Great tutorial, I noticed something in your story that I found interesting.
"I pulled out the old laptop, rolled up my sleeves, and began exploring fragments in earnest."
I know it doesn't appeal to everyone, but with a decent Bluetooth keyboard (or in my case a Transformer Prime) you can develop for android directly on your device using AIDE (no affiliation to me) which lets you code, complie and run your apps directly on your device - be it a tablet or phone.
I discovered this app recently and now I don't touch my laptop for android development.