Deseret News | Former BYU professor Truman Madsen dies

I had no idea until today that he died.  Truman G. Madsen is one of the best, most knowledgeable people that I have ever known.  I was able to go listen to him and his wife speak a couple of years ago up at the Ambaum building.  If you have never listened to him, then you need to, especially his lecture series on Joseph Smith: The Prophet. 

That series, to me, at first was about the life and history of Joseph Smith.  It gave good, historical insight to what happened in his life.  Before long, though, it became more of a series of lectures on how to look at life and live it in a better way. 

One of my favorite (out of the many) quotes in that series:

“If I were in the deepest coal pit of Nova Scotia and had the Rocky Mountains piled on top of me, I would not be discouraged, and I would come out on top.”

Deseret News | Former BYU professor Truman Madsen dies

NOVA | Cracking the Maya Code | PBS

I accidently stumbled on this show the other day and I’m so glad that I did.  Then I did a search on it and found this site on it to add even more and give it some interaction.  The ancient Mayans  were absolutely amazing.  They understood so much and I wonder just how far ahead of their time they were.  As you go through this and see some of the discoveries that have been made, you’ll be amazed too.

I think that we’ve all heard of the renowned Mayan calendar and its impeccable precision.  I find it fascinating as we learn more of just what they were tracking on their calendar and what events had importance to them. 

Anyway, check out some of the episode that I watched here online to see what all I’m talking about here.

NOVA | Cracking the Maya Code | PBS

Living Rock: Massive Monuments Sculpted In Situ

Cool!  I mean, what else can you say?  When you look at these massive achievements of art, they are absolutely amazing!  Take a look by following the link below. 

Living Rock: Massive Monuments Sculpted In Situ

Amazon Web Services

As a way to kind of make some money on the side, we are setting up ways for people to shop on Amazon through our blogs and family web site. Anytime someone finds an item that they would like to purchase, we receive a little commission from it. Naturally, the more the merrier. So, if you are going to shop and buy something from Amazon anyway, do so through us! :)
The widget in the right column of my blog here is set up to suggest items contextually based on my posts. On our site here, we have set up a way for people to search items or snag something from the Goldbox. We are looking through some of the other ways to provide more services as well. You'll notice them as they come about. Anyway, happy shopping!

GE | Plug Into the Smart Grid

Flash and Silverlight are two things that are generating the wave of the future in web technologies.  This site uses Flash to show a bit about energy usage and such.  That’s good and all, but I’m more interested in the effects and how they are skillfully used to demonstrate and teach.  Reading text, no matter where, can often be a drag, but add some visualization and most of us can learn in a snap.  A picture is worth a thousand words, right?  GE’s site page here does a good job of helping to visualize the effects of energy conservation to give us a better idea of the impact that it has.

One day, when I’ve made some serious improvements on my design, animation, and ActionScript skills, I will make something cool like this for our own site, say, one that shows places that we have traveled to on an interactive map or something.  Until then, I’ll just admire the coolness of sites like this.

P.S. Here are some other Flash and Silverlight sites that may be of interest

• http://www.byu.tv/ – Flash Player by default, can also select Silverlight in the top left corner.  Naturally, this site is a must see! :)
• http://www.kungfupanda.com/ – Click on “Enter the site” and you’ll see
• http://www.prettyloaded.com/ – Shows a bunch of loading counters
• http://www.aspirant.nu/english/ – Has some Flash-based puzzles
• http://www.smoothhd.com/ – Various videos

GE | Plug Into the Smart Grid

Engineering Windows 7 : Some Changes Since Beta for the RC

As much as I would love to have them post an RTM date in Windows 7, some of the updates and changes that they’ve made since the beta came out is still pretty exciting.  It’s even kind of exciting to see that some of the items listed on the page at the link below are ones, more or less, that I gave some feedback on. 

Stephanie and I have been beta testing Windows 7 since it came out in January.  It is really cool.  If you think that Vista is cool, and I hope you do because it is WAAAAAAAY better than XP, Windows 7 is really cutting edge and cool!  It’s definitely not just a much prettier version, either.  They are really focused on letting the customer take control of layout and features and have designed it to be incredibly easy to use. 

