Hey guys,
Steve here.
I’m in a pretty awesome mood today–staar testing is all gone, I just had my coffee, and I get the privilege to write yet another blog post.
Well as the post title implies, I have a question for you readers–but no need to worry, it’s just a matter of filling out a small pole. So I was thinking… should I have a home page (an actual home page), or should the home page remain as it is, the blog entries.
Let me elaborate here. A home page, is what you’d see when first logging onto stevend.net. I was thinking about creating one of those, instead of showing blog entries on the home page as is being done currently. So, I’d kindly ask any and all readers of this post to fill out the pole below, and submit in your vote. In two weeks, (on April 16), I will decide based on the majority of votes whether or not to do a custom home page. So please vote, you have two weeks to do so.
[polldaddy poll=7937065]
Alright… with that knocked out of the way, let’s get on to the main body of this post.
First of all, I’d like to inform you about severe weather day, and the weather expected therein. On Monday, I said that the weather on Thursday April 3 (dubbed by me as severe weather day) was going to be severe; large hail, damaging winds, and isolated tornadoes. The forecast really hasn’t changed much, except that the storms are now most likely to hit mid to late morning, and the main severe weather threat is going to be east of where I live. So, hopefully, we will not be seeing any tornadoes in the near future.
On to life news, school has been boring (more than usual), because of staar testing. Basically, on both yesterday and today, I sat at a table for 5 hours, completing tests that were (no exaggeration), at least 60 questions. Not to mention, the English test which I took today, had like 6 stories in it. My goodness, state of Texas, why must you burden me with such horrendous and pointless work? I am a natural born relaxationist (don’t ask me if that’s a word, because I honestly don’t know)… so all that work was too much for me.
Anyway, besides school, I still haven’t programmed since last week… except maybe a bit on Sunday out of pure bordem. I plan to talk to my dad, and try to reason with him that my intentions aren’t to sell my software as of yet, but to release them as first programs. And if he thinks someone can steel it from me, (I think this is the case), I’ll need to let him know that I’m releasing this software as an executable, and not open source code, thus no one can modify the windows that are titled “trash by sQuad software” and “sQuad word.” because after all, despite my endless excited ranting about programming in the past months and years, he just told me last Thursday, after I’d spent 2 months of hard stressful work on 2 projects with quite a bit of potential. In fact, oddly enough, today marks exactly one month since I first began writing the code for Trash, and this Sunday will not only mark 2 months since the first lines of sQuad word were written, but also the day I began actually learning programming. So do you see where I’m coming from?
Moving on, I also have some news about the podcast. I know I said I couldn’t schedule episodes to the date, as we all know how that was going, but I can tell you the game of the day for the next few episodes… in case you’re interested. For episodes 20 and 21, I will continue my swamping with Steve series, and for episode 20 the campaign I’ll be playing is one called “twisted egg hunt.” It’s like an egg hunt, but there are also zombies; so not only do you have to find as many eggs as is possible in the allotted time period, but you also have to avoid having your brains eaten by zombies. Good times, good times.
Aside from that, episode 22 will have a review of the remarkable game my friend Danny is working on, the first of its kind. It’s called snow race, and is an accessible, multi player snowboarding game for the blind. I highly recommend you go to his website (the link will be at the bottom of the post) to check it out, because it’s a truly awesome game. So I guess you’d better look forward to episode 22, because that’s when snow race will be demonstrated.
That’s about it for podcast game of the days, but I’ll get some more games to test in later episodes. And while on the subject of podcasts, I can see a few of you’ve listened to episode 19? That is, after all, the most clicked link on my website in the last 3 days. Well I’m just glad you enjoy it.
———————-
Completely changing topics, let’s discuss my future for a while. This weekend, I don’t know what I’ll do as of yet, except goal ball. It seems like a while since I’ve gone to goal ball, though it’s probably only been two weeks. Also in my near future, I have a orchestra concert coming up on April 15 (we’re playing some good songs, but not the best songs we’ve learned. I think the songs we’re playing are songs we learned about 2 weeks ago). But for our orchestra concert on May 29, we’re playing some pretty awesome songs, so good that I’ve officially declared them “my jams.”
Also, we’re having a choir concert, however I don’t know exactly when that is. But for that, we’re singing “black burd” by the Beatles, and just the way you are by Bruno Mars.
