Mission

I am leaving tomorrow.
I am thinking about having someone post updates on my blog for you to read, but I am not sure if I will yet.

So if you don't see any posts for the next 2 years, don't be surprised.
I just hope that my Google account and blog are not deleted.

If you would like to send me a letter, you will have to get my address from someone that I have given it to. I am not posting it on here for security.

Snow Flake Contest Winner

I have the results from the Snow Flake Contest

Here is the winning flake with 2 votes:

By Kassi


Here are the three honorable mentions with 1 vote each:


By me



By me



By me


I did not vote, so you can not blame me for those 3 being an honorable mention.

Thank you all for your participation in this. We had a lot of Great Snow Flakes Submitted.

If the winner will come to my house after my farewell Sunday, I will have a small prize for her.

Snow Flakes Contest Entries

To see the entries from the contest, click here.

Please vote only one time by emailing me, or responding to this message with the number of the flake you like.



Please vote before Dec 25 at 12:00PM.

You can also see them in a bigger view by clicking here.

Snow Flakes Contest

I would like to announce that I have decided to have a contest to see who can make the best snow flake.



To make a snow flake, visit http://snowflakes.barkleyus.com/index.html.
When you finish the flake, click on save my flake,
Click on view image
Right click on the image, and chose save image as
Save the image
Then you can ether post a reply to this message with the image in it, or email it to me.
Email it to me here. Please make the subject Snow Flake.

I will put all of images in the Picasa web album seen above.
You can see the album using this link. http://picasaweb.google.com/gbfportfolio/Flakes#

After the contest ends I will post the images on my blog, and in an email, and have you vote on which one is the best.

The Contest will end on Monday December 22 at 12:00 PM. All submissions after that will not be accepted.

Voting will end on December 25 at 12:00 PM.

The winner may just get a small prize, plus of course the satisfaction of winning.

There are no limits to how many times you can enter.

Have fun, and I hope to see your submissions.

Christmas Song

Well Christmas time is upon us. It is my “Favorite Time of the year”. With all of the Christmas Lights up, a nice chill in the air, and the Christmas Music. I do wish it would snow though.

Speaking of Christmas Music, there are a few songs that I like to hear each Christmas. Those songs are “Mary Did You Know”, “Christmas Shoes”, the one listed below, and many more.
The below lyrics are from a song called “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. The first time I really listened to this was at a band concert where I was performing with the High School Concert Band. We had a person come in and read the lyrics as we played the song.
Here are the lyrics, please read them; in these few words there is a lot to think about.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how, as the day had come
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head:
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men."

Till, ringing singing, on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,
Of peace on earth, good will to men!


Do you have any Christmas Songs that you really like to hear each year?

Quiz Answers

Here are the answers to the quiz.

1: What was Burt’s Job in Mary Poppins?
A: A Bank Manager
B: A Chalk artist.
C: A Chimney Sweep
D: A One Man band
E: A Kite Salesman
F: B through E - Burt was a jack of all trades.

2: Fred Murts was a Character in what show?
A: I Love Lucy - this is the correct answer.
B: The Dick Van Dike Show
C: Bonanza
D: Emergency

3: The words Truly Scrumches are used in the Movie “Citty Citty Band Bang” for what?
A: To describe a candy that whistles.
B: To describe breakfast.
C: As a persons name. - Truly is the daughter of Lord Scrumches a candy maker
D: To describe Turkish delight.

4: What is named Citty Citty Bang Bang, or Chitty for short?
A: A tank
B: A Gun
C: A Car - this answer can count
D: A car that floats, and can fly - it is a car, but it can fly and float.

5: What is that word that Mary Poppins always uses?
A: awsomfabliulotosious
B: superamazingfantabulistical
C: fabulomazionisiosious
D: supercalafragilisticexpalidocious - You should know this one.

6: Which of these Shows was Don Knotts in?
A: The Andy Griffith Show - He played the character Barny Phife.
B: Adam 12
C: Drag Net
D: Mash

7: What show was about the Korean War?
A: The Dick Van Dike Show
B: Mash - This is correct.
C: Adam 12
D: Bonanza

8: What movie do a bunch of people go on a “Jolly Holiday” in a Chalk Drawing?
A: Hatari!
B: Mary Poppins - This is the correct answer.
C: The Ghost and Mr. Chicken
D: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

9: What movie was John Wayne in?
A: Hatari! - he was in this one.
B: Mary Poppins
C: I Love Lucy
D: The Ghost and Mr. Chicken

10. What T.V. Show has a character in it named Little Joe in it?
A: Adam 12
B: Emergency
C: Mash
D: Bonanza - Little Joe was in this show. He was played by Michal Landon, the same person that is in Little House on the Prairie.

So here is how many each person got right.
Wayne - 6
Kassi - 7
Bry - 8

Good Job to everyone who tried.

Quiz

I would like to give you a little quiz. Please just post your answers as a comment. You can just put your answers in order. For instance, if the answer to question 1 was A, the answer to question 2 was B, the answer to question 3 was C, and the answer to question 4 was D your comment would be ABCD. If you want to skip one, please leave a space like A CD. Tomorrow I will post who got the closes, and what the correct answers where.

These quiestions refer to old movies, and TV shows. I want to see how many people actually remember these.

