine. They checked the driver’s side mirror, couldn’t find any issues. Parked the car on the left, in the “single” spot–so Grace can have a chance to drive the Honda without having to worry about getting in and out. Hope I can get the Beemer in and out by myself unscathed.

–The Leica M 240 came in finally; works nice. The Nitecore charger charged it right up, so that expense was justified. Took some great photos of the camellia with (a) the Summicron 50/2 dual range that I cut down so it wouldn’t hit anything in the camera; (b) the Voigtlander Color Skopar 35/2.5; and (c) the Voigtlander Nokton 35/1.4. Right now I like the Voigts better than the Summicron. Tabbed focus rings move nicely and snap into focus, and the colors look great. It’s going to be a bit of a pain to either manually code them every time I put them on the camera or permanently code them with a 6-bit kit. OTOH, the Summicron also has to be manually coded. We’ll see.

–Put Grace’s file drawer together, no problem.

–Curtis Finton called. Asked about the “extra payment” I made in September 2020. Finally realized that it was probably related to the sale of 110 Playa Blvd., around May 2020. Whether related or not, it was a fortuitous catch: I hadn’t sent him Word One regarding the Playa sale. Unbelievable. So I copied all the maintenance expenses I could find (new electrical panel, etc.), and searched for (but couldn’t find) a single document in the file drawer or email archive that said “you got x dollars for this house on y date.” Called and left a message with Michael Casserd. As I said, unbelievable.

–Bose around-the-ear headphones came in. Could be exciting.

–Played with watches a bit. Don’t know what I’m going to do with all those old Speedmasters.

–Leica 240 did NOT come today; FedEx is stuck (again) in Elko, NV for some reason. Pisses me off.

–Mergress “bling” came in. Jewels in handle are actually pretty cool.

–Got some sandwiches for dinner at the Beach Hut Deli, and a Marie banana cream pie for dessert.

–Roasted caf beans.

–Took a shower. Tried (briefly) to shave with one of the blades that came with the Gillette double ring, which I had honed up a little. Nope. Shaved with a Wilkinson “Light Brigade” blade that was on its second or third use, having put it in the brass Charcoal Goods Everyday razor. Hadn’t cared much for the blade before (in a Blackbird and a Wolfman I think); today I got a fabulous shave and couldn’t even feel the blade. Wow! Torn over what to do with two CG razors, brass and stainless. Hate to give one up. We’ll see.

–Got a refund from Amazon on the Leica 262 with battery issues. Whew!

–Saw a couple of flickers on the lawn; got a fuzzy picture of one.

–Made another pan pizza, this time with bread flour. Came out really thick and…bready. Cooked at 550 for 15 minutes, solidifying the notion that 450 for 30 minutes is best.

–Went to both the Sunrise and Folsom farmers markets; got lots of stuff.

–Finished reading the latest Jack Reacher (The Sentinel) online. Not a real thriller, with lots of bongers–e.g., Reacher tries to open a gate by entering on a keypad the birthdays (MMDD) of Lenin, Hitler, Trotsky, and Stalin. I doubt there are two historians in the world who know those dates.

–Went on a quick bike ride (chilly); got a good picture of some tom turkeys in full display for some hens.

–Color Skopar lens came in. It’s tiny, all right. Also has a tab, not a ring for focusing, like the Nokton.

–Went up into attic to replace insulation. No can do–need a better staple gun, ladder, etc. Went to Cal Vintage Roofing to get recommendation on someone to hire. They gave me ABC Insulation. Called them; they will have an estimator call me back.

–Verified that the Rolex 5513 is running slow. Opened it and found a watchmaker’s inscription inside. Hard to believe (a) I didn’t notice that before, and (b) that the watch had ever been opened, given that Ivanov almost gave up on it. It’s possible the inscription (RTX…) was from Rolex Service Center in Texas; hard to say. Anyway, turns out the 1520 movement is one of maybe two that allows “standard” regulation, so I played with it until it read 0 s/d. Amplitude was 275, which seemed a little low to me, but the movement gleamed, so I’m not terribly worried.

–Made muffins for dessert.

