Monday, December 2, 2013

Day One: What just happened to my brain?

I am standing out in the cold watching christmas lights flash, fade, and chase all over my house. The music is timed perfectly with the lights, I obsess over which lights come on with which beats. What additional effects I can add? What if I…. stop. How did this happen?

Allow me to rewind a bit.

I'm the kind of guy who likes to decorate at Halloween and Christmas, but I don't usually put more than a couple hours effort into decorating. The tree gets two strands of lights, the living room maybe two or three more. Outside if I'm daring I'll put a few strands of white along the reachable gutters and maybe a couple more multicolored strands in a small tree.

I was happy with that.

Over the years I started seeing some pretty elaborate Halloween decorations that I thought were cool. Fog machines, light displays, animatronics, things that really created an emotional mood. At Christmas every neighborhood has houses with great lights on them. I always enjoy seeing them, but I never felt compelled to add to my modest display.

Then last year I saw this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XG4jY9MCYk


One guy, with a computer, time, and passion made something beautiful and memorable, and I decided I must do something. What he did looked completely over the top, but it was exciting and original and absolutely worth the effort (little did I know how much restraint he had shown in his production, more on that later).

But how did he do that? Is there an easy way to get started making computer light shows? A little googling and I ended up at www.lightorama.com. This company is pretty much the only game in town as near as I can tell. OK, but the most basic controller was $300(!). Whew, how serious am I about this? That's a steep entry fee for a dabbler like myself. I put it off.

Fast forward to two weeks ago when I took the plunge and just ordered the "Starter Kit" and hoped for the best. I am glad I did, but it is a tremendously slippery slope. I've spent most of my waking hours over the last two weeks reading, learning, sequencing, and planning how to do more. With the rest of this blog I hope to chronicle the journey, the uncertainty, the mistakes, the successes, and perhaps ease the way for those to come after.

Welcome to the ride.

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