Garage Door Blues and A Happy Ending

Yesterday was already a very busy day, starting out by driving out to the far YMCA, then the Chiropractor, breakfast, a quick stop at Target, then off to work. Best laid plans, etc., and even though everything did get done, roadblocks of a more serious nature opened up. 

The concept of automatic garage door openers is pretty simple. A
signal is received by the ceiling-mounted motor which
activates a chain attached to the center of the door. As the
chain retracts, the door moves up curved side railings until it is
fully retracted. Today's doors have to have safety sensors at
the bottom rails and a few other safety features to protect
children and animals from getting pinned or crushed. 

There's nothing like opening up the garage door at 4:40 am, backing the car out, clicking the garage door opener to close the door, and having nothing happen. Nothing! I had put a new battery into the opener on Sunday because it wasn't working well when I picked up our Pizza for dinner. A new battery seemed to resolve the problem, so I didn't mention it to DH. But this ... well this was WAY more of a problem. I had to wake DH up and we had to figure out if it was my opener, the garage door itself, or what. We finally got my opener to work, so I headed off and did my YMCA and Chiropractor, arriving home to see DH just picking up the morning paper. When I clicked my opener, the door didn't budge once again. 

The idea, of course, is that clicking the appropriate
clicker will open and close the garage door, eliminating
lifting the heavy door manually. Our first house up
here in the Frozen Northlands had a manually-operated
garage door, and the homes I grew up with also did. I happen
to be a great fan of the automatic garage door opener. 

DH set up a ladder and we pulled off the housing, checking the motor which seemed to have finally died. We're talking about an original garage door opener from 1960, and it was tired and said "The hell with it, I'm tired and I quit!" I couldn't blame it, but DH still had to get over to the Chiropractor and then come to the office to work for the day. A non-functional garage door wasn't going to cut it. 

We decided to work with the door manually, and I would contact the guys who had fixed it in the past (replacing broken chains and rails for us in prior years). Their operation didn't open until 8:00 am, so I left a message and headed out to breakfast. DH texted me that the door handle broke off when he was pulling the door open to get his truck out, but he managed to work with the lock instead and got it open. 

I opted for the backup power too, so that we can still open and
close the door easily even if our power is out. Our door is old,
wooden, and very heavy and I'm not sure I could lift it on my own. 

Mark, from Hamline Garage Door, contacted me when he opened. He remembered us and also remembered my Father-in-law (everyone knew my FIL - he was a very outgoing and engaging guy). He said he could be out in early afternoon and he would phone before he headed over. So, DH came to work for a couple of hours, then was away from the shop for a couple of hours, and then returned long enough to load up the truck with the next bunch of equipment we were taking home to the new studio workspace. 

I'm totally smiling now. I have a new, reliable garage door
opener in place before our next winter, and that's one more
think off my "possible problems" mental list. Yippee! 

I now have a new garage door opener that's up to code, works like a dream, and has a outside panel so that we don't have to carry openers along with us when we're cutting the lawn or working in the patio area. I had been thinking, just a few days ago, "I wonder how the door will work this coming winter?" Now I know - it wouldn't work at all, but now, I'm suddenly very happy. One less worry on my plate. 

On that note, have a wonderful Tuesday. I'm plugging in photos and getting out of here to the gym. I have to work off the last of my Sunday night pizza binge. I'll be back tomorrow. 

Black Holes and Progress

Does anyone else have a black hole in their home? I've had one of these for as long as I can remember and it's inconvenient, at the very least. It was in full swing on Wednesday.

Do you have a monster in the corner in your house? I always
thought that every house has at least one monster who
eats things you know were there and then spits them back
out into places you know you already looked. 

Wednesday's errands included a quick stop at Michael's for a pen for Zentangle and some card stock for my holiday cards. Between cleaning the bathroom shower and doing loads of laundry, I wanted to test some of the things I want to do for this year's holiday cards. I purchased my items, dropped by the grocery store, and headed home.

Pulling out the equipment I want to use, I got everything set up and tested with white paper (I have reams and reams of white card stock). It worked SO well! I was almost jumping up and down in excitement. Now to try the real color. I looked to the side of me - no Michael's bag. I started roaming the house looking for the bag - nope, nowhere to be found. After wasting a half hour hunting without success I headed back to Michael's and spent another $10 replacing what I had purchased earlier in the day.

