Dunno about the balloons. I tried scarves, and it was even worse. Maybe if someone – or a machine – held my hands and moved them in a juggling fashion, or even actually juggled with my hands in theirs. Maybe.

What Josh and I have been soldering: SpokePOV! So very cool. And probably a good idea for people who go riding in the dark and rain in the dead of winter when nobody expects to see a bicyclist.

I used up yards upon yards of solder, coated three circuit boards and a T-shirt in the stuff, and finally completed my introductory project, six weeks late, by attaching chunks of solder to the board with Elmer’s glue.

The entire class lasted only two months. I now had two weeks left to complete the “medium” and “advanced” projects — and so I lied to the teacher about having finished all three, and busied myself on the bonus material (drawing networks of NAND gates) for the rest of the class.

Methinks I need to chase down one of those good soldering irons, one of these days. Not that I actually have anything to solder. I’m sure I’ll think of something.

I also sympathize about the juggling. I wonder if there’s special juggling equipment which would help in the same way … balloons, maybe?

My attempts at soldering have all been self-taught, and mostly unsuccessful, because nobody wanted to teach me in electronics classes. Something about being afraid I’d hurt myself or something.