1: What was Burt’s Job in Mary Poppins?
  A: A Bank Manager
  B: A Chalk artist.
  C: A Chimney Sweep
  D: A One Man band
  E: A Kite Salesman
  F: B through E

2: Fred Murts was a Character in what show?
  A: I Love Lucy
  B: The Dick Van Dike Show
  C: Bonanza
  D: Emergency

3: The words Truly Scrunches are used in the Movie “Citty Citty Band Bang” for what?
  A: To describe a candy that whistles.
  B: To describe breakfast.
  C: As a persons name.
  D: To describe Turkish delight.

4: What is named Citty Citty Bang Bang, or Chitty for short?
  A: A tank
  B: A Gun
  C: A Car
  D: A car that floats, and can fly

5: What is that word that Mary Poppins always uses?
  A: awsomfabliulotosious
  B: superamazingfantabulistical
  C: fabulomazionisiosious
  D: supercalafragilisticexpalidocious

6: Which of these Shows was Don Knotts in?
  A: The Andy Griffith Show
  B: Adam 12
  C: Drag Net
  D: Mash

7: What show was about the Korean War?
  A: The Dick Van Dike Show
  B: Mash
  C: Adam 12
  D: Bonanza

8: What movie do a bunch of people go on a “Jolly Holiday” in a Chalk Drawing?
  A: Hatari!
  B: Mary Poppins
  C: The Ghost and Mr. Chicken
  D: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

9: What movie was John Wayne in?
  A: Hatari!
  B: Mary Poppins
  C: I Love Lucy
  D: The Ghost and Mr. Chicken

10. What T.V. Show has a character in it named Little Joe in it?
  A: Adam 12
  B: Emergency
  C: Mash
  D: Bonanza

Anyway, there are the questions. Refer to the top for how to post your answers.
I will post the correct answers tomorrow.

Tag

Tag you're it!
So apparently I've been tagged!


5 things I was doing 10 years ago

1. Going to school
2. Sleeping
3. Eating
4. Going to school
5. Sleeping



5 things on my to-do list

1. Buy a bunch of stuff
2. Teach people at work
3. Going to work
4. Eat Thanks Giving Dinner
5. Not to watch Football

5 snacks I enjoy

1. Pizza
2. Chips
3. Banana
4. Chocolate
5. m&M's

5 things I would do if I was a millionaire

1. Buy a Mac
2. Buy A Car
3. Buy A House
4. Buy Land
5. Save the rest.


5 places I've lived

1. At my house in Utah
2. At my house in Utah
3. At my house in Utah
4. At my house in Utah
5. At my house in Utah

4 things I'm passionate about

1. Computers
2. Pixar
3. Disney
4. Technology


4 things I say often

1. it
2. I
3. hey
4. is

4 things I want to do before I die

1. invent a never die machine
2. Write a os
3. Get married in the temple
4. Create a wireless network


4things I want/need

1. Money
2. Time
3. Sleep
4. I Think that is it


4 places I want to see/visit

1. I don't have a desire to see anything
2. I don't have a desire to see anything
3. I don't have a desire to see anything
4. I don't have a desire to see anything


4 TV shows I can't live without

1. I don't know of any
2. I don't know of any
3. I don't know of any
4. I don't know of any


4 things you don't know about me

1. I like Christmas Lights
2. I like country music
3. I like to watch the audio commentaries on DVD's
4. I analyze almost everything.

I tag:
Anyone who has not been tagged is now tagged.

Gmail

I would like to talk briefly about Gmail.
If you don’t already have a Gmail account, now is the time to get one.
Gmail has a bunch of features that make it worth the few seconds of time it takes to set it up.

Recently the Gmail team released a new feature called themes. This goes along with the theme concept that was released for iGoogle over a year ago. Basically you can customize what your inbox looks like.
I chose the Desk Theme.

I chose this theme because it has a wood background which matches everything else I have.
Anyway, it is a nice feature.

A feature that was released a little while ago in gmail was “labs” which is where the gmail team tests out different features before implementing them. I like these lab features. Some of them include the ability to have google docs and google calendar on the page. Or the ability to put the chat box on the other side of the window. You can see both of these being use in the above screen shot.

To access these features, click on the setting button, and then click on labs, or themes.
If you don’t have some of these features available, don’t worry. They are so new that the Gmail team has not got all of the features rolled out to everyone yet.

What theme will you chose?

Mickey Mouse / Wall-E

Well today is a very special mouses birthday.
Mickey Mouse is celebrating his 80th birthday today.

For 80, he sure looks young.

Back in November of 1928 Mickey Premiered with his very first Cartoon - Steamboat Willie.

Since that time Mickey has stared in countless cartoons and TV Shows.
He has also made a bunch of new friends.



Happy Birthday Mickey Mouse!!!


As a side note, Wall-e released today on DVD and Blue-ray. I will have my copy tomorrow, and I am excited to watch the movie, the extra shorts, and deleted scenes that will be on it.

Wall-e DVD

The Wall-e DVD comes out on Tuesday, so Disney has released some papers about some things that will be on the DVD.

The first one is a list of facts that are quite interesting.

The second one is a list of things to look for in the Wall-e EVE.

Is anyone as excited for its release as I am?
If you are, you can pre-order it from amizon.com, or walmart.com.

What you can do with a computer

I am always amazed what bit of creativity and a bunch of time can produce.
These videos I found on YouTube. They are all computer controlled objects. Basically you set it up with a bunch of outputs, then just time each output to go on or off at a specific time.

The First one is a water fountain in a mall in Canal City Japan.