I'll be using my Big Kick Sizzix for this year's set of cards. It's
a pretty amazing piece of equipment and I've been playing
with the capabilities of it for a year. 

I did my tests, decided on step 1 of the cards, began research into step 2, tried the insert (very cool, how well this is going to work!) and continued with my day. Later that night, after dinner when I was sweeping the kitchen floor, I found the original Michael's bag on the floor behind the kitchen table. The black hole had decided to cough the bag back up (making me wonder what it has eaten instead).

I might return the excess next Wednesday, but for now I am overwhelmed with card stock, I have two pens for Zentangle, and I have my equipment in the back of Minion to be taken to the shop with me. It's time to get started punching out the elements I'll need for my holiday cards. It's always fun when things actually work the way I want them to ...

The Minnesota State Fair begins today and runs through Labor Day,
September 7th. It marks the end of summer to many of us. We're
starting out on the cool side, but next week is expected to be hot!
I actually prefer a cooler Fair, but I can't be there until next week,
so hot it may be. 

Happy Thursday to all! Chickie will be taking a vacation day to go to the first day of the Great Minnesota Get Together - aka the State Fair. Customers get freaked out by the thought of dealing with State Fair traffic (my shop is less than a mile from the Fairgrounds), so it might be a slow day.

Toys, Drapes and Shine

I used my newest toy for swimming yesterday. I'm delighted to say that it worked perfectly. My waterproofed iPod Shuffle gave me a good pace, kept me pushing through a few rough periods I had in the water as I did my laps, and generally passed its first trial by water in fine style. I've decided to drop down one size on the earplugs for Friday and see if that improves things even more, and I need to get a bit more familiar with the controls, but it was a good first outing. I suspect I'll get as much use from this iPod as I do from my slightly larger one which I use for my machine days. So far I've lost 25 pounds since the beginning of January and I feel 1000 times better, so the gym is definitely working well for me. In fact, yesterday I wore a pair of jeans that I haven't been able to wear for the past two years! SCORE! LOL.

My new little iPod worked really well in the pool
yesterday. The gals all laughed at me, calling me a
Gadget Geek. Well, I am, but this is also my early
birthday gift to myself and I think I'm going to love it. 

I saw the decorator yesterday with our new colors and samples in hand. She will order some larger carpet samples in for us to look at. They will be mailed directly to me. We also went through their laminates with the smaller sample I had brought along with me and chose two that were quite similar for DH to look at. These are larger 1x2 ft samples, so he can get a very good idea of color range and changes. So far we're divided on which of the two we like better, but they're quite close and we'll get there eventually. There's no major rush on this. I had been shooting for a mid-May install, but because it's taking longer to make up our minds, I'm pushing that back to 2nd or 3rd week of June instead which will give me more time to catalog our paperbacks - all to the good.

I've gotten almost 1000 of our paperback books
scanned and into my Book Catalogue app.
Now they're in boxes, alphabetized by author.
I still have a lot of books to go, but I've made
a very good start. 

But the draperies! DH and I had agreed on a particular fabric, but when I went to talk with Chara about the decorating, she gave me prices for drapes. If I had chosen that fabric, the drapes would have cost as much as the entire carpeting! No, and again NO! Even going with a lesser fabric, the drapes seem unusually expensive to me. I have basic dimensions now, so DH and I will go to JC Penney's on Sunday and see what something comparable would cost if we ordered through them. I'm sure they would still need to come and measure again, and that would be fine.

OK, I want my drapes in a light neutral ice grey and it covers a width
three times this wide, but it's a pretty basic drape. You wouldn't think
I would have to pay THAT much for it. 

I also left a text message for a friend who has been involved in professional sewing for years to find out if she may have any recommendations for me as far as someone who might make custom drapes for a lesser cost. Fabric can always be ordered by the bolt, I've done it before. It's not an unusual drape except it's wide. It's a standard double-draw drape that goes across my large picture window. I want a lined drape with a center pull. It's straight sewing, just a lot of fabric and the seams need to be absolutely straight. But it's basic sewing and if I wasn't so swamped with other things, I could probably sew them myself.

