today is my gmas 61st birthday..or it would be if she wer here. she died about 7 months ago and i just wanted to say.....HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA!!...

Ever since I built my first computer with a K6-2 200MHZ processor back in 1998, I've never looked back.  I've been an AMD guy my whole computing career. Recently, AMD has been having some tough times with their processors, and understandably, people haven't been buying their stuff as much. For what it's worth, I definitely had my doubts ...

About a year ago, I wrote about some feelings I have toward caffeine.  Since then, my feelings haven't changed much. I try to limit the amount of caffeine consumption in which I partake.  You know, the whole "moderation in all things" crud... Well...  Through this year, I've tried quite a few different caffeinated bev...

To have that taken away which is precious to you usually results in one of two things.  Either you do what is required to get back what was taken from you, or you devalue the thing which was taken, justifying its absence. About three years ago, for one reason alone, my Temple recommend was revoked from me and the ensuing years caused me to ...

I watched this talk about 2 months ago and was very impressed by what Elder Jeffrey R. Holland proclaimed. Down to its essence, Elder Holland simply states case after case as to why it makes no sense the claim that God has ceased speaking to us. Quite frankly, I believe him.  With overwhelming evidence given, it's hard not to see the clear...

Ya know, I'm not a very good critic in so many areas, simply becuase I'm not very picky.  I like lots of kinds of food, I like lots of kinds of music, I get along with lots of types of people, etc...  But, I simply must write about this. Sitting here trying to figure out how to start this review is quite daunting considering the ma...

I just got done watching, listening, and reading the last talk of the morning conference session of Sunday this year, and President Monson is indeed our prophet. Nothing in particular spoke anything specific to me.... Well... That's not true.  The following paragraph hit home a bit, "Mortality is a period of testing, a time to prove o...

I just got done preparing my message for my home-teaching visit tonight, and after reading through the matieral the 2nd time, a thought came to my head, although I'm not sure how I'm gonna get it out.  Here goes nothing. As I was thinking of home-teaching in general, the thought came that "love" is pretty much the strongest power o...

This past Thursday, we finally decided to rip it up.  I mean, literally - rip it up. Then, we decided to take it out the backyard to see what the heck was clogging it all up. It was just as we suspected.  Collin had flushed a freaking toy cell-phone down our toilet! and yes, we took the toilet out in the backyard, twisted it, turned it...

Well... I figured I'd better write about this because I didn't have the sense to take any video of the actual party. I recorded myself going TO the party, but nothing more.  Crud. It was a good LAN party, too.  We played last Friday and Saturday.  We had the usuals there, Me, Shane and Shaun, but there were two people who never had...

 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. ...

Wow... It's been a long, long time since I updated anything about my life on here.  Mostly because stuff got really busy, and really interesting about April of this year.  I've documented all the crud that we've gone through, so no need to rehash that. What I would like to say is that music is more a part of my life now than it ever has...

Today is a good day!  So...  Beginning in verse 12, the main theme I'm getting here is the complete polarization between God and Satan.  Within the rules God has set (such as, "Satan can't kill people", and "Man has free agency", and "God won't save someone just because they're His offspring", and such.....

I just got home from Jovi's baby blessing (Brandon and Chloe's first baby) and it was a pretty cool experience. Today was a good day because I thought that it was gonna be .... not good. Yesterday night, I stayed out a bit too late, and thus didn't get a whole lot of sleep last night.  In fact, on my way home, my good friend Steve bought me ...

An interesting concept was brought up during an interesting class I had on Sunday. Last year, I went to the normal gospel doctrine class almost all year and enjoyed almost every class.  We had a fabulous teacher who really brought the class alive with discussion about interesting concepts.  Never once was a spirit of contention fall up...

Hmm...  What could "prosper in the land" possibly mean?  This is something I've fought with recently, while think about prosperity in general.  When someone says, "That guy has really prospered", or "she is really prosperous", what could it possibly mean? Some things in the scriptures are mentioned on...

 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...

Sadly, lots of problems exist with the world today.  I guess it's human nature to create problems, and ya know...?  I'm alright with that.  Problems need to exist in order for life to be life, right?  Yup...  The eternal struggle for self-improvement, or whatever. Anyway...  One thing that irks me quite a bit, and a...

I've recently had the awesome opportunity to work on a good friend's musical masterpiece.  He calls it "Vain Consolation", and it really is quite awesome.  I'll post a snippet if I can soon.  We're still waiting for some of the musical puzzle pieces to be put into place, and when that happens, we'll have a pretty incredible...

It's not too often you read stories about a business who knowingly chooses gentoo as their Linux distribution of choice;  this is why I liked this story so much. Everything they say about gentoo (both good and bad) I believe is right on the money. This company chose gentoo to run their main servers for an email marketing company, and haven...

I just realized that it's been a month since I last wrote about the Book of Mormon.  Man, if I'm gonna finish this thing, I'm gonna have to pick up the pace! First thing I noticed with this chapter is that when Alma got the revelation concerning the spirit world, it seems that he was just asking a curious question, "What happens to the ...

It's 2:00am and I'm sitting down here writing and recording music.  I'm trying to do some really relaxed "Trance" music, and .... I'm not entirely sure how it's gonna turn out, but it feels good being able to record music again. I don't even have a name for the song I've been working on for the last month, but... it'll come when it'...

So, I haven't written for awhile - mostly because I enjoy writing after a project has been completed.  Well - right now Advanced Budget Studios has quite a few bands in the works, who are going after multi-track demos.  My guess is - we'll be fishing them up around the same time, and let me tell you now - all of em' are going to be awesom...

So, again, something kind of odd.  Mormon was 16 when he was commissioned to be the leader of the entire Nephite army.  Is that not insane?  Seriously.  Every 16-year-old I know barely has the sense to tie their shoes in the morning!  Okay, not really, but - wow.  Mormon was 16 years old when he was put in charge of th...

The majority of my coding life has been spent with two tools. PHP MySQL I don't claim to be a guru programmer, but the various professional problems which have been presented to me have always found their solution using these two tools. They're great tools. *sigh* Recently I've found out that Oracle owns both sleepy cat's db en...

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...

Thanks to the wonders of technology, Advanced Budget Studios now proudly accepts all major credit cards! In other news, we haven't posted much because we're taking it easy during the holidays.  We'll start crankin' out the serious tunes again in January.  (If you have sessions scheduled for November or December, no worries... We'll stil...

Man...  I've been having mixed emotions about the oncoming trip to California for a number of reasons.  I mean, this trip really has been putting both me and my wife through the ringer.  First, I got a new job, and am being quite challenged by my new tasks there.  Taking time off to go on a vacation right now isn't the best idea...

"Is this week already over??"  Wow...  I guess it's Saturday night.  Yup. This week, the studio has been packed.  Full house.  Monday was the only day without sessions, and that was on purpose.  Tuesday through Saturday was full, and that's the way we like it here at Advanced Budget Studios. Yesterday and...

Sitting here pondering what to write. I could write about a synopsis of 1st Nephi, which I finished last night, or I could just dive into 2nd Nephi.  I think I'll do the latter. Verse 6 could be quite the controversial verse, for people who didn't like the Spanish conquest, or Christopher Colombus.  Yet, the verse still is what the ...