This one is a bunch of Christmas lights set to music.

This last one here is from a new show on Discovery Channel called Prototype This. In this episode they are trying to build a boxing robot that responds to your movements. The video does not show it very well, but it is really cool what they came up with.

Are there any videos out there of computer controlled things that I don't know about. If there is, please let me know.

Use the Keyboard

At work recently, I have been teaching people how to run the website once I am gone. And it is hard for them to understand what I want because I use keyboard shortcuts all the time. I will just call out the keys, and expect them to know what I mean. Well not everyone knows keyboard shortcuts, so I thought I would post some that I use all the time.
Note, for window, use the window button next to the crtl button. Also, when a + is written, it means use the keys at the same time, or press the key and hold then press the next.

Ctrl + c = copy
Ctrl + v = paste
Ctrl + x = cut
Ctrl + b = bold (Microsoft Word)
Ctrl + u = underline (Microsoft Word)
Ctrl + i = italic (Microsoft Word)
Ctrl +e = center align (Microsoft Word)
Ctrl + l = left align (Microsoft Word)
Ctrl + r = right align (Microsoft Word)
Ctrl + f = find
Ctrl + w = close active document
Ctrl + t = new tab (browser)
Alt + f4 = close active program
Window + e = Explore – opens My Computer
Window + d = show desktop
Alt + tab = view other task (press tab to go to different task as listed in the box. You must have 2+ programs open)

There are a lot of Keyboard Shortcuts, but these are the ones I use the most. If you want more, you can search Windows Help for them.

Are there any keyboard shortcuts that you use all the time that I might of missed?

How We Affect Others

Sometimes I wonder how much my words and actions effect people. To understand this I tend to look at my own life and how other people have affected me.
I would like to share some experiences along this line in order to convey my thoughts.
As we all know, the people around us can affect the way we act, and the way we think. For instance, when I am with my family I am often angry and impatient, where as when I am with my friends I am usually calm and patient and willing to go along with what others want to do as long as it fits into my moral standards. Most of the time I am very quiet when I am in a group of friends, or in a meeting, but when I am in a one on one conversation with a friend, I can be very opinionated. When I am in a group where something has to be done, I tend to take charge and get it done, but in most circumstances I do not like to volunteer for anything. When I am among a bunch of people that I don’t know, I tend to stick close to a dark corner, and hope to go unnoticed.
Why are we like this? Why do we change who we are when we are with different groups of people?
Well some of it is characteristics that we were born with. For instance, I am often put in a position of leadership where I am depended on to make sure something is done. I believe that I was born with the characteristic of being a leader, and even though I am not a very good leader at times, I work hard and it usually works out.
But a lot of it is that we act upon what other people think of us and teach us. Even if we don’t like that person, there opinions affect us. A lot of our habits came from our parents. They teach us there knowledge, and we become who we are by what we are thought. For instance, I would never go to an auto repair shop to fix a car, I can fix it my self. I am this way because my father is this way.
More then just our parents affect us, we are effected by a lot of people. I remember an experience back in 4th grade where I was made fun of for breathing hard after riding my bike to school. The person who made fun of me probably does not remember, but it is still a very vivid experience in my mind. I believe that this experience and many others are the reason why, as I mentioned, I like to stick close to dark corners and try to go unnoticed. This I believe is also why I use a picture I have made, and not a picture of my self as my display picture.
In contrast, I have a bunch of friends who are very careful not to say anything that would make anyone feel lower then them. I have great respect for these friends because they are working hard every day to be the best they can be. They may not realize it, but these friends have affected many people in good ways. One example of this is a person I met a while ago who, when I met him, was a very quite person. He has been part of this group of friends, and over the past few years I have seen him change. He has become a person who you can carry a conversation with without any problem. Through this group of friends he has become more confident.

As I look at these experiences I wonder if I have ever said anything that has ever hurt someone.
I realize that my opinion of people often effects what I say to them. For instance, when I am with someone I don’t like, I tend to have a frustrated tone in my voice even though I try not to make it evident that I don’t like that person. Where as when I am around people that I don’t have any problem with I tend to be very sarcastic. If I am very angry with someone, I tend to show that anger, and I think that is when I say things that can be hurtful. So I guess I have something to work on there. In most cases, I try to keep my mouth shut and listen until I am required to talk, that way I can keep the hurtful comments to a minimum.

Anyway, what do you think about how words and actions effect people?

Halloween

So today is Halloween.
As you know, Google does some changes to there logo and to other things during holidays. So here is what they changed.





I expected them to change more, but they didn't.
If I notice something different later, I will post an update.

Also, at work today we had a costume contest. Here is what everyone dressed up as.

(from the right - Jake-Baby, Jr.-Slasher, Cory-Boy Scout, Josh-Grandma, Rich Captain Jake, Alyse-In and Out Burger Waitress, Ted-Nocho Lebro, Rachelle-Country Folk, Alejandro-Hippie, Matt-Rocker, Brad-Falling Stock Market, Me-Hunter, Alberto-I don't remember what he called it, and Mark-Santa)

Not pictured is Steven who dressed up as a Scottish Missionary wearing a kilt. He did it to tease me.

I thought the best one was Grandma, because that does not look like Josh at all.
But the person who won the contest was Jake as the Baby.

So that is it.

What did you do for Halloween, what did you dress up as?

Cars Toon

Yesterday Toon Disney Premiered a new series called Car Toons.
Although I do not have Toon Disney, I read about it in the Disney and More Blog.

