its like pushing a theremin uphill...

I'll break this up into a few reports. Ms. S. and prepared ourselves for an evening of circuit board etching. This involved some not-quite-last-minute shopping at the the Shack Built of Radios and the Mart of K's. Houseware purchases included disposable rubber gloves (not so much out of concern for the ferric chloride, but to avoid getting fingerprints on the boards) and some sort of contain for the ferric bath. We settled on a Pyrex pan, about 12" by 8". We also gazed longingly at the black and decker multi-bin container cart. Mmmmm....container cart.
Our electronics purchases were last minute components and a bigger board than the one that came with the DIY etching kit.
*Future plan number one: use some method other than freehand drawing to get the circuit design on the board*
The design we pulled from the web is *slightly* larger than our board. However, we knew enough to squeeze the design a little bit and cram everything a little closer. At first I was nervous about messing with it too much due to the size of the components (the traces can be altered, but the size of the parts they connect can't be). I then realized that, worse comes to worse, we could run wires from the parts to the board where there's an awkward fit. We could also solder the resistors military style.*



*I swear I've heard soldering resistors vertically called this. Really.