Halloween '08

Halloween was a lot of fun, this year.

I've been wanting to create a haunted house, and took the first steps this year. In previous years I've just had candy at the front door, but this year, I opened the garage.

I placed a banquet table at the front of the garage, and covered it with a black sheet. There was a large bowl holding 5.5 lbs of chocolate bars (Twix, Kit Kat, Snickers, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, Butterfinger, and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups), and another large bowl holding about 50 one ounce containers of assorted colors of Play Doh. Believe it or not, the bigger kids (junior and senior high school age) really seem to dig the Play Doh.

Also on the table where a number of mini pumpkins, skulls and LCD candies Corrii brought. (Corrii and Darren were here, and Greg for a short while.) LCD candles are definitely the way to go. They look just as cool, and prevent trick or treaters from catching fire while leaning into the candy bowl to see what's available. :)

Corrii also brought a couple strands of purple lights, which I strung up over the entrance to the garage. I hung black sheets to the sides of the garage, partially blocking off anything I had stored against the walls. I also hung black sheets about 2/3 of the way back in the garage, shortening the space. I pulled out the fluorescent elements in the overhead light fixtures, and installed black lights. (Note to self, two black lights isn't enough. Next year, four.)

Corrii also brought a piece of cloth which had more or less been cut into the shape of a ghost, and it glowed quite nicely under the black light. I hung it up between the black lights. I hung a strand of skulls from the basketball hoop over the entrance to the garage, as well as a number of black cloaked figured I picked up a few years ago, depicting a witch, a specter, a pumpkin head, and a vampire.

We had a couple groups of trick or treaters come by while the sun was still up, which was odd. Probably around 5:30. And our last batch of kids arrived around 8:30.

I get a lot of older kids, who, as mentioned, always seem excited to see Play Doh on the table. Many come in costume, but there's invariably a group or two who don't bother (sigh). One group claimed to be dressed as gang bangers.

Last year, one of the neighbors was carrying around his toddler, dressed as a bee. This year the kid could walk on his own, and was, dressed in a zebra costume.

One was dressed as Darth Vader, but was only wearing the body armor. His mom was carrying the helmet, and his dad the light saber. Heh, I'd previously been telling Darren that a couple years earlier some kid showed up dressed in a gorilla outfit, but carrying the costume head. I told him he didn't get any candy 'til he put the mask on, which he did. He then grabbed some candy, and asked if he could take the mask off. Said it was too hot. :)

What was really nice about this year is that a lot of the kids commented on how mine was the best house on the street. Looking around, it would appear I was the only one who really went all out on decoration -- and that's nothing compared to a house around the corner, and up a couple of blocks. They have lights up all over the place, mostly orange, with all manner of decoration in the yard. Ghosts, ghouls, zombies, coffins... it looks amazing.

Next year I'm thinking of plywood facades, painted black, and covered with neon designs. More black lights (as mentioned), and occupying more space within the garage. There's an indoor mini golf at the Great Mall in Milpitas, all decorated with neon and black lights. It looks really neat. I'd like to do something similar, only more creepy. (The Mall design appears to be an underwater scene -- I'm thinking ghosts, coffins, etc.)

All told, it looks as though the kids took maybe 4.5 lbs of the chocolate, and took about 2/3 of the Play Dohs. Pretty good. It's hard to estimate how many groups will come buy.

Oh, oh, I forgot to mention the single most exciting part of the evening. Even the raccoons came out! I usually don't see the neighborhood family of raccoons until after midnight, but this evening they went trotting across my driveway, into the front yard, around 7:30 PM. This, of course, set off Toby, which in turn startled the raccoons. While the first one made it across the driveway, the second hid under my car. I put Toby in the house, so the 'coon would come out of hiding, which he finally did. But then, almost at the edge of the driveway, something spooked him again, and he ran all the way back and hid under the car again. Heh, heh. A while later he ran out from under the car, across the street, and along the sidewalk. Say, five minutes later, another one went running across the driveway, and another about 10 minutes after that. Was very interesting.

