It was the "staying-in-the-fire" so to speak that got me. I've been coming along fairly well I guess, as that's really the first thing I was stumped on. Everything else I go to do (so far, anyway) proves to be delightfully simple where I was always getting irritated at how I would have to write little tiny scripts for everything before. Not that code is a problem for me, but some things (like randomly shining a light, responding to key presses, or rotating a projectile) shouldn't require constant rewrites of tiny scripts.
I greatly appreciate your response. You diagramming my exact scenario helped it to click for me very quickly. I literally just took what you said in the first response and applied it in less than 30 seconds to see it working exactly as I intended. Thanks again!
Oh, and by the way, are you a wizard?