–Had my second (left eye) cataract surgery. Seemed to go well, and things are so much clearer and brighter it’s astonishing.

–Made the minimum offer of $250 for the icsb-2006.org domain. Guessing they want much more.

–Folsom Eye Surgery called and set the arrival time tomorrow at 7:15. Crap.

–Made pan pizza for dinner: mozzarella, fresh basil. Couldn’t taste the mozzarella, way too much (cooked) basil.

–Addictive tri-spinner came in ($26). Not bad, less wobble than the Thicc Chelsea bar, but not really compelling. I’m 99.9% sure now that wobble is purely a function of play in the bearing, and cannot be reduced. Physics (which I don’t get yet) says that double wobbles more than tri, which wobbles more than four, etc. Why doubles (bars) are so popular is a mystery to me.

–Contax/Zeiss 50mm/1.7 lens came in. Flawless condition, great ergonomics. I’ll still lust after the 1.4 of ciourse; hoping I can talk myself out of it.

–Took Grace shopping at Bel Air.

–Played some more with websites. Starting to figure out/remember how to set up WordPress. It’s a pretty nice vehicle.

–Replaced the bearings in the Indy Thicc Chelsea. Din’t change much. But the more I play with it, the more I like it. Not the wobble, but the feel and the challenge of getting it to spin smoothly.

–Got the four websites working okay: Dizziness, Drywall, Limescale, Plan Retirement. Tried to install the Kadence theme on Dizziness, and what a disaster. To remove it I had to restore a backup of the database. Don’t know how I’m going to monetize these sites; WordPress design seems absurdly complex now.

–Got the Wilkins knife; very nice. Got the Thicc Chelsea spinner; looks nice in copper, but has horrible wobble, the worst I’ve experienced. Hoping new bearings will work, when I get the bearing tool.

–Finally de-decorated; there wasn’t much to take down.

–Got a bunch of old Adsense sites up and running: dizzinessandnausea.com, planretirement.com, limescale.com, howtopatchdrywall.com. Surprisingly, a solid #2 in terms of domain name value (after planretirement) is limescale.

–Missing 12/21/2024 through 1/4/2025 due to me somehow wiping out the database at Namecheap AND iwebfusion as I was restoring some of my 2011 WordPress Adsense sites.

–Over an inch of rain today, said the Rain Cricket.

–Missing 12/21/2024 through 1/4/2025 due to me somehow wiping out the database at Namecheap AND iwebfusion as I was restoring some of my 2011 WordPress Adsense sites.

–Missing 12/21/2024 through 1/4/2025 due to me somehow wiping out the database at Namecheap AND iwebfusion as I was restoring some of my 2011 WordPress Adsense sites.

–Missing 12/21/2024 through 1/4/2025 due to me somehow wiping out the database at Namecheap AND iwebfusion as I was restoring some of my 2011 WordPress Adsense sites.

–Missing 12/21/2024 through 1/4/2025 due to me somehow wiping out the database at Namecheap AND iwebfusion as I was restoring some of my 2011 WordPress Adsense sites.

–Yet another gray drizzly day.

–Missing 12/21/2024 through 1/4/2025 due to me somehow wiping out the database at Namecheap AND iwebfusion as I was restoring some of my 2011 WordPress Adsense sites.

–Another drizzly day.

–Missing 12/21/2024 through 1/4/2025 due to me somehow wiping out the database at Namecheap AND iwebfusion as I was restoring some of my 2011 WordPress Adsense sites.

–Did a minimal Christmas. Little tree up; played tapes and CDs. Jimmy Dean and Pillsbury rolls for breakfast; ham and grits for dinner.

–Lots of rain today.

–Did absolutely minimal decorating: put up the tiny tree. Thought it would blink, but it doesn’t.

–Missing 12/21/2024 through 1/4/2025 due to me somehow wiping out the database at Namecheap AND iwebfusion as I was restoring some of my 2011 WordPress Adsense sites.

–Dark, rainy day.

–After more practice with the Canon R5 Mk II, it turns out to be a really nice camera. Handles well (with the ebony extension from China); dials are set up as I like them; seems to take lower-noise night shots with some vintage lenses than the SL2-S. All Leicas (except a C of some sort) are going back in the closet.

–Canon R5 Mk II came in. Couldn’t get it to work to save my life. Finally PM’d seller, who reminded me of “Disable shutter if no lens mounted.” All good now–though I don’t see much improvement in viewfinder quality, and it may shake as much as the Sony. Crap.

–Had lunch with Tom Elken at Jersey Mike’s in Folsom.

–Managed to hand out all CHristmas gifts to Tom and DV alley neighbors.

–With Namecheap raising prices (and a little slow), I searched a lot and opened an account at iWebFusion for < $5/month. Trying to migrate now, with issues of WordPress database login. Will figure it out.

–Played with cameras. Putting th battery extension grip on the Sony turns it into a gigantic monster. It’s been retired. Tried to get shutter count for R5 as practice for incoming R5 Mark II. Had to buy a $9 app that said “<= 1,000 actuations.” In small print on the bottom it said “This camera reports in 1,000 increments.” So much for testing the new one.

–Took Grace shopping at Smart & Final and Bel Air. There were many cartons of eggs at Bel Air yesterday; zero today.

–Looking to migrate away from Namecheap as they’re going to raise their rates to $75/year, compared to $35 for others.

–Post Office has no record of Canon R5 II being shipped two days ago. “Label created; waiting for item.” Kee-rap.

–Went to Bel Air for various things; got a fraction of them.

