My day job has been insanely busy the last few weeks, and to be honest the last thing I’ve felt like doing was spending time hunched over a soldering iron or more time behind a computer screen. 

I work for the NHS and all this virus business is to say the least depressing, so I decided to shutdown my twitter account (so much disinformation and fake news), disabled news flash notifications on my phone and I’ve been spending as much time as possible either sitting outside in the very unseasonably warm weather just enjoying the sun, or curled up on the sofa with the cat and catching up and the gazillion movies I’ve been amassing to watch. I’ve also got terrible toothache but the dentists are all closed down in the UK and won’t even see people for urgent appointments. My next project is going to be an automatic tooth remover if I can’t get this tooth pain under control soon.

Anyway, I’ve taken a couple of days off work as I had some leave days to burn before the end of the month; though even on leave you are only a phone call away from the next panic. Anyway, I’m in a better place now and from tomorrow for the next 3 days I’m going to try and finish my tic-tac-toe machine. 

I divided the machine into several sections and I’ve been prototyping each section. I’m hopeful I can get the prototyping completed by the end of the weekend and then I can start on the PCB designs. Not sure how long it will take to get the PCB’s made as the manufacturer is in China and they have their own problems right now. Anyway, I really want to get this project completed as it feels like ages since I actually completed a reasonably sized project.
Doing these largish projects brings me a lot of pleasure and it’s a great distraction from what’s going on. 

So, stay safe and please follow your governments advice about staying at home, social distancing or wherever they are recommending in your area to try and combat this virus.