September 21

(Ziua) egală cu noaptea. Echinocțiu, aequinoctium, equinox. De azi înainte zilele încep să fie mai scurte și nopțile mai lungi de 12 ore.

8:00 Cu doar câteva poze de calitate slabă nu pot să fiu sigur dacă tipul ăsta e Nelu Tătaru, las la decizia dvs.. 12:30 Toky Tiny Apartments. 1:07 This guy looks familiar.

1:53 With three buzzers in place, there is a new mole mound right between two of them. I think they adapted. In the last months i had only two of them and moles were gone. This morning i've been very tired by the smokes that came from the ground and i inhaled in the last few days and slept a lot. While i was sleeping i heard a washer in the building. When i woke up there was mold from the wet floor (leaking drier's exhaust in the basement). I tried and open a window and the door but now the play in the distance a profound base that shakes the dust from the building.

5:18 Just came from Walmart, it smells like mold and dog poo a bit but at least not like worms from moles' larder. Every time i pull that phone from my pocket there is at least one setting changed. Files i thought i uploaded weren't there. Ok. Got it. 5:00 Truck would not start consistently last couple of times, though voltage at the plug in digital meter was 14.2 during trips. I went to Walmart to buy a super cheap battery, cause i don't think i will use it more than 4 years or as long a super cheap battery is supposed to last.

So i went to batteries' area, which is the furthest corner from entrance. A 5 minutes walk among shelves and ballerinas.

At the batteries. First there was this guy thrown face down to the ground, arranging something on a shelf. So i passed, went into the wine area to check if they had a brand i bought at Fred Meyer, which is in another corner of the store. There, a couple of old guys, he on an electric car, were counting beer cans which were just across the wines, kinda in my way. I kept checking that, they were still counting beer cans, for more than 10 minutes.

So i went back to the batteries in the other corner, the man was now kneeling, a customer was checking something on a terminal next to batteries, i grabbed one that looked like mine, above a label that said 54, i went to the checkstands, but when i scanned it it showed 88. It was a MAX, i was supposed to get a VALUE. So i went back to the batteries, across the store, zig zagging through the team of ballet dancers from Gwen Stefani's stage team, and this time i looked on the phone. Battery for S10 pickup at walmart, Ever Start cca 600 bla bla.

Seemed half inch bigger than mine which i had in the cart, but i knew there was some more room in the tray. So i payed 68, 12 was the core, returned mine, after i waited 10 minutes for the guy in front of me to finish buying a 2500 dollars cashier's check, the man had to call someone on the phone, the woman counted the money twice, etc.. I returned my old Exide for 12 bucks, went at the truck and tried to put the battery back (wanted to save the planet for a trip, so i pulled the old battery, went in the store, bought the new one, left the core and tried to install the new one all there). Slightly bigger, made if fit in the tray in the end. However. The connectors' screws wouldn't go in the terminals by hand. First one on the positive was easier to tight with my 8 mm socket, but the negative one, in a tight space, would not go in. So i thought i crossed the thread, pulled the battery out to look and guess what. It didn't have threads all around in the terminals. I could make it in the soft lead terminal on the positive, started one in the negative, but could not finish the hard to reach negative. Even if i did i'm sure it wouldn't have lasted. So i grabbed the battery and went back in the store. At the checkstand, when i told him, he said there's nothing wrong with it and he threw the battery on a side to look better. I told him that battery was not sealed, acid might leak acid on the counter, he wouldn't believe me. He said there was nothing wrong with the threads. However he accepted my return.
I went back in the batteries' corner and looked more carefully though i had not glasses. Took some pictures. I could only find only one battery that had good threads and went with it to the checkstand. My size, a 55 Amps one. 68 with 12 the core. But i didn't have the core no more and went to customer's service to figure things out etc. where there was a long line now. 15 minutes after, she said: "i don't care if i give you 12 bucks".

Kafka would have had an orgasm if he witnessed what happened to me today at Walmart, like any time. The good part. I made my miles through the store and in the parking lot because i slept all morning and didn't have a chance to go in the park.

6:02 Angela's sleeping, the screaming Japanese kids came in the back to scream. Exactly after 6 PM when they close the office so i can't call to complain. 6:49 I went to eat about half hour ago and they went kinda quiet. But now one of them rolled towards my balcony and stopped ft away while a helicopter few above.

7:01 They came right in front of the balcony, pulling grass, diggin holes. Somebody is smoking, cigarette smoke made it here.

8:16 Just figured why do Japanese ninja, covered in Japan as hikikomori come disguised as Mexicans to secretly invade western US. Lebensraum.

