LVB Tracker - morning update

Another weekend is behind us... The Olympics are over, downer... In two days I'll be going to the hospital for outpatient surgery. I'LL BE GLAD WHEN THAT IS OVER. And when it is I won't be able to type with both hands for a while. But I can manage with the iPhone and one finger.

Anyway we are up early... My nose was stuffed up so that means breathing thru my mouth. I use a bipap machine and even with the humidifier turned up full blast my mouth still gets a little dry... throat too! So I had a nagging cough which eventually caused me to take off the mask. And since I'm anticipating a journey to surgery I am a bit on edge. Just like when anticipating a flying trip. Not on the airlines but on my own plane. Now that I'm older I ponder too much on the what if's and it's enough to just make me nuts... So I got up and came downstairs to stuff parts on LVB Tracker boards, update Twitter and this blog. Also need to get a MAX232 ready to ship to a LVB Tracker customer... I hate shipping.

The good news is I have 20+ button assemblies built. 20 LCD cables built. And yesterday prepared 20 LCD displays. Oh yes, 20+ din cables crimped. All the little nasty nagging sub projects are done and all is needed is to build up some printed circuit boards. Then assembly and testing can begin. I'm hoping to somehow do that after surgery. I might have to break down and get some help. I think Michael my 14 year old neighbor might be interested. I know he likes to flash pics. I might hafta bribe him with some computer hardware or something.

I decided to try to build 20 trackers. 10 would have been more comfortable. Building 20 sub assemblies (those mentioned above) didn't seem to go too bad but building 20 printed circuit boards seems to be a nightmare. You never seem to finish anything. There's always another board that needs a part or something. Start running out of room to put them. 10 is a much manageable amount. But a few days ago Martha from the AMSAT office emailed me saying she still had 15 orders waiting. I just shipped 6 last week. I could have gotten by building 10... do the math! But then there always seems to be more orders slithering in and I'm always behind. I dunno... I might push out 10 quick... I dunno...

Got to go and prepare a MAX232 to ship!

6:52am