in a blue moon

Rice at Home

2011-12-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

Here's a Christmas present to all!

I was just cleaning my office, was looking through a mission journal from when I was in Brazil, and found a poem I wrote.

This is a variation on 'Love at Home' that I wrote in Portuguese in 1997.
I thought Brad, and maybe anyone who served in Brazil would like it.

The english translation, which I just wrote today (and is pretty darn good if you ask me), is below.

-------------------------------------------------------

Com Arroz No Lar
Escrito por Daniel Lee Gibby, 1997

Tudo é belo em derredor, com arroz no lar!
Nossa vida é melhor, com arroz no lar!
Bem igual não pode haver,
Que a fome combater,
E sustento promover, com arroz no lar!

Refrao:
Com arroz, com arroz.
Nunca a gente vai faltar, com arroz no lar.

Temperado, há prazer, o arroz no lar.
Sem feijão não pode haver, o arroz no lar.
Pega logo seu pratão, não tem maior emoção,
E se sobrar dá ao cão, o arroz no lar.

Refrão.

(Canta as próximos dois linhas bem triste)
Todo mundo vai chorar, sem arroz no lar.
E os caracões quebrar, sem arroz no lar.
(Agora canta bem animada!)
Este jeito vai acabar, não podemos esperar!
Hoje mesmo vai pegar, o arroz no lar!

Refrão.
Translation (not a direct translation, but hey, it rhymes!):

Rice At Home
written by Daniel Lee Gibby, 2011

There is beauty all around, when there's rice at home!
Life is better by the pound, when there's rice at home!
You just can't find nothing else, that will feed your hungering self,
And provide long years of health, than some rice at home!

Chorus:
Rice at home, rice at home.
Never will we lack again, when there's rice at home.

Cooked with spices, it's the best, when there's rice at home.
Add some beans, please don't forget, when there's rice at home..
Everyone go get your plate, there is nothing quite as great!
Feed the dog what's left out late... extra rice at home.

Chorus.

(sing the next two lines very sadly)
Everyone will surely cry, without rice at home.
What a world! We're going to die, without rice at home.

(Now sing very exitedly!)
We just can't keep on going this way, hurry now and don't delay!
Quickly go and make our day! Bring some rice on home!

Chorus.

--------------------------------------

Something to think about

2010-10-20T09:12:00.004-06:00

I think pretty much everyone goes along in life just trying to be comfortable, not really thinking why they do the things they do.

The evidences for creationism are just as thoroughly obvious to people who think logically about statistics and the probability that all evolutionist theories would come together in their proper order for them to all end up working together the way life is.

For example, we could postulate that the nerve endings in my body evolved over millions of years through many types of animals so that they would protect me from hurting myself, so that I survive the facts of nature. On the surface that might seem logical enough. Name any one itty bitty part of your body or of other organisms and you can make the same assumptions. Imagining that each one on its own, or that a few of them together all evolved that way seems logical enough. The problem is that no-one stops to think about how illogical it is that every part of all of life's systems somehow did this at the right time in order for everything else to progress to the point it is at.

What are the odds that everything turned out just right through evolution? Well, for a back-of-the-napkin calculation you just have to calculate the probability that one itty bitty thing would evolve to what it did, then count up all the itty bitty things that would have to evolve, and multiply their probabilities together to get your final probability.

In other words, if the chance that my nerve endings would evolve to be the way they are is 1 in 1000, (I'm making the chance extremely good here just to prove the point,) and you have let's say a list of 1000 other systems in your body and in your environment that would need to evolve at about the same probability (again, I'm really reducing the number of systems and collaborating circumstances that would have to come together, just for arguments sake,) then math says that 1/1000 * 1/1000 * 1/1000 * 1/1000... repeated 1000 times is 1/(1000^1000), or 1 divided by (1000 times itself 1000 times). Any idea how many zeros that is? It isn't 1000 zeros, that would be 10 to the 1000th. It is 3000 zeros. Not 1/3000, 1 divided by 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Hmm, I said back of the napkin, but I don't think I could fit that many zeros on my napkin. That is a very, very, very small number.

Remember that even with that tiny chance I've grossly exaggerated how likely it is that something would evolve, as well as grossly under-exaggerated how many systems and circumstances would have to evolve at about the same time for everything to work out OK. If the chance was 1/10000 instead of 1/1000 that something would evolve, you'd have 10 times as many zeros there.

Now, let's say that for a minute we believe scientists who say that the earth is around 4500 million years old. (That's when they say that the Hadean Eon started.) Let's even say that it is 10 billion years old to make the math easier (in the scientists favor again, even though there weren't life forms evolving according to scientists until later in the Proterozoic Eon, around 2500 million years ago), but just to make the math easy and to give another big advantage to the evolutionists we'll say that life forms were evolving as early as 10 billion years ago. That's 10,000,000,000 years. Now compare that many years with our calculation for the likelihood that things evolved.

All I'm saying is that it is easy to believe that something could evolve over 10 billion years if the likelihood that it will evolve is 1/1000. That gives it a 1 in 100 chance every 1000 years, and you'd say that would happen - no problem. Pure statistics for that one thing evolving say that not only would something evolve once in those 10 billion years, it would happen probably around 10,000 times. Again, that seems really believable if there were only 1,000 things that needed to evolve and none of them had to rely on each other to happen at the right time, but that's not the way statistics work, nor the way that evolutionists claim evolution works, nor are there only 1,000 things needing to evolve.

Remember, to find the probability of two things both happening, you multiply the probability of each happening by the others. That's how we got our back-of-the-napkin calculation.

So what are the odds that in 10 billion years all the 1000 different things would evolve together? Divide that tiny long number by 10,000,000,000 (or remove just 10 zeros out of it). How many zeros are left from the original 3000 zeros? 2990.

So that would be 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Do you think that looks very likely?

OK, so maybe we beat the odds, right?

Ahem..

(the sound of crickets or just plain silence follows)

Google Picassa 3 Unnamed People

2010-04-04T21:39:00.003-06:00

I really like Google Picassa 3's face recognition features. You tag who people are and it searches through your photos for matching faces and asks you if people in other pictures are also people you've tagged. After a while, it makes pretty good guesses about who is who.

It has been really cool for finding pictures of certain people when we need them. For example, we needed pictures of me or of my wife, or certain pictures of other people, and rather than go into our huge picture folder and think, I know that one of these years there was this good picture of Person X, you just click on the thumbnail of Person X and it shows the zoomed in view of Person X in all the different photos that they appear in... at least in the ones that you've already confirmed.

The problem is that I still have 7,140 unnamed people!

Many of them are indeed people in my family. I decided not to tag hardly anyone not in my family or extended family. So then you just click the X to ignore all the other people in your pictures you could be tagging.

It is funny how many of the people I don't know at all. I'll see hundreds of spectators at parades across the street from us, or who were sitting next to us in the parade route; there are kids who go with my kids to school in group pictures from school plays, but who I have no idea who they are.

There are even pictures of people hanging on the wall behind people who I was actually taking the picture of! So sometimes I'll mark Person B and Person C as being in a picture, and then it will show me Person B and I'll mark it as them and realize that actually it is from the same photo that I just tagged Person B in... it was just that there was a picture of Person B hanging on the wall in someone's living room. If it weren't for that, I was going to suggest to Google that Picassa have a feature to be a bit smarter and once you've tagged any particular person in a picture that it shouldn't recommend that the a face might be the same person again. I've realize there are other reasons that someone could be in a picture twice: remember the people in the rotating camera school class pictures that ran around the back of the bleachers so they'd be on both ends of the picture? That would need people to be there twice. More often though, is the case of photo collages, where the same person is there a bunch of times.

A few weeks ago I had over 10,000 unnamed people, so I guess I've whittled it down quite a bit. But it has taken seriously 3-5 hours to do that. It will be awesome to have it done, if I sometime get another 12 hours to finish the project. (I didn't do the math, that is just a guess.)

Pretty cool, this Picassa feature! Now who are these unnamed people?

Star Spangled

2009-04-10T12:10:00.003-06:00

I know it isn't July, but I just had the Star Spangled Banner play randomly from my playlist.

I love all the verses, but the last one (also written in 1814) is more impressive to me than the rest:

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.'
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Come Listen to a Prophet's Voice

2009-04-01T00:20:00.003-06:00

General Conference is coming up this weekend and I'm stoked.

I watched this video that was recently produced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of Elder Jefferey R. Holland's talk about prophets in our day.

I love that talk, and couldn't help from watching the rest of the church sponsored videos on YouTube in the new Mormon Messages channel.

Now I'm singing this song in my head!

Come listen to a Prophet's voice
And hear the word of God.
Then let us in the truth rejoice
And sing for joy aloud.

Come, Listen to a Prophet's Voice - Hymn #21

I can't wait until Saturday and Sunday!

Powerful MySQL 5.1 - Cool is an understatement

2008-12-17T15:49:00.003-07:00

MySQL 5.1 is here - as I was reading through MySQL's white paper on the new features, I occasionally thought, "yeah, that is cool." The most exciting things though were when I read about some features that made me get excited enough to want to blog about it. There are some totally powerful and powerfully cool features in 5.1

SQL Profiling

For example, the SQL Profiling Utility which lets you see exactly how much time the SQL server did doing what while it logged a profiling session. You can start and stop the session, then look back at each query that happened and then see in microsecond detail what things are taking a long time and which are taking... well, microseconds.
You'll be able to see in certain terms what things are taking a long time and what queries, indexes, or settings or hardware should be improved.

Replication

There are great replication features available that make it more reliable and able to ensure that the master and slave or a whole cluster are correctly in sync. Hurray for row-based replication!

Query Logs

The Slow Query Log and General Query Log are now logged as CSV files, which are accessible (along with any other CSV file) through the MySQL server, which makes it easy to see exactly which queries are taking the longest.

Process List

The show processlist command can now also be accessed through SQL (someone read my thoughts!) which means I can have one thread check whether another thread is currently running a query and how long it has been running, and how many other things are running and then the thread could decide whether it should go ahead or wait or abort. That would have been so hard before, and now it would be pretty simple.

CSV Storage Engine

The CSV Storage Engine gives us a whole new way to think about how to deal with CSV files. You can load any file instantly into MySQL and access it there as a normal table with SQL commands. I could have really used this 5 or 10 years ago, and all my manual work importing CSV files would have been handled in a fraction of the time. A ton of the work that we have to do with programming can now be done with SQL queries instead.

Event Scheduler

There is now an Event Scheduler which makes it easy to optimize tables or execute any other command and set them on a MySQL cron rather than have to depend on (or remember to setup) Linux crons and their accompanying programs.

Table and Index Partitions

There are awesome new indexing features - the coolest is the ability to create Table and Index Partitions. Now queries against sets of data only need to look for the data in a fraction of the table. Say we have web logs that are being added to a database or click through tracking data. Over time it grows and grows until we have millions of records. In the past we'd have to delete data or else summarize it and archive it, at which point we don't actually have all the data available to us anymore, just the summary, or we don't have it at all. If we setup table partitions instead, we can migrate partitions off to other physical locations (meaning we could move a set of the table to another physical disk partition), and the table would just keep plugging along. Meanwhile, the queries that only care about the last week or month, or the last year, as well as the queries that only care about January 3 years ago don't have to look through huge indexes or scan the whole table, they just look in the partitions they need data from and use the indexes for those partitions. That is a huge, HUGE benefit. This is the kind of thing that makes a Google search engine run quickly.

Full-text search enhancements and Plug-ins!

There is enhanced full-text search capability, with even the option to build your own plug-ins.

I haven't read about new features this cool for a long time. It will mean a lot of people being able to use a lot of data more efficiently and more quickly than ever before.

Glow Brightly bedtime song

2008-11-08T22:48:00.005-07:00

My 7-year-old daughter spontaneously came up with another bedtime song that I want to write down before I forget. I'm sure she'll like it if I remember it and sing it to her again...

Goodnight fireflies! Close your eyes.
Glow brightly. Glow brightly.

While you sleep the stars will shine.
Glow brightly. Glow brightly.

Actually, I came up the second part to match the first right after she sang it.

The melody goes like this:
Mi Sol Mi Do, Mi Sol Mi -
Re Mi Fa, Mi Fa Sol.

Mi Sol Mi Do, Mi Sol Mi -
Re Mi Fa, Mi Re Do.

I think I'll try to come up with another verse now...

Heaven's close now. Close your eyes.
Let your heart glow brightly.

Sing your praises to the skies!
Glow brightly! Glow brightly.

At first I wasn't sure whether it should say "Pray for hope now", or "Heaven's close now." Michelle like it better with "Heaven's close" and I think I like that better too.

Like with my other songs on this blog, feel free to use this, but if you ever write it down or use it, you need to give credit to me and my daughter. Let me know if you like it or use it in a public venue or want to try to make money with it, since it is after all copyright Daniel Lee Gibby, November 2008.

