Controllable Christmas Lights for Celiac Disease

As Posted To Groups By Alek Komar
Yes, it is the holiday season, and back online for 2010 are the Controllable Christmas Lights for Celiac Disease:

http://www.komar.org/cgi-bin/christmas_webcam

Once again, three live webcams and X10 technology allows web surfers to not only view the action, but also *control* 20,000+ lights. New this year is the Santa Plane, Santa Helicopter, and even Santa Skiing down my roof ... which can all be inflated/deflated in addition to the giant 12' Santa, 15' Santa Balloon, Elmo, Frosty Family, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Homer Simpson - D'OH! ;-)

The website is totally free (and totally fun) and is one of my zany ways of raising awareness & soliciting donations for Celiac Disease - http://www.celiaccenter.org/news_xmas.asp - my two sons have this condition, so it's personal for me. If folks are so inclined, you can make an optional donation directly to the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research. Over $50,000 has been raised with ... holiday lights - pretty wild.

While people around the world (157 countries last year) enjoy seeing the lights ON, environmentalists will be happy to know that they can turn the lights OFF with a click of the mouse. Better yet, this is the 7th year I'm using Wind Power and even though that is "clean" energy, I even did a Carbon Offset contribution for the 0.6 Tons of CO2 for the ~MegaWatt-Hour of power consumed - that's about the same as *one* cross-country airline trip. Finally, by providing viewing via webcam, you don't need to burn fossil fuels by driving around to see Christmas lights.

But HEY, the couple of bucks a day in electrical costs are well worth the joy it brings to people (especially the kids) when they see the display in person and/or on the web. There's even a Hi-Def option, so gather your family around the large screen and open up some Eggnog as the chestnuts are roasting on an open fire.

Merry Christmas and HO-HO-HO! ;-)

alek