Anyway, continuing with future events, on April 6 it will officially be 2 months until the last day of school. Also, there are only 7 more Monday’s left of school, but that’s not counting memorial day, which of course we have off.
Well I guess that about wraps up tonight’s post. Good night everyone, and I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your week, and look forward to another one of my posts.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.
P.S. Here’s where to go to find out more about snow race:
the snow race page of danny’s website
Category: happyness
A wonderful birthday party
Hey guys,
Steve here.
Yes, I know it’s Monday, and that usually means Monday’s Musings. Monday’s Musings 17 will still happen, but it will be next week–I have a lot to say in this update, and don’t currently have a good enough topic for the Monday’s Musings post for this week.
Unfortunately, I must start off this post with some bad news; not crushing news (to you guys anyway), and not news that will impact this blog and how it runs, but none the less bad news. So I was telling my dad about the software I’m creating, and he informed me that he doesn’t want me releasing it. I can understand where he’s coming from, he only is doing this for my good, but none the less I wasn’t very happy about it. I should’ve told him about my software developing dream 2 years ago when I first got it, so maybe then I woulddn’t have gotten so deep into creating software and wanting to do it.
I’ll admit, that after learning that I wasn’t supposed to release software, I was a bit upset Thursday night, and decided to quit work on my software. This decision still stands, and until I can release them, my programs will be safely tucked away in my private dropbox folder.
Moving on to better, less depressing news, Last weekend had to be one of the best birthday parties I’ve ever had. We went to the lake as promised, and though my sister brought her friend, two of my best friends Oscar (the one from church) and Joseph (a friend from school) got to come.
To start it off, Friday was an all out good day. Besides school, I got a great storm recording (that I will share at the end of the post and on the natural events page), that contained some hail, and a really good close up of wind, rain, and lots of lightening. And yes, my cat was in an attention seaking mood that day, so he meowed at the end of the recording, and of course I had to meow back… lol.
Anyway, after catching that recording, my friends came over, and we hung out until it was time to make the hour long drive to my grand parents’ lake house. When we got there, we had a dinner of hotdogs and chips. Then, my dad and one of my friends went out fishing, and I fell asleep very early, so I don’t know what all the rest of them were doing.
On Saturday, I awoke to the refreshing smell of pancakes, and ended up having 10 of the things. Oscar and I were trying to see who could eat the most, and I out ate him 10 to 6. Moving on, after breakfast, we went fishing for a while, and spent the rest of the day riding the pontune, and playing and having a good time.
For dinner that night, we had hamburgers, and then a fantastic tasting cookie cake. And before I knew it, it was time to go home.
Although that party ended with me getting a pretty painful and red sunburn, it was well worth it. Getting to go to the lake house isn’t something we do often, so when we do go I try to have as much fun as possible–and my birthday party was no exception. I had lots of fun, and look forward to the next time we go.
Since we got home around 8:00 Saturday night, nothing worth blogging about happened for the rest of the night. But on Sunday, we had pretty much a full day of church. You know the singing practice I was going to last Sunday right after I wrote that post? That was to practice for 5th Sunday singing, which occured yesterday afternoon. Someone from church and I sung “He Knows My Name” for the 5th Sunday Singing (It’s up to my mom whether or not she posts the link to the video in the comments). But the reason we were at church all day was because there was morning survice, a potluck lunch (I had meat loaf, fajitas, a ham sandwich, spaghetti, and chocolate cake), and right after that was the 5th sing service, where people would either play or sing a christian song in front of all the people in the church.
Besides that, nothing else happened this weekend. On the bright side, I recorded episode 19 of the Steve n d podcast on Thursday night, so you can go to the podcasts page if you want to listen to it.
As for today, it was a normal school day. Tomorrow and Wednesday, however, we will be having staar testing (state of texas assessment of accadimic readiness), over math and English. I’m not sure which day is which; but I know the only test I feel nervice about is the math one. English I feel pretty confident about, but math… well not so much. I think I’ll do fine though. I haven’t failed that class all year; I haven’t made anything below a B minus in there.
As a final note, we could have some more potentially severe weather mid week. And the most promising day for bad weather just happens to be April 3, or severe weather day as I like to call it. Will April 3 continue to live up to its name? Will we get a massive tornado outbreak? Or will something happen and there are no storms that day or the ones that do occur aren’t severe? Well we’ll just have to see, I guess.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this post, and sorry (yes I am sorry) there was no Monday’s musings post. Don’t worry, they will resume next week, It’s just that I needed to get this post published, and couldn’t think of a musing topic. Just letting you know for future reference, that kind of stuff might actually happen in the future.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.
p.s. I didn’t forget the storm recording, here it is:
download
or listen to it online:
Another Birthday well spent
Hey guys,
Steve here.