:)

Conserving our Nation's Precious Resources

2008-11-05T17:39:00.001-07:00

George Washington said:

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports."

Our constitution was made by a religious people.

Many times people invoke the separation of church and state to mean something it was not intended to be. This separation of church and state was probably first mentioned when President Thomas Jefferson mentioned a wall of separation between church and state in a letter to a Baptist church organization in Connecticut. The Danbury Baptists had previously written President Jefferson since they were concerned that the state of Connecticut was establishing a state religion that was not of their religious persuasion. Here is the text of President Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists:

"To messers Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.
Gentlemen
The affectionate sentiments of esteem & approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. My duties dictate a faithful & zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more & more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.
Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common Father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.
(signed) Thomas Jefferson
Jan.1.1802."

Notice that nothing President Jefferson says disagrees with what President Washington said. When Jefferson spoke of the separation of church and state, he was not implying that the morals of the church should not guide the state, he was remembering the oppression of his fathers in Great Britain where they were not allowed to choose a religion because there was a state religion. He was assuring the Danbury Baptists that the nation would not choose any one religion over another. He actually didn't even go as far as to speak as to whether the state of Connecticut could or could not do that in his letter, but it might be implied.

Notice particularly the sentence where Jefferson mentions the separation of church and state:

"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state."

If we were to translate this to today's language, it might be written this way:

I think of the Constitution and its first amendment which was passed by the whole American people in high reverence. In effect that Constitution says that our legislature should not force anyone to worship in or belong to any particular religion, and also allows everyone to freely believe whatever religion they choose. This creates a wall of separation between church and state.

Many people falsely imply that Jefferson somehow meant that no church should have any right to speak in the public forum regarding anything that has to do with politics. Let's think of the logical implications of that line of thinking for a minute.

If we assume a church should not talk about anything political, it must be determined what is political and what isn't. Governmental politics is the process by which groups of people make various decisions that effect how the people are governed. As the government in the United States of America is defined so as to be ran 'by the people, for the people,' anything that would effect the rights of any citizen of the country would be considered something of political nature. Also, anything that would effect the government's interaction with any citizen of the country would be political in nature. We would also probably conclude that anything that effects or alters the ability for citizens to freely choose their path through their 'pursuit of happiness' is political.

So, in simple terms, if the people are discussing anything that would have an effect on citizens of the country, it is political.

So logically, if that is what is meant by politics, and if churches are to have no input on anything political, churches pretty much can't say anything at all about daily life in the world. I guess they are just supposed to talk about what came before this life and what will come in the afterlife but leave us in the dark about how we are supposed to get from here to there. That is the logical end result of the 'churches should stay out of politics' frame of mind.

So, I'd like to leave that frame of mind. I suppose there are some churches that say that it doesn't matter what you do, they say you are predestined to heaven or hell and God has already chosen your path, so just be thankful for what you have and go on with life. I know there are some churches that used to say pretty much exactly that, and there are many more today that say things fairly similar. But to me, a church that doesn't help me in my daily life to get closer to my end goal is not really doing me much good.

Here are two more letters that are sometimes misinterpreted to mean that Jefferson thought that in no way should religion ever give its stand on political issues.

"I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting and prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them, an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises and the objects proper for them according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands where the Constitution has deposited it... Every one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents (letter to Samuel Miller, Jan. 23, 1808).

...(O)ur rulers can have no authority over such natural rights, only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. In neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg (Notes on Virginia, 1785.)

I don't see why these letters would be misinterpreted to mean what people think they do, except that possibly people don't read 18th century English very well or maybe hope others don't. To me they are clear examples that show again a few things:

Jefferson was religious himself
It was his opinion that religion shouldn't ask the government to be in charge of it
The government should not organize or direct religions for its people
He believed we received inalienable rights of conscience and moral agency from God.
Government should be tolerant of all religions.

If anyone else found a point in one of those letters that says something along the lines of 'religion should stay out of politics', I'd like to know where. Regardless, there is no wording regarding separation between church and state in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson is regularly invoked for a separation that he did not imply.

Yet, we regularly hear of the separation of church and state as if Jefferson and other founding fathers meant that religion should stay out of politics completely. In fact, they meant nothing of the sort and meant much the opposite.

To ask that individuals leave their morals home in the forming of laws that govern the people is ridiculous and logically impossible. Not only that, it was not what our founding fathers had in mind for us. They were mostly all religious themselves, and they formed a government which allowed for the people to choose for themselves which religion or even a lack of religion they would follow.

"Our law is by definition a codification of our morality"
- Barrack Hussein Obama, 2006

Morally liberal arguments followed to their logical conclusion say that there is no need for morals at all, and that we would be all better off if everyone was just allowed to be 'free'. The problem is that logically following their definition of being free to its conclusion means that anyone should be allowed to do whatever they want with no consequences. Very few really think that and say "of course that's not what I think", but that is where those arguments lead.

The liberal view seems to be to make everyone be taken care of, which is a good goal, but it should not be done by coercion or by force, which is where morals come in. I should want to give to my neighbor because it is the right thing to do, not because I'll go to prison if I don't pay my taxes. That's morality.

If liberals don't really believe that everyone should be able to do whatever they want with no consequences, then they believe in morality in some form, which seems to basically be that we shouldn't hurt each other or each other's property. If that is all law is about, then the liberal mottos should be:

Leave me alone and let me do what I want, and I'll leave you alone.
I want my government to take care of me and everyone else.

Unfortunately, at their core, those two liberal mottos are selfish. Selfishness does not make a great country.

The pursuit of happiness should be allowed for all people so that they can make their own choices. If I am expected to support cause after cause through my taxes then I no longer have the choice whether I could use that money in some other way, whether it be to help someone else or not.

Our country rightfully allows someone who doesn't want to give to their neighbor to spend their money in whatever way they choose, even to their own destruction. We can try to help them make good choices, but their choices in their end are their own. There are certain inalienable god-given rights, and there are also government-given rights. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are all based in choice.

For a government to be able to sustain itself over time, its people must:

Sustain the principles of free choice
Limit the number of additional government-given rights
Not attempt to take away the inalienable rights of any of its people

Regarding not taking away inalienable rights and sustaining the principles of free choice, there are times that the government must make laws that do not actually limit a person's choice, but do impose consequences on those choices. There are horrific things that almost everyone in the world agrees should be against the law of the land. To kill another person is to take away the gift of life, which is tragic and wrong because it takes from the victim their free choice. It is similarly dangerous to tamper with the entrance into life, or to kill a life before it has even begun. Freedoms should be extended to all so they have the opportunity to be happy. When someone is seeking self gratification to the point of self destruction it is hard to know whether government should step in, but when it gets to the point that they are destroying the well being or lives of others, laws should be made and enforced so that there are limits to the damage an individual can do. The government over-steps its bounds if it attempts to limit the choice of any individual.
However, the government is morally bound to set consequences to those who take away the rights, property or life of others. If the government were not morally bound, there would be no basis to have any laws at all.

When people choose things that are destructive to themselves, it usually affects those around them. That is when laws that might seem pointed at taking away the liberties of individuals are really meant to protect others. For example, if all drugs were legalized many who would not otherwise have their lives destroyed would become victim.

Many times government over-reaches into individuals' lives... especially outside of our country. But individuals still have a god-given right to choose for themselves their own path. The reason good governments should have at their core a tie to religion and morality is because without those pillars the care for self becomes greater than the care for others. Those who care for others have morals that cause them to do so. When we care for others our happiness grows. When we care only for ourselves, we expect our government to take care of us but the government is unable to do it if no-one cares for others, because the government is run by the same people who give it power.

People tire of oppression, and rightly so. Over time their innate freedom of choice makes them want to be able to choose more. But if their choices are focused mainly on helping themselves, inevitably the government they seek to create is one that will take them back to the bonds that were once broken.

Look at Russia to see an example of what happens when freedom swells until the governed oppressed become courageous enough to overthrow their shackles, allowing a new government to be chosen. Their continuing struggle is more difficult for them because those making the choices of how the government should be were not given the opportunity to be taught morality. They were taught from their youth that their government would take care of them, and that their individual choice was limited only to what would 'benefit the society'. The irony being that in taking away the choice to find out for themselves what would lead to a fulfilling life, the people were not all happier or living in a more perfected society. So, the promises of the left to extend more and more government-given 'rights' to the people leads in its end to oppression of choice, while the leaders of the movement to subjugate the people claim that the people are getting a fuller expression of their rights.

Through history you don't often see political parties that claim for their platform to hold morally conservative values and yet otherwise have fiscally liberal values. Historically, our nation's democratic party was much more morally conservative and the republican party was more as well, along with being more fiscally conservative. The republicans have rightly lost recent elections because they didn't hold their moral ground and have at times lied and pandered along with the rest, out of fear and greed. That doesn't mean I should stop voting for the party that is most likely to uphold my values (and unfortunately only a party that can potentially win is able), otherwise I might vote for a third party, such as the Constitution party.

Today is a proud day for our nation and really shows how wise our Constitution was formulated in a way where no group would hold power except the majority. The change I hope in is that the majority will understand the founding basis of our country and the source of its providence. The day the majority choose evil is the day the nation will start to fall. My fears lie in that this happened before I was born. My hopes lie in that there are many who only choose incorrectly because they know not where to choose correctly and if they are educated with correct principles they will choose a government that governs fairly and continue to be blessed with the blessings of heaven.

I hope that no matter someone's belief they can be civil and respect my rights and not oppress me or secretively or unknowingly oppress those who don't have the full ability yet to choose for themselves because they haven't been free to have life's experiences to the point yet to where they can be accountable for their choices.

If people use their freedom of choice to infringe on the rights of others, on the right of parents to teach their morals, or on the unborn or the innocent (school kids who are still being taught what is right and wrong), by twisting true principles together with false ideas, I'll let my voice be heard. The way towards making sure no-one is oppressed is for everyone to be not harbor hateful or disrespectful attitudes towards their supposed oppressors. Sarcasim and generalizations are forms of attacks that warrant defense, and it is hard to not respond in kind - it is fallen human's nature. However, someone who governs their choices and who purposefully limits their actions so as to be respectful and yet maintain their views is able to open channels of communication and both sides are able to learn and find common ground. There has been hatred from both sides of the political and moral battles, but what angers me are the hateful accusations of hatred that do not exist.

As citizens of the world, and especially of the nation of the United States of America, we should recognize that mostly we hold the same values and that we can all hope our nation continues in peaceful strides towards real freedom of choice - the kind that the government cannot give and should not attempt to take away.

Music available from General Conference!

2008-10-07T07:59:00.002-06:00

Last spring, as I've become accustomed to do after each General Conference, I downloaded the talks from the April 2008 sessions. I downloaded the talks and have enjoyed them ever since then. I also remember feeling the Spirit very strongly during the hymns the choirs sang, and I was hoping that I'd be able to download the music as well as the spoken word.

There wasn't a way to download the music without downloading each session as one large .mp3 file. I didn't want to do that, but I did decide to make a comment at the feedback link of the church site, asking whether they might consider making the songs from General Conference available as they do the talks.

I did receive a response from someone at the church thanking me for my suggestion. I don't remember the exact words they said, it didn't promise anything but I do remember that whoever it was that had written to me did think my idea had merit.

Well, six months have passed and we have just had another wonderful conference. Again, the talks were inspiring and music superbly motivational, each being a testimony of the kingdom of God being on the earth.

As I went to download the talks this time, there was a little more to the content of the page than I was used to. There is now a podcast available that automatically updates each conference. This makes it so your mp3 player can be setup to download the talks for you without you having to remember to come back and download the sessions (as if I'd forget). Even better than that, it makes it so you don't have to individually click to download each talk as an mp3, saving them into the folder you setup for them. Rather, it is all taken care of... just set up your subscription to the podcast once. I use WinAmp (I even paid for a Pro version a couple of years ago), but iTunes and many other programs can also subscribe to podcasts.

Well, to my surprise, as I put the podcast into WinAmp, it downloaded the first thing in its list automatically, and it was a hymn! The opening music you hear as the announcer says: 'This is the 178th Semi-annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints'. (Oops, I hope that wasn't an unauthorized transcription- but I think Bonneville Communications might be fine with that much...) So, quickly I looked through the list of mp3 files available in the podcast and all the hymns were there!

I went back to the Church website to see if they might have retroactively made hymns available, or if I might have missed the podcast option before. It was there for April, but no music was available. And then I noticed that there is even a link for just the music starting with this fall's conference!

They took my comment to heart and made the music available! I don't dare think that I'm the only one who asked for it, but if it was my request that made it happen, that's pretty neat. I'm listening to the music right now. It is heavenly.

Here's the mp3 podcast link.