To Start off with, here is the logo.

Basically they are little 3 minute shorts about cars. The ones that premiered yesterday were about Mater.





Here are the videos from youtube.








These shorts come from Pixar, and are directed by John Lasseter who you may recognize as the director of these movies.

* For the Birds (2000)
* Monsters, Inc. (2001)
* Finding Nemo (2003)
* The Incredibles (2004)
* One Man Band (2005)
* Mater and the Ghostlight (2006)
* Meet the Robinsons (2007)
* Ratatouille (2007)
* WALL-E (2008)

Last Weekend

Last weekend I went to St. George, and Los Vegas to help with a Marching Band Competitions. It was the Marching Bands Band Tour, and so they did a few fun things that I got to participate in.

So Friday, after a 3 hour drive, we got to St. George and went to this Fun Center to visit meet the band which had been there for a few hour before we got there. The Fun Center was okay; it had an Arcade, a go cart track, and a mini golf course. We played a game of mini golf, and I rode the go carts which were a little small to fit a big guy like me into. Being with the band, we were given 10 tokens to play games at the arcade. And if you win, you get a ticket to win a prize. Well I was not doing to good with the tokens, but my dad who was with us was using one of those games where you try to hit the dump switch on a dump truck. I know you have all seen them. Anyway, he hit the switch, and the truck had a bunch of coins in it. So we sat there for 10 minutes waiting for the machine to spit out 250 tickets. So we got our self’s some prizes. There are just cheep prizes that would be cheaper to buy at Wal-Mart then to try and win at the arcade.

After that we went over to the competition, at Dixie Collage. It was just like any other marching band competition. Not very well organized and very boring. At a marching band competition, the routine is Hurry up and Wait.
The band won the Best Drum Line Award.

After that the band when back to there hotel at St. George, and I went to Las Vegas to stay with my mothers aunt. So another 2.5 hours later we arrive there.

Saturday we got up at 7:00 AM Utah time to meat the band at the Competition at UNLV at 7:30 AM Los Vegas time. Another Hurry up and wait.
This time the band did not win anything.

Later that night we went to the Hard Rock Café for dinner with the band. Let me tell you, don’t waist $22.50 for the food, you can go to A&W and get a better burger and fries for $5.50.



Then we went to The Phantom of the Opera play on the Strip in Los Vegas. The play was in The Venetian Hotel. The hotel was nice, but just like anything in Los Vegas, the main focus is the Casino, which in my option should be made illegal in all 50 states.

However, the play was great. It was more then I thought it would be. The Theater was custom made for that play. There was a awesome Chandelier that hung right in the middle of the theater that fell just down toward the audience during the play. If you understand the plot of the play, you will understand why this happened. But the most amazing part was the Fireworks inside the theater, and all the things that came out of the stage. At one time there was this wall that was over 20 ft by 20 feet that came out of the stage.
And they had these smoke machines that layered the stage with a thick smoke that looked just like a fog covered lake. It was very well done. It was expensive to get in, but it was worth it.



Anyway, then Sunday we drove home for 6 hours.

So that was my weekend.

Google Sketch Up

Recently I was given the assignment here at work to make a bunch of Google Sketchup models of our products so that Landscape Architects can use them to design there jobs before they order.
So I went and downloaded the free version of Google Sketchup an started working with it. I had used Google Sketchup before, and did not like it, but I decided to try again.

Anyway, I started using it, and the things that I did not like where still there. But there are some cool features that I like to. The big thing that I didn't like was the way that dimensions work in Google Skechup. But I did like the ability to map textures on a object, and the ability to place the models in Google Earth. Anyway,
I modeled all of our different parts for are SimTek Fence. If you like to see these models, you can click here and look at them or download them.

I also started creating models of different installs which will be available in Google Earth. The first one I made is available here. It is the layout of our fence at our facility.




Anyway, if you would like, try out Google Sketchup, and try using some of my models. Let me know what you think.

-- I am still looking for a Halloween costume, so if you have any ideas, let me know.--

Halloween Costume

So Halloween is coming up. And even though it is not really something I would "get dressed up for", the company I work for, SimTek Fence, is having a "Lunch Party" for Halloween. As part of the party they are giving out prizes for costumes. So I may try to figure something out that I can do. I need some ideas though. I have been thinking about doing something relation to computers, but that is as deep as my thoughts have went.

Also, as the month goes on, I will be adding to the Picasa web album of Halloween pictures for different places around the glob. These pictures mainly come from blogs. This album is shown below.

Anyway, let me know if you have any ideas for a costume for me.

Imagine if you will

The following is a story from a bunch of thoughts that I have had floating around my mind lately.
It is based on 4 things. The first is the Book of Mormon, the second is a book – “The Tennis Shoes among the Nephietes – The Feathered Serpent” and the third is a LDS movie that I can not remember the name of, but it is centered around a boy and what he goes thought as Christ comes to the Americas. And forth is my own thoughts and testimony.