–Stock market is plunging, and (for no obvious reason) taking crypto with it.

–The only good news: my abutilon cuttings, which have been sitting in water for a month or so, are going nuts: new leaves, blooms growing, etc. I don’t get it, but it’s fun to see.

–Went to New York Bagel for bagels and bagel dogs.

–Did a tiny bit of Christmas shopping for Grace at Daiso.

–Finally was allowed to re-open the wsf@comcast.net account at Binance.us. Have to wait 48 hours to add or subtract funds. Added Coinbase and Binance to my iPhone.

–Cleaned ear wax out of hearing aids. Better.

–Grace finally got Chase to wire $10k to sister Jan.

–Rainy morning.

–Woke up with right eye really foggy; drops had no effect. Lasted for hours, then went away. Crap.

–Had Walgreen’s print the Denny and Kenny photo (25 cents). Got a frame there when I picked up the print and framed it. Looks nice.

–Went to UPS to mail off Juli’s package.

–Played with cameras, especially the new Sony A7R V. Kind of disappointing.The viewfinder doesn’t seem as spectacularly different from the Leica SL2-S or the Canon R5 as I was hoping, given its specs. Further, the Canon has better ergonomicsand (often) a very pleasing look in photos. So I bought the Mark II model from a guy on Fred Miranda. Now I truly have two of everything.

–Went to Folsom Eye for follow-up visit with Michelle Hoyt. I told her about reflux (no response) and urination problems (“That’s rare,” she said). Right eye is still dilated, but TV closed captions are really clear.

–Sony AR7 V came in. I don’t see a huge difference between its viewfinder and AR7 IV’s but it’s early yet.

–Went to Folsom for right eye cataract surgery. Waited 2+ hours in the waiting room, another 40 minutes on the gurney. Major deal: anesthesiologist and everything. Surgery was quick. Eye is so dilated I can’t tell how successful it was.

–Canned soup for dinner.

–Picked up photo prints (Sullivan, Bunker, Wasdell) at Walgreen’s.

–Got “2 for $20” pizzas at Pizza Guys on Vehicle Drive, one for us and one for Kenny. Really good pizza

–Walked to UPS to pick up helicoid grease.

–Brought the Sony out to play with. Surprisingly easy to set up focus magnification on the–wait for it–AF ON button. Good: you can select how long it stays magnified (like forever). Less good: shutter won’t take it out of magnify mode; you have to hit the AF ON button again.

–Took some decent abutilon pics with the Contax N Digital.

–Took Grace shopping at Smart & Final.

–Walked to UPS to pick up the Tamahagane knife. Stopped at Bel Air for cream, milk, cheese, cream cheese.

–Bought a Sony A7R V from 6th Avenue Electronics (no tax). 60 megapixels, and a viewfinder with twice the resolution of my A7R IV. It’ll take a while to set up, but it should be the last camera I’ll ever need. Pretty much every lens ever made has an adapter available for Sony.

–Well well well: Charged up the Contax N Digital and took some abutilon pics. DXO would not open the native RAW files. Installed Adobe DNG converter and converted them. DXO would not open the DNG files. Tried Apple Photos app. It too would not open the RAW files, but it easily imported the converted DNG files and edited them in a trice. The editor even has a feature which is new or which I just didn’t notice: for Light and Color, it has a master slider that moves all the sub-sliders (Exposure, Brilliance, Shadows, etc.) in a smart way to give a pleasing range of results. So much for DXO.

–Later that same day, the Photos app was having some issues, and was reminding me of why I went to alternatives. Sooo…I went back to Lightroom. Seems I have access to Lightroom Classic and Lightroom [Creative Cloud], which may be why I vaguely remember spending $240 for a yearly license instead of $120. Anyway, I only need Classic, so removed LR CC and will be more careful when renewing next September. From what I’ve read, I can’t remove JUST the CC app (which is a separate app)–Adobe is obnoxious that way. Anyhow, I re-did some Christmas night pics that I had done in DXO, and the results were pretty astounding (as was the process). LR is smooth, simple, and just makes things easy. Wish they still sold it.

–Marie’s chicken pot pies for dinner.

–Played with cameras some more. Tried a couple M9s, was not happy with their metering.

–Dropped a couple of packages off at UPS.

–Went to the village Christmas party.

–[edit] DXO doesn’t support the .RWL files from the Leica C-Lux. Well, crap.

–Played with cameras a lot, trying to justify getting a new M11 Glossy. In the end, the SL2-S blew everything out of the water, as usual. The combo of (1) best viewfinder and (2) best low-light sensor cannot be beaten, even though it’s 24 MP vs. 60 in the M11.

–Picked up cough drops at UPS and dropped off the Meades front flipper, on its way to Louisiana then South Africa, where maker Thys Meades graciously agreed to add a clip.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Finished making the “tile rock” for Kenny (like the fountain with broken tile pieces and grout). Looks like crap.

–Went to UPS to mail a couple more packages and pick up a Yubikey (set it up at Coinbase) and leather repair tape (tried it on my chair; looks surprisingly good (i.e., invisible)).

–Pepperoni pizza from Costco for dinner. Not nearly as good as Costco brand cheese pizza last night.

–Heard a loud hissing outside around 5. On investigation, it appeared to be a sprinkler leak between our house and Ray/Sherry’s. Turned their water off at the main spigot. They got home while I was leaving a note, and said it was just the sprinkler (not a leak), so I turned their water back on. I’m dubious: we haven’t heard that noise in two years.

–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.