On this episode of ZacCast, Patrick and I shoot the bull on a variety of topics, including our upcoming talk at the UMANT One Day Conference, the ethical implications of cities continuing to invest in social media, and we'll geek out about Christmas decorations. This is ZacCast, episode four. Here we go. Hey, Pat.

Hey, Chad. What's up, man?

Not much. It has been a while since, uh, I've seen you, actually.

It has been a couple of weeks. I was sick all last week for the first time in a long time.

That's fun. Having kids'll do that to you.

That's true. They, uh, the, the little incubators of, of disease that they are.

I tell you what really gets me, aside from, uh, in the spring, the springing forward-

Yes

... that always gets me. Like, that extra or that less hour of sleep-

Mm

... for some reason, throws me off entirely.

More than falling back does?

I'll always take an extra hour of sleep.

Really?

Yeah.

Okay.

But the biggest thing for me is, for the past month and a half or so-

Mm-hmm

... it'll get cold, and then hot, and then cold, and then hot, and just the constant cycling. And sometimes even, like, in one day-

Mm-hmm

... you have to wear, like, a big jacket in the morning, and then you're wearing shorts in the afternoon. So just not having a steady temperature just wears on me over time.

Just so everybody knows, we're in Texas, where fall and winter arrive at the same time.

Yeah, it is... Tonight, it's gonna be so- ... uh, high of 64, and then overnight low of 22.

22. Yeah, it's gonna be super cold. So this week, we are giving a talk. We are at a training, right? At UMANT's One Day Conference.

That's correct.

Yes. Also pronounced U-M-A-N-T for those who, uh- ... interview for jobs and wanna act like they're a part of the organization.

Call us UMANT, guys.

Call it UMANT. If you're ever in an interview, uh, pro tip here, you call it UMANT, 'cause that's what everybody who's ever been a part of it calls it.

That's the main thing, just if you're gonna claim membership or activity in something, just know how to say it.

That, that's correct. I gave an interview, or I had an interview for a position where somebody said they were a part of U-M-A-N-T, which made me laugh, 'cause nobody calls it that, so.

S- so we're gonna be talking about something super interesting to me, because I love Karate Kid.

Yes, Karate Kid.

We're talking about Mr. Miyagi.

Okay.

And, uh, this is not a topic that has, uh, been devoid of discussion, uh, like lessons that you can learn from Miyagi, but I've not seen it applied to city management. So we're gonna chat about some lessons that Miyagi teaches Daniel-san in, uh, the course of the Karate Kid movies. Uh, we don't talk about the Jalen Smith, Jackie Chan remake- ... 'cause no one should talk about that.

It was terrible. It should never be done again.

But, uh, yeah, so that's gonna be a lot of fun. Um, I think it'll give us an opportunity to, to talk about some serious things but with a little bit of levity.

Yes.

Um, we're gonna be talking about how to not be a grape, which, if you've seen Karate Kid, you'll hopefully maybe understand. The thing that's gonna be interesting about this is UMANT is a little bit younger demographic.

Yes.

And I'm hoping that the people who... So Karate Kid came out when we were one.

It- was it really?

Yeah.

Wow!

And, um, I have a feeling that a good chunk of the people that will be there tomorrow are gonna be our age or maybe a little bit younger than us. So, I mean, there's a possibility that several of them won't have even seen Karate Kid.

Yeah, I think mo- I think most people who are gonna go to the UMANT One Day Conference are gonna be younger than us. Man, are we- we're that old now.

Yeah.

That's... Yeah, that's hard to say out loud. But, uh, for, for those that don't know, UMANT is the Urban Management Assistance of North Texas organization. It's basically your up-and-coming city managers, right? Um, and, you know, everybody who's ever become a city manager, myself included, uh, you know, or most people who are in North Texas, are very involved in this organization. It's really good for folks who want to develop in their career. It's a great organization there. But they are gonna be younger, and I think we're gonna have to do a lot of explaining about, uh, the Karate Kid movie in general.