September 20

Re-enter The Dragnea, răul mai mic din politică românească, să umple vidul format între timp cu vechile obsesii. Totuși peisajul, limbajul, nu mai sunt aceleași de când el a plecat într-un concediu prin țara lui natală, Ungaria.



7:00 After i took Angela, when i came back there was heavy smoke around the apartment and one more mole network with mounds and open holes too close. I built another chaser out of a sollar one with two D batteries. That PCB had a tiny accumulator for working during night, i hooked two D size batteries in series (close to 3 volts) without removing the 1.5 V accumulator which blew after a few minutes in front of me, nothing really happened (also because it was inside an empty beer can where i assembled the whole thing). I was able to make it work after. No, i did not have to removed it from the PCB, it removed itself with terminals and circuits. All i had to do was empty the beer can with the pieces in the garbage. 11:00 I woke up after maybe a total of 7 hours of sleep and was dizzy from yet another type of smoke and went outside and covered a bunch of holes mostly up front that from a distance appeared to be made by squirrels, but they were too deep for that and. Not moles. 1:04 I had some meat in the fridge with the expiration date today so i had to cook it and while doing so a van (maybe delivery, maybe something else) backed up right on the other side of the wall where i was in the kitchen and they were unloading something and took to next entrance. What intrigues me is how the market goes up when i'm going out of site in the kitchen but i was too dizzy for the smoke to watch it until after.

There is no other door from this apartment to others. I am not going anywhere, nobody is coming here, nothing is being delivered here. So if they know what i'm doing, they can improvise something. Should i have waited to cook after market hours, market would have been 2.5% down.

4:36 He was in a bind 'cause he was way behind

7:04 Oare cifrele pandemiei sunt la fel de reale ca cele ale bugetului?

September 19

Last night i went to Spirit Mountain. Was so tired i slept one hour in the truck. Battery connectors where loose, i tightened them when i left. Finally figured the squeak at the left wheel when backing up from the spot here at the apartment. I think the same bolt from the control arm is loose again. When i came back with the heavy rain and cheap tires (by the brand Venezia) i had trouble keeping the truck on the road, in some areas had to slow at 35.

4:29 Nici o fraudă în plus față de cele obișnuite. Singura chestie e că se cheamă cițy și are 3 milioane de asigurați (chiar m-am mirat dintotdeauna de ce pe Câțu îl cheamă de fapt Cîțu). Ca să mai uitați de autostrăzi și buget. Am mai spus și repet. Ăștia, ca să vă fure banii și pe dvs. cu totul, mai întâi vă fură mințile, subliminal. Asta e răsplata pentru Tiranon și faptul că românii s-au băgat în Ungaria în 1944. (Simbolic, fiindcă sovieții au fost cu greul). Sârbii au luat-o pe cocoașă din același motiv, Iugoslavia nu mai este, Cehoslovacia nu mai este, etc. iar românii au fost forțați să plece din motive economice. (click cu roata mouse-ului ca să măriți imaginea).

5:25 Just went and cleaned some wet bread crumbles from the stairs upstairs, being afraid of mold. But i did it with a painting brush, that was still smelling like paint. Now i'm paranoid about what if they saw me (no doubt about it) and say i wanted to make the stairs slippery for whoever.

11:02 I was searching for someone key to the whole story and one of the last pieces of puzzle in Romania, thinking i beat the moles with two mole chasers, modified to use two batteries only when an exhaust started. The vibration, within minutes, filled the place with a weird smell, though i am surrounded by three filters. I went outside and found, among others, a full can of beer blue lite that was slightly cracked, a used green bag from bottle drop returns, like someone grabbed after counting from there, other debris, mold starters on the red mulch, a one inch deep hole next to alleys that i don't believe belongs to moles, where most likely someone from a passing car stuck burning material by a ninja burning recipe. I tried to cover the whole but someone was passing. That stuff will burn inside ground for hours.

12:06 Dragged Angela (Sunday morning, really hard to convince her, especially under influence of that smoke) in the park to escape the peak. One my way there, a Tualatin Valley fire SUV with flashing lights and siren made me pull over (ingannare). Did not clear completely my mind with that walk in the park. When we got back while driving i saw the hood of my truck was popped. Impossible to have driven it like that all the way to and from Spirit Mountain last night or even this morning without seeing. That distraction alone together with the smoke (that was different now) was enough to make me forget check the sign at the door. Now Angela is trying to kill the aphids on the plant spraying cold water from the fridge. A kid is screaming in the backyard and alley. When i backed up from the spot and veered i heard the squeak again on the right side. Got to get under truck to torque that bolt. Got to find the torque spec for the battery connectors that keep getting loose. But now my biggest priority is to find that guy. And i think i found him but don't have good pictures. But i think i just might have found by chance somebody else (to check later). But i'm absent minded, thinking at one million other things while browsing faces.

