–Went to UPS to send off packages and pick up Nexium.

–Put gas in the Honda. Last time was in August.

–Played with watches. Was going to swap dials on the two Day-Dates, but chickened out after getting them apart.

–Took the BMW to Brainy Zoo Toys for a second “volleyball” game. Then to the post office to mail Rob’s present. Was reminded that the PO is on strike in Canada. Took it to UPS (where I dropped off Jan’s goody box) and they’ll send it to Canada for $47. Yikes.

–Lunch at McDonald’s.

–Dinner from Jacks Urban Eats.

–Played with cameras, replicating last year’s Christmas card neighbor shots with D-Lux 7, SL, SL2-S and Q-P. Q-P continues to surprise. The SL2-S may be technically better, but the Q-P takes some very pleasing photos.

–Put gas in the BMW.

–Got a haircut.

–Went to Bel Air for dessert, milk, cream cheese, coffee. No more Peet’s for me: I didn’t notice until I got home that the package weighed 10.7 ounces. Several other quality roasters are still doing 12 ounces.

–Took Grace shopping at Brainy Zoo Toys at Folsom Premium Outlets. I think she got most of what she needed for relatives and god-children.

–Re-heated a Blaze pizza for dinner. Pretty soggy.

–The Silkie (BMW) to the Folsom farmers market (Honda had a dead battery from trunk lid being ajar for a while) for Clenentines.

–Took Grace shopping at Target.

–Played with crypto. Was moving stuff from Coinbase to Phantom wallet, got a notice from CB about delays due to security checks. So decided to go back to Kraken. Discovered another wrinkle at Kraken involving unused/used/expiring receive addresses. Too many weirdnesses at Kraken, so back to Coinbase. The moves went okay; they just urged me to get a hardware key, so I ordered a(nother) Yubikey from eBay. No more wallets/Kraken/Robinhood/Gemini/Binance/etc. Coinbase is fine, and should be pretty bulletproof with a hardware key, I hope.

–Went to Nugget Market in El Dorado Hills for Margherita pizza. They had barbecued chicken and pepperoni. Got pepperoni. Fine, but not nearly as good as Margherita.

–Picked up Meades front flipper at UPS. Beautiful mammoth tooth scales, but without a clip it’s really hard to manipulate. Frustrating.

–Picked up prescriptions for upcoming cataract sutgery at Rite-Aid.

–Paid State Farm insurance bill for BMW: $647.78. That’s > $100/month.

–Barbecued a turkey. Temperature on the Weber read 200-300; it took 1.5 hours. Used applewood chips for the first (and last) time: tons of smoke, not much flavor. Nice day though.

–Didn’t do much today. Made “dinner” by broiling some sausages and microwaving Kenny’s baked potato.

–Went to Bel Air for bagels.

–Raked the back patio; pulled leaves out of plants. In my first close look in months at the bizzaro succulent from Pot Stop, I found that 3 of 9 sprigs I poked into the soil long ago were dead, so pulled them out. Still don’t know if it’s going to live or just take 3 years to die.

–Played with watches. Looks like the Sea Dweller is going to need service: I have to take the back off and spin the balance wheel to get it going.

–Played with cameras, after the Leica C failed to zoom or focus on a squirrel eating Chinese Pistache berries. Switching over to the D-Lux 7: less zoom than the C-Lux, but slightly better quality.

–Frozen Mega-Bowls for dinner.

–Played with photo editors again. Leaning towards the Apple Photos app that I discovered a couple days ago. Only uses one window, doesn’t require a library, works smoothly, has denoise, etc. My main hesitation (irrational) is that it’s too good for an app I thought was only useful for moving pics between iPhone and Mac.

–Went to Bel Air for milk, cream cheese, and a bunch of stuff for Grace.

–Nice sunny day; stayed inside.

–Gave Grace a little help with photo editing. Was sort of enjoying the weird Lightroom app that I downloaded from the Apple app store last night–partially because I thought it was so much leaner than the stuff I download from Adobe with all the Creative Cloud crap. Then I noticed its size: 6.6 gigabytes. Given that one of my entirely serviceable editors was 50 megabytes, off it went. I know Adobe is intrusive, always watching you, etc., but in what universe does a photo editor APP need 6.6 gigs of space?

–Yet another quiet day.

–Played more with photo editors. Long story short: downloaded the Lightroom app from the Apple store; apparently I bought it in early 2021. For a breathless moment I thought I had a standalone app, but no, it says “Subscribed.” At least it’s WAY smaller than the bloated Creative Cloud stuff I downloaded from Adobe. It’s so much easier to use (see) than DXO, I may stay with it until my subscription expires next September, then think again.

–Rain all day.

–Had lunch at Beach Hut Deli.

–Had the colonoscopy done: no polyps, no more colonoscopies.

–My crypto holdings are doing nicely. Hope I’m able to take some profits before they crash.

–Red Baron pizza for dinner.

–The rain came.

–Finally got Coinbase set up with Ally and Heritage checking accounts as payment methods. Onward!

–Took a shower and shave.

–Started bowel prep around 5:30. Still gurgling at 9:30; still not clear.

–Finally heard from Coinbase that account restrictions have been lifted. Went there and moved cash into BTC, SOL and ETH. Then went to Kraken and withdrew all (same three) to Trust Wallet. Don’t know if I’ll move stuff from CB to TW or vice versa. I don’t want to spook the folks at CB with a whole bunch of transactions–as that might be what caused the initial restriction.

–Vacuumed leaves in the alley prior to rain.