I do have maybe a 20-slide r- synopsis of the movie itself, just for those that haven't seen it. It's 35 years old.

At, like, two or three seconds a slide, let's say.

Yeah, super quick.

Yeah.

Uh, so hold on. I have... I don't have a count. My presentations, when, when I build them, they tend to have a ton of slides but very little text, and you just kinda go through quickly. Um-

No copyright infringement-

I don't-

... which is-

Uh, no comment. But mainly, I don't like to just sit up there and... I don't like to watch someone sitting up on stage reading, like, paragraphs.

Oh, the bullet point reading. It's terrible.

So we try to keep the conversation that we have-

Mm-hmm

... the focus, and, uh, accent it with what you see on the screen. But, um, yeah, lots of good stuff, uh, making decisions, uh, having balance in your work life and your home life and all across your organization, quality versus quantity time, and quality versus quantity in general-

Yes

... which might get a little bit dicey, 'cause those conversations, especially when you talk about employees, can be difficult.

Yeah, so, um, you know, we're gonna go in a lot of those things, and, and a lot of it, a lot of what we're gonna go into is changing rapidly within city government. Um, you know, work-life balance is, is one of those things that's changing rapidly right now. I mean, just think about in Hudson Oaks, what we did. I think we're one of the first cities that, you know, offered true, like, maternal/paternity leave in Texas. Um, you know, I, I don't think a lot of cities have really gotten into that like the private sector has yet, and so, you know, those life balance issues for people who are young in their career may not be concerned with right now, but as they grow into it, those are things that you should look at and you should focus on.

So what are y'all doing?

Communities are changing. So-... um, the big thing is, is that outside of vacation-

'Cause I do know that I never got to take advantage of this new policy.

No, we waited- ... until after all the bosses, uh, had already had kids, right? I had already had my kids, you had already had your kids. Um, but, uh, we've had quite a few employees since who've been able to take advantage of it. But, uh, we now offer paid time off for people who have kids or adopt kids. That's, that's the big thing, right? Outside of using your vacation time or outside of using your sick time. Uh, one of the things for me, when I became a dad, that I learned really quickly is, is that, uh, if you burn all your sick and vacation time when you have your kid, your first two years of your kid being in daycare, you're gonna need more sick and vacation time. There's no doubt about that. Um, my mayor at the time basically, uh, warned me and told me, "Hey, you're gonna be out a ton. Just get used to it." Um, but what we've done is, is we've made sure that, hey, if you, if you have a kid, we wanna be that parent-friendly environment. We want you not to have stress. You know, you take six weeks, be with your family, be with your kid. If you want more time after that, you can use your vacation and you can use your sick, but, uh, we offer that paid time off for parental leave.

So six weeks, not impacting your sick or vacation time at all?

That's correct. Yes, yeah. If, uh, you get six weeks, it doesn't, it doesn't impact vacation. And surprisingly, you know, I say this, we have a fantastic city council, but when we took the policy to our city council, they were, uh, they were more for it, I think, than, than staff was. They, they really wanted to provide a great family environment for people, and we've held onto staff a lot longer, I think, because of this policy.

Speaking of things that are changing, this is something that I've noticed since I left in April.

Yes.

I don't use social media... Well, I use Twitter, but I don't participate in the conversation. I just use it to kind of lurk.

Mm-hmm.

But I don't use Facebook ever anymore, and when I was in that ACM role, just like you as the CM-

Yeah

... it's on all the time. You have your notifications set up. Anytime a resident's asking a question, no matter... Like, one of the things we prided ourselves on, which may or may not have been a good idea, I don't know, but we had a 99% under 10-minute response time, uh, to-

Which Facebook has changed that algorithm now, right? They don't do that the same as they used to. But w- uh, you know, we still have that response, you know? Um, and I pride our city in the fact that you're gonna get a response from somebody who's a decision-maker. W- we don't have some third party who's running our Facebook page, right? If you post on Facebook, no matter how mean or nasty or nice or kind or whatever it may be, you're pretty much gonna get a response from somebody who's in a decision-making authority. 75% of the time, it's me. It's the city manager who's making that response.

