October 15th 2006

I have not had much energy to post over the last week.  Lots has been going on and it's been hard to find time to sit at the computer and post some updates.  I thought that I'd at least post an update covering the latest big developments...

The coffin is done.  It's been tested quite a bit and now runs 24 hours a day with the help of a waterproof motion sensor extension cord that I built for it.  I moved the lighting so that the face is highlighted along with the ribcage and the interior lighting was changed to red which seems to work better with the fog. All of the electrical and air lines for the graveyard have been run (over 100 feet of air line and 75 feet of extension cords) run out of sight from the back yard to the air compressor in our shed. I had to change some of the lighting around because the lenses for both of my blue spot lights melted...  I am hoping to pick up something to replace them before Halloween. I want to do blue lighting in the graveyard this year.  Green will have to do if I can't find replacements in time though...
We ran out of space in the carport, so the haunt got extended out 9 feet into the driveway.  We had to create a roof for the new section of the haunt, so we built a roof out of 2x4 and tarp.  Not the prettiest thing, but it has kept everything inside the haunt dry through a few good rains already. Moving the haunt out into the driveway gave us more flexibility inside the carport, but has also forced me to build even more panels to fill in the gaps. The new roof gives us a 4 foot overhang all along the side, so we can have someone stationed outside to direct the kids and not get wet if it decides to rain on Halloween.
We did a little decorating with some old fence pieces that were donated by our next door neighbors (they got a new fence last week and were getting rid of a big section of the old fence).  With a little cornstalk, pumpkins and some jute netting, were not looking too bad for a one day set up.  I still have a lot of decorating to do outside, but it's coming together nicely.

Behind the scenes I tested all of the speakers and started setting up the sound system.  The lighting inside the haunt will wait until everything inside is set up so I can see where the lights need to go.

Becky and I have been working on a few more gravestones for the graveyard.  We have the rough outlines cut out.  Over the next few days we will get them sanded, painted and ready for placement in the graveyard.

The carport is cleared out and ready for the big scene to be set up...  My father in law stopped by today to talk about the main scene and his plans.  We built one of the major pieces for the scene.  I still have to build a few more panels and an entrance and exit door before I can even get started on setting up the supply lines.  I have a lot of electrical wire, speaker wire, and air lines to run before I can start setting up the decorations.

Halloween is only a couple of weeks away now.  I still have a ton of work to do behind the scenes if we're going to pull off a decent haunted walk through...