Month: February 2025 (Page 2 of 3)

–Walked to UPS to pick up a couple of fidget spinners. One (Tipper) kind of blah; the other (mokume Dark Vader) very nice, and a compelling spinner to boot.

— Someone at Badger and Blade has been looking for a Charcoal Goods brass handle called “Stinger” (version 1) for a few days. I knew I had a handle with a bee on it, but didn’t think it was that exact one. Dug it out, and it’s that exact one. A commenter on the B&B WTB said “Well, you’d better be ready to spend a lot of money.” Guess that means I can sell it and retire now.

–Cleaned up the bird bath fountain yesterday and got the pump working (spurting periodically) and today it saw many visits from birds and squirrels. Don’t know if they’re drawn by clean water or spurting.

–Took Grace shopping at Smart & Final in Carmichael. Later she went into an enormous snit.

–Transplanted rosemary, thyme and dill into a large pot. Cleaned up the bird fountain.

–Watched to SNL 50th Anniversary show. Pretty lame.

–Got tangerines for me and Kenny from Sweet Tree Farms in Fresno at the Sunrise farmers market.

–Helped Kenny briefly, rotating the front wheels on his electric trike.

–Made pizza for dinner. Pretty good: used fresh mozzarella rather than thawed shredded “pizza blend” cheese.

–Went to Sacramento Eye for a checkup after cataract surgery. All good, great pressure in both eyes. No more Latanaprost. Put in an order for Flexon glasses and lenses for the Ray-Ban sunglasses.

–Lunch at McDonald’s–$15, and the soft drink machine has been disabled.

–Chicken pot pie + Kenny’s potato for dinner.

–Another windy, rainy day.

–Picked up Japanese pick mattox at UPS. Kind of large, but I think it’ll work.

–Also picked up Big Poe spinner, allegedly in titanium. Feels like aluminum, and doesn’t spin so good.

–Got dessert at Bel Air.

–Won a couple sets of spinner buttons at a Not Just Toy drop.

–Made pizza for dinner. Good one. Need to give more serious thought to cheese and sauce.

–Went to Pacific Skincare to see Olga Karaputa for a skin check. Many lesions frozen on face and head, biopsy taken of something on neck. Got a prescription for fluorouracil.

–Stopped at Bel Air to deposit the $1,480 check from Great Infusions from the sale of a Cremina. Picked up at UPS (a) a 608 spinner bearing that is .2mm too large and doesn’t fit the spinner; (b) some zircuti buttons from NJT that are beautiful; and (c) a Wolfman razor from Damn Fine Shave that is really nice.

–Stopped for gas in the BMW at Fair Oaks Arco, where the cheapest was $4.59. I swear it was $3.95 a few days ago at a no-name station on Sunrise a little farther north. Oh well…

–Video Medicare Wellness visit went okay, except I blacked out when describing a clock at 10:35: hour hand halfway between 10 and 11, minute hand, uh, not sure what the number is, halfway, 30 or 35 (they wanted to hear “minute hand at 7”). What a freaking joke.

–Picked up the Tri tungsten spinner from Hungary at UPS. Total joke: very high quality, but it must weigh 2 pounds. And it cost $575. Oh well…

–Stopped at Bel Air for milk and cream.

–Pizza for dinner.

–Picked up the Modusworks Thinamathing at UPS. It’s nice, and seems to spin freely, but doesn’t seem to spin for long.

–Stopped at Bel Air to get some Fish Oil for Grace.

–Took a shower and shave.

–Played more with the Astra theme at Dizziness and Nausea.

–Super Bowl Sunday. Chips and nacho cheese, Eagles clobbered the Chiefs, Red Baron pizza for dinner.

–Bought Astra WordPress theme. It’s nice, but way more than I’ll ever need and it’s another one of those naggers. Even after spending $280 for a theme you get nagged for add-ons, and when I opened a support ticket for a refund, they nagged for $4.08/month to get VIP service. Absolutely unbelievable. I finally (sort of) figured out how to get stuff out of the header and into the footer of Hemingway, so–given the small chance of ever getting one of my domains approved for Adsense–that should be sufficient. [edit] Took another look at Astra; managed to get the Pro plugin installed, which added a lot of functionality. Got the footer looking like I want now, so I guess I’ll stay with Astra and try to build an impeccable Dizziness site. Google still won’t accept it for Adsense (too medical), but the exercise won’t hurt.

–Walked to UPS to pick up another spinner. This one looks okay, but spins badly. After a lot of effort, I got it apart to learn that it uses the old-style 608 bearing, and a crappy one at that. Looked into 608 to R188 adapters, but that ship sailed a while ago, so I just bought (what I hope is) a nicer 608 bearing on eBay. We’ll see.