Clearing the Air+ An AWESOME Lights Show

After rereading my last post, I realized it sounded a little harsh. I feel like I come across as regretful of choosing Cochlear, which was not my intent in posting at all. My equipment rarely breaks, and when it does, 99% of the time it is replaced promptly with a functioning piece of equipment. The thing is, I don't blog about those times-who wants to read about something going exactly as it should? I've gotten so used to such a high standard, I was pretty shocked with the way things were handled last time. I'm hoping it was just an isolated incident. I was annoyed when I wrote the post, and therefore left out how satisfied I have been with Cochlear the rest of the time. I also picked Cochlear because of their superior reliability (so far, so good!) of their implants and their great reputation of making their processors backwards compatible with older implants (which I will soon be taking advantage of). I think the real reason I wrote that post was
A) because I wanted to vent my frustration
and B)I was hoping that I would be proved wrong, and that someone from Cochlear will apologize, or at least make it right. I really hope to be able to write another post expressing my satisfaction with how the situation was resolved.

Besides, these people gave me my hearing back- how could I not be grateful? I think every company makes mistakes at one point or another, and this is definitely a minor thing in the scheme of things, especially when I hear all these stories about companies recalling implants. As in, the internal part- I can assure you I am happy with my choice! As one person commented, the controller could have gotten damaged in shipping, for all I know.

Now that I've got that cleared...

On Friday evening, I babysat three of my cousins with my sister. They're neighborhood is RIGHT next to this neighborhood famous for their amazing Christmas (and Hanukkah, surprisingly enough) lights. We didn't finish babysitting until late at night, but we felt like we'd regret not stopping to look at a few houses. We were aimlessly driving around, when we saw a house with TONS of lights flashing. As we got closer, I spotted a tiny sign "Turn to FM 97.5 to listen to the lights!" My sister and I frantically started fooling with the car radio, until we found the station. What we found was truly amazing. Such a sensual experience- the lights went along with the music. The lights were cool on their own (as was the music) but together, it was just astonishing.

We stayed for a couple of minutes, but then decided to go back home as it was starting to get pretty late.We vowed to return the next night, which we did with one of my sister's friends. We drove around looking at a lot of houses that had elaborate light displays, but we could not find the same house! We drove around for an hour and a half, and my mom started texting us saying we needed to come home. No way, not until we found the house! We were getting desperate, and finally decided to put on the radio station, since it becomes clearer as you get closer to the house. Between one of the songs, they said the name of the family who did the lights show. I quickly googled it on my phone, and, alas- an address! My sister shouted for her friend to get her GPS out of her purse. Her friend looked, only for us to realize it had been left at home!

We drove around and finally found the street, and followed the line of about 20-30 wanting to see this awesome house. I got quite a few videos and pictures on my phone, but they're not very high quality. Luckily enough for you ;) the house has it's very own website complete with plenty of videos. Right now the videos are not yet up for 2009 (they change the songs every year) but the ones from 2008 are just as cool! Here are a few:
*NOTE: PAUSE THE MUSIC AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SCREEN BEFORE PLAYING!*
We Wish You a Merry Christmas- Highland Pipers:

Gordon Lights 2008 - We Wish You a Merry Christmas from Gordon Lights on Vimeo.


Wizards in Winter- Trans-Siberian Orchestra:

Gordon Lights 2008 - Wizards in Winter from Gordon Lights on Vimeo.


And I'm leaving for IL in 2-3 days (depending on how you think of it). Imagine my excitement when I went onto weather.com and saw this:

OH YES! Snow angels, here I come!

Happy Holidays to all!