House Work

Ah, the endless joys of home ownership.

A couple of months ago, I had the plumbing in the bathrooms replaces with copper. The old galvanized crap was spewing rusty water. It'd actually been doing that as long as I'd been here, but I'd grown accustomed to letting the water run clear first.

I finally got tired of it, and had it replaced. Now, no more orange water.

I have a number of projects going on right now. First, I've been replacing the drywall in the master bedroom, and in the bedroom adjacent. When I first bought the place, I'd wanted to remove the wall and turn the master into a suite. But it occurred to me, it's just me and the dog, why do I need such a large room? So there's been framing between the two, but no drywall. I just finished putting fresh drywall up. Now I need to start mudding.

I'm also putting up fresh green board in the guest bath. When I moved in, there was only a tub there -- no shower. So I removed the two feet of tile that was over the tub, removed the drywall, and will be putting in new tile. When the plumbers were here, I also had them extend the tub tubing up for a shower nozzle. I still need to put up the greenboard on the wet wall, following their visit, and I need to patch a couple of holes they made in the master bath, when replacing the shower tubing there. (Since I was already working on drywalling, and had drywall, I didn't see much point in paying them additional dollars to patch their holes.)

Unfortunately, I had to postpone repairing the roof, with the layoff. That could be a bad thing, considering winter's approaching. But I'm still paying off my sister's debt (grr), and without a job at the moment, don't think it'd be a good idea start another project.

The fun project will be Halloween. This year I plan on opening the garage, and having some sort of haunted thing going on. I've already mentioned it to some friends, who'll be helping. I'm thinking black lights and florescent paint. The creepier, the better. Can't make it too scary, though -- I do get little kids coming by.

Watermelon and strawberries

I pulled out the watermelon, taking care not to squish or discard my praying mantis. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it. Last time I saw it, it was perched on a leaf in the guava tree.

Like the cantaloupe, the watermelon hadn't produced a single melon of note. The largest was the size of a grapefruit, but most were lucky if they reached the size of an orange. I may try again next year, though honestly I'm leaning toward honeydew melon, instead. Next time I'll take care to heavily fertilize the soil before planting anything.

It looks like I'm up to four pumpkins. One's turned orange already, two are tree, another had just started and is still kinda yellowish. I planted them specifically for Halloween, but still don't know how many I'm going to get. I may need to break down and actually buy some this year. Make: has a Halloween special on shelves now, with all sorts of great ideas haunted house ideas. And Martha Stewart (gag, but read on) has a Halloween issue out with even more ideas. I chatted briefly with Darren and Corrii about decorating my place this year, since they don't get trick-or-treaters out in the mountains.

Oh, right, I was supposed to say something about strawberries. I think today was my largest strawberry harvest to date. I have two strawberry pots in the back yard, with about twelve plants. Most of the strawberries are green, but this morning I was able to enjoy half a dozen sweet, juicy strawberries. I can see another dozen ripening, and about another two dozen green berries.

Trick or treat!

Last night's trick or treating didn't begin until around 6 PM, which surprised me. Last year, I remember parents bringing their younger children around at dusk. This year, it was already dark.

There were, oh... 20 or so, total. I completely over did it on the candy, buying seven bags. There was plenty to take over to Chet & Renee's later, for D&D, and still plenty to bring home after that.

One group of young teens came by, all in costume. One of the first to dig into the candy basket was a girl who got excited that I was giving out Paydays. She said nobody ever has them, and that I'd made her night.

But the absolute best costume of the evening, in this same group, was V. When he came forward, wearing his black cape and Guy Fawkes mask, I told him I wanted to hear his speech.

And he did it! It was fantastic! I kind of wonder if this kid did plays at school. He spoke very well, gestured as V did in the film, and even finished with a flourish and bow. I regret not dumping the entire basket of candy in his bag. :)