Big Fish: 2/23/04
My in-laws saw Big Fish over the weekend and enjoyed it. My flash experiment for the day is a simple multilayered animation. I know it needs some easing here and there but I haven't put any in. No time today. That will be a future
experiment.

Took You Long Enough! 2/18/04
From 2000-2003 I worked at Oracle. During that time I was just too damn burned out from the daily grind of updating websites to work on my personal site. I'm finally finding the time and energy to update the site now that I'm working at less stressful, smaller company.

To give you an idea of how far behind I am, I have just now added my 3D art from 2002. It's now 2004. I have one more year's worth to add and then whatever new goodies I create this year.

Books Bring People Together: 2/15/04
Act 1: My son and I went to the San Francisco Zoo today. At one point we met up with a crowd of mothers and kids who were watching a very brave peacock. He strutted his stuff for us, unphased by the throngs of people. As one of my son's favorite books is Tails which features a peacock ("Rainbow hued and shiny") I couldn't help but quote the book. The mother next to me said, "We have that book. In fact, we have three copies of it." To which I replied, "I feel like we have three copies given how often we read it!"

Act2: I'm currently reading Day of the Triffids and I posted a note about that on the Book Crossing Chit Chat forum. Later today I received a wonderful email from a man who loved reading the book with his now deceased wife. He thanked me for bringing back such happy memories and wished me an equally enjoyable read.

Apologies to Ira Glass and This American Life for the format of today's post.

Back and Forward : 2/13/04
Happy Friday the 13th! My flash for dummies learning session continues. Thanks to a lovely tutorial on The Internet Eye Magazine site, I can finally do back and forward buttons. I was trying to make things too complicated for myself. So -- why the rodent theme? My new boss likes rats (keeps them as pets in the office!) so this is for her. Plus I'm blown away by Comcast's bid to buy Disney.

Standing Ovation: 2/12/04
I don't normally rant about politics or politically charged events but I have to pause from my normal routine to give Mayor Newsom a standing ovation for his bold move to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. I'm sick to death of politicians telling me how I think (or should think) about the "sanctity of marriage." Marriage should be allowed for any two consenting adults be it a man & woman, man & man, or woman & woman.

Annoying Flash of the Day: 2/11/04
I had more questions about flash. Today I was playing with activating movie clips with buttons and setting variables.

Annoying Flash of the Day: 2/10/04
I created this piece today to work out some technical issues I was having with a UI Design. I purposely made it annoying to make the functionality obvious. Enjoy...

Inspirations: 2/7/04
In November of 2003 while unemployed, I read On Writing by Stephen King. I loved his candid explanations of how he became a writer and more importantly, his practical advice for becoming one. I have taken On Writing to heart and have so far written and submited 3 short stories for review. I currently have one to rewrite before sending off and one more that I'm working on. My current writing project revolves around scuba diving. Not being a scuba diver myself, I'm in research mode both for accuracy and for ideas.