dustinfluke.com

Today I came across Playground Blues, blog and site of Paul Borror. He was featured on one of Zeldman’s blog entries as part of the big May 1st redesign. If you want to see some killer css and other web work, head on over.

Yesterday marked the day my wife and I have been married for four years. Quite an accomplishment I might add. Although it might disappoint some folks, we really didn’t do much special. Laura surprised me at work with Smallville Season 2. I got Laura hooked on Smallville in the middle of the second season. I got her a nice ring and some flowers and cooked her favorite dinner; chicken breasts cooked up with mashed potatoes. She also got me a few new shirts. I really like them. After dinner we watched the season finale of Smallville. Next, we watched the World Poker Tour. It was a good episode. My favorite, Gus Hansen won the tournament for his third WPT title.

The Smallville season three ending left many questions unanswered. My boss, Kevin a.k.a. FilmGuru loves to discuss the episodes the next day. Here’s what we know so far. Lionel is in prison, Lex is choking, Chloe’s house explodes (or so we think), Lana goes to Paris, Martha sees a Kryptonian symbol burned into the ground, Jonathan is left lying on the cave floors, and Clark is sucked into the cave walls by Ja-rel. We see Clark floating off into space in a little capsule of some kind after saving his father’s life.

A few remarks:

• Lionel: Is he in charge of all the events that happened? Were these scenes we saw visions of what Lionel wants or reality?
• Lex is choking: Does Lex’s high white blood cell count save him from dying? Did he do this to himself to see what would happen? Was he trying to kill himself? Does he think Clark will save him?
• Chloe’s house explodes: Is this her first house? Does she die? Does Clark fly back to rescue her? Does Jor-El bring her back to life? Will we see her cousin Lois Lane? I doubt she’s dead. We’ll see
• Lana goes to Paris: She wont stay. She has to come back for either Clark, Lex, or Chloe. I’m betting her and Lex hook up. After all, what a better story than to have two friends (Clark and Lex) break the relationship and have the one person Clark cares the most about be taken away by his enemy? Or, Clark learns how to fly and rescues Lana from a potential plane disaster and she fills the role of the best friend that knows Clarks secret. I doubt it, but it would be neat. Chloe would be the only other person to fill this void left by Pete, who is now in Wichita. That is, if Pete stays in Wichita.
• Martha: What does the symbol mean? Father? Superman?
• Jonathan: Probably still alive. Clark saved his father’s life by risking his own. Who will find him?
• Jor-El: Friend or Foe? Was the person that took Clark really his biological father? Is it some strange prison created by Lionel or Dr. Swan? We won’t know until later. I don’t think it is Jor-El, because he is not supposed to be evil. He is supposed to help Clark be the "god of the human race." Clark believes that is for evil, not good.
• Clark: What will happen? Will he return back to earth at the exact same moment in which he left to save Chloe, his father, Lana, Lex? Will he be missing for his senior year, only to reunite with Pete, Chloe, Lana, and Lex when he returns? Will he return as Superman?

So many questions, so few answers.

All in all, I am really excited about the next season. Until then, I’ll be watching season two on dvd and season three re-runs on television.

I’ve finished my final for school. I’m glad it’s over. There were a lot of things I thought would be a lot easier in Flash. I was wrong. I ended up diluting the original receipe for the site, but it still turned out really good. Until I get the scripts and such moved over, you can see it at
http://crux.baker.edu/dfluke01/gabyindex.html.
The course was to cover Javascript and Flash Action script. Sadly, I don’t know if I learned as much as I could have. Part of that has to do with the instructor’s three day e-mail delay in response time to your questions. Oh well. I still had a lot of fun, and have a semi decent site to work with. Look for updates to Gaby’s site here in the future.

Last night, I was over at Jeff’s place helping him put together a poker table. It was a really fun project. In about 3 1/2 hours we constructed this fine masterpiece.

Jeff’s blog is a little more detailed. For additional pictures, head over his way.

For me, the Fouth of July is my Christmas. One thing is for sure, I like to blow stuff up. It’s never too early to get started on those Fourth of July projects. Last year, I invented the U.R.L. – not uniform resource locator, but ULTIMATE ROCKET LAUNCHER!! It was loads of fun to build. What more could anyone ask for than a 180 degree rotating rocket launcher? [pic1] [pic2]

This year, I have another project in the making. It’s an aerial shell launching device. Using plans from Pyro Universe, I plan to make a modified version of their mortar rack. I have always wanted to have a spectacular show, with huge finale. I think I’m getting close.

For more photos of last years URL project and other miscellaneous Fourth of July pictures, click more below.

URL photo one. Not pictured – Roman candle attachment. Stay tuned for this years photos.

A second view of the URL

Daughter, Gaby – she was almost two here.

The loot on the famous "turkey couch." A free couch given to us that has phesants on it, not turkeys. My wife still hates it.
Gaby’s checking out the goods.
I highly recommend "Excalibur" from World Class Fireworks. A very good aerial shell.

Our broken A/C. Imagine Kansas. Imagine mid to upper nineties. Imagine how much that sucked. I still haven’t fixed it.

A new hope. Not another Star Wars episode, but a revival in my intrest in dustinfluke.com. I’ve been toying around with this site ever since I first got the domain. I never completely finished a design, until now. (Even if it is a little watered down from my original expectations) So you don’t become dissapointed I’m not going to stop designing here. I have a slew of other menus I’d like to add to the top. Those will come in due time. As I increase my skills in CSS, web design, and Flash, you’ll see these changes happening here.

Why the redesign? I’ve become extremely intrested in forward compatible web design. I’d like to recommend Designing with Web Standards, by Jeffrey Zeldman. Another reason is a two time former co-worker, Jeff Croft. A big shout out to him. He’s been my guide through CSS and layout techniques. He also hosts dustinfluke.com for me. I’ve worked with Jeff through two different jobs. One at former CJNetworks, and the other, Washburn University. I couln’t have done it without him.

Stay tuned for more additions to dustinfluke.com. I’m currently taking a course on Macromedia Flash. I plan to have a photo gallery of our daughter, Gabrielle.