    It was the third day of the first month of the thirty third years since the sign had been given. I was among the few faithful Nephites that still awaited the saviors coming. We were traveling to the land bountiful with our leader Nephi the son of Nephi. The unfaithful people of Zarahemla had kicked us out of the lands that were rightly ours. Nephi had told us that the Savior would be coming soon and that we must be in Bountiful before he arrives.
    Travel was hard; the ground kept shaking under our feet. The sakes were like none I had ever felt before; some were long like the earth was shaking with pain, while others were short and soft. At one time the shakes where in a rhythm, almost like the earth was being hit with a hammer.
    Just as we arrived in bountiful and started setting up our tents, there came a wall of clouds from the west. I had never seen such a color of clouds; they were so dark that it made my hairs stand up in fear.
    Nephi yelled for every one to set up there tents quickly and get inside.
    We had just got all of the tents set up when suddenly a strong wind hit the walls of the tent. Then it went dark. The darkness was so think we could not make a fire or burn a candle for light. Off in the distance I could see flames as high as the moon shooting in the air from where the land of Zarahemla was located. As the storm beat down on the tent roof, we sat inside holding each other tight for safety and comfort. The wind and rain was so grate that I feared our tent would blow right into the rising river.
    After about three hours the storm stopped, and everything when quiet, all I could hear was the soft cries of lost soles off in the distance.
    A bit of time had passed when I heard a voice. My family had heard it to. The voice said that many of the cities had been destroyed. Even the great Zarahemla had been destroyed by fire.
    After the voice stopped, it was quiet again for many hours. Then slowly I started to hear the cries for lost loved ones killed in the storm.

    After the space of about three days I woke up to the light of twinkling stars in the sky. As the sun rose above the horizon to the east everything was different. Highways where torn up, mountains where in places that there use to be valleys, even the rivers had changed there roughs. As I looked around, the company of Nephites I had been with seamed to be camped on one of the few unchanged places in the land.
    As soon as we checked to make sure everyone was okay, we immediately got to work rebuilding the damaged temple. As we worked on the temple we talked about what had happened. We talked about what we had felt and seen while the storm was upon us. One had seen a great ball of fire shoot from the top of a volcano, while another had seen a massive twister tearing up the ground near the city of Moronihah.
    We also talked about the savior. We had heard he would be coming to visit us, but we didn’t know when. As we where talking about the Savior I heard something. Well it wasn’t really that I heard something, but more that I felt something. I looked around to see if any one else had felt it to. Every one around me had felt the same things.
I felt it again, but this time I also heard something. I was not sure what it was. I did not hear it clearly. I turned my eyes towards the source of the sound. Everyone around me did the same. Then I heard it again. This time I understood. The voice said “Behold, My Beloved son in whom I am well pleased. In whom I have glorified my name. Hear ye him”.
    As I listened to the voice, an angle appeared and descended upon the steps of the temple. I did not know what to do. I did not know what to say. Every one around me started to kneel, so I did the same.
    The Angle spoke unto us saying: “I am Jesus the Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come unto the world. And behold I am the light and the life of the world and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the father hath given me. And have glorified the father in taking upon me the sins of the world. In the which I have suffered the will of the father.”
    This was the savior. He had come. I knew he would.
  He then said:” Arise and come unto me and feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet and thrust thy hand into my side that you may know that I am he of who the prophets spoke.”
    I arose and got in line to go unto him. I was so excited to meat him.
    As I stood in line to meat him, it hit me, this was the savior of the world. He has lived and died for me. He knew me. He loved me. He has suffered for me. Because of him I can return unto the father some day.
  Suddenly it was my turn to meet this man. But as I approached him my knees fell limp and I fell to my knees at his feet. All I could do was bath his feet with my tears. I could not stand; I could not look into his eyes. He was so perfect, and I was not. As I knelt there I felt his hand against my arm and he helps me stand. I felt as though I was floating. I did not feel my legs under me but I was standing. As I stood there looking into his eyes the fear left me. I loved this man. I knew he loved me. I could see it in his eyes. As I felt the prints in his hands and in his feet, I felt a small understanding of what he had gone through for me.
    As I turned to allow the next person in line to meet the Savior, I made a promise to my self to do my best to keep the saviors love in my life.


I wrote this down a few times, but I have never shared it with any one before.
I can not guarantee that every word is correct in this as far as a realistic account. It is just how I imagine it.
I tried to put thing in there from the Book of Mormon, but it is not all from the Book of Mormon, so do not consider it a true account, but think of it as an idea that you can think about and study about and get your own feeling for. I love the Savior and I know that he has died for me. I know that through the savior’s atonement I can return to my Father in Heaven Some Day.

Now I would like to know what you think. Do you have any thoughts or a different point of view on this story that you would like to share. If you could of lived in this time, how would you of felt? What would you of done?

Light

I am one who likes to think about things until I ether figure them out, or find something else to think about.
Anyway, lately I have been thinking about a idea I have had about projection things in 3d.
Now I know that this is not a original idea of mine, I have seen it in some Future - SIFI movies, but as of yet, it does not really exist.

So the way we project things right now is to take a LCD Projector and project something directly on a surface. This is a great concept, and we have done a lot with this.
But what if we could project Light on Light.

Is projecting light on light possible. I don't think so. Light does not have any physical characteristics. It can not inhabit a space. It can travel though space, but it also can travel through itself. For instance if you take a flash light and shine it, you will see a dot on a wall where the light hits. But if you keep that flash light shining on the wall, and take another flash light and shine it towards another wall causing the light paths to cross, you will still see the light spots on the walls. They will look just as clear as if we were not going thought light. Now I imagine that this is important because if it was not this way, we would have weird things showing up, or not showing up in the sky.
Light is important to us as it is because we can see things with it. Everything we see is created by light. If there was no light, there would be no color, there would be no heat, and there would be no food.

