What did I do today?

Today has been an okay day.  I woke up this morning feeling a little flat, so I decided to take a sick day to relax.  In retrospect it feels like a very lazy decision, but I don't particularly care.
In reality, I haven't actually done a lot today.  That's a fair amount of what I set out to do, so I'll put a hash mark over in the "success" column.  This morning I spent some time messing around in WoW.  I did some daily quests, which is WoWspeak for "in-game chores."  I don't really do dailies that much, but they have their benefits so I've been trying to grab a few here and there.  I also got to spend a little time actually playing with a couple of friends as well.

As I move about the house I'm constantly reminded of partially completed projects that require my attention.  Among them are the boxes of family photos I've accumulated on the floor of the office, and my RC truck.  Today I decided to bite the bullet and attempt something I've been putting off for a while.

As you can see in this picture, my truck came with a Tamiya style battery connector.  This is a bit of an issue for a couple of reasons.  Technically, Tamiya connectors aren't the greatest.  I can't really say why, it's basically just something I heard on the Internet.  The real problem here is the fact that my battery did not come with the same type of connector.  Long story short; I have to learn how to solder, or find somebody to do it for me, or I don't get to play with my toys.

I've been putting this off for a couple of reasons.  First, I wanted to buy a set of "helping hands" which is the contraption on the left side of the image.  It essentially serves as a third and fourth set of hands, which is extremely useful for soldering.  In addition, the one pictured also has a soldering iron holder and a sponge (the yellow square,) which is used for cleaning the tip of the iron.  There is also an attachment for a magnifying glass (included,) but I took it off for now. A trip to radio shack for the hands and some heat shrink, and a trip to home depot for some flux and I was ready to go.

The main reason I've been putting off soldering is because I have no idea what I'm doing.  I've watched a couple of great youtube videos about working with Deans connectors (what I'm replacing the Tamiya with,) but soldering seems kind of scary.  The iron gets up to about 700 degrees Fahrenheit and if you're not careful you can have hot solder splattering about. Alas, the truck isn't going to work on its self, so I dove in.

Here is an intermediate picture of some progress.  Both wires are soldered on here.  I think I ended up adding a bit more to the positive connection as it looked a little flimsy to me.  I only burned myself once and flipped molten solder around about 3 times.

This is the finished product.  Given that the solder joints ended up not being perfectly flat, the heat shrink had something of an issue covering everything.  I've been told this is acceptable.  I may supplement the heat shrink with a little electrical tape just to make myself feel better.  All in all it was a successful adventure.  I'm not done though.  I have to solder the female end of the Deans onto the battery.  That's sketchy because it's a lithium polymer battery...which will apparently explode and/or catch fire if you short it out.  I'll post about my progress on that when I grow some balls.

Aside from melting things, I didn't do a whole lot else.  I sent off some paperwork to get the water bill transferred to my name, which is another thing I've been putting off.  In the process I ended up at my Dad's PC.  After his death my sister changed his wallpaper to a very recent shot of him out on a motorcycle ride.  I think it's a great selfie.  Seeing him clearly enjoying himself makes me happy, but it also makes me miss him.  I almost always cry when use this computer (which I had to because I scanned something on our printer...I can't figure out how to make it scan to another network PC.) I certainly did today.

The last thing I wanted to mention is actually from something that happened on Tuesday this week.  I was home, playing on my computer, when the doorbell rang.  I got up and answered the door, but nobody was there.  Instead of a visitor, I had an envelope taped to the door that said "U R Loved = )"

Inside was a similarly sweet message:

I think the image makes it a little tricky to read.  It says : "Roses are red, Violets are Blue.  Your so awesome, so don't be blue = )" It just says "From:?"  I have no idea who it's from, but it's pretty touching.  If that person reads this blog, I'd like to say thank you.  

I'm going to go heat up some leftovers before I raid.  Have a wonderful rest of your day!

-Colin