1:34 I figured where the smoke was coming lately. The holes that i dug myself for the solar buzzers, which they removed. I was reluctant to cover those after i installed the new completely buried versions, since they were so hard to dig. I noticed the one they left, at the bedroom window, was very loose in its initially very tight hole.

Also. Went under the truck and was lucky to have a 21 mm socket which i used with three extenders to torque the bolt for the left control arm (bolt is easier to reach than nut). Specs seem to be in the 80s ft lbs, i put my short torque wrench to max which is 80, the extensions themselves gave up one quart of a turn, i think i did torque some but the wrench didn't click. I was also impaired by the smoke and embarrassed by that kid who was staring at me while small jets were flying very low above.

They played the same old trick like they do in this situation. They brought a small green pickup with the bed in the door of the first garage, with the cabin close to my truck, having a kid on the passenger side. Decided earlier to leave because of smoke which may be subsiding later today, but still got to figure the size of a socket for the nut for the other bolt, could be 19 or 17, so i try to torque that one too.

2:33 Smoke have subsided but we're about to leave. Just remembered something. Last night at the Liquor Store at the Market something in Grande Ronde the guy tapped my card 3-4 times and inserted it a couple more. The sell kratom there. At the counter, talking for minutes, a drunk guy with a mask who asked all kinda stuff and kept there like 10 minutes while in store entered a woman with two kids all weirdly dressed. The drunk's guy voice seem Tom Cruise's.

September 18

12:35 I can't believe it rained briefly and then a hole grew in the storm right above Portland and it stopped. Yeah i remember now. It's the city effect on the storm. The city and suburbs is warmer and creates a bit of a higher pressure (its own weather system as pompous patronizing meteorologists would say) and water won't condensate. That until it rains for a few hours and it cools down (a bit of a recurrence here, sorry).

I don't know, according to the animated radar map it should now. I look through the window and it doesn't.

12:52 Ingannare, tocmai am spus că refacerea la standarde europene a unui km de cale ferată costă 30 de mii de euro și în total ar costa 300 de milioane pentru toată țara, ceea ce este 5% din bugetul Ministerului Transporturilor pe anul acesta (nu că ar avea treabă cu CFR SA, dar este un obiectiv strategic și ar putea îndrăzni, deși nu este prins în buget, deci nu ar fi cale legală decât dacă ar da guvernul o Ordonanță fiindcă este o chestie urgentă).

9:46 Ingannare. Steppenwolf.

9:48 Câți bani dă Cîțu? Cîțu stă pe un buget de peste 375.000.000.000 lei. Ăștia sunt bani?

4:09 My phone got completely crazy, can't use it anymore, have to reset it. Tried to send a text with Angela's phone to share a site with someone, while the language was set to first, arabic.

5:00 Some guys at the one level apartment shot in the trees a couple of times with a BB gun.

5:59 I tried and called Boost mobile to see if they can unlock my phone so i can switch to a cheaper service (Consumer Cellular). They (she, and Asian woman, always the same voice there and in many other places) said that the phone is eligible and gave me a case number and said the process will take up to 72 hours. About 1/3 of the words she was saying were distorted and had to guess what she was saying. Then i asked for the code and she said she cannot give more than one code per call though she didn't give me any, she she had to call me back, but i should not hang up. She called me back several times, i heard my voice mail coming on but had no option to answer. Am i stupid or what? Why in this digital area any time i call Boost even the automated system is breaking up, but that is proper English, but when you get to talk to foreign people which to me seem almost the same voices it's almost impossible to understand what they're saying?

Just talked to another guy and his patronizing accent was driving me crazy. Have to tell them my phone number after the automated system identifies it. I didn't memorize the phone number.

Last of the Hyundai

April 2018. We bid on a car at Copart. Like IAA, it's a place where insurance companies sell the totaled cars after they pay their customers the market value. They usually specify the areas where the car was damaged. This one has been listed as  "minor scratches and damages". We saw the car prior at the auction lot, together with one hundred others. Did not realize the car was actually in an accident, partially fixed and put back in auction and sold again at a higher price. I paid a total of 45 hundred dollars, including Copart fees.

When i went and picked it at the auction site, the car was driveable, but was making a weird noise at the engine. The mud cover on the right front was damaged, the fender was not holding in place, battery was almost dead and 5 years old. Serpentine belt was bent by a foreign object that gut between belt and pulleys at the time of the accident. When i got home i found in the trunk the broken windshield washer reservoir and the right headlight. Car was painted on the right side, with the right door and fender damaged. It was unclear if the right door airbag was still functional, though no dashboard light was on.

