Feel The Burn
It started this morning my phone was uncharged thanks to a loose USB jack on my phone charger. Annoyed as hell that it had happened again, I went to investigating.
The problem was simple to find, after removing the plastic case to the voltage increase adapter I found that the solder that was use to affix the jack to the PCB was broken and allowed the jack to wobble. “No problem,” I figured, “I’ll just get out the soldering iron, wick up that solder, and resolder it to make a new attachment.”
Turns out, I was right. It was just that easy. Unfortunately, once when I had sat the soldering iron down and was focusing on manipulating my desoldering braid for the next heat-up I picked it up by the metal element rather than the handle.
It hurt pretty bad, but not enough that I couldn’t keep working and finish. It sucks now though, because I have two nice blisters on my fingers right where I would hold a pencil. So my right middle finger has a little blister on the top by the knuckle–no big deal. However, my index finger has a big blister right on the underside (or face?) of the finger–bigger deal. Of all the places to get an injury, as a computer nerd a big burn on the end of the right index finger is about as bad as it gets, barring amputation.
So now I’m at my desk with a small sandwich bag of ice on the desk surface and every few seconds I have to place my finger back on the desk on the ice pack to avoid the very strong burning pain. When it stays cold, it’s totally fine. Unfortunately, typing really gets the blood flowing to the finger and hitting keys towards the top of the keyboard (like say, ‘y’ or ‘7′) actually tap the blister.
I’ve got lots of homework due tomorrow as well, so “not typing” and “resting the finger” aren’t an option.
I’m really happy that my phone charger is totally fixed now… but I’m not entirely sure that it was worth the trade.
Doh. Rough couple days.