Man... This past month has been a friggin' whirlwind.  I refuse to believe November is nearly gone. Anyway...  Jesse and I are almost done with our debut Christmas album, "Herod the Fink", and while recording the last drum session, I thought it might be cool to see what I look like when I play.  Well, as fate would have i...

Yeah, I'm tired, but man - life is good.  I spent way too much time on our Herod The Fink project last night (and into the wee-hours of this morning), but it was so worth it.  We are really cranking to release a truly unique Christmas album.  My only regret is that we didn't start this sooner, so we could get more content.  But ...

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I just got done playing some sweet jazz for a client, and with the usual rock 'n' roll requests coming in, this was a great change of pace. I'm always intrigued at the different nuances that exist between styles of music as it pertains to rhythm and percussion.  Rock and roll pounds out some great 4/4 along the occasional 3/4 timing, with so...

A few months ago, I thought I'd get a bit more serious about setting up a semi-professional studio in my home.  It's worked out great, so far! As I've worked with clients, they've been more than happy with the results, and I'm learning new techniques and tricks of the trade at the same time.  So far, so good. So, along this trail, I b...

Through the 20 plus years I've been playing drums, I've had all sorts of drumkits, and I've used all sorts of heads.  Well, it came time to replace my snare head recently, and I was offered a new type of head by Remo. The Remo Ambassador Black Suede is a single-ply head which is meant to offer a softer sound without muffling the inherent res...

From the first memories I have, my life has been lived through rhythm.  There has always been an inherent "groove" of my life.  From walking down the sidewalk after school when I was in Jr. High, pacing the rhythm of the lines in the cement, and timing my steps accordingly, keeping the "1,2,3,4" clock in my head going ...

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...

My sister died a week short of her birthday. It was really hard but we got through it.   Today, my nephew drove me right up the wall. I couldn't believe how much energy he had and how much trouble he could get into. Ben did most of the taking care of as I was busy with helping Holly with her resume   I get to move out for the first ti...

You know you've got a great project when its name is "Herod Fink", and it's Christmas-themed with an alternative flavor.  Yeah...  I'm really enjoying life right now. Anyway, so far, this project has been a whirlwind, but one we definitely cannot get enough of.  we couldn't stand it anymore, so we posted a little diddy f...

Oh... My... Goodness... I can't think of where to begin, so I'll just start typing. Two days ago we decided it was time to cut the umbilical for the other guys who were the old I.T. team for the company I work for. We did so by changing all passwords (or so I thought), and that's about it. We thought we had em'.... So.... We all went home and...

Very interesting that they took the time to tell us that Ammon not only rehearsed what King Benjamin said to the Nephites, but that he then explained it to them that they might understand it.  Not sure why that struck me this time, but it did. (verse 3) According to verse 13, a man who can look into and see (and translate), is a seer.  ...

 I am SO glad that Moroni kept writing.  Can you imagine the Book of mormon without the last 4 chapters of Moroni?  The depth of explanation of faith, hope, and charity?  The blessing of Babies?  The promise and invitation to read the Book of Mormon, used by all missionaries?  Yeah...  There are some gems here in ...

Our Halloween was pretty low key this year.  I just wanted to stay close to home since I just had Samuel instead of going to Jason's brother's house as we have done the past two years.  Jason and his brother have made it a tradition to scare as many people as possible on Halloween, but they will have to start that up again next year. An...

Something in verse 13 struck me as interesting, even though it probably could be considered common knowledge among the LDS population. I never remember seeing anything quite as obvious relating to happiness as Alma 41:10, which states "Wickedness never was happiness".  Well...  It's easy to inverse-ify it and say "If wic...

Yesterday, my wife spent some time setting up her "my space page", which I absolutely refuse to do for myself, and when she got it done, she was pretty happy with herself.  I helped her with some images and that was that. Later on in the evening, she mentioned that she had received an email from Annie (my sister-in-law who I love)...

This is the first time I think I've ever watched / listened to / read a talk given by Elder D. Todd Christofferson. My first impressions of him are very, very high.  He has a very poignant, straightforward, yet very soft tone to his voice.  He does not waver in his speech, and seems completely convicted of the things he says. I enjoye...

I've been strugging on how to blog about what's been going on, and I'm sick of thinking about it, so here I go. About a month ago, I was sitting at my happy job, getting paid pretty well, liking very much, for the most part, the environment which I had been blessed to work in for the past 1 1/2 years, when an email came to my inbox from the UPHPU...

A few minutes ago, I visited my favorite weather-forecasting website and I saw something I thought I should document, just because it doesn't happen very often.  I saw a 7-day forcast that looked like this: I think it may snow tonight! :) Anyway... My mustang isn't liking life very much right now.  It's so freakin' dirty.  ...

I've been reading the scriptures a bit lately, and I came upon a verse which intrigued me. That verse quickly made me think of this one, and this one. Let's not forget this one - that's a good one, too - verse 33 being the focus. Here's another really good one warning of the dangers of the previous entries, and further proving the point that at l...

So, in Gospel Doctrine, from time to time, we talk about praying, and how we're supposed to pray all the time, and then we get the comments that it's impossible to "pray" all the time, and then someone else says that we need to be praying "always" in our hearts.  That's true, and verse 1 of this chapter is Jesus' commandmen...

When I went in to my 6 month review about 4 month ago, I didnt know what I was in for. I assumed things would go well because I had accomplished everything I set out to do and more, so I felt pretty good. The interview went very well.  They complimented me on my work, the sales reports, the new web site, the money I was saving the compan...

I was brought up in a good, wholesome LDS home where abuse wasn't even thought about.  I didn't even know abuse was a word until I learned about it from others. I went to church, had a good time, and generally enjoyed a wonderful family life. During my teenage years, I started thinking about spirituality for no apparent reason.  I star...

 So, with the new G+ hangout update, all of my Chrome extensions quit working ("My Hangouts", "Hangout Canopy", etc...), and I was wondering how in the heck to find hangouts to meet new people... Well, it's actually very easy. Within G+, search for #hangoutpost Then, in the drop-down right-side of the submenu, click &...

First, a question. In verse 15, Nephi states that he delights in the scriptures, and that he writes them according to the spirit.  Well...  That leads me to question whether or not he realized he was a prophet or not.  Very interesting, and possibly stupid, question (maybe he already knew about D&C 68:4). Now, the chunk of ...

Wow...  It really is amazing what a good night's sleep can do to one's attitude.  I don't know if everyone is affected this way, but man...  Yesterday, it was all I could do to keep myself from just walking away from everyone and going to sleep.  I was irritable, quick to frustration, and a general jerk to pretty much everyone. ...

Below is a photo of how my little studio looks right now... Despite the fact that it's now nothing more than a bedroom, with piles of acoustic pucks and other audio paraphernalia scattered about, I've gotta say - "I'm over it." In 3 days, I'll say goodbye to this place, and begin anticipating the construction of our new abode, as w...

The first thing that stood out to me this time around was the anger of Lamoni's father.  Try to place yourself in the situation Lamoni found himself in.  There are so many variables in the situation, it's hard to imagine exactly what was going on with the family undercurrents, but holy cow.  Lamoni's father drew his freaking sword an...

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...

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...