Suzuki Jimny is good for getting off the middle of the roundabout you drove onto when you were looking at yourself in the mirror rather than the road ahead.
Back on the subject of TEA, I am now designing a GPSDO. I've found a suitable PLL loop (will test this evening with TH parts) and VCTCXO module all for under £15. Need a 1pps GPS module now and to work out how to do footprints in Kicad plus a few hours and it's order time 
I am hooked on SMD stuff now. It's so much easier to put together.
SMDs are awesome for a lot of things in prototyping/one-offs... especially the smaller passives which lend themselves to being installed deadbug-style directly between pins of semis.
Got dumped today 
So to alleviate the feeling I'm planning to buy another source meter 
A little retail/eBay therapy... it's a good thing.
I'm with mnementh, they were horrible POS. When we were young, dumb and full of cum it didn't matter what we drove as a 2nd class ride was far better than a 1st class walk.
We were all mostly OK with a spanner and you needed bugger all else to keep them running, just more parts.
Luckily just down the road lives a Landy wrecker but he's a bit more as he trained in the Landy factory back in the UK before emigrating here. I sure spent a few $ there. 
Good on some of you for bravely venturing into SMD as once you get your head around it and grab the few tools to make it possible then you'll wonder what held you back.
You don't need much, some smaller tips and maybe a skew/knife tip as you can bridge 2 pads and then sweep SMD passives off. Smart tweezers are a good investment but the good ones cost a bomb but the cheapies will get you by for some time. Hot air at some point makes most rework possible and if you're laying out your own PCB's pay particular attention to layout so to be able to access components for removal/replacement. You can get away from needing paste for small boards....I've got ~1kg of the stuff in the beer fridge that I never use.
That describes my first van to a tee... it was a pumpkin orange '64 "Walleye" Ford Falcon van. Still had the original 170 6-cyl, 4-wheel drums and 3-on-the-tree shifter. I bought it non-running for $75, then converted it to Ford electronic ignition and patched up the rotten floor and subframes in the evenings at the welding shop I worked at by literally lifting it straight up in the air on the huge trolley chain hoist that ran the length and breadth of the shop for handling steel.
The
Orange Crate got me in more of the best kind of trouble than all my other vehicles put together.
I had my first hot air rework station long before I ventured into SMD; it's very useful for all sorts of illicit salvage operations.
mnem
"But I remember us riding in my brother's car;
Her body tan and wet down at the reservoir...
At night on them banks I'd lie awake
And pull her close just to feel each breath she'd take.
Now those memories come back to haunt me,
They haunt me like a curse;
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true?
Or is it something worse...
That sends me down to the river
Though I know the river is dry..." ~ Bruce Springsteen - The River
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