crunch time...as usual - behind

[paralegalnc]

so my family all knows that from September to December we hunker down for the show...why is it that they all do stuff that pulls us away... for the past two weeks have been moving my son to South Carolina for his job... glad he got a job and is finally starting out with his own life and all.... but 3 vital weekends!!!  <sigh>  thankfully not too much prop building.  Just have to finish testing lights and organizing for smooth set up.... but I have to finish sequencing.... so why am I posting on here??    I hope all is well with everyone... I haven't been on much but wanted to say hi and hope everyone is well.

[dgrant]

I'm basically caught up although need to go purchase a couple of pressure treated boards for my pixel tree base. Other than that, its final sequencing changes in between remodeling the kitchen! Time is a premium now.

[paralegalnc]

I feel ya.  My sequencing is nearly done.  just have to finish one short song.  We are doing cartoon Christmas so the songs are fairly short and repeat.  then have to "tweak" it.  Going to buy lots of lights today.  My biggest issues is the OCD - when they took the lights down they just put them in containers.  So I have to get them out...untangle them... check them... and neatly organize them.  I'm going to put each prop in its own container.  ie:  peach tree lights,  maple tree lights... bushes... so I can just grab a container and go and know exactly how many lights are going up.  I'm going for 50,000 lights this year. OCD  is a time killer but ..... its good in the long run. I guess

[dgrant]

I don't have any OCD issues...at least I hope I don't. The lights though were put away last year in its each own bag but not labeled or anything. When I go to pull it all down out of the attic, the day after Halloween comes down, I'll be testing each string, grouping into the associated bunches for this or that part of the display and so on. From there, its time to start hanging lights, putting up the mega trees and so on. Each megatree takes a whole day to do and requires two people to accomplish. It'll take a week to put it all up, then start testing each and every circuit.

[paralegalnc]

you start after Halloween??  yeah that can't happen here. The lights will start going out today.  Little by little.  as we test and fix a couple props, they will go out mainly to get them out of the way.  in a couple weeks the lights will go out in masses.  I have 5000 lights going on the roof and that usually takes my husband a good day to day and a half.  I have two trees and they will have about 3000 lights each, so in November when my sequencing is done I can run test shows and see what I have to change.... thats when the OCD is a killer.  the visualizer is helpful but.....

[dgrant]

I don't think I have as much of a display as yours is, therefore maybe I'm thankful that I don't! lol... I'll put out Halloween as soon as the pallets of tile are gone this week from the garage floor and I can open the access ladder to the garage attic. Halloween is the lady of the house thing...lots of blowups and so on. I run a simple fade, twinkle, shimmer repetition sequence for her but no formal sequencing. Yes, I play scary music to the front yard for her. The day after, it all comes down and gets put away. Nov 2nd, out comes the Christmas lights, props and the rest of the controllers. It takes me a week to put it all up as I think I said already. As soon as I gain access to my office room in the house again, I'll be able to get back to sequencing. Its mostly done but like you said, tweaks here and there as I keep going back through the songs. The middle of November, I should have everything up and tested, ready to run. At that time, I create a special show for the grandkids and invite them up here to see it for the first time. When they see things coming out, they'll get excited.