Credence

I post this here because it can be accessed publicly, i mean if i go somewhere in an office and i have to show it.

After my hospitalization in early 1996 we were living in Vancouver, WA. Things got better in the way i wasn't thinking of anything anymore. I was on Navane from a prescription given by doctor Proano Augusto of Vancouver that was my doctor at SW Washington Memorial, Vancouver, WA.

One day i saw an add from Express Personnel in the Oregonian, i guess. On Apple Way, off Beaverton Hilssdale Ave, in Portland. We both signed up for a 2 days training course in soldering with them.

We spent that weekend at the Marts in Salem. My ex-collegue from Bacău. Monday it was snowing and on I5 i stopped once to check tires i guess. A policeman stopped and offered his help but we were ok. So we went in Portland and at Express right in time for the course. I think Julian Mart managed to take me off Navane that weekend too.

They weren't many people in there. Can't remember exactly the names. The recruiter, a younger guy, brunet, with moustache. The instructor, Mary? Or something like that, a short and very common name. Students, besides me, Angela and a Mexican woman, i don't think there was nobody else.

Now, that i think, the instructor also reminds me of a celebrity. Always reading from a note book.

I remember her repeating as she was going through the material. "For soldering you need solder, flux and heat".

At the end of the two days course, since i scored high at tests, the recruiter and her decided to give me an electronics technician test. Since i went to a specialty electrotechnical high school and because of one semester of electronics in faculty, i did 3/4 of the test, perfectly. For the rest i ran out of time and i checked random answers.

In a couple of weeks i had an interview at Credence, onNimbus Ave, Beaverton building. Now there's some religious center in there http://goo.gl/maps/qyX37.

Anyways. On April 14 i started working there. Swing shift, 11 dollars an hour (double minimal wage at the time), in the same time with two other guys. Robert "Bob" James, a Mormon (big Bob as Dino called him, cause he was like... 300 pounds, blue eyes, in his 50s), Lyle Hall, fired from Intel an me. There was another guy in that shift, Bill Appel or something driving and old Nissan Z with a hole in the floor and a guy... can't remember, another Bob, from Colorado, who had a car with a windsurfing bord on top and everyday was bragging about coming directly from Hood River and in the weekends was remodeling houses he bought for resale, with a green license plate that started with the word SEX. I think swing shift was partially overlapping with day. Dale, a blonde guy who set on fire a few racks when he left one day and forgot something and i saw the smoke coming out. And a few others.

As usually with all of my jobs in the US i had several bosses.

First month they trained me on power supplies. Got shocked a few times.

Then i started testing boards for test heads on a minicomputer. I was packing and shipping the good ones. The other guy working at those, Eugene from the day shift was fixing them. Later, i got trained by Eugene and started fixing those myself. Can't remember who was doing the final tests, but i was doing huge amounts, good quality (no returns or complaints from field techs like from Eugene's), lots of overtime and my day shift supervisor was overjoyed. Credence was charging companies that were using their testers around the world with $700 a board and i was fixing at least 10 every day. Didn't know exactly what i was doing, just putting the board in a fixture tied to a minicomputer, running tests and replacing parts accordingly. Those were highly precise, ultra fast, nanoseconds circuits. Lyle, who knew electronics, told me that nobody understood those circuits made of Schottky diodes anyways except for maybe the designer, "they were too weird".

My buddy Lyle. We were together all the time. Many time he was just pulling me from the bench for long cigarette and hot chocolate breaks. He was coming to me smiling and braking an imaginary stick in front of my eyes: "Brake" time!

Together we went to Insurance Auto Auction and bought cars. I had this old Fairmont and he did not have a car so he bought him an old Chevy Cavalier or something for 100 bucks (nobody else bid) (he was smart, that car was not wrecked and he just started to use it, after going to the most praised by him Les Schwab (for whom i worked next year) to balance tires, that were still under warranty) and i bought an 89 white Escort GT that was hit in the front for 900 bucks. His car was ready and running but mine needed a radiator, hood, bumper, fender and some... frame straightening, which i did at Lyle's apartment. Using a cable, i tied the frame to a tree and backed up until i straightened the body enough to be able to put those parts on. One problem though. Unibody type frame was broken some place and every time i was pushing the gas pedal was going... right i guess, a little bit, and every time i pushed the brake, it was going left or something like this. But not much. To me, it was good, and the 1.9 liter engine on a small car like that seemed good enough.

Many other things happened in there. I am both nostalgic and sick when i remember.

But the main reason i dig through this stuff is this.

One summer day, before i bought the Escort, or maybe after and i was just still driving the Fairmont that day, i don't know, in the afternoon it was very nice and warm. Only Lyle and me on the floor. All the walls surrounding the ground level floor had big windows made of dark glass and we could see outside.