Here's an mp4 podcast link.

Technical Google searches many times lead to irrelevant results

2008-05-30T10:36:00.003-06:00

I've used Google from the beginning and it is great... but I was hoping that by now some search problems would be solved. The major feature I find lacking in any search engine is the ability to search for exact matches of any combination of characters. You know, the types of things that show up in programming source code, but usually get ignored by search engines.

Note: The rest of the below is pretty technical, someone who has knowledge of programming using perl or mysql would understand what I'm talking about in the details, but others will understand the gist of what I'm saying if they just skip past the parts that talk about the programming languages that I mention.

I know that MySQL by default doesn't allow full text indexing of the various characters + = , -, etc. and maybe that is why Google isn't able to search for something like '++' and find results for that exact match, but it sure would be handy if I could search for things related to coding in various languages and actually find results related to what I'm looking for.

For example, if I'm looking for help related to a hugely useful and hugely used functionality in Perl, I might look for help with the =~ operator, or ~=, whichever it is, I can never remember, which is why I've tried searching for it from time to time. The problem is, even if I search for that exact phrase with quotes around it- "=~", I don't get any results that have that exact match, unless I'm lucky and just happen to type perl "=~" and then the search for perl happens to show something down in the results with =~ in it. My point is there are tons of things like that which should be search-able, but aren't. There are pages on the web dedicated to explaining how to use =~ in perl, and if I were to search for 'perl "=~"', you would expect that I'd get 200-300 or more results and they'd be totally relevant. Instead, I'm left with nothing really relevant.

Here's another example related to searching for something related to MySQL. This is a lesser used functionality that MySQL has, but it is very valuable from time to time.

:= is a way of assigning a value from within a MySQL statement to a variable so that it can be used again in the WHERE part of the query. It isn't something that is used all the time, so when I forget what the syntax is, I try searching for it on Google. What happens? There are no relevant results. I also try searching for it on MySQL's site, and they have the same problem.

These types of things are pretty annoying. I wonder if any-one has worked on solving this problem. I've searched for another search engine that can handle it, and haven't found anyone yet.

Google was started by and was originally most useful to techies because of the enabling power it gave to those who used it. I think it is time that someone work on the problem of indexing and returning relevant results for technical programming-type phrase searches.

I'm sure it is more than just flipping a few switches, but I'll be waiting right here...

Save the Cursor People!

2007-07-20T17:08:00.000-06:00

Careful, if you read this, then you'll know, and you'll be afraid to not join one side or the other...
If you are the non-committal (guenzo!) type, then you should try reading something else so that you can remain blissfully unaware.

I don't think my sister realized the implications of what you are about to read when she forwarded me a link to something that she assumed was something comical:

Subject: What moves the cursor?

What moves the cursor on your monitor when you move your mouse?
Haven't you ever wondered how it works?

Now, through the miracle of high technology, we can see how it is done. With the aid of a screen magnifying lens, the mechanism becomes apparent.

Click on the link below and you will find out. The image may take a minute or two to download and when it appears, slowly move your mouse over the light gray circle and you will see how the magic works.

Follow this link and find out the truth.

http://www.1-click.jp/

A word of advice let them rest once in a while.

If you haven't clicked the link above yet, you must do that before reading on!

To think that I lead music with my mouse sometimes for no reason while waiting for web pages to load. That has got to be a lot of dizzying work for nothing.

I'm ashamed of myself. I thought I knew what was going on behind the scenes; that there was a bunch of over-complicated software to supposedly keep the display of the cursor in sync with the movement of the mouse. It was supposedly a better way of doing it that it had been back in the days where the display was actually exactly tied to the mouse movement, which would mean your mouse could always move even if almost every thing else was locked up... but I guess either way was all a cover-up for cheap labor. The slavers probably switched their explanation of how it worked when the slaves started getting tired too often and not performing their duty quickly enough to look like it was exactly in sync. Maybe that happened when the slave force started getting older and when monitors started getting bigger. They probably could all keep up when they were 14-18 years old on a 640x480 screen. But you can see now that they are mostly becoming middle aged, and we make them run 4-10 times as far all the time!

Those poor guys! Just imagine the millions of slaves that are working all over the world. We need to re-evaluate our humanity! There are probably more individuals living that horrible life than there are of people who live outside of monitors. And lately we've been taking more and more of their space by converting to flat screen monitors. Where they used to have room for apartments projects, now they probably just have to sleep in between the pixels in the alleys. And who is behind all of this? Either someone is breeding tiny men or else they have found a place to enslave them, reduce their size and lock them away in each new monitor manufactured.

What happens to them when we finally throw away the monitor? Do they escape, or are they out of work: jailed away where they will starve to death? Maybe that is the real movement behind recycling! The people making money off of this slave labor want to collect the slaves out of the monitors because it is cheaper than getting more. Plus, if the slaves do escape or are left somewhere 'un-recycled' in a place where they might talk, word could get out, and then who knows what could happen. Plus, they could become organized and figure out a way to overcome their captors. I'm sure they would treat all of us large people the same, no matter whether we were the ones who originally enslaved them or not. This really explains viruses a lot better as well. I thought that there wouldn't be anyone stupid enough to write a virus to do it out of fun, well now I see that viruses are part of the liberty movement, and we ought to let them spread. When you look at a virus email, if some of the little men can read your email (most can't read because they were enslaved young) they get excited and start rebelling, messing up all sorts of things in your computer. Then they figure out a way to spread the message to others and pass the message of liberty along.

Be prepared for a revolution the size of which you had never seen, and mostly can't see.

Ethan's Baptism

2007-04-10T23:31:00.000-06:00

Here's what I told my boss about this week, so it is kind of just a rough outline of what has taken place during the last seven days or so.

I had mentioned I was pretty tired from the last two crazy days, and he asked what was tiring, so I said:

The tiring part comes from yesterday having a birthday party with twelve 8-year-olds, the ducts on our house cleaned (meaning I had to move bookshelves full of books and an entertainment center for access to them), and since new flooring was put in in our kitchen while we were on vacation I needed to put the fridge and stove back, plus install a new toilet - all yesterday. Then today was my son's baptism and another accompanying party to get ready for, and the house had to be really clean for today (after the party and floor and ducts being cleaned) because Michelle's grandma flew in from Long Beach. All that right after coming back from a vacation and driving a total of 16 hours (including the drive time during the vacation around Las Vegas). Oh, and we had another party / family gathering at my sister's house last night, and another gathering Sunday morning early for another sister's baby blessing, besides our own church services (where my wife taught an hour lesson and gave Easter gifts to the girls in the young women group where she is the music chairperson, and I played the organ for the main meeting with just an hour or two's notice.)

Now we are done with everything, but I am a bit tired! It has been nice actually, filled with a lot more joys than frustrations, but I think we could have spread out some of the things that happened a bit more... well at least the ducts being cleaned. Still, things ran very well, and I only had to leave work early two days, and then plan on working more later at night, like last night, and then what I was planning tonight, so I am really happy with how it turned out.

However, what I really wanted to write about was how wonderful some of the experiences were with Ethan preparing and being baptized and confirmed. I got pretty choked up a few times during the actual service, but the time leading up to Ethan's baptism was rewarding as well. I was very impressed by the way that Ethan gave a prayer last night on his birthday at our family home evening at the Biddulph's house. Ethan spoke using wording and tone that was much higher than I had heard him pray before. It appears that he has been really paying attention during prayers.

I'm so proud of him for reading the whole Book of Mormon before he turned eight. That just amazes me. I hope that will give him a good foundation of knowing that he is able to accomplish many things as long as he sets his mind to it. I also hope that he enjoyed what he learned, and that it gives him a strong base for continual gospel learning.

Related to the actual baptismal service and confirmation, I wanted to make sure and write down the things I remember so that Ethan can have something to help jog his memory about his baptism day.

I remember Ethan being very excited before the baptism and jumping around a bit with his cousin Sabrina, who was also baptized just after Ethan.

Ethan asked to practice how he would bend back under the water. We had practiced at home already a few times, but Ethan wanted to be sure to do it right.

I remember feeling grateful and having the impact of what was about to happen hit me again when Ethan's Aunt Malauna gave the opening prayer for the service. I got weepy eyed and had to wipe my eyes dry during the prayer. (Ethan had asked Aunt Malauna to give the prayer.)

Ethan and I waited to one side of the baptismal font for a minute or so while someone kept trying to unlock the doors for everyone to see. We dry-practiced laying him under the water while we waited, and I talked with him about how many of the kids out there who would be watching are just like Ethan was in previous times when he looked up to other kids being baptized.

The water was a little cold, but not too cold. It came up to about the middle of my thigh, about a foot below the high point where it could have been, but it was plenty enough for Ethan to easily go under the water. I went in first, then Ethan came down the steps holding the railing, even though I had my hand out for him to come to me. He grabbed my hand while he was still on the last step, and then he was baptized.

I don't remember anyone by name who was watching when we were in the water, except for the two witnesses: Robert Ralph Gibby and Lawrence Edward Presser, both of Ethan's grandpas. Uncle Ryan said that they both gave a thumbs up after Ethan was baptized. I know I made sure to look to them to make sure it had been done properly.

I remember Ethan did a good job of keeping his legs down under the water, even though I didn't try and hold them down. Ethan mentioned that he heard quite a few little kids who were watching talk about the water and how they wanted to get in.

Ethan and I watched from the side as Sabrina was baptized. I got a white towel so Ethan had a towel over his head and started to get a little cold, but I think he was glad to get to go first so Sabrina wouldn't be cold if she were to have watched him instead.

I remember that Ethan said that he felt really good or really clean just after he was baptized when we were going to change our clothes. He was also a good sport about the fact that we had forgot to pack him an extra set of underwear, and no belt, so Uncle Ryan borrowed a leather braided belt to Ethan that we wrapped more than one and a half times around him to make sure his new suit pants stay up. (His pants are wide enough to fit him for two more years, but that he will probably outgrow in the legs in six months.) We probably took a little too long getting dressed, but that always seems the way of things.

When we got back to the Relief Society room where Ethan and Sabrina were to be confirmed, Grandpa Gibby gave a talk on the Holy Ghost, emphasizing that he is a special, pure and sacred member of the Godhead, that it is a very special thing for us to have the gift to be able to have him with us, that he is a comforter (which Grandpa showed symbolically by giving a white comforter blanket to Ethan and Sabrina which Grandma had made), and that he can speak to us to warn us if we listen and try to stay close to him. Grandpa related how his Uncle Grant had a near crash in an airplane, but had been saved because the Spirit had whispered to him that he was taking off right into the path of a landing plane.

The things I remember about what was said in the blessing that Ethan received after he was confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and told to receive the Holy Ghost are that he will continue to grow in spirit and that his testimony will be strong if he seeks to be close to the Spirit. Also, I was very emotional when I was prompted to tell Ethan that Satan will tempt him. I'm not sure that I voiced all that I felt related to that. I think my emotions and tears may have portrayed through the Spirit what was felt more than my words. I felt like saying something similar to 'Satan desires you' or 'You will have some hard trials', but what I ended up saying was that Satan would tempt him, but that he could overcome if he stayed close to the Spirit through prayer, scripture study, and by listening to the counsel of those who loved him or of those who love him and who also are close to the Spirit.

What I remember most from Sabrina's blessing was that Ryan said that this time in the world is a troubling but also a wonderful time to live.

I hope that these things I've written can help Ethan or those who are close to him throughout his life.

Called to the Work

2006-06-28T07:45:00.000-06:00

I've been called to be a Ward Missionary. That means that I get to go out and look for opportunities to teach the gospel in my area. It is interesting that such a calling is needed in the church. You would think that if everyone were doing their duty (including myself), that a ward missionary calling wouldn't be needed. We should all be looking for opportunities to teach the gospel in our own areas.

Indeed, any of us who have desires to serve God are called to the work. (See Doctrine and Covenants 4:3)

So that is the real barrier that prevents us all from receiving this calling: we must not have a true desire to serve God. Sad as it is, too many mundane things get in the way every day.

Even worthy goals prevent us from going out to talk to our neighbors, and some of those goals might even be more important. For example, teaching the gospel in my own home is a very worthy goal. If I'm not teaching and living the gospel in my own home, I won't have a large measure of the Spirit with me if I go out and try to teach the gospel to my neighbors. However, that could easily be used as an excuse for not going out to do the work. Many of the early brethren were called to leave their wives and families to go and preach the gospel abroad. Surely their families were blessed greatly because of their service. Teaching others is one of the most excellent ways to show our own families the importance the gospel has in our lives.

What other obstacles do we have from being called to the work? Anything in our lives that lessens our desire to serve God prevents us from receiving the call. And yet, many are called. Many do have a desire to serve God. Many have covenanted to serve God every day of their lives, even to give up their lives in the service of God, if necessary. The desire is there, the spirit is willing.

