Two Funny Things…

..or at least they seemed funny at the time.  First, I was doing my early morning bike ride around Shelley Lake and happened upon a man who was looking for his dog — a Rottweiler.  That in itself is worth noting, but then he said, “He’s got a chair with him.”

I can only imagine the quizzical look that must have appeared on my face, so he explained that his wife had tied the dog to a lounge chair in the back yard, while she went inside to get something.  When she returned, the dog, and the chair, were gone!  That dog shouldn’t be to hard to find.

Then, I was messing around on Second Life this morning, trying to build a personal hovercraft.  I’ve been working around in my head, the possibilities of math students building virtual robots in Second Life, so I was experimenting in programming motion into objects. 

Later on in the afternoon, I was showing off for Brian Mull (aka. Thompson Coronet) and my hovercraft plunged 40 cm under the floor of my office, sucking me down through its vortex.  Dang!

I had the craft so that it would move forward, backward, and to the right or the left.  Next I wanted to be able to click a button and have it rise, just a foot off the ground.  So I programmed that in — not realizing that I had misplaced a decimal by two places.

I reached over, touched the button, sparkles floating out of my hand, and suddenly my hovercraft was gone. 

For some odd reason, my brain started scanning science fiction books I’ve read, looking for some similar occurance from which I might find some notion as to how to find my hovercraft, in the ethers of Second Life.  Finally, I walked up stairs to Doug Johnsons office, expecting to find my toy jutting awkwardly out of his ceiling — to no avail.  Then I walked back down stairs and pointed my sparkles exuding hand (in object edit mode) down toward to core of planet Second Life, wondering if my craft had transported itself into solid granit.  Again, no objects.

Then I decided to go flying, straight up, and just before I reached the clouds, I found my hover craft, hovering some number of meters in the air, some factor of 10, I’m sure.  I grabbed it, took it back down stairs, and then set out figuring out how to add a failsafe return routine.

More later!