I decided on Sea Glass as the color of my
new MisFit. I was tempted to choose Wine, but
I think I prefer the lighter color. 

So onward to the machines. I'm shipping my defective MisFit Shine to the manufacturer this morning and they will be sending me a Sea Glass colored replacement as soon as they get my old one back. Hopefully by the end of next week I'll be back up and running with a new wrist ornament. Happy Thursday to everyone!

Oh Dear ... Good News and Bad News In One

I love my MisFit Shine fitness tracker. That said, it decided to die yesterday quite unexpectedly. I sent a report to them with the specifics and screen shots, and they notified me back (within twelve hours, so great customer service) that they believe my unit is defective. The good news, they will replace it at no charge to me. The bad news, the color I've been wearing is not available. I will look through the other colors and choose a different one, send the defective one back to them in tomorrow's mail, and wait to get my new one. I've been wearing it long enough now that I'm quite familiar with what exercise regimes push me up to the levels I want, so a week or two without my Shine won't be horrible. But I'll miss seeing it on my wrist :-)

So which color should I choose? I had the lower left, but it's
not available right now. I'm thinking either #1, #2 or #3, but I'm
edging to #1. What do you think? Comment ant let me know. 

I have a new gadget (toy) arriving this week sometime - a completely waterproof iPod Shuffle for my water days. I normally am swimming 1500 yards on my guppy days and I want to push that closer to 2000 yards so that I have a mile+ in the water. I also want to pick up my pace a bit, and music can help me do that. I spent time on Sunday putting together a heavy metal playlist for my Guppy Days and when my new toy arrives, I'll load it up, use the Flip Turn headphones that are included with my Shuffle, and hit the water. I can hardly wait!

UnderwaterAudio.com offers a completely waterproof iPod Shuffle
in several colors along with headphones that can be used for swimming
or other water activities. I think I ordered mine in blue just to keep it
separate from my gym iPod which is green. I need color cues like this
at 4:45 am - LOL. 

But life carries on while I'm doing all of this. Today will be a busy day at work because yesterday was practically a ghost town in the store. Minimal customers and those who won't spend more than $10 makes paying bills an exercise in creativity *sigh*. So I'm determined that today will be better.

I really hate to do drastic measures like a System Restore to
an earlier time point, but after more than eight hours of getting
nowhere with my laptop, I finally gave it. It took a while, but
it did the trick and I'm back up and running. 

Additionally, yesterday my laptop just wouldn't operate properly, despite restarts, etc. I finally gave up and did a System Restore to last Friday. Now things seem to be working properly again. Of course, I didn't do the Restore until 4:00 pm, so most of the day was a total wash, at least as far as getting computer work completed. But there was plenty of other work for me to do, so I concentrated on that instead.

I really disliked the catalog cover and promotional materials
for the show this year. Usually they have a project and
some really pretty beadwork to get people inspired. This year
they focused on classes, and I didn't even bother posting the
visual materials for my customers to look at. Cover pic = BORING!

And finally, I got notifications and instructions from one of my teachers at my conference in June. Now to download and print out those instructions and gather my tools together so that I can have a great time playing with fire and metal in Milwaukee. I'm really looking forward to the conference even though I'm going to be broke again because of the expense of it all. It's my only vacation (aside from the Labor Day extended weekend with my BFF Sharon each year) and I'm determined to make the most of it.

Happy Tuesday, all! Have a truly fabulous day filled with joy!

Short, Sweet and Celebratory

So in a little more than 90 minutes from now I'll have my old computer in the back of my car and be heading towards Computer Guru's locale to data dump the old system onto the new hot guy. I'm absolutely terrified! I will have so many new things to learn and get my head around and I have to do it quickly - I have fiction waiting, art projects waiting and I have to keep up to date with the company website. That's the thing that is frightening me more than anything else - I have people depending on me for beta work and my website products and I need to be able to do both things easily. And some of the new versions of programs won't play nicely with my old data. This is me...jumping off a cliff...hoping that I either sprout wings or that the ground is actually there only three feet below the edge.

What lies below the cliff edge? I'll be finding out later today and tomorrow!

