So, Advanced Budget Studios took a bit of a break during the holidays, and with that came the usual curiosity as to how the new year would be. Well, I'd have to say that 2011 is looking great.  We started off the year recording a wonderful new artist named Taylor Miller.  He'll have a website up soon, and his music sounds fabulous! ...

So, when I started the re-design of my studio website, I knew I would need sliders, but I didn't realize how many unconfigurable, and generally static sliders were out there.  I must have gone through 5 iterations of sliders before I found one that matches my needs (and probably will be the go-to slider for any project I work on in the future)...

Man... I'm kicking myself right now for not taking a photo of this amazing musician, but I was way too interested in the music I was hearing to worry about silly cameras. Taylor Miller came in for a visit, and recorded 3 original songs tonight.  They have yet some proper embellishment to receive, but the tracks we got tonight were primo.&nbs...

About 2 months ago, a great musician, designer, and friend sent me a new design idea for AdvancedBudgetStudios.com.  After getting various opinions, I decided to have a go at it.  Also, with all the free time I had during the holidays, I thought it would be a good time to get crackin'. So, without further ado, I present you the new and ...

Okay.. Not really the "radio", but a cool little Internet radio station picked up Herod the Fink (a band I'm in), and decided to feature us.  They decided to play our song, "Desperate Husband's Chorus", and I think it's way cool. The radio station is called "LDS Music Today" and can be found at http://www.ldsmu...

Since we haven't been booking clients during November and December, we've had a few extra moments to really think about and research the needs of the studio.  The success this little studio has had is very exciting, and only makes us want to hone our craft that much more. Honing the craft is great, but pouring the success of the studio back ...

So, the Christmas season is officially here, and I'm feeling more Christmas Spirt than I ever have in my life - by a long shot. I attribute this to two things...  First and foremost, attitude, and making good choices.  To me, Christmas is a spiritual season because it's filled with love, good will, charity, friends, and family.  If...

Friday December 3, 2010 Today was filled with the usually chore, practicing for the Christmas Cantada, and puttting up the Christmas tree. Finally! me and my family put up our tree. We usually do it after Thanksgiving but we where a little late. You know. The more the years go by the faster Christmas seems to come. I can remeber when I was a litt...

Scramjet, a valued client of Advanced Budget Studios (and an amazing band, as well), has recently arrived in the top-ten list of a contest put on by X-96.  Please support them by clicking here and voting for them and their awesome song, "Tread Softly". Thanks, and thank you, Scramjet!  You guys are awesome!  ...

It might be that I'm a techno-geek, but the first thing I thought of when I read this was "social media".  People went from house to house and "labored exceedingly" all through the night to let it be known where Jesus was going to come the following day. Also interesting are the activities of the people when the arrived t...

 So, I just had a great day here in the basement where I live, while me and my family are waiting for our new home (and studio) to be built, and I found myself sort of pensive, so I thought I'd come down and write a few words, and see what comes out. Advanced Budget Studios began taking clients in August of 2009, using a single AT 3525 conde...

  Poetry by Kelly Miller   THis is dedicated to my son Shawn VanWagen who left on his mission in 2005 and that next week I started writing poetry. It has been a big part of my life since and has kept me very busy.  Also, to President Hinckley and his challenge for the members to read the book of mormon. and to Bernice Hutchenson w...

I recently bought a Toshiba Laptop (a Satellite A305-S6916), and with it, came Vista Home Premium. I, of course, immediately wiped the hard drive clean, took a shower for having touched a computer with Vista pre-installed on it, then proceeded to partition it, and install gentoo Linux on it. The compatibility with Linux of the peripherals on th...

I thought that today I'd be enjoying conference, but instead I'm playing Mr. Mom, as Sarah is trying to control her contractions. I woke up around 7:30 this morning to the tune of my wife exclaiming that she was sure today was the day.  Due to her body's signals, I believed it. So, we've been patiently waiting for her body to get a bit mor...

Why, oh why, did I create this site?  For those of you wondering what this site is all about, read on.  For those of you who couldn't care less, read on.  For those of you who enjoy reading my blog, or otherwise, read on.  Okay... That was stupid.  Ohwell... I Love My Journal (ILMJ) was originally created for one reason ...

