March 2006

Spring has sprung, time has changed, and Baseball is in full swing for us.

We just returned from a week of Spring Training in Phoenix, Arizona, nothing but baseball, baseball and more baseball with perfect weather. If you enjoy baseball in a minor field setting this is a definite trip to plan next March, the price is right for tickets ($4.00 to $20.00), a definite family event. We enjoyed several games from the Athletics, Mariners, Angles, White Sox, Royals, Padres and Rockies, visiting three fields at Phoenix, Peoria, and Tempe, the kids got a few balls and some autographs making their trip memorable as well.

Nate made the freshman team this year, playing third, pitcher and catcher. The freshman team is a great group of 18 kids, quite dominating on the field and in the box, they have mercied (10 run gap after 5 innings) all their opponents in pre-season, with two mercies to start their season. This will be a team to watch over the next few years, the varsity teams have taken the Golden League Championship for the last 5 years with their first CIF championship last year.

Bubba and I are part of the minor Athletics at QHLL; Bubba had a slow start, and is developing well in the box, and on the mound. The A’s are not doing as well with just one win and several losses, but the boys are starting to perform as a team and giving the opponents a run for their money. Go A’s

The weather has been just outstanding for the past month, a few cold days with typical temperatures in the 70’s to 80’s. We did have a freeze spell that played havoc on out Palms and a few Junipers but overall the month has been fantastic.

Christmas CD’s still play daily in my truck, I am always orchestrating something new in my mind for next year. I have purchased quite a few tracks for Halloween, trying to figure out what we will do and how to get it done in such a way that I can reuse the lights for the next month (November) without having to redo everything.

The Christmas display plans are developing as we speak, we are shooting for a mega tree at 20’ with a minimum of 16 channels, hoping for 32. If all works out we will be adding another 48 channels this year (96 total), of course I still need to address the power issue since this will bring us to 12 – 20 Amp circuits or 240 available Amps for the display. My plan is to run the 12 circuits from the panel into a sub-panel in the garage by the controllers removing the need for the pricy 10/3 extension cords.

I have been working on the “Merry Christmas” sign ‘How-to’ hoping to have that completed soon and available for download.

I hope to be sequencing again soon, I had to rebuild the laptop and all my files have not been restored yet, thank goodness for CD burners.

Rick Williams
Quartz Hill Christmas