Draper, Utah Temple Dedication

My son, Benjamin, and I were able to attend the Draper, Utah temple dedication yesterday at the stake center. It was a very nice ceremony. The Spirit of the Lord was present, and it was marvelous to see yet another temple put into operation. Unless I’m mistaken, the Draper temple brings the total number of operating temples worldwide to 129.

It’s so amazing to witness the prophecies of the gospel’s restoration come to pass. One such interesting prophecy made by Joseph Smith in the 19th century was uttered to a small group of Priesthood brethren when the restored church was merely a fledgling entity. Said Joseph, “Brethren, I have been very much edified and instructed in your testimonies here tonight, but I want to say to you before the Lord, that you know no more concerning the destinies of this Church and kingdom than a babe upon its mother's lap. You don't comprehend it. It is only a little handful of Priesthood you see here tonight, but this Church will fill North and South America; it will fill the world.”

The Blessings of the Temple (Video on YouTube).

Davis’s Baptism

On February 26th we celebrated Davis’s 8th birthday. Hurrah! He enjoyed his special day, and he was glad to receive a GameBoy Advance SP along with a couple of games to go with it. His birthday cake was rather interesting. Jeanine made it in the likeness of a cow as per Davis’s desire (for some strange reason Davis has an affinity for cows of late). After we enjoyed a dinner of Papa John’s pizza, Davis’s grandparents came over to enjoy some snacks and some ice cream and cow cake. From them, Davis received one of life’s most sought after items—money!

Two days after his birthday, Davis got baptized by yours truly. He is now a full-fledged member of Christ’s church. The event went well, and the Spirit of the Lord was felt. At the service, Benjamin gave a talk about the Holy Ghost, and Jeanine was asked by the bishop to bear her testimony, which of course, she did. Acting as witnesses to the baptismal ordinance were Jeanine’s dad and my brother-in-law, Blair. Those who stood in the circle during Davis’s confirmation were Blair; my brother, Curt; my nephew-in-law, Derk; Jeanine’s dad; and Bishop Moyes. I had the privilege and pleasure of performing the confirmation.

Here are a few photos from the baptism:

Drum Solo

Here’s an old video of me self-indulgently performing a drum solo. It’s been almost two decades since this was filmed. At the time I was playing in a band called Standard Deviation. This particular gig took place in the Olpin Union Ballroom at the University of Utah.

Drum solo on YouTube.

Spotz Keeps on Growing

This little K-9 isn’t so little anymore. Spotz is growing like wildfire. At this rate, he’s going to be the size of a St. Bernard! When we first got him (back in December of ‘08), we were told he is part Border Collie. What the other parts of him are, we don’t know. Perhaps he does have St. Bernard blood. If so, he’s going to be a force to be reckoned with! To his credit though, he’s very smart and mostly obedient.

Just BASIC and Liberty BASIC

Just BASIC is a Windows programming language. It’s a fun way to make your own custom Windows applications. For those that are new to the BASIC programming language, this version comes with an easy-to-use tutorial. BASIC is an acronym which stands for Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. Even though Just BASIC is a watered-down version of Liberty BASIC, it still has plenty of features for most needs. Cool stuff. And it’s FREE!

Here are a few reasons to try out Just BASIC (this list comes from the Just BASIC home page):

• Free to download and use!
• Create standalone Windows programs royalty free
• Full tutorial and many example programs
• Large online community
• Syntax coloring editor
• Easy debugging
• Graphics, including sprites and printing

Davis’s Missing Tooth

Davis lost one of his front teeth today. He’s proud of that fact.

I love the way he’s working that tongue into the empty socket. It really emphasizes the gap left by the missing tooth.

EASEUS Partition Manager 3.0

I just finished running the Windows XP Recovery Console to fix my system's master boot record. I did this by running "fixmbr" within the Recovery Console. Formerly, I had a duel boot system (Windows XP and Linux) using the GRUB loader. Fixmbr worked great. Now my computer boots straight to Windows. I next used EASEUS Partition Manager 3.0 to resize the partition for drive C: so that I could recover the space that Linux was occupying. It seems to have worked well.