parked on my bedroom desk with the hot halogen lamp on, i spent an hour this morning disassembling my mid-2012 macbook pro to remove the logic board. it wasn't that hard, just a bunch of screws to unfasten and ribbon clips to release, but i made a mistake removing the right speaker cable and ended up prying off the entire socket. i wrote to the repair service to find out if they could also reattach the socket; i got a response minutes later saying the technician will do the best he can. i'm using an online repair service via ebay, where i just send them my logic board and they fix it and send it back. i'm not sure how well it works, but there's a money back guarantee if they can't fix it, and it's the difference between $130 (for the logic board repair) versus $485 (to buy a used replacement logic board).

despite the inconvenience of all those screws and fasteners, there's a certain elegance inside the macbook pro. the logic board - the heart of the machine - is much smaller than i'd imagine. the board itself also can be removed without touching the CD-ROM or the hard drive.

i went down to the basement to find a suitable box to put the logic board, along with some bubble wrap. i used a small amazon box and the packaging material i pulled from an old broken HDTV circuit board. i also added the detached socket in a small bag, it'd be awesome if they can put it back. they recommended UPS or fedex instead of USPS, so i went to the nearest UPS store on somerville avenue. i was thinking it'd set me back $20 but the shipping cost was just $10 and scheduled to arrive by tomorrow. maybe if i'm lucky i can get my macbook pro up and running by next week. if it can't be fixed, i'll spend the $1000 and buy a used macbook pro, one with a 15" retina screen and a 1TB hard drive, i've seen two possible candidates on craig's list.

nothing i can do now but pray to the god of macintosh for a successful repair and a speedy return.

i finally went to belmont in the early afternoon, biking on the fuji. it was so hot, riding the motorcycle would've been the better choice, but the honda was in my parents' garage, so i decided i would ride it back when i returned home, leaving the bicycle for the time being. i had some noodles for lunch. i was thinking about mowing the lawn but it was just too hot, so i stayed inside for much of the day, only going out in the late afternoon to water the garden, inspect the plants, and to chase a rabbit out of the backyard. i also pulled up all my garlics: bigger thant they were back in the fall, but still small by garlic size. i'm thinking about eating this haul and then buying larger garlic cloves to plant come september-october.

i returned home in the early evening, not nearly as tired since i took the motorcycle. i tried the lush shampoo bar wangyang gave me, like soap for your hair, although nothing says i couldn't just use it as a regular bar of soap. i didn't apply any conditioner afterwards. it gave me hair more body i noticed, but a little frizzy, which could just be because of the humidity.

i spent the rest of the evening topless, scouring amazon prime for deals (the only thing i bought was a 64GB sandisk memory card for $14) on my hot old macbook pro, the fan blasting from the coffee table.