This Year's Christmas Card

Just so I don't forget...I'd like to get our family dressed up in 60's clothes and take a pfamily photo in front of our silver tree for this year's christmas card.

Top Secret Experimenting for 2008

So, last year I found this new type of lighting on the internet. Then, I saw it on TV. Now, I'm seeing it on instructables.com. Next year, it will be in my Christmas display. Now, I've just got to figure out the coolest way to incorporate it. Don't spread the word.

Christmas Shutters for Our House

Here are the new pineapple (symbol for "welcome") shutters I'm making for the house. I'm also making wooden snowmen that will hang right over the pineapples during the winter. I guess they will be attached with a picture hanger. The existing purple shutters will be taken down.

We're getting the house painted and a tiki hut built during the next two weeks. I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself.

Lots of New Ideas for 2008 Display

My calculus and management final exams are tomorrow.

I'm dying to get back to my Planet Christmas Forums, connect with fellow enthusiast freinds, and finish some projects.

I just got an idea that I CANNOT let go. I come up with so many (good) ideas, don't write them down, and lose them forever. Not this one. I'd like to hide a series of mini scenes in the garage display. They might be behing plexi glass or behind tissue paper. I'll put a few leds in each mini scene, then rig up the lights to a few remote controls.

Another idea...I'd like to build a scene that resembles the entrance to our development. We have a tall stucco fence covered in creeping fig (Florida version of ivy), a row of 7 large palm trees, a few stop signs, and two magnolia trees. Then, I'd like to build a replica of our house that will match the tropical village (my 2008 pet project). Our house will be easy to build because it's a basic, boxy Florida home. It's recognizable because of the off color scheme (purple/gray).

I'd like to get sand, great stuff exapndable foam, and that faux sandy-textured spray paint for the tropical village. I'd really like to have a water feature, but I'm scared to have water in the garage. I'm sure we can figure out some other laternative to real water.

Received a couple new Annalees from John recently. Had a few good finds at the local Goodwill last Saturday. More to come after final exams!!!

Second Anniversary Gift: Cotton

For a couples' first wedding anniversary, they get eachother paper. On the second, they get cotton.

I got him a fancy shirt with embroidered initials. He got me a giant Annalee. Once again, he did better.

Casualty of Christmas

John just had surgery on his knee. He went up and down the ladder one too many times this past Christmas season. Rehab should take a few weeks, and he's already doing better. It's been two days since the outpatient surgery. This was his 4th knee surgery...this time on the right leg. He stopped taking pain medication today. He has stayed off his feet and has been icing the knee every other hour. Today was his first walk.

Web Stats for Copeland Christmas

After the Post article and the news broadcast aired, we had a HUGE spike in web hits. We had a fairly significant spike in the last few days as well. I noticed a nice post about our display on a Christmas Enthusiast forum of which I'm a member. As a result, we had a bunch of hits. I enjoy understanding and thinking critically about the correlation between website hits and outside chatter about our display.

Garage Tear-Down Photo

I used Canon's Photostitch software to piece together 8 photos I took during the garage teardown. This is the raw output from the software...it's pretty cool. The distorted shape of the train track is the most noticeable sign of the software's limitations. I could have stood in a better position though too.

Starry Starry Night Backdrop for Garage Display

Did I mention we finished tearing down the garage two weeks ago? I painted 1/3 of the garage this weekend and will finish next weekend. Here's a shot I took two weeks ago while I was tearing down the backdrop. A How To for this backdrop can be found on our website here.
This is a photo of the ceiling. You can see the fluourescent light to the right. I had just torn down the plastic sheeting which was stapled to the ceiling between the cup hooks and the light fixture. You can see two sets of lights here (one blue and one clear). To the far left, you can see the black sheers (or curtains) that face the driveway where visitors stand.

Finally Updated CopelandChristmas.com

So, here's the run-down of the updates I've made. All these updates took me about 8 hours over the past two days (some are not listed). The bad part is that it's not done...I do global Search & Replace only when I am 100% certain it won't mess up anything. My Dreamweaver skills are still intermediate, so I don't trust myself doing S&R every time.......hence, things take me longer than they should.

• Added a 2008 display page
• Added a How To on elevated train tracks
• Updated the FM sign page with email link, new photos, more clear instructions
• Fixed header to show a light status of "off"
• Fixed the linking to the How To on the garage display child barrier
• Had ot change the link sitewide from "Why We Do It" to "Our Story." This way, all the header buttons fit across the screen.
• Changed the copyright date from 2007 to 2008 (on most pages)
• Changed garage video to a youtube link instead of launching an .avi or .wmv file
• Took off some old information, but instead of deleting it, I added it as a blog entry with an old date (clever!)
• Added a link from the Palm Beach Post about our display
• Fixed a ton of links

I still need to fix the North Poles How To. It just takes too long to download right now. Plus, I received an email from someone saying I may have said something wrong about wiring...uh oh.