Maybe a dozens of police like cars marked ATF surrounded the building. One of them parked in the back of my Fairmont, blocking it. But they did not come into the building and proceeded in the bushes behind it, towards the Fanno Creek. Lyle pulled me in the middle of the floor.

A few minutes later they came out of the bushes with an Asian looking guy. Very thin, dressed in a dark-gray, very simple, sports like suite. A very strange face like i never saw before. Not Chinese. He was not agitated, barely moving, but looking upset. Nothing in his hands.

Later Lyle and i saw a small, old car with a blue static coat and a badge like ours inside parked nearby, but we knew it was only us in the building. Lyle said maybe it was the janitor or something. I was kinda shook for the rest of the day.

Later that summer they started laying out everybody in that building. My part of the job was sold to a start-up in Milpitas, California. So one day in a very beautiful September i drove 700 miles in my new Escort over there for an interview. But this is another story.

Smoke

I put this here because it can be accessed publicly, i mean if i go somewhere in an office and i have to prove it.

02/23/2014 07:08:17 AM

2014:02:23 07:10:36 AM

2014:02:23 07:10:36 AM

Jinichi

I put this here because it can be accessed publicly, i mean if i go somewhere in an office and i have to prove it.

Multnomah

I live in Multnomah county. I put this here because it can be accessed publicly, i mean if i go somewhere in an office and i have to prove it. In many local agencies there is confusion about what county this address is in (95% percent of LO is in Clackams). The place where the information is obvious is google earth, that is also the most known. Picture is clickable.

Today i spent several hours installing Google Earth. It didn't work double clicking on the rpm. (I have Fedora 20). Then i tried yum locallinstall and i saw the error message, some conflicting file with the same name. Then i found an installation line on a forum and installed it from sourceforge. I know i'm taking chances but there is no other option. Then i filled the printer cartridge with black ink that was low (yes, i refill). Then i finally printed it and added to the yellow envelope with documents. But i put it here too just in case.

Mysteries Of The Attic, Revealed

Before picture date

After i discovered this i started working on. Damn thing was a trap. You touch it, it's your responsibility. Unnacceptable the way it looks, the smell from bathroom and kitchen coming back into the attic.

I though i was smart enough to mess with it. For about a year, several versions, unsuccesful.

About a year ago it became what is seen in this picture below.

A piece of plywood covering the vent hole. A 12 V computer case fan right under the vent, encased in the 6 inch vent. 4 one way valves with three flexible pipes, two from neighbors and one from me (that is not shown in the first picture above because it was laying on the floor blowing the insulation through a hole right above my kitchen window) in the covering plywood. Three 4 to 3 inches reductions. All sealed with silicon and 3M quality tape.

I have a variable voltage power supply for the fan. When it's hot in the attic (it can reach 120 degrees) i turn it to the maximum ant it cools the attic at least 10 degrees. At 6 Volt works but if one the neighbors forgets the fan like it happened almost every day within last 10 days, it won't cool the attic.

The one way valve that opens in the attic has been modified (re-balanced for a much lower flow). The others are plain valves for dryers and they work the way the were designed.

When one or two of my neighbors uses the bathroom fan the one way valves close and don't allow back-flow on any vent. There is one more one way valve at the other end of each pipe near the fan in each bathroom. Enough redundancy here.

For the kitchen exhaust, i used a computer fan fed by a 5 V USB power supply right above the microwave. If i don't use that one after i cook and stop the main fan in a few hours everything around it in the kitchen starts to stink really bad. I tried with a one way valve and didn't work. So that fan runs all the time.

In the attic i replaced the end of the pipe that was damaged and surrounded with a piece of plywood like in the picture.

Yesterday i discovered that for the vent shown in this picture above part of the tape was taken or blown apart. A small percentage of the whole flow was back-flowing. The two pieces of plywood that surround the pipe are cut around the pipe real nice and there is no much play. However i put new 3M tape and pushpins to secure the tape in place.

I also found 4 or 5 leaks in the other joints of the vents shown in the other pictures and re-taped them all.

