A quick doodle from a number of years back to get everyone in the Halloween spirit
Oct312015
Archives
Oct242014
How Far Will You Go – The Haunted Trail 2014
Time to get back on the path.. the Haunted Path that is! As mentioned in previous posts, we held our Annual Halloween Cookout October 4th. This was earlier than usual thanks to a race I participate in being moved from a Friday to a Saturday. Although it was stressful in the past having the race on Friday night it allowed me just enough time to get everything in place to have the party the following night. Then we were overlayed with a friend’s party that pushed us to the early October slot. One thing for sure, it was definitely better going not having run a half marathon the night before. Unfortunately there was a lot of rain leading up to the party date, but luckily it broke on the 3rd allowing me to finish clearing the trail and getting at least the danger areas cautioned off. That left me an early morning to start getting things in place for standard elements (firewood, torches, general cleanup). My friend Paul came over at noon and we started the long process of setting up the trail. This year we made a couple of key changes. The first thing we did was cut the path short and utilized a loop back to the start. That essentially eliminated a very steep hill our guests had to navigate at the end.. in the dark – we definitely got some thanks for that. The second major change is this year we took a different approach to the decoration order. Last year, you may recall, we produced some tears (link here). A badge of honor for us.. but probably not the nicest thing to do to your unsuspecting guests. To address that we opted for a “How Far Will You Go” approach. Translated – the farther you go .. the scarier it is likely to be. Your choice, turn back whenever you start getting uneasy or the kids start shaking.
For starters, the path has grown over the years and now has more decorations than I can feature in this post. Instead, I’ve picked out a few shots of new decs or wanted to provide a few comments on. The full trail can be found on the EddieSoft Gallery Site (link here). Be sure and check that out to experience the full Haunted Trail experience.
So, the start of the trail was filled with the tame air-blown decorations.
Nothing too scary here and something the kids will have no problems with.. unless they happen to be afraid for large purple arachnids in which case maybe not so good of a start.
Hit the jump to experience more of the trail .. if you dare!
Oct152014
Project: Gonna Need New Shorts
It appears the teeming millions are getting restless and have moved on to outright taunting and casting disparaging remarks on the lack of output this month. Normally I would give some elaborate excuse as to why I’ve been negligent from my duties all in an effort to mask likely pure laziness. Fortunately, in this particular case I’ve just been really busy. The first part of this month was dedicated to the Annual Halloween Party and the days since them has been either spent on my day (often leaking into nights as of late) job or processing hundreds of photos for this and upcoming posts. In an effort to prevent burning effigies figured it was time to get something out…I don’t want to here anything about nightmares out there.. you demanded a post.. I picked this one!
If you are like me, you are probably looking for another pair of shorts about now. Before you grab your AR’s and head into the woods, I should assure you this menace is just a decoration. Anyone that has been a reader of this blog in the month of October know I enjoy Halloween even more than Christmas. Each year we have our Annual Halloween Party and along with it usually comes a homemade decoration to add to the collection. A popular part of our party is the Haunted Trail (link here). Each year it gets bigger and bigger and each year my additions get more elaborate. This year was a big year for new designs. This killer clown was one of two for this year – yes, you will get to see the other one in an upcoming post. Here’s a night shot from the trail .. damn, this thing still scares me every time I look at it. Thought it would provide some therapy to get over my phobia .. failed
Hit the jump if you want to see how I went about making this decoration. The best part of this is that it gives me an easy platform to produce new additions for years to come. There were three goals going in – “scare-ability”, “pose-ability” and “storage-ability”. Think I hit this one out of the park!
