What is your show start night this year?

[Speedster 49]

I'm seriously thinking of breaking tradition and lighting up tomorrow night (4 days early) instead of the usual Thanksgiving night.  Currently only our Nativity Scene is lit, but I've been chomping at the bit since finishing the setup this afternoon.   Since Nov 7 I've seen an increasing number of static displays lit up.  So if I get real impatient we may going blinky-flashy tomorrow night.  But  if we do, I'll probably wait until Thanksgiving night to turn on the outdoor speaker.

[k6ccc 1,054]

I did my first live test with most of everything set up this evening.  Everything that was supposed to work did except a few of the GE Color Effects lights on the roof.  Guess I will be climbing up onto the roof again - glad I didn't put the ladder away

Opening night is still Friday night...

 

[Oliver Blatt 11]

I guess I'm late to the party! I started set up today, and unless something crazy happens, I'll finish tomorrow. I will probably soft open tomorrow night, and go live officially Thanksgiving night or Friday night, depending on if I have any issues!

[tlogan 30]

I'm STILL hoping for Sunday night but I'm not sure I'll have three full days to get everything up. Calling for possible rain midday Saturday into Sunday morning. I should at least have all day Friday and part of Saturday. If I can get the lights up and controllers out during that time, I can set up/assemble all the wire frame props in the garage and put them out as weather permits.  

[k6ccc 1,054]

The weather forecast was rain starting Wednesday through the weekend, so I had to assume I would have little or no time to finish anything on Turkey day or Friday, so I took last Monday off work to finish up.  Everything is set up and operational except my perimeter string which is set up, but the new box that it's controller will be in needs about an hour (inside) to finish.  Then five minutes to hook it up.  Ran a couple sequences via MIIP this morning before heading to work and every part worked perfectly. 

Current NWS forecast says it will stop raining sometime Friday, so good to go for opening Friday evening...

 

[MichRX7 49]

3 hours ago, tlogan said:

I'm STILL hoping for Sunday night but I'm not sure I'll have three full days to get everything up. Calling for possible rain midday Saturday into Sunday morning. I should at least have all day Friday and part of Saturday. If I can get the lights up and controllers out during that time, I can set up/assemble all the wire frame props in the garage and put them out as weather permits.  

GET TO WORK! Those net lights aren't going to string themselves...

[tlogan 30]

5 minutes ago, MichRX7 said:

GET TO WORK! Those net lights aren't going to string themselves...

Well, at least I won't have to cut th grass or rake first. My son ran the mulching mower over them yesterday. I'm hoping the wind takes care of the one million (I mean, with pinky to corner of mouth, one BILLION) leaves still ON the tree.

 

You just stuck your pinky to the corner of your mouth, didn't you? Come on, now, be honest.

[MichRX7 49]

4 minutes ago, tlogan said:

Well, at least I won't have to cut th grass or rake first. My son ran the mulching mower over them yesterday. I'm hoping the wind takes care of the one million (I mean, with pinky to corner of mouth, one BILLION) leaves still ON the tree.

 

You just stuck your pinky to the corner of your mouth, didn't you? Come on, now, be honest.

If you get any of the wind that is hitting Michigan right now, you'll be lucky to have trees left much less leaves on them.

[tlogan 30]

16 minutes ago, MichRX7 said:

If you get any of the wind that is hitting Michigan right now, you'll be lucky to have trees left much less leaves on them.

Cool...no more leaf raking!

[JayStang 2]

Thanksgiving night. I’m on lists for tours of lights and they ask to be show ready turkey day. Gobble gobble. I run about a week after New Years depending on what day of the month my days off fall on to take down. 

[Speedster 49]

I resisted the urge to light up earlier than I normally do.  So our show starts on Thanksgiving night at 5:00 pm as usual.

[MichRX7 49]

4 hours ago, Speedster said:

I resisted the urge to light up earlier than I normally do.  So our show starts on Thanksgiving night at 5:00 pm as usual.

And it didn't kill you, lol... I can't wait for tomorrow night. 

[Speedster 49]

4 hours ago, MichRX7 said:

And it didn't kill you, lol... I can't wait for tomorrow night. 

Yeah, it was really hard to wait, especially since everything was ready to go last Sat night.  It took every ounce of patience to hold off this long, which became increasingly difficult as the week progressed as I saw more and more houses with static displays lit up.

As usual we'll be out of town celebrating Thanksgiving with relatives today, so we won't be around when our show starts at 5:00 pm.  We'll be back around 9:00 pm, and when we get within 2 blocks of our house I like to change the radio to 96.5 FM (the frequency I'm using to transmit the music) so we can enjoy the lights & music as we drive down our block and pull into our driveway. 

My big fear is that one of these years, something will go wrong while we're gone, and when we return home I'll hear only static on 96.5 FM and our house & yard will be dark.  😨  Hasn't happened yet (knock on wood!), but it's definitely something that's in the back of my mind around 5:00 pm as I'm trying to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner 120 miles away!

[MichRX7 49]

1 hour ago, Speedster said:

My big fear is that one of these years, something will go wrong while we're gone, and when we return home I'll hear only static on 96.5 FM and our house & yard will be dark.  😨  Hasn't happened yet (knock on wood!), but it's definitely something that's in the back of my mind around 5:00 pm as I'm trying to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner 120 miles away!

That happened my first year when I wasn't smart enough to turn off the Windoze updates. Had to run in the house, log back into the machine and restart the show. Lesson learned.

[Wayne K 24]

Yaaa, Show is up and running. Even with all of my testing I see 2 floods that are not working. I guess tomorrow will be trouble shoot day. Hope everything is working for everyone if your starting up tonight or in the next few days.

