I've still got a lot to learn!
That is a comment that fits many of us, Me in particular. I learned to solder at a young age because I was interested and my mother worked in the late '50's in the defense industry... I could do what was at that time was called Mil Spec soldering. So I am not commenting on your ability to solder. I've found it is an Art that requires much practice to be competent. My area of ignorance or lack of learning is the language... But I started with an Arduino in March and last night in less than an hour had a GLCD reporting Date, Time, Temperature, Barometric Pressure and tonight R.H. In late April it took me 4 day's to make the first BMP085 sketch work on an Uno with a 4 X 20 line LCD Display, Last night was all on a Mega, Not an UNO and by friday it will have Radio and X10 scheduled by the GPS Receiver and the Time Library for internal control and for external weather conditions. Keep on Working at it, IT will become better as time goes by.
Bob