Day of blogging - and my day off...

I'm a fan of second opinions. When my car breaks down, I'll take it to some place that will find the problem with me and give me an estimate on how much it'll cost to fix it. They'll tell me exactly what's wrong and then give me a quote.

I can then call around and tell other garages exactly what's wrong with my car and get quotes from them. It just makes sense.

Sometimes I get frustrated or lazy and just have the first person who looks at it fix it though.

We were having some problems with our garage door opener a few months ago. I called around and got the best price I could find on a new garage door opener. This thing had a keypad entry from the outside, it had a belt drive so it'd be quieter than my chain drive, it had a laser sensor that let me know when my car pulled all the way in.

I was pretty fired up about this new opener. And then I came home to the same old one. Turns out they said we had a bad spring and some bad wheels....so for the same price as my cool new opener, they replaced the spring and wheels. They said that'd fix everything.

It didn't. Three times I've had to pick one or two of the wheels off the ground. Three times I've had to call the company and have them re-fix the problem.

The last time they came out they said that'd they'd just be back in two days - because we needed a whole new system.

That's system would cost from $600-$800 for a new door and track.

bummer

So we called for a second opinion. A friend of ours knows a guy who is retired and just works on things for fun. He came out, saw that all of the hinges that hold the door together were in the wrong spots. He switched them up, moved the track half an inch...charged us $30....and presto-bango - we have a working garage door!

Life is good when you find the right people to help you out in situations like these.

I still don't have the keypad/laser thing yet....someday though, you just watch and wait....