Very difficult to work because they were numerous vehicles and small planes making noises like for every move i made. At first there was a big truck with pneumatic brakes that was releasing air every time i was breathing. This makes me very nervous and i make mistakes. My ground level neighbor also turned on the fan for about half hour. This always happens when i start working on those things. But since i write in here everything is quiet except a car or two.

woo

08/08/13 7:07 PM:

Last year i taped this piece of 7 inch flexible pipe only at the joins and where it was leaking through tiny wholes. At the picture date and time 08/08/2013 07:05:39 PM i discovered several leaks, only with the main fan on. The wires are from a 12 V computer fan that is powered by a 5 V USB charger. It works all the time to prevent back-flow from the wind and bad smell to accumulate in the 7 meter/6 inch exhaust that goes in the other side of the roof near the vent as shown in the first picture. So i covered it completely with tape, 3M, Tough, 7 dollars at Home Depot. The valve that shows open in the 2nd and 3rd picture was sticky and wouldn't open or close easy. I checked and find some chip of plastic (1 mm long) hanging from one of the side like it was trimmed with a knife but not completed. It was out of balance too. I re-balanced it and checked to see if there are leaks so i covered the valve's entrance with a piece of cardboard and set the fan on 12 V. As soon i was removing the cardboard, the fan was going maybe 30% faster and noisier. When i installed the whole thing more than a year ago i put 2 big tubes of GE II Silicone and sealed the space between the vent, shingles and plywood. I installed two hooks for the attic lid and replaced it with painted fiberboard when i moved here. The hooks have threads and are long and go over the sheet-rock and into the wood. Today i found one more hole one inch next to one of the hooks that was corresponding to the attic and one of the hooks was replaced with a shorter one and wasn't reaching the wood. Fixed everything.

Yesterday and today i found two more small holes near the bathtub, corresponding inside the wall and attic space. Covered them.

In the last few days there was "attic smell" inside. I'll see if it disappears after these fixes.

My Last ER Visit

The date on the ECG. December 1st 2010. That day i cleaned the heaters (Baseboard, Cadet),  (i discovered a method, i turn them to the maximum and sprinkle clean hot water on them while hot and they make some steam, some bad smell but get cleaned really well). http://www.homedepot.com/p/Cadet-6-ft-1-500-Watt-240-Volt-Electric-Baseboard-Heater-White-6F1500W/100080894

After eating almost an entire cake (2 pounds), 2 liters of coke, ice-cream, and other junk food, i went to bed around 10. Couldn't fall asleep, felt like fainting. I used my life-saver oximeter and it was showing the oxygen level in normal limits, then i fell asleep, but opened my eyes one more time and i saw on the monitor the oxygen level was 89. I felt like i was about to pass out and jumped out of bed, into my truck and drove to Providence. Nobody on 217 at that our except a fire engine that went all the way to Providence with me and was putting out diesel smoke pretty bad. Went to the ER, took a number and sat on a sofa. I thought i saw a face i knew from a Romanian video, a Romanian singer that died before 2006 in an accident. She smiled at me then (she was dressed very summarily, in a short t-shirt and very low under belly jeans, asked me if i had change for a 20 or i did asked her can't remember, then put a jacket on and left.) Then i saw another person that looked like a different Romanian singer i knew from videos with a t-shirt with the word Roxy written with big letters with pink glitter. I spoke with her and she had a hand held something and she was answering with very few words after consulting that thing. I sat under an air conditioner vent for hours with the oximeter on my finger until i wanted to go to the bathroom. So i went, and when i came out i was about to faint again, but a guy with a note-pad with some papers picked me up and took me inside the ER. In the room was smelling very pungent, like menthol but stronger. They hooked me to the ECG machine and produced what you can see above. They motivated by the fact that one or some of the wires were not hooked properly. In a hospital like that, an ECG cost maybe 200 dollars, but they were kind enough to forgive my debt, together with all the costs for that ER trip, months later. When i told them later about the smell, they picked a piece of cotton from a counter-top and threw it away and the smell was gone. They told me i was ok and sent me home. In my way home when  i got off Barbur Blvd into Luradel some guy opened the cars window and spat at me. I went home and slept two hours until my wife got home.

Old Pictures Since @Year 2000

Orville Oster (Axle Roset), me, other people, AVX, Vancouver, WA, 2000 This pictures taken with a cheap camera had been designed on purpose with me at the dark end of the flash range. The first woman is not actully whiter than i was especially after many months or even years of not being exposed to sunlight. We were eating McDonalds and drinking Coca Cola but they caught me with a cup raised on purpose. It was in the evening during that swing shift and i was working a lot back then and i was also looking tired.


Adina Prața (center), the Philipin o Britney Spears, others






Lincoln City, Oregon, @2000


Lincoln City, Oregon, @2000


Sisters Quilt Festival, Oregon @2000


Shawn Parker (gen Petraeus) and his girls, near Cannon Beach, 1997


Florence, Oregon, @2000


Shawn Parker (gen.Petraeus lookalike) and his "girls", near Cannon Beach, 1997


Julian Mart (a Changu native), Darlene Hooley, PDX @2000


Florence, Oregon @2000


me Lincoln City, @2000


Me on Prozac at Pacific Gateway Hospital Sellwood, 1997, closed in 2001, now demolished

Me living the hospital in 97, a monthg before Les Schwab job. At the Beaverton Church of the Nazarene i met Shawn Parker (probably general Petraeus), Ron Bogger (probably Leslie Nielsen) with his wife Mary (probably Priscilla Presley), pastor Swift (probably singer Mealoaf), the mechanic, Dave Diggins (probably Tom Cruise) etc..

