Date/Time events help

Question

I'm trying to make vpet like game on flash for class, but I need to work with time and dates for events like feeding, sleep, etc.
At least for now I need help figuring out how to make the game check like every 5 minutes to bring up an alarm about the pet needing food.
Sadly all i have is this:
stop();
const millisecondsPerMinute:int = 1000 * 60;
const millisecondsPerHour:int = 1000 * 60 * 60;
const millisecondsPerDay:int = 1000 * 60 * 60 * 24;
var date1:Date = new Date();
trace(date1);
I get the actual date, but don't know exactly what to do to make it check every 5 minuts or so. Don't know if it's with "if" or "do/while".

Answer 1

OK, so I looked shareobject. Once it starts to play, it checks for data and since there is none it creates one.Now where I am stuck is how to make it store data in it.
For example I found this online:
var so:SharedObject = SharedObject.getLocal("test");
if (so.size == 0)
  trace("created...");
  so.data.now = new Date().time;
trace(so.data.now);
trace("SharedObject is " + so.size + " bytes");
so.flush();
The game starts, the pet hatches after some time. How do I use or modifiy this to make the shareobject go straight into the newborn instead of the egg? Do I have to do something with the "so.data.now"?