Month: December 2020 (Page 3 of 4)

–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.

–Mowed the lawn, cleaned the birdbath, sped up the aux 2 pump to (try to) make the pool sweep move faster.

–Called Cerini Coffee (it was clear they weren’t going to follow up on Monday’s email). They will have a 54mm group head for me in their next shipment, and sent a label for returning the 49mm group.

–Grace almost destroyed the new oven door hinges trying to close it on the pizza stone, which I hadn’t pushed in far enough. We fixed it, but it wasn’t easy.

–Successfully moved the TV into the living room, using the J-Tech wireless extender.

–Heard from Devon’s Jewelers that Rolex refused to work on the Day-Date, since the (diamond) dial was not a Rolex dial. Contacted eBay seller, who said he would take the dial back. He also said the dial came from a watch that had been serviced by Rolex. He’s either a great liar, or Rolex is messed up.