The Wise Men Say Don't Go Crushing

It was a couple of years ago at Spirit Mountain Casino when i saw a t-shirt on an older guy who seemed ex-military by face and allure saying "Go after the big ones". It took me a while to figure what that meant, back then i was high all the time from smoke coming from burning pellets in the ground around the mole holes, it took me more than a year and actually until recently to really start to go after the big ones, while refining my technique. Went over the shininess of not cropping or even uploading images, but only using links that were breaking too oftenly and images not being aligned and harder to recognize. But some did recognize enough, went past my mistakes and got all kinda discrete encouragements from all directions plus my own results kept me going.

I knew about Don S. Davis since long time ago, when i figured he was the manager at Brake Department at Les Schwab Aloha (actually Beaverton), next to the old Intel to be demolished for decades Intel factory, back during my job in 97, he was one of the first that triggered the whole process actually. (I didn't know who he actually really was, as Hungarian).

Yesterday for the first time i put a new brake caliper on my truck the way i did back then and saw immediately it was leaking, but only under pressure, with vacuum power on (engine started). Why did i do so? Because the caliper had the surface of contact with the banjo painted and i erased the paint with sandpaper and didn't see the grooves the old caliper had.

What else can i say. In front of my boss, all the others where my seniors, in four months i put hundreds of calipers on cars, never caring about crush washers and stuff. I mean. I thought i knew how to do it, i did it on my cars before, but never changed calipers, which involves one more thing, the connector (also called a banjo).

Truth is, i can't remember. If they were new washers in the boxes with calipers, if i used them. But i am pretty sure i was never cleaning the banjos. Nobody did. Most likely by fear of contamination of the fluid with dirt from the surface and never checking for leaks the way i did yesterday on my truck.

Would have been good enough if we were checking the banjos for tiny drops of fluid after the test drive.

There are numerous the reasons a leak like this may occur, including dirty banjo, re-tightening the old crush(ed) washers, yesterday i used the new ones in the box but for some paranoid reason i untightened them to see if if i didn't forget to put one of the two.

What happens is they put (they should) in the box with callipers new annealed copper washers. What that means. By annealing, or heating copper at about 400 degrees C it becomes very soft and when you tighten them or "crush them", the soft copper take the shape of the two adjacent surfaces and in the same time hardens under the pressure of tightening due to a phenomenon called plastic deformation. They become "crushed". Then you can't reuse them for the purpose of sealing, unless you anneal them and i think it can be done by heating them on a regular stove until glowing.

As i said, i did hundreds of them without a worry and nobody ever said anything. I apologize to anybody it may concern if they had problems after. On an occasion, he asked me to finish work on a car after another guy stripped a pin, i told him and he came with hammer and bent the pin to secure him place.

On another occasion i went for a test drive with an Astro Van. At the intersection at NAPA a 80 years old man by the name Albert probably terminally ill coming from opposite direction made a left turn without giving the right of way. I was doing 35 going forward through the intersection, hit the newly done brakes and skidded 30 ft leaving the marks and stopped exactly when he like in a slow motion sequence came and hit my van. There was not much damage, i tried to talk to the guy, the guy was deaf, here comes this woman saying why i'm abusing the old man by yelling at him, he gave me a Costco card when i asked to exchange information, and then he went straight to my  boss and spend the next couple of days talking to him and Bill asked me  not to report it to DMV because the old man could loose his driver. Right after the accident a couple of guys with a camcorder (how they used to be called) came to me and gave me a phone number to call because they had everything filmed. In the end i filled the DMV report but without the amount of damage cause nobody wanted to tell me, and the report didn't get through. A few weeks later i saw the van coming again in our shop, maybe for them to say i didn't do the job right.

They were others in there, i wrote about on occasions. The good looking colonel from Stargate, the vocalist from Creedence Clearwater Revival, Ivan Morrison, Bob Dylan (not so sure), bassist from No Doubt, with apparition as a customer of the diva herself, the manager who i thing was a Dracula actor, etc.. I mean. I thought i knew how to do it, i did it on my cars before, but never changed calipers, which involves one more thing, the connector (also called a banjo). All, together with previous and following good to write about on a new resume for a job in galaxy far far away.

And Eric. From what i remember, he looked like the head of the Police hear in Tualatin. Could he be the guy i spoke with on the phone today when i complained about a wheel being stolen by the same guys who are always trying to help me by fixing my karma. The way he pronounced his name sounded more like Hammer of Hammond. Could that be the reason he didn't show up in person. I mean, i called 911 for God's sake.

It may be all these guys being actors they were following instructions from micro earpieces and they themselves had no idea what the were doing.

It may also be that all the customers that came in there were also actors and the cars were second hand cars bought from dealers for that purpose only. I once spoke (2002 or 2003) on the phone with my ex class master in High School, the Romanian teacher and she said that i am here the only real person among hundreds of thousands of actors. She sais she was in Romania (i called a number in Romania) but i think she was in Greece by the time and i her other identities are Romanian soprano Marina Krilovici and her Hungarian counterpart Gabriela Szigomnd.

It was two years later, in November 1999, i was working at AVX in Vancouver (WA, USA) fixing small capacitor testing machines and i asked half day off from my supervisor, Orville Oster whom i think was actually Axl Rose (Oster can be anagramated as Roset). He was coming at work only hours a day, having somebody from the team punch his card and when he was coming, was pulling me for extended cigarette brakes which lasted more than an hour. I remember in december the night shift supervisor wrote on a board "All time production record" after i fixed all machines (when i came, usually about 5 out of 25 were down).

I asked from my very nice supervisor for half day off to go and do the brakes on Angela's car, the 93 Nissan, BTW, a very nice car for those days, and went to Aloha and spoke to Dennis, can't remember if Tom (Don), others was still there but i think most were gone.

He did brakes all around, for a moderate price, and i left, i think it was raining or there was a bit of fog (yeah, November fog), on I5 not far from bridge over Columbia an accident occurred, traffic stopped suddenly, i was doing 70 like the rest of the traffic and i hit the newly done brakes, the wheels looked of course cause the car didn't have ABS, the rotors having a rough surface from just being turned, and i skidded about 100 ft and stopped in slow motion one feet from the car in front of me and the truck with three Mexicans behind also stopped one ft from my rear, and we were all surrounded by a cloud of smoke coming out of tires.

In december 95 after i've kicked of from Mladin's house (the guy who looked like Osama bin (m)Laden and a  Hungarian singer) i moved to Vancouver hoping i will work to AVX which didn't happen cause they had other plans for me. Next to where Dan Costan was living, at Fox Pointe Apts.. A few nights after or just before New Year i read on local paper that a girls has been shot (in the butt) at the 7/11 nearby.

I did get work at AVX four years later, and got to work the sister of that girl or herself, now married with a Mexican and always pregnant, who in turn proved to be a Hungarian soprano, whom i also met in Italy, under another identity which i also don't remember and later became Minister of Health in Romania.

Still have doubts about the identity of Nelu Ciorba, the Romanian technician who actually helped me get hired. Could had been be Orban himself?

Star guests apparitions: Then minor (17 years old officially) not yet a celebrity Mădălina Ghenea. Italian singer Nino d'Angelo who in 2004 when i went for 3 months in Romania made a song for me though i am not who suggested i was in that song. Engineer Don Henley (who couldn't right correctly in English), etc..

Supervisor of the operators was Adina Prața.

More names for my intergalactic resume.