At work this morning..

A long line stretched back from the elevators. Not at all unusual, but then the new elevator, that's been shut down while they replaced it arrived and opened its doors. We all filed in. The first stop was on the fourth floor, where the doors opened, and I and a woman got out to let someone from the back out. Then they closed and the elevator commenced to jiggle up and down and up and down. We called, listened to recorded junk, pried the doors open and exited on the fourth floor -- about the time a person answered and said that we really should bring the elevator to someone in the building's attention. Quite helpful, I thought. Just what I'd want to hear if I was stuck in an elevator with ten other people on the way to work.

4th of July

I celebrated by putting up the garage door I'd bought last year. Of course, when i got in my car to back it up, the battery had died. Off go Thong and I to test it and see if I need a new one. We went to Autozone on Lake Street. It's close. It might be open on a holiday, it's close to K-Mart (which is open and sells batteries), and besides, how bad could it be? Well, the guy who helped me had not run the battery tester before. He clamped it on, pressed buttons, and we waited a spell of time after which it came up with no results. I, ever the smart ass, suggested that seemed like not a good result for a test, and asked if he'd ever used the tool before. No was the answer. Might, I suggested, you have somebody here with some experience? They did, and the second test was not good at all, and there was no second coming. Poorer, but with more power, we drove back and put the battery in the car. Now all I have to do is find the radio code...

Then commenced the great garage door dismantling. Of course, I had no bit driver, nor deep enough socket that would fit the square nuts that held the old track together and the hinges on the door. Eventually the old door came down and then came the time to try to figure out what the idiot that wrote the manual meant. It was written in the finest gibberish, with all kinds of seperate sheets of paper and nothing quite detailed enough to tell anything about how the door should actually go together, but eventually, with Thong and Vern helping, up it went. Then I figured out what the second pieces of track wuz for, and they too went up. Along about then, I decided that the garage door opener was doomed. There wasn't enough clearance for it. We proved this the first time we tried to raise the door to fasten the springs. Phase two waits on some sure to be messy plaster removal or a new door opener of radically different design...

White...

The new door's white, quite different than the peeling wooden door, painted the dark blue of the house, that it replaced.

Road to Gitmo

I am off to see it. Paper said it wuzn't half bad. Time will tell and the price is perfect....