I am a animatronic programmer!

When we were at Hauntx one of the seminars we attended was about programming a simple Basic Stamp 8 channel controller using simple PBASIC commands. The company putting on the seminar is called ParallaxEFX and they gave away controllers at the end and Chris won one (which means I won one). I had to order a serial interface connector and a power supply which arrived today. After a few minutes of setup on the laptop I was able to write a 10 line program and get a servo to center itself slowly turn clockwise and then center again and then counter clockwise and repeat over and over. You can check it out on www.parallaxefx.com. Their software is free. The boards only cost $35 and it is about 2" x 3". These were all the rage at the HauntX show as many Animatronic builders are using these guys to animate their props.

HauntX

We just got back from a Haunted Convention last weekend. It was in LA at the LAX Hilton. You can check out all the details at www.hauntx.com. There were a couple of reasons for going. One of the major ones is our current plan to try to figure out how to make money doing something with halloween instead of me going back to work in the computer field. The other reason was to attend the "Golden Bucky" awards for best Yard Haunt of 2006. Chris and I didn't enter this year due to a mixup on when things should be submitted. The awards were fun and this year they even had 2 other sets of awards that were presented to the pros.

The conference was a lot of fun. The vendor displays were pretty cool with lots of halloween stuff from costumes, masks, animated props, electronics, and more. They also had a floor of B-Movie actors to sign autographs. There were also some paranormal experts there to talk about "real" ghosts (yea right!). They had seminars on all sorts of stuff. We attended 2 on Marketing your event. We also attended a couple of technical ones on programming animatronic boards and building animated props. We met a lot of people in the industry and a few home haunters like ourselves. We didn't buy tickets to the dinner/dance which we regretted since that was were a lot of socializing went on. But the tickets were $50 each. We also didn't get in until almost midnight on Friday and we missed the meet & greet they had that night. But all in all it was a good weekend. They had a lot of entertainment options for the out of town people to go see and do. We stayed in our room Saturday night and just relaxed and soaked in all that we had saw and talked about what we thought we would be able to do. Sunday night was the awards. Oh, we did pick up our copy of the 8 disc DVD's of 125 haunted yards, homes, parties and pro/charity displays. This is what the awards were based on. Pretty cool stuff.

We've been robbed!

I left the garage door open over night after taking the garbage out on Monday night like I always do. I saw that it was open Tuesday morning and shut it. When I went out to the shop on Wednesday afternoon to do some work I noticed that my brand new 18v cordless tool set that Chris gave me for Christmas was missing. The more I looked I also noticed that all but one of my Senco air guns were gone as well as all my sanders, corded drill, and my new miter saw that Chris got me last christmas. Needless to say I was distraught. I could barely see straight I was so mad! How could someone walk into my garage at night and just help themselves to my personal property. This is the 2nd time this has happend. Halloween 2002 I left the door open and someone walked off with a sawsall and 2 nail guns and a tool bag. It wasn't enough to claim on my insurance so I didn't report it. This time I called the cops and the insurance company. The police were nice but not much help. I needed to call them to get a report filed. My insurance has a $500 deductable and the value of the tools was just over $2000 so after appreciating the older tools they are going to pay me $1400. The good news is that I will probably be able to buy all new tools (the origianl ones were used). If I am good at finding everything on the internet then I might also be able to buy a couple of extra tools or upgrade some of them.

This still doesn't take the sting out of being robbed. I ordered a new automatic gate opener the other day and plan on installing it ASAP. I am also thinking about somehow tagging all my tools so they can be identified.

New member of our family

During the months leading up to Halloween when we are spending a lot of time outside on the weekends and building fires to stay warm at night we discovered we had a visitor. A small young black and white male cat was hanging around. After a few months I started leaving him dry food on the patio. He would gobble it down as if he hadn't eaten in days. He started to hang around more and more. Then just after thanksgiving he starting hanging outside our back door waiting to be petted or fed. He had named him Hal (short for Halloween Cat). Since I was home all the time I finally decided to let him in the house. He was in heaven. Food dishes, warm places to sleep. I took him to the vet and had him tested for anything that might get our older cat sick. He got his shots and something for flees and ear mites. I took him back later in the week to be fixed to mellow him out a bit and keep him from spraying on stuff in the house. Now he looks longingly out the window to the big outdoors he used to roam but has no desire to be out there again. We are enjoying having a young male cat in the house again after we lost our 18yr old Merlin to old age a couple of years ago. He likes to sleep in the bed and loves to play with cat toys for hours. Our older cat Madelyn isn't too keen on the new guy but she is slowing letting him grow on her. There is a little less growling and hissing in the house each day. Anyway welcome Hal to your new home.

