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And the traffic REALLY continues!

12/24/2010

Went to the Christmas Eve Church service...2 cars were out front. Came home to get the family all in one car to go look at Christmas lights...2 other cars were out front. Came home from looking at the lights...3 different cars were out front. Sat down for Christmas Eve fest (tradition in our family)...9 cars out front. Parked all over the place ;-) For folks reading this blog, keep in mind I am on a obscure cul-de-sac. We normally get only a few cars a night. Great to see the crowds. NOTE TO SELF...have to get one of those little "Better be careful not to touch anything or you will get fried with 110volts AC" sign (ha!). Saw several people out of cars walking around. Had a radio out there so they could hear. Need to hook up one of the waterproof speakers out there. Maybe put a volume control on it to "turn it down".

Added one song in VERY fast fashion. Had an old sequence of Linus and Lucy. Not the best sequence in the world...but will re-do for next year.

Snow and rain is in the forecast for CHRISTMAS! Neat, but not. Really don't want to shut it down for Chris

And the traffic begins ;-)

12/22/2010

I guess everyone is not like me and thinks of Christmas stuff...a lot...more than normal ;-) We have 8 cars at one time tonight. One leaves, next one pulls up. Most we have ever had was about 3 or 4 cars at one time. Thankfully, no rain, actually not to cold and no one is blocking drive ways!

Interesting last night. We had company at the house for dinner. When they started to leave, we thought...just pull a car down to the end of the drive, open the windows and turn up the radio. Real warm night (60's) last night. Went out to see 4 cars in a row, 2 were nose to nose. One with the hood up! Oh no! Someones battery died! :-) Grabbed my jumper cables, jumped off and away they went. Too funny. Think it was one of my students. The Dad said "we hated to come knock on your door Mr. Burton". Too funny. No issues once they got jumped off.

Looking at the "Winfield Collection" (http://www.thewinfieldcollection.com/) of wood cut outs. Really neat! I could get a bunch of Rainbow Floods...or some MR16's and spot them. Put them all over the yard... Would really be a neat and inexpensive (except for the controller ;-) way of adding to the setup. Neat way to get the setup into all white, green or red too.

More Lessons Learned...

12/20/2010

Anyone reading this blog...it is more for something that I can look back on and remember what NOT TO DO the following years. Hopefully some "Newbies" to this hobby will also learn from.

Last year and this year I used some "Dead Strings Of Lights" ...or ones I made dead on purpose...to act as extension cords. It works great, to a certain extent. I HATE the mess it causes when you have so many lines bundled up together for these shorter runs. Why run them if it is a short run you ask? Because I don't have enough stinking extension cords! ;-) I really have to get a bunch of spt1 cord (lamp cord) and some vampire plugs to use next year. I covered up the MESS of lights with plastic. To keep them dry (yeah right!) and to also keep them out of sight. Rained so much that the things had moisture from the ground that just made them sopping wet. That is what was tripping the arches.

Really hope to find some more deals on LED's so I can at least get the bushes and mini trees RED. Have some deals at LOWES right now...but the wife sez I am CUT OFF! Aaaaaahhh. Such good deals!

Have some ideas I will post later I hope. Just wish I had bought more "Spots" to cover all the snowflakes. That really worked out well. REMEMBER - Use those Rainbow Spots on something LIGHT colored. Not bright enough for tree trunks. I really hope to add a manger scene, you know, the ones that are the cutouts made of plywood and that are painted white. Not real huge, but bigger than some of the ones I have scene that are 3ft tall! Hopefully I can find some plans on that. Just need to remember to start early.

Also saw a Spiral tree in person last night. Wow! Got to have one of those! Looks like I will go back to ONE mega tree...and take it up higher for that purpose.

Time to get back to house cleaning...but I need to go to LOWES to get those lights! ;-)

So Far So Good!

12/7/2010

Well, so far we have had only one or two nights (in a row) that the show did not run. It rained some 2 or 3 inches of rain just after Thanksgiving break. The rain got into a connector of the Cat5 cable and created problems. After finding that, things went fine. If you are reading through this as a newbie to the animated Christmas light scene...I hope to type some "Lessons Learned" later. If your reading this from just a visitors stand point, I will be taking pictures and posting more on the projects page soon. Have lots to type about stinking YouTube! Vimeo loads so much easier and plays beautifully. Even if it is not HD (at least after the first one posted)...still is much better in play back. Not the exposure though that YouTube gets :-( Later.

And the traffic REALLY continues!

And the traffic begins ;-)

More Lessons Learned...

So Far So Good!

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And the traffic REALLY continues!

And the traffic begins ;-)

More Lessons Learned...

So Far So Good!

Please ReadMy Display Blog

Archives

Categories

Please Read

My Display Blog