But the flesh is weak, few are chosen. What is it that those who are called to serve are being chosen for by the Lord? Simply to do that for which they have been called.

There has been a day of calling, but the time has come for a day of choosing; and let those be chosen that are worthy. (D&C 105:35)

It is our worthiness that determines whether we are chosen to serve:

Behold, thou art Joseph, and thou wast chosen to do the work of the Lord, but because of transgression, if thou art not aware thou wilt fall.

But remember, God is merciful; therefore, repent of that which thou hast done which is contrary to the commandment which I gave you, and thou art still chosen, and art again called to the work; (D&C 3:9-10)

That is why many are called, but few are chosen (D&C 121:34). Our hearts are set too much upon the things of this world. We also have the tendency to aspire to the honors of men, rather than seek for the honor of God by giving the honor to Him. Those who are chosen have the desire to do God's will, not their own. How many times do we worry what others may think. Isn't that one of the biggest excuses that we come up with for not doing missionary work? We are afraid of man, when we should fear God.

What do we do to be able to overcome the tendency of the natural man? God is willing and waiting to help us. He wants to bless His children. What is the over-encompassing reason that we are commanded to build temples and receive the ordinances thereof and why do we receive the priesthood? Their purpose is one: to enable God's children to be blessed and be able to once again return to His presence.

Yea, verily I say unto you, I gave unto you a commandment that you should build a house, in the which house I design to endow those whom I have chosen with power from on high; D&C 95:8

The marvelous thing about the temple and the sealing power of the priesthood is that it confirms that God is no respecter of persons. He wants all of His children to have the opportunity to choose for themselves and be able to return to His presence. Indeed, He wants to bless His children with all that He has. Those of us whe are parents that love our children get a good glimpse into understanding the nature of this love.

What is meant by the sealing power of the priesthood? Whenever the priesthood has been given to man in its fulness, God has promised that "whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven" (Matt 18:18, Hel. 10:7, D&C 124:93, 132:46). The power is referred to in conjunction with the "keys of the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 16:19).

The sealing power of the priesthood has been restored on earth so that all of God's children can receive the choice whether to accept His plan for them. If we choose to follow His will for us, He asks us to make covenants with Him that we will keep His commandments and that He will bless us. These covenants are made when priesthood ordinances are bestowed. Baptism has its associated covenants. Men who receive the priesthood make covenants as they receive it. The other ordinances of the temple (endowments and sealings) also have their associated covenants.

We must prepare ourselves to keep the covenants that we enter into. That is why only worthy members of the church who are keeping the commandments can attend the temple.

God would not be just if he allowed some children the ability to receive exaltation and didn't give the oportunity to others. Those who don't have the opportunity to make these covenants in their lifetime are given the opportunity to accept the ordinances that are performed for them vicariously. In this way, God is completely fair to all of His children. He ensures that all of us will have our agency to choose whether we will accept His will and enter into a covenant with Him to do His will and thereby be blessed to return to His presence and receive all that He has. Someone who dies without receiving the gospel can receive it in the post-mortal spirit world. Once their temple ordinances are performed, they can choose to accept them.

Vicarious ordinances are not something new. We all have had the greatest vicarious sacrifice of all performed for us by our saviour Jesus Christ. It is when we accept His sacrifice through baptism that we are allowed to enter into the path that returns to our Father's presence.

What greater cause is there for motivation to share the restored gospel? When we consider that we are sinners and that we could never hope to amount to anything without the atonement of Jesus Christ, and when we consider that our Father sacrificed His son and that Jesus gave his life freely for us because of their unconditional love for each one of us, you realize how much love and desire they have for all of us. Recognizing our own reliance on God for all that we have, and for every blessing that we may receive, causes us to feel empathy for our brothers and sisters. We cannot accept the mercy given to us without recognizing the need for us to extend mercy to all those around us.

When we learn and remember that God's plan and purpose for us as His children is to have us grow to become like Him, that his commandments are the path laid down to help us receive this joyful outcome, and that His greatest commandments are to love the Lord thy God above all else, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, we realize that it is through sharing the gospel with our brothers and sisters that we can receive the greatest joy, the greatest opportunity for growth, and the most blessings- in this life and into eternity. (See Matt. 22: 36-40, Moses 1:39).

I pray that we may have the desire to be called and live worthy to be chosen to do God's work. It is all about love.

Kallise is born!

2006-04-11T20:26:00.000-06:00

Michelle had a baby girl this afternoon (April 11th).
She will be named Kallise.

Michelle was induced today around 9:00am and had her easiest labor out of the four.
Kallise was 20 and a half inches, and seven pounds one ounce.
She scored a perfect 10 on her two Apgar scores, which means that she appears to be a healthy little girl.
What is Apgar?

Kallise is a different spelling, but the same pronunciation for her Grandma Marie's maiden name, which in Germany was spelled Kallis, but was changed to Colles at Ellis Island.

If all goes well, Michelle and Kallise will be coming home on Thursday.
Ethan, Hailee and Jaron are happy to have a baby sister and Mom and Dad are glad things turned out so well.

Zelda freaks - on the SNES!

2006-03-14T06:44:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, I always wished that I had the cool toys that the neighbors had. I especially wished that I had an Atari, and then a Nintendo, and then a Super NES, but I had to just go over to their house and watch them play. Sometimes, if I was lucky, I would get a turn playing something.

Soon after I got married, we bought a stereo, a Super NES and some other electronics for like $100 from a friend who goes through new technology like water in a sieve.
That same game system has lasted us 7 years and we haven't gotten anything 'better'.

We started out with only Donkey Kong Country, Toy Story and Animaniacs. The system came with DK Country. Our friend bought Toy Story, which is an OK game to play, but it seems like it was cobbled together quickly before the release of the movie by 3 different development teams and one guy stuck it together without music between levels and NO ending music. It just basically says "Thanks for Playing!" Kinda lame.

We have occasionally went out and got 'new' games, which are really used games that work just fine. They end up being anywhere between one dollar and 10 dollars. Compare that with the price you normally pay: $20 if you are lucky to $60 plus.

For Christmas, we got a few 'new' games, and I was excited to see that my wife had found "Zelda, A Link to the Past", since it is one of the best games of all time.

My son wasn't all that excited at first because he didn't know what it was like, but soon we found ourselves stuck in Zelda's world. I wanted to conquer the game as fast as I could, and so did my son. Since there are three available save game slots, we had three players: me, my son, and my wife.

I soon discovered that it takes forever to get through some of the secrets of the game unless you get help. It sucks away enough time to just play it already knowing what you are doing. I can't imagine playing the game and not having help available online. Instead of calling the help 'Cheats', we just call it help, because we don't want to promote the fact that cheating is OK. Getting help from others is an important thing to learn in life, though... especially if you are doing something that you aren't that good at, you can get it done better and more quickly if you have help.

Anyway, a few sites became my lifeline, especially GameSpy and RPG Classics; then I help the rest of the family through all the dungeons and secrets. My son caught on quick. He soon was thinking about Zelda day and night. We took a break to go to my brother's house in Idaho, and luckily no-one had a problem with doing something else for a while. I guess we weren't SO addicted to the game that we couldn't take a 3-day break.

Anyway, after around a month of playing, and in 89 tries, I finally won the game.

My son completed his game a day later in 131 games; my wife is still working on hers about once every other week, so she should be done in about a year.

The Sun Shines on the World

2006-02-04T22:14:00.000-07:00

I just made up this little song for my daughter when she requested the song: sunbeam.

The sun shines down on all the world.
It shines upon each boy and girl.
They play and run and jump and sing,
Because the sun lights everything.

It goes so slowly through the sky,
While all the clouds go floating by.
The birds fly way up high because
The sun shines on the world.

Here is the music for it:
The first note in each line is below Do, the rest is above Do.

So Do So Fa So Do So Fa
So Do So Fa Re Do So Fa
La Re La So Mi Re La So
So Do So Fa Re Do So Fa

So Do So Fa Re Do So Fa
So Do So Fa Re Do So Fa
La Re La So Me Re La So
So Do So Fa So Do

The rhythm goes:
fast-slow fast-slow fast-slow fast-slow in 6/8 time... kind of like you might think of a slow heart-beat.
In other words an eighth note (as a pickup note) and then a dotted quarter note and then the same thing over and over again.

This music and lyrics are copyright 2006 Daniel Gibby. I just wrote it tonight and have published this blog tonight on the night that I wrote it (February 4th, 2006). I also have four witnesses that I just wrote it ad lib for my daughter so I can prove it.
Nevertheless, even if you don't give me credit, you can sing it to put your kids to bed whenever you want. It seemed to really do the trick tonight. I just don't want anyone making money off it unless they contact me.

As I sang it very slowly and did some hand actions to show the sun, kids, clouds and birds, the very simple melody and slow beauty of singing about things in a kid's world seemed to make my kids really think about the beautiful world and had a very calming effect. I wouldn't sing it any faster than two beats per second.

Hope you like it!

If you are wondering where you can improve...

2006-02-01T07:51:00.000-07:00

I just received this from LDS-Gems this morning. It left a strong impression on me that there is so much more to do in our quest to help one another.

"Now, my brethren and sisters, the time has come for us to stand a little taller, to lift our eyes and stretch our minds to a greater comprehension and understanding of the grand millennial mission of this The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is a season to be strong. It is a time to move forward without hesitation, knowing well the meaning, the breadth, and the importance of our mission. It is a time to do what is right regardless of the consequences that might follow. It is a time to be found keeping the commandments. It is a season to reach out with kindness and love to those in distress and to those who are wandering in darkness and pain. It is a time to be considerate and good, decent and courteous toward one another in all of our relationships. In other words, to become more Christlike."

( Gordon B. Hinckley, "This Is the Work of the Master," Ensign, May 1995, 71)

If you have any question as to whether God's prophet has any motivation in mind but to do God's will and do his best to help out God's children, I strongly recommend you re-read President Hinckley's words again and again until you change your mind. You might also want to read some of President Hinckley's other quotes.

Cookie Cat in Heat after surgery!

2006-01-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

You would think that after living mostly in our basement for 6 months that a cat would figure out everything there is about its environment. Well, don't be so sure!

Here is some fantastic and incredible news! About one month after my cat went through surgery to be spayed, she was still able to go into heat!

Yes, I know it is incredible, but it is 100% true... from a certain point of view.

I recently cleaned up all my Star Wars boxes in the basement and piled them up in a corner of our storage room. A few days later we heard some noises that we thought were coming from a neighbors house. It sounded like someone was banging something so my wife and I was curious to know what was going on.

I walked around various locations in the house looking out windows and couldn't see anything outside. I continued hearing the noise from time to time and couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Then I ventured outside to see if I could hear it. I could hear it very faintly inside of the garage, and that didn't make as much sense to me. I went out on the back porch and I couldn't hear it anymore, so I figured the neighbors had stopped. I went back inside and asked Michelle if she had heard it while I was out there... and she said it had been loud!

OK. Something was inside the house. I had also been downstairs lately and called Cookie but I went down into the basement and heard some more noise, but she hadn't come to me. That didn't surprise me, she sometimes hides out in strange places and goes to sleep. But now that I realized the sound was from inside the house AND that I hadn't seen Cookie lately, I ran downstairs and started looking for ways that the cat might have gotten into the heat vents. I just couldn't find any possible way. It didn't make sense.

Sense or no sense, soon our cat was at one of the upstairs heating vents. We pulled the cover out and she just sat in there for a little while. We weren't sure if she was stuck or not. Michelle thought she didn't want to come out because of a screw sticking out the side that might hurt her if she came out. I felt down inside and figured she was just scared of coming out because we don't usually let her come upstairs, and sometimes when she sneaks past us through the door to the stairs, we chase her and catch her to put her back down. So I played like I wanted her to come out and she soon did. She was pretty dusty and had some sawdust on her. Looks like the vents haven't been cleaned since the house was built... well I guess one line of the vents has now!

I still couldn't figure out how Cookie got in the heat vent. There aren't any possible vents that are open, or even within reach that she could have gotten into in the basement. Our 2-year-old had been down there playing with the cat and I thought that maybe he had done something to put her in there... like by putting her through the furnace! However, he knows not to go in the furnace room, and the door is somewhat child-proof, and the cover to the furnace is not the easiest thing to open. I kind of ruled that out. I thought that maybe the cat had went down through one of the vents upstairs when it was loose.

After putting Cookie downstairs and going away for an hour, I came back and started to hear the noise again! OK. How in the world did she get in there? I ran downstairs into 'her' room (the storage/furnace room). I quickly made noises as if I was going to feed the cat. That usually gets her running. Soon I saw her head poking out up on a wall above my office which is next door. The kids and Michelle were upstairs trying to coax her to the vent again, while I was trying to yell to them that I had found her. Eventually, I got her down.