Nov092013
The Trail of Tears – The Haunted Trail 2013
Let me apologize up front for any lost sleep as a result of this post. Feel free to bail now if you are prone to screaming or fainting at the sight of scary scenes because today’s topic is loaded with them. Now, on the other hand, if you are a fan of Halloween as much as I am you will be quite happy! We held our annual Halloween Party a couple of weeks back. A staple for that event is the Haunted Trail that Paul R. and I create for the guests to enjoy .. if they dare. Similar to last year’s trail (link here), the 2013 version was a definite labor. On a previous post it was mentioned I ran the Screaming Pumpkin Marathon Relay (link here). Taking two laps of that event puts me at the Half Marathon distance which closes out my race season for the year. The details of that race can be obtained in that related post, but the key aspect of that race is that it ends at midnight which means we do not get back home until close to 1:30am. The energy drain and the lack sleep w0uld be enough on its own, but the day after the race … or depending on how you look at it, the day the race ended, was the day of our party! The week leading up to the day is spent making sure the house is ready to go, water is hauled to fill the well and the yard is ready for the bonfire. This allows me to focus on building the Haunted Trail once the race is over. To get everything done I need to start the process no later than 9am. From 9 until 15 minutes before the party starts (5:30pm) I am pretty much on the go hauling the decorations into the woods, making sure all the danger areas are taped off, putting up the trail path lights and then crafting the trail experience. This year Paul even came out earlier (1pm) to allow more time for setting up his decorations – pretty much tradition these days that we are finishing it off as the guests are starting to arrive.
Another tradition is each year we go bigger and bigger – last year we took the big step and added power to Paul’s side all the way down to the bridge. Upping the game we added power to my side this year! If this keeps up we just might have to start the day before (in the future we hope to pull if forward to get it away from the race and fit with our schedules better). I took pictures of all the decorations along the trail both during the day and then tried to capture them again at night – used my camera phone so the pictures leave a lot to be desired .. although that might actually add to the spookiness. Rather than overload this post with all the images, figured it would be better if I just highlighted the new elements of the trail. Please visit the full gallery up on Smugmug to experience all the Haunted Trail has to offer (link here) – note, they were placed in the reverse order as they appear on the Trail. Additionally you can visit Paul’s website to see the pictures he was able to take (link here).
The pinnacle of the new decorations this year has to be the clown head. Everyone knows by now I HATE CLOWNS. My adage – the only good clown is a dead clown. Turns out Halloween City must have taken this to heart because sure enough, they had a DEAD clown. When Linda and came upon this while perusing the aisle, my eyes lit up. There was no way we were going to pass up a decapitated clown with a meat hook through the skull.
Pretty creepy eh? Not as terrifying as a real clown but still pretty creepy. The next addition to the trail came from my parents. They know of my affinity for this holiday and tend to pick up items they find that fit the bill. Always appreciated their openness to my weird hobby. The skull below actually glowed nicely in the night – oh, did I mention the Trail at night is nearly pitch black except for the decorations and small lights that outline the walking path? The thick woods doesn’t let a lot of ambient light in which really enhances the experience. You can actually see the stakes in the shot below – those have velcro on them that holds little LED nights. I do not want anyone getting lost down there especially since it parallels a stream and this year the hedge apples were raining out of the trees – the path had to be rerouted from last year for the safety of the guests.
Hit the jump to see all the new decorations… unless you are scaaaarrrreeeedddd.
Oct272011
Phoadtography: Visiting Our Neighbors to the North Pt 1
There is no rest for the weary these days. I can see the edge of October and it is approaching fast. The good news is I am down to one more post after this one and I think that is doable … at the moment. I ended up losing yesterday because I forgot to process all the pictures for this post. Soooo last night was spent getting that done and uploading them to our Smugmug account (Eddiesoft) so I could post tonight.
Today’s entry is from our trip up to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in early October. Linda and the boys were competing in the Petit Prix, also known as the Teacup Dog Agility Association National’s. Although I have really nothing to do with this since I neither train the dogs or run them in the ring, that doesn’t stop me from taking credit for how well they competed in the event. Both Kerby and Rizzi came home with a pile of ribbons and Rizzi even made the Semi-Finals consisting of the top 84 dogs in the whole event. Of course, there is a reason I get to take some credit…. I have to take off work and help Linda haul everything to and from the car and these toy dogs travel heavier than Paris Hilton. The good news is Linda drove most of the way providing ample time to snap some shots along the way. With that, let’s get to the pictures eh ? (in my best Wisconsin accent)
Keeping with the Halloween theme from the previous posts, I’ll start with these. My eyes lit up when I saw this pumpkin. Just imagine the cool pumpkin carving I could do with one of these babies. It might take a chainsaw instead of a Dremel, but I’m definitely up for the challenge.
