Transitions in the East: DIY turns me on

For quite some time my mac has been having some issues, from the fans not working in any positive way to the battery no longer holding a charge. An issue that I should have taken care of awhile back, but instead just slapped a piece of electrical tape on, has now become something that threatened any more use of the machine: the power supply.

Anyone who has a mac knows that the power bricks are AWESOME in their magnetic design, and suck in every other way, including how easy the cord splits and how expensive they are to replace. Electrical tape had been doing an OKAY job of holding mine together for the past three months, but it finally gave up last night and the damage looked a little like this, without the friendly red and green lights that give me such a thrill when it actually works:

My first reaction was to have the pouty freak-out that I so enjoy, followed by looking up where to buy new power bricks for a reasonable price. Unfortunately we still have not gotten the whole package-delivery thing fully worked out at our new place, and so Nikola suggested that we try to fix it. What did we have to lose? It was broken anyways. We looked up a few different videos on the internet, pulled out our cheap-o and rather useless soldering iron, and started taking things apart.

While laying in bed in the morning we had debated what to do with a sunshiny sunday. Perhaps we would go to the mall, as I had a slight desire to see what they have going on there. (It is an odd desire, but I am filled with those these days). Perhaps we would go down by the water, take a picnic, and see the Monet exhibit. Perhaps we would waste the entire day in front of the computer, watching movies and getting some new-lover-cuddles in. Nope. All of our plans were quickly and happily tossed aside for a bit of DIY.

I must say that I absolutely love and appreciate living with a boy who is as in to DIY as I am. So far we have figured out how to deal with mold, taken parts of our ceiling apart, taken all of our washing machine apart, and as of today, fixed my power brick. Nikola is great at these little projects as he doesn't get easily frustrated. I am also great at them. I do get easily frustrated, but I also have a bit of frustrated determination that works in my favor, as well as a background in self-sufficiency that most girls in the world lack these days. But I think the best attribute that we both share is a certain level of lust towards DIY projects. We both recognize how fun it is to take things apart, see how they work, and hopefully put them back together working a little better. It is a fun hobby that we can share and I cannot imagine dating someone who did not like to do these things. However, thinking about sharing my life and home with someone I am now hyper-aware of how awesome it is going to be to live together, fixing things as they come and go.

We spent the beginning of the afternoon taking apart the tip of my ac supply. We then soldered a bit, realized it wouldn't work, and soldered a bit more. We had a few failures, and a little bit of grrr coming out of me, but in the end there was the joy of seeing THIS: