September 11

10:54 Just re-edited this post for clarity and consistency mainly of language. My English and writing experience have improved a lot since, best would have been to re-write it but then it wouldn't be written at that date anymore so i just made some adjustments. September 11 2001 was the day when my American dream ended.

11:00 Last night in McMinville, close to the end of the variant coming from west, around 4 AM in a no passing zone. Traffic was slowing down, there was a Sherrif's car (white) in front of me which pulled on the shoulder, without flashing lights. Passed it and looked in the mirror to see what was doing, it had one headlight out of adjustment, when the van/suv in front of me suddenly stopped, however i saw it in time and stopped myself. Then it slowly passed a second Sherrif's car that was again stopped on the shoulder, without flashing lights and incoming blinding traffic. LPN number of the vehicle in front of me was DYLAN or close. I tried to do a reverse LPN search on a site and it came up with a different vehicle. 

Both Sheriff's cars stayed behind and disappeared from sight within 30 seconds.

Went outside to check if the traps laid by Eradicon are stinking already. The one close to our building was not anchored to the building, with a screw laying on the ground. I tried to shake it to see if there's anything inside, i guess there wasn't.

12:15 The story of  the bike of the "guy upstairs" is long and i have avoided it because it was paralleling (mirroring, doubling, superseding) many other things i was writing about. It started i guess the next day or days after i wrote a long post in Romanian about cars, mainly because of some erroneous and incomplete article i read on a Romanian site. I put in that post as much as i could from my own experience with cars, gained in 27 years since i owned the first one, in 1995 or when i came to the US. A "wooden" 1983 Ford Fairmont that i bought on the street.

So he bought this 1997 Suzuki Savage and started working on it almost every day, sometimes for hours in a heat over 90 degrees. The week they started to work on our building (starting August 22, the second notice) he went for a vacation, the whole week. The guys from BZ construction moved his bike around almost every day.

On August 26, after spending one night at the motel near Chinook Winds Casino, where i had a nightmare about people entering the room, found the deadbolt open at the door in the morning and the market crashed, i drove to Coos Bay to visit there a couple of casinos. Next morning i read in the news about a fire at Rum Creek, 58 miles away from Coos Bay but an 158 miles drive that started on August 17. When i got back home i realized the gas cap with lock i bought on Amazon was leaking possibly leaving a trail of gas smell behind so i put back the original.

On August 29 at 2 AM i heard a noise upstairs, after a break of about a week (when i had enough noisy from construction). In the morning i was intrigued by the sight of his motorcycle, in a different position than the night before with what appeared to be a puddle of gas mixed with oil that was already dried so i took a picture of it.

In that evening, around 8 PM someone knocked on my door. I went and looked through the window and saw the man upstairs. He started questioning me as why the bike was moved around and why there is a puddle of oil under.

I told him, that was not oil but gas (i didn't know at the time it was mixed with oil). In the next few days i talked with "the man" a few times, trying to troubleshoot his bike and then trying to convince him to fix his bike so it won't leak anymore. He instead filled the bike with gas again.

On the carbureted motorcycles, there is a shut off valve you are supposed to close when you stop the engine. Otherwise, gas keeps pouring in the engine, passes the rings that are not covering the whole 360 degrees of the piston, and gets into the oil pan. On a bike like the one above there is no PCV valve. The blow-by gasses that pass the rings during normal operation are being evacuated like in older cars, in the air through a breather under the engine. At his bike with a broken shut off valve gasoline floating on top of oil evaporating in the engine and the vapors escape through the breather. When he moved the bike the night before i took he picture in a different position, a certain amount of gas flowed on the asphalt.

As a result my car now also smells like gasoline. What is intriguing is it started to happen right after i put back the original cap and i stopped the leak there.

After buying a new TV i was curious to see how everything look in 4k. It turns the brodacast itself has to be in 4K or UHD and the first thing that came to mind was Expanse, which i binged watch a while ago. But then i started to watch it again as i realized i jumped much of it when when i suddenly realized that the martian arts woman in the movie (Bobbie) looks like the athletic Spanish one at Apt.4. Being suspicious now of all actors, i searched and i found a close match with the Japanese Olympic swimmer Satomi Suzuki. But when i looked closer at the pictures, i realized she was actually also looking like the guy upstairs and then i made this connection. 97 Suzuki Savage, 91 Satomi Suzuki. So the man upstairs is actually a woman. It makes sense because the woman are much less influenced by the protozoa present in sick dogs poo litter as she has to handle (pour it in my head). Previous occupants of the apartment were also mostly women except for the old man who was playing porn so loud you could hear it from the alley.

