A Solder Monkey Saturday
I wanted a second USB cable for my iPod Shuffle. The iPod shipped with one, but I keep it wired in tight down at the dorm, leaving me with no way to charge the iPod when I come home for weekends. I ordered the wire and the connectors a few weeks ago, so we were all set to go today. The supplies for 4 cables ran me about fifteen bucks. We'll call it $4 a cable.
Well, my soldering iron ain't too hot. Ignore that expression, I mean it's a piece of junk. The real problem is that my soldering iron it TOO hot. It's WAY too hot. The heat it pushes out is fine for most stuff, but this tiny iPod Shuffle delicate cable stuff was going to be way to much for it. I needed a much cooler, much sharper-tipped, fancy iron for this job. Something neither Phillip or I could supply of course, so we went without.
Horrible idea.
The excessive heat from the iron, combined with the fat, sloppy tip, successfully ruined all of our supplies, one after another. The fat tip put heat where it wasn't supposed to be, and the heat melted everything it touched.
We wanted four nice custom-length iPod cables. All we got was a big fat mess, and $15 down the drain. But it was still a blast. We just spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing, and hanging out. It was a nice change from our typical, "OK, we'll meet from 1pm-3:15pm, for the soldering, then, it'll be see you later". It was nice to just spend some chill time with one of my best buddies.
Phillip Johnson is the man when it comes to Audio, just so you know. He took me under his wing when I was just a young media-punk kid who had no idea what he was doing, but acted like he knew everything.
That actually wasn't last week for me, that was 7th grade. Thanks for a fun afternoon, buddy.