At this point, I was kind of "in the zone" as people call it -- in the typical cycle of development where the mnemonic is "form norm storm perform" -- I was definitely in the "perform" stage. You know the cartoon where there's a bunch of gobbledegook on a blackboard and smack in the middle it says 'and then a miracle happens"...?

Yeah, I was kind of in the miracle business at this point... and I tell you what, it felt mighty good to be there.

In went the hard drive / SSD holder, the motherboard, the USB hub, the system power-on button, a crapload of cabling, the WiFi antennae, and a decorative gear -- and it all went in relatively cooperatively and smoothly. A welcome change from having to argue with the dang thing, for sure! At around this point, I also implemented a 'kickstand' for the system, because (as usual) the keyboard was lighter at this point than the lid, meaning that without such a device, opening the machine would instantly tip it over backwards. The kickstand was simple -- a PC fan screw held on a PCI slot bracket that I had cut to length.

At this point, the machine looked like this...

Then I proceeded to wire up the power harness and the system power-on button, and tidied up the cabling somewhat, which brings us to the current state of the project... and more glamour shots, LOL. At this point we are at or past 90% completion...