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Yep. It's a great example of why the notion that "Leo got it right the first time" does not really hold water, IMO.

The funny thing is, the main reason the metal cover is on a Tele neck pickup is to supposedly reduce noise. I found it's actually more quiet with the cover off! LOL. So it really serves no purpose whatsoever. And that guy Dumble...he seemed to do very well changing Fender designs a bit, even though they were "right" the first time.

We all know the classic pickup types/configurations that are tried and true recipes for great tone. But I'm more interested in what pickup configurations you've found that work great, even though they're a bit out in left field. I've recently come across this one for my Strat:
- Dimarzio Air Norton S wired with parallel coils in the bridge.
- Fender "player" series Telecaster neck pickup in the neck with the cover removed.
The real surprise was how great the player-series Telecaster neck pickup sounds with the cover off. It's thick and punchy (around 9K on a meter). Wiring the Air Norton S in parallel coil mode gives it a more Strat-like single coil sound, and the two together just sound fantastic. Full-range with punchy bass and brilliant Strat jangle on the top end. I'm definitely gonna stick with this combo for a while.

I think this is the first time I've heard of somebody getting an "SL by Aria Pro II" stolen. That must have been the roughest neighborhood in the world. The pawn shop value in 2006 must have been north of Twenty...five dollars.

I'm going to wait until JHS puts out their "enclosure graphics" stream. One episode, 15 seconds, done.

Welcome!
Best troubleshooting tip I can think of:  buy a Hakko FR-301. It is a headache-saving, money-saving, sanity-saving investment for anything solder related.

I believe it's closest relative is the EH-5101 version, better known as the "V6 9volt" from 1981.
In my personal experience with the Electric Mistress circuit, the typical booster that gets tacked onto the end of the circuit of every clone I've seen is a poor choice to overcome the volume drop issue people complain about. The booster increases the sound, but it also increases the BBD noise, since it comes AFTER the BBD. I also feel it alters the "electric mistress tone", which can only be fully achieved when you leave the circuit after the BBD alone.
A much better solution to increase the gain is to boost the clean signal level BEFORE the BBD, which is exactly what was done in the 1999 Deluxe version. By simply adding the 3.6k, 10k resistors and 1uf cap seen off pin 2 and 6 of IC1a here:  clean boost in place of the straight connection between pin 6 and pin 2 off IC1a of the Current Lover schematic, you get a massive amount of clean boost! You'll probably have to put a trimmer in for the 10k resistor because it seriously bumps up the output of the circuit without adding BBD noise. (It works almost exactly like the resistor/cap combo off the cathode of a valve, which you can adjust the gain). With that modification, the entire circuit after R19 on the Current Lover schematic becomes unnecessary. R19 would be your output point, just like the original Electric Mistress, and to my ears, just sounds more correcter 

I'll have to get their thoughts on soldering (lead, fumes, etc.)

Give them the truth. Lead solder = good.
RoHS compliant lead-free solder = fix it again and again and again which exposes you to more fumes, burns, and malfunctioning pcbs that cause electrical fire hazards, etc.

Still having login issues. The forum doesn't seem to be passing login information when you actually click on specific posts. I'll be logged in on the main forum page, but then click on a specific post in "open discussion", and then I'm logged out.

Sounds like it went well. On the next one, maybe incorporate some trouble-shooting skills, which is really the most valuable thing you learn with soldering. How to fix instrument cables, broken solder joints on jacks, bad stomp switches, etc. Stuff they will definitely see a benefit to knowing.

Never mind that some of those kids likely play better than me...  I'm excited and nervous.

I wouldn't worry at all about that since you're really there to display pedal building. Have a screwdriver on hand to open your pedals up to show the inner workings. Have some schematics printed off to show what's going on. Maybe you could even bring a pcb and demonstrate soldering a few components in. That will be educational.
If they wanted guitar playing, some dude with an acoustic could just sit there and play some boring scales really fast. Anybody can see that. Show them the stuff they don't get to see.

I was just browsing at LMS  and saw that they carry clear stomp switch washers

The problem isn't finding clear washers. With a clear regular washer it would be very difficult to get a consistent light transfer without the switch or jack being perfectly centered in the hole, which is just about impossible to do as you tighten it down. A clear isolation/insulation washer is what is needed to keep things centered and keep a consistent gap around the circumference for the light to bleed through.

Oh, no! What happened to "Donut"?
Mmm...donut.

Alerts are being really glitchy. I started out with 3, marked all of them "read", they cleared, then immediately went back to 3 when I navigated to a new page. But after navigating to a few other pages they cycled between 0 and randomly as 2. Now it's back to the original 3. "New" tags won't clear on anything regardless if I click "mark read", view the post, etc.

That printing looks great! I've used the Tayda drilling for a pretty complex build (EQD Data Corrupter), and everything was spot-on perfect for the fit. Highly recommended.

Weird, some article popped up on my Firefox homepage today talking about where all the barf bags went.

I didn't have any desire to read it at the time but now ...

I wonder what other things they'll start getting rid of that don't seem to get used often. Hmm...life preserver under the seat? C'mon. How many people really take a dump on the plane? Goodbye, toilet paper! Co-pilot? You only need one pilot, really. Extra fuel? Gone.
Pretty soon we'll all just be sitting on the floor flying in a stripped-down tin can that may or may not make it if there's any kind of delay. But don't worry. You can buy a testor of Jack Daniels for $50...if you pre-ordered it with our app!