Nagel Family Website

Blog changes

Hi, and thanks for stopping by! We've made some big changes to the blog - including shutting it down! With social networking and micro-blogging these days, there's no need for us to blog. So check out the latest on our homepage, and thanks for visiting.

I finally took some video of my Christmas lights! If you can’t make it over, here’s a sample:

What’s going on here? Well there are 600 commercial mini-lights in the tree out front. Those are new this year. Just about everything else is the same as last year:

• 600 Colored mini-net-lights on the front porch railings
• 600 Colored and white mini-light balls hanging in the porch area
• 750 White tree wraps around the porch supports
• 351 White snowflake mini-lights on upper roof
• 750 White icicle lights on lower (porch) roof
• 300 Mini lights surrounding the upper windows and wreath
• 2 lit, molded candy canes with 36′ of candy cane rope lights (432 mini lights)

In all, there are 4,387 lights (but 1 blew out, and I haven’t replaced it yet). Notice the strange movement in the 3rd floor window? That’s Santa:

Like last year, the lights are on from 6-9pm most nights (often later). The music is broadcast over the FM radio, so you can stay nice & warm while you listen to the music & watch the lights.

I’ve got some big changes planned for next year (yes, I’m already planning next year). Merry Christmas!!

This entry was posted by Eric on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 9:36 pm and is filed under Christmas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

It took 3 weeks again this year, but thanks to the late Thanksgiving, I’m done a week early: the Christmas lights are all up!

Unfortunately, not too many changes from 2007’s show. I dropped the swag lights from the roof and replaced them with snowflakes. I really hated those old swag lights. They were just a tangled mess. I left out the blue icicle lights, which hung from the porch, because they just looked out of place.

But we did add the 6 strings of commercial lights that we bought last year, but didn’t use. Man, those things are bright! And strung in the tree in the front, they look cool. So we’ve added about 10% more lights this year (4,387), and really have things maxed out now. I ran the system will all lights on for about 20 minutes today, to see if I’d blow a fuse, but so far so good.

So if you’re in the neighborhood, stop by on Black Friday (Nov 28th) when we turn the lights on for the first time this year. I think it’s going to be 7:00, like last year. Hope you can make it!

This entry was posted by Eric on Sunday, November 16th, 2008 at 4:06 pm and is filed under Christmas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

We’re at the half-way point… only 6 months ’til Christmas! I know, summer just started, but now’s the time to start planning this year’s light show. Last year was a vast improvement on the year before, and I’ve learned a lot that’ll help me this year. While I’d love to upgrade to a Light-o-Rama kit, I doubt I’m allowed to drop over $600 on the lights this year (although if I could program TSO’s Music Box Blues, I may find a way to do it). The $600 isn’t the big deal, but the hundreds of dollars in lights & extension cords (plus the tens of hours of planning & set-up) is a big deal.

Instead I’ll focus on getting the most out of my Mr. Christmas and arranging the lights appropriately. I’ll probably add more LED lights, replacing any of the old ones that are no longer working, and work on arranging things properly (top to bottom). I also plan on adding some more daytime decorations, which will keep Laura and I busy (cutting & painting) this fall.

This entry was posted by Eric on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Christmas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

I took advantage of the great weather we had this weekend & took down the Christmas lights yesterday. I would’ve liked to leave them up, but most of the snow melted & it was in the mid-30’s yesterday, so in 3 hours, I took down & put away the lights.

I’ve eyeballed the system I want to use next year, and hope to use more LEDs. I’m not tossing my existing lights ’cause they work fine, but if the cost of LEDs come down, I’ll add them in. Depending on my finances, Halloween may be upgraded in 2008, too!

This entry was posted by Eric on Monday, December 31st, 2007 at 9:46 am and is filed under Christmas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Ah, the beauty of editing timestamps in Wordpress! No, I’m not writing this on Christmas day. But I wanted to write this post so I don’t forget then.

I hope all my readers have a great Christmas this year. Try not to stress too much, and sit back and enjoy time with your families.

This entry was posted by Eric on Tuesday, December 25th, 2007 at 9:58 am and is filed under Christmas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

My Christmas lights this year are now “award-winning!” We won the Town of Tonawanda Paramedics Award for Best Classic Display for the 2007 Ken-Ton Energy Efficient Holiday Decorating Contest (try saying that in 1 breath)!

So what’s so energy efficient about my display?

• The lights flash on and off to the music. On average, less than 1/3 of my lights are on at a time (if I have everything on, it uses about 1.6 Kw of energy… when it’s running, it stays at about 550 watts)
• We only run the lights a few hours a night (3-4). Because of the speaker, I don’t want to disturb the neighbors too much. As I drive to the gym at 5:45 in the morning, I’m amazed at how many people just leave their lights on all night long.
• The spotlight on my sign is an LED spotlight. That baby uses 1.5 watts / hr; my average cost of electricity is $0.15 / Kwh, so running it for an hour costs me $0.000225. Or, I can run it for nearly 45 hours and it’ll cost me $0.01.
• All of the power in the house is provided by Green Mountain Energy Corporation. Currently, that’s 90% hydroelectric and 10% New Wind. (For comparison, the average mix of resources supplying New York includes: Natural Gas (22%), Nuclear (29%), Hydroelectric (18%), Coal (15%), Oil (14%), and Other (<3%)).

Mr. Parker: It’s a Major Award!
Swede: Shucks I wouldn’t know that. It looks like a lamp.
Mr. Parker: What is a lamp, you nincompoop? It’s a Major Award. I won it!
Swede: Damn, hell, you say won it?
Mr. Parker: Yeah, mind power, Swede; mind power.

This entry was posted by Eric on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 4:26 pm and is filed under Christmas, Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.