Yet Another Project

As if there weren't enough projects needing to be done around here, my laptop's display hinges finally wore out the plastic to which they were attached.  And so they can't support the display in an upright position.  Which makes the whole assembly less of a laptop and more of a lap-and-kneecap-top. 
It hurts to bend over to see the screen.

Hey!  I've got plumbing leaks and car engines to work on!  I don't need more projects! 

Saturday, Deb was having some friends come over.  One of the was going to spend the night.  How am I supposed to shut off the water and drain the pipes so I can work on the plumbing, when there are all these people running around needing to use the sink and the bathroom and the hose?

The only solution which came to mind was to send them all outside for an afternoon of fun and frolic in the sun, while I stayed behind and tore into the ceiling and attacked the now-empty pipes with my propane torch and a roll of solder.  Sure, four or five hours should be plenty of time to fix up a simple joint reflow, right?

Well, it should've been, but it wasn't.  Took me an hour or more to get the whole system drained out, then an hour or so to get the joints cleaned up (they were covered with oxidation) and then another hour of flailing with the torch and failing to get it heated up enough to actually flow the solder (dripping on my head doesn't count!) before I finally called it quits and said, forget it.  I need a full day with everyone gone to handle this.

It was getting close to dinnertime.

So I bagged the plumbing work and turned the water back on  and (after about an hour) the system was restored to normal.  Except that it still leaks.

And started working on my laptop out in the garage.  Tore it apart.  Found lots of little tiny plastic pieces which had broken off over the years, but had been covered up by the case.  Lots of tiny screws.  Lots of dust. And figured that there ain't no way it are going back together again.  It are broke.

Time for a laptop case-mod!

Meanwhile, I dragged out an older computer and made a 'fake' laptop (actually a desktop with the keyboard sitting on my lap) and tried to make do with that.  But it's hard because that computer only has 512 megabytes of RAM and 5 gigabytes of available hard drive space.  Which clearly isn't enough.

Sigh.

So no progress today.  Maybe tomorrow.

I've got to do some other work now.