Tomorrow is July 4th, our nation's birthday celebration. I've always envied people born on this day - the entire country sends off fireworks for them. How utterly kewl that is! Anyway - because it is a holiday and I have the day off from work I won't be posting my blog on Thursday.

Happy 4th of July tomorrow. We'll be grilling hamburgers and chicken sausages,
making iced tea and enjoying a day off from work. 

However, Le Tour progresses. Today is a sprinter's paradise as we leave Cagnes-Sur-Mer and head towards Marseille - 228.5 km. It's got hills, even a cat 3 early in the run, but the other three hills are cat 4, so pretty minimal for these guys.

Wednesday is rolling but not super hard with one cat 3 and three cat 4 hills.

On July 4th the route has a single cat 4 and straight going again as it roams from Aix-en-Provence to Montpellier. Sprinters days - both. Crashes can (and usually do) occur on these types of days.

Day Six on July 4th is flat, flat, flat!  This is a sprinter's paradise and only
the wind could play a part as the riders move towards the Pyrenees on Saturday.

So...I'll talk with everyone again on Friday July 5th on my new Beastie. I'll need a name for that bad boy...hmmm....any suggestions?

What Did We Do Without Them?

I'm looking to my left and there are my "devices" awaiting packing before I leave for work. They are several different sizes, from very small to larger purse-sized and I love each one of them. There is my Apple Nano on which I just loaded four Mendelssohn symphonies - such wonderful music. Next to this is my Motorola Droid smartphone on which I now have a free voice recorder app for when story inspiration hits me while I'm in the car (which actually happens quite frequently). On the far right is my NookColor - still a piece of equipment that I use every day even though I can and do read on my phone also. I still adore my Nook after more than two years, it just does whatever I ask of it so well. On the floor, patiently waiting, is my laptop nestled in its case. And of course, I'm sitting at my desktop computer writing this. 

My Nano is green, with my LJ User Name engraved on the back.

In 1876, on March 10th, so just slightly more than 137 years ago, Alexander Graham Bell, using a liquid transmitter, spoke the famous words "Mr Watson - Come here - I want to see you" and was heard clearly by his assistant in a nearby room on the other end of the transmitter. The first telephone - the first baby step on a very slippery slope of electronic devices.  

One of the original ads for the Princess Phone. I was in love and it
is still considered a classic phone design.

I grew up with the phone as a common part of the household. When I lived in Aspen, Colorado we had a party line (that means that we shared a phone line with a second household, each one having a specific ring tone). But our phone line in Denver was a single line - FLorida 8195 was my phone number. I remember it even today, more than fifty years after I had that number. The phone were dial phones and direct connect, i.e. we didn't go through a switchboard (although I have worked at switchboards and routing boards in my employment past). In those days I wanted a "Princess Phone", but my Dad never wanted to spring for the extra dollars. I finally had a phone receiver of my own when I was in high school, but it was still wired to the wall and just an extension phone, not a separate phone number, and still not a Princess Phone. 

This phone was so small and portable, It only made and
received  calls, but I really didn't need more than that.

Touch-tone phones came into use while I was in college and grad school. Within a short amount of time they had become the predominant style of phone, although I still had a rotary dial phone in some rooms of my house until the late 1980's. In 1996 Motorola introduced their StarTac mobile phone. It was revolutionary. It was super thin and very portable compared to mobile phones of the past. It was so revolutionary that it was included in the Academy Awards goodie bag that year and several of the stars were gushing about the phones in their interviews. I bought one of these a few years later when it was less expensive. 

I love my Droid - it's so darned versatile and thin. Yes, I am
a gadget geek!

After a few more portable phones, and switching from carrier to carrier to get a better plan and better signal strengths (from AT&T to Sprint to Verizon) I upgraded to a smartphone. I bought a Motorola Razr Droid late last summer when my prior phone died. I never thought I would really get into a smartphone, but I'm finding that I really love it. I'm still watching my activity closely so that I don't increase the amount I pay monthly past a reasonable point, but I love my electronics Whatever did we do without them? Just the ability to carry more than 300 books with me in my hand - so wonderful! Yes, I love my line-up of devices, I am a true Gadget Geek.