Well hi de ho Kmart shoppers. That's a phrase that I'll bet you haven't heard in a while or ever before for that matter. As part of my life experiences, I have shopped in Kmart. I didn't like it but I did. Now I know what you are thinking, yes I wore a disguise. I would equate shopping in Kmart about the same experience as when I was a kid and having a bully sit on me and fart on my head. But what do I know? In a time long ago, a long time before The Love Boat, Deb and I were traveling to go "camping" in West By God Virginia. We were on the interstate in the mountains on Saturday afternoon and the brakes on the car were making ugly sounds and needed automotive stimulus. In West By God Virginia, Walmart is associated with Nordstrums and Kmart is a Friday night outing. We were in the middle of Hooterville and the thought of spending Saturday and Sunday night waiting on Bubba to open Bubba's Auto Garage, Food and Ammo Store on Monday to fix our car was not really palatable. So we put on our fake nose and glasses mask and had the friendly folks at Kmart fix our mighty purty Jeep Cherokee. A few hundred dollars later we were on our way and Kmart was ancient history. The next time I went into Kmart was years later hunting for cut rate Christmas lights. Now, I am not proud and will stand on the side of the road and beg for Christmas lights if I had to, so Kmart was not all that bad that day. I'm not really sure where I'm going with this as it sort of popped into my Republican brain when I sat down to update the blog. Regardless, hi de ho Kmart shoppers just came to mind.
A week or so ago, Deb and I went to a Charlotte, NC for an animated Christmas lighting convention. We have been going each year for a few years and love it or at least I do. Deb wouldn't tell me if she didn't. So, we went and had fun. The usual group of crazies were there and provided the entertainment for us all. This particular all day meeting was about the upcoming technological changes to our hobby. You naysayers just laughed but the lighting crazies that read this blog are nodding that the changes afoot will dramatically change our hobby. If you make it to my display this year, you will get to see some of the changes, but you likely will not know it. The lighting that you may have seen in Hong Kong on the buildings is finally trickling down to us residential, animated lighting folks. Soon a single bulb will be computer controllable and I will finally achieve Hong Kong lighting status in my yard. Yeah baby. Those of you that have been to our display will know that it isn't just a bunch of Christmas lights and drop cords. The display is actually very complicated and requires an immense amount of engineering and planning. I heard those snickers, if you want me to wipe that smile off your face and turn you into one of my roadies you just say the word. Now to make you snicker again, I will have almost 100K lights this year, more than four miles of wire (actually I think that is a little conservative and it is multistranded wire), some very sophisticated electronics that I made and lots that I didn't. There are close to 40 embedded microprocessors, and an industrial communication protocol. Are you still snickering Smartbutt? I'll bet not. My engineer friends get a huge kick out the engineering that goes into this display. This is my hobby, and I work on it in some capacity every single day. I plan at least 1 1/2 years out to which I am now doing advanced planning for the 2011 display. I have to as it is extremely complicated. Some of you just laughed (I heard you don't deny it) when I mentioned that I listen to Christmas music almost every day. I've already picked part of the music for the 2011 display. I listened to a hundred renditions of Jingle Bells before I ever decided to implement the song into my display and it is amazing. I pick artists that I like and enjoy them for what they are--artists. The musicians that read this blog know that an artist can take a song as simple as Jingle Bells and turn it into an amazing piece of music. Somebody once said what separates a hobby from obsession was a very thin line. I don't have time for an obsession as my hobby keeps me too busy. Dang, I forgot to tell you about the campground were we stayed in Charlotte.
This campground was what I call a YMSU or a Yankee Money Separation Unit. You know what I'm talking about. It is a facade business that caters to Yankees with outrageous things and separates our northern friends from larger than normal portions of their money. This campground, a YMSU extraordinaire, was on Lake Norman and charged $40 to $80 per night for the smallest campsites in existence. Out front it had a security gate ten feet high with wrought iron fencing leading up to the road. What most people don't know is that this particular fence is only in the front and not on the rest of the property. The thugs simply park next to the road and walk the 200 feet into the campground. Now Yankees love them some gates. You can always tell where a Yankee has a vacation house in the south by the gate on the driveway leading up to the house. Most don't have fences around the property just driveway gates. As with most of the gates, you could drive around the gate but I guess the bad people would never figure that out. Down here a gate just tells us that a Yankee owns that house, so we don't throw our Sundrop bottles and Moonpie wrappers into a Southerner's yard. You betcha. Anyway, you guys got me side tracked again. This campsite was only two feet longer than our small motorhome. This had to be the shortest and steepest campsite that we have ever "camped" in. The campground was built entirely into the hill leading down into the lake. I had to back The Love Boat at an angle to keep from striking the beautiful brick wall ten feet behind out campsite. I believe that I used the term moron to describe the person that built that campground or RV resort as they wanted to be called. By big ole hairy butt. It was a YMSU that I didn't recognize as an YMSU. I guess I was listening to Christmas music that day and missed something.
I was told by someone my blog is wordy. Tough.
Al
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