As the title suggests, this was a good day. I’m pretty tired right now; not sure if it’s all that sugar I ate, or all the fun I had, or both… so I think I’m going to try and make this a short post.
I don’t know if this is coincidence, but this blog reached 10,000 views on my birthday! That’s a nice present… isn’t it?
Well anyway, after I posted on Sunday, not much happened–besides singing practice and church of course, as I said would happen.
On Monday, I went to school like normal, as well as on Tuesday, or Steve Eve. By the way, I hope you all had a wonderful Steve eve!
Waking up today was pleasant. for one, I got that extra 1 hour and 15 minutes of sleep, because my dad took me to school as aposed to the bus which comes and picks me up at 7:00. And for 2, I pigged out on a wonderful breakfast–a glazed donut, chocolate donut, a cinnamon roll, donut wholes, cake donut, 2 pigs in a blanket, and a nice big bottle of chocolate milk. And though I was very full afterward, I’ve gotta say that was the best breakfast I’ve had in quite a while.
Anyway, school was pretty boring today–but, I got a lot of happy birthday wishes though. And when I turned 15, (at 3:01 PM), my science teacher was giving a lecture on compound elements on the periodic table.
When I got home, however, I took a short break before we all (me, my mom, my dad, and my sister) went to stake n shake, where I had (you guessed it), chicken fingers and an m & m / cookies and cream shake.
After that, we went to church, where the youth leader through a small party–I had a cake, and cupcake, and they all sung happy birthday to me, me in cluded).
Finally after church, I came home, showered, and have been relaxing and reflecting over the day since then. On Friday night and Saturday, I’ll be having my birthday party down at the lake. And I know you’re probably wondering what I got–nothing just yet. I’m waiting to open my presents until the party itself.
Well I guess that concludes this post, since I’ve got to go to bed. I really enjoyed this birthday; and though I’m a bit sad that it’s over, I can rest assured that more birthdays are to come in the future, and I still have a party to look forward to. Good night to you all, and happy Day of the Best!
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.
It's Sunday… yet I'm still excited
Hey guys,
Steve here.
It’s Sunday, the day before the long stressful week starts, however I’m still in as good of a mood as I would be on Friday. First of all, it’s the start of the week of my birthday, and second of all I’m seriously almost done with Trash.
To start off, let me tell you what I mean by “seriously almost done with trash.” I don’t mean that it’s almost ready to beta test–it’s still too buggy to play; I mean it’s in the process of being tested, and almost all bugs have been eliminated.
Since I last posted, here’s what I’ve implemented:
-wild card. What is a card game without a wild card? So far, you can place the wild card on any position that doesn’t have a face up card already in it, however the computer can not yet utilize the card. When this is complete, I plan to have it where you can move said wild card around. Why you ask? Say you have the wild card in the second position, and you draw a 2. Say that then you still need a 5. I want you to be able to replace the wild card in the second position with the 2, then put that wild card in the 5. See what I’m saying?
Moving on, but also on the subject of software, I didn’t get a chance to test the visual aspects of sQuad word on Friday, because Luke, the friend I’m testing it with, decided it would be a great idea not to come to school. Oh well… we’re not in a hurry with this, are we?
Also, something that happened to my sister gave me an idea for another feature. She had almost finished a, I think 50, question test, when her computer shut down, causing her to lose her answers. So, I decided, as that has happened to me before, that I would implement an autosave feature. Thus, I think this will further delay sQuad word’s release… but you can rest assured that your documents won’t be erased should your computer unexpectedly shut down.
Completely changing topics, I had quite an awesome weekend. I spent both nights Skyping Danny, beta testing his snow boarding game for the blind with him, and programming and testing Trash. As for yesterday during the day, I had to get up at 6:00 in the morning, because my sister had some test, and then her, my mom and I were going to north park mall with one of our vision teachers, MS. Kristie Smith. I’m not sure why we were going, but it ended up being fun.
So after Libby’s test, we went to the mall as expected. There were other blind and visually impaired kids there. While we were there, we went to the apple store (I got to test out an iPhone 5, and an IPad air). Ever notice how light an iPad air is compaired to other apple products?
