The Think Tank

I have been very negligent this year in producing regular updates here on thinktankblog, and for that I apologize.  I promise to do better next year!

Halloween night was a grand success.  Aside from one of the fog machines dying five minutes in, all of our props, lights, foggers, air valves and sensors performed perfectly all night long – a far better track record than last year when I spent at least an hour fixing and repairing things that broke.

All of the new talking and moving props not only performed well in their intended fashion but they also performed a wonderful and unexpected service: they distracted people, which allowed me and Mike to sneak up on them and scare them even better.

The prediction was for rain Halloween day,  hopefully tapering off by evening.  In the event, we had sun and blue sky all day until about 3pm, followed up by increasing and menacing clouds as the afternoon wore on.  Due to the fact it was a Sunday, meaning that people had work and school the next day, coupled with the weather forecast I figured we probably needed to be ready to roll around 5pm.  We actually managed to be ready about 5:30, which was about 30 minutes after the first trick or treaters started showing up, meaning that my prediction was spot on even if my preparations were not.

Once the kiddies started coming, they just kept up a steady pace through the remaining daylight hours and picked up considerably after the sun went down.  It seemed like we had a considerable increase in kids this year, but our candy supply did not reflect that, so I’m not sure what to think.  It is possible it is due to so many of them hurrying out of the tunnel,  passing by the candy hander-outers, and hurrying out through  the ghoul scout camp, to the sidewalk.  Sometimes the speed was a desire to hurry around front and do it again, and sometimes it was simply a desire to escape without a peetastrophe.  At any rate, large numbers of them got away with no treats at all.

What I do know is that for most of the night there was at least 20-30 people milling around the front of the house the whole night, laughing, talking, drinking wine from glasses they brought with them, taking pictures and just generally enjoying the show.  many of them were neighbors that I knew, but a large percentage were people I had never seen before.

As always, we did our best not to make the little ones cry while also trying to make the bigger kids pee their pants.  Sadly, we were only marginally successful with the first and I think totally failed on the last, but we did get a whole lot screaming kids and adults alike, so I count it as a success.  In fact, we wound up inheriting candy more than once, when a group of kids made an abrupt about-face in the tunnel and booked it out the front, spilling treats the whole way.

Mike and Becca and the girls came as usual, and Mike once again did his spectacular job of both luring the trick or treaters up into the yard, and then scaring the hell out of them.  His own kiddies were a little more accepting of the whole Halloween getup this year, so he was able to stay and play longer than last year, which was great.

He also got the biggest win of the year.  One of the kids who came had a batch of balloons as part of his costume, and somehow or other Mike suggested that he might buy one of the balloons for a dollar.  After the kid went through the yard he came back to the front and somehow or other Mike did indeed end up buying the balloon.  A little while after that, a car pulled up out front and out pops the kid and brings Mike a bottle of Inversion IPA!  I can’t imagine anything that could top that.

The kiddies kept coming in large groups all evening until about 9:30, and then just like last year, they dried up as if someone had closed a faucet.  One minute there was a line out the front gates, the next there was no one to be seen.  I always find that strange, even though it has happened several years in a row now.

Several people told me through out the night that they didn’t know how I could do better next year.

Challenge excepted…