Jeff's Christmas Lights Thread...

[LAURENU2]

you need to send us your longitude and latitude in a PM so we can tap in to the Hubble and watch from Above

[Chuck]

Have a request:

PM Lauren a 'Google earth' of it and then he can update it with his tap from the Hubble! Should make for a GREAT view!!

(Lauren: Get your photoshop / printshop out and warmed up!)

C.

[LAURENU2]

Have a request:
(Lauren: Get your photoshop / printshop out and warmed up!)

C.

photoshop / printshop Whats that I still paint by numbers

[Jeff]

you need to send us your longitude and latitude in a PM so we can tap in to the Hubble and watch from Above

I have my address in a Google Maps link on the front page of that website. I'm also going to try and get those wireless cameras going again and have at least one view from the road. Was just out there now cleaning up some wires. Had to take today off from work to attend a wedding... you know you're a Christmas Light geek when you're upset that you have to go to a friends wedding instead of put lights up.

[LAURENU2]

you know you're a Christmas Light geek when you're upset that you have to go to a friends wedding instead of put lights up.

You Better think about joining CLA

[Jeff]

Ok, only thing left to do with the house is one more strand of icicle lights and then the house portion of the display is done. Yesterday I worked on the "new" Bethlehem Star that I made out of C-7 lights(the lights you find in Kids Night Lights). I originally had a 3' one made out of incandescent mini lights but it just wasn't enough... so this 6'2", 181 light, 8A monster was created in its place.

Here are a few pictures of the house as of this morning...






Today I may take off from decorating and work on a Low Pass FM filter that will make sure I'm not interfering with any airline traffic(I'm within 2 miles of our airport so I want to make sure I don't get a knock on the door).

Tomorrow I'll be working on the 19' light tree, which is really 21' if you count the star on top. I'm planning on 1600 lights each of red, gold, and silver... but that may be pushed up to 3200 lights per color depending on how the 1600 look.

-Jeff

[Digital Parasite]

Today I may take off from decorating and work on a Low Pass FM filter that will make sure I'm not interfering with any airline traffic(I'm within 2 miles of our airport so I want to make sure I don't get a knock on the door).

Hehehe, that would be great if you could blink the lights on the passing airplanes in sync with the music too!

Can't wait to see it when it is finished.

Jeff.

[Chuck]

Why not hook up your receiver... every time the squelch breaks, flash the lights. Or get real fancy and change patterns with each as well. Just a few relays and a microcontroller. It will definitely get the neighbors curious.

Make the guys feel like they are back at a Unicom (uncontrolled field)...

C

[LAURENU2]

Jeff Have you ever thought of using Smoke/fog along with your lights to enhance them

[Jeff]

That's an awesome idea! I looked into it real quickly over at the PlanetChristmas.com forums and it seems like it's pretty difficult to pull off successfully. The wind seems to be the biggest enemy and it seems like people get too frustrated... which I don't need at this point and time in my decorating schedule. Great idea though!

So... today it's raining out and I was planning on getting most of the yard stuff out. Instead, I'm working on getting the cameras going again. I will be putting one near the road aimed at the house so hopefully you can get an idea of the show. Then I'll have another one aimed at the driveway just in case someone decides to be a vandel.

I did get the 21' tree up this week and it's all set to go. It went pretty smooth except for me forgetting to plug the star at the top of the tree in.

If anyone wants to look at the house, feel free to try the cams out... I will be doing alot of work on them today so they may not work consistantly until tomorrow(or Monday).

http://www.mainelights.org:81 (and you need IE5.5 or higher, sorry no FF)

Happy Holidays All,
Jeff

[LAURENU2]

Seems we need a password ?

Im Slow
Enter Username: guest
Enter Password: guest

Looks Like it is snowing there

[Jeff]

Wow, already trying it. You may have just saw my ugly mug for a few seconds. I'm getting the 800mW transmitter going for the road-side camera and I was just testing it in the basement. Needed to make sure it was on a different frequency than the Driveway camera.

-Jeff

[LAURENU2]

no not your Mug but I did see you hand waving Hi

I see your testing out your lights now
But you need better resolution on the yard cam and your porch/driveway cam is out

[Jeff]

no not your Mug but I did see you hand waving Hi

I see your testing out your lights now
But you need better resolution on the yard cam and your porch/driveway cam is out

Yeah, the camera stuff didn't go too well today. I have a nicer color camera that I bought that 800mW transmitter for. While testing it turned off. After it cools down it turns back on. Bad part is it is the actual camera that is shutting down. The transmitter is fine. Going to have to look into it sometime soon here but the rain held off so I have been out getting my 16 mini-trees placed and wired up. That's done now so I started getting the poles in the ground for the nine 5' trees that need to go out. Just taking a lunch break now and then it will be back to work.

