Neal Wilson ✅ @neal@social.typica.us

It looks like the seller is going to eat the price difference. On the one hand it's technically a nicer machine. On the other hand, I'm not thrilled with the increased space requirement. Everybody is making their 2 group semi auto machines bigger than they used to be. (There are good reasons to make an espresso machine bigger but the work space was designed for the machine that's there. I'll have to figure something else out when the other machine goes.)

Plus side, the price includes installation (ships to an installer) so that at least won't be an extra charge.

So apparently the espresso machine that I ordered (listed as in stock so I guess not so much) isn't being built anymore so the place I bought it from is working with me to figure out Plan B. Plan B might be an Aurelia Wave. The major down side is that it's a physically larger machine. They're trying to figure out how to make it fit my budget.

Meanwhile, the little sample roaster has made it back to the manufacturer on schedule. They're probably not going to tell me anything about that until some time Monday-Wednesday. I will have to continue using the 1Kg lab roaster for samples (I might have been anyway as I expect it'll take some practice to dial in my standard sample roast on the new machine).

This is replacing a slightly modified La Marzocco Linea 2EE (I have another one about the same age that's holding up a little better that also will need eventual replacement).

Ordered a new espresso machine today. The one it's replacing is coming up on a couple decades, has outlived multiple service companies, and past techs have screwed enough up on it that I'm no longer capable of fixing it. It's a Nuova Simonelli Aurellia II Semiautomatic 2 group.

Credit card fraud protection is weird. I can buy >$8K commercial equipment, expensive lab instruments, industrial parts, hotel rooms in foreign countries and it's not a problem. Instead it flags things like, "are you sure you bought groceries in the same city where we bill you?"

Rushing ahead got me the bad end which apparently happens if you just don't bother with a bunch of bosses.

In othet news, the cat is trying extra hard to lick my hand.

The $200 rebate from my tires arrived today. I still wish that was real money instead of a MasterCard gift card but whatever, I'll figure out how to use it. Probably groceries.

Last night I restarted Bloodstained because a patch made it impossible to make further progress by making a key item unobtainable. It only took one evening to get past where I'd gotten stuck but that also means that I'm now a few bosses farther along and massively under-leveled for it (though better equipment is helping make up for it).

The box that's on its way back to London is currently in Leipzig. It should get to London tomorrow and hopefully they'll figure something out by Wednesday and send me back a working machine. Will it return in the same box that's now made at least 2 transatlantic trips? I'll find out.

She thought she was going to be an African art dealer but accidentally ended up in coffee instead.

Coffee sample arrived in the mail today. It's from someone who doesn't try to sell me coffee very often (she's transitioned to spending a lot more time working on social/community/non-profit type work adjacent to the sector) but she knows what I like so I'm always happy to try something she thinks I might want to buy.

Cat Won't Stop Destroying Shower Curtains - The Dodo https://www.thedodo.com/close-to-home/cat-wont-stop-destroying-shower-curtains

So it turns out that the reason I haven't been able to get farther in Bloodstained is that a patch caused the chest that was supposed to have the silver bromide to be pre-opened, which means that I can't get my picture taken, which means that I can't get a fake ID from the vampire librarian, which means I can't board the train to the next area. Options are to start over or to uninstall/reinstall and never let it get patched.

Oh, yeah! This fixed a minor (doesn't hurt anything but was a bit obnoxious to see) bug with how Qt Creator was displaying files in one of my projects.

It looks like DHL estimates they can get things from Wisconsin to the UK faster than they can get the same things from the UK to Wisconsin.