Month: September 2024 (Page 2 of 3)

–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.