So, sometimes I’ll find myself with some money, looking for an excuse to do something for myself…

The way this impulse expressed itself this time, was fulfilling my childhood desire for a ‘real’ R/C car. Not one of those pieces of junk from RadioShack, a REAL R/C car. The kind you have to put together from a ridiculous number of small parts, and then buy the electronics and stuff.

I try not to spend money on anything so purely frivolous, but it was my birthday, so I said ‘fuck it’, you know?

I settled on a Tamiya TA05 chassis, which is just plain awesome. This is not a toy. This is a racing car that just happens to be radio controlled. For serious. Let me break it down for you: Four wheel drive. Four wheel independent double-wishbone suspension. Front and rear ball differentials. Oil-filled shock absorbers. Fully adjustable ride height, camber, caster, toe-in/out, suspension stiffness and rebound stroke, the whole nine yards.

How I got here was itself an amusing story. I had been looking at small high performance DC motors to make a little desktop drill press for drilling circuit boards, and started looking at R/C car motors, which got me looking at R/C car related stuff, which rekindled the desire to have an R/C car.

I bought all the parts for the car from Tower Hobbies in Illinois, an establishment whose catalogs I would acquire second hand and endlessly flip through when I was a kid. I spent a lot. I didn’t really HAVE to… I mean, the car kit was $175, the radio rx/tx and servo set was $100, and the electronic speed control was $100… But somehow I ended up spending a bit more than that… ^^;

Anyway, just got the car all nice and clean again after taking it out for a spin. I had intended to make this longer, but that didn’t happen. More later!

Well, a couple-few days ago I turned 28. I really have a hard time getting my head around that. I don’t think I’ve gotten to where I would have wanted to be if I’d ever thought about it that much, but at the same time I am ahead of some of the expectations I did have.

It seems like the things I want to do multiply constantly, but at the same time, a lot of them are just variations on the same bunch of stuff. I’m putting a lot more energy into accomplishing things than I used to, and it begins to mean a lot more to me to actually get something done. I also feel sometimes like I missed out on a lot of stuff because I wasn’t accomplishing things before.

So, let this be a reminder to all of you: DO SOMETHING!