Personally, I have been digging into development, diagnostic, and other utility features the most.  Even though it requires a bit of both onboard and video RAM to process a lot of the features that it has, it handles and manages system resources beautifully.  Anyway, have a look at the blog -> here, as well as at the link below for more.

Engineering Windows 7 : Some Changes Since Beta for the RC

Do TV Buyers Dream of Electric Sheep? - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

This short video clip shows some pretty creative thinking.  Can't say that I've ever thought about herding sheep wearing LED blankets and making designs out of them, but now I know that someone else has! 

Do TV Buyers Dream of Electric Sheep? - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Caltrans Eagle Cam

There isn't much to watch for a long time, I've found, but it's at least kind of interesting to take a look at this eagle's nest and see what's going on from time to time.  I think that it's a bit more interesting right now because three eaglets recently hatched.  So, you might be able to catch some fun things going on.

Caltrans Eagle Cam

30 days of Birthday

So, I'm playing catch-up here. I'll try to get these in every day in order to keep up, but here is what has happened so far as written on the little cards that she makes for me to see each day:

Day 1:
On the first day of my birthday
My true love gave to me
An Eggs Benedict breakfast - yummy!
(Oh it was sooooo deleicious!)

Day 2:
On the second day of my birthday
My true love gave to me
A massage for minutes equal to sixty
(Felt good! I needed a break from school and relax like this.)

Day 3:
On the third day of my birthday
My true love gave to me
A Valentine's meal with Stephanie driving
(We went to the Ram with the kids and then walked along the water. It was really fun!)

Day 4:
On the fourth day of my birthday
My true love gave to me
An updated website FINALLY!
(I do the front and backend design and Stephanie usually does the content updates. She was behind quite a bit. :) Check it out if you haven't lately http://decremer.org)

Day 5:
On the fifth day of my birthday
My true love gave to me
An exciting, fun-filled FHE
(She gave a lesson to me and Katie about birthdays: Jesus Christ's, President Monson, and Daddy's. When asked who was in a picture (Pres. Monson), We said, "Katie, who is that? It's (sounding out) p...r...e...s...i...dent..." and then she said in a quiet voice, "Mama, you're supposed to say Monson." Ha ha! It was cute.)

Day 6:
On the sixth day of my birthday
My true love gave to me
Night time treats while watching a movie
(We had chocolate strawberries (very yummy!), chips and dip, and wathced the Dark Knight)

Day 7:
On the seventh day of my birthday
My true love gave to me
A fire to keep me warm and cozy
(I always build the fire downstairs and Stephanie did it this time for me)

Day 8:
On the eighth day of my birthday
My true love gave to me
A daddy song sung by Katie
(If you haven't seen this yet then you need to on my blog here or our website)

Day 9:
On the ninth day of my birthday
My true love gave to me
A book of my ABCs
(You'd have to see it, but it is a really cool book of pictures of me)

Day 10:
On the tenth day of my birthday
My true love gave to me
A piano and kitchen so clean and sparkly
(The piano is a cath-all for things and the kitchen gets messy, don't they all?)

Day 11:
On the eleventh day of my birthday
My true love gave to me
Some M&Ms that were crispy
(Remember crispy M&Ms? They don't sell them in the U.S. anymore, so Stephanie used her foreign powers to obtain some. Yummy!)

Oh, et j'ai la meilleure femme du monde! Elle m'aime tellement et je l'en aime aussi.

The Daddy Song

For my upcoming birthday, Stephanie has been doing the "30 days of Birthday" for me. Here is a video of Katie delivering my gift for Day 8:

You can view it here too:
Katie sings The Daddy Song on the 8th day of my 30 Days of Birthday

