DE CE

I know some people would do anything to make me stop writing on this blog. But i wouldn't write about Romanian politics anyway anymore, i already decided that. At least for a while. Maybe i should start writing this like a log.

I really hoped things would somehow get fixed, maybe get a job, maybe some money from people who owe me and never had to write this here. But that might very well never happen.

I barely got out from a "road rage" incident when a 70-80s black Chevy with modified suspension and exhaust and huge tires was trying to back-up from the alley where i live, ocuppying both lanes and making big noise and smoke almost climbed on my little S10. There was a "witness", a guy with a dog in a black T shirt with some white drawing on it nearby. I can imagine what would have happen if i was tried to confront the guy. I just passed him and went to the other alley.

But this is just the last incident. I was thinking maybe i should start to say how i got here in the first place. But the story is too long and now i would try to write it backwards. Earlier i tried to drive to the only open liquor store after 8 about 6 miles from where here where i live. Every intersection, an opportunity for accident. On the freeway, there was like 10 cars trying to aggress me, it's too long to remember and write it here but it was worse than usually. Every time is. Subtle enough not to raise suspicions to unaware people though. If there's anyone left. At the store, in the line, in front of me, a white guy with shaved hair was talking way too much with the cashier, buying and unbuying things, packing and unpacking until behind me grew a line. Earlier i saw a woman with a wet, cold, just pulled from the fridge gallon of milk in her hand buying liquor. I salivated instantly because i drink lots of milk. Etc. Then he synchronized and drove on the alley in the parking lot in front of me with a 30 year old car. All the turns until i got on the boulevard. I didn't even start the ventilation in the car. On the way back the same show. It's good though today not every time when i turned my head i saw someone drinking or sucking from a jug. Cause this was the last trend of the last  year. If i passed someone with a smoking car and look at him/her he would pull a jug with drink and start drinking with big thirst.

Before that. This whole apartment where i live sometimes i think it was build from recycled stuff and designed especially to get people sick. Especially the exhaust from the cooking stove that instead of going vertically and through the roof and then a few more feet upwards like a chimney, it goes almost horizontally about 7 meters to the other side of the roof and opens inside the attic where there is a flat vent. Even if it pushes the odor from the kitchen outside, the flow sticks to the building and comes back through the windows. Many times i said i wouldn't use it but sometimes i forget. And when it's hot the temperature in the attic goes to 110 F and more and everything there is in that 6 inch x 7 meter exhaust rots and smells really bad. It happens only in the afternoon when it gets hot and if i forget to start the fan and push some air in it i get sick before i realize it because the smell grows gradually. And if a plane passes by it vibrates and some of the stuff gets pushed inside the room. And i only realized this today. Or maybe i did before but i wasn't sure or i forgot. Don't get me wrong, i have a good memory but there's too many things going on. Then i leave the place because i'm so sick but just by driving around i get some fresher air and then come back later when it's cooler. But because of what happens on the streets i usually forget why and how seek i was when i left. About a year ago i closed the joint between the exhaust and the vent under the roof so the stuff cannot get back into the attic and goes all through the vent and put a one way valve on the end near the stove but on hot days like today it doesn't really help. But the vent is still flat and doesn't have a chimney. It only helps if i cycle some fresh air for about an hour through it. Today i put some enzyme from the pet store that decomposes stuff and has some deodorant in it.

In short, i spend hours every day just to clean or fix the place. Most of the time i'm sick because i'm sensitive to smell and also sick to the stomach. But it always happens in the afternoon when my next door neighbor and my wife are at work and i'm alone. Sometimes i feel like fainting or paralyzed to my spine. My wife lost some of her sensitivity to smell because of the chemo back in the fall of 2004, but she wasn't so sensitive in the first place. It's between a half time and full time job every day in a very bad environment. Not counting the trips at home improvement stores and the thousands of dollars i spent and hundreds of receipts i try to keep. I just finish fixing one stinking obnoxious thing then another one starts. I will try and continue to write this backwards but right now one of my neighbors maybe the one that's a real estate agent, the one who dug a whole withe her Mercedes power steered wheels in the asphalt, by turning the wheels to the right after the car is stopped make some really weird noises that seem synchronized with my keyboard or something. Sounds like moving stuff around but i'm not sure. She does that frequently when she's at home. Monday she "forgot" the TV on all morning after she or somebody else made a big noise and woke me up at 6 am after 5 hours of sleep. That day and the following i was really like a zombie.

Yesterday no Tuesday was gardening day at my neighbors. By the pool. Almost 5 hours two power tools of over 100 dB each in the same time where trimming and blowing the fences and bushes. My ears where hurting, literally. And my brain was scrambled inside.

And then there's my down stairs neighbor. The Italian looking guy. The apartment underneath is vacated since last September. One more level down. The guy smokes some slow burning natural untreated cigarettes that smell really really bad. When he leaves for work i think, before noon, he opens the bedroom window and then i have to close mine. Depending on the wind, sometimes it comes from the other way, from the kitchen. I have to be very careful opening the windows cause it can get worse.

A few days ago i looked at a small ball of mineral insulation from the attic with a strong magnifying glass. Actually with a camera lens pulled out of the camera. Among fibers i say tiny maybe a few hundredth of a mm tar or rubber particles, or both. That explains the hellish smell of the attic, combined with cigarette smoke. Especially when it gets hot like today at 110F. The tiles of the roof are made of bitumen and sand. There's washed out bitumen and sand from the tiles in the gutters.

By the time my wife got home a quarter to midnight i almost fainted. I opened the balcony door to get some air and the neighbor was having a glass of some alcoholic drink visible on the side of the balcony. I opened the bottle, poured myself a shot of rum and tried not to faint until my wife gets home. Then when she entered the door a few minutes later i got better as i always do. Drink or not. Then she got mad and threw my 12 dollar bottle of rum i risked my life for in the sink. She never done that before. I didn't want to argue too much especially because the voice of the neighbor in the balcony speaking on the phone "got scared". I went to the supermarket and bought some beer, again avoiding a cohort of mostly small and old and smelly cars that were showing out of nowhere at this hour in every intersection. All liquor stores are closed after ten. I was actually tempted of stopping and enter in a bar, i saw the Lure was opened. Never been in a bar before since 1995 when i came here. Only once in a restaurant where they serve alcoholic beverages. No, i once had a beer at Spaghetti Old Factory.

But now i don't feel like drinking anymore. Maybe watch some TV and go to sleep. Ok, i opened a bottle of beer and reread and corrected typos and mistakes of what i wrote before. Now i think i begin to feel like a philosopher again.

Hilson, Timbaland

Used and mismanaged, two of the best artists in American contemporary music. This video came out way better than intended, due to natural talent of the two. Or maybe it was the exact negotiated compromise. Or how we can still savour entertainment, though among hiccups.

Which reminds me of:



By the way, in my opinion, appology is overrated. There are too many people appologizing around and continuing doing the same damn thing.

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!