Anyway, after that, we went to build a bare, and just for the fun of it, I made a white bare and named him “bob.”
Afterward, we tried out tea samples, something I wasn’t a big fan of, since I’m not a tea person. And after that, we tried out some lotion samples, then ate ice cream.
When we got home, I crashed for about an hour and a half, before eating lunch… and spending my night talking to Danny and all that stuff.
Today was a more relaxed day. The only thing worth blogging about that I did was going to church.
Well that about concludes today’s post. I’m ending this so soon because next Sunday is 5th Sunday singing, and I’m going to the church at 5:30 to practice a song I’ll be singing… and I have to get ready. That, and I don’t have much else to say.
So, I hope you look forward to steve eve, and the day of the best. Also, don’t forget to stay in tune for the Monday’s musings post tomorrow night.
A mid week update
Hey guys,
Steve here.
Well spring break is over, along with two days of our first week back to school. Isn’t it amazing how time can fly by so fast? I mean even when posting the Monday’s musings post… I was amazed–it’s already been 15 weeks of Monday’s musings? And yet it seems like Monday’s Musings 6 was written last Friday. Well not really, considering Monday’s musings posts are written only on Mondays, but you get my point anyway.
For you storm recording fans, I have some good news for you. On March 15, we got a pretty big storm, and I was able to record it not only in stereo, but from an out-of-the-window vantage point. Yes, you will hear wind hitting the microphone, but that can serve as more proof I recorded it vertually outdoors. And if you hear some talking, and you will, it’s because I was at my church friend’s house at the time of the recording.
Aside from storm recording, my spring break was one of relaxation, and forgetting school all together; acting like it didn’t exist, and waiting until Sunday to do violin practice, because after all that is an aspect of school, that I believed I didn’t need to worry about over the break. After posting that blog post last Tuesday, I had two of the same days–spending my time being lazy and playing on the computer. On Friday, however, my mom, sister, and I fed the ducks at white rock lake. And now that I think back to it, didn’t we do the same thing on the Friday of spring break last year? It’s even written in a blog post from around that time.
After feeding the ducks Friday, we went to a palio bakery, and tried some of their desserts. I got to try a cookie, and a cupcake, both made with absolutely no milk. Now how weird is that? Even weirder, the things tasted good!
After our day out, we came home, and I programmed, and skyped danny; nothing productive for the rest of the night.
On Saturday, we had goal ball practice, and then we went to my church friend Oscar’s house to spend the day. We went because I guess my mom and dad planned to spend the day with them, but didn’t tell me about it until Saturday morning, so once again I didn’t tell you guys in advance.
So basically, after goalball, I ran home, made sure I had my recorder and stereo microphone, and weather radio, and we were off. So, that night when we were still over there, the storms hit, and I was able to get that great recording. But due to noise and microphone positioning, it took me like 5 attempts before I finally got the perfect recording. Welcome to the world of audio production. *sighs*
Later on that night, we had ice cream… or should I say everyone but me had ice cream. I accidentally fell asleep around 10:10 or so, and they had ice cream right after that. (lololol) I don’t know how I always fall asleep at parties and get togethers like that right before they have dessert.
Skipping ahead to Sunday, it started off with church as usual, and the rest of it was spent getting ready for school, and on the computer. And as for yesterday and Today, I had school, and was on the computer in the evenings. (well I guess we’re officially back into the routine).
In other news, Trash is nearing completion. I am already working on the winning procedure–and when that’s complete, I can put up an early beta, but sadly you guys won’t be able to play it because I need my friends to check for bugs before I toss it out to you guys. But hey, even if it takes long, at least I’m trying to make it as bug free and enjoyable as possible before giving it to you guys.
Speaking of software, Mason and I stopped colaboration on Ultrapad, because we wanted to release it on our own and do different things on it. Besides, there was some stuff in there I wanted to take out, and replace with different stuff… so it’s for the best. Anyway I think I got the bug fixed–and if that’s true, you’ll know by the nice little link posted on the software page. Also, when I release that, the software page will be renamed to sQuad software, so be on the look out for that in the next few days. (yes, in other words, check back often:).
Aside from all that, My birthday is only 8 days away! So in exactly a week from now, that’s right, it’ll be Steve eve! I decided not to have a birthday party, however I will be eating stake n shake for my birthday dinner. MMM there shakes and chicken tenders are so freaking good!
