Great room! Your story indeed does sound a good deal like my own. This is inspiring, I may dip over to the game room-room and post my stuff for feedback.
On cleaning and fixing games, I've really taken to refurbishing consoles and cartridges myself. My soldering skills are getting better by the day! A store owner saw me inspecting the contacts of a NES cartidge recently before purchasing it and he remarked "If it needs cleaned I'll clean and test it for you," but I replied, "That's half the fun!" That's bad advice though, always test them before you buy... It was a $2.99 Dragon Warrior cart, so I wasn't too worried if it didn't work.
Good luck!