Just Call Me Delirious

Some days I want to blog but just can't think of anything worthy of writing about. Today, I don't have that problem. I have several topics I would like to discuss. I will give you a preliminary outline so that you don't have to read the ENTIRE blog if you don't want to.


1. Am I too negative?
2. My Dad
3. The garage door


1. I started thinking that a chronicle of my pet peeves was a little on the negative side. I've decided that with each pet peeve, I will also tell you something that makes me happy. So, to catch up with my first pet peeve, something that makes me happy is Chick-fil-A (guess what I'm having for dinner tonight?).


2. My Dad is a bit of a free spirit. Not a free spirit so much in the "hippie" sense, but he just does his own thing. He's 66 years old and he still harnesses himself to a tree in his front yard so he can climb on the roof of his house to clean the gutters. A few months ago he rented a jack hammer and tore up part of his driveway. Every Halloween at work he dresses up. See picture to left!

My dad leaves today for a week long vacation to London. He's going by himself and that's they way he likes it. He visited London 40 years ago when he was in the army. He wanted to go back to see how things had changed. Neither my brother nor myself were invited. I thought he might even have invited his girlfriend, Susan (I'll save that blog for another day), but she wasn't invited either.


My dad went all out for this trip. He bought new shoes, a $160 Marmot rain jacket, and a new camera. At one point he told me he wanted to buy a fanny pack but I think I worked enough charm to talk him out of that purchase. I guess he doesn't know that I think fanny packs should be outlawed.

3. Let me start this out by saying... I obviously don't know my own strength. I couldn't sleep yesterday afternoon. I had received one of those annoying calls from work around 1:30 and could never fall back asleep. I got up, hit the start button on my coffee maker, and then the power went out. I was so mad. I really needed my coffee. I sat in the silence of my house and started reading. In the middle of a chapter I realized I wouldn't be able to get my car out of the garage to go to work if the power didn't come back on. I panicked momentarily. I remembered that I have an emergency latch just for these occasions. I pulled the rope and was able to manually open the garage door. Then, I realized I needed to be able to lock the door so no one could manually open the door from the outside. Well, I channeled my childhood before they made electric garage door openers and figured that one out. The power came back on around 4:15 so I decided I would need to reset the emergency latch so that I could open the door with the electric opener. The instructions said to pull the door up or push it down until the latch caught with the carrier. I started pulling on the rope to get the door to open and then the entire emergency latch broke off. As I fell to the dirty, hard, cold cement floor of the garage, I smacked myself in the face with the metal part of the emergency latch. I was sure I had busted open my lip (possible reason to call in sick to work?) but alas, it was only a flesh wound. Nothing an alcohol prep couldn't fix. Not even worthy of antibiotic ointment. Now, I can't get into my garage unless I manually open the door and I have to lock it manually. I haven't decided if I could lock it from the outside. Seems like too much work if you ask me.

Anyone know how to fix a garage door?