well, found the 9 volt battery pack wouldn't hold a charge overnight. Removed the plastic wrap, found a bad cell (leaked), some of the others looked bad, so trashed it all. Hooked up a different one, but only charges to 8 volts. I've had it flashing 4 red LEDs for a few hours. Haven't done anything more with it (too much overtime last week) . Guess I'll go buy a 9.6 battery pack for an R/C car someplace.
Wonder how hard it would be to simulate a flame with LEDs? The red LEDs I was playing with really put off some light, thought it would make a nice effect using some pulsating yellow and amber LEDs, just no idea how to pulse them slowly. Anyway got enough going on, maybe something to play with another time.