Everything Breaks

Since i moved in here many strange things happened they didn't happen an the other apartment. I mean they did but on a smaller scale. Besides endless cleaning and repairing of things broken, old and smelly.

After a few days my blood pressure monitor disappeared. I've been using it a lot in the past, maybe obsessively. I found it months later in a box in the storage in the balcony. Then it broke. The little air bag that was pressing when it was inflating got pierced.

I don't know if i can remember many things from the past, but i'll try. I'll start with the last one i found today. A month ago i replaced the shower hose. It was about five years old, ten bucks at Home Depot or Lowes, i liked it because it was light and flexible. The handle itself broke by the thread where it joints the flexible hose.

I bought a similar one at Lowes, about a month ago. A few days ago it was leaking and i tightened it by hand, lightly. Today the nut is cracked.

I had in the bathroom a number of spray bottles with all kind of cleaners, cleaning enzymes and stuff like that. For a few days now the exhaust fan at my down stairs neighbor runs continuously, day and night. It is out of balance and vibrates.The floor vibrates, the whole bathroom vibrates and all the bottles caps came loose. I had some chlorine left in a gallon bottle under the sink that had a loose cap. Yesterday i touched with my knee the door of the cabinet that closes the space under the sink when was opened and it broke with no effort, didn't fixed it yet. The result is this morning in the bathroom smelled like chlorine and other stuff. I thought it was coming from the walls from my neighbors, but after i cleaned everything and closed all the bottles and removed them from the bathroom i think the smell disappeared.

All this things happen mostly around holidays. To me holidays started to become a nightmare.

So this morning before i cleaned the bathroom we went for a walk in the park. I forgot something and came back from the parking lot. Just before i got into the car i saw this very low flying plane, making no noise, just above the tress.

About one hour after i came from the park (a three mile walk, 400 ft climb) i got really sick.

Yesterday i went to the ocean. (got some pictures on flickr here ). I ran out of gasoline and went to a Chevron in Seaside at @4:50. I bought 20 dollars worth of gasoline and when i tried to get back on the road, thinking heading south, a large gray silver truck (I think it was a Silverado with heightened supsension) with no license plate in front, with two mature heavy built blond male persons with very short or no hair came from the middle of the road into the right lane where i wanted to go to and accelerated and it was a tenth of a second that made the difference to me when i decided to look one more time to the left before taking off from the alley). Immediately two other cars came after him, cars i haven't seen when i first looked before i decided to make a right from the gas station's alley, a red Toyota Prius and a gray Ford Focus. Then they slowed down so i could not get close to see the number of that Silverado, cause it had one in the rear. But i had enough time to see it was of turquoise color, like that of an Arizona plate, as i've seen so many around here (in the last two or three years i've seen an unusually largy number of out of state license plates).

So i tried to follow the Silverado but the distance to the truck grew bigger and bigger until right before the intersection between 101 and 26 i lost sight of it and did not see which way it went. My initial plan was to go south to Rockaway Beach so i did. When the road turned to 2 lanes in one direction, right after the intersection, i passed the Ford, and saw an old man with a ducks' fan cap with the big yellow O on his head at the wheel and i thought i saw him sneering nervously at me.

Then i accelerated but there was no sight of the Silverado.

Than at one of the first left turns i saw the other driver, that of the Prius, that stopped unexpectedly (he too was covered by another car that stopped in front of me). But i didn't see his face.

But on 101, before losing sight of the Silverado, i took one picture, unfortunately it was too far away and the truck partially covered by a pole. Maybe people with more technology could do a spectral analysis of the plate for the color.

the Silverado

The Dingo Ate Your Baby

Every time i'm relaxed, take a sip of coffee or something to eat from the "kitchen" and turn my head to the ever running TV i see some graphic scene. This time i grabbed my coffee and tried to read some news and turned my eyes by mistake "the other way" towards the TV and saw a guy in a morgue with a wound on his neck that first looked like a biting wound like in vampire movies. At that point my relaxation went to hell because of the coincidence and looked more carefully, and it wasn't a bite wound but some other wound then the scene starting morphing continuing into a whole plot hard to interpret and understand. So i turned the TV off and starting writing this post.

But most of the time if it's not surgery or bitten cadavers at the morgue, it's babies. Every time i eat or drink something and turn my head to the TV i see babies alternating with cakes and drinks or sexy women. Don't know if anyone ever experienced salivating while eating, but this is what's happening to me. Those cakes on TV are more stimulus to me than the food in my mouth.