4:13 Chatting with Hello Mobile

7:52 After spending most day at the computer, felt the need to go for a walk. But when i opened the door they were having a party on the other side of the alley and he/she was working at the car, and glanced at me from the moment i stepped. So i just took the patio door, uninstalling the AC in the process. Went for my walk, AQI was near 100, overcast (yes, dark Oregon autumn showed itself for the first time but at 80 degrees). With hot, smoky stagnating air so i didn't make it very far. When i came back i met with the strange man with Arab like beard, green neon shirt with a belt over, showing a funny, prominent butt in his black yoga pants, talking in the phone, i think it was in Spanish. Cooked something, he/she came upstairs from somewhere (it's dark outside) and started the routine.

8:06 Yes, of course, Bush.

February 3

12:47 Late this evening i went to look at something under the car. As usually, i took pictures with the phone, in places i don't have direct sight. I left the door a bit open and then after spending a few minutes outside, i noticed the smell of a dog poop. I looked for, haven't seen any. I thought the smell might come from inside and got used to it. As i was laying in front of the car, taking pictures with the flash, they dispatched some kidos, some planes, the usual.

A few minutes ago i noticed the smell inside is getting stronger. And then suddenly i realized what happened. When the temperature reached 80 inside i stopped all washing and drying. Got some pillows in the washer, that were spun and ready to dry. But i also forgot to pour some water in the drier, just in case all water from the s valve was gone due to siphoning. Or was stolen. Whatever. Then they shook the building for one hour to bring in both dust and sewer gas from a sewer where they throw in dog poo. I filled the valve and now attempting to air in here, in several stages, as i search for one more guy, but it's been a lot of smell. A towel soaked in water with a drop of chlorine on top of heater.

8:44 This morning, again a number of coordinated actions, including seeding burning pellets loaded with biological material into the ground by an unknown person, and bringing a big engine during quiet hours under some pretext to vibrate everything at 6:30. I think someone let a car on an No parking on Tuesday spot, 21 Century Towing, the same that almost ran me over when i was taking the garbage having with my truck on tow and would not release my truck under promise of payment, they were not equipped with taking cards, nobody uses cash no more). In a few words this morning in an act of retaliation they (dominicans) acted deliberately infecting someone with a live biological agent (T Gondii) by performing a religious ritual in public.

2:10 The ultimate craft, an invitation to another world. Since no physical phenomena exists without an observer, so the whole Universe which may be the creation of our minds agreeing upon (nothing new).

Thus the number of parallel universes is infinite or at least equal to the number of observers, but what if a number of observers agree to converge to a separate Universe, that could coexist (paralel) with ours, that both us and they might call Unum (The Dreaming)?

2:52 Food production requires one quarter of the whole energy the world uses or produces. However. I think letting rot or throwing away food should be made a crime. Or at least establish quotas. Limit.

3:04 Electric sweepers are in great demand, instead of price going down, like for any mass produced items, it goes up. (By example my Bissell vacuum cleaner with bags cost 40 dollars at Walmart). When i bought my sweeper, a few years ago online it was 22 bucks. They are very useful little things, in between vacuuming. With a tiny motor and three small rechargeable batteries, it is amazing the speed that brush rotates at and how fast you can sweep a limited area, be it in the kitchen after cooking or under desk after eating. However. In a year of use it gets so dirty it becomes unusable, though still in trend, still necessary. 

Especially hair getting in the little bearings, dirt covering transparent, unreachable areas. Built well enough to last indefinitely, after that point where it slows down and/or stops rotating being clogged with dirt or hair there is no option for the average user but to throw it away. This morning i took the thing apart (about ten screws, one connector, handle, wheels, etc..) and cleaned all the parts, basically rebuilding it, in a couple hours. Was it worth it? That depends on how much an hour my own maintenance cost. It works like new, even the batteries are holding.

Here's an example of designing things that are not easy to maintain and prone to be thrown away after being underused. A waste of materials, energy, while increasing the pollution burden. I've once been told. It's not the engineers, it's the accountants who decide. Why put more effort into designing more maintainable items when the pressure is to sell more?