So this is something I've been, uh, kind of thinking about, though, since I've been out of the, out of the game, um, 'cause we do use social media for Zactax a little bit.

Mm-hmm.

We're trying to get a little bit more into... We're trying to figure out where that niche, niche is, because, um, it's a professional service. You interact with it in your work life. We have a Facebook page, but a lot of people don't feel comfortable engaging with work, you know, s- uh, consultancies or so- like, the things that you use in your work life.

I have employees who won't even be my friends on Facebook.

There you go.

It's a big joke in our office, by the way.

Uh, w- we use Twitter, and we're starting to use LinkedIn more, 'cause I guess LinkedIn feels more professionally or businessy. Like, feel-

Yes

... it feels like what you're trying to use to develop your professional relation or network and relationships-

Mm-hmm

... and development. Um, so we're, we're trying to get more into LinkedIn with Zactax's social media presence. But cities are still heavily using Facebook, and there's a couple of interesting things that come out of that. One is that the demographic of Facebook is aging, as, like, younger people are not going onto Facebook.

Correct.

So, um, it took this long for cities to, to really get a presence on Facebook, and now they're missing whole swaths of their population 'cause they're on Instagram or TikTok or whatever the new thing is.

Y- younger people tend to be moving to platforms that are, uh, less socially aggressive from, like, a response standpoint. So Instagram, for example, this week announced that they're doing a test where they, they have, like, hidden likes. Um, you know, whereas Facebook is still fairly aggressive from a standpoint of people have lots of opinions, and they put lots of opinions out there.

And there's, like, 45 different ways to react to a story, and-

Correct

... if you put something out there, if you don't have 10 likes in the next first five minutes, then something's wrong with you, and you start-

Yes

... to doubt yourself.

Or, or in Facebook's world, if you don't have likes within the first five minutes, the algorithm just puts you somewhere. You, you never see the post. Right.

That's why no one ever sees anything I've posted.

That's true. Nobody was liking anything you posted. But, uh, I, I think, you know, with the younger demographic now, you're seeing more of, like, the TikTok and things like that, where, you know, you're- you have short, uh, tidbits of information. There's really no reactionary side to it, uh, you know, like you have with Facebook or even Twitter. I mean, Twitter's very reactionary.

Yes, and insular.

It's-

Yeah, it's-

Yes.

But this is the sort of the problem, though, with, with social media in general. Let's get to that in one second, 'cause-

Great

... 'cause the comment that I was, uh, trying to go for with regard to, to cities finally getting on the Facebook bandwagon.

Mm-hmm.

Um, I mean, it's- we've been talking about this at conferences for, you know, a decade, but at this point, you're really starting to see people, uh, or cities invest in social media productions, videos, uh, Facebook Live.

Mm-hmm.

Um, you know, they're, they're trying to get their message out through Facebook, as two things are happening: one, as younger people are not joining or they're leaving-

Mm-hmm

... Facebook, and as society as a whole starts to really question Facebook in particular, but social media in, a little bit more in generally. Um, so much bad press for Facebook in the past three years-

Absolutely, yeah

... three years plus, um-

And over the last couple of weeks, as all this document trove has come out, right?

So people questioning whether Facebook is a good place to even be, um, what they're doing with the da- all of the data collected. I think if people really understood how much data Facebook has on us.

Mm-hmm.

First of all, Facebook has shadow profiles.... so if a friend of yours who, maybe an, maybe an acquaintance, happened to have your phone number and email address and address in their contacts 10 years ago-

Mm-hmm.

-and, and that's not even... See, it's not even a current address, right? 'Cause they didn't, they haven't really talked to you for 10 years.

Yep.

