The Sound Of Music

Finally, after several months of hard work, we've completed all the song programming for this year! We're hopefully going to have one set of non-Christmas Rock n Roll songs for one night of Rocking Out! There are more songs to program for next year, but that will be next year. LOL Below are the songs we've prepared for this year, with the Intro bringing information about the show. Enjoy!!

2010 Song List

00 Intro
01 Get Ready
02 Jingle Bells Techno
03 Winter Wonderland
04 Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer
05 Hallelujah
06 Tis The Season
07 Sled Zeppelin
08 Intro
09 Zat You Santa Claus
10 Santa Claus Is Back In Town
11 Wonderful Christmas Time
12 Linus And Lucy
13 White Christmas
14 Run Run Rudolph
15 Intro
16 Wizards In Winter
17 MusicBox
18 Christmas Canon Rock
19 Santa Clause Is Coming To Town
20 Holly Jolly Christmas
21 Decorations
22 Amazing Grace Techno
23 Silent Night
24 I Want An Alien For Christmas

Getting Organized

Most when they see a really nice light display, they usually think its mostly outside where the action is but what is behind the scenes? Shown is my desk in the alcove of our living room which has the cable modem, wireless router and second tower (to the left not shown). At the time, I'm still contructing more SSRs and sequencing songs, thats when I'm not playing Runescape. In the center of the picture is my energy source, ROFL. However, when its time to run the show, this is where all the action will come from. Halfway up the curtain almost hidden from view is the FM transmitter that will broadcast the audio to be heard in cars driving by. Bottom center is the yard audio system that will be put into the doghouses. Stacked behind the computer tower are SSRs for next year's upgrade. Due to some shortages in matierial, the system will only be at half capacity this year. It looks like a bunch of clutter, but I know where everything is. Once the SSR construction is done it will all be cleared away. Getting everything done the first time is always a messy process and hopefully the end result will be more than worth the effort of getting there. Almost looks like one of those hidden object games, doesn't it?

Christmas Broadcasting System

I Want An Alien For Christmas by Fountains of Wayne

We had to make a number of cables for the SSRs to communicate with the Grinches. Even with a quality Ethernet cable crimper, we still had to test the cables so we set up the Minitrees in the front yard. Also we needed a test of the scheduler of the Vixen program so there wouldn't be any problems later. Combining the two tests, we hooked up the data cables, AC power cords and fired up the Grinches. It took a lot of patience to wait til it got dark and we got a number of weird looks from passersby but at least our neighbors were used to the crazy people at the end of the block (that being us) :) The end result was very cool and we are eager to set the rest of it up but its still August :( Its all good as we still have a lot of work to do on the rest of the system. Blink on my friends! A shout out goes to my peeps at the Adult Lounge on Runescape!

You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.

As stated before, the heart of the data transfer system is called the Grinch. The Grinch can control 64 channels and can be daisy-chained together with other Grinches for more channels. We have 2 Grinches for a total of 128 channels of blinky flashy. Over the course of a few months, the Grinches were put together, tested a bit and they were not performing well (to put it mildly). After using the troubleshooting guide for the Grinch, we weren't happy when it continuely failed (needless to say). Then rereading the forums, the troubleshooting guide and other people's problems, the following was concluded: I needed to place a 1N4001 diode inline with the incoming +5V supply to limit it down to +4.5V. Also upon closer inspection with a heavy duty magnifying glass, a number of cold solder joints were found. Adding the diode and reflowing the cold joints resulted in 100% operation on the first test for both. We were excited (I even did the Snoopy dance!) and then I was able to do the final assembly of the Grinch unit. The Moral of the story is: read the directions carefully several times if you need to before assembly. Doing some preassembly solder joints on spare matierial will bring your soldering skills up to par. Follow the troubleshooting guides to the letter to insure accurate test results. After assembly DOUBLE CHECK really close to see if mistakes were made. The show must go on!

Redragonlady and the Grinch.

The Meaning Of Christmas

What does Christmas really mean to you? Putting aside the religious side to it, look at what is left and what does it mean to you? What do you remember about it? What will it mean to you in the future? Take a moment and think about it.

Here I am with my sister (right) and my cousins (above) Age 2.

Crying on Christmas?

Santa and us.

Thats me in center behind my brother (right) , sister (far right) and my cousin (left).

There I am on the left side this time.

This one was from a few years before the last one. Thats a cookie I'm eating.





That me on Santa's lap with my sister and brother again.

To me, Christmas is more than a holiday or going to church. Its a feeling of family, friends and reaching out to help those who need it. Christmas happens when we need it the most and for the right reasons. Christmas makes us feel special and that in turn is given to others making them special. Its that warm fuzzy feeling everyone needs.

Go Fourth!

Where are the Stars??? At the Fourth of July when we were working on some of the light projects, we put up this special net light. Of the 80+ net lights we have, this is the only one that is multi-colored. We built a framework of PVC pipe and ziptied it along with another 10 light string into this 1 piece unit that we hung on our living room window. We got a lot of good comments on it and it will be in the Christmas show as well.

D-Fence!

Because we live on a corner lot, there is a fire hydrant in that corner of our yard. At the same time, that corner is also raised up about 5 feet from the level of the yard. We have some concern of people parking on our side of the street or of people actually entering the yard with a mix of water and electricity going wild. We decided that to curb (bad pun alert) some of that, we would put up a "light fence". The light fence is constructed of plastic electrical conduit and net lights rolled onto it, then ziptied tightly. Each section is 10 feet long and connects with the others to form a barrier that will be suspended about 2 feet off the ground in order not to block the view but keep that line of the yard clear of people and hopefully cars. Each pair of sections will have a SSR controlling it and the lights will run up and down the length of the fence. One street side will have a red fence while the other street side will have a green fence. The picture above shows 8 sections or 80 feet of the fence. This year will have 80 feet and next year will have 160 feet to completely close off the yard.