 So, I was just in bed just about to fall asleep (like within 1 or 2 minutes of sleeping), and I felt like I needed to come and write in my journal. My prayers on Sunday evening, I believe it was, felt just like I was communing with the Spirit.  Everything spiritual seemed so easily understood and understandable. Man, I hope this make...

I've been reading Matthew in seminary and have been understanding things so much better. My teacher has us write down what jumped out out at us and tell why, so I've been doing it and have learned a lot about myself! Each week I give him my papers and he reads them and gives them back, he writes notes on the side and tells me what he things about i...

Yup...  I'm one of em'.  I'm a geek.  I'm probably not as geeky as the geekiest of geeks, but I've managed to stay employed as a computer programmer for more than 5 years now.  I also spend pretty much every moment of my spare time on my computer at home.  I have geek friends and ... well...  I enjoy technology.  ...

Okay, okay... I do understand that there is a ton of good that has been brought about by the scientific method, but seriously, people; is that the *only* way to prove something is true? Wow. In my opinion, we've really limited ourselves if we think that's the only way to "prove" the truth of something. I just (finally) finished D&C 76, an...

Oh, man...  I just got back from a wonderful geek lunch with the guys 'n' gals from UPHPU (Utah PHP Users Group), and it was a blast.  ... heh... makes me smile just thinkin' about it.  Okay... I didn't just get back.  I had to make sure I could get done today what I promised my boss, and then I would write about it. Well... ...

I was gonna read something spiritual tonight, but I got sidetracked by American Idol. I started surfing around and before long, I came upon this video which, to me, is both absolutely amazing and freaking hilarious at the same time. I had no idea (although I'm not surprised) that so many people were doing remixes of his song "We Are Brot...

I just finished watching the Pixar movie, "Cars" for the 45th time.  Or maybe it was the 4500th time.  I don't know... I lost count. Anyway... During the movie, despite my having seen the movie more times than I've kissed my kids, and even though those kids were crawling all over me and generally trying their best to be a nui...

What do you get when you mix a couple of black lights, a fog machine, a strobe light, a dark hallway, and a couple of demented minds with Halloween?  I'll tell ya what you get: A whole lot of scared teen-agers. WOOOO HOOO!!! With the debut happening just last year, there hasn't been a whole lot of time for refinement, but all things cons...

 Yup..  Today was awesome.  I had a 13.5 hour session, and it was just amazing.  The song creation process was a bit difficult at times, but little-by-little the song formed, and both me and my client (Jed Lefevre) were kind of dumbfounded at the end result.  In the first hour, we had a piano track, and that was it. At th...

We've been recording a bunch of drum-takes to be added to otherwise "ready-to-go" songs lately here.  The latest of which happened to be a genre I particularly don't like much - country. But, the music sounded so good for this particular song, I decided to have at it anyway - and 4 hours later, we came up with the final result. I...

Today during gospel doctrine class, we got talking about gratitude, and there was an interesting question posed, which I hadn't considered.  It was incredibly vague, but sometimes those are the best questions to ask.  The question was simply, "What do you think of gratitude?" At first, I thought it was a horrible question, b...

 So, lately I've been thinking a lot about what life is all about, and kind of pondering upon times when I've been doing well, and times when I've been doing not-so-well. I think the most important thing you can do in life is stay close to the Spirit of God.  Lots of things seem to get in the way from time to time, but that's the nature...

Interesting that in verse 7, the example he uses of an unrighteous king pretty much parallels what happened to the Nephites in the Land of Nephi under king Noah.  Couldn't have been many years since the people of Limhi had come to join Zarahemla, anyway.  I've never thought of that before. Verse 13 is always a fun one.  It's great ...

So...  Yeah... Holy cow.  I started writing this as a Facebook update, and quickly realized ther was too much to say, so, into the blog it goes! The bottom line is - We are back in business, people! As of right now, the new studio is close to being finished, but the good news is - we can record.  I've got 3 channels wired up, a...

Wow....   This will probably be a short entry, but I thought I'd write down what is the first hardware failure of my server! I built this server 3 years ago, and it has been serving up everything that is served in my house (mythtv, web (this site), ftp, ssh, music, photos).  Well... Yesterday evening, we tried to fire up mythtv...