If they go on Facebook, upload their contacts, Facebook now has that information about you, which they keep-

Mm-hmm

... and they use to build a shadow profile until you sign up.

Yep.

And then when you sign up, oh, guess what? They've got the last five addresses that you lived at. They've got phone numbers and email addresses and AIM handles, depending on how old your contact list is. You know, uh, and if you already have an account, they can associate that with you. So they, they have these extremely in-depth profiles of your past life before you even got onto Facebook.

Yes.

Not to mention the fact that they can track you all across the web. Um, I would- my recommendation is don't log into Facebook in any kind of like, like public browser. Turn br- private browsing mode on, use Firefox. They have these containers that will isolate your, your Facebook browsing. Um, but definitely don't log into Facebook on a browser where your cookies are shared-

Yes

... across other tabs. Don't do it. As we're becoming more aware of the privacy invasions, the, the amount of data that we're letting people collect on us, how ethical is it for cities to be pushing this trend of being on Facebook in particular, and other media forms in general? But-

Well, I mean, I, I would s- I would say it's, it, it is fair to say that cities push Facebook harder than anything else, because that's where most people are in the world of social media, right? Um, cities use it as a device for communication because people are on their Facebook feeds every single day, and it's an easy way for a city to get a point across. It's an inexpensive way to promote something as a city, whether that's-

Very cheap.

It's very cheap. I mean, Facebook has, has basically devastated the local newspaper or local magazine that used to put public events in there, right? You'd spend thousands of dollars to promote public events, and now you spend 100 bucks to advertise it through Facebook. Um, so I mean, look, uh, there's no doubt that cities have proliferated their use of Facebook, and the way people interact with Facebook is, is it's, it's kind of become its new city hall, right? Even to the point of people Facebook Live-ing council meetings and interacting in those council meetings and, uh, whatever else, uh, you know, some cities do push that far to do. But I, I'll, I'll say, Chad, I don't love it. I don't even like it. Uh, you know, it's, it's almost, it feels like it's a necessary evil. It's necessary because that's where the people are, and they expect you to be there. It's necessary because now a resident expects to be able to message you through your Facebook page and get an answer to something. Um, and, and I think that's a reasonable expectation, is that we will communicate with people however they choose to communicate. Um, but it's hard, because it's difficult socially and psychological, psychologically on many of the city employees that are there. The things that can be said on social media... We talked about Facebook, but let's, let's step back for a minute and talk about Nextdoor.

The elephant in the room-

The elephant in the room-

... when it comes to city government

which is Nextdoor, yeah. Any city employee who interacts with residents on Nextdoor understands that it is a constant barrage of harassment that occurs on Nextdoor, of city employees. I do more defending of, uh, of city services to non-residents on Nextdoor than, than I do anywhere else, uh, by phone, by text, by email. Uh, it's amazing the amount of just disinformation that occurs, uh, on Nextdoor.

So Nextdoor is a really tough platform for cities for two reasons. One, you have to actually have an address, a local address-

Yes

... to see what the people around that address are talking about. And two, they do have a platform for cities to use, but it's push only.

Yes, you cannot interact with any of the posts that are put out there.

Yeah.

So somebody may... I, I'll, I will give you an example. I saw a post on Nextdoor this last weekend about a city that, uh, their water customer service agent was really mean to somebody on the phone, and it was the post, right? The post obviously then goes into hundreds of comments that talk about how terrible that city is at whatever they do, right? There's no ability for a city to react. There's no ability for somebody to put information out there or for a PIO to be involved. If you don't live in the subdivision in which that post was put in, you don't get to see the post on Nextdoor, so you never know. You have a resident who walks in the door and says, "Why didn't you fix that person's problem?" You never knew about the problem in the first place.

My favorite thing is when someone does take the initiative to call.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, like, "Oh, there's a pothole, there's a pothole, and someone's complaining about it on Nextdoor." And then a person who sees it calls City Hall and says, "Hey, there's a pothole," and then it gets fixed.

