Hey Bob!

Who ever said life is boring? Check it out...

I got home from Topeka yesterday afternoon okay, no flight delays or cancellations, so I figure something is wrong.

I unpack, toss a load of laundry into the washing machine. About half way through the final spin cycle, the motor on the washing machine takes a digger, quits working completely. Great! I bought the thing used 12 years ago, it isn't worth fixing, so now I have a new washing machine on my short list.

A pretty big thunderstorm moves into the area later on in the evening. Hail starts hitting my skylight, freaking my birds out. So now I have four beak-faced chatterboxes raising a ruckus along with the hail storm.

I open the front door to watch the hail falling. All of a sudden, the hail starts flying sideways. I've witnessed this phenomenon only once before, back in the late seventies. At that time, a tornado was getting ready to touch down two blocks away from me. Soooooo, I shut the door, and go downstairs to seek shelter in my laundry room. It is the safest place in my home in the event of a tornado, and I figured last night it was even safer than normal because there was no way anything was going to fall on a washing machine that just broke.

No tornado at my house, but one did set down a few miles east of me, wiped out a half dozen homes and destroyed a high school. That was too close for me!

I'm ready to go to work this morning, back the car out of the garage and hit the close button on my garage door opener. The bottom cross member stops moving on the outside edges. The center of the bottom cross member moves outward turning what was a straight piece of wood into a "V", and panels and other pieces-parts start falling from the ceiling! I now have a 7 by 8 foot jigsaw puzzle sitting on the floor of my garage! I put it back together, sorta. ...good enough to cover the hole with large gaps all over the place. I go to work, call Overhead Door to have someone come take a look at my dilemma. They can replace the door, but can't do so until Monday. Now I have another "not cheap" item on my short list! I screwed about a dozen mending plates into what's left of the door, so I can still use it until it gets replaced Monday.

I don't know if the door was ready to fall apart on its own (it is 17 years old, and not particularly sturdy to begin with) or if it was subjected to a rapid drop in atmospheric pressure due to the close proximity of a tornado causing stress on it (trying to suck it out of the garage,) or some combination of both...

....and I'm not on my way to the convention!

Bob