The weekend I was unable to work on the projects because I was in Des Moines, IA to get my last adopted child (which is the youngest boy or the third oldest) a Certificate of Citizenship from the Department of Homeland Insecurity.
Even though a law was passed in 2000 effective 2/2001 that automatically gave foreign born children (<18 years old) citizenship upon adoption finalization by US parents, for some reason most of the federal government (but the State Department does recognize the law) still doesn't recognize this.. even the USCIS (former INS). So, for something "automatic" we still have to pay $450+ and go through the hoopla. It's a good thing that ten years later the government hasn't revisited the issue of the federal government not recognizing the federal government laws. But that's okay.. your health care is in good hands! (Trust me!) If it were the other way around it would be "fraud, waste and abuse", but that only applies on "what you can do for the country" and not "what the country can do for you."
Here is some pictures of the hoopla. The last one we went to was a small event in West Branch, IA at the Herbert Hoover museum. This time the Governor of Iowa, Terry Branstad, wished to attend and former governor Robert Ray also apparently wanted to attend so it was a big formal deal instead of a simpler and better organized smaller event like last time (100 miles closer to home too...)
But I suppose that was okay.. it worked out okay.. at least the Blizzard waited a couple of days.
The Spinner kid clan w/Iowa Governor Terry Branstad on Sunday.
Youngest boy w/COC. The other three kids got theirs in West Branch three years ago.
On topic: I received the Hot Air Rework station today. Even though I like it, I had to repair it before I could use it. I hate to do it but I actually might leave a Neutral on e-bay as the shipping damage to the unit didn't happen on the Lincoln, NE to rural Linn County, IA trip because the pieces that sheared off weren't in the box from Lincoln, NE, which was in good shape. So even though it was obviously inspected*, it was shipped from the seller in an already damaged state.
But it still was very cheap (inexpensive.. but cheap still) and really I don't know how I lived w/o a hot air tool. You might want to spend a little more for a Aoyue though... I would if I had it to do again. There are about four minor things wrong with the unit I got... I'll detail that later on my next post. I still have some multimedia stuff to do for it. The soldering iron with it is actually pretty decent too. It does work fine since I fixed it.
But boy.. it's 100% better for rework than trying to use an iron.. even for through hole parts.
I'll try to put a post up that is informative and detailed. I'm snowed in probably until Thursday... so if I have power, I'll try to do some project work. So far, so good...knock on wood..
*I'll go over this all on the next post...
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