Mm-hmm.

Then everyone will, like, join the circuit or the, this, uh, echo chamber of, "Oh, th- you did a great job of posting this on Nextdoor to get this problem solved."

Yes.

Guys, you're barking up the wrong tree.

Every- everybody on social media is an expert and an engineer. That's, uh, uh... I, I like to say it like that, because we have so many suggestions at how we could better do our job, uh, where those suggestions would never be given over the phone, via email, or in person. Just for some reason, people feel empowered to say things in certain realms of social media that they would not say in other forms.

What's interesting about that dynamic is that when the internet first c- came of age, there was this concern about anonymity and people being more willing to say things in a rude way or inappropriate way, or go a little bit more extreme if they were anonymous. And the thought was that, well, if you have your actual name and your picture, you know, associated with what you're saying, then people will be more diplomatic. Uh, they won't be so extreme. And-... over the last 20 years, we've really gotten to the point where that's not, not the case. Like, we've, we've learned that we were wrong about that.

Correct.

Um, and I think part of it has to do with, with there being an echo chamber and a pile-on. Like, once one person starts to criticize something, then other people- other people will either join, and it will slowly start to build, or other people will criticize and basically say, "Oh, you're an idiot."

Correct.

And then it just blows up from there.

Yeah. We're, we're so worried about our kids getting bullied inside of their schools, we don't even stop to look at the bullying that goes on in our own lives on social media. It is incredible to watch what occurs in a community, and honestly, just it, it tears the actual fabric of a community apart. Um-

These people aren't real. You're just talking to them behind a computer screen.

Correct.

You don't really treat them as though they're your neighbors.

Correct.

They-

Even though they are your neighbors next door.

Yes, and if you were, like, sitting across the table from them at some kind of community meeting, most likely you would not be spewing such bile.

Yeah.

But because they're on the wrong team... And I think, so th- this is interesting, too, because the old adage is that all politics is local.

Yes.

Um, it seem- and, um, this is not original to me, uh, but I heard it, and it was really thought-provoking, but that's really turning on its head, and all politics is sort of becoming national. So now you have local issues where people who disagree on national politics can have different opinions on local issues, like, "Should we have a park here?" Doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or Republican or who you voted for.

Mm-hmm.

Those are separate questions, but now, if you oppose a park or you think that, you know, we shouldn't be building this sewer plant where it's located, all of a sudden now it's like, "Well, you obviously support Trump," or, "You support Bernie, and, like, I hate you now."

Yeah, correct.

Right? So, like, the national- the, the vitriol at the national level is filtering down at the local level, too, and we don't give anyone the benefit of the doubt for having a different opinion.

It- y- you're absolutely correct, but the scariest part about that is it also s- tends to prevent good people from stepping up and serving their community, right? Why would you wanna step up and serve your community when you're gonna be criticized by your next-door neighbor who doesn't really actually know you? They don't actually take the time to knock on your door or deliver you a cake when you move in or any of those type of things anymore. That fabric is, is changing because of social media. I do have good news, though. Uh, i- in my opinion, I think we're actually going away from that. I think the younger generation is starting to turn off on that, and I think we're starting to see the newer social media platforms that are coming out tend to be less bully pulpit.

Maybe, but they also tend to be smaller social networks.

They're- they are.

Which is fine-

Mm

... 'cause there's only so many people you can interact with. I never understood having 1,000 friends on Facebook. Um, but Snapchats, they, they have public snaps and things like that-

Mm

... but a lot of them are kind of group-centered, so maybe, maybe not. Maybe they're getting even more isolated in their own little group.

Yeah, I mean, that's a good point. They could be getting more iso- isolated, but, uh... Yes, that's a good point. I think they could be getting more isolated, but the reality is, is that at, at some point, you can only tear so far.