–Deleted all Binance accounts. May get cheap phone and try to set one up again with the new number.

–Vicolo pizza for dinner.

–Went around and around again with photo editors. There’s been improvement since I last did this, but Lightroom still clobbers all of them. Really frustrating. After much re-testing, will go with Affinity for now.

–Ditto with crypto. There are small glimmers at Coinbase and Binance, but no go yet.

–Took Grace shopping in El Dorado Hills: farmers market and Nugget.

–Played a lot with photo editors. Lightroom still kicks butt, unfortunately. Nitro (new from the RAW Power guys) has its attractions. DXO Photolab has an impressive array of controls, but perhaps too many: the jpgs coming out of it are pretty weird. Could be me, of course.

–Had a really good margherita pizza from nugget for dinner.

–Yet another quiet day. Went over to see neighbor Jan Muehlbauer, who’s moving out (husband John is quite ill). She gave us her lemon grass plant, which Grace has used with great success in flavoring meals. And the universe continues to shrink…

–Walked to UPS to pick up Boguszewski survival knife. Pretty impressive.

–Played with photo editors a lot. After some major missteps and confusion, found that DXO Photolab 8 Elite is reall slick. Smooth as silk, infinitely customizable, nice control. Hoping the search has ended.

–Took a selfie with license to try and get back on Gemini for crypto. Got back on, but with big restrictions. I “verified my identity,” which “should only take a few minutes,” but it’s been many hours. Here we go again.

–Paid State Farm $322.81 for Honda insurance.

–Took Grace shopping at Smart & Final.

–Was going to do dermatology and colonoscopy on the same day; Grace said no. Re-scheduled skin check: February. Not happy.

–Consolidating crypto at Robinhood. Turns out the $4k I couldn’t spend at Kraken was an open order for BTC that I’d placed by accident in Kraken Pro a few days ago. it wasn’t going anywhere unless BTC came down to $82k, which will be a while. Took me a long time to find the open order and cancel it. Kraken has great customer service, but the line between Kraken and Kraken Pro is really hazy. I was using Pro because redditors said it was cheaper. (a) I’m not sure it is, and (b) it’s super easy to get lost there. Robinhood is not perfect, but it’s okay for a while. Tried binance.us again, and again got tangled up in multiple logins with the same phone number, which (I believe) would not let me get verified there. Crap. Maybe in a few weeks I’ll be able to get back on Coinbase–but I sort of doubt it. Gemini could also work, but they seem to have dropped me like others for too many accounts under one phone number.

–Went to New York Bagel for bagels, also got a couple sesame bagel dogs which we had for dinner. Pretty good. Then to KP Market for fruit.

–Played some more with photo editors. RAW Power again looks like the only possible alternative to Lightroom.

–Did some crypto of course. Gotta put in some stop-loss for when the bull slows down.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Crypto market is going bonkers; I’m making millions (almost). Things seem to be okay at Kraken, though connecting to banks can be hit-or-miss sometimes.

–Took Grace Thanksgiving shopping at Bel Air.

–Dinner from Jack’s Urban Eats.

–FINALLY got crypto settled. Went to Kraken Pro on a whim, added a couple bank accounts, immediately bought some Cardano (not many places offer it). Given my bank woes on standard Kraken, this was a miracle. So—I moved all my Crypto out of Trust Wallet into Kraken. We be hummin’ now…

–Went to Bel Air for bagels, milk, cream, cream cheese, cookies.

–Red Baron pizza for dinner.

–Yet another quiet day. Took some photos, played with crypto. Pretty much done with Kraken: several attempts to link bank accounts failed. Putting all my eggs in Robinhood for now.

–Quiet day. Spent most of it reconciling/organizing/optimizing my crypto holdings in (eventually) Phantom Wallet. It’s way ahead of all the others in usability.

–Tried to buy BTC on Trust Wallet via Ramp–every account, every card–all refused. Tried to set up Kraken Wallet on the iPhone. As with Coinbase Wallet, it found BTC and ETH, but not SOL. Gettin’ tired of this.

–Abutilon is going bonkers. Even my cuttings seem to be sprouting roots.

–Picked up lemon drops and Cremina Min/Max decals at UPS, and learned that Sonya, who has run the place for 30 years, retired 11/5.

–Slowly getting crypto sites working; making some money on Bitcoin.

–Took the BMW to Home Depot for a Ridgid shop vac, Smart & Final for stuff.

–Got an appointment and instructions for colonoscopy. What a nightmare that’s going to be: almost two days without eating.

–Tried to close crypto.com account on phone. They never sent the final auth code. I just deleted the app. Good riddance–the site was a nightmare of flashing offers.

–Did a little “yard” work.

–Red Baron for dinner.

–Did crypto all day. Having issues with Ally: turns out their savings account allows 10 transfers/statement period (many banks only allow 6). My statement period ends 11/23, so of course everything I’ve done in crypto has added a transfer. Turns out checking accounts have no such restrictions; had I known, I could have moved a ton of money from savings to checking and been done with it. As it is, I’m allowed two more transactions in 20 days—maybe only one, as they are delaying a wire transfer I did today for no obvious reason. Further, I get error messages (Could Not Process Payment) at Gemini when I try to buy with Ally savings OR checking. What a buncha crap. I did manage to buy some Bitcoin with Heritage. ALSO getting issues at Kraken trying to move stuff to my Trust Wallet–some gobbledygook about timing restrictions or such. Super annoying.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Daylight Savings Time ended today. One of the least-publicized transitions I’ve experienced.

