October 28, 2009 Finally making some progress. Skeleton has the base coat and webbing, but still needs final painting and eyes. I'll probably still be working on him after most of the rest of the display is up.

October 26, 2009 October is almost over, and I have no progress pictures. Oh well. I'm still working on getting that new skeleton ready, but I just haven't completed anything else. I'll have my display up this week, just not much new this year.

September 23, 2009 Well crap, September is soon to draw to a close, and I have yet to update ONCE here on my Halloween updates this year! I'm getting a stupid-late start on Halloween this year, in that I've bought my new skeleton but haven't worked on it, and haven't planned a single other thing yet. My goal is always to add one new thing each year, and over the last few years I've done very well by adding TWO. I don't know if that's going to happen this time or not. My new skeleton is going to be a duplicate of last year's, although I want the color to come out better as more of a light grey, instead of the bright white I used last time. Last year's coffin is in severe need of repair, as it was falling apart under its own weight while on display last time. It's crap. I had gotten it to stand in until I had the time to build a proper toe-pincher, so I'm not sure if I'll just get off my butt and make one or try to fix this one up a bit. We'll see. In the meantime, fear not! I'm not giving up... but with this season's thumb injury and other projects that have kept me busy, I just haven't had time for this OR the droid for the last couple months! Wow, did I develop a life outside these hobbies somewhere along the way? :)

November 7, 2008 I managed to leave my display up for a few days to either side of Halloween this year (2008), and miss the rain at both ends. But it has me thinking for the future, since I've never weather-proofed my projects. The tree is weather-resistant, except that I'm lighting up the face with a piece of poster board. The gravestones are probably fine in the rain, as are my first two skeletons (ignoring rust issues in the steel parts). The pieces I'm more concerned about are the new skeleton (water soluble glue), the scarecrow (the pumpkin is very thin paper mache and it has acrylic paints on the skull, though the body is weatherproof), and the electrical stuff of course (not one lamp is technically an "outdoor" lamp). Time to start thinking about water resistance in future props, I think. 2009 should be the start of this. BTW, added the "evolution of a haunt" page to show the changes over the years.

November 4, 2008 Display is down, as of last night. That was the longest run yet, at 5 days and 5 nights. So far, I've been letting the weather reports dictate the schedule. In the future, I want to weatherproof more of the props if I can.