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Monday, October 16, 2006

"I Still Have This..."

You'll get the title to this one in a minute or two.

Well anyway, things are going.  That's about it.  I'm still running behind.  "The hurrier I go, the behinder I get," is the way I seem to be working right now.  It's going slow.  I'm still anticipating no problems, though.

Over the past week, I've gotten a double LOR controller built.  By that, I mean two 16 channel controllers built into one container, giving me 32 channels coming out of one spot.  Hmm...perhaps my 32 mini trees for this year?  Or maybe a mega tree?  Or dad's pole contraption?  We'll see where they wind up.  There'll be many more than that, though.

I also got more testing done tonight, and it wasn't as bad.  Still quite a few burnouts, but not overkill like it had been.  Tonight I got through 3700 more lights.  Of those, 256 were burned out.  But considering that most of those were on strings with all or a section burned out, it wasn't too bad.  There's still a lot of work to be done.  At the rate I'm going, one box per week, I may get all of my lights tested by Christmas!

The way it's going now, the creek is starting to flood.  The sewers have spilled into it.  It's nasty, and rising.  I've gotten into my boat to row to safety.  "This substance is rising fast.  There's still one ray of hope, though.  I still have this pa...OH NO!  I dropped the paddle!"

More to come later.

As of 1:45 AM on Monday, October 16, 2006:

Projected Number Of Lights: 50,000

Lights Tested To Date: 11,735

Lights Burned Out To Date: 683

Lights Changed To Date: 0

Days Until Lights Start Going Up: 16

Days Until Lights On: 38

Days Until Christmas: 70

 

One Down...

Who knows how many more to go.  That's right, since I've finally cleaned my room, I can work on lights (as you've read in my past couple of blogs).  And working on lights includes more than just the physical lights.  It also includes controllers.

Back during May's "April" Sale, I ordered 5 CTB16D Light-O-Rama Hobbyist controller kits.  2 of them were gifts from my parents for graduating, and the other 3 I purchased myself.  With that, I also ordered an MP3 Director card to control the lights without being connected to the computer (though I've decided there will probably still be a little bit of interaction between the two).

When I got home from work today and walked into my room, on the bed was one of the CTB16D's put in a box and completed.  My dad had built it while I was working.  I was so happy to see it, and I hooked it up to the MP3 director and ran a very simple sequence on it.  It worked!  So now i have 4 more of the things to build, and I'll be ready...

Or will I?

As you recall, I've been deciding what exactly to do.  It's almost complete.  I still need to run it by dad, but I can almost guarantee that there will be more than 4 more to build.

As of 1:15 AM on Tuesday, October 10, 2006:

Projected Number Of Lights: 50,000

Lights Tested To Date: 8,035

Lights Burned Out To Date: 427

Lights Changed To Date: 0

Days Until Lights Start Going Up: 22

Days Until Lights On: 44

Days Until Christmas: 76

Got A Little More Done...Even though I'm Hurting

Today I got a little more done on testing.  Not much, but got through another box.

 The day started out with an extremely sore self dragging out of bed.  I felt like someone had uprooted a Giant Sequoia and started swinging it rather carelessly in my general direction, never missing.  19 times on the Hurricane at the Myrtle Beach Pavilion is about 19 times too many.  But it was the last night, literally.

September 30 was the last day for the Pavilion.  It was open to the public, but only those who purchased tickets in advance could go.  I was upset that I had to miss the event, since the Pavilion is closed for good after this season, but I had prior commitments.

So I planned to go up to River Falls Lodge to dance on October 7.  That abruptly changed a couple days before when a cast member in my play invited my sister and I to something.  She works with the city, and people who worked for the city had a private gathering at the Pavilion on October 7, and she invited us.  So I rode the Hurricane wooden rollercoaster 19 times, which, as I said above is 19 times too many.  But some good did come out of all of those rides.  My sister and I were 2 of 7 people who were on the last ride ever on the Hurricane.  That's a pretty special achievement.  After that, the three of us talked to the ride operator, and had our picture taken with him before we left.  It was a fun and sad event all rolled into one.

So that's why I'm sore.  But that didn't stop rehearsal for my play today.  Even though we were all sick, most of us sore, two of us not there either due to sickness or car trouble, and all of us being dead tired.  So we did what we had to do, and then went out to eat.  Then we all went home, and I watched "The Amazing Race."  So far, every team that has been eliminated is a team that I've liked, so I'm just waiting for a team that I dislike to win the million.

Then I went up into the attic and dragged another box of lights into my bedroom.  And I started testing them.  So far, things have not been going too good.  The greens have a perfect record; every single green light that I've tested has been lit.  The blues have been (how can I put this nicely?) pathetically pathetic.  Over 150 of them were burned out today!  So it's been rough.  Once I order my high voltage light tester, I'll get things fixed.  Today I tested a total of 4,500 lights, and a total of 319 of those were burned out.  So I'm hoping for better things in the future.  I have my work cut out for me.

