I'm back at last

Hey guys,
Steve here.
11 whole days? Has it really been that long? Wow, I can’t believe I made you readers spend a week and a half without reading my awesome blog posts!
As is with posts such as this, I have quite a bit to tell you, because though it is possible to take a break from blogging, I can’t say the same for life.
The weekend after my last post, my family and I went down to Round Rock for a goal ball tournament type of thing. After getting up at 5:17 AM to be exact, I got dressed, had a bight to eat, then we drove up in a rented van with Julie, one of our goal ball players.
When we got there that morning, we did a few small events just to pass the time before lunch, and the tournament, or more accurately “series of games,” took place after lunch, lasting until about 4:30.
I call it a series of games rather than a tournament because there was no formality what soever. Throughout the so called tournament, we, along with a couple other teams from the Texas school for the blind and Round Rock itself, played against each other, without keeping track of who was winning. There were no awards at the end, no team got “first place,” it was just a series of games, albeit a fun one.
Since roundrock is so far away, and we had to drop Julie off, we didn’t get home until about 10, at which point I was pretty tired.
Sunday was a normal day. I recall mentioning that there was the possibility of Tornados on Sunday, however we were once again spaired. However, people in places such as Arkansas, Iowa, Alabama, and a few other states that I can’t think of at the moment weren’t so lucky. The tornadoes that swept through the nation’s mid section Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday left 35 people ddead. In fact, in a city called Tupelo, a meteorologist had to take cover during a live broadcast.
changing topics, also around the time those tornadoes were sweeping across areas to the north of us, revival was going on at my church. Though I don’t know why it was considered a revival to this day, one thing I can say is that the singers and preacher we had were awesome. For some reason, we had a different preacher preach during revival, and different singers leading us in worship.
And now that it’s over, I miss those people. I hope they come back to our church soon.
Switching back to the topic of my life, besides the revival, not much happened during the school week. But on Friday night, Dars (That stands for something, however I don’t know what it is) had an over night stay at the fortworth zoo planned. My sister and I went, and it turned out to be pretty awesome. This was the 3rd time I’ve been on this particular trip, but it was by far the most fun. It was much the same as last time–get there, eat dinner, go on a tour, do an arts and crafts activity, go to bed, wake up the next morning and have breakfast followed by an animal presentation, take another walk around the zoo, eat lunch, go to the gift shop, and then leave… but this time I had some cool people to hang out.
Well, I guess that brings us to here and now. I’d tell you about Sunday, however it was like any normal Sunday; church in the morning and evening, cleaning, and talking to friends. And today at school… well that was boring as usual. On the bright side, we only have 23 more school days to go! And then, it’ll be summer, then I’ll be in high school.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve
Ps. As for the podcast, I couldn’t do that on Friday because I was in a hurry. I’ll do it tomorrow though.

Weather News and Blog Updates

Hey guys,
Steve here.
If you’ve read my about page, or home page, you probably know why my name is Severe Storm Steve–it’s because I was the meteorologist at my elementary school for 4 out of the 6 years I attended it. Well, if you’ve been dieing for me to play that role once again, here you go.
This weekend, a pacific storm system, combined with a dryline will cause some rather dangerous storms to form across North Texas. On Saturday afternoon and night, the storms will be focused mainly to the northwest of where I live. Sunday, however, these storms will move east and impact where I live, and they will likely be severe. Large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes are all possible!
However, if storms end up coming our way Saturday night, the threat for severe weather will decrease on Sunday. Well I guess we’ll just have to see how this all plays out; I guess that’s a reason to look forward to my next post… huh?
Moving on, I recorded Episode 21 of the Steven D podcast, which actually turned out to be quite distructive. Starting off, for the interesting segment, I aired Playing With Explosives Episode 4 (Playing With Explosives being a minicast Danny and I are making, that has to do with rather funny and unfortunate dealings with some rather distructive explosives). In playing with explosives 2, I let Danny try out a nifty device called a Rocket Chair. When he sits in it and pulls the cord, both him and the chair fly sky high in a fireball, only to come crashing down with a loud and distructive bang. There is more… but you’ll have to listen to the episode to find out what it is.
Next, for the game of the day segment, I do “twisted egg hunt” for the last installment of the Swamping With Steve series. Ever gone easter egg hunting in a field of zombies?
Finally, the not so distructive part, I give you guys some helpful websites for my tech tip. So, what are you guys waiting for? Just go to the podcasts page to check it out, and subscribe to the podcast feed while you are there.
Besides the podcast news, I have a bit of a busy weekend coming up. It won’t be non stop like last weekend was, but none the less I have a few things planned.
On Saturday, my family is taking a trip down to Round Rock for some goal ball event. I’m not sure exactly what this event will consist of, so I guess it’ll come as a surprise to all of us.
Meanwhile, Sunday, we’re going to church… and I don’t think anything else is planned for the day… that is for me anyway. I guess mother nature will be quite busy on Sunday :). But on the bright side, I might get in some storm recordings… and if the storms are severe enough, they will likely be awesome recordings.
Changing topics, I’m quite glad that staar testing is over. Those tests are such pains in the butt–I sit in a room, taking a 60 to 65 question test, over some pretty hard subjects. Fortunately, I found out today that not only did I pass both reading and math tests, but got 6 As on my report card and 1 b+. Ironically, the b+ was in English class. But why? I’m an awesome writer! 🙂
Well folks, I guess that concludes tonight’s post. I should be back for another update either Saturday or Sunday, and if not then early next week.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.
PS. I have the next two podcasts planned:
May 2, and May 12. So please stay in tuned for those episodes.