Well, you see the same thing, though, on, on Twitter particularly-

Mm-hmm

... is that you may be talking to someone halfway across the globe, but ideologically, they are 100% in lockstep with you. So, like, the world is getting bigger or smaller because you can communicate with people all over the place, but your, your actual band of existence, like, the, the realm of ideas that you encounter-

Mm-hmm

... is significantly smaller because you're, you're self-segregating into ideological communities.

Yes.

No matter where they're located, it's great. Yeah, they live in, they live in, you know, Prague, they live in New York or whatever, but they think the exact same way that you do. That's where you get this echo chamber and, uh, so the, the mob mentality.

Yeah, no doubt.

Whereas if you, if you just talk to your neighbors, you're, you're gonna have different opinions about things.

Well, I, I feel like... Look, I mean, we all have freedom of speech, right? Uh, except when that freedom impacts somebody else directly, and talk about that from an employer standpoint for a minute. I have had a number of employees over the years that have gotten themselves in trouble on social media. I've seen other cities have those issues. I, I saw one a couple of months ago where a local government employee of another city lambasted a local business in that city. Well, what happened? The business owner figured out, because they clicked on the profile page, that they were an employee of the local government to which they pay taxes to, and called the city manager, and the city manager ends up having to call somebody in and have them pull a Face- Facebook post down because it was detrimental to the local economy, and who pays the paycheck of that employee? I don't think people, even our employees, take the time to understand the impact of the words that they have. They just don't do it. If you're mean to somebody face-to-face, they don't wanna be friends with you. It's that simple. It's the old schoolyard mentality, right? On social media, they don't get to get rid of you. They can block you here or there, but they don't get to get rid of you in the sense of, "I just don't have to hang out with you or be around you or be your friend," right? So we've lost that, that feeling of control that somebody has on both ends, the control to be friends with somebody and the control to understand that if somebody's going to like me, I actually have to like and appreciate that person, too. Social media doesn't have the like and appreciation of other people. It just doesn't.

So speaking about liking and appreciating other people and serving your community-

Yes

... last week, I started putting up my Christmas lights.

Uh, it's a little early for Christmas lights.

It is.

Yes.

But we're going, uh, even more extravagant than the past, is it three years now? Two or three years.

Have you, have you ordered Christmas supplies from a commercial Christmas supply house that does work with cities?

... yes.

Okay, so you, uh, you have officially gone past the, uh, the normal human being stance, and now you're gonna be, like, on the grand Christmas light show?

So I'm worried about this, because all the lights we have right now are just consumer grade from, you know, your local retail stores.

Okay.

Um, they are definitely of lower quality. I think this actually coincided with the Christmas thing that we did in Hudson Oaks.

Okay.

Like, the first year we did that, I got really inspired. My wife and I talked about this for years. We really wanted to go all out, 'cause w- we live on, uh, a reasonable amount of, of land-

Mm-hmm

... so we have room to, you know, go crazy.

Without putting your neighbor's eyes out at all, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

Although, it's Christmas. But, um, so most of the stuff that we have purchased to this point is just consumer grade, and it's lasted a couple of years. You know, sometimes we'll have to- we'll probably have to replace probably 20% of the lights-

Mm-hmm

... um, uh, each year, but that's still... I- I'm not yet sure the cost benefit of me as a just normal Joe buying commercial-grade lights, 'cause it's so much more expensive.

So you're still sticking, though, at this point, you have not gone to, like, uh, controllable LED lights or, you know, an LOR system or XLights? You're not programming your show yet.

So part of the problem with that is that I am not a Windows user, and most of that software is Windows-based.

So XLights has actually got a Mac version.

Do they?

Yes, but it's for pixels. It's more for LED arches.

Yeah, so that's- pixels is something I've been looking into.

Little bit of interesting history here. Hudson Oaks has a significantly sized free light show that we do, and it's put on by the staff, and we program it and go through all that type of stuff. So, uh, this is what gave Chad the ability to start doing this at home, but it's a, it's a massive undertaking.

Mm-hmm.