More than that, many times the scenes i see on TV and try to interpret turn into something else, and else and else, fighting my analyzing power and trying to follow i loose track and in the end they don't have any logic. Even old movies like Mission Impossible, the old series or Kojak they started playing on MeTV late at night.

Don't know, it may be because of the TV that i bought from Sears in 2008 (Sony Bravia 40S), made in Mexico, broke exactly after 3 month, fixed it myself, but it always needed 16 seconds to boot up, as long as my Fedora powered computer.

I long suspected that the TV program might be altered or even entirely generated by some software ran on a more sophisticated PC or mini super computer from nearby or from a distant country through fiber optics, sort of like a more sophisticated game. There is no way i can verify what's supposed to be on TV at that time in part because,

more recently, as i wrote in this letter addressed to the Romanian Embassy in Washington, i am under the impression that i'm talking on the phone with computer programs, that are cloning the voice and style or repeating phrases of people i knew in the past (probably by putting together phrases from a database of their recorded conversation with other people on the phone in the past, mostly in Romanian but in English as well.) (Most people use a limited number of phrases in their conversations, as people i knew in Romania are getting older, they tend to talk less. However, sometimes their answers are surprising me as not following the logic of the conversation or suddenly changing the subject. When i'm about to say things more important or names, i get interrupted, usually by noises on their side or other phones ringing etc. So more recently i gave up completely).

I think for gamers it might be the ultimate coolness, to have a game that runs a TV like program that changes with their thoughts and activities, but think again and especially be careful what you wish for. According to Moore's law, that  seem to govern our society lately, it may be coming to a TV near you, soon.


From: atudorache@roembus.org
To: george.ion@live.com
Subject: RE: mesajul dvs. adresat Ambasadei Romaniei la Washington
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:11:46 -0500

Stimate domnule Ion,

Pentru informatii de contact ale ambasadei, va rog sa vizitati linkul http://washington.mae.ro/node/166 . La telefoanele respective, aveti posibilitatea sa contactati ambasada chiar si in afara timpului normal de lucru, pentru situatii de urgenta.

Programul de lucru cu publicul al sectiei consulare a ambasadei, la ghiseu, este zilnic, de luni pana vineri, in intervalul orar 10-13. Asistenta consular telefonica se acorda intre 14.30 si 17.30, zilnic, de luni pana vineri. Detalii suplimentare sunt disponibile pe pagina de Internet: http://washington.mae.ro/node/258 .

Informatiile despre serviciile consulare pe care le efectueaza sectia consulara sunt disponibile prin accesarea link-ului: http://washington.mae.ro/node/485 . Totodata, sunt prezentate detalii in legatura cu fiecare dintre aceste servicii. Spre exemplul detalii privind eliberarea pasaportului romanesc sunt disponibile aici: http://washington.mae.ro/node/268.

Totusi, avand in vedere ca va aflati in Oregon, v-as recomanda sa va adresati Consulatului General al Romaniei la Los Angeles. Detalii privind obtinerea pasaportului romanesc sunt disponibile pe site-ul consulatului, la adresa http://www.consulateromania.net/viza_ro_201.html .

In ceea ce priveste activitatea unui consul onorific, as preciza ca persoanele desemnate in aceasta calitate faciliteaza promovarea relatiilor Romaniei cu alte state, asumandu-si voluntar tot ceea ce implica functionarea oficiului consular onorific. Detalii suplimetare privind activitatea consulilor onorifici sunt disponibile aici: http://www.mae.ro/node/1871 . Consulii onorifici nu pot efectua insa acte ce implica exercitiul autoritatii de stat, cum ar fi emiterea de documente consulare.

Sper ca cele de mai sus sa raspunda intrebarilor dvs. Daca aveti neclaritaritati, nu ezitati sa imi scrieti.

Toate cele bune,

Adrian Tudorache

Ovidiu-Adrian TUDORACHE Second Secretary, Political Section
		1607 23rd Street NW Washington DC 20008 Phone:  (202) 332-2392 ext. 136 Fax:       (202) 232-4748 atudorache@roembus.org  www.washington.mae.ro

From: George Ion [mailto:george.ion@live.com]

Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 3:50 PM
To: atudorache@roembus.org
Subject: RE: mesajul dvs. adresat Ambasadei Romaniei la Washington

Domnule Secretar.