10:29 I've been very busy within the last few days searching. One thing was leading to another etc.. Wasn't paying attention around except at times, when i was going to stop the smoke. But right now the smoke is so bad inside it is intolerable and i just don't know what to do anymore. I went outside briefly to take something from the car. A guy with a car parked next to mine on red curb with flashing lights came promptly from a building. The smoke outside was so thick i just could not stay in the car and search for those things so i just came inside. Now my clothes smell like smoke. Earlier. After a week of silence, with car parked outside, i heard the guy upstairs. Made a few noises earlier and a couple of squeaks. Interestingly, the noises made me forget what i wanted to do next. Feel like i don't want to do anything no more anyways. Disgusted with everything. Maybe one more thing worth mentioning. Not only Americans are flooded with hidden symbolism aka subliminals. From top to bottom. From the eye of the pyramid. By, then.

11:00 It's the same though on a different scale than what's happening around this building. Anybody believes me now? Just remembered something.  Another burning hell in Centralia,... TranPennsylvania, less than a mile away from... Ashland. St.Ignatius? Now i remember something. My first job at Sheridan was on MLK, close to... Ash and Burnside Bridge and Street. In the fall/winter of 95/96 i was crossing that bridge every day twice with my 83 wooden Fairmont Ford with 306 VCZ? (With Z figuring an overturned N) LPN. Some Romanian Christian "friends" were telling the year of birth of Christ was miscalculated and 1996 is actually 2000, year of the Apocalypse. How many Apocalypses have been since? I can't remember, they've been a lot, but i think it's only one and it started at least 100 years before year 2000, with industrial revolutions and the world led by religious fanatics who literally want to set the world on fire (climate crisis), and we are now in the year 2022 closer than ever from their goal. (We just passed 2/02/2022, beware now the date 2/22/2022).

Question. Who's gonna clean after, if ever? My guess. After all the gold from this planet will be pumped up on  in Orion constellation with particle accelerators, this planet will burn pretty much like Venus so nobody will remain to remember anything or God forbid. Grow taking advantage of all the resources here and go after or challenge them.

Many would say. Concentration of carbon in the air on Earth increased i don't know, 0.4% in 150 years of industrialization and there is a long time since will reach 99% like on Venus. Wrong. That concentration is merely the final effect, not the cause. All it takes is melting completely the ice caps, which are planet's "air conditioning". After those are gone, it is possible the temperature would go high enough for all the vegetation to dry up and then of course burn and that would be your runaway effect, and that will probably consume much of the oxygen in the atmosphere, without possibility of regenerating, capisci?

BTW anybody asked themselves why the world's biggest particle accelerator is in Switzerland where world's most numerous gold bunkers are. Instead of directing two beams with vaporized gold ions into each other at near the speed of light, you can redirect the beams to a direction in space.

6:20 Just took Angela to work, i needed the car to work on it a little today. As i pulled in the spot, a teenager from Apt.4 popped in front of the car, coming from where? at 6 AM. The smoke was rather vague, and the soft spots and mounds were moved away from building. No, nobody is bothering me when i go to step on those, doing the rain dance, when there is smoke there is nobody in the buildings, they probably got tunnels to move people in and out. But when i stepped back towards the door, i saw a black cat with a bell running away scared from under deck and i can only guess what it was doing there. Kinda absent minded, not necessarily hight. Ok, a bit high.

A Romanian In A Junkyard

Like a kid in a candy store. Or like a Cuban mechanic in an American junkyard. (Back in Romania we were also fixing almost everything, although the luckier (than me) could buy new French Renaults built there under license or Russian Jigulis.)

That's how i felt back in @96 when i first entered one. For between 2 and 20 bucks could get most of the parts provided you had the tools and knowledge to take them off. I would have hugged any shiny engine in there. I was getting high just by realizing the richness of the country i was in. And i was sure in a few years i won't be needing to get there anymore.

The first part i ever bought was a carburetor for my first car ever, an 83 Fairmont with 6 cylinders of 2.9 liters (of wich 5 were working LOL). But that was at a junkyard where they were pulling the part for you, somewhere on Columbia boulevard.

