Gotta Love those Brain Spots!

I'm at the point where I'm ready to put video content on the web. Yesterday evening I recorded a 20 second video, edited it in Windows Movie Maker, opened it in Flash MX, and played around with the settings to get the video window size, file size and resolution that I needed. Exported it to a .swf. Mid-morning today I pushed it to the web for a test. Worked great! Whoops, I forgot the buttons to control the playback.

Ah. I remember now. In January, I successfully put together a video that included (at least I think it included) play, pause and stop buttons using what I thought was Macromedia Flash MX. I had to find instructions from the web about how to put buttons on the video to get it to stop, pause and play. I made a prototype web page and showed it to Wifey. Confident in the fact that I found the answer, I set it aside for other things.

So today started looking for the file on my hard drives at around noon. Couldn't find one with control buttons. Then I started looking for a "how to" page on the web. Nothing. In the old video work folder, there were some Moyea FlashVideoMX files. No buttons on those either. I don't have the $60 full version, just the demo. I'm sure I didn't take the easy way out, cause I vaguely remember using Macromedia and the feeling of accomplishment satifying my "cheap bastard" mentality. BUT I CAN'T FIND THE FILES OR THE INSTRUCTIONS (primal scream)

Ok, ok. Calm down. Take a break. I'm also a "stubborn bastard", so I really don't want to let this go until I can declare victory. Get some cookies out of the pantry (I work at home) and regroup. Decide whether to push on or move to something else. I walk into the kitchen only to find see the water cooler bottle over-flowing into the sink. GEEZE-LOUISE!!! I think I started filling it around 12:30. Its now 2:30.

I do 15 minutes of acting like Clubber Lange in the last fight in Rocky 3. Rage, followed by confusion, followed by the recongition I'm beaten into submission. Much calmer now - I think eating the entire pack of cookies from the pantry helped.

I'm used to the frustrations of learning how to bend new technologies to do what I need them to. I'm even used to not being able to find what I need right away once I have a need for something I've done before. I either eventually find it, or I reproduce the research I did originally to get back to where I was before. I'm pretty patient. I was trained late in life as a half-way VB / VBA programmer. When something got lost or destroyed, my mentor used to say "Think how better it will be when you finish it the second time." She was right, but she was referring to both the finished product and the learning experience.

The problem I have now is that I can't separate "normal" from "MS related" when it comes to my work performance. I've always been tough on myself, rarely satisfied with an effort. The MS has affected my short-term memory pretty well, but I've compensated by leaning into daily manual hot lists to buttress my short-term memory. I use PDA lists for medium and long term things so I don't forget them and have to go through the thought process again. This situation has me wondering about long-term memory. It's been less than a year since I prototyped the web video. Am I having the same problem with long-term memory that I have with short-term? Would this situation happen to me 5 years ago? Am I'm going to have to re-learn stuff I used to know again, over and over? Blasted brain spots.

So here's the rest of the story. I just finished successfully putting up the video, and I have the process all documented and saved. From what I can figure out, I did use Moyea FlashVideoMX files for the prototype in January. I figured out that I never used Macromedia Flash MX, that I ran the same dry hole with it (too much effort to understand how to make it work). So tonight I ended up with Moyea, buying a copy for $60.00. The control buttons weren't embedded in the SWF but were part of FLV the former referenced. Problem solved.

But its now 10pm and I've spilled all my beer. Probably some of tomorrow's, too. But at least I can sleep tonight. Even if I did have to wimp out and spend money.