So as of 2:00 AM on Monday, October 9, 2006:

Projected Number Of Lights: 50,000

Lights Tested To Date: 8,035

Lights Burned Out To Date: 427

Lights Changed To Date: 0

Days Until Lights Start Going Up: 23

Days Until Lights On: 45

Days Until Christmas: 77

It's Time! It Has Started!

Ok.  I got all the past blogs posted again in the past few minutes.  So here's the next current one.

 My room has been cleaned...

 And that can only mean one thing:  I have started working on testing lights.  That's right, tonight, before midnight October 1, 2006, I started testing lights.  Got through one whole box of them, which is good for starting just before midnight, and ending just after 1:00 AM.  I did not change any bulbs, yet.  Just testing.  So far, I've been through 3,535 lights, and 108 of them were out.  So I have some work to do in the coming weeks.

Still not 100% sure on everything I'm doing, but the vision is getting much clearer now (thank goodness).  It's about time, isn't it?  I'm still way behind, but I'm not worried.  I won't be worried until we get well into November, and knowing me, probably not even then.  Things will work out.

As of 2:05 AM on Monday, October 2, 2006:

Projected Number Of Lights: 50,000

Lights Tested To Date: 3,535

Lights Changed To Date: 0

Days Until Lights Start Going Up: 30

Days Until Lights On: 52

Days Until Christmas: 84

Post From The Past..."Getting Close"

Post from past blogs... 

Getting Close...

KennyMBSC | 22 August, 2006 22:53

But not yet close enough. It's now Wednesday, August 23rd, and I've not yet gotten the lights out to start testing. It's not entirely because I didn't want to do it. It's because of other responsibilities that I've let slide.

My room has gone places...it's been really "hot" lately. No, the air hasn't failed...in fact the air in there works a little too good for this young guy who likes it warm. I use that term as a "toned down" figure of speech as to the state of my room. I let it get out of hand. It's been a complete disaster for a long time, and recently it's been upgraded to intensely catastrophic unredeemable heap of junk (vaguely similar to the state that my Christmas stuff has been stored in the attic since it took a trip to Charleston in April). In simpler words, my room has been a mess.

Not too long ago, I was told that there would be no working on lights until the room got cleaned. Now, I'll admit, I'm an adult, and can make my own decisions, but at the same time, I am man enough to know that I live at home with my parents, and therefore must still follow certain rules that they set forth. Unfortunately for the lights, cleaning of the room is one of those rules. And unfortunately for me and the lights, cleaning the room was way more of a job than I bargained for.

So a few days ago I enlisted the help of a couple of very important people in my life. That's right, my mom and dad. Working together, we got the floor cleared, furniture moved around, most of the junk thrown away or stored, and the room looking halfway decent. There is still some work to be done, but I can literally say that I can see the "light" at the end of the tunnel now.

I have a goal of starting to get lights out and work on them this Saturday. Will I make that goal? I have a pretty good feeling about it! If I get to it Wednesday afternoon after I get home from work, I might just be gutsy enough, and energetic enough, to get them out and start working three days early!

Plans for the display will be announced in a later blog, much closer to light up time, but I'll say this now: it's going to be big this year (as if you didn't already know that)!

As of 12:19 AM on Wednesday, August 23, 2006:

Days until lights start going up: 70

Days until lights on: 92

Days until Christmas: 124

Projected number of lights: 50,000

Post From The Past..."The Front Yard Will..."

A post from past blogs... 

"The Front Yard Will..."

KennyMBSC | 21 August, 2006 23:08

This does have to do with Christmas, but you'll have to read through it to get to that point.

I'm 25 years old. I live at home with my parents and my sister who turns 23 next month. We all have our own lifestyles, hobbies, schedules, lives, friends, and just things we do in general. But we always try to find time to do at least one thing together each day.

For a long time, that thing we do each day is play games. We've run through many different games over the past couple of years. It started out with a fast-paced card game called Nertz. Then it moved to the more subdued Rummy. Then to Monopoly. Then back to Rummy. Then for a long while the game of choice was Rook.

We take our games seriously. We are very competitive, and have gotten into some rather harsh-worded phraseology during some of the more heated moments. All of the roughness during the games is forgotten immediately after, until the next time we play when it all fires back up again.

The current game of choice...Parcheesi. How in the world can you be competitive at Parcheesi, you ask? Well, you'd have to know my family. We call names, flick other people's game pieces off the board when they upset us, scream, groan, gripe, help other people to hurt other players (the pieces on the board, not the physical person...that would just be wrong). We have official names for each other (I must really stink, because according to dad, I'm the original poop head...edited of course...I have a name for him, too, and he knows it).