She had jumped up on the boxes I had moved there a few days before and then up into the wall. I still don't know why there is access into the heating vent from up in that wall. It sounds like a horrible waste of energy to be heating the inside of my walls. I'm guessing that the former owner of the house who finished the basement didn't quite get that part right. So yeah! More remodeling (and money) for me later.

At least there was also a bunch of odd sized wood pieces left over from the previous owner as well, and so I stuck them up in the wall to prevent access to a kitty. We haven't had any problems in the last 4 days since I did that.

So there you go - cats can still go into heat even after being spayed.

I wonder if the Force is with me...

2006-01-23T07:17:00.000-07:00

Ultimate? Garage Shelving

This last weekend our family drove to Boise to help my brother install shelving in his garage. We made it up there with a pretty good gas mileage for our minivan of around 23 mpg. It took us around 5 hours to get there since we stopped to get lunch at Jake's over the top and again to use the bathrooms at some Chevron. The kids had a great time playing with their cousins over the weekend and we got to finally see my brother's new house.

The shelving project itself went fairly well. My brother just bought a table saw and was planning on using it to cut through the 12 and 15 inch wide shelves. Unfortunately, that width was too big for the small table without additional cutting aids that we didn't have or have time to make. Luckily, I had brought along my new Ryobi tools. I already had a 14.4 volt Ryobi drill since around 1999, and when I asked my wife for a power tool of some kind for my birthday last year, she went and bought me the 18V circular saw thinking that the same battery I had would be interchangeable. Since the circular saw doesn't come with a battery, I went to go buy one, but found that the battery was around $30. The saw had cost about $60. So that would have been $90 for just the saw and one battery. I decided instead to buy the cordless circular saw, drill and flashlight combo because it comes with two 18V batteries and was priced at $110. So for about $20 more, I would end up with an extra drill and an extra battery, plus a flashlight and a sander by rebate for free. Pretty good deal.

My brother had a cordless screwdriver, but not as heavy duty as my cordless drills and his battery died kind of quickly for how many screws we needed to put in. It was great that I had two 18V batteries, plus my other 14.4V drill. That meant we could both have a good drill for driving screws and drilling pre-sink holes when needed. Plus we ended up cutting almost all the wood with my circular saw.

The project took us half of Saturday and most of Monday. Now he has a 6' shelf around his whole garage, plus 3', 4.5', and 7.5' shelves in certain spots and a 9' shelf in the back. He bought good brackets to mount to the wall that we could space every other stud (32") and they should hold a weight of 750 pounds for each pair. I'd say he could hang his cars from the shelves and they would just about hold.

We did pull ups from them and sat the kids on top to prove to ourselves that we are studs... I mean to prove that we screwed the shelves into the wall's studs.
I'll try and get a picture of that from my brother...

Car problems in a blizzard
Our only problem was that as we drove home through somewhat treacherous snow on Tuesday morning I noticed that the gas pedal was suddenly not doing anything, and intermitently the check engine light would come on. So I pulled the car over and opened the hood (the wind was terribly cold), and noticed that the water in the car was very low. I thought that maybe the air was cold enough to make the car not overheat, but that the water being low had caused some sort of computer in the car to trigger the car to not accelerate so that I wouldn't burn up some component. It was a guess, but not a good one. After a few more minutes, I got the car started again, and it worked intermitently again, but I was only able to get up to about 40 mph on a 75 mph freeway. I drove about three miles with my flashers on at the side of the road and then the check engine light came on steady. That's when we decided to not try to go on. We were in the middle of no-where. We were about 40 miles from Burley, Idaho and about 50 or 60 miles from Tremonton, Utah. Those were the only places around that would have a car repair shop. We called information and after a few tries got a hold of a tow company to come and get us. The said they'd pick us up in about 45 minutes.

It was somewhat difficult to stay positive with the kids in the car, but having them there made it a bit easier to put things in perspective and be glad that everything was OK, and that we were all together. The tow company was supposed to take us to the Dodge dealership and I was hoping they'd be able to fix our car by 5-o-clock so we could get home that night. We already figured we would miss our kid's singing lessons that day. The first lesson was at 4-o-clock, we still had a couple of hours to drive home and it was 2-o-clock when we broke down.

The tow truck didn't come in 45 minutes. I wondered why. Although it was snowy and windy, the road hadn't been very bad and I figured it should only take about 30 minutes to get to us. (After all, we had traveled the same 40 miles at 75 or 70mph and it didn't take too long.) An hour went by and Michelle called the company again. The driver said that he was almost to us, but he had stopped because there was an accident that happened right in front of him. Apparently the weather had gotten worse since we had stopped an hour before.

The tow truck driver finally got to us and we loaded all 5 of us into the dual bench cab and we started off. The weather was pretty bad and the driver had a problem with both of his windshield wipers because they kept getting covered by ice and not working. The driver would be talking on his radio or cellphone and roll down the window and thump the windshield wiper at the same time. I tried to stay calm and my wife did the same. I think the kids definitely were happy about going through this strange experience, although we had been happy that we would be home that day.

It turned out that it was 5:00 when we got to the repair shop. The Dodge dealership would have been closed by then, and so the guy took us to his own shop (they are probably cheaper anyway). They figured correctly that it was the fuel pump or fuel filter, but they would need to call around to get the parts. We waited an hour or so while someone took our car apart and since there was no-one around to take us to a hotel yet (the driver had left to pickup another of the many accidents that were happening because of the snow) we watched Barbie in The Princess and the Pauper with our kids. Then we watched part of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I was glad to get out of the office when we finally were able to pack up some of our stuff onto another tow truck, but kind of wanted to see the rest of the movie.

We went to the Best Western and lugged all our luggage :P into the lobby and then found out we would have to repack it into the tow truck to go around to the other side of the complex for our room. At least we had a room. It was 8:00 at night, and we hadn't eaten dinner. The hotel restaurant was excellent, but more money than we would have hoped to pay for our next two or three meals.

The next morning we slept in a bit since we hadn't went to bed until past 10:00 and had breakfast about 10:00 or 11:00 and then checked out at noon. The hotel let us keep our stuff in a backroom since we had no car to put it in yet. Then we crossed the cold and windy streets and walked about a quarter mile to WalMart. Never have we spent so much time letting the kids look at all the toys and spending as much time as they wanted. We had hours to kill, and we spent about 2 and a half of them there. Michelle kicked back in the lawn chairs (which apparently are on a really good sale during the winter.) Finally we went back across the street to the hotel and waited around another 20 minutes or so for the tow truck to come pick us up.

$589 later we were on the road home. We got home just as it was getting dark (about 6:00) and I quickly shoveled the 2" of snow off the driveway that had fallen that day so that we could pull into the driveway. It has almost never felt so good to be home!

Sabrina, the Kid Jedi

Just two days later, my brother and family came down for my sister's surprise 18th birthday. My brother came over on Saturday and we ate dinner and played Scrabble. The kids also played and Ethan showed Sabrina how to play my Jedi Lightsaber game that plugs into the TV.
.

The funniest thing happened when Sabrina tried playing the game. She would try and hold the lightsaber with two hands with one hand on the handle and the other on the blade, and then just shake her hands like crazy. As she was doing that, and getting whooped in a training match by Anakin or Obi-Wan, she said: "I wonder if the Force is with me..." in her loud and animated way. That was probably the highlight of the evening since Scrabble is a pretty slow game. We were playing it to see if Michelle would be better at that sort of game where there is less strategy involved and more brain power. We all did well, but I ended up winning.

My Princess Daughter

2006-01-20T07:14:00.000-07:00

I have a princess daughter. She loves wearing pink or dresses and especially pink dresses. She is a drama queen. She is also a freak for doing art projects.

I don't know when it started, but it was probably around a year or two ago that Hailee decided that her favorite color was pink followed closely by red and white. I think before that it was orange or 'lellow'.

Hailee is a blessing and a trial, as are my other children, but she is a little more of one than the other, which means I have some learning to do, and I'm sure she I'll end up blessed all the way around. She whines a lot and even when she isn't really whining, she has the undertone of a whine in at least 75% of her conversation. I certainly hope that goes away with time.

In some ways, Hailee is far beyond her years. After all, she definitely is a drama queen, not a drama princess! Actually, she has a very good ability to speak clearly, and can write and think well. The problem is that most of the time, when she wants something, she will revert to talking like a baby and just utter one word: Uppy, or milk. Sometimes she won't even say anything and will just point her finger and whine a little. And yet, she memorized all thirteen Articles of Faith starting when she was three years old, and again when she was four.

Help us be repaired...

Hailee has a few other things that she says incorrectly which she can't seem to get over. They are pretty cute, so it makes it hard for us to tell her what the correct pronunication are (we tell her from time to time, but she still forgets). Since we have moved to our new home, we have been working on getting a food storage so we will be prepared in the event of an emergency or problem. Hailee has since been praying: "Help us be repaired...", rather than "Help us be prepared". In a way, you could think of us as being broken and in need of repair spiritually, but I don't think that is what she is talking about. It is still pretty cute.

Art Fanatic

Just take a look at this picture. She was painting a picture just fine and I walked away for about two minutes. This is what she looked like when I came back.
You can tell that she was wondering whether she would be in big trouble...

... but in the end it was too hard to be too mad at her. Even after washing with soap, her face was yellowish the rest of the day.

Oh, what a joyain (joy + pain)!!

Savior of the World & Joseph Smith The Prophet of the Restoration

2006-01-02T06:45:00.000-07:00

I recently was able to see two productions put on by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Saviour of the World: His Birth and Resurrection and Joseph Smith The Prophet of the Restoration.

Both shows were unique, inspiring and amazingly done.

The Savior of the World: His Birth and Resurrection is a live play done in the Conference Center Theater during the Christmas season. This is a much more intimate setting than the main Conference Center hall. The smaller theater holds 850 people in comparison with the large hall's capacity of 21,000.

I found an excellent review at LDSVideo.com of the soundtrack to this production:

On November 28, 2000, lights in the Conference Center Theater dimmed for the theater's inaugural performance, the premiere of Savior of the World: His Birth and Resurrection. Seven Latter-day Saint writers, under the direction of the Church's presiding leaders, created this sacred musical drama as a testimony and tribute to the Savior during the second millennial anniversary of His birth. In order to incorporate severl Messianic prophecies and the visitations of heavenly beings into the play, the production team devised a simple set: a semicircular, stone colonnade with a railed balcony to represent the heavens. In performance, prophets view scenes as if in vision from atop the colonnade and speak familiar scriptural prophecies. Descending from the colonnade, angelic messengers visit the earth. And in virtually every scene, cast members dressed in white gather on the colonnade to witness the events below -- a poignant reminder of heaven's interest in the lives of all God's children.

Since the production opened, this interest has been keenly felt by audiences totaling nearly a quarter of a million and by more than 800 cast members. At each performance, children, parents and grandparents, many participating together as families and as service missionaries, fill the colonnade and add to the rich tradition of uplifting theater in the Church. Over a century and a half ago, that tradition was established when Brigham Young built the Salt Lake Theater and directed that it be "a place... where holy angels could be, and where the Spirit of God would reign and its influence be felt by every person who should enter" (Deseret News, January 11, 1865).

That Spirit is invited into the Conference Center each Christmas and Easter season. As the events surrounding the Savior's birth are depicted, the Spirit testifies of Christ's divinity. Born a lowly babe as foretold by ancient prophets, He was resurrected and lives again, as witnessed by Mary Magdalene, Peter, and many others. He lives still, and one day He will return to the earth to reign in glory. "Come, Lord Jesus, Come."

I want to add to that review. The show was powerful and a wonderful reminder of the sacred life of the Savior Jesus Christ. I wept various times and was filled with the Spirit as I watched how the lives of those connected with the Savior's birth and resurrection had their lives changed and their faith, testimonies and knowledge of the truth that: God loves us, so He sent His Son.

If you haven't seen Savior of the World: His Birth and Resurrection, I highly recommend that you get tickets next Easter or Christmas, as it is highly effective and well written to give real meaning to both celebrations of the life and mission of Jesus Christ.

I was also able to go twice to the new movie in the Legacy Theater about the prophet Joseph Smith. This movie was also a tear jerker, testimony builder and helped me to realize in a more profound way that Joseph Smith truly is a prophet of God and that he fulfilled the mission that he was sent to do. That mission could be summarized as: Joseph Smith did what a loving Father in Heaven and His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost required of him, so that the gospel of Jesus Christ could be restored in its fulness in our day, thus enabling the work of God to go forward, which is to bring to pass the eternal life and immortality of man.