Mulţumesc pentru răspuns. Îmi cer scuze pentru că nu am răspuns la telefon dar în momentul acela eram ocupat. M-am gândit după aia şi la problema cu telefonul care face parte dintr-o serie de probleme pe care nu ştiu să le rezolv pe moment. Îmi pare rău că trebuie să intru aici într-un cerc recurent. Tot ce pot să vă spun că în urmă cu câteva luni, după ce Qwest a fost preluat de Century Link, au fost prezenţi timp de câteva zile lângă cutia din stradă şi au lucrat neobişnuit de intens. Am avut ocazia să îi văd de câte ori treceam cu maşina pe lângă cutie. Nu ştiu dacă au rezolvat toate problemele, pe vremea lui Qwest veneau mult mai des, s-ar părea Century Link nu a mai avut nevoie să intervină de atunci. Am încercat să-i întreb folosind telefonul celular iar răspunsul a venit dintr-un call center din altă ţară deşi era în timpul zilei şi a fost că s-a instalat telefon pentru un nou client, ceea ce părea cu totul neobişnuit, fiindcă au lucrat trei zile de dimineaţa până seara lângă aceeaşi cutie.

Nu pot să nu-mi amintesc aici de numărul neobişnuit de mare de maşini care trec pe strada unde locuiesc, care este mult prea mare pentru numărul de locuinţe din zonă iar unele maşini sunt cu numere de state altele decât Oregon, în special California. Interesant este că numărul variază mult de la o zi lucrătoare la altă zi lucrătoare. Primăria oraşului Lake Oswego a fost interesată de mai multe ori să afle exact datele şi au instalat contoare de două ori de când m-am mutat aici. Foarte interesant este şi faptul că eu locuiesc într-o zonă a oraşului Lake Oswego care este cuprinsă la est şi la vest de oraşul Portland. Dacă păşesc afară din parcarea de la vest, intru în Portland! Aceste maşini poluează fonic şi nu numai.

Şi maşinile noastre, ale mele şi ale soţiei au avut probleme de poluare de când le-am cumpărat, a mea chiar de la dealer, şi am adunat cea mai mare parte a facturilor în două dosare care la un moment dat aveau un inch fiecare dar s-au mai subţiat în condiţii misterioase. De aceea în ultimul timp am încercat să rezolv cât mai multe probleme singur, de exemplu am instalat în toamna 2011 un catalizator care se stricase după un an în curtea bisericii româneşti din Oregon City. Deşi a fost în garanţie, Autozone nu au recunoscut dar au acceptat un return după ce am cumpărat altul. Îmi amintesc numele vânzătorul care mi l-a vândut pe 2 iulie 1910, Dragoş.

Dar primul lucru care am vrut să-l întreb la ambasadă a fost care este programul dvs de lucru, dacă este un număr de urgenţă şi la ce servicii se poate aştepta un român care se află domiciliat în Statele Unite şi întâmpină probleme neobişnuite. După care m-am gândit la numărul personalului din ambasadă pe care l-am văzut pe site şi la numărul de români în situaţii similare şi mi-am dat seama că nu ne putem aştepta la prea multe în afară de faptul că s-ar putea ca unele probleme să fie comune pentru mulţi şi atunci s-ar putea rezolva simultan.

Un alt lucru pe care nu am putut să-l aflu de mulţi ani este la ce tip de servicii ne putem aştepta de la Consulatul Onorific din Portland care este reprezentat de domnul Rudd care este american irlandez şi nu român. Ar fi un lucru greu de înţeles pentru oricine ar afla aceasta.

Nu cred că românii care se stabilesc în străinătate cunosc aceste probleme înainte de a se deplasa sau pleacă mai întâi şi după aceea le rezolvă din mers. Iar pe cei care stau în ţară aceste probleme nu îi afectează şi sunt şi mai puţin interesaţi să le afle.

În ceea ce priveşte Consulatul din LA, am fost mai demult în contact cu domnul Ghenea, de al cărui nume şi discuţie îmi amintesc mereu. Aş vrea să vă întreb aici dacă eliberarea unui nou paşaport care de data aceasta este valabil 10 ani durează tot până la 4 luni şi dacă este necesară trimiterea din nou a actelor originale sau se poate folosi baza de date creată atunci.

Deşi am unele probleme cu recunoaştere feţelor persoanelor care le văd o singură dată în viaţă, îmi amintesc mai uşor numele. De ex., bunica mea a fost căsătorită sau a locuit până a murit în Câmpulumg Moldovenesc cu un domn Valeriu Tudorache, care avea rude în Slobozia, lângă Bucureşti. Coincidenţă de nume, pe soţul ei l-a chemat Valerian Mitre.

Am auzit că şi în România s-au îmbunătăţit mult unele servicii şi că există posibilitatatea obţinerii unui paşaport în condiţii similare cu alte ţări, ca de exemplu Statele Unite. Noi ce de aici ne aşteptăm mereu ca şi pentru noi să se îmbunătăţească serviciile care se pot pune de acord cu progresele tehnice din ultimii ani care şi-au făcut loc şi în România.

