(Not My) Home Repairs

So as I relayed yesterday, I am in O-town, hangin out, and doing some minor things around the house for my parents. It seems that their disposal went out, a few days after everyone left for Christmas. According to my dad, the previous disposer was approximately 17 years old, and just couldn't cut it anymore. I agreed to tackle the job, not aware of what I would face.

Now, I'm by no means a very handy man. I've done minor plumbing before, but what should have taken 3 hours, instead took 3 days. But how hard can a disposal be?
The old unit. As you can see, I've already begun disassembly. I ran into a serious problem right off the bat. The ring that holds the unit up had been there for a while. And it wasn't gonna go without a fight. The ring was rusted solid together. I tried all sorts of screwdrivers, hammers, and penetrating oil to no use. This called for more serious determination.

The serious determination. I'll just bend the shit out of the flange, and it will come out the bottom! That metal looks thin, but it was a pain to bend like that. I only had to bend a bit more than shown, and the unit fell out.

Dead disposal.

The glorious new unit! The In-Sink-Erator Evolution Compact. It doesn't really need a name like that. Anyways, installation was much easier than removal, and required almost no work. This thing is so quiet you can hardly tell it's working. I'm impressed.

While I did the disposal, I also re-sealed the sink to the counter, as it had begun to leak, and was knocked loose when trying to remove the old disposal. Tonight I'll try to fix the faucet, which is also leaking a little bit. I'm afraid I'll just break something worse, and then have a real problem.