–Took the BMW to El Dorado Hills: Bakerie Latte for dessert, Nugget market for apples and cheese. Then McDonald’s Gold River for lunch, Bel Air for milk, cream, mild Italian sausage.

–Decided to move to Gemini: interface is just much cleaner/clearer than Kraken’s. Successfully moved SOL and ETH to Trust Wallet for the switch, but failed several times to move BTC. Put in a support request at Kraken.

–Slow day, drizzly and cool. Played with cameras a bit, revived the SL.

–Tried to watch Raines S01E01 on the TV using VLC, but the subtitles (two different files) kept falling behind the video. After much weeping and gnashing of teeth, I found that the native Quicktime player (a) sees and plays the built-in subtitles that VLC saw but wouldn’t play, and (b) keeps them in sync. So much for VLC. Maybe I have an old version, maybe it doesn’t like Apple silicon, whatever.

–Tried yet again to get Affinity Photo and/or Capture One going. Affinity is quick but not customizable enough; Capture One is plenty customizable but slow. Running C1 without Chrome going (reddit suggestion) seemed to help, but with all sliders the photo goes fuzzy while sliding, then sharpens up when I stop. Very frustrating, as it might be a viable alternative to Lightroom.

–Red Baron pizza for dinner.

–Slow day, feeling kind of down and a little peaked. Wanted to take a bike ride, but it was too chilly. Did some crypto: bought Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana at Kraken. There’s a huge swamp out there of Defi sites that offer outlandish yields for staking and loaning crypto; I’ll stick to Kraken for a bit and see what’s up.

–Downloaded and watched the first Jesse Stone TV movie from 2005. Not perfect, but pretty good.

–Grace is in a rotten mood for no obvious reason.

–Wired $10,000 from Ally to Kraken; it went through in a few hours. Wired another $10,000 to RobinHood, but it was after Ally closed, so won’t be there until tomorrow. Crypto.com accepted my registration, but looks like a circus app on my phone. Will drop. Hardware wallet came in. Finally dawned on me (after reading instructions) that you need two of these, in case one gets lost/broken. Probably won’t use it.

–Picked up colon cleanser at Rite-Aid. Still no word on when the colonoscopy might be.

–Re-caulked the shower. Messy, but I think it’s done.

–Nightmare crypto: (1) Looked like Kraken added my $1,000. Tried to withdraw, ran into confusion, ended up adding another $1,000 by mistake. Must steel myself to wait two weeks or so before trying to zero out Kraken. (2) Installed Rock Wallet on the iPhone. Seems fine. (3) As many redditors predicted, Coinbase saw suspicious activity and suspended all trading. I sold everything into cash, and am currently allowed to send $1,300 to Ally out of $16,000 in the account. Like Kraken, I’ll have to wait an unspecified period of time. (4) Opened an account at Gemini after deleting all cookies and using wsfarr@gmail.com as my email. (5) Opened an account at Crypto.Com on the iPhone. Went fairly smoothly. Will have to decide which one to work with long-term: Crypto.Com/Rock Wallet on phone or Gemini/Trust Wallet on laptop.

–Had a “video visit” with Dr. Rakesh Parikh today regarding colonoscopy. We could see each other and I could hear him, but he couldn’t hear me. He called, asked a few questions that had been asked before, and that was it. No follow-up on scheduling yet.

–I now have Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana at Coinbase. I FINALLY (maybe) settled on Trust Wallet as my wallet. It holds many different things (unlike Metamask) and has a dead simple interface (unlike Coinbase Wallet). For example, with one click I can see the “receive” addresses for all the crypto they support. Not possible In Coinbase or Kraken I don’t think. My Kraken $1,000 deposit from Ally finally went through. Really curious to see if everything going forward will take that long. And Coinbase, which allows lots of purchase power, is pretty sketchy in the details. For example, I “own” $2,500 in Ethereum, but when I try to move some to Coinbase Wallet in order to clear it out, it tells me I can only move ~$450–not enough in Coinbase Wallet to sweep it all out to Trust Wallet. Very tricky stuff. I can’t complain too much though: it did allow me to buy a lot of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana at whatever the price was right then. Really hoping transactions will be quick and complete once the trial period is over.

–Took Grace shopping at Smart & Final. Not my favorite grocery store.

–Red Baron again for dinner.

–Went to New York Bagel Cafe for a dozen sesame bagels.

–Went to KP Market for Murcott tangerines, Fuji apples, smoked Gouda cheese.

–Picked up a tungsten fidget spinner at UPS. It’s heavy alright, but has lots of scratches and came with noisy bearings. Put some good sealed/lubed bearings in and it’s better (and quiet), but not what I was hoping for. Somebody must make these zero play, but I sure can’t find ’em.

–Caulked Grace’s tub. Tried to caulk mine, but used Clorox first and didn’t really clean out the old caulk, so it looked terrible. I’ll try again tomorrow.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Went to the Oktoberfest at the Discovery Village clubhouse. Hoping to chat with Jan and John about their leaving, but John wasn’t feeling good, so they didn’t make it.

–Got tired of hassling with Kraken delays and opened a Coinbase account. In 15 minutes I was able to buy $5,000 in Bitcoin. Turns out I can’t do much with it for a while, but Coinbase is still way ahead of Kraken for customer friendliness. Also turns out that when I added a Coinbase wallet, it showed the $10,000 I sent into the ether (heh heh) a couple years ago. Even further turns out there are lots of reputable recovery firms available now, so I’ll look into getting it back. Not likely, I know.

