I had gotten to go live for the light up party but there were still a couple of details to finish up. Then I had an exciting trip to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra planned.
Firstly I had bought some decorations to go under my living room window (replacing some led trees that totally disintegrated when I tried to set them up). I got these on the morning of our go live, but didn’t get to putting them out before the party. The next day I was debating if I really needed them or if I should just return them. I decided to sit on it for a while. Later in the week I was putting the ornaments on the big spruce tree and thought they would be a good compliment so I set them up. I’m really glad I kept them as they look great. Our mischievous little Elf also climbed in them one day and messed with the display and schedule.
Sneaky elf has been messing with my lights
The next thing I needed to do was add the ornamental balls to the big tree, I often go live with out these as they do not add to the light show but like to put them up as they make the tree look great in the day time.
The last thing I needed to do was sort out the issue with my Floodlights. When they came on green or any colour that required green they were flickering. I wasn’t sure if this was that they were broken, not getting enough power, or had a poor network connection. I powered the lights from inside the house and double checked the network connections and no luck, still flickering. I sat down and pondered what this may be for a little bit and then a though hit me, did I change the unit IDs in my 2018 prop definition? A quick check and yes I had, but I had not updated the unit ID on the floodlight controllers. Now I had to disconnect the floodlights connect then to my PC and update the Unit IDs, after a quick test this looked like it had fixed it, This was a relief as I had initially rebuilt my sequences removing the floodlights from all groups to only use them purposefully (this is a good thing anyways as I do not need to colour the tree the same was as last year now it had the RGB bulbs). It turns out they were not flickering but were acting as the first bulb on my Living room roof and living room window strings.
After all the work pushing to get the light show done, I was happy all the pieces were finished and kinks worked out. I could now head to Los Angeles for the weekend to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra. This had been something I had wanted to do for many years. I bundled it up as a birthday gift to make this a win win for all. The show was in Ontario so I decided to stay at the fabulous Mission Inn in Riverside, CA. I had visited it during the festival of lights about 7 or 8 years ago during a business trip and thought I would make for a great Christmas themed trip. The Festival of lights has been voted the best outdoor light-show in the US and consists of over five million lights. I have some work to do to get to that level.
The concert was amazing, everything I had hoped for in a TSO show, amazing music, lights and spectacle. I will definitely be making this a holiday tradition (although maybe not an annual one). After watching the show I think I may need some Lasers and flame throwers if I really want to up my game.
After getting back to Calgary the next Holiday event was the CP Holiday Train’s visit to Calgary last weekend. I had never been to this but it looked like a fun time based on the feedback on twitter. So we bundled up the family Sat night and headed out to see the holiday train and take in some live music and see some more lights.
In addition to all the above the folks from Lightenup Calgary stopped by to check out my lights and even better news is that the Candy Cane Blizzard is back at Dairy Queen.
Its been a great couple of weeks since the light up party. We have a few more exciting festive activities before Christmas: The Festive Face off Hockey tournament, Zoo Lights, Festival of lights and the Polar express. I’ve also got a couple of songs left to sequence from the Now: Christmas Album and some videos left to capture. I have updated my 2018 shows page with many of the videos from this year and created dedicated pages for the A Twisted Christmas and Now: The Christmas Album. I’ll try and capture the remaining songs over the next couple of weeks. Then it’ll be hunkering down and enjoying a Christmas break.
Chasin' Rudolph 