Usability...or not really

What happens when you have something in life that isn't very usable? Generally speaking, one moves on to something more convenient. I pick on Mac users from time to time and they me, but always in passing and simply to let the PC vs. Mac battle rain down on everyone for fun. I have even said that I would probably someday have to use a Mac, but only in a work environment that demanded it.
Well, today I must say that that day came and it was adventurous. For what it's worth to say from the start, I even had a glorified keyboard...at least that's what they told me.
Situation one: So, I'm in TextWrangler writing some PHP code for a database read. I need to make an edit and I go to push the home key (apparently part of the aforementioned keyboard and doesn't come standard issue) to go to the beginning of the line. It doesn't work. I push the end key; no effect. So rather than one push of a key, it takes me 50 pushes of the arrow keys. Incredibly efficient! Mind you, I even asked the Mac gurus in the office to show me how to do what I'm trying to do because of my unfamiliarity with Macs and their keyboards. The response: "Yeah, that took some getting used to when I first started using a Mac. I even downloaded a third-party mapping program to generate keyboard shortcuts like that." Conclusion: Mac usability is out the window.
Situation two: The boss comes over and want me to install a new program on the Mac. This involves opening a cd drive tray. Let me put it this way, two Mac gurus standing there and neither of them were sure how to open the tray on the Mac tower. We had to Google it. Let me compare for you how to open a cd/dvd drive tray:
PC - push eject button on cd/dvd drive
Mac - If your eject button on the keyboard doesn't work, that is, if you even have one - go into the terminal window, type drutil tray open. If that doesn't work (and it didn't) type drutil tray eject. That worked.
Seriously?! It takes all that to open the drive tray? Note that it took sending the command twice to get it to eject the disc. If the OS needs to dismount the drive first and then eject then say so. Conclusion: PCs will continue to dominate in the universe.

YouTube - The NEW Canon Rock -- Guitar by MattRach, 15 yr old guitarist

I found this video awhile back and held out until Christmas time here to blog about it because, traditionally, it is a bit of a Christmas song.  Canon has always been one of my favorite songs, even amongst its many renditions.  I think that this one is pretty cool and much different than the classic instrumentals.  Chance, if you happen to look at this, you should take a stab at trying to play this sometime.  That'd be cool!  I posted about this below as well so that anyone that wants to could see him guest star on a French TV show.

YouTube - MattRach invité à L'édition spéciale de Canal +

Here is another clip of MattRach's version of Canon.  He is from France and was invited to guest on a French show.  Pour les gens qui parle français et qui comprends le style des français, amusez-vous bien!

Les Suisses aussi sont fauchés

Basically, this is saying, "Even the Swiss are broke." It's funny because of the cute little characters that they have on this postcard, but also because it's quite untrue. I think we all know that Switzerland is not only known for great missionaries like me who served there, but also their chocolate, yogurt, mountains, and money.
Their yogurt is absolutely delicious! I don't know what they feed their cows, but I want a Swiss cow and a lifetime supply of whatever they eat over there. Anyway, I'll blog more on that later when I post the picture of a Swiss cow. The point here being that the Swiss are known for banking and the oodles of people that put their money there. Besides, would you really expect the two characters in this picture to have such smiles on their faces if they really were broke? Not really. Just a guess, but I imagine that if someone really was broke then they probably wouldn't be in Switzerland for very long because you have to pay to live there. That's a bill you really wouldn't want to leave unpaid.

N.Y. mixup: 'Barack Osama' on ballot - Barack Obama News- msnbc.com

I find this absolutely hilarious!  This goes right in line with a friend of mine at school who is a wounded, veteran Marine who fought in Iraq and has a shirt that says, "10 out of 10 terrorists support a democrat for president."  I told this friend of mine a few weeks ago that for a couple of years I have referred to Barack as Barack Osama and Obama bin Laden.  Now they actually go and print that on a ballot!  Typo or not, deliberate or not...I'm happy to know that at least one more person or group is thinking along the same lines as me.  Too bad the ballots were destroyed.  Oh, and bytheway...vote republican!

N.Y. mixup: 'Barack Osama' on ballot - Barack Obama News- msnbc.com

5 new temples planned for Mormon church - Faith- msnbc.com

It is always great when new temples around the world are announced.  I think that it so significant that President Monson announced today the plan to put one in Rome, Italy.  Having served in Switzerland and France and knowing how much the church is growing there, it is incredible to see that the church must be growing so well in Italy that they will now have their own temple.  It would be great to have a temple in France too with how much the church is growing there too.  I heard speculative reasons when I served in France for why it is so difficult to build one there, but we all know that it is not impossible with the Lord.  I would love to be there when one is finally built and dedicated there.

