Soldering On

Between the snow, some pain, and just plain not feeling too active today, I decided to do some soldering today that I have been putting off for a while.  I just had to make sure curious basenjis were out of harm's way and didn't try to investigate the scorching soldering iron they same way they investigate everything, by putting their nose on it.  So, when my wife took a nap and they jumped in the warm bed with her, I went to work.

First I had to rewire my headphones.  I have had to do this many times in the twenty years I have had them since they followed me out of my parents' house.  So much so that I bought a very long cord and as the cord wears out (which is almost always right where they cord goes into the headphones) I just snip that section out and wire it back up, just six inches shorter.  I do this until the headphone cord is down to about a foot or so, then get a new cord and start all over again.  I started this back in my club DJ days where I would have to constantly take the headphones off to hear drunk girls requesting the song I just played and trying to bribe me by going out with me or flashing me (not necessarily in that order).  One time a bouncer was taking a break in the DJ booth.  A girl asked him to play a particular song, and he responded by asking her to flash him.  She did and asked if he would play her song, then he responded that he was just a bouncer but he appreciated the show.  The part of that whole situation that bothers me was I was busy queuing up the next song and didn't witness the show myself!  But anyway, enough reliving the glory days of coming home at 4:30am dead tired and smelling like an ashtray from the DJ booth being in the club's haze all night.  I did get my headphones rewired just fine tonight and they work great again.  I swear each time I do it, the parts I am soldering get smaller and smaller.  I remember it being a lot easier the last time I did it.

I then had two switches I had to replace on other things.  On one I had it all soldered up and ready to go, and when I went to reinstall the part, I found out the hole wasn't big enough for the new part.  So, I had to unsolder the new part and put the old one back on.  Not a hard job, but I really wasn't planning this exercise in futility tonight.  So I moved on to the other project, and when I opened up the back I realized it was the wrong switch.  I had bought this switch about four years ago.  I vaguely remember opening this up before with the same results.  So I put the part in my little parts box, and I am sure another year or so from now, I will open it up again and realize once again I have the wrong part.  It's like I am playing a little practical joke on my future self that I don't think is funny now, and probably won't think it's funny in the future either.

With one out of three projects successfully completed, I went to take a shower.  And you know how when you are around smoke, sometimes it gets in your hair and when you take a shower the water brings the smell back out?  Sometimes that can be a pleasant smell such as from the great steak you grilled earlier that day.  Or it can remind you of something good that day, like how you may smell like a cigarette butt, but at least you got to see boobs at work.  But tonight it just reminded me how much solder stinks and how I need to replace my tip.  Of course, much like the switch I keep trying to install every year or so, I won't remember that the tip needs replacing until I pull out the soldering iron to use it again.

Hopefully I will feel brave enough later this week to head out to my shop and work on my big boy toys again. My brace seems to be helping my incision heal better and I seem to be getting stronger.  And then I can come back to the house, take a shower, and smell smoke from welding and grinding.