Lighting Strikes

That's light-ing. As in electricity. As in, something is happening to the garage and I'm very excited about it. After I got my 3rd parking ticket for parking in front of my house on a street cleaning day, my neighbors kindly suggested that I get my garage door fixed so I could start parking back there and avoid Chicago's Scam to Fund their Dwindling Coffers. Conspiracy Alert!! Seriously, those street cleaners don't do a thing. If I remember, I'll try to take a picture of the street after one of their trucks comes through. Honestly they just sputter filthy water in their wake. Here's a googled picture of one of the city street sweepers which is clearly sitting on a street that has already been cleaned. See how pristine the street is in front of the truck? That's how you know they're lying.

 
No leaves or trash or gutter gunk gets picked up by these trucks. They just spurt out Streets and Sanitation bilge water. But, if you don't dash out and move your car before they fart by they'll hit you with a hefty fine. People, you do the math.

But I digress. This post isn't about exposing the city's farty undergarments. It's about the miracle in the alley and Jack, my neighbor, who took it upon himself to put together a proposal and bid to install a new garage door. Here's what it looks like now,

and here's what it's going to look like,

Ha. Just kidding. No, the new door will be boring white vinyl. But it'll be better than the ramshackle two-tone that's back there now.

So step one was to hook the garage up with electricity. I didn't want the new electrical line that had to go from the garage to the fuse box in the basement to be an eyesore. So Jack ran the line from the basement, along the back of the fence (on the left) and into the back wall of the garage.

From the other side of the fence (which you get to through my neighbor's gangway) you can see where the line comes out of the hole in the basement wall, gets threaded through a box and into an insulated pipe

rounds the corner

and tucks up against the back of the fence.

I bought the door this morning at Menard's, it was delivered a couple hours later and will be installed tomorrow. The motor opener thing is coming from Home Depot online tomorrow or Monday-ish. This has all happened a lot faster than I expected and really, never would have happened without my neighbor's intervention. So thanks to him it'll soon be Huron - 1, bankrupt city pension fund - Goose Egg.