Programming and Winter Storms

Hey guys,
Steve here.
Wow. A lot has happened in the last 4 days, as you can tell by reading the title of this post.
Yes, we got a direct hit from an ice storm. I’d known about this possible storm since about Thursday, but didn’t think it worth posting about as all other winter events that were possible this season missed us. This one, however, did the exact opposite.
As a result of the 1 and a half inch sleet accumulations we received this morning and a sustained temperature in the middle 20s, school was canceled today and will be tomorrow as well.
Though temperatures are expected to rise above freezing tomorrow afternoon, a second winter storm is possible tomorrow night, which could bring up to 3 inches of snow to the area. This one depends on some key factors, however, unlike the ice storm that just hit. for 1, the storm system that will be the catalyst for this second bout of precipitation must move directly over us in order for the precipitation to fall as wet snow. If it doesn’t, we could end up with just rain, or no precipitation at all. Secondly, the high temperatures on Wednesday will exceed 40, turning what accumulates in the morning into slush by the afternoon. Knowing Texas and it’s erratic weather patterns, though, this could very well change for better or worse.
In other news, I’ve once again had an active programming week. For now, I’ve set aside the word pad application that I was working on, as it is very low priority and has most of the features I was planning to implement. However, I have an actual audio game in the works now, something I’ve only attempted once before and discontinued due to lack of new ideas.
The current game I’m working on is a racing game. There’s nothing too special about it: turns, obstacles to make the game more challenging… that’s basically it. I’ve been building it for about 4 days now, and was only able to compile a half-working version tonight. Even still, this has a significant number of bugs, and lacks several features that are to be included in the actual release.
Since I’ve never worked on such a project before, the hardest part has been fine-tuning it: the opponents have to have just the right amount of speed, because we don’t want them to fall too far behind, but then again we don’t want them to go as fast as the player, as that could cause some problems, especially if obstacles are present on the map. In addition, I’m still experimenting with other things such as sound (panning, volume), initial placement of opponents, and track size.
At any rate, I’m making considerable progress on this game. It will definitely be addicting once I finish coding it.
That concludes this post. I’ll blog some time this weekend.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.

life updates, and a new blog development

Hey guys,
Steve here.

I’m starting something new on my blog. It will happen every Monday, and is called Monday’s musings. On the Monday’s musings post, I will share my thoughts, opinions, and rants. These will not be life updates; although life updates will continue. Basically, a Monday’s Musings post will be for my thoughts and rants that have no part in my life update posts, and wouldn’t make sense in them. I hope you look forward to these new posts!

On to some other things, I did the podcast episode 15 Friday, and will do episode 16 today. As for that q9 series I was doing, I will have to do it differently. Instead of doing worlds now, I will do it level by level, but there are only 6 levels left. It will not be the same thing every time; the amount of action and excitement will increase. Well, I guess that gives me a game of the day for at least the next 5 or 6 episodes. Also, while still on the topic of pod casting, I will try to create a feed burner for the podcast. I hope it works so you can subscribe to the cast with a feed reader or something.

As for my life, I had a fun weekend. Although I didn’t go many places (due to the ice storm that I will tell you about later in the post), I did other fun things. For example, I did the podcast, baked cookies and a cookie cake with my mom, hung out with dad yesterday, and talked to friends on Skype and wrote this blog post today.
Although I appreciated the unexpected 3 day weekend, I don’t want to go to school tomorrow. That will bring back the stress, the work, the projects… and everything else that goes along with having to go to school. On a positive note, winter break is in two weeks. I seriously can’t wait for that! Oh and by the way, I finally composed a Christmas list, so I bet my parents and the rest of my family are happy.
On another note, my old vision teacher, and a family friend named Dawn has created a really great blog. I think you should check it out. The address is
http://dawnadams.org.

As for the winter storm, I definitely did not get ripped off. That storm was pretty extreme–it dumped 1 to 3 inches of ice and sleet, and from Thursday night to about an hour ago I think, temperatures did not go above 32. I caught a recording of this for the interesting segment of episode 15 of the podcast, and I also got one on the natural events page.

Well I guess that about concludes today’s post. I’ll be back tomorrow night with the first Monday’s Musings post. Please comment on tomorrows post when it comes out and tell me what you think.

Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.