–Pool sweep finally seems to be running okay, though it does appear to have a little tilt to it. Should be able to fine-tune speed with the bypass valve.

–Climbed up on the roof and swept off tree debris, with Grace outside watching the whole time. This (plus the bike ride for the Honda) seems to have exhausted me. Gettin’ old.

–Took pics of camellia and squirrel with the C-Lux. They came out pretty darn good.

–Spent a fair while going around and around with Health Equity (formerly Wage Works) re Sutter health care reimbursement. Turns out they don’t allow online applications now, so I had to print up the forms and mail them in.

–SEAL Team was almost unwatchable; it has become almost pure soap opera.

–Installed new toner cartridge on printer.

–Took some pictures of the red bushes by the pool with Leica C and C-Lux. That little C really holds its own.

–Got bagels at Noah’s.

–Made pizza for dinner. Darn good.

–Roasted some caf beans.

–Played with cameras. Leica C still rules the compacts. Will keep the Exilim ZS35 because of the awesome form factor and feel–even though it only has one metering mode (multi).

–Looked up Big Box Super Store, the Amazon dealer who sold me the Leica M 262. (1) They have two more in stock (I thought their original response to my return query was like “Well, we can’t replace it.”). (2) When I looked for warranty info, Amazon said “Contact seller for warranty info.” So I guess it is a gray market item, given that the other thing BBSS said regarding return was “Have you tried to initiate the warranty yet?”

–Marie for dinner.

–Got fruit/veggies at the light rail farmers market.

–Re-unboxed the Leica M 262. Put a voltmeter on the charger (and another charger); it certainly appears that the charger is putting out 0 volts, as the other one appeared to be putting out 8 or so. Rigged up one of my battery chargers to the Leica battery with some wires; doesn’t seem to be doing anything. If the (coming) Nitecore charger works on this battery, I may well keep the camera. Though it does look like a gray market unit (no warranty), given that the serial number appears to have been obscured with a sharpie under the plastic cover on the base. Very weird.

–Played around some more with the pool sweep. Given that it still turns circles after re-aiming the rear jet 5 times, I’m thinking the only cure will be slowing it down with a restrictor or bypass valve adjustment.

–Dropped tax docs off at Finton & Finton.

–A second set of hearing aid wax guards came in from same eBay seller as the first set. First ones were too large and didn’t fit. These were in a different color dispenser (same brand, though) and did fit. No idea why they sent two sets.

–Camellias (red, white and pink) are looking fabulous.

–Casio EX-ZS35 came in. 20 megapixels, 6x zoom, and just a stunning tiny luxurious-feeling case. Hard to believe what they put in a package that small. Going to be very hard to choose between that and the Leica C, which does raw and is also small and great in-hand.

–Played with the pool sweep some more. Turns out it’s running at 41 RPM (should be 28-30). Dropping both pumps way low had no effect. I need to work on it via restrictor and bypass valve–when the water warms up.

–Horribly enough, the Summicron 50 Dual Range that wouldn’t work on the M9 works great on the Sony A7R (with adapter, of course). Problem is, the Sony/Zeiss 55mm lens, with autofocus, blows the Summicron out of the water, at least at f2. I’ll be tossing the Summicron and Fujinons, and (maybe) calling it quits on old lenses. Exceptions would be Helios, Jupiter, etc. I can’t imagine how an old lens would stand up to the Sony/Zeiss, except for bokeh. That’s what I’ve been reading on the web for years, and chose to ignore in my quest for vintage coolness.

–Took a shower. The 1905 Gillette double ring is a nice shaver; the 1905 Gillette blade I tried was like shaving with a carpet knife.

–Pool sweep works. Runs too fast, but I believe that’s correctable.

–Leica M9 (Typ 242) came in. Battery and/or charger don’t work. Seems to be a fairly common problem. Contacted Amazon, who said item is not returnable but they will contact seller on my behalf and seller will get back to me within 48 hours. Meanwhile, I ordered a nice Nitecore charger. Turns out the Summicron 50 lens I bought ($1,500) is a “dual range” model, one of 3-4 nominal M lenses that don’t work on this camera. Hoping I didn’t hurt anything when I applied a little force to get the lens to focus at infinity, which it won’t. So that’s two dead Leicas in two weeks. Crap.