Podcast and programming news, and a brief update

Hey guys,
Steve here.
Since I posted here on Tuesday, I’m going to try and keep this short. Also, instead of presenting you with the pole again, I’ll instead advise that you visit the post from Tuesday and fill it out; I’m sure you don’t like me posting it at the top of every post. But if you’re wondering, it’s a close battle. 3 people voted in favor of a home page, while 2 others voted in favor of keeping the blog posts on the front page. We’ll just have to see what happens. So if you haven’t voted, please do. I need all the feedback I can get on that pole. And remember, just 6 more days, and I’ll quit all this pole talk.
Moving on to what this post is mainly about, let’s start off with software news. As of now, I still don’t yet have a Patton for my software. This is a pity, because sQuad word is now ready for release. That’s right, it’s actually ready! With all the features necessary for a note pad application implemented, and now that I got the visual aspects of the program usable, I feel it appropriate to say that, sQuad word version 1.0 is ready to go! Another feature I want to add, however, is the ability to recover documents you haven’t yet saved. I think how I’m going to do that is first, when the program launches, checking to see if the file tempfile.swd exists. If it does, an alert box will pop up asking you if you would like to recover the previous unsaved document. If you hit yes, it will recover the tempfile.swd file, allowing you to edit and read its contents. If you hit no, however, it will delete that file, and create a new temporary file, and bring you to the editor, where it will proceed to save your work in the tempfile.swd file every 30 seconds until you hit save as and specify another file to put your current work in. After you hit save
as, it will delete the tempfile, since it’s no longer needed, and auto save will work as normal on the new file you are working on.
This is useful, for example, if your computer unexpectedly dies or shuts down, and you haven’t yet performed save as on the document that you’re working on.
This feature will be possible to implement, though it will take a bit of tweaking on the code. I guess I have time to do that before I get my Patton and permission to release it.
Besides that, the only thing standing in my way is, that Patton. Well now that I have something to show for my work, I’ll show my dad and tell him about what it can do this weekend, and hopefully we’ll then get a Patton.
Also, while still on the subject of programming, Trash is still being worked on. It’s not an abandoned project; I want to play it as much as you do, so I’m still working on it. Unfortunately, there’s still work to be done on that, along with a lot of thorough beta testing before it can be released.
Besides that, I have some good news for my next podcast episode. I’ve been holding it off until I can find a place to record it without that annoying chirping (you listeners of the podcast may be accustom to hearing small chirping/beeping noises intermittently throughout the podcast. That is my smoke detector, its batteries are running low). However, I’ve found a new place to record the podcast, where the obtrusive beeps and chirps will no longer occur. Good news… right?
In other news, as you know, I probably will not post to this blog again until late this weekend or next week. But on Saturday, one of the days I won’t be posting, Danny’s 17th birthday will occur. Danny, if you’re reading this post, (I know you are), Happy birthday!
Besides that, I have a positive future ahead of me for the time being. After this long, boring day at school, I’ll go home, and then tomorrow will be that Firewheel fieldtrip! Thus, I’ll end up missing all but part of first period, and I think part of 6th period and all of 7th period. And after those are over, it’ll be the weekend. As for next week, we have that beginner orchestra festival I briefly mentioned in Tuesday’s update. In case I didn’t tell you, that’ll cause us to miss all but first, part of sixth, and all of 7th period, kind of like Friday’s field trip. In addition, also mentioned in Tuesday’s update, we’ll have a concert Tuesday night.
Completely off topic, we’re expected to get some storms on Sunday afternoon and evening, with the passage of a cold front. It appears that the strong cold front will collide with warm moist air, so there is the possibility of some severe storms. I’ll let you know if we get any though. Note, however, that as seen last week, severe weather situations can evolve at a last-minute notice, so I’ll be watching that.
Well okay, I’ll admit this post probably wasn’t as short as it could’ve been. But on days like today, I tend to have lots to say, which is weird, since I blogged like two days ago. Well, thanks for reading this post. I’ll talk to you guys later.
Thanks for reading,
Type you later,
Steve.

