Month: March 2021 (Page 2 of 4)

–Played with lenses. Decided to send off the Summicron to Yye Camera for a CLA.

–The guy who sold me the Gillette bottom dial on eBay (Mahmoud) canceled the transaction and refunded my payment. Claims he’s having PayPal issues and that I will definitely get the razor. His account is a year old, and he has 30 transactions (all in the last 30 days, all as a buyer, many with identical feedback from the sellers). I do vaguely recall that there are sellers who do $.01 sales with the sole purpose of helping build a feedback record. So: (a) He wants to avoid eBay fees and do the deal privately, or (b) he’s already sold the razor to someone who offered more. Hard to predict right now—-except for sure I’m not getting that razor.

–Grace is getting snitty again, after a few days of sunny disposition. A combo of no sleep and self-hatred for doing online games all day rather than making a shopping list.

–Played with lenses a bit. Long story short, that Color Skopar is really nice. Focuses smoother than the Summicron, seems about as sharp, great colors.

–Made pizza for dinner, with baloney, fresh mozzarella, pineapple. Yum!

–Took (additional) tax papers over to Curtis Finton’s office.

–Took a shower. Started to shave with the new Asylum 17-4. Acted like it would work, but the soap I used as so slick, and the razor handle so smooth, I quickly switched over to the Mergress (also a little smooth) then finally to the Gillette red dot. Some of that was the fault of the hyper-slick soap (which has the consistency of a thick shampoo), but I noted early on that the 17-4 handle had really shallow engraving and no texture. What a disaster. In theory I could put a different handle on that head, but it just hain’t worth it.

–Polished brass Blackland Blackbird came in. Really pretty.

–Michael Casserd sent some pdf’s that were supposed to be the closing statement on 110 Playa, but (a) they weren’t, and (b) they were very weird looking. He said he’d mail us a paper copy. Meanwhile, I had called the title company (I found them by looking up the big deposit at Heritage CCU), and they emailed me a pdf of the statement. I’ll take it to Curtis Finton tomorrow, along with copies of maintenance expenses on the house. Whew!

–I put a hard rubber washer under the head of the useless Asylum 17-4 razor (based on a forum tip), and it seemed to allow loosening of the handle enough (while holding it securely) to position the blade so it would shave. We’ll see tomorrow.

–Had a scary moment when all Leica photos today were over-exposed. Discovered that in fooling around with the front button last night I set the EV to +1.7. Oops. Nice pics once properly adjusted. Turns out live view is pretty useless, though. Even with magnification the image is too fuzzy/washed out to focus with. And so far I’ve had decent results with the rangefinder.

–Made pizza for dinner. Best yet. 30 minutes at 450 is the only way to cook ’em.

–Hamilton military watch(es) came in. Very small, but pretty cool and running very nicely.

–Got bagels at Noah’s; got milk, flour, peanuts, olive oil, chocolate chips at Bel Air. Saw Imelda there, shopping with her mother. She pretended not to (or didn’t) recognize me.

–Sent an email to eBay customer service asking why I’m getting seller email at wsfarr@gmail.com. The quick response didn’t have an answer, and bumped it over to IT. [edit: It dawns on me that Xfinity (as distinct from Comcast) also sends email to wsfarr. I suppose it’s possible that something is crossing over. I tried to update Xfinity info today, but their account interface is notoriously limited in what it actually lets you do.]

–Still haven’t heard from Michael Casserd on closing papers for the 110 Playa sale.

–Daylight savings time started; I changed all the clocks.

–Couple of doves were hanging out most of the day in the garden and the pool rocks. Several flickers were pecking at the lawn. Squirrel with what seemed to be a bum leg came early for peanuts; didn’t see it again.

–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.