Picking up new clients is always a good thing, but in the case of yesterday, it was a great thing. I had the privilege of recording his new song, Peculiar, and it was very refreshing.  It was a simple tune with some great acoustic guitar work, and vocals.  Jason Jones added some percussion accents, and the song came to life. Knowing...

I was just looking at the timestamp on these chapters, and realized that Amalickiah went from being a Nephite citizen, to the king over the entire Lamanite nation in approximately 1.5 years.  How freaking crazy is that? Also, one thing I failed to mention about chapter 47 is the last verse.  A very interesting verse, that is.  Once...

Playing this song was a joy, until I realized I'd been playing wrong for so many years. Trying to do the cover as a true cover was freakin' hard for this song.  I hope I did it justice, though. There were a few points where I totally fubbed hits, but there were only a few. So... Here it is.  Let me know what ya think....

Man...  Amalickiah... I'm more and more convinced that this guy is the epitome of evil in the flesh. I wonder what would have happened with the entire history of the Nephites had Captain Moroni caught Amalickiah, when he was chasing him and his armies last chapter. I really believe that had he been caught (and appropriately dealt with), much...

 Wow...  When I wrote this in March of 2009, "During this year, I both think and feel (logically and spiritually) I will be stretched more than I've been stretched in years.  This one's gonna be a toughy.  As for now, I feel anxiously optimistic.  Yup..  That about hits it on the head."  I had n...

 I thought I wouldn't do anything today... Mostly because I was feeling a bit ill...  But, I figured there was no better way to usher in the new year! Happy New Years 2010 to everyone!  And hope you enjoy AdvancedOnlineDrums' version of Green Day's Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Click for video. ...

Will the craziness ever end?  I thought for sure, I'd be too busy today to do another cover, but around 4:00pm, I got bored, the kids were occupied or asleep, and my wife was reading, so...  Down to the studio I go! Hope you all like this cover.  It's one of the better ones I've done.  I missed a couple of hit-accurate fills,...

I guess I can't get enough of these covers.  I had no intention of doing one tonight, but I was so in the mood, I ripped this out on the 2nd take. I take a lot of liberties on this, and there are a few slight timing issues, but I thought it was a great show of the "groove" inside music. Good times. Enjoy the video, and be su...

 Good times.  I thought this one would be tough, but I've played it so many times over the past decade, it came back to me rather quickly. In the ending, there were quite a few hiccups, but I thought it turned out quite nicely. Click here to view the video....

Haven't even started reading this yet, and I know I'm in for a doozie.  Amalickiah, in my estimation, is one of the truest Nehor-ites in existence.  Absolutely no morals, no regard for anyone but himself - even if it means killing many people who he claims to love.  One of the most dispicable humans ever to live on earth.  Now, ...

I find it interesting how Satan is described throughout scripture. In this chapter, through verses 13 - 20, Satan is seemingly exposed as the weak fraudster he really is.  Verse 16 is quite potent, written from the standpoint of people who were tempted by him, when shown his actual person, are amazed at the frailness of Satan.  They say...

I don't even know where to begin on this one.  Maybe I'll start by screaming in frustration due to Microsoft's complete incompetence.....  or is it incompetence?  Maybe, and more likely, it's completely calculated, thought-through, planned, and executed.... Apparently, Microsoft sent out an "automatic update" to all XP a...

I've been finding it hard to write / blog lately, simply because I have no desire to write.  I've been thinking about this for a bit, so I decided to write about ... writing. In order to write  / blog, I have to have something to write about - obviously.  What isn't so obvious is, I always have something to write about. I came to...

From the beginning of this chapter, it's obvious that Christ means business when he makes covenants.  Causing entire books to be written, and then keeping 100% of everything that is written means something. I wonder why the people thought that Christ's coming "destroyed" the prophets?  Interesting. I love verse 9.  &q...

Journal entry is contained within the attached audio file....

Okay...  So three days ago (that would be Saturday morning), I found that my server was having weird problems.  I was getting an I/O error when I tried to start a movie for my daughter.  Yeah, that can't be good.  I'd seen that problem before when LVM got out of sync somehow (after about 6 months of uptime), and decided to reboo...

Recently I was reading from scriptures.lds.org and decided it could be improved to make it easier to read. Here is what it looks like normally. A couple things bugged me. Narrow text is generally easier to read. So, I made it more narrow. Also, the superscript letters that signify a footnote throw off the line spacing. I figured out a cool l...

So, we're starting 3rd Nephi.  This should prove to be interesting. The first thing I noticed was, again, how quickly (and stupidly) people make up excuses for that which is obviously true. I imagine that living during the time all these miracle were happening (and increasing), would be such a gift.  The signs and miracles profesied b...

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...

Interesting how verse 3 is pretty much an exact parallel with the light of Christ in our lives. Verse 4 is yet another example of taking a pretty huge risk in the name of God.  Getting into ships, the likes of which none of them had ever seen before, being built by the blueprints of God.  Closing the doors, with all your family inside, ...

Whenever I do credit card checking, I always end up searching for longer than it would take me to create it myself, so...  without further ado, here's the Luhn, or "Mod 10" algorithm for validating credit card numbers. function mod_10($cc) {     $reversed_string = strrev($cc);     $string_array = str_sp...

The studio walls are up!  ... and they are ... HUGE!  Honestly the level of excitement I have for this studio build is right up there with the excitement of my marriage and the births of my children.  I can't believe this is actually happening! Anyway.... I'll be posting more random updates on Facebook (which will link to publi...

Last weekend I went to Arizona to see my brother Greg, my sister Andi, and my friend Natalie compete in the Ironman Event. I put together a video which pretty much sums it all up.  I hope you like it....

So, this weekend I had the pleasure of meeting yet another one of Utah's finest bands.  The band's name is "Shallow Sky", and if their music is any indicator, these guys are gonna stick around. To be honest, I expected the 3 sessions (totalling 26-hours) with these guys to be a bit rough, due to only my incredible lack of sleep las...

Seems that this chapter is all about "markings" and the prophecies about the curses put upon people (and which people put upon themselves). I can feel the doctrine behind this chapter, and I caught myself frequently asking myself why Mormon included this chapter.  No doubt there's some serious doctrine in here, but this time around...

I guess I just take for granted all the tips 'n' tricks I've learned over the past 10 years I've been building my own systems (along with most of my family's and friend's computers), so with that thought, let me try to explain how I build computers. First off, this article is intended for those people who are not necessarily tech-wizards, but ar...

So, I've had the opportunity for the past few months to work full time with clients from all over Utah Valley.  From the sweet harmonies of By Request's soft country swing, to the relentless brutal drive of The Suffering's hardcore sound, the longer I'm in company with musicians of this area, the more I'm convinced that Utah Valley seems to be...

What a whirlwind, I tell you what. The usual cliche's about this being the busiest time of my life seem to pale against reality, so I'll just dive into the thick of it all. I've spent the past 3 weeks working intensely on getting the new studio up and running. Thanks to the help of my brother Ryan, my dad Ray, and a good friend, Jeff Stock, th...

Okay..  I have no idea why I'm writing this, but to heck with it.  People should know.  Either that, or I need to figure out what the hey I'm doing wrong. So, about a year ago I began a crusade to help AMD / ATI as much as I possibly could.  I've already been buying AMD processors now for at least 5 years for myself, my work,...

Herod the Fink is a Christmas collaboration project between Jesse Crowley and Jason Jones which has been going on now for 3 glorious years at Advanced Budget Studios.  This year's offering is a 4-song EP. The music this year ranges from a bluegrass crossing punk style of "Joy To The World" to an introspective look in to each of our...