So, a while back when we were visiting in MN, my mophie juice pack air (iPhone case with battery for extended runtime) died. Under warranty, so I sent it back. At the time, I had noticed that for the past several months, the battery was rattling a bit in the case. I suspected that the two were related, but moved on with the new case.
Fast forward a few months, and the new one starts rattling just like the old. And it too dies on me about two weeks ago. This time, however, things were going to play out different.
Instead of sending it back, I opened it up. Lo and behold, the battery lead to the charging circuit board had broken off, due to the wiggle of the battery fatiguing the wire and causing it to snap.
No problem, soldered it back together. But, rather than rely on the crappy double stick tape to hold the battery still, sugru has been deployed! Sugru is silicone putty that is fairly adhesive, extremely shock absorbent, fireproof, and easily applied. Also reasonably non-toxic once dried, but since it’s in the case that didn’t matter so much. And it comes in convenient little packets.
Pictures posted on facebook, as my blog seems to be having an uploader permissions malfunction. Fix that with some sugru next…
So the good news is that Vossen-fest 2011 starts Wednesday evening, and the guest bathroom will be ready for it! This was the last room in our interminable-renovation-death-march-can’t-we-talk-about-something-else-yet-? But somehow, as we have apparently sinned in some fashion, the minor cosmetic details (threshold strips and a cabinet door) will not be done in time. When my Mom said, “well you know it’s never really done” I don’t think this is what she meant.
But that’s okay. The shower is *awesome*! The shower head is the size of a small Frisbee and will *drown* you in sybaritic luxury if you’re not careful (didn’t look that big on the website, but what the hey). It’s height adjustable for our altitude variant guests (even my bro-in-law Dave will fit under it next time he comes, and it will swing down for the more altitude challenged too) and the controls are totally easy. Hot water shows up in 1 minute (and stays forever, tankless heater), and the shower rail is arced outward to keep that curtain from annoying you during your stay in the shower. And it even looks nice, with the new tile and fixtures. Just don’t trip walking into the bathroom, and we’re all good…
Diamond bits are great for drilling tile, just keep ‘em wet and go slow. Was sweating bullets until I got the holes for the shower rod done, did *not* want to have to call our tile guy back to replace any of our new tiles. Phe-ew! I even impressed Lois with that one, which takes some doing. I’m just glad that it’s done and I can move on to something else. The other adventure was getting the window done, we won’t be using that vendor ever again. I’m tired of having to don the cape and save the day due to other people’s screw-ups that I paid good money for. But doesn’t it just look great now. That’s what I keep telling myself. Big thanks to Andy Miller, our contractor/carpenter who really helped me bail out the situation. The window is now mahogany for rot resistance (it’s in a shower after all) and we put both smith’s and varnish on it, which means it’ll probably be perfect even after we’re dead and buried, many years from now. It’s also double glazed for insulation with some really nice fluted and frosted glass, pretty and private. Also heavy, so new sash weights were needed. (I now know far more than I ever wanted to about window sashes, and their various mechanical aspects.)
So now the house is so close to done that we can just let it go at that. Now we get to finish my work studio/secret laboratory in the back yard.
Oddly, I’m looking forward to it.
As I write this, our 4th generation Italian craftsman tile installer is working on the guest bathroom. This is the last room in the house to be receiving a major upgrade, and it’s going to be done before Vossen-fest 2011 commences and we have guests who would probably like their own bathroom functional. I have my own to do list, which I should probably stop writing about and just get to.
Once this is done, we move on to getting my workshop/secret laboratory functional. I’m more motivated for that phase, given that it’s basically all about me anyway, man-cave stuff. Hope to have that more-or-less functional by the end of the year, but that’s probably optimistic.
Off to buff up some lock hardware and a dozen other minor and semi-not-minor tasks…
