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What's been your biggest obstacle this year?


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Posted

Besides 2020 itself! Lol

For me, I had 2 sticks of HDPE tubing left from making arches last year. I didn't really have room for more arches so I thought I could just make 2  6 1/2 ft vertical tube thingys. I talked to some people I know that did small welding projects on the side. Long story short, they didn't come through so I made holders out of 3/4" conduit with a 90 on top. AND...if you have ever worked with HDPE you know it's basically impossible to straighten lol. What was I thinking?

Oh! And I had to upgrade my show computer to 64 bit for MIIP.

I told my wife last night we were just having a nativity scene this year 😂

Posted

Getting motivated to get off the couch.

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Posted
1 hour ago, 75redman said:

Getting motivated to get off the couch.

That was me.  I had a fair amount of hardware changes that were happening (both new stuff and a major rebuild on my pixel tree, and both the eves and roofline).  I had some surgery in end of June that gave me a month of recovery time to work on the sequencing, but I could not do the physical parts.  Put the old eves lights up for Halloween, but did not even bother putting the roofline because that was in such bad shape.  So here we are 3 days, 11 hours, 24 minutes till show opening and the pixel tree is not quite done - but there's only an hour or two to go.  The P10 matrix and singing faces need to go up, but those are pretty quick.

 

Posted

Besides 2020 itself is a big exclusion!  Im blaming the lack of sequencing and failure to prep new controllers totally on 2020 life disruptions. 

Posted
21 minutes ago, ItsMeBobO said:

Besides 2020 itself is a big exclusion!  Im blaming the lack of sequencing and failure to prep new controllers totally on 2020 life disruptions. 

Haha...if nothing else, this dumpster fire of a year has given me plenty of time to sequence. I'm wondering how I'm going to fit them all in on MIIP. (If I can get everything going!) 😂

Posted
2 hours ago, Sctiger said:

I'm wondering how I'm going to fit them all in on MIIP

I have 57 and have seen more.

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Posted

After selling all my display at the end of 2018 and taking a year off, getting back and having to rebuild a scaled down version of the old display, not to mention my age (76) and having to re-due all my sequences, I think I'm tired. 

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Posted (edited)

The wife is my biggest obstacle, she keeps asking me to program these new songs for the show this year. I keep explaining that programming time is over and we are now in setup time. January -August is programming and prop building time, September -December is setup and show time, quit messing with my schedule.

Edited by Mr. P
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Posted

I only have one word RAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's Florida for you.

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Posted
2 hours ago, EARLE W. TALLEY said:

After selling all my display at the end of 2018 and taking a year off, getting back and having to rebuild a scaled down version of the old display, not to mention my age (76) and having to re-due all my sequences, I think I'm tired. 

That made me tired just READING it! Yikes! Hopefully you started January 2nd! Lol

Posted

After having surgery 4 weeks ago and not getting a lot of high stuff up when it was 60 - 70 degrees a few weeks ago. And last week the high winds and cold temperatures here in NE Indiana.

Wayne

Posted

The weather hasn't been cooperating and I lost almost an entire week of set up time.  Lots of cold weather, rain, wind, and snow flurries.  I wasn't able to start setting up until last Wed 11/18.  In order to be ready for Thanksgiving night, I had to be finished by this past weekend because I knew we were getting more bad weather this week.  So I made the decision to put up less lights and props this year to cut down on the set up time.  So our light show will be a watered-down version of what we usually do.  But on the up-side that means tear-down during frigid temperatures in January will take less time too.

Posted

Mine has definitely been Taking the Jump into RGB only being my 2nd year doing this, Everything I did was new to me this year., It wouldnt have been possible without some help this year. I am very Grateful... for the help, and having a patient wife. lol I have learned alot this year. Ive been working on it since March. 

Sadly I have lacked in Sequencing time due to taking on such a challenge... next year will probably be only christmas for me. I really want to take my time and make sure it is what i want it to be... halloween is a nice time to set up and test. but it took away some precious Christmas sequencing time.

Posted
11 hours ago, Godney said:

I only have one word RAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's Florida for you.

Yep, sure screwed me up this year too.  Rain, then high gusty winds, I am NOT getting on any ladders with winds gusting at 20MPH or higher.  Not happening.  And then, this is supposed to be going into our dry season, sure doesn't seem like it.

All I've managed to get done is my outdoor speakers mounted, 2 CCB100D Controllers mounted {have 3 more to get done}, 2 CTB16PC Controllers {1 already mounted, 1 to go}, and I still haven't gotten my LOR Singing Trees prepped for going outdoors yet.   Not to mention running power cords and cat5 cables to the controllers.

Was hoping to be ready by Thanksgiving evening, don't think that'll be happening this year {normally I'm up and running pre-shows, tests, a week or so before Thanksgiving}.   This years just had me behind with everything.   Oh, and did I mention, my sequences are nowhere near finished either, mainly they don't have the LOR Singing Trees added to them, the channels are there, just nothing there to make them work. 