–Hey–actually succeeded in sending $10 Ethereum from Metamask to my Coinbase wallet, where it became almost $20, I guess because Metamask was showing the value from years ago when it was left over from all my previous crypto escapades. Yay! [edit] Okay, it just dropped to $10 in Coinbase. As usual, I have no idea what’s going on.

–Picked up a third Paradigm 2020 razor at UPS (Grace drove). Looks nice.

–Sac Gastroenterology called to set up a consult for colonoscopy.

–Nancy (Thorndike) Greenspan responded to my ACDS pics enthusiastically, and said she identified all but one person. Results coming.

–Fixed a leak (looked more like a cut) in the back patio sprinkler system.

–Another slow day. Played around a LOT with Kraken authenticators. Ended up with Duo Mobile. Simple; works. Google works, but they show dozens of (identical) codes; only the last (different) one works. Authy might work, but they locked me out for a month after several installs.

–Slow day. Spent a long time last night and this morning trying to settle on a platform for crypto. Back on Kraken again. It really is head and shoulders above the rest.

–Got many appointments set up for cataract surgery/followup, and was told I need a colonoscopy soon. Crap.

–Rode the ARP with Tom Elken.

–Heard from Kenny that Jan and John are leaving for a retirement home in Folsom, due to Jan’s bad eyesight. Crap.

–Took a few cuttings from the abutilon and put them in water. Just dreaming.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Took the BMW to Hooverville for jam and pastry. Jam went from $9 to $10, and no sour cherry.

–Took Grace shopping at Bel Air.

–Compared M11 to SL2-S. M11 can be made to work at night, but the SL2-S sensor still rules.

–Watched the 49ers lose to Patrick Mahomes again. Disheartening.

–Bought a “new” “2020” Paradigm Diamondback razor at Damn Fine Shave. After a TON of poring over my spreadsheet, it seems I have three of those: $295 from DFS a while back, $895 from eBay, and now $550 from DFS again (coming). None of them looks obviously unpolished, but—–after a ton of searching, I can’t find one photo or bit of text that shows a 2019 unpolished, let alone a comparison of the 2019 and 2020. Oh well…

–Sort of tried to revive the Leica X Vario. The nicest thing I can say about it is that it’s not a night camera. It does have shutter speed and aperture dials on top, but trying to zoom/focus with the LED is awful.

–Played with photos all day. Turned all .tif into .jpg and re-did the various albums. Good quality, less storage space.

–Took Grace shopping at Koreana Plaza.

–Started getting serious about music again. Downloaded (and bought) foobar2000 MP3 player, with 31 channel graphic equalizer, MP3 Tag Editor, Audacity, and MP3 Gain. We rollin’ now…

–Took the BMW to get bagels. Stopped to pick up Leica buttons at UPS (pretty skimpy) and milk/pizza at Bel Air.

–Went to see Dr. Liu at Folsom Eye. Seemed like a no-nonsense guy. Recommended big stent in right eye (higher pressure, more risk of damage), smaller stent in left eye, laser cataract breakup (less heat, safer). He does 800-900 cataracts a year, which is good. Will start on right eye–sometime in January, maybe. Something’s going on with access to medical care, but it hasn’t hit the news yet.

–Motor City pizza for dinner. Good, but I like Red Baron better.

–Cooler, partly cloudy, a couple of sprinkles today.

–Tried (again) to revive the Leica SL. Got all the buttons/wheel perfectly set up, then recalled it doesn’t have image stabilization. Further, a comparison with the SL2-S showed it to have considerably lower contrast/saturation, which seems puzzling. Will try again tonight. [edit] Tried again; was reminded that the SL2-S has the best sensor ever. SL goes back in the closet. Did ONE MORE Q2 vs. Q-P test. Q2 started out looking better than usual, but once again the Q-P beat it. Q2 goes back in the closet.

–Red Baron pizza for dinner.

–Rode 12.4 miles in Folsom with Tom Elken. Tiring.

–Had Rao’s frozen dinners; watched the conclusion of Reacher season 2. Pretty good.

–Tested Leica Q2 vs. Q-P again. This time I was able to get a decent night shot (back patio) from the Q2, and the camera is much easier to customize than the Q-P, but the Q-P still seems to make it easier to get good night shots.

–Leica Q-P came in. Pretty good shape. Spent a while trying to clean it with alcohol, then even it out with Nano Oil. Looks a little worse, per usual.

–Tried all day to revive the Sony. The “menu” system on that camera is so Byzantine it’s beyond belief. I never did figure out how to put ISO on the front wheel.

–Did various showdowns. The Q-P doesn’t seem to have quite the auto-focus capability of the Q2, but it held its own in daylight. At night (in back) it was another story. Tried the Sony first. It did auto ISO of 12400 and took a really bizarre, completely unfixable photo. I’m sure it could be improved, but when the SL2-S does great night pics with easy settings, it’s not worth the hassle. Shockingly, the Q2 also took a terrible pic. More fixable, but ugly. And once again a Q-P kicked butt. Super-nice picture that I would have kept exceot for all the toters in the alley. I suppose I should look at my Q again. Doesn’t have engraving on top, but (I believe) I bought it new and perfect.

–Went to Bel Air for cookies, cheese, cream, jock itch medicine, oranges.

–Started trying to organize razors and brushes again. Been a while since I catalogued anything.

–Went to Home Depot on a mission for Grace. No dice. Stopped at UPS to pick up yet another fidget spinner.