They were some sort of crystals on the windshield and hood, maybe from car being driven behind a de-icer that did not go away after a year or something, impairing visibility. Nr.1 and 2 cylinders had spark plug loose (0 torque) and there was oil in the cylinders and on the threads and inside the spark plug wheels. The shoulder at the bottom of the spark plug wheels  where the washers of the spark plugs seal sit was damaged and it was impossible to seal the spark plug when torquing it. Exhaust was leaking by the spark plugs in the engine compartment. Hood was bent (never fixed) and was not touching the seal with exhaust coming through the air intake grill in the cabin. There was oil in the the cylinders and on the spark plug threads.

3 years of struggle followed, with me working at the cars for hours, several days a week.

First went to Beaverton Hyundai and bought a battery and had it installed. Bought there a serpentine belt and installed it. Bought on Amazon a 6 mm diameter camera (about 20 bucks) to look inside the cylinders where i did not see piston slap damage but oil.

I tried to wipe the spark plug threads with balls of cotton soaked in alcohol, but they were not holding.

 
Designed and build in a machine shop a tool to resurface the shoulders of the spark plug holes. Finally torqued the spark plugs. Ordered a mud cover for right front on ebay and installed it. Ordered a windshield washer reservoir and installed it. Straightened the hood by stepping on it while hood semi-open, several times over the years. Did not realize the plastic grill was still leaking in several places by design, until about a week before the accident. Over 3 years i drove the car from 35 k to almost 100, while breathing exhaust inside the cabin, though less and less.

Did not realize the battery connectors could not be tightened enough, and were constantly getting loose, again by design, with battery never fully charging, until i bought a plug in USB charger with a digital voltmeter and because of needing jump starts several times after exhausting the battery with radio and fan in parking lots i also bought a 40 dollars 10000 mah li-ion smart jump starter on Amazon.

There was foam in the oil indicating sticky valves and squishy lifters. Tried to use some valve cleaner for the noise and injector cleaner additive inside the tank. As that wasn't working, i tried to clean the throttle body when i saw the inside of the composite intake manifold, which was installed in front of the compartment, or the left side of the engine, which was oily.

I tried and used a 3/8 piece of vinyl tube connected to a vacuum cleaner and pulled from the intake ounces of oil. It was  then when i realized that oil from the PCV was condensing inside the cold manifold that was installed in front of the engine compartment and pooling at the bottom of the intake which was installed upside down, by design, with the bottom bellow the runners, unlike any car i seen before. From there, oil was trickling up the runners, burning on valves and making them sticky, especially at number one cylinder. More oil was getting inside the cylinder, lubricating the piston rings unevenly, contaminating spark plugs, etc..

I pulled the injectors and tried to clean them applying voltage and some solvent from a spray can. Can had twice the pressure of the fuel and blew the injectors microfilters. I had to buy new injectors from dealer, for 400 bucks.

Over the years, i designed and installed several versions of catch cans on the PCV circuit, trying to minimize the amount of oil that gets in the intake which i was vacuuming "regularly" with a device i designed myself, made of a piece of tubing and a mat pump. With the last version of the catch can i could not vacuum oil from the intake anymore, there was none left.

A few months ago i bought an Exide battery and installed it and the noise was gone for a few hours. That was until the nuts at the connectors got loose again. Weeks before the accident i degreased the connectors together with the 8 bolts and nuts that were around the battery connectors and sealed the nuts on top with some adhesive. The voltage on the plug in charger with digital voltmeter was finally showing 14.3 volts while driving, 14.1 while idling. In the day of the accident, the noise was almost gone.

The noise was coming from the nr.1 cylinder or the furthest on the fuel rail, where fuel had not enough pressure because of low voltage at the fuel pump and injector was dripping,  causing uneven washing of the cylinder, with probably some slap while the engine cold, and not enough fuel washing the oil condensed on runner and trickling on valve, which was not getting washed enough because of low voltage at the fuel pump, making the valve stick and the lifer squish oil which was foamy. One cylinder working less than others meant vibration at the engine which meant poor driveability at high speed.

When i did rear brakes, a couple of years ago, i saw the indicators for pad wearing were bent and acting like springs, pushing the pads on the rotor, diminishing mileage.

Over the years, the car was doing an average of 35 mpg on the freeway and @20 in stop and go traffic. The car was quite comfortable to drive, due to soft suspension and many options, including working AC, bluetooth and satellite radio (which we did not subscribe for). In the days prior to the accident it was in its best shape ever, with smooth running engine, good driveability and almost no noise.