A few nights ago, we started getting into trash talk with each other during the game that included lines such as "if you love me you won't kill me," "if you love me you'll kill them instead of me," "remember I'm your dad, you might not want to kill me." That last one was on my turn. I examined the board, and decided that the most prudent move I could make would be to brutally slaughter him, and get my extra moves, which allowed me to brutally slaughter one of mom's pieces, which gave me moves to brutally slaughter another one of dad's pieces.

Then out of dad's mouth:

"THE FRONT YARD WILL BE DARK THIS YEAR!"

Of course he's joking. He wants to build his pole thing, after all. And we always forgive and forget...until the next time we play. Nothing actually affects our everyday lives...it's all just a game.

As of 12:21 AM on Tuesday, August 22, 2006:

Days until lights on: 93

Days until Christmas: 125

Projected number of lights: 50,000

Post From The Past..."Discussions of a Non-Traditional Sort"

A post from the earlier blogs... 

Discussions Of A Non-Traditional Sort

KennyMBSC | 17 August, 2006 00:34

So I'm the Christmas person in the family. If it weren't for me, we'd be dark, both inside and out. It's been that way for years. Ever since I can remember, I have referred to myself as a "Santa Claus living with three Grinches." Back before I was born, my parents almost got divorced over who was going to put the lights on the Christmas tree, and ended up actually calling a cousin over to do it for them. So when I first began decorating our front yard in Prospect, Kentucky, at the young age of 12 in 1993, I had a project all to myself. I planned it. I designed it. I built it. I'm the one that got the praise for it when it worked. I'm the one that I went to to kick when it didn't. It's been that way for 12 years now (would be 13, but 1997 was a dark year). And we've since moved to Conway, South Carolina.

Fast forward to 2004. October of that year, I ordered the Light-O-Rama lighting control software, and an 8 channel controller. My parents were imnpressed with it, and bought me 2 more 8 channel controllers. I worked with them, and an 8 channel Dasher controller for 2004, and then again in 2005.

So what's changed?

Dad has...he's gone nuts! Not so much nuts as completely insane. He's gone bonkers, bananas, crazy...well, you get the picture. He just ain't right. He's suddenly decided he wants to join in the planning and building.

During the LOR sale back in May, I ordered 5 of the 16 channel hobbyist boards. 2 of them were gifts for graduating (I graduated from Coastal Carolina University on May 6), and the other 3, along with an MP3 Player/Show Director I purchased myself. So I'm officially up to 104 LOR channels (so far...that may go up).

In 2004 and 2005, I used all 24 channels on a 15 foot tall mega tree built out of wood. That's going to happen again this year.

Or is it?

What will be done with the LOR channels this year?

The answer: Who knows? It's getting time to start sequencing to music (actually, it's WAY past time to start, but I'm one who likes to procrastinate, so it's getting time to start), and I have no clue yet what exactly is going to happen.

Here's the thing. Dad wanted to try something new; a design that he came up with. It's what I call his "Pole Contraption." I like the idea, and it is going to happen (no details until later...sorry). BUT, he wants to do it in place of the tree.

Since we've started discussing this idea, I've brainstormed another idea. It's to actually add to his pole contraption, but include the mega tree as one of the poles (though much taller than the others).

But like I said, who knows? I do need to approach him about it soon, and finalize plans so that I can start the sequencing. Just three months to go, and not a whole lot of time within those three months.

As of 1:55 AM on Thursday, August 17, 2006:

Days until lights come on: 98

Days until Christmas: 130

Post From The Past..."I'm Back"

Reposting stuff from the old blogs... 

I'm Back!

KennyMBSC | 11 May, 2006 16:50

Well, it's been a while, and a blog problem since I've posted anything. When I found out that there had been problems with the PlanetChristmas blog server, I decided that when things got fixed, I'd start it over, so here I am. Refreshed, relaxed, and ready to start the 2006 decorating season. It's going to be a fun one. And there may be a Christmas play involved in the decorating period this year that will cause extra stress. But that's just more fun to add to the already fun project at hand. Stay tuned for more that is to come about the 2006 Coastal Carolina Christmas display. It will light up on Thanksgiving night, November 23, 2006. Planning is already underway, and we have the summer months, and another hurricane season to make it through.

It's Good To Be Back Again

Well, I must say, it's been hard to keep up with blogging with problems that have happened.  But this time I did save what I had posted, and will soon post them again in the next day or two.

I want to say thanks to Chuck Smith for creating such a wonderful community, and for having the patience to get through the PC blog problems that have been occurring over the past weeks.  It's been hard for us all, and I know it's been especially hard for him, since he's the one that everything falls back on.  Thanks for persevering and seeking out a solution that will work for you, us, and hopefully for a long while to come.  PlanetChristmas is one of the best communities that exists on the net.  Thanks for creating it, and thanks for your patience and effort.

Well, I'm off to see a friend in a play down in Charleston.  I'll post the old blogs again later.  Bye for now.