The New Year's Eve Evening Rambler

My last post of the year.

Christmas update, part 1

Well, Christmas Eve the power stayed on, the dimming of the lights was caused by an infrared heater cycling on. In fact, the sleet quit just a few minutes after I posted, and it snowed the rest of the night and pretty much all day on Christmas. We got five inches of snow here, and I heard mention that some parts of the metro got as much as 11. Another inch and a half fell on Sunday the 26th. That's a bit misleading if you expect I could measure 6 1/2 inches of accumulation out there now...since then, the snow's blown around some and compacted some. And Tuesday (or was it Wednesday?) it got up to 34 briefly, so some has melted. It's colder now, and it may get down to the teens or even single digits tonight.

I took a lot of pictures this week, and I planned to transfer some of them from my camera to the computer earlier in the day, to post here. But that didn't work for some reason, and I'm not sure what I was doing wrong. So for now, allow me to back up to late November, and show you a few older pics...

Lights!



It was a reasonably temperate day the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, when I finished putting up my outside lights and tested them.

A few days after that, we had a visit from my Sister and Brother-in-law. They gave me the address of a good friend of theirs who lives on the Kansas side, and who is seriously into decorating.



This display really has to be seen in person to be fully appreciated.



This is an actual show or program, computer controlled, synchronized to music which is broadcast by a low power FM transmitter to your car radio. There was the effect of motion; different segments of the tree would change color in synch with the music, at times a star on top of the tree appeared to spin, there were "leaping arches" around the tree, the lights outlining the roof would change color and so on. Planning for this year's display started months in advance, and I understand there is a group of people who put on these elaborate displays in different locations all across the country. My Brother-in-law helped set this up in October, and mentioned a big, thick three ring binder with page after page of detailed instructions, and custom made wiring tagged with numbers or letters to keep the assembly in the proper order while hooking it all up.

By the numbers:
5 - days to set up and test
14 - minute program
47,000 - lights.

More Christmas stories and photos to follow. Also, I plan to start January with a few blogs with some highlights of 2009 - things I should have posted months ago but somehow didn't get around to.

For now, have a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year! And remember...it'll be 90 years before we have two zeroes together in a year again. I don't know what that bit of trivia does for you, but there it is.