Coffee hour and bake sale

 The library will be hosting a coffee hour from 10:00 to 11:00 on Monday and Wednesday mornings beginning November 1^st.  Please join us and others for a visit.  Also, the library board will be sponsoring a bake sale to provide funds for the Microfilm Reader Printer machine.  Please sign up at the library if you are willing to make a baked item for the sale.

Language Learning programs

 Statistics show that a majority of people in other countries learn 2-3 or more different languages.  In the U.S. only 9% of the population knows a second language.  The library is willing to offer the community access to an online language learning site if there is any community interest.  The Mango Learning Company provides online access to 33 different languages plus 15 English as a second language programs.  The languages offered include Spanish, French, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, German, and more.  There is unlimited access in the library or from your home as long as you are a library patron.  The lessons are shown with sounds, grammar, repetition and feedback.  There are also cultural notes that help understand how their language works in different situations.  Their goal is getting you to conversational language quickly, not just words and their meanings.  I did a trial on Japanese and German and was impressed.  Please let the library know if you are interested in this offering.

"Thriller" by Michael Jackson This video is a daylight "shot" hybrid gardening and Halloween documentary. The videography is also a celebration of our autumn/harvest season and, most importantly the longest growing/gardening season we've ever had!! Today (October 21), we still have NOT had a single "killer" frost and most plants/flowers are in remarkably, splendid condition. Even more it seems a miracle that we can witness tender annuals (such as Marigolds, Zinnias, Geraniums, Begonias, and Impatiens) alive and blooming profusely at this time of year!! Other thriving annuals that are observable in this video record are: Petunias; Alyssum; Bacopa; African Daisies; Red and Blue Salvias; Lobelia; Dracaena; and Dwarf Purple Castor Bean. Perennials that are still performing well are Mums, Asters; Sedums; Hosta; Delphinium; Foxgloves; Yarrow; Goldenrod; Rudbeckia; Shrub Roses; Russian Sage; and especially the Ornamental Grasses. We can't remember when the autumn foliage of vines, shrubs, and trees has been so long-lasting and vividly colorful. Do you think our extra-long growing season is due to "global warming??" We apologize for the fact that our house and yard is a cluttered 'fright." But due to popular local and "loco" demand, our front yard always becomes a chaotic, dreadful, horrific, and shocking mishmash by mid-October! It's a scary "jungle" out there!! This is definitely our last "halloweenie" video this season!! By the way! -- Happy Halloween!! You can easily reach our YouTube Channel by Googling: kimball ne halloween

Calling all Lil’ Goblins!

 Yes, it’s that time of year again: Halloween!

And there is no better way to celebrate it then with a parade featuring all of Kimball’s youngsters dressed as ghouls, goblins and who knows what else!

The Halloween Parade will be on October 28^th and everyone is to meet in front of the Library at 4:00p.m.

Also, don’t forget to ask the Great Pumpkin for good weather this year!

Michael Jackson's "Thriller" This is another across-the-street video that shows most (about 70%) of our Halloween Light Display. We have added more "monsters" to our graveyard—including some that become activated/animated when they detect motion and/or loud sounds. We have also made our yard more fall/harvest-oriented with the inclusion of cornshocks, straw bales, cartoonish-"scarecrow" manikins, and more pumpkins and other gourds. The majority of our visitors so far say M.J's Thriller is their favorite Halloween Song, and we agree!! It was the most fun and challenging to animate representations of Michael Jackson & Vincent Price to "Lip-Sync" the lyrics! We may not have time to produce another video of our Halloween Light Show since we are now extremely busy with planning, designing, constructing, and programming our 2010 Holidays/Christmas Musical Light Show! We hope it is not a distraction to you that we do not regulate traffic or visitors during the filming. Please tell your friends and relatives to visit our YouTube Channel by simply Googling: kimball ne halloween

"This is Halloween" by Danny Elfman from the Disney film "The Nightmare Before Christmas." This video of our entire front-yard Halloween display was videographed from across the street (Adams) and therefore emphasizes our short, orange-purple LED fence and the seven-foot tall purple/orange/green LED Leaping-Light Arbor/Arch. Just beyond the fence is a 16-Tombstone "Cemetery" (each LED spotlit) with a motley assortment of "scary" creatures -- from the left/north they are as follows: a 5-foot hanging pumpkin-headed "Scarecrow Kicker"; a 9-foot raggedy Scarecrow; a 6-foot Ghoul with a Python Snake (fake, of course) around its neck and holding a scythe, a 12-foot white-gowned Ghost, a 7-foot Demon with a trident, a 14-foot black-robed big-red-eyed spook with a chain hanging from its neck. South of the arbor are the following: a 6-foot gray-haired, black-gowned old wizard with a raven perched on its right hand, a 12-foot huge-faced clawed Zombie with very tattered clothes. There are other monsters that will be shown in our last video. The graveyard is also "littered" with many skulls, other bones, and several kinds of "remains" and "corpses." Closer to Halloween, there will also be two fog machines operating to produce an eerie, cloudy mist. Tonight we are having several dozen spectators slowly driving/walking by, and some even sit down in our up-close seating area to view the entire 30-minutes musical light show. The majority of "guests" are young children and "Kimballites" -- but a few are from surrounding towns. Judging from their responses -- the viewers favorite animated Halloween tunes are Thriller, Tubular Bells and This is Halloween (this very song!) Their favorite set-piece is, by far, the AD -- the Animotion Disk! Please visit our YouTube Channel again -- simply by Googling: kimball ne halloween Our ghosts, zombies, ghouls, skeletons and monsters would like to see you IN PERSON!! So would the Meyers!