Hit the jump for the rest of the pictures from the trip
Oct212011
Confront Thy Fears – Halloween Party Pt 1
I see my absence from posting hasn’t shocked anyone into calling out a search party. Alas, all is well, but life is a little hectic at the moment. We had Teacup Agility Nationals this month, new international assignments at work and of course in the midst of all this is our annual Halloween Party. If you recall from a previous post (link here), Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and both Linda and I enjoy decorating up the place and having some of our friends over for a few libations while enjoying a bonfire. This year we expanded our haunted trail, but more on that in the future for today is all about orange colored foam and implements of destruction.
So first off, a quick quiz.
- What is my favorite Halloween activity?
- What is my most feared and despised occupation … hint, some would call it a phobia?
Queue annoying Jeopardy music. Please put your pens down, it is time to reveal the answer.
Did you answer correctly? I will also accept decorating and scaring neighbor kids for the first answer, but ANY answer other than #$@#$%^&$ clowns is completely unacceptable. So it was time again to add another pumpkin to the collection. This one officially brings the collection to 18. As with the last 5 or 6, I wanted to make my own pattern. Half the fun is trolling Google Images trying to find the perfectly lit photo or image to transform into a scary nightlight. This year turned out to be a little frustrating. After trying all my favorite keyword searches like ghoul, demon, vampire etc. I kept coming up empty on good specimens to transform. This step takes a tremendous amount of time and I didn’t have time to waste on an image that wasn’t going to produce a nice silhouette for a pumpkin. There were one or two that might have worked, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Time to take a step back and go at it from a different angle. A self assessment was needed to figure out what would make this year’s carving memorable. An inner dialog was initiated with one common question. What creeps me out? If there was something out there that scared me, made me uneasy and gave me the heebie jeebies, what would it be? A certain president jumped to mind, but quickly dismissed it since American voters have wised up to socialism so what else was there? … and then a light bulb went off. There is really only one obvious answer. It was time to confront my phobia head on… take it by the big nose and beat it into submission. To say I was unprepared for what was ahead would be an understatement. A few key taps in the Google search field S C A R Y C L O W N produced a collection of images so hideous, so vile and so demonic that I broke out in a sweat and nearly screamed. However, I was committed to this task and no mime loose in the department store lipstick aisle was going to deter me. Slowly I navigated through the thumbnails which were not surprising 85% pictures of Pennywise but there was not an image that had enough contrast required to produce a good stencil. Still sweating from staring at all those clowns, I was forced to switch to my secret backup. Here is a tip to keep between the LifeIntrigued family shhhhh tattoo stencils make great pumpkin stencils starting points shhhhhhh. Turns out our crafts have some similarities and one of the reasons I enjoy watching tattoo artists and their reality shows. A quick jump to TattooDonkey.com and within seconds I had the base image. Disclaimer. The image selected can be found by entering Scary Clown in the search field. I have no intention of providing anyone else the stencil above and all rights remain with the original creator. Now I have already blogged about how the transformation from image to stencil goes (link here), so I will not bore you with those details again.
Hit the jump to see some additional comments and pictures of the final product.
Oct162010
Let the Ghoul Show You the Way
Let’s just keep the Halloween theme going. The previous post was driven by our annual Halloween Cookout Party. While I was gathering up the materials for the fire pit patio, I decided to go ahead and pick up some extra items in order to attempt a new decoration idea that I had been kicking the tires on for some time. Each year, we try to add one new decoration to the collection. Typically these are the latest air blown offerings, but this year we went in a different direction. Living out in the country, it can be difficult to actually navigate to the house. This is even more difficult at dark since there is little ambient light in the area. This makes for a great stargazing, but not so great on the driving. Oh, and to top it off, the GPS directs everyone to my neighbor’s driveway which is a down the road a bit. What started as a internal debate on how to ease the difficulty for our guests resulted in this new decoration:
This particular shot was taken before darkness fell making it look a tad less scarier than it did once the guests started arriving. Not only did this fit the overall theme of the party, but due to the clever hand placement, it also provided a functional role since it was placed at the road as an indicator for drivers to turn left into the correct driveway. I wanted it to last from year to year, be able to withstand various weather conditions and (most of all) be relatively easy to disassemble and store away. I don’t know about you, but those types of conditions almost always lead me to PVC. In the sharing spirit, hit the jump to see how it was built.