-Jeff

[Jeff]

Hey Lauren(or anybody else), I have the second yard camera up temporarily(not weather proofed yet) and we are out putting up the arches and two 10' trees. I was just watching my daughter out there and it seems to be working pretty decently. Just wanted to give a heads up in case you felt like trying it again today.

-Jeff

[LAURENU2]

yes the 2nd looks much better A lot less grainy
Only 45 days to go

[Jeff]

Yeah but only 18 more days until the lights go live.

Another camera is up and I *shoud* have "The House" camera up tonight. Right now it is snowing out so I don't really feel like messing around with it.

Here's what the house looked like last night...

There is a tree in front and the arches to the left missing from the picture but you get the idea.

[gopher_yarrowzoo]

So Jeff you want that diagram for the reversing meter then :P
Looks good, a lot better the "God awful" crud that they do around here and it's a race almost to see who turns them on first...
I just think it actually looks CRAP with a Capital CRAP I did try and photo some of it once but well didn't wanna get too close and it was a bit windy so it blurred a little..

[Jeff]

Thanks. At first I wasn't letting any passerbys see... but now I'll let the show run a song or two and if a few people drive by when it's running... well good then. Hopefully it brings a little chuckle or smile their way.

November 27th at 5:30pm is the official start time. We've invited the grand parents and neighbors over and it should be a good time. My parents haven't seen a thing yet so they are bound to be shocked! (My wife's father has been up 4 or 5 times to see every little step of progression, he loves Christmas!)

I took the day off of decorating today since my knee is acting up. I acted too much like a kid yesterday and sat on them for half the day putting wiring together and zip tying everything together. Ibuprofen isn't even touching it.

-Jeff

[Jeff]

Just received the voiceovers we will be using for the show... let me know what you think.

http://www.adventurevision.com/pub/C...as-Voiceovers/

-Jeff

[LAURENU2]

I think I will have to Fly over your house Looks like you are going to have a Ball
Vary funny clips

[Digital Parasite]

Just received the voiceovers we will be using for the show... let me know what you think.

Those are great, who did them for you and did cost lots of $$$?

[Jeff]

It wasn't bad at all... $50 and the person got them to me very quickly. He's a fellow "Christmas Light Geek" so I think he takes it easy on the rest of us because of that. I bought them from here:
http://www.thedementedelf.com

-Jeff

p.s. Anybody is welcome to stop by if they are in the area. If you're flying overhead Lauren, let me know and I'll spell out your name in lights out back.

[LAURENU2]

It wasn't bad at all... $50 and the person got them to me very quickly. He's a fellow "Christmas Light Geek" so I think he takes it easy on the rest of us because of that. I bought them from here:
http://www.thedementedelf.com

-Jeff

p.s. Anybody is welcome to stop by if they are in the area. If you're flying overhead Lauren, let me know and I'll spell out your name in lights out back.

Ha HA Ha So do you sell add space to pay for your investment
I will let you know if I can fit it in my pilot would get a kick to see that

[Chuck]

Jeff,

I got the software directly (it has no toolbar, but cool) and I see 2 of 4 (?) cams up and running. #1 is a bit jittery/intermittent (broken frames) from time to time, but in all... GREAT JOB!!!!

I always wondered what the folk north of Kittery did, now I know (I lived in Amherst, NH for many years and our yards were similar!).


C.

PS: Lauren, you better swing by here on the way if you buzz up there!.... I'm about 15 minutes travel out of your way and can 'right seat' for now!!!!

[Jeff]

Glad it worked out for you Chuck. The jitters may be because of my little cable modems upload speed. I run the server out of my house so it's really limited in how much you can send to people. I think there may have been a couple people on at once a few times today since I was having problems VNCing into the server.

It's all fun though... except... shhhhh... don't tell anyone... I'm getting a little tired. After everything is up(hopefully this Saturday)... I'm going to take one full week off to recover a bit. That will leave me one week to just work on touching up the sequences and then it's SHOWTIME!!!

-Jeff

[LAURENU2]

there is no rest for Santa's elves

[Jeff]

The lights will be on for two more hours for anyone interested in seeing how they look on the cameras... it's really strange!