–Red Baron pizza for dinner, then two episodes of Reacher, season 2. Much better than season one.

–Drove the BMW to Black Sails to pick up coffee, then to the PO to get stamps for Grace.

–Took a bike ride to the dog park, 10+ miles. Tiring.

–Went to UPS to pick up another fidget spinner.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Picked up the Silca SuperPista pump at UPS. Took it apart, removed a lot of old grease, put it back together. Very nice.

–Black Sails coffee got roasted, but he missed my first pickup request email, so I’ll get it tomorrow.

–Sent Tom a happy birthday greeting and showed him how to get at the scanned photos at vstat.com.

–Tuned in an Amazon 49ers game on a pirate website and sent it to the TV. Worked great except no sound. Spent an hour trying to figure it out. Nothing worked until I saw some obscure post about browsers. I switched from Chrome to Firefox and the sound came  on. Absolutely unbelievable.

–Did laundry. Ironed my Selvyt cloths.

–Walked to Bel Air for asparagus, zucchini, tomatoes, milk.

–Re-re-re-organized slide scans and edits. Getting there. Found a couple cool photos on an ACDS Facebook site.

–Took the BMW to Costco for stuff. Got apples, Aussie Bites, muffins, Pellegrino and Kirkland sparkling water.

–Made castiron pizza for dinner. Good stuff.

–Finished re-re-re-editing ACDS and Tom’s pictures. A far cry from when I started.

–Got the Cremina running and adjusted the pressurestat. Ready to go, though Great Infusions isn’t ready for me yet.

–Played with scans again. Seems like the latest scans hardly need adjusting in Lightroom, whereas the early ones needed lots. Could just be me. I looked briefly into tone curves, the apparent heart of Lightroom, and gave up quickly. Not something I’ll be good at for a long time.

–49ers lost. No longer got the magic.

–FINALLY got all the slides scanned. Vuescan continued to give me fits, but its Black Point slider really got the fog out of the photos–to the point where some of them will need almost no editing.

–Played a lot more with the scanner. Thought I had decided on Silverfast after doing a lot of playing around, especially with three pictures of Diann and me at Duke in December of 1968 (totally unremembered occasion). Turns out, after redoing them inVuescan, the Silverfast pics were garishly awful. That’s been happening a lot. Further discovery: rather than trying to guess how much saturation Lightroom will add to a jpg, just save it as a tiff. Three times the size, but impeccable quality. One further discovery: Vuescan has several different color levels–auto, white balance, tungsten, portrait, landscape, etc.–and it shows you how they will look before you scan. Many are identical, but some are much more (or much less) red. So, I think I might finally be almost ready to do everything over again with Vuescan –> Lightroom –> tiff. But to reiterate: it really is appalling how something can look good after a lot of LR adjusting, then look terrible the next day after I learn some new twist. Kind of like looking back on my abutilon pics: most are WAY too saturated and contrasty. Interestingly, my La Selva Beach pics seem mostly to hold up. Golden years, I guess.

–Great Infusions sold a Cremina. Further: I was all set to write to Orphan Espresso and tell them about my great find of right-sized group-to-boiler o-rings. Then I tried their too-small one again, and it went on and stayed. I give up.

–Went to UPS for Chemex filters, Cremina o-rings (perfect fit), and Osprey pack. Pack is large, has a bit of odor to it, straps are stiff, and it lacks a variety of pockets (one gig one with front/back divider. Still, great color and capacious.

–Played around a lot with scanner. Vuescan is a mess for me–tiff, dng, raw tif, dng tif, blah blah blah. Put three simple scans into Lightroom: one was dark and could not be made usable; one was okay, one was better but was covered with a haze or film. I gave up and went back to Silverfast (which came with the scanner). Got a great scan first time, which made me realize how red-tinged the Vuescan scans were. I suspect it’s adjustable, but I think I’ll just stay with Silverfast.

–Took Grace while getting bagels at New York Bagel Cafe, then to Bel Air.

–Went to Rite-Aid for RSV and Pneumococcal vaccinations.

–Played around a lot with the scanner. Found by accident that a jpg straight out of the scanner appeared to have better resolution than a dng brought into Lightroom then saved as a jpg. I dread getting deep into all the pixels/inch, bits/pixel crap, but I may have to.

–Went to UPS to pick up Cremina steam poppet, then Bel Air for coffee and cheese.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Paid $6,842 Sac County property tax (both installments).

–Had a bad night of diarrhea, which continued into the morning. Hope I’m not getting something.

–Heard from Jasleen Agroia in Dr. Firoz’ office. She recommended pneumococcal vaccine PCV20, sent in order to Rite-Aid.

–Made a pizza for dinner. Spread the dough thin on a round pan, overcooked it. Barely edible. Live and learn.

–Ordered Viton o-rings from The O-Ring Store in a realistic size for using on the Cremina group-to-boiler connection. Will never understand why Orphan Espresso uses (and sells) those seriously undersized o-rings. I believe I’ve installed one of those, correctly, the first time, once. We’ll see.

–Compared the TTArisans 75/2 lens with Helios 58/2 and Contax 85/1.4. No comparison. Helios was more saturated, Contax much sharper. The coatings are good–it doesn’t flare in my night shot–but back in the box it goes.

–Dropped off a Monterey BMW FedEx package with my signature verification signed (W.S. and William). It was sent to me a while ago, but I didn’t look at it closely enough to figure out what they were asking.

