I won’t be geeking out tonight since it is my middle daughter’s 10th birthday. My girls can always count on me for “geek” gifts and I just picked up something that my daughter will flip for when I give it to her tonight. I bought my oldest an iPod mini a couple of years ago and the motherboard died which I had repaired and then shortly after the hard drive died. Hard drives have been dropping in price and I just picked up a new 4GB model for $75 that I will be reinstalling into her iPod mini as a reward for her excellent grades in 6th grade this year. She is brilliant and does very well in school. Actually, I think I’ll have her help me to see if she has as much fun tearing apart and putting things back together as I do.

Today is also my 13th wedding anniversary, but my wife and I are just exchanging cards and are going to go out on a simple date, maybe see Nacho Libre, since all of our money is going into some serious yard reconstruction.

UPDATE: Everything seemed to be going well with the iPod mini hard drive install until I was sliding the internals back into the casing and two small components broke off the motherboard. I then finished putting it back together and it showed up in iTunes, but would not unlock so I guess one of the components controlled the hold switch. I luckily bought the drive from Buy.com and returned it in perfect condition for a full refund. Unfortunately, the iPod mini is still dead. My daughter isn’t that torn up though and keeps asking for a Sidekick 3. I may have to see if Santa can bring one for Christmas if she keeps getting straight As in school.