Today i went just for the pictures. But i stopped when i got next to a car that was identical with Angela's 93 Sentra. Everything in there was newer then her car. The car sat on wheels that didn't have time to get lower in the gravel. But all i wanted were the headlights. It had glass headlights, not plastic ones like her car has and went opaque over the years.

But i didn't have tools. I went looking around to burrow a tool, which is kinda difficult in a junkyard because everybody there is grumpy anyways. All the actors that came in after i got in and jumped in front of the camera every time i was taking a picture of a car disappeared. Came back still looking at those headlights when i saw one was rock chipped.

Then i ran out of battery for the camera.

When i came out i told the guy that gave me permission to take pictures when i got in that i wanted those headlights but one was chipped and he said the one that's not cracked is 31 bucks.

Everything got more expensive since 1996. I don't feel rich anymore. In fact, i feel like a bum. And today i realized. Never got over that stage when i loved junkyards.

Click on a picture to enlarge. Middle click or right clik/new tab for highest resolution. F11 to bring the browser in full screen. Best compromise, normal click then F11

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.

La cheu, în port sigur

Despre Sheridan Fruit Co am mai scris şi în alte postări dintre care aici http://georgesblogforfriends.blogspot.com/2013/04/anul-nou-1996.html . (LOL în poză sunt coşuri de fructe învelite în celofan, n-au vrut niciodată să mă înveţe să fac din alea).

Downtown Portland, SE 3rd Street, am lucrat între septembrie şi decembrie 1995. Pe atunci stăteam în gazdă la un tip Mladin, care seamănă cu dr. John și cu un actor ungur.

Sper să mai scriu. Pe patron îl chema Vince nu ştiu cum şi zicea că e de origine italiană. Pe ginere-su îl chema Barwick nu ştiu cum am uitat numele mic, poate îmi amintesc. A Tom. Avea figură de irlandez, înalt şi chiar semăna cu unul din neamul Kennedy, nu ştiu exact cu care. Îmi amintesc de Barwick fiindcă aşa mi-a zis Liviu într-o zi, bă tu ştii cum îl mai cheamă pe Tom? Nu. Barwick. Liviu "Simon" Simion Gorea (Liviu Dragnea), asociat la firmă cu 10% spunea el, responsabil cu curăţenia, şi în rest tăietor de frunze, aspru cu cei care nu munceau mai mult când era patronul de faţă. Mi-a zis de mai multe ori, avea un stil de vorbit printre dinţi, cu un fel de zâmbet moale pe sub mustaţă, rar şi decisiv, că o să-mi scoată el dosarul de la securitate din România să afle cine sunt, că în România a avut avere, că sub comunism au inventat munca în dorul lelii, adică eu nu munceam suficient pe acolo, etc. Chestia e că toţi începeau să mişune când apărea Tom, iar când nu era acolo, toţi pe mine, George fă aia, George fă aialaltă. Eu mă conformam. Chiar i-am zis odată lui Tom şi ce credeţi că mi-a răspuns? George, I'm not taking bullshit! (Chiar mi-a zis Liviu, că Tom e cam prost).

Mai era şi Katy, o tipă înaltă cam cât mine, nemăritată, cu o maşină mai veche, neagră şi mare, care semăna şi ea cu cineva care a apărut de mai multe ori în viaţa mea sub diferite nume... Katy mă muştruluia tot timpul. Parcă Liviu mi-a zvonit odată că ar fi amanta lui Tom. Cred că era tot Irina Loghin (Patsy Cline).

Mai erau doi români, unul mai în vârstă Mircea, mititel de statură, (Robin Williams) care zicea că a fost profesor de matematică în România şi job-ul lui principal era să pună ulei de măsline în sticle, şi fi-su, care vorbea foarte prost româneşte și cu accent unguresc (mi-am amintit, îl chema Adrian). Mai era o modelă Rosa de prin America de Sud, apoi un italian cu un Ferrary (sau altă maşină de sport) roşu, un măcelar care şi-a tăiat un deget parcă, etc.

Era o tipă de prin California şi chiar era supărată tot timpul că nu o băgam în seamă, mi-a zis faze de prin Italia cum se luau italienii de ea, şi eu am întrebat-o de ce, şi ea mi-a zis cum de ce, fiindcă era "a damn tall blonde California girl", etc. Într-o dimineaţă povestea ea şi Adrian (un tip scund, brunet, cu căpriţă de Anonymous) ce au făcut ei toată noaptea, şi tot ea mi-a zis altă dată că amândoi părinţii erau din Cehoslovacia.