–Dropped off Matteo Diolaiti’s birthday gift at UPS. Picked up a second cheap Leica at UPS and managed to get the (NON-3D) button off intact. Put it on the SL2-S. Also picked up the TTArtisans 75mm/f1.5 copy of the legendary Zeiss lens. Weighs a ton, great ergonomics, takes a sharp picture. Bokeh to be determined later when (if) the abutilon blooms.

–Stopped at Smart & Final for a bunch of stuff. Drove the right rear wheel of the Beemer over a curb on the way out. No apparent damage.

–Didn’t do much of anything today. Grace is in an extremely foul mood.

–Had a bad night after the flu vaccination. Couldn’t get to sleep, a couple of shivers, minor aches. Went back to bed after breakfast, got up at 1:00, more or less okay.

–Put the Cremina mostly together, waiting for a steam poppet.

–Pizza for dinner.

–Took Grace to Rite-Aid for vaccinations. Turns out she didn’t have an appointment. They recommended no more than two for me, so I got flu and COVID 2024-2025. Spent some time looking at my record on MyChart, gave up and messaged Firoz’ office asking what else I need.

–One of two rat Leitz R4s came in that I ordered on eBay for the red Leitz button. Got it apart by brute force (no youtube disassembly videos), marred the button in the process. It wasn’t very 3D anyway–more than paint, but not much.

–Took the Beemer to El Centro in Natomas to revisit Perry’s farm stand (now Cuevas) and the strawberry lady (still there). Got strawberries, tomatoes, squash, melon–great stuff.

–Scanned some more photos. Assembled the 1965 ACDS graduation photos into a Word doc and uploaded it to vstat.com so the classmates can download it.

–Scanned a bunch of photos.

–Walked to UPS to pick up Cerini Cremina steam assembly, then to Bel Air for anti-perspirant.

–Took Grace shopping at Bel Air.

–Picked up Damasteel Shamwari at FedEx on Sunrise.

–Picked up Cremina rebuild kit at UPS. Seems slender–no steam poppet or boiler cap gasket, for example. Turns out those are only in the $62 “complete” rebuild kit. Oh well…

–Took Grace shopping at Smart & Final. She forgot her list. RedBaron for dinner.

–Did one more showdown between the two SL2-Ss. The Reporter did fine this time. One thing: With the Rikenon lens (with which I am less and less impressed), the Reporter took a horrible double image. Duh! After telling the cameras that I was using a 55mm “other” lens (to turn on image stabilization), all was good. That doesn’t explain the Reporter’s deficiencies when using the coded Summicron, so–still a little mystery. P.S. I finally figured out (last night) how to align the plastic and rubber parts of the eyepiece so it would go on easily the first time. Can’t believe how many times I struggled with those before hitting on this. Oh well. And why did I have them off? The Reporter’s reeked of PJ’s cologne, pretty much obviating the Leica reskin. After swapping them, the Reporter smells…almost not at all. I’m soaking the bad one in alcohol. Probably won’t do anything.

–Played with the Cremina a bit. Buggered the screw trying to get the steam poppet out. Pried it out later with my package-opening knife. Hard to believe I have no spares for steam internals. I ordered a new assembly (stainless, finally) from Cerini. Will look again for spares. I need to find out what the threads are on the trashed screw to see if I can replace it.

–Played a little more with SL2-S and SL2-S Reporter. Sometimes the Reporter seems to have a little more saturation, but other times the standard seems to be a little sharper. May test again tonight. [edit] Tested. like last night (I BELIEVE) the Reporter really suffers in the dark the speed limit sign is foggy, hazy, low contrast. Using the “denoise” feature doesn’t correct it. Both cameras set up as identically as I could do. Very strange how the Reporter is as good when there’s some light, then degrades in the dark. More testing to follow. [edit 2] Tested again with a shot in back. Same results: the Reporter lacks saturation and contrast compared to the standard. I’ll really hate to give that up, given the eye relief and Leica reskin (and identical daytime photos), but there really does seem to be something lacking in the Reporter at night.

–Cleaned up/cut up all boxes so as to reclaim some space in the garage and bedroom.

–Played with the scanner some more. Still learning, but it’s pretty impressive.

–Dinner from Jack’s Urban Eats; Beach Hut Deli closed at 5.

–Dropped off the Rolex 16800 at FedEx.

–Dropped off Noah Cantelon’s birthday package at UPS.

–Picked up Hirame chucks at UPS.

–Picked up a dozen sesame bagels at New York Bagel Cafe.

–Leica SL2-S Reporter came back from being reskinned at Elica. 95% of the smell is gone now. There’s still some there: I swapped the rubber pieces around the viewfinders, which helped. I guess I might still need to add a positive odor to it, since I believe I’ve gone as far as I can in removing the cologne smell.

–Plustek scanner came in. Tried it out on some slides from my 1965 ACDS graduation. Seems to be good. The slides are showing their age (and size), but the scans are certainly good enough to evoke memories. Except Laurel’s eyes were closed.

–Got another free cutting from Kenny; put it in a pot.

–Got the propane tank filled at U-Haul. The guy didn’t seem to look for an inspection date/tag. I’ll have to check and see how obvious it is.

–Red Baron pizza for dinner.

–Leica CL came back from repair. Works.

–Cremina came in. Looks good.

–Decided to return the Rolex 16800. Emailed Jacek; Kirill replied that he would handle everything. Jacek later replied that “for sure it’s been polished.” Wish he had said that in the listing.

–Sea Dweller case came back from Rolliworks. It’s shiny all right, with relatively broad chamfers. It doesn’t look bad; it’ll likely come down to a choice between it and the 1680 Rolliworks is working on.