–Made pizza for dinner. For some reason (frozen dough?) it didn’t rise much and came out hyper-crispy. This could be hard to adjust, since the same dough (used fresh, not frozen) worked great a few days ago. I guess I cold cut the recipe in half…

–Took the Polaris apart again and eventually found a clog in the last possible place: a small right-angle tube that sends a jet of water to turn the paddlewheel. (1) The clog shouldn’t have gotten that far, what with all the filters. (2) It was several small bits of redwood debris. Still, I would have thought that the final huge filter would trap anything bigger than a few microns. (3) The tube should have had a smooth curve, not an abrupt right angle. Anyway, after a futile attempt to get it running right, I put the bottom back on, which holds the idler wheel (d’oh!) and found a website that went step-by-step in showing how to properly install and adjust the wheels. It will run right tomorrow, guaranteed.

–Checked the C-Lux on center-weighted, multi-area and spot metering. Multi wins out, at least for side-yard pictures in the sun.

–Gillette double ring from 1905 came in. Pretty cool.

–Watched an episode of Dr. Blake with subtitles. Much better.

–Organized batteries in the utility room.

–Pool sweep tail went crazy, stopped after I cleared a small obstruction from the back jet. Problem: even though back jet was spouting 20 feet, the wheels weren’t turning. We’ll see tomorrow.

–Leica Summicron lens came in. Looks super. Just need a camera now…

–Made my third pan pizza. This one finally got it all right. Cooked for 30 minutes at 450; crust was wonderful.

–Roasted caf beans. Figured out (maybe) how to eliminate chaff and smoke/scorching problems: use only 200g of beans, set max temp to 440 or so.

–UPS (Leica C-Lux) delayed again, until Monday.

–Took a shower. As feared, the Blackland Blackbird Jet is too aggressive for me. Now I have 17 Blackland Blackbirds to sell…

–Set up a charging station in the utility room.

–Waited in vain for UPS to deliver Leica C-Lux.

–Did some research on Pacific Grove water permits. Thick stuff.

–Turns out the multitude of hearing aid batteries I have, 312’s, are wrong. The hearing aids take #13 batteries. I tossed a bunch a while ago, but have a vague recollection that my confusion then was 310 vs. 312. I don’t know. Will order #13’s on eBay.

–Zenitar lens came in. A quick test suggested it’s better than the Fujinons, but focus ring is jerky. I’ll CLA it.

–Went to Roseville for vaccinations. Smooth. Stopped at Target on the way back, which didn’t have my eye drops or deodorant or yeast. Things is fallin’ apart…

–Eterna Kontiki watch case came in. Now I just need a nice dial/movement.

–Made 3 baguettes with King Arthur flour recipe. Takes all day, essentially, with 45 minutes between each of several rises.

–Identified a periwinkle plant by the back pool fence.

–Subscribed to Atlantic Monthly. Seems kind of like the New Yorker of 10 years ago, before it welcomed hyper-liberalism and coarse language.

–Cleaned the bird fountain; put the two hoses back in place.

–Got oranges, apples, radishes at the Folsom light rail farmers market.

–Dental pick, Froggy the Gremlin and long rubber gloves came in.

–Made pan pizza.

–Leica C-Lux fell prey to a “Mode dial is not in the proper position” fault last night. Very frustrating: sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Looking on google today showed this is a fairly common issue with point-and-shoot mode dials–Nikon, Lumix, etc.–probably all from the same factory in China. I played with it today. Took the back off and unclipped/reclipped a connector; blew a lot of compressed air on it; etc. It works now, but I may buy another just to avoid the anxiety over the next failure. [edit: Failed again just now (3 PM). Bought another from Amazon.]

–Started dough for a pan pizza tomorrow.

–Did big shopping for Grace’s list at Bel Air.