A şi grecoaica sexy de la casă (Demi Moore) care la un moment dat şi-a rupt un picior şi umbla cu el în ghips (mă rog, aparat de imobilizat) (Vorbea tot timpul zeci de minute greceşte la telefon când stătea degeaba sau chiar când marca la casă). Şi era tot timpul cam supărată (odată era aşa cam dusă nu ştiu avea o faţă greu de ghicit şi Sandy paznicul i-a zis de mai multe ori, ca să fie sigur că eu cu engleza mea înţeleg, "you did some shit again, didn't you?" Chiar odată m-a rugat s-o duc cu maşina undeva, distanţă scurtă, pe lângă magazin, m-am simţit foarte măgulit, dar ea nu era în apele ei, ceva nu-i convenea. A odată a venit o tipă o clientă cu două fetiţe care stătea la un hotel la câtva străzi şi Tom m-a cam obligat să o duc cu maşina cu pungile cu cumpărături şi fetele acasă. Am mers pe nişte străzi lăturalnice şi am lăsat-o la vreo 50 m de hotel. LOL câteodată mă puneau să ajut clienţii cu pungile în portbagaj şi chiar mai primeam câte un dolar doi bacşiş.

Mai era Alex, un tip american f.tânăr care avea o maşină neagră antică cu muşchi, foarte bine pusă la punct (nu mai ţin minte ce marcă, era umflată ca o Volgă de tip vechi dar mult mai mare şi putea să scoată fum din cauciucuri cu ea pe asfalt dacă apăsa pe accelerator, cu scaune din piele şi dacă apăsa vreo 10 secunde pe accelerator vedeai acul de la rezervor cum se duce în jos) şi a încercat să-mi vândă un Volvo şi mai antic, verde, lovit, nepus la punct.

Într-un colţ cu doi pereţi de geamuri o tipă simpatică dădea lecţii de bucătărie şi avea tot timpul poate în jur de 10... elevi. Când era ea pe acolo tot magazinul mirosea a mâncare.

Odată ne-a trimis Tom sau Steve nu mai ştiu în port să ducem alimente la o navă. Cu un camion închis pe care scria sau nu Sheridan Fruit Co. nu mai ştiu sigur. Liviu şi cu mine. Eu bucuria mea că am să conduc camionul ăla mare. Mă simţeam într-un fel promovat, trecuseră vreo două luni şi pe mine nu m-a trimis niciodată să livrez ceva.

Şi ne-am dus la nava aia în port, nu mai ţin minte ce pavilion avea, am băgat marfa în nişte frigidere, Liviu a vb. cu ăia scurt şi ne-am întors. La întoarcere eu conduceam şi Liviu Simon îmi spunea tot timpul pe drum bă am să-i spun lui Steve că eşti cel mai prost şofer din lume. (Eu am avut carnet în România, din 93 parcă, dar nu şi maşină, abia venisem, conduceam într-adevăr foarte slab, mai ales prin trafic, dar nici chiar cum spunea Liviu).

Dădusem teoreticul (proba scrisă care să dă gratuit) la DMV pe computer şi aveam dreptul să conduc cu cineva în maşină care avea carnet. Mi-am cumpărat un junk de maşină (Ford Fairmont din 80 cu vreo 400 dolari) după vreo lună de mers la servici la Sheridan cu diverşi (nu era autobuz continuu până acolo) (tipul care mi l-a vândut a trecut chiar prin faţa mea când aproape ajungeam la servici şi avea etichetă de vânzare pe el şi l-am oprit şi l-am întrebat cât vroia) şi îl conduceam aşa pe baza permisului din România (avea număr cu trei litere, le-am uitat şi 306), şi nu aveam curaj să mă duc la un DMV pe aproape să dau oraşul fiindcă era complicat de condus prin oraş şi m-am dus la ... Dallas, lângă Salem (un orăşel Dallas din Oregon, nu Dallas din Texas) fiindcă acolo era la ţară şi era simplu şi acolo îmi luasem proba scrisă şi am mers cu paznicul de noapte de la Sheridan, am uitat cum îl cheamă, un tip mai în vârstă, fiindcă legal nu aveam voie să apar singur la DMV, eram fraier, ăia nu cred că aveau să mă întrebe dacă am venit cu cineva, şi am luat examenul din prima, (tot drumul din Portland la Salem , vreo 60 km, a plouat şi nu vedeam pe autostradă nimic decât maşina din faţă şi restul o ceaţă albă şi mergeam peste suta de km la oră) după care m-am dus cu Sandy (Dennis Weaver, Sheerif McCloud) la un restaurant italian.

