I just got done watching Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours" video... Man, that guy is amazing. Anyway...  Tonight I thought it'd be a good idea to do some drum covers of my favorite songs.  So, here's the first one, "Rock and Roll Band" by Boston. Give it a listen and don't forget to rate and comment if ya like it!...

 Not sure why I'm writing about this now, because I usually just finish the thing and then announce it at the same time as I share it. I guess this song is a complete deviation from anything I've done in the past.  Heh... Just now I'm realizing that I don't even have a name for this song yet.  I could call it "My Friend",...

 After a whole heckuva lot of work, at a faster-than-I-want-to pace, the self-titled album from Herod the Fink is finally finished, and available. Herod the Fink is an in-house production of our mixing and recording engineer, and a great musician-friend of his. The whole project  came together with a simple phone call, a month before ...

The first thing I noticed this time, is that apparently, Helaman had never had any proof of the existence of the plates of gold Alma and the previous prophets were writing on.  Not entirely sure why that caught my fancy this time, but it did.  I guess keeping the historical records was a pretty sacred thing back then.  I wonder if th...

 Well...  I'm not quite as frustrated tonight as I was when I tried to do with Ubuntu, that which I am now trying with Fedora 12. I installed Fedora 12 on my laptop from the install DVD, and I've gotta say, Fedora, neither in the installation, nor in running the OS, was as slick as Ubuntu.  Ubuntu was quite a bit more polished, I'...

Okay..  So I installed Ubuntu on my brother's computer about 3 weeks ago, and he has been loving it!  Before that, he had been using gentoo with me as his personal admin, which I didn't mind because he rarely needed it, and when he did, it was usually a 10-30 minute fix, no problem. So, he liked it so much, and from what I could tell, ...

Today, I woke up to about 6-10 inches of fresh powdery snow all over the place.   It's actually beginning to feel like Christmas time, now! Now, most normal people would say within themselves, "Man, I hate snow on the roads.", but not me. I'm not entirely sure why I'm this way, but it's been this way ever since I can remem...

The thing which resonates so much with me about this chapter, is how true Moroni is to himself and his God.  Truly, the last thing he wanted to do is to kill thousands of his brothers, yet he had to.  He knew his lifestyle, freedom, religion, and family were more important than letting themselves be put into bondage, and the Lamanites wou...

I wasn't planning on writing about this chapter this time, but something which kind of makes me wonder stood out to me this time. What's the deal with the armor of the Lamanites being so slim?  I mean, seriously.  If I were going to war, I would definitely do everything I could to protect myself and ensure victory.  Loin cloths and...

I've recently been working with Advanced Budget Studios on a project called Herod The Fink, and I just got done tracking drums to the last song, The First Noel. Well, we taped the session to video, and have created a youtube video with the final version of the song, being played as I tracked the drums.  The effect is pretty cool. Take a lo...

I find it so interesting that Nephi, in all cases I can think of, when stating how hard things can get, always follows it up with how blessed they are.  I believe Nephi was how I would like to, and am trying to be like.  He recognizes things are bad, yet always finishes on an optimistic note.  Personally, I beleve grounded optimism c...

I almost didn't post anything tonight..... But... I've gotta. One thing which seems to irritate me quite a bit is this phenomenon among people of my faith which drives them to make some pseudo-philosophical yet some how not quite doctrinally correct quote and then follow it by "I'm sure it's in the scriptures. I just read it. I swear. " or, "I'...

The studio has been busy as ever, and some improvements are coming down the pipeline, but before we get to that, let me say that I had the privilege of working with another wonderful young lady last week. Kaelynn Allred's new song, "Back To Love" is about as cute as they come.  Tying sweet themes from nursery rhymes into a smile-in...

I told you I love you, And yet you broke my heart. you had to run around, Behind my back! Now I'm sitting here, I can't think of anyonelse! But the one thing rings in my head, Why was I never good enough for you? How come I'm alone? I wanted to give you my heart, But you just can't be true, Can you? Now your running around, Trying to m...

Just in case you haven't heard the latest about Tiny Boats' debut album release, a good friend of the studio, Matt Mylroie, a music producer in Florida, had these good words to say about The Broken Vessels. A portion is quoted below, where the full review can be found here. "This album is hard to describe, but it is a fantastic blend of ...

Pondering on the words of Elder Burgess, I am led down a thought process a bit different than where his talk went. I've been noticing that we as humans define ourselves quite differently, and most do it subconsciously, than we think we do. The whole concept of "defining oneself" baffled me some years ago. My parents and my church ta...

 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....

Well...  I haven't written in awhile, and quite a bit is coming to a head soon, so I thought I'd just site down and write whatever comes out.  It may be a novel, it may end right now. Lately I've been focusing a lot of my time on music.  Our band Mimic, is in the process of getting gigs around Utah, so I've built a website for us,...

Onward and upward towards the goal of finishing the whole Book of Mormon, writing about each and every chapter, by the end of this year. This chapter was all about war, and strategy.  I didn't find anything particularly enlightening about it, yet I firmly believe that each and every word written in the Book of Mormon has a meaning - and will...

Well.. Yesterday, I rode home in an airplane for the whole day, but everything was cool.. I rode by David and Sharon that have a 19 year old daughter, Mormon, and single. I didn't get her phone number - just ask me why, I could kick myself. Anyway.. I listened to my music for most of the way home and just enjoyed myself. I actually like flying,...

 So I wasn't really interested in getting yet another member of my little growing studio family, but I couldn't help but get this one after playing it at the local music store.  Found it on a killer sale at samash, so I pulled the trigger. Available to all studio clients for recording. Isn't she gorgeous? She sounds awesome, too....

I take no credit whatsoever for the following content, but I thought it was too incredible to simply link it.  Here is the link to the original page, but just in case that site ever goes down, I want to make sure to keep the content around.  It's just too beautiful. "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail b...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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...

A week ago, an acquaintance of mine from my highschool days, Matt Harker, was hit and killed while biking to work.  A day later, a friend contacted me and wondered if he could use the studio to produce a song in Matt's memory.  Although I didn't know Matt very well, I knew him well enough to know he was the type of person who did his best...

As I read this chapter, I found the question in my head, "why was Nephi prompted to put Isaiah in here?" One thing I'm noticing in this chapter and the last, is the writing style of Isaiah is quite starkly contrasted against the writing of Nephi.  It's wildly poetic. I enjoyed this chapter as much as I did the last.  I didn'...