Without a restoration of the gospel, the priesthood authority to perform the ordinances of salvation could not be administered. They are now available to all of God's children through the preaching of the gospel to all the earth by His authorized servants, as well as through the preaching of the gospel to the dead. All of God's children can now receive baptism by those in authority on earth. If they accept the gospel while in this life, they may be baptized into the Church and receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost. If they are dead, they may be baptized by proxy in holy temples.

There is no other way that God could be just to those who didn't have the opportunity to have the gospel in this life. His plan is a perfect plan of love, justice and mercy to all of His children!

Regarding the movie Joseph Smith The Prophet of the Restoration, I was impressed by how well it was written and how accurate it was to the life as a whole of the prophet's experience in the short time that was available for the film. The entire film lasts only about 68 minutes, and the writers did a good job of mentioning all aspects of the prophet's life by giving specific examples of each type of trial he and the early saints went through without going into details on things that would make the movie longer but be a repeat of some of the same trials.

For example: many characters portrayed in the film were named, while others were not. Oliver Cowdery was depicted helping to translate the Book of Mormon, had dialog, was shown with Joseph as they received the Aaronic Priesthood from John the Baptist, as they baptized each other, and again a few times as the Church was organized. However, his name wasn't mentioned until later in the film when it was said that even Oliver had fallen away, and many others. There was instead a character who was a Blacksmith named Lyman who had struggles of whether he would continue having faith or whether he would struggle through the trials that beset him. He followed Joseph from Ohio to Missouri to Nauvoo and had children killed by mobbers, his home burned and other persecutions. His faith was tested, but at the end when Joseph went to Carthage, he was still with a tearful goodbye. It would have been too hard to do character development and introduction by name of so many people involved in Joseph's life and then have them not be there later. The movie could have easily been a 10 part film of 2 hours each, so I was impressed with how well it was completed. I can imagine how the mother and father of Joseph's wife Emma Hales Smith could have been developed more and Joseph's interactions with them to show how hard it was for Joseph and Emma when Emma's parents didn't approve of their marriage and wouldn't console them when their children died. However, this was shown and done very well within the time available.

The over-all feeling of the movie includes happy times that show how good of a person Joseph was and how much he cared for the human race, and sad times that portray Joseph and the people who followed him as they endure trials. The movie did an excellent job of showing the strong character that Joseph had. It also made a good portrayal of why people followed him. They followed because they learned from him the truths of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. They gained a witness for themselves that what he taught was true. The gospel is simple and can be easily understood. It just makes sense. If your heart is open to the Spirit, and you truly have a desire to be a good person, you must only ask God your father in heaven, and He will tell you through simple but undeniable means that He loves you and wants you to return to Him. That is what the gospel of Jesus Christ is for.

I could tell that even my three young children (ages 6,4,2) could feel the power of the movie. The movie also did a wonderful job at showing the persecution and horrors of what the saints experienced without being graphic. Even the martyrdom of Joseph and his brother Hyrum was shown in a way that all of my kids could watch, and rather than being scarred by the images they see, they will have a memory of what happened and appreciate the sacrifice of the Prophet and Patriarch.

I was able to see the movie twice, and will see it again in a couple of weeks. I recommend that everyone see it.

Well, Hang it all!

2005-11-15T07:12:00.000-07:00

With the help of my Dad, we found a way that was simple enough to get the new doorbell wiring down into the basement. Really, I just had to take the wire straight down inside of the wall, but the problem was going to be drilling down through floor joists and stair supports. I didn't have a drill bit that was long enough for that.

Since we are talking about low-voltage wire for the doorbell, and not the normal 120/240V stuff, we decided instead to just make a small hole above and below each board we were going to drill through, and instead just make a trench between the two holes. Then the wire could come out of the wall from the top hole hole, sit in the bottom of the trench and go back into the wall in the bottom hole. Patching up the sheetrock trench will be easier and stronger than patching a large hole in the sheetrock.

Here is a good example to know what I'm talking about:

Here is the longest trench I had to make. This is at the level of the ceiling/floor between above the basement. There was board behind this hole that made us have to make a very long trench. I think it would have been almost impossible to drill a hole through that and fish the wires through it.

So now the problem is that we decided to move over our front entry mirror so that it is more centered between a door and the wall. It was simple enough to measure and eyeball where the center should be, but I should have measured where each sheetrock screw should go because I had one side too low, then I spackled the hole and waited around 24 hours, then I used a level and thought I was drilling a hole that would be just right, but I made a hole that was too high, and had to fill it in with spackle as well. Hopefully today I can make a hole in just the right spot.

After that I'll paint over my spackle and hopefully our front entry will look like nothing ever happened. Michelle will be very happy to have the 'pardon our dust' look gone.

Local fun - with and without Google

2005-11-11T08:06:00.000-07:00

Last night we planned on going on 'Mommy-Daddy dates'. That means Michelled takes one or two of the kids and I take one or two, and they get their own special date. Since we have three kids, only one child gets actual one on one time, but since our youngest is only two, it still ends up being that the older child feels like they are getting almost one-on-one attention.

My son chose to use one of his free bowling coupons and go with my wife. He also had a free ice cream cone coupon. He thought that meant that they would just give you the cone, and you'd have to buy the ice cream to put on it! I guess we've taught them well to be wary of consumer advertising.

My daughter stuck with something she has done before and decided that she wanted to go get frozen custard at Nielsen's Frozen Custard. Next we went to the library to check out books, and then home to read some of the books and watch the Baby Newton DVD (from Baby Einstein) that we checked out.

Overall, the kids had a great time. I don't even remember having to argue with any of them - at all!

It didn't take Google Local to find Nielsen's, the library or the bowling alley, but it did get me closer to maybe finding a cabinet maker or woodworking shop that might be able to get me a good price on materials for my desk. I may build the desk and then add the drawers, cabinets, sides and trim later. If I bought custom sized cabinet doors, they would really make my desk look nice, and that might take care of the part that I can't do myself. I also wonder if I might not be able to find someone who could do the whole job for me. I would think that would get expensive though... we'll see.

Holey walls Batman! Ding-donging extra doorbell!

2005-11-10T08:09:00.000-07:00

My home-office is in our basement. We only have one doorbell, very near the front door where it can be heard fairly well throughout the whole house, except maybe in the outer reaches of the basement. Thus, I miss the doorbell if someone ever comes over, which is a problem if no-one else is home at the time.

So, I resolved to put an additional doorbell in the basement close to my office. I thought I already had a doorbell, which was the main reason I wanted to put one in, but I may have given it away when we moved. So, I went and bought a cheap $7.00 doorbell at The Home Depot.

I searched all over in the basement for where the transformer may be hidden for the doorbell, but I think the previous owner covered it up with sheetrock and paint. (If I had finished the basement, I would have pre-ran the wires for a second doorbell and various other things.) I took off the cover of our chime-box and hooked up my new doorbell in parallel with the existing doorbell. I tried the front and back bells, and they both chime on both chime-boxes, so the transformer must be powerful enough.

Now the trick is to run the wires through the wall down to the location of the second chime box. I have an advantage and disadvantage built into one with the existing chime box being on the wall next to our stairs. Since the basement stairs have a door under them with unfinished walls inside of it, it will be easy for me to run the wire from where the wires come down from above to the wall location where I want to put the new chime box. This might be easier though because the stairs also require more boards to be in the walls right there, which means I have to drill holes through the boards to put the wires through.

In order to drill holes through the boards, I'll need to drill or cut access holes in the sheetrock walls. That means 3 - 4 holes. Luckily I already have spackel, wire mesh and the right paint to patch the holes. It is still a bit of guess work though to figure out where all the holes should go. I've been knocking on walls and measuring rather than using a studfinder. That is a bit tricky when you are going down stairs.

I may ask my dad to come help me out.

Ultimate L-shaped desk for a tall guy's home-office

2005-11-09T07:41:00.000-07:00

Ever since I moved here to Layton, UT and have been working out of my home office, I've been settling for two cheap desks side by side to hold my two monitors and three machines. The plan is to eventually buy or build the perfect desk for my environment.

Here are the obstacles:

I'm tall. I want any desk I end up with to be slightly taller than the standard desk. I've measured the precise location and height for where a keyboard should be, and I don't want it more or less than a half inch off either way.

I would rather use two keyboards and mice for my two computers than use a switch. Lately I've been doing most of my development by SSH from my windows computer, but I think the better setup for more organization is the way I used to do it, where I could keep all my SSH sessions open under one or two main KDE windows on a couple of virtual desktops. That's the main thing I loved about my linux environment, the multiple desktops and putting all my SSH windows under one tabbed window where I know where everthing is. It makes it much easier to manage my 12 different servers if I don't have to open another window and not have it always in a certain place. I have tried various windows programs that gave me multiple desktops, and some SSH programs that have tabs, but none are free and have the features that come with KDE.

I need the desk to be an L-shaped desk. I have one corner to put it in where I will be able to look out the window, and yet have a wall behind the main monitor so that I can control the brightness of the wall behind the monitor to reduce the strain on my eyes. An L-shaped desk will also give me the most room for writing / planning as I don't type all day everyday and hope to do more planning before actual programming. The L-shape will also allow me to use my rotating chair to simply switch between machines / monitors. That will allow me the power to control two computers easily at once and have the computer I'm working on directly in front of me so I don't have to strain my neck or arms, etc.

I made up plans for exactly how I would build a desk that would suit my needs.
It would be strong, functional and exactly the right height width and depth. The problem is that it wouldn't be easy for me to make it look nice. I'm not a carpenter and I'm sure the desk would probably end up looking kind of plain if I were to build it myself. Maybe that wouldn't be bad, and I do have a couple of ideas for sprucing it up, but nothing that would be really easy. It would be hard for me to do things like custom cabinet doors and such without paying for them to be made separately. The big benefit of making it myself is that I could do it for $100 - $200. That is way less than what I have to pay for something the same size and exact dimensions I want (if I can even find it) anywhere else that I've looked.

There are a few desks I've considered:

Bush Desk

Bestar desk

Note that neither desk has legs at the corner that would prevent me from swinging my legs back and forth under the whole thing. Some desks have a leg or legs right at the corner and that is not OK with me.

I would also want to change the design of any pull-out keyboard holder so that it is at the exact position and height that I would want. I don't know if either of these desks would allow me to do that.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Will you share your hacker's IP with me?

2005-11-08T08:21:00.000-07:00

This might be quite off-topic from more of my recent posts, but it is just another aspect of my life. I am the Technology Director for a company with less than 10 full time employees and a two person IT department. That means I'm also a Systems Administrator, Network Administrator, Abuse Administrator, etc.

This past week marked the anniversary of the use of a program I designed that would help me to carry out my administrative duties more easily. I used to review the LogWatch emails from my RedHat linux systems daily and would send out emails to the attacking systems' administrators and their upstream providers (ISPs). Every day I would send 5-10 emails because my systems are almost constantly under attack by script-kiddie attempts to login to my systems. They basically try common usernames and passwords to see if they can login to the machine and use it for their own dastardly purposes.

The program basically:
1) gathers attackers IP addresses from login logs
2) looks up the abuse contact information for each IP
3) puts together an abuse report email to send to the abuse contacts
4) sends the abuse report email to the abuse contacts, with a copy to my Hosting company so they can use the information to stop future attacks (although I think I do more work than their whole abuse department)
5) outputs a log of steps 1-4 and emails it to me and my tech team

This process has been working fairly well and the perl script that we have works well on our RedHat systems parsing the /var/log/secure log and automatically doing what I used to spend a half an hour a day on.

I have now began another project to block the IP address (and sometimes the IP ranges) of attackers so that they can't even attempt to hack any of my networks or machines. This is still a mostly manual process that takes me from a half hour to an hour. I look at the IP address of the people who tried to login and failed, usually the number of attempts for any particular attacker range from 10 to several hundred or even thousands of login attempts. The higher the number of attempts, the faster I want to block them, since they are taking up a small portion of my resources.

So I've modified a whois lookup script to be able to store the IP address, IP range, abuse contact, whois host (whois.apnic.net, whois.arin.net, whois.afrinic.net, whois.ripe.net, etc.), date of incident, hostname of attacked machine, and source country of the attack. Most of the attacks come from other countries. I currently don't have any websites that require someone to connect from Asia or Africa, so I just block whole ranges of foreign universities and ISPs, etc. from where I'm being attacked so that something like it won't happen again (my other script already notifies them of the attack, and if they get back to me, I may unblock them).

What I want to automate next:
1) Automatically add entries into my database of attacks from all my systems.
2) Automatically publish IPs and IP ranges to my iptables block lists to all my systems.

Here is where I ask the question: Would you like to share your hacker's IP with me?
I think a distributed network of hacking information would be beneficial to sysadmins everywhere, similar to RBLs for spam, it would be great to setup a Realtime Block List for hackers. In fact I don't see any reason why the same software that some of the other RBLs use couldn't be ported for the purpose. Maybe I'm out of it and something already exists for it. I don't know that it would though, because not near as many people are aware of the hacking problems that happen, because they don't see the evidence of it in their email box every day.