We do, like, seven or eight miles of lights-

Mm-hmm

... in Hudson Oaks.

The pixels to me are really interesting, because they're full RGB LEDs.

Mm-hmm.

So you're not stuck with the color that you buy. Um-

There's a Facebook group for XLights users.

Are you a member?

I am a member, yes.

I don't use Facebook anymore, so- ... SOL. Um, but they're also... They're not lights. Well, then they're lights, but they're not like traditional mini Christmas lights or, you know, C9s or whatever.

Mm-hmm.

They're just little LED pixels, and you can get them on, uh, flexible strips. You can get them in, uh, on strand form.

Mm-hmm. Um, you can solder them yourself-

Exactly

... if you want.

Yes.

Yeah.

You can literally make anything that you want.

Mm-hmm.

And I've seen some really cool things on, uh, as I've been going through some, uh, research-

Yeah, the guys who actually make them into PVC pipe and hang them from-

Yes

... the edge of their house-

That's one thing I haven't looked at

... that's a, that is a very cool process, and it's actually not as expensive as you think it would be.

N- well, just the lights are expensive.

Yes.

Um, but the, and the time it takes to... You need equipment to precise... 'Cause i- if you're doing pixels, you're gonna want- especially with something like that-

Mm-hmm

... you're gonna want them to l- be in a very well-defined grid.

Yes.

Um, so you're talking, you know, two-inch by two-inch, and then the each PVC pipe has to l- line up two inches-

Mm

... so it's like an actual square grid. Uh, so the precision that's involved is-

So there's-

... is not insignificant.

So, uh, we're, we're totally nerding out on Christmas here, but there's a company called Twinkly. I don't know if you've seen these lights or not.

Yeah, you showed me. I looked at them.

Okay, so Twinkly is... It's a brilliant idea. It's an R- it's a full RGB LED, but you don't have to map it. You put it up, and then you basically take your iPhone out, and you use their app, and it maps it using the app. That's gonna change the world of Christmas lights. That's amazing, 'cause it... Right now, it's very time-intensive, 'cause you have to map every pixel on a, on a light strand, and-

Right

... so it takes a long time.

You can just sort of touch around. Like, you have the design on your phone, and you can just... Like, for example-

Yes

... the, they have the, the Christmas tree.

Yes.

Right.

So-

It's just an image of a tree, and then you can just touch around it and change the colors for that strip that you touched on the screen.

But pretty much everybody in the, in, in this, this world of Christmas, and, and a lot of these guys do Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, like, they put them up for, like, three months, but pretty much everybody believes that Twinkly is eventually gonna have an XLights ex- export. So you'd be able to go to Twinkly, put it in your phone, and then export that directly into XLights and never have to map an RGB LED again.

But so how does that work if you don't buy-

Which XLights is open source, by the way.

Nice.

Yeah.

If you don't have... Like, if, if you're doing a tree, for example-

Mm-hmm

... it's a tree.

Yes.

Right? So they can tell, based on where you're touching, what lights should do what. But if you have your own custom setup, how does the- how do you get the design into this Twinkly system?

You have to actually map on... So, so the design from Twinkly is, is you literally take a picture of that tree, or you put it on their app and their video, and it recognizes where every pixel is on that tree and maps it automatically. So it basically gives you a mapped tree at that point. What they don't do yet is allow you to export that to XLights and use a program in XLights to run your show, right? That's the next step. Everybody knows it's the next step. They've actually already promoted the light screens, which is basically just like, um, Christmas light strands that are hanging from a roof, and, and you could, like, run a movie or video on them. So it's coming. Everybody knows it's gonna come out. It's probably gonna be next year, 2020. Uh, according to all the guys that, that we buy from at the city, uh, we're, we're gonna see that. So yeah, we get really nerdy about Christmas at Hudson Oaks.

Yeah, I am, uh... I- I've added- I'm trying to, uh, to do a couple things. So what... There's a long-standing, um, drama about the Christmas lights at my house that with the HOA and whatever.

