Colin's Eleventh Birthday

Today was Colin's eleventh birthday, and Mom and Dad had taken the liberty to plan out a day of fun to celebrate the occasion .

First, about just after noon, Colin was to embark on a ride to the mall, to do some shopping and to visit the main attraction or " Pièce de résistance" which was, (as some of you probably could have guessed,) The LEGO Store.

After which, was when Colin would come back home, triumphantly displaying his newest editions to his vast collection of toys, games, and gadgets for all to see.

Then, After taking a reinvigorating break from all that tiring playtime and shopping, the family decided that now was the time to present him with the our gifts. All ether hand picked or hand-made, new eye-catching mini-puzzles, yellow cardboard-paper cards colored in crayon, exciting novels, the works.

Afterwards when the excitement had died down, we sat down to a delicious meal of Teriyaki from a favorite take-out restaurant, with beef, sweet and sour chicken, rice with little dips of soy sauce, and a well sized salad. When we went to bed that night we all had high expectations of tomorrow, and could hardly wait for the big family party happening just this week.

But wait! that's not the whole story! There a very small problem that came to surface when I first woke up that morning... "I forgot to get Colin a present!" the realization hit me, "Aah! what do I do!?" ( I suddenly noticed a repeat of what happened on Mom's last birthday. But luckily, this time I didn't have to desperately hope that Papa Ray had sent something in the mail.)

Fortunately this time I came prepared, because this time, after taking some tutorials, I had the Adobe Flash software at my disposal, ready to use.

Quickly, for my time was short, I began to improvise. Thinking fast I hurriedly took an image of a star-field, that I had made in Photoshop from scratch by following a Scott Kelby lesson, and opened it in Flash.

Pausing a moment to reflect on what I should do with this image, an clever idea struck me. Yes! I could use the 3D text feature on top! Hmm... outer space and 3D text... now all it needed was some dramatic music.

After scrambling to finish the work on time, and finally turning to the help section as a last resort, I completed the work, synchronized the music, and set the animation in motion all just moments before Colin had to leave for the mall. I was then able to, after much hard work, present to him a gift which was truly unique.

-Caleb