Early in the morning around 7:30 AM I was taking the garbage down and accompanying my wife to the car as she left for work. Over the whining-grinding sound of the garage-door opener in action came a deeper rumble-sliding thumping sound… Wahaa??
Damn!! The shelving I installed a few years back has given-way. I don’t think it was an earthquake. The worst was the two-stroke exhaust that landed square on her car-hood and left some little dents. Her car is a fine (but oldish) Europeener car, unlike my truck that can take a scratch and dent or two (and has). I didn’t realize how much stupid crap I had stacked up there in my little garage. Camping gear mostly, and I haven’t been camping in ages. There’s even more crap threatening on the other side.
UPDATE INSERT: Even though well-screwed into the wallboard and anchored, they just un-zipped down the length. It could have been the door-opener that starts with a twisting kick of torque, gave it just enough of impetus to let go.
Now I have a garage project. Fortunately the case of Coleman propane (our earthquake backup-supply) was already on the ground or the car-dents would have been major.
So I go back upstairs to the reloading bench to continue my load-work from yesterday. I set about calibrating the digital scale and powder dispenser. The scale calibrates easily.
From the tall powder dispenser comes an unusual sound. A grinding graunchy raspy noise. Powder is dropped easily with a smooth whine in the first stage, but in trickle mode the machine emits a wretched gear-jumped noise like a bad chain-wheel. It finally measures-out but something is clearly not right with the device. I call and the phone rings and rings without answer. I call again with the same result. Third time’s a charm, if a recorded message is what charms you. They close at 12:30 on Fridays in Texas, and now it’s past 12:30 – something not noted on their website.
Fate has changed my priorities for this weekend. Now I’ll really have to set the Garage straight and outfit it properly.
