HOLY ELECTRIC BILL, SANTA! COMPUTER MAGIC 'PLAYS' LIGHTS, MUSIC.Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer PALMDALE - At Rick Williams' house, 8,000 computer-controlled Christmas lights shimmer, flicker flicker: see woodpecker. flicker Any of six species of New World woodpeckers (genus Colaptes) noted for spending much time on the ground eating ants. , blink blink the involuntary movement of one or both eyelids of both eyes simultaneously. The frequency varies between species. Cats blink the least, with the possible exception of owls. In birds it is the lower eyelid which is moved up to meet the upper lid. and change colors, synchronized syn·chro·nize v. syn·chro·nized, syn·chro·niz·ing, syn·chro·niz·es v.intr. 1. To occur at the same time; be simultaneous. 2. To operate in unison. v.tr. 1. with holiday tunes ranging from ``Feliz Navidad'' to ``Christmastime is Here.'' Grown from a few illuminated front-yard holiday figures, Williams' display has turned into a year-round hobby of planning, building and programming: Sequencing the lights to the music took 60 hours at a computer; installing and connecting them, three solid weekends of work. ``This is something I always wanted to do,'' said Williams, a regional computer technician for a national distributor. Red, green, blue, white and orange lights cover trees and shrubbery, hang from the eaves and line the roof and windows of the two-story house. Lighted candy canes stand alone on one side, and a Christmas tree Christmas tree Evergreen tree, usually decorated with lights and ornaments, to celebrate the Christmas season. The use of evergreen trees, wreaths, and garlands as symbols of eternal life was common among the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Hebrews. and illuminated toys occupy the center of the yard. Colored floodlights change with the intensity of the music - blue for a gentle violin passage, white for a strong passage. Three thousand feet of extension cords connect them all to a circuit board in the garage. Speakers in the front yard play Christmas tunes. A low-power digital FM transmitter A device that adapts an MP3 player or other portable audio source to a car's audio system via the FM radio. It retransmits the analog output of the headset jack as one of several FM channels, which is picked up by the car's antenna. Also called an "FM modulator. about the size of a computer mouse broadcasts the tunes to visitors' car stereos. ``I work with three-second grabs of the songs, go through and sequence it,'' Williams said. ``You can have a lamp ramp up Ramp Up To increase a company's operations in anticipation of increased demand. Notes: A company might 'ramp up' operations if they just signed a contract creating substantially more demand for their product. See also: Demand, Economies of Scale , ramp down, flicker, shimmer, go on, go off.'' Operated from a laptop computer on a program called Light O Rama, the light show accompanies an hour and 17 minutes of music in MP3 files. Interspersed among the songs are bits of conversation from the Griswold characters in ``National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation,'' which is a Williams family Christmas tradition. Since the light show started Dec. 3, Williams has been adding more lights and adjusting how they respond to the music. ``I'm still working on it,'' he said. This is the first Christmas for the synchronized holiday music. Last year, his display had more lights - about 20,000 - which resulted in a December electric bill of about $600. This year, he expects the bill to be about $300. ``Before, it was a matter of quantity. Now it's gone to a matter of quality,'' Williams said. But he expects to expand again next year, replacing the flood lamps with theatrical lights and adding a Christmas tree with 38,000 lights. ``This year, I started the day after Thanksgiving. Next year it will be the day after Halloween. It will be twice this size,'' Williams said. The display can be viewed nightly through New Year's Day New Year's Day, among ancient peoples the first day of the year frequently corresponded to the vernal or autumnal equinox, or to the summer or winter solstice. In the Middle Ages it was celebrated among Christians usually on Mar. 25. at 41465 Manzanita manzanita: see bearberry. Drive, south of Avenue M-8 and west of 60th Street West. Hours are 5:30-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 5:30-9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday. CAPTION(S): 3 photos Photo: (1 -- color) Colored lights shine from every surface of Rick Williams' Palmdale home, with a bit of help from his computer. (2 -- color) Rick Williams For the baseball player, see . Richard C. Williams (October 16, 1965 - February 23, 1999) was an American professional wrestler, better known as Renegade. Career Rick Williams began wrestling in 1992 after a stint as a male stripper. , who started decorating his home only last year, admires his handiwork, which includes lighted gingerbread gingerbread In architecture and design, elaborately detailed embellishment, either lavish or superfluous. Though the term is occasionally applied to such highly detailed and decorative styles as the Rococo, it usually refers to the hand-carved and -sawn wood ornamentation of men, a train and deer. (3 -- color) Packages under a giant Christmas tree are lighted up, with the lights flickering in time to music. Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer |
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