It was yesterday around 1 am when it happened. Various electronic
boards and parts were sprawled out along my work benches.
I'd be focusing intently
on the pieces in front of me. Trying to spot exactly where I was putting
each wire. I'd search and pick up and throw parts back into the growing
tangle of wire and electronics next to me. The lab tables are adorned with water
bottles and goldfish snack crackers as well.
(Pictures of homemade electronic gadgets almost
always have the ubiquitous soda can in the shot.)

And above all else, my mind was racing through the possibilities of
failure as often is the case with my mind at work on some difficult
conundrum. My board wasn't sending the MIDI signals.

I was suppose to be hearing piano notes ring out from my headphones.
I heard nothing.
I changed the connections.
Still nothing.

I paused and took a hard long look at my MIDI cable....
What was the matter? I glanced at the circuit schematic then back at the cable.
Perplexing.
And then I decided that this wasn't right.
I had cut the cable in half and connected the 4 wires I found inside
thinking that that was enough.
This schematic was telling me I needed direct access to 3 progs,
and those were locked away behind a thick plastic rubber casing.
In which case, I immediately decided that it had to come off.
Could I do it?

I nearly ran to the other room. Found my red tool box.
And pulled out the jumbo PVC cutters. Soon I had most of
the cable hacked off and was now slicing into the thickest part near
the metal connector.
"I feel like MacGyver.", I joked to myself.
Or some surgeon I thought as my knife made a deep incision
into the plastic rubber coating.

A few more moments and I had it reduced to the metal connector and
I could see the progs clearly. I was soon heating my soldering iron
and carefully attaching stronger wires to the thing.

Despite the poor job I had done, I knew the thing was good enough.

I returned back to my computer happy that I had a much more
solid device ready for re-attachment.

And then there was that moment. I was hooking the thing up and
I heard notes playing. For a second, I thought I had left the keyboard
plugged in and something was hitting the keys.

I turned.
Nope.
The keyboard was just sitting there unconnected.
But that meant...

My MIDI experiment had worked!
I was soon watching as the program I wrote recorded
notes into Garage band. I sat back and smiled.

Yet another small victory... and yet so much more to go.