Hello All,

      As I write, I have just came in from the “field” (I have spent most of my waking hours this week seemingly in that same “field”) of overseeing our 3 homes we are building in the upcoming MBA Parade Of Homes.  I am exhausted and excited at the same time. I am now rarely going to bed before 2 AM  and I am still usually up by no later than 8 Am for meetings out at the Parade.

    As tense and as exhilarating as it now may seem, it will only get more rapid paced as we enter the final 5 or 6 weeks approaching our August 20 opening. One of our homes is now completely drywalled and has about half of the finish carpentry completed. Our second MBA Parade home  is almost ready for counter tops and carpet. We will be doing the landscaping starting late next week.  Our third MBA Parade home is just finishing the drywall and won’t be ready for finish carpentry to begin until the end of next week at the very earliest.

       The two big side projects that are seeming to consume a lot of creative hours is our “Story Tellers Lounge and our virtual reality in-home nightclub called “Club Wonder“.   In Club Wonder we have several sensory things happening at one time and they all need to be interwoven into a timeline to happen automatically. For example, we are projecting one curved 30 foot by 6 foot high video image around 3 sides of the room. The effect is to make you think you are sitting on a blue beach or in a green forest , or in an orange dessert, or in a purple hued city at night.  Each video scene is realistic (not unlike reality since it wraps around the viewer and is nearly in proportion to the audience. and changes to the next scene every 7 minutes. 

      When the scenes change, that means the color of the image (blue for the beach scene, for example) also is complimented by the lighting in the room substantially changing to that same (blue) color. The room seemingly changes color every 7 minutes. At the same point, we have different smells which are introduced into the club as well.

     The music in the club is being done both with a baby grand piano and alternating (without the piano) using recorded orchestrated music.  The color changes effect and video images, smells, and even the counter tops(which have lights inside them) each change and need to be synchronized to do so automatically. I have done complicated “shows” with multiple stages of action happening at the same time but this one is really touch technically speaking. Today,  I had several meetings with the masterminds involved. The end report:keep your fingers crossed and hope it all comes together!

     The next complicated items in this Wonder Home is the Story Teller’s Lounge. Here we have a simpler set of automation’s where our  Miracle Homes mascot character, Miracle  Mouse, has his own illustrated children’s book which we are bringing to life on a 55 inch flat-screen which begins each show by elevating out of a small stage area, ON CUE(we hope).  There are two other smaller 26 inch television flat screens which are directly over the bigger screen. All three of these televisions interact to “read” our children’s story to anyone who is willing to sit through the 15 minute full show.

     At some point in the show, their is a thunder storm sequence. During that sequence, we want the room lights to dim and the a few strobe lights to flash as thunder and lightening is heard and seen on the screens. One of the three screens has the books words which are highlighted as each word is read. This is a read-along experience. We are trying to blend books and videos together. Using another of this room’s devices, a mother can place  any book under the table camera next to the couch and each page appears on the screen as it is read the good-ol fashioned way.

     The hopes of this home, called our HYBRID WONDERHOME is that guests will have a series of wonderful experiences of which these are definitely two of the highlights. The more we can have our guests enjoy themselves and interact with the rooms, the more memorable their stay with Miracle Homes will be.  After all, as the wise advertising man once said,  folks don’t buy the steak, they buy the sizzle. Likewise, I always found that our real separation from the many other fine builders is that we excel in creating a sense of creativity and a spirit of innovation. This extends into everything we do!

     If you would like to get a preview of these MBA Parade Of Homes , Miracle Homes, we surely want you to see them this weekend. Per the official rules of the Metropolitan Builder’s Association, Parade participants ARE NOT allowed to show the homes in a public open house forum, prior to the offical opening.  That poses the problem however of builders  needing to show their homes in order to sell them . To see these homes this weekend so we might try to sell them , it can be done 2 easy ways. First, you COULD call our office at (262) 628-9091 and arrange a time to see them one-on-one with us. The second way is to come to the site at Reflection’s Village subdivision and go to our special INFO-DECK area. At that area, you can make your  immediate appointment to view these spectacular homes.  We did just such a one-on-one showing today(Friday afternoon) and I believe we had genuine interest in potentially buying one of the models. They sure seemed to enjoy seeing them AND getting a golf cart tour of the whole development with me. If you do visit, you may think your car can drive to see all the development’s sites but you would be really missing a lot. The various wide, paved walking paths are only viewable using your legs, bikes, or our golf cart.

     Don’ t miss the fun this weekend from 1 until 4.  Reflection’s Village is Wisconsin’s ONLY community of it’s kind.  With a pool/club house, extensive walking paths, a shopping district with a bank, shops and eateries, as well as a fishing pond and lush landscaping AND old-World charming homes, where else are you going to find this kind of lifestyle? Come and see for yourself , just off 175 in Richfield, a few blocks South of 167W(Holy Hill Rd).

     Thanks for bloggin’.

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

       A  BIG  P.S.    I will be on Channel 4’s Morning Blend this coming Friday July 20 to give you a real pek at the Miracle MBA Parade “magic”! The program starts at 9 am.

    

This entry was posted on Friday, July 16th, 2010 at 10:18 pm and is filed under Tom Hignite's Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.