We’re half way there ’21.

It’s hard to believe but we are already at the midway point between turning off the lights on January 2nd and the official Light up on November 27th.

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Chasin’ Rust

I’ve been looking to get a project car for a little while, my 944 was supposed to be that but its a bit too nice, parts are a little too expensive and its a bit too complex for my skills (I have replaced just about every part I have the capability to do myself). I wanted to get something junkier, cheaper and simpler. After thinking about this a Jeep seemed like the perfect fit, its about as simple as they come, has a huge after market, will be fun off road or around town with the top down.

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That’s a Wrap

All the lights are taken down and put away, which puts the final bow on the 2020 Christmas season. The teardown was completed earlier this year than it ever has been in the past, we had some good weather early January then a really nice March which allowed me to get it all finished up early. We are also still under struck lockdown conditions so have no commitments with the kids. Being done by Easter is usually a good year, this year we were done by the spring solstice.

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We are Live, 2020

At 6pm on November 28th the lights turned on for the season. Our usual light up party had to change due to restrictions on gatherings and the number of visitors to ones home. We managed to reconfigure the event to have a drive by bottle drive for the McKnight Atom hockey teams and also collect food for the Calgary Food Bank. Although it wasn’t the event it usually is, it was great to see many faces I haven’t seen in the last 8 months and have a short socially distanced chat with friends when they were dropping food and bottles off.

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2 Weeks to Light up

Its now only two weeks to our official light up on Nov 28th. I fell a little behind schedule on the install over the last couple of weeks but knew I could make it up this week as I had 3 days off work.

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Installation ’20 is underway

I have traditionally called my installation “build”, but since I have been building props; arches, north poles, stockings, RGB Santa and install structures for the last couple of months I needed a new word. My Install usually proceeds a couple of tasks I need to do to get ready. These are prune my trees, to maximize their light holding capacity and turn around my garage to put the car away and get out the lights. Canadian Thanksgiving is when I traditionally do these and this year was no exception, the difference was I also began my install this weekend too.

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Building North Poles pt. I

I’ve always wanted to add some North Poles to my display, this year when I was looking for some projects in spring I ordered the Holiday Coro Candy Cane Post Topper. These seemed like a pretty simple project, the kit comes with a topper that plugs into simple drainage pipe plus a controller and RGBs for less than $20, this looked like a great bargain. These would also be my first foray into DMX so a chance for me to expand my knowledge of RGB lighting.

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Tis the Season

Labour day weekend is traditionally my kick off for working on the display. I usually lock in my layout and get my LOR order in the week before to take advantage of the Light-O-Rama Summer Sale, then I begin converting my sequences to the new layout. This year has been a little different.

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Christmas 2020 build schedule

This being stuck at home thing has really thrown me off my usual process of creating my build plan. Usually I think about what I want to do, order the pieces when the LOR summer sale is on, then build my work back plan once I know what I am doing.

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