5 new temples planned for Mormon church - Faith- msnbc.com

Katie - The Best Big Sister

Katie is such a great big sister to Aubrey. While I was making dessert (Worms in the Dirt), Aubrey was out on her ladybug pad and Katie was eating dinner. I go to check on Aubrey and...

That was so nice of Katie to see that Aubrey was tired and falling asleep and put a blanket on her. Later on we were downstairs and...

I know that the videos are a little dark, but I am so proud of Katie helping me take care of Aubrey. She is always so happy to help out with everything. Often, no matter where Aubrey is, Katie supplies her with toys to play with. Today she helped me make dessert by mixing the pudding. Yesterday she helped me take laundry out of the drier, transfer laundry from the washer to the drier, and put more laundry into the washer.

One Bookmobile and a Side Order of Lots of Time, Please.

Stephanie and I like to read books together. We have been reading Clive Cussler books together for the last 4 or 5 years and are currently reading Pacific Vortex. We have decided to start back as far as we could go to when Cussler first started writing. I find it quite interesting to see how authors grow and change with experience and time.
Together, that is what we read. Individually, it is a totally different story. Since I am still in school, I am always reading a lot of textbooks. Yes, I even read them for fun and quite often I buy books for classes that are not even part of my degree in Web Development. I am always reading books on something educational. One interesting book right now is titled "e: The Story of a Number" by Eli Maor. It is about how the number e came to be and some of its great uses. Other books mostly involve web development and getting to know all of our Adobe programs much better.
Stephanie, on the other hand, is more into novels and things with actual storylines. (Don't get me wrong, I love storylines a lot too which is why we read Cussler books together, but while I'm in school I leave less time for myself to get into such books.) She has to have about five books checked out right now from the library. If you've checked out your...er, I mean, her...blog lately and have seen her Shelfari collection then you know what I mean. (I put that in there since you, Stephanie, are the only one to actually read my blog so I might as well put all pronouns in a tense referring directly to you ayway. Ha ha!)
It is great that we all like to read, though. This includes Katie as well and Aubrey will probably be the same. Katie loves books and, like me, seems happier in a bookstore than in a candy store! Although she can't read words much yet, she is doing a great job at forming sentences from the pictures that she sees. I love hearing how she interprets things and seeing her creative mind at work.

New Header Images

Every so often I am going to change my header image to show some of the places from my mission in Switzerland and France. At first they will probably be scans of postcards that I bought while there, but I will mix in some pictures that I took myself. Both countries are absolutely beautiful and I am happy to show off just how great it is there.
This first one is of a park in Lyon, France. The name is literally, "Park of the Golden Head." I don't recall why it's called that, but it's a beautiful park. On one p-day, a group of us rented rollerblades and skated over to this park and all throughout it. Inside, there are a lot of animals that just roam around with you. (I bet Katie would love to see the flamingos that they have there!) It is very large and beautiful. Check out some more here.

DVRs Strengthen Relationships

In the myriad of news feeds and articles that I go through, I came across one about how DVRs help strengthen relationships. The article is here. It's very short and mostly covers its desirability in the home more than it does actually covering why or how it strengthens relationships, but the title itself made me think for a minute.
Although it hints at specifically referring to marriage relationships, it never actually states that. Of all the things that do strengthen our relationships with each other, the DVR (we have a TiVo, of course) wasn't one that I had ever thought of. We all have programs that we like and with different schedules it would be difficult to sit down and watch the same thing together were it not for DVRs. For example, I have watched the Tonight Show's segment on Headlines pretty much since the first time they had it. Often, Stephanie is asleep when it comes on. So, we can TiVo it and watch it together later and laugh and talk about it. Another one is the recent RNC. We were able to sit down together and discuss the things that were said instead of having only one of us here and the other not knowing what was said. There are many other things that we watch as well, but the point I'm making is that being able to record something and then watch it together allows you to: 1. spend time with others, 2. learn what others like to watch, and 3. have more common things to talk about...amongst other reasons as well, I'm sure.
Granted, there are alternative ways to this as well, such as watching programs and clips online together where it does not involve a DVR, but that's that the point here.