Christmas decorations

Our annual minimal yard display during the christmas holidays has been up since the weekend after thanksgiving. I have been meaning to post a few pictures of it. We often hear from our halloween visitors that "Yours is the Calvin & Hobbs house!".

Our Windows are Installed

All of our double-Hung single pane leaded glass windows have been replaced with the latest wood window from Jeld-wen. http://www.jeld-wen.com/windows/wood/pozzi/product.cfm?product_id=21&groupid=

We painted the exterior of the windows before they were installed and now we have to paint the interior primered side when we get to it.
We can't believe how warmer and quieter the house is. It took a long time to get them installed but it is nice. Now we just have to replace the fixed windows.

Happy Thanksgiving

The posts on this blog are usually always upbeat since it was setup to let people know what was going on at our house. But since this is the biggest event in our lives right now I thought I should talk about it here.

As of last friday I am no longer employed. After almost 13 years of working for the same company and for quite a large salary I find myself among the unemployed. I was laid off due to a recent purchase of our company and my position was elminated as a cost cutting move.

On the positive side they gave me enough severance pay that I won't have to find a job for at least 4 months.

Not sure what I will be doing in the next few months but I will keep you posted.

Final pictures of Hallween 2005

A lot of hard work. A lot of fun. Some great friends. Very creative people. It was a great halloween. Thanks to everyone for all their help - get ready for Halloween 2006!

Halloween Party

The Demon in the tree

We finally finished this project and put it in the tree Saturday Afternoon. The gold paint job turned out pretty cool.

Thanks Scott!

I have received several calls this morning from friends and co-workers that told me that they heard about our yard haunt on the radio this morning!!!

Who knew so many people listened to KISN?

New Tombstones

The new tombstones look great! Jen did a fantastic job!

We have a ghost haunting the crypt.

It is difficult to show a picture of it, but here is where our projection ghost appears at night. We use a LCD projector playing a DVD I made of someone acting as a scary ghost. I slowed it way down and blurred it; it now looks like a real ghost in the crypt!

Our Demon Skeleton

Mr. Reid, with a little help from Jeff, worked really hard this weekend to finish our demon skeleton that will go in the tree in the front of the yard. These pictures show the stance of the skeleton, the skull, and part of the wings. Looks like we will finish this one up just in time for our party!

It works!

This photo doesn't do it justice but our new effect for Halloween this year worked out GREAT! Take one used LCD projector. Use a digital video camera to film your friend lip-syncing to a scary message. Carve a head out of foam and create a pedestal for it. Burn a DVD with your friend and the scary message. Next thing you know it’s just like being at Disneyland's Haunted Mansion!

Halloween is officially in full swing

We setup the basics this weekend. Our newer projects are not quite done yet. We are spending each free moment working on getting everything done. As usual it will be a mad scramble to finish up but it will all come together in the end.

Really Cool special effect

This is the box I built this weekend for a very cool effect we are working on this year. I will post more about it later. The box holds a LCD projector, DVD player, and stereo amplifier. It is vented and has a latchable lid with a hole in the side for the lens.

We made Jack Skellington

One of Chris' work friends husband is really into the movie "Nightmare before Christmas". Since Chris is too she offered to make him a standup of Jack. We used an old piece of siding we were going to give away. She traced and painted it and I cut it out for her. They were very happy with the results.

Our windows have arrived!

The last of the home improvement projects of 05' is about to begin. We are replacing all the double hung windows in our house. Ten of them to be exact. We orderd Pazi windows from Jeld-Wen. These are wood windows that come primered. We have to paint the exterior and then they can be installed by our installer which only takes about a day to do.

Right in the middle of preparing for Halloween. Fun!

We have a website!

After many hours of cursing and hair pulling Chris has got the start of our Halloween website up.

http://www.davisgraveyard.com

She will be adding to it and fixing problems with it all week.

This will be our main way of getting info out about our yard this year.