January 31, 2016
Cruise to Mexico
Got aboard about 3pm, gangway removed at 4pm, the weather was nasty and did not leave the harbor until 9pm. No pictures.
January 17, 2016
Upgrade LEDs
2014, first year, versus 2015:
I don't know why, but the Nutcrackers were far dimmer than the first year. The voltage is the same, right at 12 volts, but all six of the LEDs were dim. Unacceptably dim. I had to do something. So I bought new 12V LEDs off Amazon. $7 for 300 LEDs, I wouldn't be out of much if is didn't work.
But they worked perfectly! The LEDs can be snipped in threes, I ran six, cutting the existing wires and soldered to new, backed with plastic to glue over the existing LEDs. Check out the difference between to original and the new:
January 11, 2016
California Sun = fade
Santa/Sled/Reindeer is over 25 years of age. Started on the lawn, the deer had wire mounts. The wire mounts broke, and I started stringing the deer in the sky. Mostly headed west, with the left side on the sunny southern side. Nearly three years of exposure to California sun. As you can see, California sun is a killer, fading colors, plastic brittle.
January 06, 2016
H2O --
Reference: Blog entry of Dec 17, 2010 -- H2O-NO. Note, in the movie the radar map had the rain "green". Green will cause drowning deaths if people fall.
Today the radar map went past green, into yellow, and that red spot was my house. Roughly like in the shower, full bore, except cold and outside:
Along with the rain we had wind, gusted to 33 mph, hurricane level. The street was a white water river and an Orca was leaping in the lake that was our front yard.
