Serious question

Right im new to flash mx (about 5 months self taught)
My site is here:
http://www.freewebs.com/faroutonline
I basically wanna know (as i have no tutor to ask) how do you two very commonly seen effects.
1:Graphic objects which draw themselves in from a point
(such as a nav bar for instance which appears small at first and then draws itself across the stage?) its not done with scaling as that wouldnt produce same effect so hows it done???
2: blur and flickering effects , though i suspect thats done with actionscript? am i correct?
any way hope someone can answer the first question as i really want to know how you do that!!