Însă numărul de probleme pe care îl întâmpin zilnic aici este mult mai mare, depăşeşte în complexitatea problemele pe care le-aş avea într-un job de răspundere la o firmă sau oriunde, şi îmi ocupă foarte mult timp. Nu cred că aş avea timp să le descriu pe toate vreodată.

Sincer,

George Ion

---

From: atudorache@roembus.org
To: george.ion@live.com
Subject: mesajul dvs. adresat Ambasadei Romaniei la Washington
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:27:25 -0500

Stimate domnule Ion,

Vă mulţumesc pentru mesajul adresat Ambasadei României la Washington şi pentru semnalarea dumneavoastră privind mesajul de răspuns automat telefonic. Vom remedia problema semnalată prin înregistrarea unui nou mesaj de răspuns automat.

Vă rog să nu ezitaţi să mă contactaţi pe viitor la telefon: 202 332 2392 ext. 136 sau prin email la atudorache@roembus.org .

În acelaşi timp, dacă aveţi întrebări cu privire la serviciile consulare oferite de ambasadă sau de consulatele României în SUA, aveţi posibilitatea să contactaţi Secţia consulară a Ambasadei României la Washington, telefon: (001)-202-332-4846 sau (001)-202-332-4848 cu extensiile: 117, 118 sau 120 şi email consular@roembus.org sau Consulatul General al României la Los Angeles, 11766 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 560, Los Angeles CA 90025, Tel: 1 - 310-444-0043, Fax: 1 - 310-445-0043, e-mail: consulat@consulateromania.net, http://www.consulateromania.net/contact_en.php.

Cu cele mai bune gânduri,

Adrian Tudorache

Ovidiu-Adrian TUDORACHE
Second Secretary, Political Section

KAISER, everywhere

In March 2010 we moved here and they installed a new carpet and padding.

In July 2011 i tried to replace the padding under the carpet. It was stinking like naphtha, glue and something else. Back then i didn't know what something else was. I bought a new padding but it was smelling again like naphtha (which back then i didn't know what it was.) even worse that the one in place and i just returned it. Complicated but quite simple. The sweet smell comes from the organic glue the fiberboard is made of besides wood fiber. Probably residue from slaughterhouses. Blood and collagen. It turned into a dust and entered the padding on the low side. The red dots are where i injected deodorant a about a month ago and it dissolved the dust. Deodorant was made of water, propylene glycol and/or enzymes. Almost transparent, nothing red in it. I also used pounds of baking soda. But that one didn't go beyond the carpet.

For about 200 dollars in 2011 i bought self adhesive liners and sealed the floor. I did a good job since it's still there after two years and still intact. Nothing comes now in or out of the fiberboard. However, it was one year to late. It entered the padding and is still there. (In order to seal it you have to sweep the floor really, really good for dust so the liner would stick there. I have it on the hard floor in the kitchen area and it stays there for more than a year and is better then other sealants).

I would have benefited if i replaced the padding but what was bothering me, the naphtha smell was still there as they gave me a similar padding with extra naphtha. Again, i thought the fiberboard was made with formaldehyde.

Back then i forgot (i was too sick to the stomach) to take pictures of it and to this day it was my fantasy now came true to take pictures and here they are.

If anybody is curious about the smell, there's only one thing i would tell him/her. Be my guest.

Crime and Punishment

Woke up quite dizzy. As usually. No much slamming early in the morning. Not after what i wrote on fb yesterday. Anyways. I thought i can indulge some beans and an egg for breakfast. I really like beans. Nothing happened. When i went outside for the first time i noticed a fine almost undetectable pungent smell like from burning a certain type of wood. On Boones Ferry, the road was partially bloked. Had to wait my turn. They dug a big hole covering both lanes and covered it with reddish steel plates. Forgot to reinsert the memory card in the camera so i could not take picture. Came back on Stephenson. I noticed a white limo with headlights on on the right side of the road.

I came back. Inside, the perennial glue smell from under the carpet. Pushed my luck and ate beans the second time. I didn't write when but a big helicopter flew low. Another flight over the cuckoo's nest. Probably OHSU. Shook the walls and whatever. Dust fell. Half hour, all hell broke loose. I heard a scared female neighbor i didn't know she was home running. Then a fine smoke filled the whole place. My eyes sting. That was the punishment. I don't know where it was coming from but hours later i noticed a fire near the pool, like for preparing a barbecue.

Went in the park to brake the cycle. Passed a weirdo that was exercising moving her hands strangely.

It always stops if i go out.

