I was greeted when I arrived home after work yesterday with the following notice hanging from my door knob:

It was time for the power pole next to my house to be replaced--the one upon which sat that transformer and breaker that popped earlier this year.  I had plans to take today off, but I figured I ought not to be home in a cold, dark silent home with no computer.  I also was helping a nice gay couple pick out lights for their new condo.  There is an old elementary school in Eugene that was converted years ago into very cool apartments and are now being turned into very cool condos.  They were flying back down to SF today, needed to have all the lighting and cieling fans picked out and ordered before they left and were woefully unprepared.  They had only general ideas of how big the rooms were and hadn't a clue how tall the cielings were and didn't really know what they wanted to do.  So I offered to come by their unit this morning at 8:30 and take a look at things.  We don't normally offer that service, but these guys really needed help.  So I had everything planned out and was (I thought) prepared for the power to be turned off.  I stepped into the shower just before 8:00 and I was about half way through with my shower when it occurred to me that I have an electric garage door opener.  I finished my shower quickly, but it was too late...the power had been turned out.  I knew that my opener had a release handle that could be pulled to disengage the door from the opener:

I pulled it and it seemed to work, but when I tried to lift the door, it didn't even budge.    So I decided to walk to school...about 15 blocks.  I got there right on time and found my way up to their unit--a one bedroom affair on the second floor.  I took measurements and talked to the electrician who was there also.  Bruce had to go to work and Rob was nice enough to give me a ride back to the store.  Actually before giving me a ride home, he showed me around the school and we were able to look into several other units, ranging from small studios to big ones with two bedrooms.  My favorite was a big studio with part of it raised a couple feet to form a bedroom area.  It was on the second floor overlooking a nice residential street behind the school.  I was ready to sell my home and move in!  After an hour or two back at the store, we had a finalized order...a large hanging light in the kitchen, a smaller version of the same light in the entry, a cieling fan in the bedroom, a small light in the hall, a nice vanity light in the bathroom, a cieling fan in the living room and also a nice monorail track system (with five spot lights) along one wall of the same room.  I had to stay close to work during my lunch hour since I didn't have a car.  I got a ride home from a coworker and tonight and played volleyball.  Tomorrow is now a day off and I think I'll spend the day getting things cleaned up around here and stop by the flooring place to see if I can get things resolved with my seam problem.  Oh, and when I took another look at my garage door, I realized I needed to push and lift, not just lift to get my door open.

It is one solid door and doesn't slide up like the roll-up doors or even the multi-segmented ones.  Unfortunately now I can't figure out how to re-engage the opener mechanism.    So now I'm parking in the carport, all the way up against the door so nobody can get in the garage.  That's all.