Halloween 2013

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Halloween 2013, a set on Flickr.

Here’s a gallery of 140 pictures from Halloween 2013. Many thanks to everyone who helped to make it both spooky and sweet.

Halloween 2012 Photos

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Halloween 2012, a set on Flickr.

These are the photos that I took in the weeks prior to and on Halloween 2012. We had some family help with carving pumpkins and creating a few new headstones. Then some folks came in costume to help creep out the kiddies.

There are over 120 photos in the set on Flikr. Click on through to see them all. Some were taken so that we can write some description of how we do certain things for those who want to do something similar elsewhere.

Thanks to all who helped.

Halloween Hangout 2012

2012-10-27 22.04.12cHalloween is well and truly upon us. I can tell from the mass of junk assembled in our front yard and the banking alerts arising from the candy spend.

We’ll be up to our old tricks and expect a fairly typical amount of traffic. It could be as many as 400 kids. The weather is perfect, but it is mid-week.

There are those who for various reasons may not get to see any trick or treaters this year. We decided to setup a Google Hangout so that others might share in our action.

A Google Hangout “On Air” is streamed via You Tube and anyone can watch. It’s also recorded. You may be able to hear us, but we won’t be able to hear you.

We should get underway around 5:30 pm CDT. I’ll update this post with a link to the stream once it goes live.

It should be live now. Here’s the URL: http://www.youtube.com/embed/aWLzm-abz9g

Web Works: Preparing For Halloween 2011

Although our recent trip to Canada delayed things a week or so, we’re now fully engaged in preparations for Halloween 2011. The most obvious sign is that the spider web was built in the front yard over the weekend.

We also went on our annual pumpkin hunt, this time choosing the local farmer’s market over a more distant source in the countryside. We found our Great Pumpkin for the year, a 125 pound monster (!) that I simply cannot lift on my own. It’s the largest that we’ve ever found.

More pics to follow as things progress.

A Not-So Chilling Tale Of Halloween Fog

The past few years our annual Halloween display included fog effects augmented by the use of “chillers” to cool the output of the fog machines. This year we tried a new design for fog chillers. This is a little report on the differences, and why the new design was something of a disappointment.

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Halloween 2010: Part 2 – The Soundtrack

Not only do we stage a pretty good set of visuals for the Halloween kiddies, we support it with sound and lights, too. We usually have 2-3 kw of sound reinforcement fed by a couple of Logitech Squeezeboxes. It’s 3 or 4 pair of powered monitors like my Behringer B2031As and a couple of Behringer B2030A powered subwoofers. It’s not uber-high-end, but it’s clean and can get very loud when necessary.

The past couple of years I’ve been taking the easy route and using a simple mixed track that combines several commercial sound effects CDs for the season. They’re fine but I’ve always wanted to make it more musical, to mix the sounds effects with recognizable musical tracks.

My own tastes run toward Pink Floyd as appropriate for the night. That’s what I always play during the setup process. I’ve got everything they’ve ever recorded, including various symphonic remakes. I’ve also go the various members solo records, some of which seem appropriate.

However, Pink Floyd alone seems a little one-dimensional. I think that there may be value in crowd-sourcing ideas for the sound track. So I ask you; what would you pick as part of an ominous soundtrack for Halloween? All ideas welcome.

There’s two weeks before the big day so I need to start soon if I’m to get it done. If I actually get a custom mixed track assembled I’ll publish the playlist so you get a sense of what was done.

Halloween 2010: Part 1 – The Web