Nov132008
Hallmark Wins
Sorry for the long delay. I have been fighting a stupid cold for about 4 days now and it is not showing any signs of letting up. In general I rarely come down with colds, but when I do they tend to be the nastiest strains on the continent. Since I don’t take any medications unless I absolutely have to, I resort to the bombardment of Vitamin C. The guess at this point is I sunk it in pretty deep by running 4 miles during the early stages. This may have weakened my immune system enough for it to take a stranglehold. Don’t worry, I’ll make it through.
Fortunately, I identified blog material during that run. Since treadmill running is an immense bore, I always have the TV or stereo going to keep my mind off the fact I’m at most moving back and forth about 6 inches for 30+ minutes at a time. This is probably one of the few times I am actually exposed to commercials beyond when I am getting ready for work in the mornings. Similar to when I was forced to watch 7 minutes of Obama’s infomercial because it came on before completing my mileage for the day, I caught my first Christmas commercial of the season. Yes, on Friday Nov 7th, Hallmark ran a Christmas add for some kind of talking giftbag. Thanksgiving is all but irrelevant these days and my guess every year they will push the Christmas season even further ahead. I already see Christmas decorations start hitting the retail shelves before Halloween is over. I’ve decided to honor my favorite pumpkin holiday and commit to not purchasing any Christmas themed item before Thanksgiving. Mind you, this does not apply to purchasing gifts ahead of time. My wife likes to get that out of the way as soon as possible in contrast to my theory that the best deals are on December 23rd – Chia Pets for everyone!
Oct312008
Have A Ghoul Day Today
Happy Halloween everyone! Today happens to be my favorite holiday. I am not exactly sure how this came to be, but since I was a little demon I have always been fascinated by this day. I still remember a number of my costumes ranging from the classic cheese Spiderman to the pretty cool Zorro. The latter was especially awesome because my brother’s friend Kevin taught me how to greet the candy givers in Spanish which helped complete the look. The most enjoyable part of the holiday has to be the barbaric massacre of the orange flesh. That’s right, the butchering of the pumpkin. There has to be a study out there that correlates the number of late year stabbings by the sheer viciousness a youth attacks a pumpkin. I have visions of Orange Juice right now and I don’t know why. As it turns out, it became kind of a quest with my brother to make a scarier and cooler pumpkin carving year over year. Over those years, the process was refined to near perfection. We had the perfect tool for gut scraping, the approach to the scariest eyes and the best cutting utensils to create a smooth and flowing cut. Needless to say, I think after the first year, there were no more triangles in our pumpkins. Now I have a urge to go back and find the old pictures. Would be pretty neat to have a pumpkin through the years collage – note to self.
We were also able to get together along with his kids to carve some pumpkins a number of years ago. Looked like the skilz’ had passed on to the next generation. I am not sure if Ron has continued to carve, but I have carried on and have continued to refine and try new avenues. The largest improvement came with the foam pumpkins. These are fantastic in the sense you do not have to worry about the rot. Nothing is more disappointing that throwing out a green fuzzy glob after spending so many hours making it just right. It also allowed for more precise carving. About 15 years ago, I had an idea of using the Dremel (I am not taking credit for the idea because I assume many others had done it, but I can honestly say I had not seen it done at the time). The catalyst for using the Dremel is the desire to do the now common half cuts. I laugh every single time I think of that night because I was using the engraving ball bit for about 2 hours straight. I got off the floor and looked in the mirror to see my entire shirt and face covered in pumpkin flesh – the pumpkin rocked though – it had a Blues hockey theme with blues symbols for the eyes (one reversed), a puck for the nose and I thinking a missing tooth grin (everything was half cuts so it actually stayed fresh for over two months. With the new foam pumpkins, I can work the half cuts to the precise depth I want and get very clean edges.
Here are my 2008 additions. Note, the spider was stock, but I work a lot on making my own patterns from photos or drawings I find on the web. A number of hours with a graphics program can turn out some pretty cool designs. The werewolf and demon were results of that type of effort. Note, I also embellish a lot with bats for the sole purpose of solidifying the cutouts and hopefully adding to the longevity.
Here is a darker version to give the full effect
Figured I would also show some of my other efforts
and with less lights – they definitely look better in person and generally get good comments about them from the Trick or Treaters that come throughout the night.
Have a safe and Happy Halloween!!