Colbert goes to Washington

My goodness...more than ever I want to join the rally to Keep Fear Alive. Check out this video from Stephen Colbert testifying to Congress the issue with migrant farm work.

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Showed In

My poor car...I scratched while shoveling today.



Before shoveling:


After 2 hours of shoveling:

Garage Door, The 2nd Act

The garage door opener stopped working again last Thursday. It can raise the door but can't lower it. My father happened to come across an inexpensive garage door opener at Sears for $119 and purchased it. We spent 3 to 4 hours yesterday installing it.

Before we installed the new opener, I noticed the support beam it will rest on was cracked. Rather than removing and replacing, we just nailed a new one next to it.

This door opener isn't fancy but it gets the job done. It doesn't have an external keypad nor does it use a rotating code. We didn't much care since the garage is detached from the main home.
While I had the tools in front of me, I secured the safety cable that runs through the spring to the frame with a bolt.
Now, I feel a lot more comfortable parking my car in the garage.

Ghetto Garage

Since my father is home, I have an extra pair of hands to help repair the garage door.
First, we replaced the beam that support one of the rails. I guess the wire got caught against something and rip apart the wooden beam.

Here's a picture of what it looks like after we replaced the beam.
We didn't have any clamps for the wires so we looped it around itself. That's not a big deal as long as the safety cable was secured, which it has not.
I pressed the opener to see if the door will now open but the chain wouldn't move. We removed the garage opener cover discovered two broken pieces. Those pieces held the casing for the gears together. I didn't feel like buying a new garage opener when it's not on sale so we used 2 metal wires to tie them back together. To our surprise, it works! Sure the machine makes an uncomfortable noise when you use it, but this gives me time to shop for a new opener.

It's so ghetto.

Paved Driveway

Finally, after weeks of rain we got a weekend of sunshine. I took the opportunity and patched the driveway. I'll apply the second coat when we get another sunny weekend.

What made this time different was that I sealed most of the major cracks and applied a primer on the oil stains. I'm very pleased with the result.

Timber!

I have finally cut down the tree that is causing damage to the driveway. The damage isn't terrible but it's better to address it now rather than later. The trunk took the longest to remove because the core was very dense. Afterward, I drilled a couple of holes in to the stump. I'll probably pour chemicals or salt there hoping it will kill the root.