Welcome fishies, to my hook

Intermediate Flash, Week 5

2 days ago
1 comment

My final project for Intermediate Flash. I had to create a project where one could change properties on an object using buttons. You had to change the position of the object constantly while a button was pressed, as well as transparency (alpha). You also had to demonstrate turning the object's visibility off and on via buttons, as well as resetting everything. I chose to drive a little Pac Man around, because that was the first thing that popped in my head when I started doing the project. You can drive him with the directional arrows that are around the "joystick", adjust his alpha with the arrows there, toggle his visibility off and on using the faux-checkbox I made, and reset everything. Bonus stuff I did was make him respond to arrow keys (you have to click inside the movie first before it will respond to them, and some other trickery to make the checkbox seem like a toggle.

I think I did pretty well, and much better than the assignment actually called for.

The Subservient PacMan

He's back!

3 days ago
2 comments

Image497

Over?

4 days ago
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Sad... We're going home today. Puerto Rico has been awesome. We have roughly a thousand mosquito bites between us. We swam in some of the most beautiful locations imaginable. We made friends with the local fishies. We hiked to the highest point on the island. We ate amazing food. Scotch bonded with my parents. It's been a great time, but now it must end. We've got 10 hours of flying ahead of us, and then a weekend of recovery during which I need to do some serious catching up on school work.

See you on the mainland!

Esperanza, Vieques

7 days ago
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Image496

We are here

May 5, 2008
3 comments

Image495

Ferry

May 5, 2008
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To Vieques

Image494

salud!

May 3, 2008
4 comments

Image493

We're tired...

May 3, 2008
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It took something like 17 hours of travel to get to our condo, and that was starting at 10pm PST Thursday night. As far as I can tell, it's almost 10am local time here in Puerto Rico.

We arrived stinky, tired, and hungry, so we headed out to get some food and other necessities. We got a little inebriated and decided to walk down to the beach at about 9pm. It was totally dark and the beach was completely deserted. Once we felt the warm water on our feet, we couldn't resist taking off our clothes and going for a quick dip. Yay for moonlight skinny dipping on the first day! This here's a family neighborhood though, so we made it quick and made sure nobody saw.

After that, we retired to our room (I'll refrain from providing further detail) and then slept like the dead, while the Friday night parties raged outside.

Our little condo is great, and the neighborhood is nice. The beach is only two blocks away, and there's a bar and grill for gringos right downstairs.

Yawn

May 2, 2008
2 comments

6:30 am local time. Dallas-Ft. Worth. Three hours until our flight leaves for San Juan. Scotch off searching for coffee. I'm slurping 3G internet access to my MacBook via Bluetooth to my Nokia. Take that, iPhone users!

I hate how this part of Texas feels. On the tram from the other terminal, Scotch said, "Don't you feel bad for that fabulous gay man? Did you see the toilet paper on his shoe?" I replied, "Yeah, and the truckload of rednecks that was chasing him?"

In the bathroom stall, the badass looking graffiti said "FEAR GOD". There was also a "Luke 9:23" or some such thing. Dude. I don't want to have to go FIND A BIBLE to know what your tag is about.

There's a big vending machine at this gate that sells iPods and digital cameras. I wonder how much business that thing does.

Vacation, bitches. Miss Scotch is the cutest and most awesome travel partner.

Necessity...

May 1, 2008
13 comments

When we moved to the Mission, I sold my truck, partly because I just don't need it, and partly because there's no place to park it. This left me with one problem - how to get Rudy from place to place. For short trips, he's always been cool with hopping in my messenger bag and going for a scooter ride, but he tends to get squirmy and cramped after a while, and it doesn't work well when I take him on my motorcycle because I can't hang him right in front of me like I can on the scooter.

I looked in to the motorcycle kennel from Road Hound, but they're crazy expensive, and the mounting system isn't compatible with the Givi luggage I usually have on the back of the bike. What I needed was something that was as good for Rudy as that, but which could mount up to the Givi plate that I've already got installed. It had to be secure and not hundreds of dollars. This is what I came up with:

Image490

3 comments

Sorry for the washed out photo... the sun was at an angle my camera phone didn't like. Anyway, that's an old imitation-Givi case (cheap-o JC Whitney knockoff) that was on the bike when I bought it. The lock had busted, so I'd replaced it and it'd just been sitting around doing nothing. I cut the top half off. I bought this kennel, which is big enough for Rudy (nine pound chihuahua, pictured), but just about the right size and flexible enough to cram in to the case bottom. I secured it using four small wood screws (scavenged - they were originally the ones holding in the tie-down straps that were built in to the case) from the inside of the kennel, through to the body of the case.

The kennel snaps on to the Givi mount and is as secure as a piece of their luggage would be, which is really good. Since the lock on this case is broken, it doesn't lock to the mount, so theft could still be a problem. To deal with that, I've run a Kryptonite cable lock through the handle on the case and through the grab rail on the motorcycle. This gives the added bonus that in the event the case somehow works itself loose from the mount, it (and my dog) won't totally fall off, but instead be dragged through the streets until I realize what's happened.

Rudy seems to enjoy the kennel. It's comfortable, and he has room to get up and stretch and turn around and stuff. With me in front of him, he doesn't get too much wind, and he enjoys the sunshine. So far, every time he's ridden in it, he's just stretched out, napped a little, and checked out cars as we pass them. It's only been short rides to and from work so far, but I think after we get back from vacation, we'll plan to take him on a little camping trip.

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Abject said:

[this is good]
That's pretty kick ass! You working in ActionScript 2 or 3? read more
on Intermediate Flash, Week 5
btrott said:

[this is good]
He looks so happy! We had a great time with him. :) read more
on He's back!
Sooz said:
Boy, I bet he was glad to see you! read more
on He's back!
Madelyn said:

[this is good]
That's the coolest thing I think I've ever seen! And Rudy just looks like a King on his throne in... read more
on Image490
J said:
Hot Scotch!! Yesssss! I'm glad y'all are having a great time, while I'm stuck behind my desk & florecent lighting,... read more
on Esperanza, Vieques