As for what I’m wanting for my birthday, there are two things–one of which I must see if it exists. I want swamp, and a talking rain gage. Or at least a braille one anyway. I’m not complaining here, but it is a matter of fact that there just isn’t a whole lot in the way of accessible technology out there, thus is the reason I’m having to make sure if such a thing as a talking rain gage exists.
Changing topic, Spring is just around the corner, which also means tornado season. That literally has to be my least favorite thing about spring; even reading about a tornado watch that was issued for Florida (my friend lives there and I was checking the weather) had me shaking, mainly because I know that weather is bound to hit any day now.
As another change in topic, high school transition night was supposed to be tonight. It’s some night where they show you the layout of the high school and you can meet the teachers… but I didn’t bather to go; there will come a day this summer where I’ll go up to the high school, give it a tour, and meet the teachers anyway.
Speaking of which, I’m sort of hoping I don’t get put in Pre AP next year. I thought of that, because my o&m teacher and I were going to talk to the high school counciler (not mental guidance counciler, the one that manages your schedules and such), about me being in pre AP next year. Call me lazy, call me under acheaving… whatever, but I just don’t feel like doing it. You see I’m one of those who doesn’t want to drop out of high school, or even just graduate with 70’s and 80’s as my average; I want to graduate, be successfull, and have a’s and b’s in high school. I don’t care about this whole destinguished program stuff, (although my sister does, and I’m proud of her). I just don’t feel it’s nessessary; if I can get into a college that’s not poor quality, and has programming and/or meteorology classes, I’ll go for it.
But with all that said, I guess that’s the end of tonight’s post. I hope you enjoyed reading it, and look forward to my next post.
(and yes, I have my next 4 posts scheduled, but I’m not releasing dates :).
Thanks for reading,
Type you later,
Steve.
P.s. There are only 10 Mondays left of school! Hurray!
P.S.S:
this is the first one of my posts that is over 1000 words… isn’t it?
good and bad news, along with current life events
Hey guys,
Steve here.
Yes, you read that right. Today is one of the rare occurrences of bad news on this blog… so I guess I’ll tell you the bad news right now just to get it out of the way.
You know Swamp? The game I’ve been addicted to for about a year now? Well due to the fact that there are so many hackers, attacks, and other unwanted things happening within the game, Aprone (swamp’s creator) is making it a paid game. I won’t have to pay for single player, but if I want multiplayer, that’ll be $24 per year.
I have a visa gift card, so hopefully that will work. If so, I might consider paying for swamp. But if not… well I’d better step up my game (quite literally) and program some audio games worth selling.
Speaking of audio games, the good news I mentioned earlier is about Trash, the card game that I am programming for the blind. let me tell you how much progress I’ve done on that.
-I completed the player system, testing it out to be sure it works. Now, you can draw, place cards at the desired position, junk, and draw from the junk pile.
-mostly completed the computer player system. The only thing I need to do for the computer player system is to add the draw from junk pile procedure, but I figure that’ll be easy.
-began the process of adding sounds. I’ve already added a deck shuffling sound for when you start the game and the deck is shuffled, but I don’t think I’ll add any more sounds until I’m completely done with all the other stuff.
Speaking of sounds, I found my flash drive of sounds, which I believe contains over 1000 sound affects. That’s good news for future games.
Moving on to my life, we’re well into spring break now. To start off the break, my friend Oscar from church came over to spend the night. It was another surprise my parents threw at me–one minute I was on the computer, chatting with Danny over skype, the next I was scrambling to clean my room and the bathroom so they didn’t look like a complete mess when Oscar came.
And three hours later, my mom and I picked up Oscar, and him and I spent the rest of the night playing wii, and hanging out.
On Saturday, I had goal ball practice, however Libby didn’t go because she went to the mall with the church youth group to ice skate (yet another event that I was going to, but didn’t figure that out until after my last update, I think). Anyway, Oscar came to goal ball as well, so he got to see my awesome skill!
Right after goal ball, Oscar, my dad, and I met up with Libby and the rest of the youth group at the mall, where I attempted, but failed, at ice skating. But hey, It’s not really about how good I was, it was about hanging with friends, (at least that’s what I hope). But seriously, even though I was ice skating along the wall, I still managed to slip 3 or 4 times, but luckily I didn’t fall.
Skipping ahead, after ice skating, we all went to in and out burger for lunch, before heading our separate ways and going home. Oscar got to hang out with me for a few more hours–and for dinner, 2 hours after we ate lunch, we had more burgers and fries. But hey, there’s no such thing as too many burgers or fries in my book :).
