Month: August 2024 (Page 4 of 4)

–HD Lawn Care guy’s dad came over at 9 AM to replace the two leaking control valves. Talked to his son on the phone, son decided to charge us $350. This was ONE YEAR after the son replaced these same two valves for $370. Pretty sketchy in my opinion.

–Tried to swap in the new portafilter gasket on the Maximatic, discovered it’s 54mm, not the correct 49mm. Emailed Great Infusions. Meanwhile, the reinstalled Orphan Espresso silicone gasket seems to work. On the other hand, it appears I gave away at least one of my extra-large portafilter baskets, as the standard 18.3g dose caused all sorts of over-spilling problems. Grrrr….

–Went through a “sell the BMW” exercise at Carvana. They offered $24,300. This is going to be ugly.

–Took Grace shopping at Smart & Final.

–NOS red Tekna regulator came in. An unused beauty, but of course the tilt needle seat had turned to goo and all but disappeared. Tried some other innards in it, but it never did breathe great. Into the bin; will play with it some more later.

–Barbecue for dinner: corn, Corralitos Cheesy Bavarian sausage, Bel Air potato salad (red bliss potato–not great), Thao tomato.

–Stopped at Corralitos Meat for Cheesy Bavarian and Gizdich apple pie, then drove home. The GPS put me on 5/99/Grantline. Kind of grueling. The BMW drove beautifully, but still smells and has started making more noises. Finding a replacement will be really hard: smaller cars are really small (like Coopers); similar-size cars are hard to justify. Why spend $10k-$20k to trade a fast smooth beauty for one that’s the same size, slower, less sexy, etc.?

–Picked up the Leica SL2 extension grip from Patrick James at Luxury Auto Haus. Quite manly. Grrrrr…

–Leica won’t adjust eye sensor relief under warranty for my new SL2-S, as it was bought from an unauthorized dealer (All Good Friend in Hong Kong). Not sure what to do. After testing, turns out the original SL2 has the worst relief (the slightest head movement blacks out the EVF); my SL2-S is better; and the SL2-S Reporter is far better (but has wear on the cover and smells). I could send mine in and pay for adjustment, but it’s not at all clear that it would come back like the Reporter (which Patrick James claims is untouched) and everything I’ve sent to Leica costs > $600. Dilemma.