On August 19 Angela told me on the phone she had a flat. On the same tire there was another, several months ago when i got it fixed at Les Schwab in Lake Oswego. When she got home, i found low pressure in right rear, enough to trigger the sensor, put the tire in the tub full of water and didn't see any bubbles. I took the tire, for precaution, at the same Les Schwab shop in Lake Oswego.

There i spoke to a guy who resembled the current Finance Minister of Romania. Of course i didn't realize right away. Inside there was this Hungarian opera singer who acted like Phil Wick, Les Schwab's CEO after the death of Les Schwab.

The Romanian guy called me inside the shop which didn't happen in a long time, i went reluctantly after he called me a couple of times and showed me a tire similar to mine that had a damaged rim for about 1/6 length of the whole rim. He told me if it was from a previous installation which was in the same shop and asked me if wanted a new tire, i asked him if he had Michelin, the brand that was originally on car when i got it, he said no, if he can get it by tomorrow, he said we should talk in the morning, he had the number on my record, he then put the tire back on the wheel, inflated it and the wheel in the trunk. He insisted to put it there himself. This car doesn't come with a spare, though it has the space for it in the trunk. I found one at the junkyard, from a Ford that fitted. Though spare was new, the car was not driving the same as with the original wheel, especially at high speeds on the freeway. In the same evening i re-ordered a couple of tires similar to those in front which i changed more than a year ago, similar to the original ones. They were scheduled to arrive Monday, however they came Saturday morning or the day after the accident.

Friday evening i drove to Ilany, after both of us changed our mind, first Angela, then me, not to go that evening. 40 miles one way, had some difficulty driving, the car was drifting a bit, they were lots of drivers with weird LPN like KGB harassing us, as usually in the last few years. So i had to go with the speed limit.

In that day when she came from work she said she saw a light on the dashboard, it was the light showing something wrong with the airbags.

At midnight 20/21 i was coming back doing 60 in a 60 area on cruise control (which is kinda slow i recon). I was in the middle lane, because i was close to the interstate bridge where i don't want to drive on side lanes. Suddenly i noticed i was surrounded by a group of cars, left, right and behind. I saw in the mirror the lights from behind approaching at high speed, probably 20 over the speed limit. I could not change lanes, though the cars left and especially right might have slowed down in that moment, living me alone. Thing is i can't remember, because it all happened very fast. All i know is in my mind i had few options except to tell Angela to brace for impact and probably i accelerated in the last few seconds, reducing the difference in speed between the vehicles. For one second i thought he gave up then he accelerated too and i felt the impact. I was pushed forward at higher speed while all the other cars in the group fell behind. When i realized i still had control of the car i looked, the right lane was free, i veered right, stopped on the shoulder and tried to see his LPN. However when he passed he was surrounded by the other cars. All i could see was the tail of a huge white Ford pickup with the letters 4x4 on the tail. I took a picture of the car which was pretty damaged but still driveable (in the end, after talking to the cops who called a towing company who didn't want to go that far, calling our own towing that wasn't calling back, i drove the 22 miles from there to home, on right lane, and i had to pull over at least one time because of a truck that was coming again threatening from the rear).

The Washington State police came within 5 minutes. The cop looked bored and interested in a car that zoomed at high speed. He left the front lights on onto my car and i could not see his face. He said i should not drive the car back home cause it could not take another hit like that, which in the end almost happened. However, i do remember he looked like this guy.

He then agreed to drive before me (while another Police SUV came from behind, following me) and pilot me to a safe place. He exited the freeway than choose a street with poor illumination, near a property called G&G in the Minnehaha neighborhood of Vancouver, Washington, 2 miles away from Columbia river and Oregon.

There he asked me to write on a form called SUSPECT/WITNESS statement what happened and sign it. Then he asked me this question. What happened right after the impact? Because only those who survived such impact know what happens. The speed of your vehicle increases and that of the vehicles who hit you decreases. I think it was a test question. However, he did not write on the report "hit and run" which could have triggered a call for potential witnesses in the media.

Then he called their contracted towing company which came but refused to tow us "because of the distance". So i called the insurance, but the menus where such designed i had to file the claim first which meant an almost one hour conversation with the insurance claims rep. The cop left, the towing left and we were all alone on the dark street. I had to pee in a bottle i had in the thank that was crushed by the accident. The towing was not coming, i tried to call insurance again, got lost in menus and then i decided to drive back home. As i got on the freeway at around 2 AM, towing called saying they are within 10 minutes distance.

to be continued