After Oscar left, my Saturday night went a little something like this. Lay on the couch, watching from the side lines as the rest of my family played Yahtzee on the wii, as my head pounded and throbbed, feeling as though someone knocked it with a baseball bat or something. I’m not sure why my head hurt so bad, but luckily it was gone in about 2 hours.
Besides church, Sunday was uneventful. And as for Monday, the only thing I did outside the house was go out for lunch with my sister, mom, and dad. And today, besides a lot of programming, I didn’t do much of anything.
But aside from getting out of the house, my last 3 days have been filled with Skyping my friends, and playing my games, all day, and until 2 or 3 in the morning.
Ah. Isn’t it fun to be a teenager?
Anyway, that’s about it for today’s post. I know you’re sad because you don’t get to read any more of my words at the moment, but you could always:
-read previous posts, like posts before you started following this blog.
-eagerly await my next post.
–but all joking aside, I hope you enjoyed tonight’s post. And remember last night’s Monday’s musings post–I wasn’t lying. I really do enjoy writing these posts.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.
An exciting end to a long blogging break
Hey guys,
Steve here.
Woe! It’s already been almost 3 weeks since my last blog update. I mean the only evidence that I still exist (to you guys anyway) is my Monday’s Musings posts, but even those get scheduled sometimes if something bugs me enough on another week day. Don’t worry, this will not be an often occurance–even I need a break from the blog for a while. I think my break is over, so expect more life updates in the future.
As is with all way overdue life updates, I have a lot of stufff to tell you about. First, let’s start with d now, since it was the first thing that happened after my blog post.
As all d nows are, this one was quite enjoyable. On Friday afternoon (valentines day), I only had time to go home, pack, eat some candy, before leaving to go to the host home (the home I would be staying at for the weekend). Basically, the host homes were divided by gender and grade level, so the 6th grade boys would be in one, the 6th grade girls in another, and it would be that way for all the grade levels from 6 to 12. Anyways, shortly after arriving at the host home, getting to know the people I would be staying with, we all went to the church, where we had fajitas for dinner, and then played a getting to know game.
The rest of our Friday night consisted of worship and church service, going back to the host home, small groups discussion (a time to discuss what we learned from the service, but that ended up being small groups comity because I kept telling jokes and making people laugh), snack, and then just chill time until it was time to go to bed.
On Saturday morning, we awoke to a breakfast of breakfast tacos, before having quiet time (a time to study the bible). Then, we headed to the church where we had another worship service, lunch, and finally our mission project. A mission project is when we go out and do work, and it’s separated into host homes as well. Our group had to go and pick up trash (I forget where we went).
After the mission project, instead of a scavenger hunt, we did random acts of kindness. In that game, each group would drive around doing random acts of kindness for people, and taking pictures of it. I believe that the winner would be the group with the most pictures.
Finally, it was time for dinner, and then my friend Joseph and I spent the free time after dinner reading the bible.
After another church service Saturday night, we had small groups discussion once again, but I was more serious this time. Then, Joseph and I read the bible some more until bed.
On Sunday morning, we had another quiet time, before going to the church to have breakfast, a Sunday school service which ended up being people telling about their experiences from the weekend, and then a final worship service. After that it was time to go home.
Although I didn’t want to go home, I had a wonderful time at D Now. It was a great time for me to connect with friends, and get closer to god. I really look forward to going next year.
Now that you know about d Now, let me tell you about sQuad word. On Sunday, I found out that my friend Mason was also making a word pad. He had some stuff in his word pad that I didn’t know how to do, and I had stuff in my notepad that he didn’t know how to do. So, we decided to colaborate, combining our word pads to create ultrapad. Thus, sQuad word is now known as ultrapad, and is just about ready for release, except one small bug that is easily fixable. I don’t have a definant release date at this time.
As for my last 3 weeks, not much has happened, that being one of the reasons I haven’t blogged in a while. This weekend though, my family and I went up to my papa and nana’s lake house, and spent yesterday and last night there, because my dad had to help Papa with something.
Also, there is a winter storm warning in affect. It’s in the 20’s right now, sleeting, and the temperatures are still falling. This is really hard to believe considering it was in the upper 70’ss 24 hours ago.
On a final note, I have a few events to tell you about.