So my show is probably going to be very limited this year.

And now we're supposed to get more rain this upcoming weekend after Thanksgiving, which if I can't get completed today {doubtful, Wednesday 11/25/2020}, I doubt I'm going to be done by Dec. 1, if this crappy rainy weather doesn't let up some!   I've had a few days to get things accomplished, but it normally takes me close to 2 weeks to get everything mounted, positioned and placed.

I've actually considered not even doing a show this year with all the crap that's been going on and the lousy weather conditions making it difficult to get anything done like I wanted.

 

Posted
2 hours ago, Orville said:

I've actually considered not even doing a show this year with all the crap that's been going on and the lousy weather conditions making it difficult to get anything done like I wanted.

That's exactly how I felt, and as recently as 3 weeks ago I was planning on going dark this year to match my mood for 2020.  But then I saw several houses fully lit up the 2nd week of Nov, which inspired me to start planning my setup for this year.  Unfortunately Mother Nature didn't cooperate, so this year's light show will be "tame" (maybe even "lame" lol) compared to the past several years.

Posted

Mother Nature, what a GAL,  I had 5- 8 foot artificial  trees lit they looked great, then the monsoon hit. We have lived here 16 year and never seen it rain like that ,washed the lites off the trees, 18 inches of rain, the toilet in the master bath backed up from rain in the sewer.  The the wind gezzzz bent two  trees over at right angle bent the main poles. I have it all fixed ,the display is up ,the roof snowflakes are up ,I spent two days on the roof., got some bugs with one of the controllers but its working . Start date is Thursday 7PM  Got couple of programs to touch up and hope for the best.

David

PS, any news on the contest from 2019, I haven't seen anything, the web site still shows 2018.

Posted (edited)

2020 The year lol... For me the biggest obstacle was health and depression which seemed to take its toll on everyone worldwide this year. Had a few setbacks this year between the job going bye bye in March, trying to get my decal business back up only to have 2 great months, then literally falling apart with the economy, getting rear ended in an accident that jacked up my neck and back but then had an mri done due to the accident which found a huge growth of about 2" in my throat. Possible cancel so yeah 2020 can g2h..... I'm learning I am not in my 20's anymore and need to take better care of myself. I have been using a heating pad at night for a month now as setting up halloween and Christmas did a number to my lower back this year combined with finding out the people who hit me did not have insurance so yeah... It's been fun.... My kids (well one did way more than the other) did a huge portion of set up for me this year. Normally it is me and they help. I have been fighting the great fight to pull through the year and am getting things in line for 2021. Time to lose the weight I gained in 2020 (50 lbs) and focus on getting healthy again. People both family and display related need me around for years to come and I have to get it all together again.  My motivation was there this year for sure. Just 3 months later than expected. So the biggest obstacle is myself in a round a bout way. 

Edited by GriswoldStyle
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Posted (edited)

I think the next biggest obstacle I encountered was tonight {Wednesday 11/25/2020}, since it has warmed up some and when outside trying to get some stuff done this evening when it would be a bit cooler, but not cool enough to keep those little blood-sucking vampires {mosquitoes} away.  They were so bad, I had to finish up as quick as I could and get back inside to get away from them!

II managed to finish up running a power cord from my exterior outlet to the front of my house where my 2 LOR Singing Trees will go {and, ugh, I still have some major work to do there too to get them up outside}, I did manage to get my boxes mounted with my FM Transmitter and my N4-G4 Director, Cat 5 cables run from The Director to the rear CTB16PC and the rear CCB100D that controls a dual level roof line of RGB CCB's. 

I still have to run the existing cable from the Unit 02 CCB100D{rear} to the one in the Front that covers the front roof line and on each side of the house, which I didn't get both sides even, but it's staying as is.  Just too much work to fix it from the top of a 20-30" ladder.  Bad enough I have to pull the ladder out again just to get the Cat5 cable to Unit 01 CCB100D on the front.  

And I still have 3 more CCB100D's and RGB CCB's to get mounted in other area.   And I still have to get my Blow Molds out and mounted, 8 of them, along with a Snoopy wall mount character.   Oh yea, also have got to get 5 lighted candy canes mounted into the ground, 3 translucent red bells and one other CTB16PC Controller and Cat5 cable ran to it. 

Still got a lot of work to do that I'll try and get done during the day, weather permitting, on Thursday, Thanksgiving.   But I seriously doubt my actual show will be running that night, maybe by Dec. 1 if I'm lucky, thinking more like around Dec. 5.   Be the first year ever that I didn't have my display in operation on Thanksgiving night!

Sure hope 2021 will be much, much better!

 

 

Edited by Orville
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Posted

Well I was feeling anxiety about not getting my show up and running. Looks like I'm not alone. I need to adopt the attitude some of y'all have about being OK with it though. Lol. Fingers crossed I can get through the weekend without a Clark Griswold tirade! 😆

Posted

The Create button, I can't stand it. 😁

 

 

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