–Leica C-Lux came in. It also feels good to hold. There was some scary stuff at first (uncentered focus point, cluttered screen), but after a second round of setup all looked good. And the photos are astounding. Using mega-zoom and auto focus on the hummingbird feeder, I can read all the text on it. Further, the jpg’s seem to allow as much manipulation as the rwl’s; don’t know that I even need to shoot raw on this camera. FINALLY!!

–Grace is in a snit again.

–Took a shower. New Pearl razor is okay, but really heavy. Vintage Gibbs razor is small but superb. A winner!

–Replaced hearing aid batteries at 9 AM.

–Got error messages trying to install Lightroom on Grace’s Mac. Turns out she wants to repair photos anyway, not just optimize exposure and such. So she’s going with GIMP, already on her computer. After a fair amount of hassle and a chat session at Adobe, my Lightroom activation count was reset to zero. I uninstalled it then reinstalled it, and it sings now. A win.

–Finally sorted out the Leica C-Lux rwl photo editor mess. Can use MetaImage to change make/model to PANASONIC/DC-ZS200, which will allow Affinity to edit files–though not Lightroom. Considering upgrading the Mac OS to the latest, thus losing Lightroom. Will probably depend on how slick I can make the Affinity interface.

–Left hearing aid out at 5 PM.

–Got apples (Hooverville), radishes, oranges (Kelso), andouille sausage at the light rail farmers market.

–Made BLTs for dinner with no-knead bread. Pretty good.

–A pretty nothing day.

–Reinstalled some photo editors; reaffirmed that nothing can touch Lightroom. Raw Power is close, mostly because of a beautifully simple interface.

–Pearl razor came in, along with a brush, shaving cream, and a zillion blades. Looks nice.

–White Casio Exilim came in. Nice shape. Compared it to black one, was going to switch cases, but then noticed black one has damage on top metallic parts (independent of case). Kept it as it came.

–Heard on the news that Sutter is vaccinating 65+. Signed up online. Grace got an email from Sutter this morning. I didn’t.

–Started some no-knead bread.

–Took a shower. Final test with the Wolfman razor. Worked okay, some self-healing bleeding. Will keep for now. At the rate I shave, I’ll only be using it twice a year.

–Fiddled with the pool sweeper a little more. Re-aimed the nozzle and set both main and aux2 pumps to 2,500 RPM.

–Roasted some caf beans. Came out nice.

–Went to Noah’s for bagels; it was closed.

–Chopped up the remaining wind storm tree debris.

–Made blackberry-lemon pancakes for breakfast (Grace’s Christmas present). Yuck.

–Cleaned up some tree debris outside. Worked a little on the pool sweeper, which was really slow today. Didn’t see anything that might cause slowness.

–Got some clementines, oranges, radishes, broccoli and Brussels sprouts at the Folsom farmers market. Had an orange with lunch: quite good for $1/pound.

–Pool pump and sweeper seemed to run for (what I hoped was) the programmed amount of time.

–Took a shower. The Phoenix Ascension copper razor worked great with a Derby Extra blade, though I did get a non-self-healing nick, perhaps due to over-confidence.

–Replaced hearing aid batteries at 9 AM.

–Took some photos with the Casio Exilim ZR700 after bumping up sharpness, saturation and contrast +1 each. Really phenomenal. The zoom is so long it can overfill the frame with the hummingbird feeder. And both a long zoom and a medium zoom allowed text to be read on the feeder; I don’t think any of the other small cameras can do that.

–Lots of rain. Got a second hose at Home Depot for draining the pool, if necessary.

–Left hearing aid went out at 10:30 PM.

–Cleaned up outside. Several large limbs came down in the wind.

–Casio Exilim came in. I ordered gold, seller said it was a mistake and was silver, whereas the camera is actually white. Looks okay, though. Metering (in low light, anyway) is miles ahead of the little Leica. More (brighter) comparisons tomorrow.

–Went shopping with Grace at Bel Air.

–Back is better (this evening; bad all day).

–Nenox paring came in. Small flaw on blade, very faded red handle. Crap.

–Back still hurts a lot.

–Did pretty much nothing today.

–Went to the light rail farmers market for radishes, cabbage, onions, clementines.