For one, it’s Steven D awareness month. Yes, I’m so awesome, I named this month after myself, so everyone could be aware of my awesomeness. 🙂
Also, Steve eve, and my birthday are coming up. Steve eve is the day before my birthday. Steve eve is on March 25, and my birthday is March 26.
And finally, on April 21, this blog will turn 3 years old, thus meaning I will have been blogging for 3 years!
On a last note, this blog is almost up to 10000 views (9,755 at the moment). Pretty cool… huh?
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.
P.s. Glad to be blogging again. 🙂
Life updates, winter weather, project news, and all that stuff.
Hey guys,
Steve here.
We had some snow on Thursday. And guess what? Another 3 day weekend! At first, none of us (me, or mesquite ISD) thought we’d have the day off, that is unless MISD was just waiting until 6 in the morning to tell us we weren’t going to school just so we couldn’t sleep in… but I highly doubt that was the case.
Originally, there was just an inch of snow on the ground from Thursday when it snowed all day long, but as people drove across the snow, it thawed out and refroze as ice. Thus, the ice prevented us from going to school.
How did I spend this unexpected but rather pleasant 3 day weekend? Well I did pretty much nothing except program, goal ball, and work on stranded. My sister and dad were gone to some goal ball tournament, so it was just me and my mom. We didn’t do much, so that’s why I had plenty of time to work on my projects.
I know I posted my last life update last Tuesday… but there isn’t much to say about the remainder of the school week before this 3 day weekend. It was just school, and stranded… that is until Thursday night.
On Thursday night, my friend Danny got me started on this programming language known as Pure Basic, or PB. Deciding I liked Pure Basic, I began programming a piece of software, learning the language as I went. That is what I’m referring to when I say I was “Programming” or working on my “projects” The name of this software is “SQuad Word,” SQuad being the title of my software company. It might be just me in that software company… but if I am actively producing software, I should give myself a name. SQuad stands for severe storm steve software by the way.
If you’re wondering, there is a reason why I am very determined to get this software completed and fully functioning. On Thursday night, when I first started programming SQuad Word, I ran into some trouble. And do you want to know what my friend Danny said to me? He said “Maybe a word processor isn’t the best thing to start out with.”
And since then, I have continued to develop this piece of software, making sure it is working, and adding new features to it, to let him know that while a word processor might not be the best thing to start out with, I will not let that fact hinder me, and no matter the cost, I will make a fully functioning word pad.
I have almost accomplished this goal: you can create, edit, open, and save files, and you can select text, undo, copy, cut, and paste. Now the only thing I need to add if I want this to be a word pad worth anyone’s time is the ability to change the font, and I am working on that. As soon as I do that, and make sure the program is bug free, I’ll upload it to the software page.
Getting on to Stranded, it will be released tomorrow. I don’t have much to do on it, and I will make sure it is released tomorrow.
Other than that, I don’t have much else to say. I believe I’ve caught you up on everything, and I’d better work on stranded a bit more before I go to bed, which will be very soon.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.
Updates and surprises
Hey guys,
Steve here.
I’m going to try to keep this post short. Don’t I say that every time? Doesn’t it always end up, that when I say that, you get a 900 word essay on steroids? Well I’m going to try not to do that, because I don’t have much to say, and I have other things I want to get done before I go to bed tonight. So first, Stranded. Ever since I started work on it again, Wednesday I believe, I have done quite a bit. I worked on it on Wednesday and today, but got a lot done on both those days. I won’t tell you the release date or how the game is going, but maybe what I’m about to say could help you figure the release date out for yourself. The reason I’m not telling you what will happen in Stranded, is because I don’t want to spoil the surprise. Because after all, spoiling the surprise for you now would be like opening a Christmas present on December 15.
Look back on that last sentence, and tell me that the release date isn’t right there. Tell me that I didn’t just tell you not only the release date, but the exact number of days from now it will happen. Tell me this, once you think hard about it for a couple days, and still haven’t figured it out. But if you do figure it out, mark it on your calender as the release to the end of the most epic, adventure packed series of game books you’ll ever have played.
On other news, besides working on Stranded part 3, I have been doing fine. I found out on Friday that I’m making an 82 in math–but I’ll see what the problem is (I think it was a test), and get it resolved as soon as possible. Oh and while on the subject of school, I don’t know if you know I had to read a book for English class, but I finished it along with the assignment I had to do. If you want to read the book, Tears of a Tiger, go ahead–but I warned you, it almost made me cry.