But if we could change the way light reacts to itself in order to form a 3d model of something wouldn't it be cool. Think of the possibilities, 3d movies, 3d plays, 3d interactive video games.....

Anyway, I don't have a answer to the way to make that work. I think that the only way to do it is to set up a lot of projectors from a bunch of different points then create a smoke machine that can be shaped to any object, or something like that. You can project on smoke. If not smoke, something else may be the answer, I don't know. But it is something to think about anyway.

My Mission Call

I got my mission call today.
I am going to the Scotland Edinburgh Mission
I leave on Jan 2, 2009.
I report to the Preston England MTC that day.
Here is a map of my mission area.
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=114337695735962286082.000457d6e3b76a4fe406d&z=6
I will post a count down on my mission on here somewhere.

Googles 10th Birthday

As I mentioned yesterday, Google is celebrating there 10th birthday. The official day is September 7th, but I think that they are using celebrating the whole month.

On the Google time line page you can see a lot of the Google logos that have been used over the years.

In honor of Google's 10th birthday, I decided to post those here also, so here there are. There are 315 in this set, but I know there are more then just these.

My website

I have made a small change to my site that I think you may want to know about.
I have changed my domain name from gbfarns16.googlepages.com to gfportfolio.googlepages.com
So now my home page is gfportfolio.googlepages.com/index.html.

I have set up all of my old pages to link to my new pages so that if you have my page bookmarked, it will automatically redirect you.

Street View Guy

Today I was using Google Street View in Google Maps, and I came a cross a special street view guy.




I know, it is not a very high quality image, but as you can see, the Google guy is holding balloons, and has a party hat on.
The people at Google like to play around with there characters some times, for instance, on Valentines Day there was a heart instead of the usual orange guy. But they usually have a purpose behind it.
I searched Google, but was unable to find anything about it. If any one knows what it is for, please let me know.


--Update--
It appears that today is Googles 10th birthday, that would explain the weird google street view guy.

Pandora Poster Contest

A while ago I talked about Pandora, well they have been having a poster contest.
The contest was to viualize what Pandora does with music.

Here are the to 25 that they chose out of all of the posters submitted.

I would like to here which one you like.

If you have a Votigo account, you can go to the website and vote for your favorite there.

My Website Version 3.0

Well I have done it again. I have changed the way my website works.

Originally when I made the site design, I wanted the area under inside the frame of wood to be the only place for stuff. I did not want the page to scroll at all. But I did not know how to make it to where the area that I wanted text was locked in size.

My multimedia teacher told me that it had to be done with frames, so I tried that, but could never get it to work.

Well the other day I came across a page where this technique was used, so I decide to look at the source code.

Here is what I found
div align="center" id="imges" style="positon:absolute; width:820px; height:615px; zindex:12; left:250px; top:170px; overflow:auto;"

Once I realized how this work, I was eager to put it on my pages, so now all of my pages use the script above to diplay there data.

So I implimented this into my sites, I also shifted some things around so that it fits on the page better.
I also got ride of the multiple director pages, and just used one.

Anyway, I have quite a few changes still in my mind, but this one is up for you all to look at. Once again if you don't know the url, you can Click Here.

Google Chrome

Yesterday marked another first for Google. The folks over at google have been working on this project called Google Chrome. It was finally released yesterday.
Google Chrome is a web browser similar to Firefox or internet explorer. It is open source just like Firefox, which means that anyone can get the code and edit it or play around with it.
From what I am understanding from Google, the purpose of Chrome is to create ideas that other web browsers can implement.

Now as many of you know, I run some websites. The first is for my company which is Simtek Fence. The other one is my GPC site. So I wanted to make sure that my sites work with this new browser, so I downloaded it. Luckily both my sites work fine.

But since I did download it, I thought maybe I would share some of my thought about it.
At first glance, it looks a lot like IE (Internet Explorer) with one notable difference. The tabs are on the top. Now you know I don’t like IE at all, so naturally I would of stopped here, but I love google, so I decided to explore a little. It has quite a few features that IE does not have. For instance, free tab browsing, and the “omni bar”, the bar that suggests where you may want to go. I also like the new tab page which looks a lot like Opera’s Speed Dial Page. It has a few features that allow developers like me to see what is going on, like a JavaScript Debugger, and a memory usage area. It also is set up to where it show your most used sites. In Google’s words “when you start a new tab, you want to go somewhere”, usually that place is one of your most visited sites, so right there on your new tab page is your most used sites.
Chrome also has a nice download feature, and the google team is set on giving you as much room on your screen as possible, so everything you are use to having like that status bar are invisible until you need them.

Now for some of the things that I do not like.
I am a avid user of Firefox. And I will always recommend it. Google chrome was created with help of Mozilla, but it is not quite the same. Even thought Chrome has the JavaScript debugger and the memory usage thing, it lacks on the ability to be customized. It is one color, and is not change able, just like IE. It also has all of the menu features hidden on the side under a little wrench button. I like to have the menus up on top. It is also in Bata right now which means that there are errors.

I think that once they get all of the features rolled out, and get everything fixed, it could be my favorite browser. Right now it stands at second.