-Jeff

p.s. http://www.mainelights.org:81 for the webcams...

[LAURENU2]

MMM nice prety red white and blue lights

http://www.mainelights.org:81/
Enter Username: guest
Enter Password: guest

[Digital Parasite]

The lights will be on for two more hours for anyone interested in seeing how they look on the cameras... it's really strange!

When you get the show finalized you will have to record your video stream and put up youtube videos like holdman. My kids still ask me to show them his site all the time.

[Chuck]

Jeff,
A quick video or just a set of frame captures would be great until you get the whole video put together.... I didn't get the email until it was too late.
BUT, it looks great of what I've seen on the prep work!!!

Congrats!


C.

[Jeff]

Here are a few I took two nights ago. I really want to get a couple nice videos... I may have to look into getting someone with better equipment to come over and video tape it.

[Digital Parasite]

Here are a few I took two nights ago. I really want to get a couple nice videos... I may have to look into getting someone with better equipment to come over and video tape it.

Nice pics. So have the neighbours said anything about the lights yet either positive or negative (about traffic that will be generated?)

Jeff.

[Chuck]

Jeff,
THEY ARE SUPER!!!!!!!! I am in awe at how much work you've put into it and then, on top of all that, how it's become much more than the sum of its parts!!!

My hat's off to ya!!!

C.

[Jeff]

Nice pics. So have the neighbours said anything about the lights yet either positive or negative (about traffic that will be generated?)

Jeff.

It's funny... one neighbor has been behind it all along and then the other day they mention something about "having to rope off their driveway so people don't turn around in their lawn"... And the other neighbor hasn't said one word about it... even when the husband and I are standing there 20ft away from everything and I'm carrying a ladder. (well... they haven't spoken any words about it but that says enough...)

The first neighbor disappoints me a little considering all along he's said that he wants me to put up the 14 or 15 blowups I have in his front yard and that he'd get his 40' lift out and we could string lights on it. Now all of a sudden when he actually sees how many lights 35,000-40,000 are... he gets a different voice about it.

And the second neighbor... well... we had a feeling they wouldn't say anything about it. In the past we noticed that they decorate outside for *every* other holiday except Christmas. I know not everyone is into Christmas and people who are into it are for different reasons but we just found it odd that this is the one holiday they don't decorate for. If it was purely a religious reason I could completely understand but we don't think they even go to church so we're stumped.

At any rate, we are an official drop off for Toys for Tots and we are collecting food for the local food pantry(CHOW) so that's two good reason for us to continue on. I've already thought about trying to hire an off-duty police officer for the weekends if traffic is a big issue. And if it is, then hopefully people remember the two charities we are collecting for.

And thank you very much Chuck for the kind words. It really is like you said, the sum equals more than the parts and pictures really don't do it justice. Even sitting in your car doesn't do it justice. I'm not trying to sound braggy or anything... please don't take it that way... but it is just incredible to be in front of soo many lights dancing to the music. Richard Holdman is extremely talented because he made all the right moves with the music... it's awesome!


-Jeff

[LAURENU2]

Are you going to add any more X-Mas Cams

[Jeff]

Yeah, I still have one more to add and then I need to get a good video with good sound of the display. I think I have the video covered, I just need to work on getting some good sound to it.

Just been busy with things around the house, now that I'm not 110% on Christmas light duty, the wifey has me painting and decorating and buying carpet and etc... etc... etc...

-Jeff

[LAURENU2]

Yeah, I still have one more to add and then I need to get a good video with good sound of the display. I think I have the video covered, I just need to work on getting some good sound to it.

Just been busy with things around the house, now that I'm not 110% on Christmas light duty, the wifey has me painting and decorating and buying carpet and etc... etc... etc...

-Jeff

Payback haha

[Digital Parasite]

So have you been getting lots of visitors yet?

[Jeff]

Not *tons*, which is good. Just one to three cars parked in the driveway at most. But there are loads slowing down and even stopping in the road for a few seconds. We noticed that most people aren't actually stopping until after 7-7:30pm so we extended the show to 9pm during the week and 9:30pm on the weekends. I'm also probably going to start it 30 minutes later at 6pm instead of the 5pm or 5:30pm we are now.

It's a learning experience, that's for sure.

-Jeff

p.s. I stopped by Lowes for their 50% off Christmas decoration sale... we will be at least 15,000 lights brighter next year.