Outside decorations are beginning to go up.

Last week the magic cave had white tinsel and foam attached to it. LED Blue and clear icicles are now up. Decorations in the main lounge window out front and window around the side have also been put in their place for the season.

A dead end area to the side of the house (which has been a junk yard longer than I've been on this earth) has been cleaned out to make way for four of the new 'Light-O-Rama CTB16PC' computerised Christmas light controllers.

Today the plan is for some of the rope light path borders to be put out. Right now they are laying in the sun so that they will be easier to bend into the correct shape.

The new lights for this year arrived in Australia last week and were picked up today. The order contains 4000 new LEDs - some in white, blue, or red - at a cost of $1220. This bumps this year's expenditure up to $2375, the highest it has ever been.

The newer lights mean that the Mega Tree will contain double the amount of LEDs this year, and the garden bushes will no longer have clear incandescent mini lights.

The display will begin to be set up in the next day or two. New set up photos will likely be added sometime during October.

Late this morning, the door bell rang. When answered, it was a delivery person here to hand me a rather large box which contained the new Christmas light controllers for syncronising lights to music this year.

So the assembly of the controllers has now begun. Once finished, an electrician will put in a new electrical circuit to run all the lights. This is the first time ever this is happening, purely as a safety measure due to the high amp capacity that each controller is capable of running.

I have also been informed that the ordered Christmas lights will be arriving in Australia during September - that's only next month!

I'm estimating that lights will commence being erected outside during October.

A couple of new photos have been uploaded to the 2008 page and the upgrade costs updated on the history page.

The webcam quality has been improved also, although live streaming will not be available until October or November.

Its been a few months since the last post, so it is about time I update all you Christmas light fanatics.

First of all, a new Christmas lights order of about 5,000 LED lights has been placed with a manufacturer in China via Starlight Christmas Superstore. I should be getting these in August or September sometime.

This year I am dumping my current method for computerising lights (Olsen595) with a commercial alternative that can do much more (Light-O-Rama) including operate the higher voltage lights safely. Financially, this single change is the killer this year.

After adjusting the amount of new lights and controllers that I'll be getting for 2008, the financial requirement now sits at approximately $2200. So far I've managed to raise just over $1000.

In other news, the computer page has been modified to display information in a similar fashion to the detail and history pages. However, this text is still based on the 2007 display at this stage.

The website has again been updated with a few more goodies:
1. There is now a streaming webcam available during the Christmas season
2. The 2008 photo gallery has been created (with a single photo)
3. The videos page as been redesigned
4. There are now two new pages - Details and History - in place of the former 'Quick Facts' area.

I am now at the stage of choosing what is needed for 2008 such as new lights and computer controllers. There will not be too many new lights this year as new computer controlling hardware is necessary which will cost in the thousands. A record breaking $2600 is the estimate upgrading cost for 2008, providing I can pull together enough cash.