Out of all of the browser out there, here are the ones I prefer in order from best to worst.
(If you would like to try any of these browsers you can click on the link.)
Mozilla Firefox
Google Chrome
Apple Safari
Opera
Internet Explorer

GPC Anger

I am still a little mad about Google Page Creator (GPC) being shut down.
If any of you feel the same way, please visit this site.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/googlepagesalive/signatures-1.html

Google Page Creator

As you all know, I love to play around with, and develop my website. Well today I was reading a Google Group discussion on Google Page Creator. Google Page Creator is where I host my site. Anyway, this Discussion was said that Google is now transitioning all of there Google Page Creator stuff to there new program Google Sites. Now I understand that Google Page Creator was a Google Lab Program, and it was not necessarily going to be continued, and I would be fine with the transition except that Google Sits does not allow me to upload my HTML pages. Now surprisingly Google has not realized that 90 % of the users of Google Page Creator have put a JavaScript Redirect on there Google Page Creator Home page, that redirects to there real home page that is a HTML file.

Anyway, so in short, I am temporarily mad at Google, and I need a new place to host my site.
If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Tech Topia Challenge

Last Friday and Saturday I attended the Tech Topia Challenge at Neumont University.
The purpose behind the Challenge was to show prospective students kind of what it would be like to attend the school.
I personally found it very interesting. I have always considered attending Neumont; I just had not dived into the details very much.




Neumont University is a school located in South Jordan, Utah. It is focused 100% towards computers. The idea that Neumont goes by is that you learn better if you actually experience the environment that you will be working in. They do not teach things that are not needed, instead, they teach everything that you need to know then put you to work using it in a real world environment. They do this by partnering with some of the leading technology companies like IBM, Microsoft, and EBay to allow you to work on projects that those companies are working on. For instance, Microsoft has allowed Neumont to use the early release of Microsoft Visual Studios 2010 for testing, and Neumont can submit ideas and changes to Microsoft that will be used in the final release of Visual Studios 2010. This will not even be released for two more years.
The part the is really impressive is that most students complete the course in less then 2 years or less. At a standard University it would take 4 or more years.

Anyway, the Challenges included doing some programming using a program called Green Foot, doing some logics tests, creating a XNA game for the computer, or for the Xbox, and creating a simple flash webpage.

They also had a Wii there with Rock Band, which a lot of people played when ever they could.

After the Tech Topia Challenges, they had a few awards (scholarships). I received a $2,000 scholarship from them.

They made a video of what we did, it is embedded below.

Website Change

Well I have made a few significant changes to my website.
First, is the look, I have changed how the site looks from the old version seen below.



To this new version.




The new version is more dynamic. Each page has a different header image, instead of saying my name all of the time.

I have also added a little bit of JavaScript to my pages. First of all, I added a few more mouse over effects. They are cool, but they are not the best when it comes to download speed. They tend to slow things down a little when opening the site.

I also added a new page called Calendar. It has a cool little JavaScript Clock on it that tells the current time. It also has my shared calendar from Google Calendar embedded in it, so that you can see if I have anything planed and plan around it.

Along with the JavaScript I added a little browser message. In earlier posts I talked about how my page was not working in Internet explorer. Well using JavaScript, if you view my site in internet explorer, it will come up in the bottom left corner of the screen under the wood it will say "You are currently using Microsoft Internet Explorer. This site is best view in Mozilla Firefox. If you do not have Firefox, now would be a good time to get it." And will have a link to download firefox. Along with that if you are using Opera, it will say the same thing only replacing the words Microsoft Internet Explorer with the word Opera.
But if you open my site in Safari, or Firefox it will say "Thank you for not using Microsoft Internet Explorer to view this site."
This is done using a function called navigator.appName in JavaScript, it returns the current browser name. I then set up a simple If - Then Function to regulate the response to each browser.

If you are interested in learning how to use JavaScript to make a clock or to make a dynamic message on you page, let me know, I will gladly give you a few pointers.

Pixar

Many of you know that I like Pixar Movies, but let me explain why. Pixar is a company that uses 3d animation program called Renderman to make there movies. Renderman is a program that Pixar created. Anyway, they put extensive time and effort into making all of these characters and objects into a movie so that it looks real.






All of the Pixar movies to date look just like the real thing, except for the people in the Incredibles, but that is because they are super heroes. A company such as Pixar has to make there movie so that people will believe them. They have to make the movies so that the people look at the movie and story line, and not the animation. Now this personally makes it very hard for me because I like to watch movies for 3 reasons, first is to see what special effects are in the movie, to get ideas for what I may want to do in the future, and second for the story line. When a movie such ad Pixars recent Wall-E, is done well, it makes it very hard for me to focus on the animation. I tend to focus on the story line instead of the animation. It takes me 3 or 4 times before I start to pay attention to all of the special effects and 3d animation.



Now I personally like 3d animation. And when I finally look at the movies at an animation stand point, they always impress me. The complexity of the scenes is just amazing. I personally have done a little bit of 3d animation which you can see on my website, but I have not ever done anything as complex as what Pixar has done.



Another thing that impresses me about Pixar is that they always try something new. In Finding Nemo for instance, they learned and implemented the idea and ability to make a scene look like it was underwater. The water in Finding Nemo looks so much like real water that if you did not know it was 3d animated, you would have no clue that it was not real. Another example is in Monsters Inc. Sulleys hair was, from what I understand very hard to make look real and move correctly. They had to build a separate gravitational field in order to accomplish this.



Pixar is also very creative, they like to put objects from other shows into there movies. For instance, the Pizza truck form Toy Story has appeared in every movie since Toy Story 2. To see a full list of these instances, click here.