Tipul care mi-a vândut maşina asta în 96, Mark, semăna puţin cu David Gilmour de la Pink Floyd

Într-o zi lucram în spate, clădeam pungile cu can-uri de soda reciclate undeva sus sub acoperiş (când veneau homleşii cu saci de polietilenă împuţiţi cu cutii de soda era sarcina mea să le număr şi la început nu ştiam şi scriam numărul de can-uri pe un bilet şi semnam şi ei mergeau la casă şi luau 5 sau 10 cenţi pe cutie, la un moment dat mi-a zis cineva să nu mai semnez, să pun doar iniţialele după ce un homeless odată mi-a zis thank you for your autograph). Şi Steve nu m-a văzut şi vorbea cu nişte cliente care intraseră în spate şi le spunea că este un român acolo de care toţi ceilalţi români cred că e spy.

A şi ţapul. Pe alea din spatele magazinului era un bloc din ăla ca în filme, care părea să fi fost depozit, ceva, cândva, cu intrare cu cifru, şi mi-a zis Liviu că acolo stau numai curve şi drogaţi, şi într-adevăr era un tip îmbrăcat complet în negru, ras în cap, cu barbă ca de ţap, dar nu ca Constantinescu, ci numai sub bărbie, albă, de vreo 20 cm dacă mă mai ajută memoria, cu o prietenă cam la fel, platinată, şi venea tot timpul pe la magazin şi se uita minute în şir la rafturi până să ia ceva şi de multe ori pe mine mă prindea când aşezam cutii şi borcane şi eram cam în genunchi în faţa lui (Katy mă punea tot timpul să rotesc marfa, adică să scot alea mai vechi în faţă, după dată). Odată am stat cu ea LOL jumătate de zi şi am rearanjat cutiile cu fasole pe un raft de mai multe ori. Spre sfârşit înainte de a pleca m-a pus să frec cu praf de curăţat toate marginile rafturilor unde erau etichetele. Cineva mai târziu mi-a spus că tipul ăla a fost preot la o biserică satanistă care a avut sediul chiar în blocul acela.

September 17, 2022. Și totuși când recitesc, îmi amintesc că toată lumea inclusiv Mladin (poate mai puțin Kate) se purta destul de frumos cu mine, având în vedere condițiile, fiindcă ei știau cine și în ce situație eram iar eu mă purtam foarte politicos cu toată lumea și le serveam bine scopurilor. Astăzi lucrurile s-au schimbat mult, de când am aflat și am publicat despre cine erau ei de fapt.

Shawn Robert Parker

In January-June 1997 i worked at Epson Portland Incorporated assembling printers. I remembered one night on the line we did 521 printers in a 25 people team, an Epson world record. I remember the name of the supervisor, a Mexican guy. Her wife was a QA auditor and many times she was spending minutes next to me trying to figure out how i do it without making one mistake. I was at the station 4 i guess and i put 9 parts on the printer, including gears and 4 screws with an electric screwdriver. In June one day i became sick. I went home and started not to be able to sleep, eat or drink. At night i was driving my car around on the streets. I went several times to different ER rooms. After about a week or so i went to the Beaverton Police, told them some of the story. They called an ambulance that took me first to the Tuality Medical Center in Hilsboro, then to Emanuel in down town Portland and they called a cab and sent me to Pacific Gateway Hospital in Sellwood, the one who lost its license and closed after Police shot an out of control Mexican inside. It was a mental facility that treated both mental and drug related conditions. I never used drugs in my entire life. Here is my picture after being released from there

In front of what used to be Pacific Gateway Hospital,
Sellwood, OR, July 1997
(Prozac Head, can still click me!)

