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2008 Wizards In Winter Light o Rama

This is my first time first show. I hope the neighboors don’t mind too much.

Almost Done

I am eager to get my lights going.  Last night I decided I had to get the candy canes going in the front.  I’m doing a triangle pattern. 10 Channels, each connected to 2 candy canes.  I trimmed the candy canes down so it’s easier to see 2 dimensional movement.  I don’t like doing it at night very much, but it’s been so warm, that I had to take advantage of it.

I also got the total of extension cords.  I have a 32 Channel Light o Rama setup.  I’m using every channel.  I’m using only 40ft extension cords from the controllers to the lights.  Some I have end to end.  I’m using a total of 57 of these cords.  It’s about what I expected.  Of course I didn’t realize when I purchased the controllers that I would need this many extension cords.

I’m putting up the last piece on Saturday.  I have to do the gutter run.  After that, I’m done putting up lights and done with extension cords.  Most of the time spent on this has been doing one of two things.  1) Unravelling extension cords 2) Editing my sequences.

I’ve decided to start the show the week of Thanksgiving.  I know some of you out there think you should start using your lights until the day after Thanksgiving.  I would normally agree.  But, Barb pointed out to me today that Thanksgiving is pretty late this year.  So the date I start it on is pretty close to what Thanksgiving normally is.  So, it’s almost the same thing.

Exterior Illumination

Halloween was on Friday.  I went to Darren and Lisa’s and we watched The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Butterfly Effect.  The first was ok, the second was really good.

The most important part of Halloween for me is the day after.  I can start putting up lights for the show.  I spend a good deal of time putting up lights on Saturday.

My time budgeting has worked pretty well.  I use all of November (until Thanksgiving anyway) to get everything setup and tested.  I figured that the actual setup wouldn’t take that long, but I would probably have to rework some of the show that looked good in the program but not in real life.  I did some testing last night and tonight, and sure enough I am going to have to rework some of the show.  I haven’t had any power problems yet.  I didn’t think I would after my Dad helped me put in some new outlets spread over different breakers.  I don’t have the whole show up yet.  I’m putting off some of it as long as I can because taking care of the leaves is going to be a lot harder around 20 candy canes and 10 extension cords in the middle of the lawn.  It is looking pretty good.  For most part just like I envisioned it.

And, a side note, it appears I fixed Sierra (my guitar’s name) string problem.  I was breaking strings really quickly.  It turns out I had some allen wrench screws crooked on the saddle.  As a result, every downstroke was rubbing the string against a screw.  I think  I fixed it because I didn’t break any strings today.