I got it working with an aluminum capacitor!
this link helped a lot:
http://www.iguanalabs.com/555kit.htm
It's just blinking an LED on 15 seconds, off 15 seconds. Now to find myself a 12V 300ma power adapter (for the relay).
I've only got the one 100uF aluminum capacitor. I omitted the 0.01uF capacitor which I saw in most of the other schematics. I followed the directions in the above link and it worked anyways. Know how this would affect it in the long run?
Oh, and how does one wire up a snubber? does the uF and the resistance have to be calculated?