–Planted the mandarin clementine. Wrecked back immediately, then decided to replant it farther from the fence. Hope it grows.

–Brass Blackland razor came in. Looks nice, probably too aggressive.

–Casio Exilim came in. Works okay, but a couple of small chips on the LCD screen, and getting RAW requires Best Shot, which has its issues. E.G., it will ask you to pop up the flash if it thinks it needs it, regardless of whether you have forced flash off. So, I ordered a NEW Exilim, also 16 megapixels, but ultra slim like the one I had, and without some of the bells and whistles of the more advanced ones, like 9 shots with one shutter release for auto bracketing, ISO, etc. Also, got out the tiny Leica point-and-shoot, and noticed a weird color cast. The little Leica and the Casio were both warm and yellowish, while the Leica C is cool  and bluish. I recall the previous Exilim I bought some months ago also had color issues, so I’m really curious how the new one will look. Took a reference photo with the Sony AR7, and was again blown away by the quality. Might play with the color modes in the Leica C (standard, natural, vivid, B&W) to find one that works best. Also dropped the exposure on that camera 1/3 EV, as it seemed to be over-exposing a little compared to the Casio.

–Roasted caf and caf beans (bought Monkey Espresso from Sweet Maria’s by mistake, thinking it was decaf like the nearby Donkey Espresso). It sure tastes better than decaf, and should be okay if I drink it early enough in the day.

–Went to Green Acres in Folsom and got a mandarin clementine.

–Ascension copper razor came in. Very nice.

–Pulled the door off the Jenn Air oven so we could pull it out and replace the microwave with the new Panasonic. Messed up the hinges (again). Spent a long time figuring them out, but by then they were toast. Really poor design and cheap construction.

–Took a shower. Tried the Wolfman razor again, and again it seemed rough and harsh. Put the blade in the Paradigm 17-4 and got a nice shave. Now I have several Wolfmen to sell.

–Grace fell in the swimming pool.

–Made turkey burgers for dinner.

–Got 13 sesame bagels at Noah’s.

–Went for a quick, windy bike ride. AQI is 1 today.

–Went to Bel Air for meat, eggs, peanut butter, dessert, etc.

–Polished razor caps. Re-learning from 7-8 years ago (with knife sharpening) that one of the hardest aspects of polishing at this level is seeing. There was cloudiness on the Paradigm 17-4 that I worked on for a long time. Not sure I got rid of it–just got tired of trying to find the exact light/angle/distance at which I could see it.

–Ordered Sweet Maria’s caf and decaf beans.

–Jurgen Hempel Torpedo razor handle came in. Looks nice, but like the UFO handle, doesn’t really complement any of my razors. Hmm…

–Re: lion’s head engraving on Wolfman razor. Seller hasn’t responded to questions; just sent an email to Wolfman himself, but not really expecting an answer. Internet search finds ONE other engraving on a Wolfman: a “backwards” Army flag (i.e., a U.S. flag as it would look on a pole being carried by someone marching into battle). So, I’m pretty sure the lion is a custom request, and the guy I bought it from was not the first owner, and has no clue what it means.

–Went to the Folsom farmers market for mandarins and radishes. Saw some giant cauliflowers.

–Got a pole for the Wall Whale at Callen Pool. Works fine.

–Took a shower. Paradigm razor worked as advertised. Very smooth, one tiny weeper that healed itself before the shave was done (Wilkinson blade on its second use).

–Finally got the refund from eBay for the dud Contax N Digital

–1969 Gillette Black Beauty came in. Cleaned it up with some effort, popped the end cap and put some mineral oil in–that was the only way to stop a persistent squeak. Nice now.

–Paradigm razor came in from Australia (no maker’s marks), as did Blackland SB base plate (irrelevant, as I just ordered a titanium version). Did some polishing to the cap. That 17-4 stainless is indeed hard. Made good progress though starting with the soft felt wheel.

–Canon 1D X II came in. Already looking to replace it with a Sony. It weighs a ton, has a zillion buttons, two zillion submenus, and incredibly cumbersome focus magnification (LED screen only). Yuk.