The Addams Family Theme Song by Vic Mizzy. This very short video (45 seconds duration) mainly emphasizes the left/north half of our home frontage, as viewed from the west. The videography especially spotlights Carol's vertical "Pumpkin Patch" and Don's "Rooftop Singers!" The rhythm/beat of this theme song is also highlighted by the Light Towers, The Halloween purple and orange trees, the gutter curtain lights, the porch garlands, and the Drumming Skeleton. In case you want to learn the lyrics to this sixties TV sitcom theme song, here they are: "They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky, they're altogether ooky, The Addams Family. Their house is a museum, Where people come to see 'em, They really are a screa-um, The Addams Family. (Neat) (Sweet) (Petite) So get a witch's shawl on, A broomstick you can crawl on, We're gonna pay a call on, The Addams Family." Why do you suppose that many people in Kimball refer to us as the Addams Family? It must be because we live on Adams Street! Right!? We don't have any decidedly mysterious, creepy, spooky or macabre interests -- especially in hyper-celebrating Halloween!! Our next videos will be Adams Street panoramic views of our entire house and front yard with its waterfall, Leaping-Light Arbor, LED-illuminated fence, Eerie Graveyard and Tombstones, and a dozen large, ghastly critters. Remember you can visit us again by Googling: kimball ne halloween

Celebrations in October

 Wow! I can hardly believe it is October already. The months seem to fly by faster and faster every year, but it’s nice to see that our patrons still take time out of their busy schedules to curl up with a book or listen to one of our audio books.

                October has a lot of fun holidays and events including Columbus Day, which we will be closed for, and Halloween, which is another post all on its own! But a little known fact about October is that from the 17^th to the 23^rd it is Friends of the Library Week.

                The Kimball Friends of the Library do so much for our library that it’s nice to take a week just to honor them. Every year they raise money through book sales and donations. This year in particular they have used the money they raised to help pay for new large print books and a new shelf some of you might have noticed!

                So the staff of the library would like to give a big thank you to the Friends of the Library for everything they have done and will continue to do!

Tubular Bells -- Theme from "The Exorcist" by Mike Oldfield This video is a view primarily of the right/south half of our Halloween Light Display. Since the music is the instrumental soundtrack/theme of the Exorcist movie, we did not program our main "singers" for depicting this horror movie theme. As you might notice, we use most of our set pieces and display units to illustrate the repetitive beat, especially the Animotion Disk, the Drumming Skeleton, and the eave's purple, orange, and green curtain lights. You have also witnessed the easiest way to decorate your house for Halloween -- by using large window-poster transparencies or "window clings." On the front of our house, we have used two cat eyes, a very large vampire, a werewolf, and a haunted Jack-O-Lantern. Also, in some of the smaller windows we have placed some small LED set-piece "ornaments" that are regulated by independent fader controllers. In our next uploaded video, we will emphasize the left/north half of our house frontage. Please remember that we only use energy-saving LEDs for our "celebrations" of life!! Besides using your computer's history/bookmark aids, you can also visit us again by Googling: kimball ne halloween Thank you for waiting and watching!

Ghostbusters by Ray Parker Jr. This video shows the 10,000+ LED lights that we have on the central part of the front of the house and roof. If you look closely, you will notice a dozen "creepy critters" that appear to "sing" the lyrics of "Ghostbusters." The primary lead/main "singer" is the large, simple roof face on the upper left. Most of the faces, however, are just temporary, background, or chorus "singers." Most of the set pieces/LED panels such as the "singers," large Jack-O-Lanterns, "flying" bat, Animotion Disk, Light Towers, Tombstones, Drumming Skeleton are made from sheets of a fluted, corrugated plastic called polypropylene. We buy this Coroplast in 4 foot x 8 foot sheets from sign companies in the Cheyenne, Wyoming area. You can buy these for about $16 per sheet in various colors such as white, yellow, black, and red. We usually choose white, and if we want some other color, we first spray on a "primer"/base layer of Krylon Fusion spray paint, and after this durable coat dries we brush on one or two coats of exterior latex enamel (such as Valspar) of the final desired color. We leave the back/rear of the sheet white so we can sketch an easily visible design of our intended creation. Before we start reaming the design with various different-sized scratch awls (to make holes for plugging in the lights), we frame the edges of the Coroplast with a wood frame -- lath on the front edges and 1" x 2"s on the back. The frame is held together by using 1" panel nails (every 3 inches) with the plastic sheeting "sandwiched" in between the front and back wood frames. For a detailed "rest of the story," Google: belardolights.com where you will find an excellent "How To" procedure, by Randy Schimka, for using Coroplast to make dancing/singing set pieces! We will release another video as soon as we do some "tweaking" or reprogramming to correct some "errors" in the behavior of some of our "performers." You can visit our YouTube Channel again -- soon we hope -- by Googling: kimball ne halloween