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HULK'in
BTW, while I appreciate the folks who have asked if they can donate/PayPal to cover the costs of the lights and (wind powered and carbon offsett'ed!) electricity, I've never asked for donations and don't plan to change that. While it is a bit of work to put up all the Christmas stuff, I do it anyway for the neighborhood kids and the web site is just my way of saying "Merry Christmas" to folks around the world. If you feel compelled to make some sort of contribution, my kids have celiac disease ... so make a donation to the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research - tell 'em Komar.Org sent 'ya! ;-)
2007_10_05: The warmup for Christmas is the halloween decorations webcam which was turned on today. Over 7,000 lights in the Halloween Decorations plus giant inflatable Frankenstein, Pumpkin, Witch, SpongeBob SquarePants and Homer Simpson - D'OH!!! ;-)
2007_10_21: Hulk's Long Lost Twin Brother comes home. But I only have one Santa Hat ... so should I put both up for Christmas?!? ;-)
2007_10_24: Turned the Christmas Blog on a bit early in case Halloween fans wanted to start commenting.
2007_10_31: Another crazy-fun Halloween night! Over 200 trick-or-treaters. The kids had some great costumes and said the halloween display ROCKED. The adults (who enjoyed the dixie cups of Port and Baileys that I poured for them) also had some appreciative words. Check out all the action in the time-lapse halloween movies and the funny commentary in the halloween blog. Come back for halloween 2008! ;-)
2007_11_07: Passed $20,000 raised for the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Disease - what a great way to start off the Christmas Season - please consider adding your direct donation too.
2007_11_16: Thanksgiving is early this year, so I've already started putting the Christmas Lights out on the lawn, especially because we have had some balmy 60°F weather - sure beats doing it at below freezing with the chilly wind.
2007_11_25: Still have a handful of things left to add to the Christmas Display such as SpongeBob SquarePants & Frosty and the Snowman Family ... plus some minor code tweaks and documention updates. But decided what the heck, lets turn on all three webcams plus X10 controls for testing purposes. Got immediately pounded by Internet surfers - people are anxious for Christmas! A few minor issues, but the software, web servers, and entire system was pretty solid and by far the best "first day" for the Christmas Lights. I'll take some pictures later this week.
2007_11_29: Have been doing minor touchups/additions the last couple of days, but everything is now deployed - final tally is just over 17,000 lights pulling 65 amps. My electricity costs ~10 cents/KWH ... and since I run it for 5 hours, that means it's about $3.50/day ... but reduce that by the percentage amount that Internet surfers turn the lights OFF! And given that I use Wind Power and am Carbon Neutral, even Al Gore would be proud of these Christmas Lights ... ;-)
2007_12_03: Have added some pictures on the main christmas lights page. Everything is working very smooth despite some 30-40 MPH gusts tonight that knocked over a Snowman, plus the Reindeer and Tin Man ... but I just staked 'em back in and they are back in action!
2007_12_13: Despite several storms that have dropped over a foot of snow, the Christmas Display is holding up well. Ditto for the web servers as traffic continues to climb from all over the world. And here is a great Christmas Story! A radio station in Galena, Alaska raised a $1,000 for Celiac Disease Research - awesome job by Station Manager Shadow Steel ... and isn't it cool how technology can bring some Christmas Cheer to the remote places of the Earth. Read the whole story (with pictures and video) about the KIYU Burrito Reindeer! ;-)
2007_12_17:
The Denver Post writes "Merry Clickmas" with
hilarious pictures - more info on the
Christmas news page.
And I've done a mid-month update on the
Christmas Maps -
web surfers from 122 countries have come by so far.