Severe Weather Day Once Again Lives Up to Its Title

Hey guys,
Steve here.
As it turns out, as shown by the post title, Severe Weather Day once again lived up to it’s title. With tornadoes and flooding spanning the central United States, April 3 definatly brought some dangerous weather to the area.
As reported by cnn, a ST. Louis suburb awoke to a small ef1 tornado, and most of the central U.S was under a flood watch. Additionally, there has also been snow on the northern portion of this storm system.
Meanwhile, closer to where I live, an aproaching dryline, cold front, and lots of atmospheric instability set the stage for a rather nasty severe weather outbreak for parts of Texas, and I believe Arkansas. As an example of how bad the weather was, Denton county Texas was slammed by 4 rounds of significant storms–containing upto grape fruit sized hail, and at one point a tornado. Also while on the subject of tornadoes, a potentially violent tornado is believed to have wripped through hunt county; and the storm responsible for that tornado has prompted tornado warnings in Delta and Hobkins counties until 9:15, at least that is the last of it I heard.
In the metroplex, however, things are winding down. Thankfully, Dallas county dodged the bullet today… but will we be so lucky next time? With situations such as this one, no one can tell. Because as you guys know, not much severe weather was expected yesterday evening. The forecast changed and expected some severe thunderstorms to develop along the dryline this afternoon, however the tornado watch itself wasn’t issued until 1:50.
This reminds me of April 3 two years ago. Not only did the tornado watch get issued right before storms began forming, but severe weather like tonight’s wasn’t even expected. The dry line is coming threw way later than was previously thought yesterday. In fact, the weather differs so much from yesterday’s forecast, that yesterday the forecast said that there were supposed to be fire weather conditions this afternoon. And yet we’re still under some moist and unstable air, at 9:15?
Well all I have left to say is that if I ever doubted the title of “Severe Weather Day” for April 3, the doubt has vanished. April 3 is still called severe weather day, at least for me. And just as a historical note, the super tornado outbreak occurred on April 3, 1974, when 148 tornadoes spawned over 13 states. And, of course, let’s not forget that good ol’ outbreak of April 3 2012, the one that spawned 17 tornadoes; and though no one died, 30 people were enjured.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.
P.S. Though more storms are possible this weekend, none of them are expected to be like the ones this afternoon and evening. And as I learn more about the storms today, I’ll post about it in future blog posts.

Updates and questions

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

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:

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?

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.

I’m still here

Hey guys,
Steve here.

To tell you the truth, it has been 2 Monday’s musings posts since I put up a life update. I just wanted to tell you that I’m still here, and not to get worried. Getting to the subject at hand, there have been reasons for my absence: stranded, school, allergies, and forgetfulness.
My life has been pretty normal for the past week. My days devoted to school, my afternoons and evenings devoted to games and working on Stranded. Last weekend, my allergies hit, presumably because of the ups and downs we’ve been experiencing in the weather. As a matter of fact, one day last week it got all the way up to 70 for a high, however the next day it was only 40. Anyway, because of this, I spent Saturday feeling tired and congested, and Sunday was not much better. To put Saturday’s schedule in a nutshell, it was goal ball from 9 to 11, eat lunch, get on the computer until about 1:45, take a 2 and a half hour nap, do nothing until 8:45, and then fall asleep again. Sounds boring… right? I honestly felt like I wasted that day away, because even if I have nothing to do, sleeping the day away is not something I like to do.
On other news, the progress on Stranded is going well. Unfortunately, however, I am pushing the release date back 5 days to February 10. Please don’t get frustrated with me–I’m working on it… I really am! This is not going to be another Stranded part ii scenario where I stop working on it for 2 and a half weeks and release it 12 days after the release date; I’ve already made that mistake once. In fact, I’ve worked on stranded on January 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, and 28, and on February 2, 3, and 4. The reason I didn’t work on it on January 29, 30, and 31 was because I needed a little break, and of course Saturday February 1 was the wasted day. But the game is going well, and I will continue to work on it until it is finished, and you guys can enjoy playing it. I would release it tomorrow, except I’d have to make it all crappy and short, and I don’t want to do that, this being the final book in the Stranded series and all.
On other news, it has been a while since my last pod cast. I really need to do the pod casts! For some reason, pod casting has slipped my mind for the past month, but I’m thinking about it again, and will do the podcasts soon. I know you’re looking forward to them, it being my pod cast and all. :))))

I guess that about wraps up tonight’s post. I hope you enjoyed this, and both the previous Monday’s Musings posts. By the way, speaking of Monday’s Musings, I can’t believe it’s already been 9 weeks of that! And who are we to say time can’t fly by in the blink of an eye?

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.