–Neither USPS nor FedEx delivered today as they had promised.

–Borealis Estoril bezel finally came in from Portugal. Fortunately, bezel and insert were separate, so no risk of breaking insert when installing. Looks good.

–Accessories came in for the non-working Contax N Digital. Unbelievably complete set: manuals in German and English, two European plugs, AC adapter, CD, etc. After checking some stuff in the manual, I got EVERYTHING to work: jpg/raw, sensor cleaning, etc. It writes a file to the memory card (jpeg or raw), but the image is black. Really hoping I can find another N Digital with a good sensor and build one good camera. P.S. The camera failed quickly and totally with new Duracell Optimum batteries, then worked perfectly with freshly-charged NiMH 2700 mAh batteries–just like Eunjong Song said it would. Oh well…

–Replaced hearing aid batteries at 9 AM.

–Took a shower. Both open-comb razors (Blackbird and Wolfman) seemed harsh on second pass. Don’t know what’s happening.

–Made turkeyburgers, baked beans, and Brussels sprouts for dinner. Good stuff.

–Picked up mandarins, radishes, almonds at the Folsom farmers market.

Tried polishing the Wolfman razor stand with the “Foredom.” No luck.

–Cosmetic jars came in. Transferred Martin de Candre rose shaving soap to one. Cool!

–Cleaned up outside a bit. Reloaded the garden bird feeder.

–1969 Gillette Black Beauty (gold) came in. Nice after a little polish/cleaning.

–Wall Street Journal editorial said Trump should resign. Peggy Noonan said “Get rid of him. Now.”

–Went to Bel Air for milk, cream, cheese. Not all that fond of the (previous favorite) Castello blue–way too salty. Need to get back to Taylor’s for some St. Agur.

–Rubberset brush came in. Despite the attractive eBay photos, it is deeply blemished–corrosion spots I’m guessing, like all the others. It is a number 4 (my first), so I spent a long time polishing the brush collar so I could mount it on a cleaner handle.

–Trump supporters mobbed the Capitol. Wish I were in New Zealand.

–Wolfman Darwin handle came in. Nice.

–Microwave oven failed after I cooked a Marie. Grace had to use the real oven. Maybe now we get new appliances.

–Got sesame bagels at Noah’s.

–Had sausage and leftover potato salad for dinner; made brownies for dessert.

–Went to Harbor Freight for buffer wheels. Nope. Went to Lowe’s across the street. After much looking and almost giving up, found some 4″ and 6″ wheels. Prepped them on the buffer, with garage door open and fan on. The yellow ones (harder) seemed to work well in terms of minimizing swirl on the Tradere stainless razor.

–Went to Folsom farmers market for mandarins, radishes, almonds, Brussels sprouts, limes.

–After a ton of searching to see if Lightroom 6.14 would handle Canon 1DX II files (including a Lightroom 6.5 blind alley), I remembered that I could download sample RAW files for this camera model. I did, and Lightroom worked. Nearly 50 people are watching an eBay auction for a new 1DX II, currently at $2,000. Will $3,777 take it? Hard to say.

–Replaced hearing aid batteries at 8:30 AM.

–Took a shower. Tried the new Wolfman razor with a Wilkinson sword blade. Felt a little choppy, got a couple of nicks. Beard was not as long as usual, though, so who knows. Certainly not a slam dunk for razor or blade.

–Took a couple pics with one-day-old batteries in the N Digital, useless. Returned it, over the seller’s vehement objections.

–Wolfman satin finish razor came in: flawless. Feels good in hand, too. Wish I could heft a few of these razors without knowing their prices to see if this is just a sort of Tiffany effect (I paid a fortune, it must be good).

–Tristan da Cunha cap came in. A little small, but cool.

–Opened all heating vents everywhere. Reset temps and times.