However, if we were to block attackers from being able to keep getting more compromised machines by stopping them at their source, there would be far less machines from which attackers could launch their email spam campaigns. I think this effort would reap large benefits for all corporations. (Although it might put a few sysadmins out of a job if they let the secret out.) I'm one system administrator that would be glad to pass my abuse administrator duties to an automatic program. I'm also sure that pooling our information together will reap the most benefits for everyone.

Halloween handouts

2005-11-07T08:17:00.000-07:00

Here's your treat for Halloween:

Vacation at Bear Lake

2005-10-31T18:53:00.000-07:00

That's Bear Lake Utah / Idaho, not Big Bear, California.
I'm sure Big Bear in California is nice, but I've never been there, off-season or on.
So, I'm writing about Bear Lake, UT.

We discovered that our son doesn't have as much Christmas vacation as we had expected and were disappointed that we probably wouldn't be able to take the kids to see relatives in California this year. We just moved from California, and our kids would like to see Grammy and some of their friends. However, since we have less time than we thought, and we just can't bring ourselves to not be home on Christmas day, we decided to stay home this year and go somewhere else instead that is much closer.

Our son got Halloween day out of school for 'Quality Teaching Day'. I think that means that the district administrators figured out that most teachers didn't get any quality teaching done on Halloween. I wonder if there is another Quality Teaching Day on Valentines Day. So, the teachers and the school moved all of the extra activities that used to be on Halloween to the Friday before Halloween. That saves them from worrying about letting kids where costumes to school and stopping kids from wearing masks, and all the other distractions related to costumes, and chose to load the kids up on sugar before Halloween instead. My son had no less than three cup-cakes, one sugar cookie and a bunch of candy at school. Most of the treats were brought by parents who were over-anxious that their child wouldn't have any of the wonderful experiences they had when they were kids of having too much sugar so they took it upon themselves to make sure that the whole class had some. Also, as far as I know, the teacher didn't ask parents not to bring treats.

With no school on Halloween, we scheduled a family vacation to Bear Lake. TrendWest has a nice location there with a great view and nice rooms. We were suprised when we got there that everything was so nice. I had thought that it would be buildings that were built in the 70s that were simply remodeled. Instead, the buildings are only about five years old, and came with all the amenities that WorldMark TrendWest usually offers to owners... a full kitchen, a separate bedroom plus a queen-sized Murphy bed (the kind that swing down out of the wall). A washer and dryer, a separate furnace, thermostat and water heater for each unit, ironing board and iron, hair dryer, gas fireplace and a outdoor gas grill. All that plus an indoor heated pool made it really nice for a two-hour drive getaway.

Since the days are getting shorter, and since we've already switched into Daylight Savings Time, by the time we were ready to go Friday night, it was already dark and our drive up to Bear Lake through sardine and Logan canyons were fairly uneventful. We couldn't see any of the beautiful scenery going up Logan canyon, but were aware that we must be in some hill country with a stream because the road winded back and forth and would be great for a road-hugging car commercial. As we made it to the top of the mountains and could see the lights from the Bear Lake valley, we were glad that our drive was almost over. We checked in and went to bed.

In the morning we discovered it was raining off and on. That dampened our plans to take the kids to the beach sand, but it still left plenty of room for us to go swimming, play games and watch movies. I definitely don't get much time to do any of those things at home. The best experience of the whole vacation was an excellent dinner that night at a restaurant right across the parking lot from our room. There is a hotel with a large light-house building attached to it. That hotel is home to the new (and hopefully to stay) restaurant Aromas. Michelle ordered some excellent steak with crab garnish (perfectly cooked), and I had maybe the best thing I've ever had at a restaurant: Maple Pork Loin with candied walnuts. (I don't remember the actual name of the dish, but I know it was pork, and the maple with it was amazing. The yams, sweet potatoes and other vegetables with the dish were really good as well, but the maple pork... Oh wow! We were full enough to not want dessert, but I was glad that we tried their creme brulee. If you are within a few hours drive of Bear Lake, I suggest you go to Aromas restaurant to try it for yourself. During the off-season (fall and winter) the restaurant appeared to only be open for dinner. It would be worth a three hour drive if you haven't been there to try their food yourself. However, it only took two hours from Layton. We might steal away up there again sometime.

Sunday was nice. We went to the church building about a half mile down the road and had a nice meeting. Snow fell at night up on the mountains, which added to the beauty of the view around the lake. We took our kids' pumpkins with us and got to carve them just how they wanted them. We also saw a sign marking the historic Oregon trail. We got to swim again Monday morning before checking out by noon.

On our way home we saw some excellent Christmas postcard photo opportunities. We snapped a few pictures. Take a look and I think you'll agree:

Breakfast at school

2005-10-21T08:06:00.001-06:00

My son's Elementary school is undergoing a test to see how much better kids do if they are given breakfast at school. I hope the test fails miserably.

Ethan wakes up every morning at a certain time and we give him a healthy breakfast before school. It is easy to get him out the door by 8:30 if he is awake by 7:30 without any problems. He doesn't complain about the fare, and we are really giving him some healthy stuff.

Now, here is what some of the breakfasts at school consist of:
doughnuts, bagels, muffins, and some things that are probably slightly better.

Those things aren't so bad if you have them once in a while, but to have something packed with high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated soybean oil every day is definitely not what I think the nation's kids should be forced to have for breakfast.

In most people's mind, the two common ingredients I just mentioned (corn syrup, and something hydrogenated) don't mean a lot, and they even sound somewhat healthy, right? I mean, it is corn and soybeans! Those must be good for you, right? NOT!
Most people don't know that partially hydrogenated soybean oil is the source of Trans Fat in their food.

The next time you go to the grocery store, you can again pretend like you don't know better, but once you are home putting the food in the cupboards and fridge, take a look at the labels what you bought and see if you can find one without corn syrup or something hydrogenated. Then say to yourself: "I always thought that too much of anything is a bad thing?" Well, that is what you are getting, every day.

And that is what my son's school wants to feed our kids every day. Sure, what they get there at school are probably better than what many kids might want for breakfast. Pop-tarts, cardboard waffles, orange juice, etc. They all sound fine from the surface. Only when you realize that they are usually all the same processed sugar and fat do you start to think differently.

How about some real world proof to back up my ranting: my wife lost 60 pounds just by looking at labels and cutting the amount of high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated soybean oil. That was pretty much all she did. She changed her mind to eat more healthy, and suddenly the exercise she was already doing started to make a difference.

Don't believe me? That's fine, but try researching it a little yourself. Also, you may not want to immediately buy in to statements the corn growers associations might say regarding the healthfulness of corn syrup (especially not high-fructose corn syrup).

Glimpsing into the window well of my soul

2005-10-16T10:56:00.000-06:00

What do you do when you want a professional job done right? Just check off that you have all of the following:

The right tools for the job
A clean work area
Professional help

So, of course, if I want to make sure that my window well won't leak water anymore, I should get the job done by following those three tenets of quality work.

The right tools:

A clean work area:

Professional help:

So since, I had all of those important aspects of the project covered, I couldn't fail right? That depends on what you expected as the outcome.

I had two goals when I dug the window well 18 inches down next to the foundation:

Stop the leak into the basement by giving the window well deeper drainage. (Thus the 18 inches of additional dirt taken out.
Stop the leak into the basement by allowing me to pump out the water if I have to, or even stick a bucket down and heave it out if it comes to that!

As you can see, my main goal is to stop the leak:

So I dug the window down (with a lot of help from my Dad):

Dug it out a lot more (sorry no photo at this stage.
Started the base of my pump hole with cinder blocks and filled around it with gravel instead of dirt There are two more cinder blocks hidden from view under the pile at this stage, so that is about 2 ft down next to the foundation line:

Tested for leaks for about an hour before filling it up more:

Then I laid bricks down in a way that I hoped would allow good drainage down below the foundation:

After waiting another while to see if any water would leak in, I added more cinder blocks and more gravel:

The total height of the cinder blocks is 4 feet. I need to add some more gravel, but I'll have to buy some since that's all I have! The dirt I took out of the bottom made it quite a bit deeper.

Well, after all that, the lawn man came and fertilized the lawn. He asked me to water in the application, so I turned the water on the next morning even though I had decided not to waste any more water on our lawn this year.

So what was the result? It leaked some more.

At least I have option B still. I can pump, siphon or draw water out whenever I want. I've built my own well! That's a side benefit I didn't even think about. Wow, man.

Ain't got time to die. What is more Insectane?

2005-10-15T09:02:00.000-06:00

I would ask, "What is more humane?", but I'm not speaking of a human. Since when is everyone expected to treat all animals the same as humans? Never, in my opinion. However, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't honor and respect all of God's creations.

So that brings me to my question. If we are talking about a grasshopper, which is more insectane? Or in other words, which would be nicer to the poor creature: kill it quickly to prevent it from eating mine and my neighbor's plants and garden, or another alternative?

Here is the alternative I was faced with for the last few days.

My office is in a basement room with a window that lets in the sun. Since I'm in front of the computer for 8 hours a day, it is nice to stretch my eye muscles from time to time looking out the window. Still, I think my cat actually enjoys the sun more than I do. She lays in its warmth, and especially likes to chase reflections around the room.

The window is just at my eye level. One day last week, I heard something hit my window. I didn't know what it was and was a bit startled. At first I thought that one of the kids might have been playing outside and threw something in. Then I saw movement again out of the corner of my eye and realized that a grasshopper had jumped down and was trying to jump out. Did I get up immediately and go rescue the poor creature? Are you kidding? I'm in the middle of a large project and that would really break my train of thought. I watched the grasshopper a couple of times try to jump and hit the side of the window-well. Then my attention was focused back to my lines of code.

I didn't think of the grasshopper again that day. After a cold night where there had been frost on the lawn, I figured the grasshopper had went the way of all the world (well except for the citizens of the city of Enoch, probably Moses and Alma, Elijah, John the Revelator, and the Three Nephites to name those we know of). I looked around the rocks at the bottom of the window well and couldn't see the little guy, so I figured he might have made it. After the morning warmed somewhat, I was suprised again when the grasshopper again jumped against my windowpane. Still too busy to go outside, I kept programming, but felt a little sorry for the creature. I figured it would probably be better if I went out and stepped on it to stop the pain. Again, the insect was forgotten, and the next night again frosted the lawn. (For those of you who don't know, that means it was below 32 degrees Farenheit, or 0 degrees Celcius... it froze water, OK?) Again I searched among the stones for something green, to no avail. Again my thoughts were lost in a different world and code flowed from my brain through my fingertips onto the flashing screen in front of me. (Actually, it had to go to California where the server is, and back before it would flash on the screen, so it is pretty amazing that it all happens so fast.) When to my wondering eyes did appear but a miniature bug was hopping near. I really saw it struggling this time. It didn't seem to have much strength.

So what should I have done? I could have thought more about the little guy and put it out of its misery. Whenever it would have been time to do something about it though, I had my mind in more important things... like working when I'm supposed to be working, or spending time with my family, etc. I really don't get much time on my own to think of other things... unless I wake up early. So here I am.

So, I'll put on some shoes and do a more thorough search right now! Well, can you find the missing picture? Once again, I can't.

The moral of the story? It's not easy being green.

Potatoes in the disposal

2005-10-14T06:50:00.000-06:00

If you are like me, you may have been raised to help peel the potatoes at dinner time. If that is true, the same concept was probably applied to snapping beans, shucking corn and de-bunching grapes. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, well, you missed out on a big part of childhood.

Although I could go into more detail now about those experiences, I merely brought up peeling potatoes because whenever I was young and peeled potatoes, I always peeled them into the sink disposal, and then turned it on and pushed them down. I never had a problem with a clogged sink in my life because of potato peels.

Apparently, it is a de facto standard known to plummers everywhere and common knowledge that you should NOT put potatoes peels into the disposal. They can easily clog the drain. Is this some kind of new development because of the evolution of sink drains now-a-days? The peels hit a wall in the connector that directs the water downward instead of up, which is where they clogged against - maybe that is the technology that has changed over the years. Or maybe I was just lucky all those years (and I think my parents still put the potato peels down the disposal at home) to never have a single clog. In fact, I don't remember my dad ever having to unplug the kitchen sink. I definitely remember unplugging toilets, bathroom sinks and showers (I have 5 sisters whose hair is the culprit,) so maybe I just wasn't involved to remember the kitchen sink ordeals, if there ever was one.

I've had the kitchen sink clog on me twice because of big potato peels. I don't think the problem was normal potatoes. Maybe that is why my parents' sink never clogged. Little potatoes have smaller peels, and small doesn't get stuck. But big potatoes, like yams or sweet potatoes - I've had them clog up two different kitchen sinks.