One of the symptoms was chocking. I only wish i knew back then where that was coming from. It was a simple nose congestion due to some allergies and was preventing me from sleeping. The other symptom was severe stomach pain. It lasted from 96 to 06. No doctor ever explained to me why but now i suspect i might be related to spine alignment because it went away after going to the chiropractor. But the pain was real and was alleviated by antacids or acid blockers that i took for many years constantly increasing the dosage.

Many weird things happened in the hospital maybe one day i will tell the stories. But let's concentrate now on something else. A couple of weeks after coming from the hospital one day i was walking on Hall Blvd and talking to my wife and thinking about going to a Romanian church. But then i changed my mind, crossed the street and went into BNC (Beaverton Church of the Nazarene). A church in the shape of an UFO.

I was well received in there. Like they were expecting me. They prayed for me laying hands on each other's shoulder.  I met pastor Dennis Swift and others.

Beaverton Church of the Nazarene

The next day a guy shows up at our door. He asked us, me and my wife if we wanted to go for a ride in a boat. I looked over his shoulder and there was a big boat in the parking lot hooked to an old green Ford SUV. He insisted a lot and then i said yes. In the car they were his three daughters. I remember only the name of the younger one, Trinity.

Shawn Robert Parker with "his girls", near Cannon Beach, OR,
summer 1997

He took us on the Willamette river that day. Accompanied by my usual stomach pain and thirsty all the time, i didn't drink anything in the morning and Shawn only had a few cans of soda i couldn't drink because of my stomach pain. Still on Prozac. I think we started in St.John area and went all the way to Willamette Falls and back. We stopped on a channel near an island. I think we ended the day back at the Nazarene church.

I had this 83 Fairmont sitting in the parking lot for almost a year. He came one day with a 20 dollar bill and asked mE to sell it to him. The manager at the apartment already told me several times to get rid of that car so i sold it to him.

My ex 83 Ford Fairmont, at Sussex Village Apts, Beaverton, Oregon, 1997

In April 98 i was working at Quadramed. I was teaching my wife how to drive. She took the computer test and had a permit. I think i spent hundreds of hours on the right seat on Nimbus St. in Beaverton teaching her. I remember at first she was terrified by the cars that were coming on the other side of the road from the opposite direction. But in spring 98 she was driving OK and she drove all the way from Portland to Tillamook, some 70 miles. Then from Tillamook to the beach near Tillamook bay there is a narrow winding road and i kinda pushed her because i was impatient to get there but she was tired and driving under speed limit and in a sharp left curve she went with the right wheels on the gravel near the road. I think we were in legal speed limit. Quickly and gently i grabed the wheel with my left hand and corrected in time. But she reacted too after, and over corrected. Unbelievable, we went to the... left, inside the curve, we missed the bay, the huge truck parked on the right on the gravel, the incoming car from the opposite direction, made an 180 degree turn and rolled in slow motion in a ditch full of ... mud, that was soft. It is very hard to describe in words the trajectory of the car.

It took me about a minute to figure out which way was up, untigthen her seat belt and roll the driver's door down cause mine was in mud and with the broken window while she was kicking me in the head with her legs. Finally she made it outside and i followed. The only thing that happened to us was me having some scratches on my right arm from the broken passenger window.

The guy with the truck parked outside the curve, kinda illegal i think, on the right, that was kinda like waiting for us in there, with the cell in his hand. Minutes later five cop cars showed but no ambulance. But we didn't need one either. One of the cops cited my wife for careless driving with 180 dollars. Then they called a towing truck and they put our car back on the wheels and i started the engine and it was working.

View Larger Map

Then guess what? Shawn Parker with the girls unexpectedly showed up in a green van with windows also old i haven't seen before or after coming from the beach. He insisted we went with him back to Portland, but i was too attached to that 89 Escort GT to leave it there with the towing guys and i drove with no problems all the way to Portland. (I was also paranoid about that being a recognition of my part we've been somewhat hurt in the accident which we weren't. 04/26/2014).

Did i mentioned the prayers at BNC that morning for each of our country? Dennis repeatedly asked and we both went to the altar, me accompanied by Ron Boger and my wife by his wife. Than we had lunch at Old Country Buffet in Beaverton and i also saw a bunch of people from the church in there. Then we decided to go to the Ocean. Those days we didn't need much to take that decision because we were still young and full of energy.

This post needs to be extended. I will dig into my records to put in more data and pictures.