Just to make an update on the status of the tablet.
I called Google support and no luck they referred me to Asus, called Asus and after telling the rep everything that I had tried he suggested I send it in for repairs, I asked for a ball park figure of how much it will be and he said around $200, I never laughed so hard at a support clerk, they must think I just got off the boat so Asus repair is not going to happen not on my dime.
So here is one more clue for those in the forum who have giving me suggestions to try.
I tried a hard reset and it goes trough the steps of telling me what it is doing, erasing this, formatting that etc, etc. at the end when I hit restart it powers on like nothing has been reset with all the apps still on the screen and after about a minute rebooting all by itself.
So to recount on the things that don't work: Will not boot up on SAFE mode, any changes made to apps or settings in between reboot will not take hold, erasing buffer, hard reset doesn't reset anything I even tried a new battery.
Any more suggestions?
BTW the iPad Mini I bought when the Nexus went down is working fine and is a nice tablet but is not the same I miss my Nexus 7:'(