–Got corn at Bel Air; barbecued it with Jenny-O turkey burgers (yum) and Claire’s potato salad (not yum).

–Took a shower and shave.

–Rolex 16800 came in. Runs perfect on the Timegrapher. Lume seems much whiter than the tan shown on Jacek’s pics. Had to add a link to the 11-link bracelet. Close scrutiny does make it look like it’s been refinished–except the caseback has the worst pitting I’ve ever seen, while the case underneath is clean. I don’t know.

–Took Grace to Hallmark at Sunrise Mall for cards and wrapping paper. Discovered there’s a Red Robin at the edge of the mall. Had I known…

–Played with Westclox Moonbeams. Decided to keep the original: light alarm works (sound alarm is weak), it has lume on hands (new one doesn’t seem to) and a better case.

–Grace still sick. Sicker, maybe.

–Leather glue came. Used it on my belt; will see. Just noticed for the first time today (after 40 years or so) (a) that the belt has a script signature “John W. Nordstrom,” and (b) it consists of a 2″ wide piece of leather folded over and glued to…a form of some sort to make a 1″ belt. Could be a thicker stiffer piece of leather, could possibly be something else. How it held up this long without noticeable wear is astonishing–the one hole I’ve used isn’t even elongated. Reversing it every time I wear it has helped, I’m sure.

–Third (or fifth) Westclox Moonbeam came in. This one is nice: dead silent, has the “power loss” indicator, and both light and buzzer work at the appropriate time.

–Got a pizza at Blaze for dinner. Pretty tasty.

–Lunch at McDonald’s on Sunrise, then shopping at Smart & Final for milk, Pellegrino, pizza, tangerines, apples.

–Played with cameras. Dug out the Canon R5 again to test the Zeiss Pancolar against the Rikenon. Can’t tell. [edit] Tested Canon and SL2-S with Summicron 50 with night shots. Canon held its own, but the SL2-S sensor continues to astound.

–Took the Helios 44-2 apart (via youtube video) and fixed the ultra-stiff aperture ring. Wasn’t obvious how to do it (not covered in video), but I figured it out. Smooth as silk now.

–Fixed (apparently) the steam lever on the ECM. It wouldn’t stay down, now it does. I didn’t do anything except take it apart and put it back together. Beats me.

–Kind of a nothing day. Much cooler.

–Took the BMW to McDonald’s for lunch, then Bel Air for bulk water, banana cream pie, and a couple of frozen dinners.

–Played with Helios-type lenses. Decided to drop the Biotar and 81H, keep the MMZ Belomo Helios 44-2 (58/2).

–Grace still sick.

–Picked up another Lumitime clock at UPS. Nice. Got pizza, cream cream cheese at Bel Air.

–Got a haircut at Great Clips. Cutter was tattooed, but had good energy and an unbelievable body.

–Took the Beemer out for a ride. Started towards Ione, turned back before reaching (eyes mostly). Car has a buzz/rattle in the dashboard that sounds just like the one in the 330i. Keerap!

Red Baron 4-cheese pizza with our own pepperoni for dinner.

–Played with bike pumps all day. Got all but one working nicely–i.e., gauge needle goes up on the downstroke and stays there until the upstroke. Web solved one issue: When I push super hard but can’t get the handle down, it’s likely because the Presta valve is blocked shut by my poor fitting of the chuck. Could also be that the “drops to zero” problem is related to poor fitting of the chuck–though I tried different ones and  (sort of) tried to keep them straight. Will try again. I may also want to have the tubes replaced, as I’ve done a lot of pushing and pulling on the valve stems. I was going to buy a bunch of Hiro chucks but then noticed (and read) that they let a lot of air out unless you remove them really fast after opening the lever. Will practice.

–Weather is much milder. Took a 10.5 mile bike ride around 2 PM. The first two bike pumps I tried didn’t really work. I think the issue is that when I test them there’s about 5 pounds of air in the tire. Today there was > 50 pounds, and, I believe, the weaknesses of the Silca pump heads are showing up. The gauges would go up (but not to 50) then quickly down, as air leaked (I surmise) around the chuck seal. We’ll see.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Went to UPS to pick up Paradigm Titanium razor. Very nice; turns out I have the steel version of this and the ti version is much preferred. Also got the Carbonio front license plate holder. Installed it without too much trouble; seems good.

–Went to Bel Air for dessert, corn, turkey burgers, potato salad. Barbecued for dinner: fabulous stuff.

–Compared Leica Q-P and Q2 (Hodinkee). It seems to come up repeatedly that 24 megapixels is just fine, showing no real deficits compared to 46. Last night’s night shot with the Q-P, which came out fine, was done at 1/6 second and 400 ISO (I neglected to set it to auto ISO). Pretty amazing. Will try again tonight with higher ISOs.

–Took the BMW to New York Bagel Cafe for bagels. Took Grace to Target, where she didn’t get much. I got protein bars and toothpaste.

–One red squirrel (child) came for peanuts. Yay!

–Compared Leica M10-P Safari to SL2-S, Summicron 50/2, 24 MP each. M was fine, but doesn’t really offer anything over the SL2-S, and was actually a little fuzzier here and there, which surprised me given the identical setups. That SL2-S sensor is pretty amazing.

