12:27 AM Again frustrated by planes making a big noise. Just realized all the places i lived in (Beaverton, Lake Oswego, Tualatin, are in the path of planes coming to land at PDX. I recon  they align the planes above the least populated area so they avoid noise for most. But when i was in Lake Oswego they came right above. Now they pass there a few miles to the left, would not have seen that many during my walks.

I am curious to see how far their archive go.

Also intrigued by the coincidence of number of pixels of width of my pictures on the blog (720) and the projected deficit of Romania's budget (7.2). Video best seen on PC on full screen mode.


10:00 Woke up with big pains in my whole body including back. Having trouble to type because my fingers are stiff with inflammation. Angela got back pain as well. I think i figured the reason we both had so big blood pressure yesterday and whole body inflammation today.

12:00 PM @10 i went and looked at what i've done last night. I covered the big crack though with much silicon excess. So i took an 8 ft long piece of wood (like this but thinner, 3/8 in. x 1-1/2 in) with a metal blade attached and trimmed the excess.

However when i took this picture i realized the crack is much longer and there is no way i can reach there to fix it except with a longer ladder or a special tool. I also believe water from rain will get or already got inside the wall (it rained a lot lately) creating mold that would be expelled together with the dust in occasions like hammering the walls inside.

As i said, they installed new carpet at that apartment. For those not familiar with this unique to US type of carpet and its installation,  here is a video. It all starts with a 3/8 inch (one cm) thick padding made from recycled materials, glued (held) together with one of the slinkiest glues that exist, also antibacterial). There is a so called "tack" with upward nails along side the wall.

And then there is the "knee-kick" tool that is used to both stretch the carpet and sink it in the nails.

So this is what they did yesterday morning, they hit the walls for hours, pumping mold and dust through that crack Debris from the old carpet were deposited on the ground  and the wind was blowing from that direction.. Angela had the appointment at one and we both had extraordinary high blood pressure.

Question that may arise in the mind of non US people is how do you (ever) clean this thing. They have tools for that. Vans equipped with very powerful vacuum machines together with steam generators.

They pump steam in the carpet and they vacuum it in the same time. Those vacuum machines have their own gasoline powered engine and are very loud, in excess of 100 dB near it and stay outside while long hoses are used and the whole job can last one hour, depending on the size of the house and can cost up to 100 dollars per room.

But then there are non professional ones, good enough for the use of a family. They have two one gallon reservoirs and they spray warm water with detergent in the carpet and then vacuum (about 50-75%) of it. Work pretty well but you can only do it once or twice a year, mostly during summer, so you can keep windows open and it will dry in about 24-48 hours.

Even with steam cleaning, carpet needs drying for at least 24  hours.

How clean? Steam cleaning is usually done in one or two passes, while with wet vacuuming you can do as many as you want, the final amount of residual water will be the same and you can instantly see how dirty is the water that comes because the sole of the machine is transparent.