Thread: Boat Owner rents plane, Finds Boat

Sad thing is the Police should be doing this.....


http://www.komotv.com/news/local/9088356.html





OLYMPIA, Wash. -- The owner of a stolen boat took to the air to find his $180,000 pleasure craft.

An hour and a half after Steve Boone rented an airplane and took off from Olympia Airport, he spotted the 34-foot boat, then followed it from above as it was towed along a highway until two people were stopped and arrested Thursday.

"I was in shock. It's like somebody slapped me in the face," said Boone, the owner of Northwest Harley-Davidson in Lacey.

Boone's boat was being serviced at the U.S. Marine Sales & Service in Olympia when it disappeared Monday night.

"I never thought I'd see it again," he said.

But a local realtor spotted the $180,000 pleasure craft at a gas station near Shelton. She noticed the couple towing the boat was using a pickup truck much too small for the load and questioned them.

"She's thinking 'why would somebody tow a boat this big with this little Nissan Truck?'" Boone said.

The couple mentioned that they were heading for Port Ludlow, about 60 miles north of Olympia. The realtor relayed the information to a friend of Boone's, who then told the owner himself.

Boone chartered a small plane to fly along Highway 101.

About 10 miles south of Port Ludlow, near Quilcene, Boone said, he spotted the boat in a marina and had the pilot fly low twice to make sure it was properly identified.

"There it was!" he said.

Soon afterward, a vehicle began towing the boat on U.S. Highway 101 toward State Route 104, so Boone called Olympia police from the air as the pilot followed the rig for about 20 miles

"It was like following O.J. It was a little procession," he said.

The vehicle was eventually stopped by Jefferson County sheriff's deputies.

"About that time, we saw the lights flashing and they were done," Boone said.

The couple who was caught towing the boat is in police custody. The pair is being investigated for involvement in other boat thefts in the area.

Boone said he has renamed his boat "No Escape".

Hello fellow L4D players!

My name's O'Malley and I'm a member of the development team for DEADLOCK, a Left4Dead Multiplayer modification. In DEADLOCK, two teams of survivors are pitted against one another and endless waves of zombies. The mod stresses team play, resource management, and massive amounts of zombie kills. On top of this, our mod boasts over 30 weapons, a large array of usable items (and drugs!), new characters complete with player models, dynamic environments, and a new and more realistic health system.

Right now we are in our seventh week of production (after two months of pre-production) and are looking for a few more team members. Our current staff is composed of motivated individuals with industry experience who are working day and night to move the project forward. We've already been featured on CS-Nation and TGN.

Mods get a bad rap because a high percentage of them die young and abruptly (we've got a high infant mortality rate I guess), but Deadlock is different. We're not here for money, but it's not amateur hour either. Our team is established and things have been running smoothly for four months. Now we're trying to build a community to get feedback from as we develop. If you're interested in the mod, please track us on ModDB, Facebook, Twitter, Steam, or our Forums.

Thank you very much for your time, if you have any questions, please post them in this thread and I will be happy to answer them!

-O'Malley

News time! - 3/24/09

The mod is undergoing steady production. We've added three artists to our ranks: Stefan our Character Concept artist, Matt our 2D General Artist, and Hannah our Zombie Artist. They're all working diligently and we should have media to display shortly. Stefan has already drawn several of our characters in black and white and fleshed one out entirely in color (see below).

Also, we're now hosting biweekly Left4Dead parties for our community. Our last party was a full Versus game that ended up being VERY close! To play with us all you have to do is be a member of our Steam Group. The games are Tuesdays and Fridays at 3PM PST.

My jobs, which are concept mapping and promotions are moving along well. I'm planning a concept map test late this week that basically introduces testers to myself and one another, as well as test some lighting styles we're planning on using. I've also created a working model for a dynamic level, that I'm working on expanding and running a test on soon.

Finally, the volume of media we've had has easily doubled, and our forums have jumped massively in postings per day. We've released more images of models (made by our 3D Artists, Michael and Benoit), some modder tutorials, and a full color character concept. Most of the content can be found on our ModDB Page. I've also posted some images below (click image for a high res version).

Keep the questions and comments coming,

-O'Malley





News time! - 4/06/09

Hey peeps,

We greatly appreciate those of you who have supported our mod! Last weekend our Steam Group hit 50 members. On top of that, we are consistently ranked among the top tenth percentile on ModDB.

Our team has gotten larger once again, with the addition of our new animator, Gregory. His voluminous amount of industry experience is a great asset for our mod. We're currently looking for another coder - particularly one with Source experience. Several of us have coding chops but we need a dedicated member to take the reins here. If anyone is interested, fill out an application.

We've released more media as well. Hannah's "Female Zombie" concept art and Benoit's "Road Flare" model (see below) top the list. To get the latest materials we release, when we release them, consider tracking us on ModDB. I am also now working on a few mapping tutorials and survival-style maps that will be hosted on L4Dmods.

Finally, do you use Twitter? If so, follow us! We try to update it 3-4 times a week, and with our expanding team size that number should grow.

-O'Malley

(click for hi-res image)

Sounds and looks awesome!

Will this mod require more Counter-Strike-esque skill with aiming etc or will you stick to the more basic shooting gameplay of l4d?

Wow it seems like a fun mod... When is the realese date? and about how much space does it use?? i would apreacciate theese facts

It's been a while since my last release, so this has a double dose of updates.

To start off, our team has gotten much larger! We've added three more 3D Artists: Bojin, Paul, and Alex. They are diligently working on the models and characters that will bring the DEADLOCK world to life.

Our new Audio Director Tony, with the help of Andy (our audio technician) is tackling the gargantuan task of recording and perfecting every sound we plan on using in the mod.

Though it was a slow week for 3D Non-Character development, we have had some major strides in Zombie Art development, thanks to the lovely/grotesque work of Hannah. We've posted the bulk of her work on our ModDB Page at DEADLOCK mod for Left 4 Dead - Mod DB

From this, Alex and Bojin have begun working on models for the zombies, and some early stills of these will be released soon on our website. Starting this week, all 3D promo materials will be released a week early on our forums before they are released on forums like this one. So, if you want to get the most up-to-date info on the mod, please join us at DEADLOCKmod.com!

We're working hard to keep our community entertained between updates. We've added a Zombie Apocalypse Role-Play section to our forums and our L4D Parties have also been growing. We're currently looking into getting a couple dedicated servers up to make hosting the games easier for our staff, as well as a means for trying out some custom gameplay.

Thank you all for the continuing questions and support.

-O'Malley