Countdown Clocks
Welcome to Texturn Christmas!
My name is Steve Ott and along with my gorgeous wife Sally, live in Fort Worth, Texas. I have the most wonderful wife in the world, as she lets me pursue my Christmas light hobby, and my other interests, all I want.
How my obsession got started:
In December 2007, I really did not feel like decorating the house, so I was going to put up the bare minimum only.
While I was putting up the net lights on the bushes in the front of the house, I noticed that about half of the lights were burnt out.
I decided that I would replace them instead of trying to find the bad bulbs, I'm kind of lazy (and I had not yet learned about light testers). So I went to either Lowes, or Home Depot, I don't remember which. As I was walking into the store, I had to walk past this display that had the GE Lights and Sounds of Christmas going. I looked at that little contraption and thought this would be kind of neat! So I bought it, brought it home, and starting hooking up lights to it.
Numerous trips back to the store for more lights and extension cords (you will need alot), however, by the time I was finished, I had over 4000 lights hooked to that little machine.
Then I began to search around on the web, where I found an entire community of Christmas light fanatics. I found out how to computerize, and animate the lights. How to make Mega-Trees, arches, mini-trees, and all kinds of different things.
I learned about D-Light, Animated Lighting, Light-O-Rama, Vixen software, and a whole slew of different companies who all make products for the holiday lighting seasons.
I found numerous forums dedicated to Christmas lighting, and all the other holidays too! One of the best is Lone Star Holidays.
I settled on using Light-O-Rama equipment, due to the software being easy to learn and use. Also, everyone on all the forums said they were a great company to do business with, and they are!
So that little box I originally bought for $55.00 on sale has now turned into an exciting and fascinating hobby.
For December 2008, I had 64 channels of LOR, 14,700 lights, close to a mile of extension cords, and had the time of my life doing it!!
For the 2009 season, I have added two more controllers for a total of 96 channels, and should have over 20,000 lights - final count to be determined after I get them all put up.
|
