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...

Well....  It's late, and I'm tired, but I wanted to let you all know, that right now, I know that if I dig in and learn the Zend framework, immerse myself in it as much as I can, while maintaining some semblance of a balance in my life, short-term, I'll make it with my new employment.  I've just gotta jump in, so I sink or swim.  I t...

Verse 7 caught my attention this time around.  The beginning of the verse is as follows: "And now, my sons, I would that ye should remember to search them diligently, that ye may profit thereby;" The context is referring to the scriptures the sons of King Benjamin had access to.  This verse reminds me quite a bit of Mosiah...

Hmmm....  It's hard to write about something so wonderful when I'm not in the mood...  But I've found that when I feel like "blah", and I write about something wonderful, I usually am feeling closer to wonderful when I'm done... So, here goes. First off, I'm at work, so I don't have any pictures, but I'll update it when I get...

We've been trying to get into the habit of having Famiily Home Evening together as a family, and tonight Sarah planned a splendid lesson that would have been enjoyed much more if I wouldn't have been ill, and dead-tired. But... such is the life of a husband/father/bread winner. :) Anyway... After the lesson, she wanted all of us to write down ...

I'm not entirely sure where to even begin with this chapter.  So many good stories are found in this one, which can easily be likened to our own lives and our own times.  Various lessons come to mind.... For example, verses 1 through 3 are a magnificent litmus test of personal righteousness.  When someone comes at you and truthfull...

It feels quite refreshing to be able to understand more than just a couple of verses again.  As I was reading tonight, I realized how much could be written about this chapter.  It's quite full of good doctrine. Here's what I noticed tonight: From verse 1 until 6, Nephi seems to be trying to explain the "hard to understand" n...

Merry Christmas Dear Latter-Day Saints   Merry Christmas I greet you wherever you may be as members of a church family Tonight we pay homage to our Lord. Born in a stable. Loved and adored.   He who'd been the creator of this earth. Condescended to a humble birth. And, thus we have the gift of Christmas. This the greatest of ...

 Another very short one.  If I understand it correctly, the prayer states that by partaking of the water, we are covenanting (or "witnessing") unto God that we will always remember Christ.  I believe a few chapters ago, I wrote quite an entry on the importance of remembering.  As evidenced by the inclusion of it in a w...

A few days ago some things were said that hurt my feelings really really bad. Needls to say I was kinda down. I started believeing what was said and felt really worthless, I called that girl I talked about in the last blog not the crush one but the one before that. Well I called her and  just talked, turned out she was feeling kinda down too! ...

I spent about 2 hours today trying to debug something so stupid and simple as the following code. <script> function submit_me() { document.form1test.submit(); } </script> <form name="form1test" method="post" action="newuser.php"> <input name="submit" type="button" value=&...

 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...

I just got done watching and reading the talk given by Elder M. Russell Ballard, and it caused me to ponder my wife, quite a bit. Boiled down, the talk was given on how much mothers do, and how much we, as husbands, need to appreciate them. I certainly hope that I'm appreciating Sarah enough.  Heaven knows I've been in Elder Ballard's plac...

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...

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...

 So, today's entry is going to be a bit less, but I still was able to see God's hand in my life quite a bit. I had a late studio session to tend to, but I had felt horrible all day long...  I prayed that I would be able to have a great session, and it went really well.  Everything that needed to happen, happened, and nothing too t...

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...

Not much more to say, other than what was in the video.  I'm trying now to work out the best bitrate to video quality trade-off with FLV files. I plan on having a bit of fun with this new camera in the ensuing weeks. I'm amazed at the technology with which these new cameras / camcorders are built....

My job has me creating a website derived from data housed in an Oracle database. It's getting to the point now where we're going to co-locate the server and press the big green button. Well... My boss came in today asking about the connection between my postgresql database from which the website runs, and Oracle from which Postgres is populated...

Once quite awhile ago, my brother came to me and asked me why we go to church, and where is the doctrine concerning church attendance.  In addition to Moroni 6 : 4-6, I also gave him Alma 6 : 6. Other than that, this seems to just be a transition verse from preaching in Zarahemla to preaching in Gideon. It also speaks about membership of t...

I've often wondered why this chapter isn't included in chapter 2.  They both seem to go on about the evils of Jacob's audience.  This chapter even goes further to say that the Lamanites at this time were more righteous than the Nephites because they have only one wife, and the husbands love their wives and children.  They also are wi...