Do We Got It or Fungus Among Us

I remember one of my very first serious conversation back in the days where i could chat on IRC (now it's almost two years since i've got cut out, every time i try to connect to a server, it's either very slow connection or i can't connect or something like this). It was supposedly chatting whit a girl from Romania with a nick Oana_ or Oana29_ or something like that and i was peaking maybe 90 wpm and i was very excited. First i started on a channel #radionet or something on undernet, or it was radionet the network itself, can't remember for sure. It was late 2009 and she said she was recuperating from a broken leg from falling from a scooter. Funny enough, a while after that one of the TV stars from MediaPro managed by the same Sârbu did break a leg on a ski accident. She also said her husband or boyfriend spoke English, as i felt compelled to write some of the lines in English, but she was not very comfortable with those lines as it was exhausting just to read them. When i asked her what she was doing she said she was studying some books and when she was 5 years old she dreamed of being a doctor.

I wont forget Oana_ and the nice and attractive way she chatted with me.

One of the first days one of the first subjects was an idea i had about the most famous, large and old living organism on Earth, which is the 8.9 square kilometres (2,200 acres) acres fungus that happens to live here in Oregon, in ... Malheur county. (Thre are a few more smaller ones). My idea was more like a question, what if simple organisms like funguses can transmit nerve impulses from one cell to another and can configure as a humongous neural network and start thinking and communicating with us through some telepathic means?

As i was reading the news these days, about Tom Cruise and the Church of Scientology that says we got aliens in us, i remembered the whole thing.

Don't know about that but ever since i kept asking myself who she was.

Oana_, i'm on facebook. If you can read this please contact me. I got so many other subjects on my mind i'd like to talk about!

Lake Oswego Zupan's Market

Today i was looking for a liquor store. Since i moved here, two of them disappeared from the area. The one on Terwilliger and Taylor's Ferry moved to Macadam. The one here at Mountain Park didn't know where it was moved until today. Cause i got tired of driving at Macadam to buy brandy with dubious seals. Or meeting with guys that look like Tom Kruse in the store in down town Tualatin. So i grabbed the address or i thought i committed it to memory and i went to search for the new one on Boones Ferry. They've been working at this Zupan's Market for many months now, i got used to the idea that in that space there's a perpetual construction site. Don't know when they opened it. (Angela says 6 month ago). But they did, and apparently far in the back of the market place, at the end of a corridor, they put the liquor store. New, good looking place. Like Zupan's. No sign, no nothing. I had to ask three different people where to find it. No, four. Went in there. Although the store is big, the isles are crammed. Like most of the small stores and restaurants around here. I bumped into someone at every isle's corner. Also like if they were there waiting for me. Grabbed two bottles and one of coke and went out. I asked why they don't have a sign in the market somewhere. They told me they don't let them have one. I didn't ask who where they. But i know from experience, the people in Lake Oswego are among the most righteous people on the face of the Earth. They probably don't like their liquor stores out in the open for everybody to see them. Earlier i asked a guy sitting outside at Starbucks. First he pretended he didn't like to talk to me. Then he wanted me to hear him well. He doesn't know where the liquor store is because he doesn't drink.

Came back home and after a while i had an idea. Grabbed the camera and came back to take a picture for everybody do see or maybe not there is no sign for the liquor store. But the light was getting dimmer, that's all i could do.

Fat Lazy Bee and Crescents

I insulated the wall where the neighbor's speaker is with a blanket. Then a bee came in and stood on the floor near the wall. Then Comcast came in the parking. They always came by two or more. Then neighbor came in although the car was all day in the parking lot. But i heard a car's door and a door. Base is still on but much more muffled because of the blanket. I took a picture of the bee and left it on the balcony floor. But the bee walked back in. LOL. So i gently picked it and threw it away from the balcony and guess what! Finally flew!

Noisy Pool Pressurewasher

Must Have Been An Angel

Focal lenght=27, wide angle. Wanted to catch more of the trail.

Focal lenght=27, wide angle. Wanted to catch more of the trail.

Darker in color, clearly shaped on the sky, much lower, surely a hawk.

Focal lenght=27, wide angle. Wanted to catch more of the trail.

Another hawk, most likely

Focal length=30, wide angle. Wanted to catch more trails.

Balloon, i saw it dancing in the wind. It appears below too, in the croped version in the left.

Focal lenght=30, wide angle. Wanted to catch more trails.

In the lower right, a darker patch.

Not hawk, not balloon, not plane. Could be a drone. Hiding in the jet trail.

Focal length=105, 2x zoom. Took pictures of all dissipating trails after discovering what is above with zoom at maximum. Some of them are badly shaken, out of focus. Could have been more.

Blue grey. Looks like a drone to me. Light from above - left as it should. With wings.