–Both Contax cameras came in. Working model didn’t work well until I put new high-end AA batteries in. Now everything seems to work. Photos are dim and (perhaps) red-toned; I hope to remedy at least the dimness with a 1.4 lens just ordered from Japan (current lens is a Vario 3.5). Not as scuffed up as I had feared. Non-working one has a great case, but doesn’t write to memory. Also (as I recall from a previous non-working N Digital) it will not go into RAW mode using the “Custom Settings” or “Custom Modes” menus (that is, it won’t go into RAW mode at all–just defaults to jpeg). Found a guy on youtube/instagram who might be able to swap bodies, but that’s probably too risky, especially given that the working one isn’t really bad.

–Thor tamper came in. Sort of ugly wood (I knew that), heavier than expected, works fine.

–Grace is in a snit.

–Bell Brothers came by at 8 AM and got the heat pump running. I don’t know when they might have shown up if I hadn’t called them yesterday.

–Went to Black Sails (twice) to pick up the coffee I ordered yesterday.

–Painted black numbers in on the Gillette red dot, and a red ring on the Eclipse Red Ring. Came out pretty good.

–Recycled all the Christmas wrappings/boxes.

–Took a shower.

–Swept the ashes out of the fireplace. Didn’t help much with the odor.

–Went to Target and got a HEPA air purifier. Didn’t do much either.

–Went to the Folsom Blvd. farmers market for almonds, mandarins, radishes.

–Made a THICK crust pizza for dinner.. Turned out pretty good.

–Opened Christmas presents with coffee cake and coffee.

–Had apple pie and ice cream for dessert.

–Went to Bel Air for eggs. Dropped off a Christmas card for Imelda.

–Put a Christmas tape on the reel-to-reel, got it playing.

–Replaced hearing aid batteries at 8:30 AM.

–Rolex diamond dial Day-Date was supposed to be here by Noon; not here at 5:30.

–Left hearing aid battery went out at 5:30 PM.

–Bell Brothers heating guy came this morning (early). Turns out we have two heat pumps (not one pump/three zones). The second is only accessible via the hatch on the house wall above the garden. The “sequencer” on that failed, and will be replaced for $350. Whew!

–Downloaded and watched “Bad Boys for Life” on the TV. Glitzy, but preposterous. Bad guys not only didn’t shoot straight, a lot of times they didn’t even shoot. Etc.

–Did some shopping at Bel Air. Haven’t seen Imelda in a fair while.

–Tried to take some photos of the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction with the Leica Q2. Crappy. Movement on some, out of focus on many; camera seems to focus beyond infinity.

–Horrible electrical smell this morning. Seems the motor for the family room furnace baffle burned out. Other two zones still working. Bell Brothers will be out Tuesday to check it out. Meanwhile, radiators in the living room.

–Went to Taylor’s Market for New York steaks, blue cheese crumbles, Acme bread for Christmas.

–Bought two Contax N Digital cameras: one that works but has a scruffy bottom and zero accessories, and one that doesn’t work but has a manual and some plugs (probably not the plug I would need to lock up the mirror, though).

–Bought a Blackland Blackbird razor, machine finish.

–Masamoto KS carbon came in (two weeks late). Had a really hard time chiseling off the grotesque plastic handle, then discovered it had a hollow spot on the blade. Tossed it.

–Compared the Rolex diamond dial I just returned to others on eBay. In hindsight, it’s laughably fake. There’s a beautiful black diamond dial available, but it only fits five-digit Presidents (18038 etc.). Don’t know if I want to buy it and keep it in the chest for a watch someday or not. Kinda like the 5512 “tritinova” dial I have: it could be a long time and a lot of money before I find an appropriate vehicle for that.

–Accidentallt found Thom Brogan at Badger and Blade last night. He responded “yessir” to a PM asking if that was THE Thom Brogan, but went silent when I asked if he wanted to resume our correspondence. (1) He may think I was responsible for the downfall of Fred’s Cutlery Forum. (2) I have the vaguest recollection of a nasty exchange on a blog of his post-Fred. It’s been over a month since I’ve heard from Lee Elliott too, after he went on and on about how he was going to dedicate some time each day for corresponding. Nobody likes me.

–Went Christmas shopping for Grace at Oto’s, Sakura (near Osaka-Ya) and Staples. Done, I hope.

–Roasted caf and decaf beans.

–Spruced up outside a bit.

