RIP - Harold Ramis

Rest in peace Harold Ramis.

He was the director of a great number of ridiculous and entertaining movies of my youth, the least of which was "Ghost Busters".

We'll remember not to cross the streams, Egon! Thanks for the memories.

Learnin' Stuff

Got to spend the day at my favorite sculpting and casting supply store, " Reynold's Advanced Materials" in Orlando. Took their "Intro to Mold Making and Casting" class. We have a Q&A session on Thursday on using "Lifecasting". Hopefully we'll take casting up a level this year.

The class was about 20 people,  some jewelers,  a couple of wood craftsmen, a taxidermist and a sculptor or two, but no other haunters. I was a little surprised considering their showroom examples are nearly all props and scary stuff.

Once again the employees get kudos for really knowing their stuff and excellent customer service. Trainers were very good.

Haunter's Hangout

One of our bigger resources for networking with other yard haunters and Halloween fanatics these days is "Haunter's Hangout" on Facebook. If you haven't joined, it is an incredibly friendly group of people, mostly home haunters, some professional haunters, but all of the them are about sharing, sharing their latest prop build, ideas for a prop build, haunting tips, haunting questions, Halloween jokes and  memes, and pretty much anything you can imagine relating to Halloween and home haunting.

Recently the Facebook group passed 3000 members and this last Thursday started the second season of Haunter's Hangout on Google's ( YouTube ) on air live streaming function.

Haunter's Hangout Host, Deoblo Lopez

Live Streaming interviews with other haunters on YouTube was originally the brainchild of home haunter, Deoblo Lopez, aka Deoblo85 ( Haunter's Hangout ) who quickly realized he was going to need help to get his idea rolling and solicited the help of friend and home haunter, Jim Walden, aka JWAL ( The Twisted Seed ) and "Haunter's Hangout" was born.

Haunter's Hangout Host Jim Walden

Shortly thereafter they requested the expertise of home haunter, Brad Goodspeed ( The Butcher of Provincetown ) to help with the "Haunter's Hangout" Facebook group and provide his video expertise with a weekly promo vid for the upcoming Thursday night video stream.

Haunter's Hangout Host, Brad Goodspeed

Each Thursday night at 9 PM (EST) from February through May the three hosts bring on various guests and "special guests" from home haunts and professional haunts for an informal question and answer session, usually made even more informal with the consumption of each person's alcoholic beverage of choice. So in addition to exhibiting their work, experiences and ideas, there's a few alcohol enhanced jokes and some laughter to keep things from getting slow. Generally the shows I've seen last a couple hours.

Things are a bit sluggish this time of year as far as  Halloween creativity, props and projects, so Haunter's Hangout is a nice bit of Halloween entertainment for a Thursday evening. You can post questions for specific haunters on the "Haunter's Hangout" Facebook page or on the YouTube channel. 

Busy on a Thursday night? You can watch the videos from the live stream anytime afterwards at " Haunter's Hangout".