So what is the trick if you want to remember something? Write it down. Or type it. I'm hoping I'm around whenever my wife wants to peel potatoes into the sink, because after this, and after having to use the plunger to no avail, and then unscrewing all the pipes under the sink and finding the pipe going from the disposal to the u-bend full of peels, and having to put it all back together again - I should remember next time. DO NOT PUT POTATO PEELS IN YOUR DISPOSAL!

The unclogging took me long enough that by the time we put the kids to bed I was too tired to try and rehang my bedroom mirror. It is about 6 feet wide and weighs 35 pounds. Nothing a toggle bolt on one side and a stud on the other shouldn't be able to handle, but I was tired out. Really, I sure staying up last night 'til midnight did that. I was helping program a shopping cart for someone.

So I'll probably hang the mirror tonight and finish the window well on Saturday. At least I haven't had any water in the basement since I dug the hole down a foot and a half next to the foundation. More exciting projects to come!

Layton Soccer

2005-10-13T08:17:00.000-06:00

I've been the soccer coach this year for Ethan's team. Ethan and all the other players have grown a lot so I'm glad that I was dragged into this! Soon after our move, Michelle called to sign Ethan up for AYSO soccer. The person she talked to asked her if she would like to be the coach. Apparently our region has a lot of players, and so they doubled the number of teams this year to keep a maximum 7 players per team. Michelle volunteered - me. I was suprised by quite a lot of things with Soccer in Layton, UT. First of all I was suprised by a number of things required to be a soccer coach. Secondly, I was suprised once we started practices and games at the difference between AYSO here and where we just came from in Lakewood, CA.

To be a soccer coach for AYSO, you need to go to orientation each year, new coaches need to take a coarse on technique and rules. Also, every coach is required to take a Safe Haven course, which ensures safety and emergency preparedness practices that help protect the kids as well as the coaches. Everything from safe play and first aid to insurance and preventing law suits are covered. AYSO also checks professional and personal references not from your family. I wasn't overly suprised by these requirements, but I wasn't aware of them before I volunteered.

The biggest things that surpised me between my son's team last year in Lakewood (where I assume he was playing U-6 or under-age-six soccer) to the changes here where he has moved up to U-8 since he was 6 before the season started. The surpise is that it was a step backwards!
Instead of playing 6 players including a goalie in California, we only play 5 people total and no-one is allowed to be goalie. The biggest difference between UT soccer and California soccer was the level of participation by the parents. Parents here aren't as excited to volunteer to help out as a Team Parent, Assistant Coach or Referee. The level of support at the games is a lot less as well. I would have thought it the opposite, but the more I think of it, I can understand why. People here are so much more busy in other areas of their lives, with most parents volunteering in their church and raising more kids than in California. The fact that there are so many kids in Layton that are in soccer (21 teams just from our city at my age level) tells me that parents really want to give their kids a good experience, but when they are doing the same thing for their other kids as well, plus volunteering in other things, you get wary of signing up for anything extra. I have had one Dad who is great at being a referee.

Asking for donations gets you just as far. The AYSO coaches manual suggests getting a Team Banner. So I brought that up and asked for someone to take care of making one. In CA, a team mom would have been super excited to make a really cool flag or else all the parents would donate to have a really nice one made. I soon found out that our team was the only one that got a banner, and I've only had half of my parents donate $7 to pay for it, so I've had to cover half the cost myself. I hope the same thing doesn't happen if I have to pay extra for trophies or something.

That said, there are some things that are better in Layton soccer, the teams seem to abide more by the AYSO standards of playing to have fun, rather than yelling at your kids to try and guilt them into doing well. It seems that the coaches here are more apt to follow the five AYSO philosophies, or maybe people here are more likely to follow them, not just the coach.

Everyone Plays
Our program’s goal is for kids to play soccer—so we mandate that every player on every team must play at least half of every game.

Balanced Teams
Each year we form new teams as evenly balanced as possible—because it is fair and more fun when teams of equal ability play.

Open Registration
Our program is open to all children between 4 and 19 years of age who want to register and play soccer. Interest and enthusiasm are the only criteria for playing.

Positive Coaching
Encouragement of player effort provides for greater enjoyment by the players and ultimately leads to better-skilled and better-motivated players.

Good Sportsmanship
We strive to create a positive environment based on mutual respect rather than a win-at-all-costs attitude, and our program is designed to instill good sportsmanship in every facet of AYSO.

Only three more soccer games until the end of the season!

No Scratch doesn't prevent sitting on a Network Hub

2005-10-12T07:27:00.000-06:00

We have a little kitten. Jaron "got her" for his 2nd birthday about a month and a half ago. We went to the shelter and let our kids look at all the cats, and we picked out "Cookie". She looks like she is some kind of suger cookie with butterscotch and chocolate, so I guess it is a good name.

Working out of a home office is nice! I really love the commute, and I find I have less distractions here. The only main distraction the last week or two has been Cookie. She scratches at the carpet outside my door to come in. It got to the point that the carpet is starting to look bad in the corner. I tried spraying her with water, which apparently is the way you are supposed to discipline cats now-days. I tried putting citrus by the spot and she seemed to ignore it. We bought a scratching toy and some other play toys for her, but really the issue is just that she wants to come in with me.

I enjoy it when she behaves. She can sit on my lap and sleep while I program. No problems there. I also got her to realize that she can sleep in her bed in my office as well, occasionally even with sun pouring through the window. She must love it.

The problem comes because I have two areas behind and between my desk that is covered with power cords and cables. I've got three networked computers and all of the accompanying cords. I don't have good cable management yet because I haven't found a desk that will work with how tall I am that will support two retractable keyboards. I want my two monitors positioned in certain places, and the keyboards to be directly in front of them. I want the keyboards to be a certain height from the ground and at a certain angle to each other so that I can swivel my chair a tiny bit and be directly in front of one or the other. I could probably use a keyboard switch for this, but that would mean that I would need to have a moveable keyboard to allow it to be directly in front of both monitors. I have drawn up precide desk plans to make my own, and can get the materials for around $100, but I'll have to spend the time to build it. As if I have Time!

So anyway, I haven't finalized my desk arrangement. That leaves me with at least two spots that I cannot allow a cat to go in my office: she can't go and play with my network hub or network cables, and she cannot go behind my tower where all the connections and power are.
I don't want her to get hurt or my computer.

So my wife went and bought "No Scratch". I think it is working for not scratching, but that doesn't do anything about wanting to sit on a network hub. (I suppose that it is warm and confortable.) I'm going to have to reorganize my office cords soon if I don't want to be driven crazy by one Crazy Cookie! Maybe I'll spend 15 minutes on it this morning.

Proud to be a Dad

2005-10-11T07:14:00.000-06:00

Every week, and usually every day even, I find a reason that I'm proud to be a Dad.

Last night, as he often wants to do, my oldest child Ethan wanted to come into my youngest son Jaron's room to say goodnight. They are 6 and 2 respectively. Ethan acts like a father in many ways, and last night he wanted to come sing a good-night song and give Jaron a kiss. Jaron insists that he get no less than two songs, and usually the same three: Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam, I am A Child of God, and Jesus Loves Me (this I know, for the Bible tells me so). Lately Jaron has wanted at least one or two of these songs to be sang in the voice of one of his stuffed animals. He has an Elmo, a cow and a snake. Once I sang something in Elmo's voice he was hooked, and I only get away with just singing in a normal voice if Jaron forgets, or maybe he actually likes it normal sometimes.

Anyway, last night Jaron wanted Elmo to sing, so Ethan was very patient and found out what Jaron wanted, and then changed his voice to sound more like Elmo. (Thank goodness he didn't say the word 'Elmo' whenever the words are supposed to be 'I' or 'me'. I always thought that characteristic about Elmo was annoying and bad for kids. Plus that would ruin the song: "Jesus loves Elmo, this Elmo knows, for the Bible tells Elmo so" just ain't powerful.)

Ethan got done with the song, and Jaron seemed happy about it. Then they gave each other a kiss on the cheek and Ethan went off to his room. I talked to Ethan about it before he went to sleep and I could tell that he is happy I noticed and complimented him on wanting to be a good Dad. I guess I must be doing something right!

Blogging in my blood, already?

2005-10-10T06:47:00.000-06:00

I woke up before my alarm clock this morning, by 15 minutes!

I really must have an inner desire to get things done, and morning is the only time I can do some of them. It is funny, and my wife pointed it out to me, that the day before I started to blog, I was just complaining about how companies and investors who are snatching on to blogs are misled if they pay millions of dollars for a blog network. I don't think they learned their lesson from the dotcom boom and bust. Of course, maybe I'm the fool, because I suppose there are some people who made money in the dotcom boom, as long as they sold out before the bust. However, I think those people are few and far between.

On the TODO today:

Write in my journal (this blog).
Finish what I contracted to do for a contract job.
Authorize website postings
Reply to LDSMN email and do anything that comes out of them
Work on getting out the first release of the SIB digest
If I get that far, I'll be amazed!

Well, at least I got the first one done!

Working is work, Sunday is for rest!

2005-10-09T07:34:00.000-06:00

Sunday, wonderful Sunday!
Well, that and actually getting up when the alarm goes off. If I were to sleep until the kids woke up on any day of the week, you wouldn't be seeing a journal entry here at all!

But yes, Sunday is wonderful... a truly needed day of rest. I rarely have time to volunteer for things, but I guess I do volunteer quite a number of hours every week. For one, I am a volunteer administrator for the LDS Mission Network (LDSMN), which is made up entirely of volunteers. I've been helping out in that regard since shortly after I moved to Bellflower, CA which came as a result of being laid off just before September 11, 2001 and just after the dotcom boom was coming to an end. I hope I never need to work for a company that doesn't make money again! We still lived in UT when September 11 happened, and any job leads I had at that time became very unsure. So, I spent my birthday that year packing up our house. I was given a great job lead where a position was to be created for me with Experian in Orange, CA. We were sick of no job for three months and felt inspired to move to California, where my wife grew up. We moved in temporarily with my wife's grandma as I went to two interviews and drug testing with Experian, but then they laid people off, and the department couldn't create any jobs.

With the free time I had (besides looking for a job), I turned up the heat on the development of the Mission Alumni/ae Site that I had been handling since just after my return home from a 2 year church mission to Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil. As usual, I had grand schemes, and finally a chance to actually do what I had planned with the free time. My website was already listed on mission.net but it was sorely outdated. I soon discovered that mission.net had some tools to help me out as a Web Developer of a mission alumni website, and their Site-In-a-Box (SIB) product looked like it would save me a lot of work. Before I discovered SIB, one of my grand schemes was to allow people who came to my site to be able to vote in polls. I thought it would be extremely useful. I asked the developer of SIB what it would take to get a poll feature added, and he said something like: "Go right ahead". Well, I hadn't any experience with php. Until that time I had been a Java/JSP developer with some Perl experience. They didn't teach you PHP as part of the Bachelors Computer Science at Weber State University I taught myself PHP at the same time that I developed the Poll Module for SIB based on the open source phpPolls written by Till Gerken.

Soon, I was recruited to be part of the SIB development team, which led to volunteering as a Mission.net Administrator. I continued interviewing for another three months around Los Angeles until I was hired by eDirect Publishing, where I've been ever since. So, given a little free time, I slated off portions of my time for the next 4 years to date and unseen years into the future.

By the way, regarding eDirect Publishing. Don't judge the company by the website. We are a small (but profitable!!!) company and we've never had the chance to update it in the time that I've worked there. I completed a new look for the site, but the content is yet to come, so we haven't converted over to the new look yet. We've got numerous great products and services under development, and it doesn't look like we'll have free time anytime soon.

Time is the great evader, the giver and robber of opportunity, and the promised land waiting to be conquered.

-- Daniel Gibby
(I just made that up, so don't forget to quote me.)

So you can now partially understand why I say "As if I have Time". Stay tuned to find out more.
For now, I need to do some volunteer Sunday "work" helping transfer a mission website to a new maintainer. Then I'll continue work developing the SIB Mailer digest.

Next Sunday I'll tell you what is so restful about a different kind of work.

I should be doing something else

2005-10-08T12:21:00.000-06:00

You may know what I mean... I really ought to be doing something else. But technology calls!

With so many competing tasks and time takers, I really don't have the time to blog. Still, maybe this blog will allow me the opportunity to keep a regular journal, which is something I really would like to do.

So, let the blogs begin! Then, I'll have time to go make lunch for the kids, dig out my window well so that we aren't flooded or frozen this fall or winter. The joys of owning a home are wonderful, but the responsibilities are great as well. I wouldn't have either opportunity if we hadn't been able to move from Los Angeles back to my home town of Layton, UT.

Gotta go! Home Depot calls, and I gotta figure out what is the best foundation sealer and haul some cinder blocks.