–Took a shower. Had a nice shave with the Blackland Tradere razor and Personna “red” blade.

–BIG shopping at Food Maxx.

–Got on the phone with Xfinity. Our one-year deal is up, with the rate going from $120 to $193. After a while, settled on same service at $145 ($105 plus a lot of fees, taxes, etc.). Could be worse…

–Got bagels at Noah’s.

–Got Rolex Day-Date back from Ivanov’s for $10. She said nothing was done, everything was fine. Not true. (1) That screw was seriously wedged in. (2) That wedged screw had a dome top; the new screw is flat, as it should be. (3) There are a couple of noticeable gouges around the screw hole that weren’t there when I took it in. Anyway, I put the watch back together with the original black dial and hands, and it runs great.

–Marie for dinner.

–Trying to prep for Christmas: took all art upstairs, put up the manger scene, moved the upstairs fireplace grate to the downstairs fireplace and added an extension to the damper handle. Still hard to close.

–Left hearing aid battery quit around 8 PM.

–Bad day.

–Bought Belgian coticule at The Shave Nook. Five messages from the seller came in unnoticed by me (and they don’t send email notifications). Finally saw the messages and paid for the stone.

–Communicated with eBay dealer who sold me the fake(?) Rolex diamond dial. Turns out I’m too late (61 days) to do a standard eBay return, so he’s going to send me a FedEx label.

–Went to Devon’s at Roseville Galleria to pick up the Rolex Day-Date that came back from RSC because of “non-Rolex” dial. Did some Christmas shopping. Had lunch at MacDonald’s on the way home.

–Took the Day-Date movement to Ivanov’s to ask them to free up the (incorrect) stemlock screw they installed.

–Overcast day, with a few tiny sprinkles.

–Tossed Titoni watch: date change only goes halfway, even after complete disassembly. Had the usual problems with stem reinsertion, but seemed to fix it by pulling the dial and fiddling with the mechanism from that side.

–Firefox started acting up–wouldn’t bookmark sites. After a lot of fruitless hair-pulling, I switched over to Microsoft Edge. Seems to work okay.

–Konosuke petty came in; nice. Used oven method to remove stock handle and replace it with a nicer Kono petty handle. The blade literally slid out of the stock handle while sitting in a 225 oven. Unbelievable.

–Found a Blackland Tradere razor for sale at Damn Fine Shave. Needed 10 posts + 2 weeks before I could PM seller, so asked John Gnagy (whence I obtained the Simpson Centenary brush) at Badger and Blade if he could PM Tradere seller with my email address. It worked! Tradere on the way.

–Saw a large hawk land and take off under the poolside bird feeder. Probably after a rat, but didn’t seem to catch it.

–Titoni watch came in. Super nice.

–Made blueberry muffins for dessert.

–Boxed and labeled 7 Christmas packages; dropped them off at the post office so I could get a receipt.

–Clean air (for a change) and 70 degrees got me out on the bike. Nice ride.

–Mergress razor came in. Beauty.

–Cleaned pool pump strainer, long overdue. Added chlorine to pool.

–Took a shower/shave. Rocnel razor is heavy (thought I would like heavy more than I seemed to), felt smooth most places but very aggressive on my upper lip. Closest shave ever, with one small self-healing nick. I wonder if the weight is why so many guys put tier-2 handles on tier-1 heads. Probably not, just personal preference for different handle styles.

–Went to the farmers market at Folsom and Sunrise (light rail station parking lot). Pretty nice, lots of produce, minimum gifty stuff. Got some great mini-tangerines, oranges, and some Winters Fruit Tree dips/jams for Tom/Kati and me.

–3-way valve (discharge or exhaust valve) runs constantly into the drip tray on first shot from Maximatic, not on second. I believe it’s because I’m using too much coffee, too finely ground. Hoping it goes away with the bigger grouphead using (proportionally) less coffee/coarser grind, as I have no idea how to access the valve and really don’t want to dig into that machine.

–Puy gas in the Honda.

–Did a little Christmas shopping at Bed Bath & Beyond. Had lunch at Five Guys.