I thought it was me

I’m often a dozy cow. I’ll order the wrong thing because I’ll miss something blatant on the packaging, like it being the wrong size, or I’ll forget to check the shape, or whatever. I think I use up all my exacting caution at work, checking drugs or sutures, or what have you.

So this morning, when the envelope from RS components arrived and looked…thin. And when I opened it and found this:

My first thought was that I’d been a spectacularly dozy cow. 5 small surface mount components stared back at me, and the complete lack of a pick-and-place machine, or indeed a device for them to live in wandered around my consciousness, as I debated what to do. I thought I’d just have to chalk it up to my usual insanity and buy some of the right components.

But I remembered looking at it. While I wanted an axial capacitor, I remember thinking that since the capacitors just hang in space anyway, so long as I insulate the legs it doesn’t hugely matter if it’s a radial one instead… I remember noting the size, and that 2cm was okay to fit into the space…

So I went back, looked at the site and found this:

…rang RS, and they’re trying to sort out (very nicely) what’s happened, and will ring me later before sending me the right component. Let’s hope that the old electrolytic in the valve radio hangs on to life until then…

Originally published at Kates Journal. You can comment here or there.

And it spirals upward

So, the idea for what has become Kathryn’s anniversary present came to me a while ago. About a year, I think. I thought “Oh hey, that’s a cute idea”. I pitched myself some costs and decided it was a cute/fun idea that I could probably pull off in a few days.

Maybe a week or so.

A year later, and it’s likely to be her present this year. It’s nearly finished. I’ve amassed everything I need to make it (I think, although I’m actually now thinking that I’m still missing one small item. Gah…. *NOW* I have everything, having placed a very, very small order for a very, very small object).

It’s spiralled out from being a cute idea to being a reasonably well executed, vastly over the top thing. I hope that she appreciates the humour in it, and doesn’t just look at it and go “Oh lord, Kate”…which would be a fair reaction. I also hope it doesn’t break in the first few moments of existence. I’d be upset.

It’s spiralled a little in the sense that I assumed I’d be able to pick up all the stuff I wanted at charity shops, and it turns out, I couldn’t. Indeed, mostly it’s come from ebay. Which is sort of disappointing, but has allowed me to find things I didn’t entirely expect to find, that make the concept work better than my first collection of things for it did.

I’m quite excited about it, now I’ve done the ‘difficult’ bit, and am into the ‘fun’ bit. Unfortunately, I’m given to understand that this year is ‘Flowers/Linens’ which is about the only thing not in it, in any sense. Never mind.

It’s also fun to find that after months and months of my brain being committed to work that it still has the fun/playful element intact, and that I still enjoy doing ridiculous things with stuff :)

Originally published at Kates Journal. You can comment here or there.