Life at home is going well. I finished yet another Zombie book series, the Benny Imura series, which sends my total of zombie books since December 1 to… I don’t know… 15 perhaps. Never fear though, I’ll just start on a new one that I discovered, and we’ll see how that one goes. If you want a complete list of the books I’ve read you can comment on this post and I’ll put it up, in case anyone is interested in some of those books.
Anyway, the weather is supposed to get cold once again tomorrow. Why does it have to get cold on Monday? It’s already hard enough to go to school when it’s warm in sunny, but put in the 30degree temps and 45 mph winds, and that just makes it 15 times harder. As a matter of fact, it won’t get above 40 until Wednesday… ug.
Changing topics, I am still addicted to The Road to Rage, which if I haven’t told you before is an FPS like swamp, but one in which you kill people instead of zombies. I’ve been addicted to this for about a week, but I’m sure that when my first-gameplay addiction calms down, I will be playing both the road to rage and Swamp on a normal routine, instead of wanting to be on one or the other all seconds of the day.
Well I guess I stuck to my word and kept this one short, if short means 600 words. Either way, I hope you enjoyed this post, and look forward to the Monday’s musing’s post.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.
1000 days? Already?
Hey guys,
Steve here.
What do you know? It’s already been 1000 days! 1000 days of life updates,podcasts, game reviews; 1000 days with me, Steven D!
For me, it has been a very exciting and fun 1000 days. I enjoyed writing each and every post, and even more so I enjoyed the fact that you loyal readers stuck with my blog through the times of stress, excitement, anger, happiness, fun, humor, and yes, even sometimes my lack of motivation to blog–even when I went weeks without a post, you guys patiently waited for the next post, and didn’t give up on this blog… and for that I thank you! Because although it was me who wrote all the posts, me who spent my time thinking and typing, and me who took the time to set up everything for you guys, what matters is that you took the time out of your day to check my site out, and show your appreciation for the site, despite some of my posts not being too good (the how my day wents), and yes, I admit it it, my spelling isn’t too good. Thank you for looking passed all that and enjoying and getting the true meaning of this blog!
Moving on, since my annual report was 2 weeks ago, I won’t give a 1000 day report, as I think that even though I gained more followers and views, I think that another report would be a bit redundant. So instead, I’ll brief you in on my current life happenings, because then I want to pull out my favorite zombie book (wait, I have a lot of those), and take a warm bath, and finally go to bed, because I had to wake up at 5:45 this morning and will have to do it again tomorrow.
Ever since Thursday, life has been relatively normal. As I said on Thursday’s post, however, I had to start waking up at the ungodly time of 5:45 to ride the bus to school. I mean that bus picks me up when it’s still dark outside! not okay!
On other news, goalball started up again on Saturday. I still need to work on ridding myself of the fear of the ball (every time the other team throws it at me, I bunch up because I don’t want to get nailed, because that would probably make for a bad day. I’m sure, however, that with a little more practice I should be fine.
Aside from goalball, we didn’t go to church on Sunday, because my dad had to do something (I think it had to do with laying tile in the laundry room and getting a certain amount done before he had to go out of town the next day). So, instead of going to church, my sister and I watched frozen, a Disney movie that is actually pretty good.
As for Monday through today, those were normal school days. I’m sorry if this sounds a bit harsh, but if we have to do sight reading in choir class another day from now until February, I am going to screem and pull my hair out! I like the teacher, and the class is fun, but sight reading is so boring that I don’t know how to put it in words… mainly because I’m a blind person and sight reading requires sight.
Aside from that, I started a new, you guessed it, zombie book. I’ve already read the enemy, the dead, and the fear, all written by Charlie Higson, Plague town and Plague Nation, written by Dana Fredsty, Day by day Armageddon, day by day Armageddon: beyond exile, and day by day Armageddon: shattered hour glass by J.L. Bourne, and am now reading Rot and Ruin, Benny Imura #1 by Jonathan Maberry… so as you see I’ve been reading a lot of zombie books; they are action packed and interesting, though can sometimes be a bit disturbing.
On a final note, I get to miss second period tomorrow. My science class is going to the planetarium during that class, so no math class for me. I will still have to go to choir… so if I’m balled and don’t have a voice, you know why (jk).
I guess that about wraps up tonight’s post. I hope you have enjoyed it, and look forward to my next 1000 days of posting, as well as posts further in the future.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.