Two Strange Screws
This work week went by fast. Markus returned from his fantastic trip to Italy. He has a really nice new Casio 4MP digital camera. I may consider purchasing one myself. We sat on the deck and drank Guinness. Last night's weather was fantastic, and reminds me of this image of the powerlines behind my house, even though the photograph is a year old.

Today, I decided it would be good to tackle the case of the leaky car. Since water leaks in at a place that I cannot pinpoint, the plan was to add silicone to the bottom of the windshield edge. While removing the retaining bracket, two of the six 6mm screws decapitated. One took an hour to remove, by drilling through it and extracting it. It was made of some very soft steel, seemingly softer than the last brass I worked with. It is no surprise it broke. The other, however, was made of the strangest, hardest steel, and proved impossible to drill through. Yet the screws should have been identical. Had to create a new screw hole next to this stubborn one.

Finally, a diagnosis of the toasted CD player revealed that it suffered the same fate as the previous one: the drive motor still works with 6V applied, but it refuses to spin disks on its own. For now, the old OEM radio/tape box was put back in. CD/MP3 players are mostly around 200 dollars now, and they look to be good units.