Hardware made easy (sort of)

Finally after several months of building, failures, testing, rebuilding and success, all of the SSRs are now completed and ready for use! Going through prototyping until final assembly was an almost grueling process to be sure. Countless checks and rechecking had to be done in an assemblyline-like procedure and was necessary to be sure of reliability and safety. A few repairs were needed to fix problems but it wasn't a major headache like the Grinchs. A lot of care had to be used to prevent the mixing of DC and AC voltages with the rain and snow of winter. The process will begin again after Christmas to build the other half of the SSRs for a total of 32. Shown above is the final product known as the SSR. Each has a designation (A1 to P1) and next year's (A2 to P2). The containers are mostly waterproof and some sealant was applied where needed around the cables.

Getting into the Spirit in Willamina Oregon

Don't be the guy on the right.

Willamina is a small town approximately 30 miles from Salem, the capital of Oregon. For the most part its a great place to live and reminds me of good friends and neighbors. Every year like most towns, the Chamber of Commerce for Willamina holds a Christmas Light Decoration Contest and encourages everyone to participate whether in the contest or not. While last year we did put up lights at our house, we were not aware of the contest until recently. Then one day, while I was looking at the Chamber of Commerce's website located at http://willaminachamber.com/community_events I saw there was a contest and thought Its' On Now Brother! We also encourage all in our town to participate in decorating their houses for the contest or not. Doing things as a community helps to better ourselves and helps us come together to help those who need it the most.

The city also decorates its streets with lights and garland, if you are in the helping mood you can volunteer (quote from website). November 7th. Christmas Lights will be put up. Volunteers are always welcome. They usually start at 8:00 AM by meeting at Coyote Joe's restaurant.

http://willaminaonline.com/events.html is another website for information about Willamina.

Local Artist Helps Out

Do you hear what I hear !!

For a while now, the second weatherproof speaker enclosure formerly known as the doghouse was given to a locally known artist for total makeover. For the longest time, the doghouse was an ugly dark green and was in a sad state of disrepair. The Artist is none other than Beverly Fetch of Willamina and my wife's mother. She accomplished a miracle in producing a weatherproof version of a gingerbread house complete with lots of yummy but plastic candy! Its gonna look fantastic out in the yard and hopefully nobody will try to eat it. Our thanks goes out to Beverly for helping us make a wonderful display.

Sign of the Times

Due to the large number of Light Elements to build this year, most of my builds were made somewhere between our garage and our computer alcove in the house. My wife, while a big help to me, still wanted to move it all out to the garage and for the most part, I agreed with her. There are workbenches and lots of storage for all the items being built or have been built. Now, I mostly use the garage to make the mess.. err make the lights for the display. One of my friends at work was joking about me being a secret elf, making items but not currently displaying them outside. So then, I decided to name my new build area and call it The Secret Elf Workshop. All good workshops have a sign to proudly let people know that they are working there and what they make. My wife did a wonderful job painting the new sign and then I added the lights. A lot of people have expressed an interest in animating their lights. Who knows, it might even catch on to being a seasonal business.

VIXEN in the off-season

Monster Mash

Time between Christmas shows is a long time to be sure, but what can you do during that time? How about giving VIXEN, the Grinches and the SSRs another job for other holidays? Having some spare time and Halloween coming up, we decided to make a small display using some leftovers from a yard sale purchase. Sometimes you don't know whats in the bottom of the box. Buying a set of 8 plastic pumpkin candy pails and putting a string of white lights in each of them, a unique set of Halloween lights were made. Adding a strobe, some strings, bone lights and such will round out the display when it is put up. Shown above are the pumpkin lights that were made and they will be zip-tied to the rail along with other light elements.

Christmas Future

It has just turned September and we are looking forward to setting up the display for this year. Even so, we are also looking ahead to next year with a bit of preplanning and also some wishful thinking. Next year's upgrades promise to be even more spectacular with the addition of 16 more SSRs! The Light Fences will be doubled as well as the Minitrees. Megatree #2 will be upgraded to match Megatree #1. Strobe lights will be added and the Side Light Trio will be broken up and each will have its own channel. The Secret Elf Workshop will be lighted including the back fence. Hopefully more inflatables will be added along with more roof lighting. More props and lighting are already in the works and probably some we haven't even conceived of yet. It will be interesting to see what the future will bring.