Mm-hmm.

But, uh, at this point, I'm not even doing it to participate in the contest. I'm doing it partially out of the Christmas spirit and then partially out of spite. I think we're gonna take our name out of consideration for the, the neighborhood Christmas awards.

Okay.

But I'm gonna almost double the number of lights from last year, which doubled from the first year, which was already what we termed a Christmas explosion.

Yes.

Um, but what I'm gonna do-

It's a puke of Christmas on your front yard.

Yes. What I'm doing this year is taking a little bit more care to make it look a little more ordered-

Okay

... and not quite so trashy.

Are we gonna get a picture of your Christmas setup in the, uh, show notes?

I'm kinda... Well, it's not, not there yet.

Okay.

It'll have to be a future episode.

Okay.

I'm kind of hoping I can borrow, um, a DJI drone from-... someone. Once we get everything set up.

Gotcha.

Um, but yeah, so the f- the front yard's half an acre, little over half an acre.

Mm-hmm.

So there's a lot of room. We have a lot of inflatables, which I'm not a huge fan of, um, up here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, just 'cause it's so windy.

Yep.

Um, but like 15, 20-foot Santas and things like that. So those kind of fill the back space-

Mm-hmm

... behind the house, and then we have scenes in the yard. So there's like a s- like a winter wonderland scene with like a, a frozen pond that penguins are swimming on or skating on, things like that. There's a Santa scene. There's a, uh... We have a flagpole-

Mm

... that has, like, a hanging Christmas light tree. You know, like you've seen it probably everywhere, but, um-

So we bought a 14-foot-tall, complete-sized LED bear that's gonna go on our stage in the park this year for the city.

Uh, how much was that, 20,000?

No, no, no. It was, like, five or six.

Really?

Yeah, 'cause we buy direct, right? We go... We don't, we don't buy here. We actually buy direct from the manufacturer and have it sent over. And we bought one of those big ornaments that you can walk in. It's like an ornament tunnel.

Yeah.

Yeah, we got one of those as well. So yeah.

My big challenge is designing something that's very nice and a- and fun to look at in your car. So I don't want people, like, walking th- through my yard.

Uh-huh.

You know? Uh, not quite that comfortable.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, we're, uh... Because we're upping the ante again, I had to start... All I've done so far is just wrap a bunch of trees and, and build some of the new elements that we're, uh, that we're putting out, but I've got one more yard mowing this week.

Are you gonna call a retired individual to build you anything for the front yard, like wood, wood figurines or anything like that?

Uh, not this year. We've, uh... I have built some stuff on my own.

Okay.

Um, nothing at the scale or really probably at the quality that, that, that particular individual would do. But, um, yeah, w- well, I'm really trying to build out the scenes that I have, make them all more cohesive and flow from one to the next-

Okay

... and not look like I just threw a bunch of crap all over the yard to, like, Griswold it, if you will.

Nice.

I w- I do want it to look nice, but because I'm making it look nicer this year-

Mm-hmm

... I don't wanna be considered for the neighborhood thing.

Okay.

I'm just doing it for the love of Christmas, because my wife loves the decorations, and I have to do things that make her happy.

Yes.

And a little bit of spite.

Well, merry Christmas to everybody out there.

Cool. Well, uh, fun talk.

Yep.

Hit on some random things, but that's okay.

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, you know, look, you... We're, we're gonna come with some episodes where we talk about, you know, random issues and random things that are occurring in city government. We'll also talk about, uh, you know, some of the things that are impacting Texas cities quite a bit. Uh, but most importantly, we wanna hear from you guys, so if there's something you want us to talk about, uh, get with us, and we'd love to have a conversation.

Thanks, Pat.

Thanks, Chad.

We'll see you all next time.

All right, bye, guys.

Hey, thanks for joining us. Show notes for this episode are available at ZacCast.com/4. We'll see you next time.