Wayne

Edited November 28, 2019 by Wayne K

[Dglass4321 0]

On 11/27/2019 at 9:53 AM, k6ccc said:

The weather forecast was rain starting Wednesday through the weekend,

Yeah, I stayed out late on Wednesday hoping to finish but found two strings that weren't working (brand new, right out of the box) and decided to wait until Yesterday to replace them.  Big mistake!  I was out in the rain stringing lights!  But my show started on time.  Because of the rain I couldn't do a whole system test and discovered other strings that aren't working and a couple of mis-assigned circuits so today I try to sort out the problems but so far, it is clear.  

[JayStang 2]

On 11/28/2019 at 11:25 AM, MichRX7 said:

That happened my first year when I wasn't smart enough to turn off the Windoze updates. Had to run in the house, log back into the machine and restart the show. Lesson learned.

Windows 10 gave me a limit of like 20 days of shutting off updates. And it says you can’t change it unless an update check is done or something like that. Around dec 15. I’ll check updates and turn it off again. Unless I’m missing something.

[Mr. P 709]

1 hour ago, JayStang said:

Windows 10 gave me a limit of like 20 days of shutting off updates. And it says you can’t change it unless an update check is done or something like that. Around dec 15. I’ll check updates and turn it off again. Unless I’m missing something.

I turn my wifi off on my show computer on October 15 and don't turn it back on until January.

[k6ccc 1,054]

1 hour ago, JayStang said:

Windows 10 gave me a limit of like 20 days of shutting off updates. And it says you can’t change it unless an update check is done or something like that. Around dec 15. I’ll check updates and turn it off again. Unless I’m missing something.

Makes me glad that my show computer is Windows 7.  I do have to have internet connection to the show computer however because I run MIIP.

 

[MichRX7 49]

1 hour ago, JayStang said:

Windows 10 gave me a limit of like 20 days of shutting off updates. And it says you can’t change it unless an update check is done or something like that. Around dec 15. I’ll check updates and turn it off again. Unless I’m missing something.

You have to do it the hardcore way and disable it in Services. Then remember to enable it after the season is over.

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/turn-off-windows-update-in-windows-10

[nader 11]

tried to get set for tonight no go. found 1 power supply decided to quit on me for pixie tree only 2 years old. got replacement on order so shooting for next weekend

[tlogan 30]

What I have here, is a FAILURE to light up.

Had my three days all planned to be ready last night (Sunday), but no go.

Friday plan - Get all ladder work done,  get strings and nets in trees and bushes.

After the wind storm on Wednesday and Thursday, first unplanned thing on Friday is I had to rake. Then start pulling lights out of shed to go on trees and bushes, hang those and new smart bulbs over garage and front door to be able to be done with ladder. Managed to get that done, but lost track of where a bunch LED strings (that I KNOW I had) had gotten to. Needed to make a run to Wally World (ON BLACK FRIDAY!) to get a couple more strings. As I was packing up for the day, found the Led strings I KNEW I had. Guess they will go up next year.

Saturday plan - Put up Mega Tree, 10 small trees, 10 new lamp posts, candy canes (that were converted to LED) and wire frames if time/weather permit (calling for rain midday through Sunday morning). Pull rest of boxes out of shed. 

Got MT up,  which required ladder (AGAIN) and 10 trees out and staked. ANOTHER run to Wally World after finding a sting of white on MT tree out. All were on green were, my extras were all on white. Got the lamp posts out (staked and had to add clamps on the back to keep rebar in place).  Bring out as many wireframes as I can. The two tubeless tires on the cart are flat and not inflating. Stems are cracked and tire won't seal on hub. Run to Harbor Freight for two new tires (much faster and less cussing involved than trying to fix them, and they were $3.99 a piece). Hauled out a couple more boxes and made room in garage because it looked like it was about to rain, so packed it in (I'm made of sugar). Only got one wire frame sleigh and a Merry Christmas sign out.

Sunday Plan - Wire everything up after rain ends, including making new SPT cords for lampposts and candy canes..

Turns out it never rained Saturday but rained all day Sunday. Assembled, tested and touched up wire frames (deer and some nice rope lit packages to go in sleigh) in garage. Ran to HD to get a few things to make a stand to get AC controllers higher off the ground. Rain ended around 4pm.  Put out deer and packages and wired up all static lights. Was planning to have all bushes controllable, but maybe not now.

So, I have some static lights going. At this point, probably won't have all the controllable lights going until next weekend. Starting to think about NOT adding anything new for next year and just cleaning up current sequences in S5 and adding new ones.

 

[MichRX7 49]

19 minutes ago, tlogan said:

Starting to think about NOT adding anything new for next year and just cleaning up current sequences in S5 and adding new ones.

 

That one line makes me sad.

[tlogan 30]

Me, too. But we're not even going to be home next year.

[PJD 2]

We started the show on Saturday, December 1st, but it isn't the complete setup yet.  The weather hasn't been cooperating and husband's big work project took up some time over the long weekend that we were hoping to have for setup.  Oh well.... We have about 80% of the lights up so far.  Still have 8 mini coro trees (16 channels) and a couple sets of pixel snowflakes left to put up for the controllable lights.  Also have some static lights to get out and nearly all of the inflatables (have 4 up, but I think there are 8 to 12 more that we haven't even pulled out yet.)

Current show has 4 singing faces, White & Multi icicles on house, porch and garage, lit swags & wreaths on porch & garage, and  2 16x50 pixel trees.  We have the gazebo just about done.  It has 120 HC "Brilliant Bulbs", 8 strands of HC Icicles (100 pixels each) and 1 set of the pixel snowflakes (with 2 more to be installed).  So basically, we have over 90% of the pixels up (2628 out of 2844) and 44 traditional channels (with at least 16 more to do - we have 5 or 6 controllers, so we could certainly add more if we get the time.)