–Played with small cameras. Was shocked to see that the the tiny Leica C beat out the C-Lux, which in turn outperformed the D-Lux 7 and 007. The C has the only Summicron lens among those cameras–though it’s from 2013 with only 12 megapixels. The single best performance was the C-Lux zoomed, but for point-and-shoot I seem to go with unzoomed then cropped. Wish I’d had the C in Bellevue. Also thinking of dropping the Qs and just going with C and SL2-S. It would be nice to find a wide L-mount auto-focus lens for the SL2-S that weighs less than 3 pounds.

–Put gas in the BMW. That car is fun to drive.

–Cleaned and set up the Plomb 1943 “War Finish” 3/8″ ratchet. Very sweet tool.

–Muffins in the hotel room; gas at a nearby Chevron; then to the airport. Siri crapped out for some reason and wouldn’t connect with Carplay. Dropped the car off at National: a really good experience overall. Then trudged through Security to the gate. Another full plane, with lots of cheaters trying to board early, screaming babies, dogs, etc. A totally not fun experience.

–Got back to Sac, made our way to the Daily lot (we were the only ones on the shuttle), and eventually found the Honda. Home at last, said hi to Kenny, got pizza for dinner at Bel Air.

–Really exhausting experience all around; I think we’ll drive the next time(s).

–Breakfast at the hotel–good.

–Went with Jan and Chuck to Crossroads. Lunch at some forgettable Vietnamese sandwich place, then Barnes and Noble.

–Then to Kathy’s. We all went to dinner at Tokyo Japanese Restaurant. Good stuff. Then back to Kathy’s for opening presents and birthday cake on her 80th. Then back to the hotel and sleep.

–Breakfast at the hotel–very good. Off to Jan and Chuck’s for family to chat.

–Got sandwiches at Potbelly (very good) and took them to Kathy’s. Family chatted some more. Jan and Chuck went to Safeway and Costco for rotisserie chicken and mashed potatoes. Very good. Kathy isn’t drinking. Hard to tell with David: he seems chipper, but as I recall Kelly moved out in part because of his drunken abuse. Noah seems fine.

–Back to the hotel for muffins and sleep.

–Took the Honda to the airport. Parking wasn’t bad, but getting to the terminal, security, etc. was pretty tedious. Plane was chilly, but that was expected. Sparkling water and chips were provided.

–Getting to the National Car Rental area was also tedious–up and down escalators, a shuttle, etc. Once there: pick a car, any car. chose a Kia Kona (eventually) and–bless the saints–it started Apple Carplay automatically.

–Checked in at Eastgate BW Signature, got top (6th) floor. Not bad.

–We all went out to dinner at Las Margaritas in Issaquah–pretty good.

–Then to bed.

–Drove the BMW to Sacramento Airport just to get a feel for it–it’s been many many years. In fact, I can’t remember the last trip I took. Oh wait: early 2008, Minneapolis, for the SPSS weekend seminar. And…

–Picked up 3 Apple charging cables at UPS (all work); the Armstrong ratchet wrench (bad mechanism, very hard to switch off/on, tossed; and the replacement solar fountain pump–piece of crap, barely works, ordered another from Amazon, will toss.

–Red Baron for dinner.

–Skipped Chalk It Up this year. Heat, travel prep, laziness…

–Took a shower and shave.

–A nothing day, pretty much.

–Paid State Farm $95.73 for (difference in) insurance on BMW 230i.

–Went to Home Depot for a hacksaw. Used it to saw off bolts that hindered drawer opening after I mounted the vise (finally).

–Put gas in the Honda and washed the windshield.

–Got 3 Red baron pizzas at Smart & Final. Had one for dinner: good.

–Took the Beemer to REI in Sacramento, bought 3 Pairs of cargo shorts, size 40 (up from 38). Ready to roll.

–Took Grace to Hallmark at Sunrise Mall to look for birthday stuff for Kathy. There are like 3-4 jewelry stores at that mall, and I can’t imagine how they pay rent when it looks like the mall is mostly deserted.

–Tried to paint in the RB logo on the new Reggie Barber tamper–with BMW Alpine White paint and then with Testors enamel. Total failure. Wiping off the over-paint just screws up the paint in the letters. I suppose I could try a thinner paint and a micro-brush so there’s no paint leaking out of the grooves; hard to do though.

–Finished tweaking the last of the Silca pumps. It took (finally) a 9mm dual-wire spring clip to fit the pump hose. We’re rollin’ now.

–Took the BMW to Nai’s Berry Farm. Closed. Open tomorrow. Really liking the Beemer. It gives me sort of a God feeling when driving. I vaguely recall the Mustang was like that, though it lacked the smoothness, pickup, tautness, etc. of the BMW. Siri works great in the car–no wires needed. I tell her where to go; she directs me, with aplomb.

–Took the Beemer to Michael’s to get Grace some glue for her photo assemblage. Picked up varnish at UPS on the way back. Turns out I didn’t need it: 99% isopropyl alcohol removed the water spots from the Capitola miniature paintings without damage. Not sure what happened when I tried it a couple days ago and it seemed to remove the original varnish. Less-pure alcohol? I don’t know.

–Watered the plants in back.

–Raley’s rising-crust pizza for dinner. Not good. Back to Red Baron.

–Played with Silca pumps.

–Took the BMW to Bel Air for potato salad. Sweet car.

–Barbecued turkey burgers and (from Sherry/Davis Ranch) corn and tomatoes.

–Took the BMW to REI Folsom to get some new sneakers. Car was good, Siri was good.

–Re-hung the parking duck.

–Sherry Stults went to Davis ranch and brought us back (per request) some corn, tomatoes and peanut brittle.

–Still hot!

–Dinner at Zinfandel. Pretty good.