Missaligned Intersection

Never go straight crossing the intersection between Kruse Way and Bangy Rd in Lake Oswego. Where Kruse Way Ends and 217 begins. Coming from Kruse Way going to 217 or the opposite. Why? Because the lanes are misaligned, by about 4 feet or the width of the dividers between the yellow lines showed above and there is no sign to show it. You have to seriously pull to the right or left in order to stay on the same lane. If you are on the left lane coming from Kruse Way you are at risk of being hit by the cars on the right lane if they go straight and the other way around.

Crooked Stripes on I5

How hard is to draw a straight stripe on a highway? I assume it's much easier than to build one and yet the surface of I5 is pretty straight but the stripes are crooked. I only could take a few pictures between Wilsonville and 217 and these are not the worst places. It is a very easy way to ruin the work of other people who built the highway and make it a little less safe for drivers. The same with 217. Or maybe studies found that it's safer when it's less monotonous... Or maybe ther're hidden subliminal messages in that modulation...

But nothing can surpass what i saw today on KATU web site:

http://www.katu.com/news/weird/Road-crew-paints-yellow-line-over-dead-raccoon-165642176.html

I have to confess first i laughed then i remembered about the pictures i took yesterday and made the effort to put them here since i risked my life and my wife's life to take those. But this is no joke since it can ad to other problems on the road. And it became a habit in Oregon in the last years. The worst i can remember is in Beaverton or Portland, on 217 near the end at Barnes road, under 26 overpass.

I apologize for the greenish taint and poor focus on my pictures it's because they've been taken through the windshield. And of course i couldn't possibly stop to take them properly, so many times.

Minimalism, Racism, Witchcraft

Minimalism is good in certain situations especially in art or when trying to isolate a causality chain but one should be careful when thinking and building theories which is actually reality modelling when the tiniest missing argument can lead to the opposite of the true model.

I'm thinking here about racism, which is an example of reality modeling that emerges only from frustration and wrong thinking after a day's, week's, month's or lifetime brain exhausting self exploiting joy denying work and it is a cheap way of releasing that frustration by thinking yourself a philosopher, judge and executioner or helper and falling into the temptation of over minimalism, when tired and missing the physiological capacity of thinking clearly and trying to eliminate the tiny, parasitic, "not important" points.

Or in some categories that don't even work, it's just the bad habit.

And no theory or philosophy could ever model the unpredictability of one thinking consequentially thus changing his mind every time he turns his head and see something that wasn't in his mind a second before and the using of "well proved, memorized, situation solving" recipes which are actually models of situations that lack the refining through generalization and proven by logic.

And pointing the finger at those predictable as being idiots. They are only consistent which is the first step towards being reliable.

And no witchcraft system which is only a collection of mind, physiology and laws of biology exploiting techniques according to the above described long time acquired recipes could ever replace a verified, standing philosophical system built on logic even if not complete or only partially true.

Into The Lime Light

Just painted! Click for better view.

Ever since i came to US i've been missing the comfort and coziness of the lime painted walls. I don't know it may be a cultural thing, back then we didn't have the option of synthetic paints, but it was a mistery to me and still is why people don't use it @ here. When i asked about it in the home improvement stores, after long explanations and descriptions, resembling small chemistry exams, people went into some strange, shocked, state and stared at me as if i was from another continent or something. NO, never heard about something like that!

But after browsing home improvements stores for years, and learning the second sense of word lime in English, in a corner, in the construction area, there it was, the bags with lime powder. Not for painting use, but of a much better quality then the one i used when i painted my apartment back in Bacău.

I bought if for a different reason since i was experimenting with ways of mitigating with formaldehyde but it was white enough for me to fall into temptation to try it on a corner in a closet. And surprise, it dried about as white as the old flat paint based on kaolin and titanium dioxide. And about as strong, according to the time taken to clean myself in the shower.

Then i read the MSDS and i was surprised it mentioned it had something between .1 and 1 % crystalline silica which is a known cancerigen and for causing silicosis, and the old kaolin based paint which had about the same amount of silica didn't have anything like this mentioned on the bucket.

Then i mixed it with water using the kitchen mixer and made it of about the same consistency the old paint had when i applied it to the walls.

After two coatings, it was still spotty at some viewing angles. It misses an emulsifier and segregates at the bottom of the bucket. Then i taped (old Apollo 13 technology :)) the mixer to the bucket and let it run at low speed while applying the third coating and voila! Spotless, white, warm and very nice smelling painted walls! No VOC, i mean zero (Volatile Organic Content). Actually, probably due to residual amounts of CaOH, it release oxygen and locks carbon dioxide while drying!

The lime i used was composed of calcium carbonate and magnesium carbontate (CaCO3 and MgCO3) wich are exactly the same ingredients that purified are used in supplements.

For a small bedroom i used about 19 pounds out of the 50 p bag.

Another nice surprise, it muffled the street noises by about 5-10 dB according to my ears!

Later, i learned it cleans very easily with Comet spay, which contains citric acid. So no need for blue tapes around margins.

The lime paint is very special. It breathes. With the normal moisture in the air, it accumulates or releases oxygen and locks carbon dioxide in excess. It locks other gases. It is like a chemical buffer, pretty similar to backing soda, but much stronger and on a huge surface. It promotes the growth of good bacteria into your place. It is very healthy and ecological!

And the best of all, the total cost of the 50 p bag was $8.50!