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 just got off the phone with my wife, and she was at our new home-to-be this evening, and apparently, almost everything is done.  The carpet isn't in, nor are the toilets, nor are the cement stairs leading down to the basement, but everything else - yeah - it's done.  I'm just beside myself.  We could be moving in as early as la...

 So... I don't even know where to begin. Honestly, my life is so full right now, I feel as though I might decide to curl up into a remote corner of the world somewhere and hide for a few months. That said, each day I seem to manage to get up with a renewed strength to attack the day's duties with a renewed vigor.  Even though it's cl...

 Well, I'd say last week was a success for the progress of the studio!  I'd also say it was a pretty big failure for the state of my body.  Man, I'm getting old.  Even my 70-year-old dad out-did me, and that's just sad.  Even though my fingers are swollen, and my feet hurt, I've gotta say it was 100% worth it. We started ...

I chose "Amazed" as the mood for this entry because it just fits.  I had no idea what would be involved with getting this studio build ready to go, but it seems as though it's all coming together. We've got a truckload of materials coming on Monday of next week, and I have the entire week off to begin the build. Hopefully I remem...

 So today marks my first day of a long awaited journey to weight loss. I currently weigh 260 lbs, which is a number i never thought in my whole life i would ever reach. I choose today because my boyfriend woke me up this morning and told me he'd feel much better knowing my health was better and all this weight is literaly weighing me down. And...

So, I was on my way to work today, when my phone rang - displaying an unfamiliar number.  With everything going on in my life, I decided it would be a good idea to answer it anyway. Turned out to be a really good idea. Last week, I decided to take the time to draw out plans for the studio and turn them in to the city for approval.  I ...

 So...  In what has turned out to be my monthly updates, I don't have much to report this time, as progress on the studio portion of the house has been waiting for the actual house to be built.  Right now, the studio is comprised of two large concrete boxes in my basement. What I do have to report on is something I hadn't expected...

 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...

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...

Man...  I was having a downer of a day until this evening when Fatigi came to record 3 new songs.  I was really, really tired throughout the day, and thought I was sure to have a hard time focusing when Fatigi came over. Then I heard them play. Honestly, I haven't been this awake in a long time.  Music just seems to envigorate my...

My marriage, or rather, the marriage I have entered into with my sweetheart for the last 7 years, hasn't really been that bad.  In fact, I'd say we're definitely on the upper-hand of "marital happiness" as far as the national statistics go. There are quite a few reasons for this, I'd say.  One is definitely that I feel I'm giv...

Ya know...  I thought that with 4.5 hours of sleep last night, I'd feel a heckuva lot sleepier than I do.  I guess miracles do happen. Since our wonderful Samuel was born, my wife and I have been getting considerably less sleep than we otherwise would.  This is to be expected; it comes with the whole package of parenthood. I ha...

Since I don't blog very much I thought I would add just a whole bunch of fun pictures of the kids with the latest things that have been going on.  So enjoy! Above: This is the best Mother's Day picture we could get.  The sun was shining right in the kids eyes.   Luci on her Zoo field trip.  This was my group. ...

Here are the latest pictues of Samuel and the kids.  He is doing really great!  At his two week check on Monday the Pediatrician said he looks perfect.  We are adjusting pretty well.  The main problem for me is just lack of sleep right now, but that will get better with time.  Anywho, enjoy the pictures. Samuel's fi...

Well I was going to do this last night but it was just to much to do.  So here it goes.  Wow what a life changing event.  This might be a little bit graphic for some but I am going to tell it how it is.  So here it goes.  Yesterday I worked at the airport I transport people to and from the airport.  I was called to go ...

Update:  Due to the popularity of this post, some people are having a hard time viewing the video posted above.  If it won't play for you, simply wait until the gray progress bar has filled 1/4 to 1/2 of the way before you press play.  That should do the trick. Yesterday I took the day off work to go to my bother's sealing to his w...

As some of you know, in addition to running this site, I also run a site called ldscompanion.org Today, I was rummaging through some of the artwork submitted by my users, when I found this piece. The artwork is well-done, and presents a Biblical message as well as a URL.  Well...  Not being familiar with the URL, I decided to see wh...

So, I just got off the phone with my wife, and she was at our new home-to-be this evening, and apparently, almost everything is done.  The carpet isn't in, nor are the toilets, nor are the cement stairs leading down to the basement, but everything else - yeah - it's done.  I'm just beside myself.  We could be moving in as early as la...

It's about 10 minutes before I have to leave to go to the airport to fly to Wisconsin to meet my new boss and co-workers.  The situation at Nature's Way is definitely changing. Right now, I just wanted to write down some thoughts and feelings to see how they would contrast against what I think after-the-fact. Right now, quite honestly, I d...

 First off, I don't like at all that the congregation was laughing during the initial parts of the talk.  This interpretation of humor, to me, tells me people aren't really trying to empathize with someone who could ask that type of question.  Considering the implications of polygamy, the question of living in one's own house vs. liv...

 I apologize for the complete lack of posts in March.  I've been having so much fun recording, I forget to write about it. If you'd like to stay more up-to-date with the studio happenings, I tend to post much more information on Advanced Budget Studio's Facebook page than on the blog.  It's just easier. So, head on over to Facebo...

I was sifting through some old voicemails today, when I found this treasure.  I almost deleted it when it was originally left, but I'm glad I didn't. This will be fun to show Luci when she's older. The voicemail itself is attached as audio in this entry....

This is an audio recording of tonight.  FHE is included. That's about it....

So, a little over a week ago, I made a phone call on an offer I simply couldn't refuse...  A person online was claiming to be selling a MXL V77 tube microphone brand-new in-the-box for incredibly cheap.  This microphone didn't mean much to me at the time, but something intrigued me about it.  After 20 minutes or so with google, I kne...

Last spring, I modified my car - and then modified it again. The 2nd modifications entailed me re-programming (or flashing, or tuning) my car's computer.  One thing I didn't realize at the time was that evidently, a standard protocol for most tuners out there is to turn off the O2 sensors which monitor emissions after the catalytic converter...

Oh, man...  I haven't had a day like yesterday in quite some time.  Possibly years. My day started at 6:00AM with about 4 hours of sleep in me.  Ah well...  Caffeine has its purpose, right? We started out thinking there would be 4-6 cars out there on the salt with us, but it ended up being just Steve and me.  As it tu...

Today, an audio file was sent to me in an email.  This audio was compressed and encoded using the aac codec for compression and wrapped in m4a.  In order to use it, I had to convert this file to a wav format.  Usually, I receive files in mp3, ogg, or flac file types, and use lame, oggdec, or flac to decode them back to wav.  Wit...

Well... Today was the big day at church with the blessing of the newest addition to the Jones family, Samuel Jones. The blessing went well, even if I did botch the proclamation of the power by which the blessing was given.  I'm glad God is a forgiving God. The spirit of the meeting was wonderful, and it testified quite powerfully of one sp...

Ya know...  Sometimes I hate open source.  Most times I love it, but sometimes I hate it. I recently updated my gentoo gnome installation to 2.24.2, and didn't think much of it.  I then tried to connect my Nikon S210 digital camera to my usb port and perform the simple task of importing photos.  I have done this probably 100 t...