I finally got around to updating my diagram. Like I promised, there's only 1 level of switch involved. I now find myself wishing that someone would make a 1080P HD-DVD player that can play DVD-Audio discs.... such a device would eliminate two more components from the stack! :)
The most fascinating thing for me and all of these new toys is how many of them can download their own firmware updates via a live network connection. In fact, everything in the diagram except the TV, the Panasonic DVD(Audio) Player (Old), ICBM (old) and the Xbox (Old) can update itself with bug fixes and potentially new functionality. Actually, even the Xbox can update itself, but I just don't subscribe to Xbox live.
I don't watch many NFL games, gut I do read Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback every week. It's a long article and he always makes a point every week to mention some significant players on both sides of the ball.
So the day after Thanksgiving, Shannon had me up on the roof hanging Christmas lights. Apparently, we were due some rains storms Saturday and Sunday (and as it turns out, the weathermen were correct) so it was either on Friday or wait a week. I'll spare folks a direct link, but if you want to see what scooting around on a roof does to old jeans, there's a picture on my flickr site. Again, you need to be logged in as a "friend" or "family member" to see the photo in question. If you don't have access and want it, send me a note using the e-mail address in the right sidebar and I'll send you an invite.
Anyway, our Christmas Light displays continues to expand, but it's not nearly as dramatic as the leap we took from two years ago to last year. We've moved the "Chris-moose" so he's more visible. We've added a couple of "mini-trees" on the front porch, a second Christmas tree in a side window, and we've replaced the icicle lights on the garage with ones that more closely match the lights on the house. Finally, if you look at one of the larger sizes of the below image, you'll see intermittent red lights along the gutters and roof-lines. We actually ran two strings of lights: the icicle lights and a string of alternating red and white lights on the roof lines. The "white" light just blends in with the icicles, but the red lights adds a nice, if subtle, addition.
One thing I don't like about static pictures is you can't tell that our icicle lights, "twinkle" or that the our Chris-moose's head moves back and forth. So I shot a quick movie. Sorry about the lighting, I can't figure out how to (and I doubt its even possible) to adjust my camera's "video" mode to let in more light.
It's much nicer in person, but at least this gives you a "feel" for it.
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