Not quite as grand a victory, but setting up a power adapter for my wife's dollhouse jukebox.

She got a Hallmark Christmas decoration that's a jukebox (it plays about 4 different Christmas songs and flashes lights) that's meant to plug into a string of lights on the tree. She wants it to go into one of her dollhouses. I found a wall transformer of the right voltage and amperage, managed to solder its wires to a tree light socket from an old dead string. It works, she's happy.

Lesson learned - battery operated soldering tools suck. The "Cold Heat" model, and a Weller both don't do the job. They're gonna be history, I'll only use old fashioned style. Just not worth the aggravation.

Yeah the cold heat is terrible we used to sell them in my work. Also NEVER use it near ICs or it fries them.

If you need portability, butane is the way to go.

JB, VM thanks for the tips - that cold heat item looked attractive (solder then put it in your pocket?!) I will stay away from them.

My most recent victory is getting a bookshelf out of my library! The rule was no unsightly stacks; I had to go through my library and decide what books to part with. I am a hoarder and I used to work for Oxford University Press so I have a lot of books that I will probably never read but look interesting, look useful, look good, or I just want to OWN. Like an 1800 page book on the Dutch Republic or a 3 foot tall, 2 foot wide book containing 300 vector maps showing the economics of China for 1992.

Okay, okay. actually - I am losing this one. the bookshelf is almost empty and I have bags of books, stacks of books, everywhere but I did start the task. I could be moving books right now (I had to move a couple stacks to even get to this computer) - I am sure I will get to it by the weekend.

My most prized victory lately is some stubborn work to replace a vanity, sink, mirror cabinet, medicine cabinet in my bathroom. Put it off for a while, but finally decided to install them! Took a while, but I am not a great plumber I also replaced the toilet...none of it fun, but it had to be done!

I also had thoght about the whole cold soldering unit and never picked it up. I was doing some tinkering around the other day, and decided I would get a new one....guess it wont be one of those!

nah a normal $10 electric soldering iron is the best for general stuff. Ive just got a cheapass 30w and its great (i build small circuit kits)