To this date, Pixar has made 9 full length movies. Toy Story, Bugs Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WALL-E along with many short films including For The Birds, Jack Jack Attack, and the most recent Presto and Bern-E (Bern-E will be released with Wall-E the DVD).



Since Pixar puts so much time and effort into all of there movies, they have to start them many years in advanced. Pixar has 6 Upcoming movies between now and 2012. Those movies are

Up (2009),



Toy Story 3 (2010)




Newt (2011)




The Bear and the Bow (2011)




Cars 2 (2012)




John Carter of Mars (Before 2012). No Picture Available

It looks like Pixar has a lot of work on there hands.

Lively

Google recently released a program called Google Lively. It is a 3d "Chat room" where you can go and create a aviator then go into rooms and talk to people.
Although I do not like chat rooms, this is a little different, it is something that I would actually recommend.
There are a few problems that have not been worked out yet, but I am sure that Google will get them fixed soon.
Also, as expected, many people have been creating immodest or immoral rooms. But you can stay away from them. The rooms that I tend to visit are the official Google room, or the world room.
I have also created a room called the great old west. You can get into it by going to this site.
To learn about lively visit the lively site.
Have fun with it and let me know what you think of it.

Firefox VS Internet Explorer

I think it is time to talk about browsers.
I have lately been working on my website.
And today I decided to check my website with the 4 most popular browsers. Internet Explorer (IE), Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Opera. When programing my site, I have just been checking it in Firefox because that is what I use, and what I prefer. Well being a website developer you need to make sure that your site is compatible with all browsers, so I decided to check. Here is what I found.

FireFox



Internet Explorer


Safari


Opera



Can anyone spot any differences in the photos other then the different picture in the text.
If you think that the IE picture looks weird, you are right. The reason is because all browsers follow a set of Internet Standards which where set up when HTML was created, Except for IE. Microsoft as a company likes to do things there own way, and come up with there own way. As a developer, this just makes my job harder. I personally do not like Internet Explorer because of this reason. Hence my Google User Icon.



I did not make this image, but it fits, so I am using it.

Anyway, I am not going to change my site to work with internet explorer, so you will have to use a different browser. If you want a real web browser, get Firefox, you can use the link below to do so.

Electric Lake

We went up to electric lake last weekend. It was okay up there. Hot in the day and cold at night. The flies were bad, and the fishing was not very good either. Usually when we go up there we catch a bunch of fish, but it was not as good this time, until Saturday night. I then caught 2. It was cloudy and raining that night, and so the fishing was better. I will tell you though it was interesting to bring a fish in while the rain was hitting the water, the waves were like 12’ high, and the wind was trying to blow us backwards. But I got that fish in.

That is an interesting lake, at the dam, our fish finder said 213 feet deep. That is a deep lake.
Many people don’t know much about the lake, but it was actually created by Utah Power and Light back in the eighties. They built the dam, and they control it. Before they filled up the lake, there was this old ghost town in the bottom somewhere called Connellsville. About 4 years ago they discovered that the lake was leaking into a mine somewhere around there, so they dropped the water about 50 feet to see if they could fix the problem. They started pumping the water from the mine back into the lake. Anyway, I do not know what is going on with that mine now, but the lake is full again, and the water from the mine is still flowing in.

One trip a few years ago, we were fishing, trolling on the lake, and all of a sudden I got a fish. Well I started reeling in, but I couldn’t reel in. That fish was pulling hard on that hook. My fishing pole looked like a horse shoe. I was fighting that fish for a good 10 seconds with my pole bent over to the side of the boat. Then my line broke. I was using 8 lb test line, but that fish just broke it like it was a tooth pick. It must have been a good sized fish down there. I never got to see that fish, but it would of probably of been the biggest fish I would ever have on.

Anyway, I had some pictures, but they got deleted on accident. I will have to get some from my brother and post them.

Below I have included a map of the lake, incase you don’t know where it is at.

View Larger Map

My Website

I have finally got to putting all of my stuff on my website. Well some of my stuff on my website.
I will continue to put stuff on it, but if you want to take a look, you can visit it at http://gbfarns16.googlepages.com/index.html.
Let me know what you think.
I know that a lot of pages are saying that they are under construction. I just made them, and I have not put anything on them yet, but I will edventually put stuff on them, Maybe.

Wall-E

Post Number 3 for today.

I went and seen Disney-Pixars Wall-E. It was better then I expected, and I expected a lot, it being a Pixar movie and all. In case you don’t know, Pixar uses a program called Render Man to make there movies. Render Man is a Software Program Created by Pixar specifically for 3d animation. Anyway, back to Wall-E. As many of you know, I tend to watch movies to look at the effects and all of the tricks that are in the movie. I was extremely impressed on this movie, Pixar took some time made Wall-E the robot a very complex character. The most impressive part of Wall-E the robot, was how his solar panel unfolds. It was amazing. I do not want to spoil the movie to much for you, so I will not say much more about it, but I would recommend seeing it.

Google Reader

Post Number 2 for today
Some of you know that I use Google Reader to read blogs so that I do not have to visit the websites of the blogs all the time.
I am currently subscribed to 55 different blogs. But let me tell you the story behind why I use google reader, and why I am subscribed to so many blogs.
Most of you know that I am very interested and keen to technology, and media. I originally started using google reader and reading blogs so that I could keep up with all of the current things that Google and other companies are doing in media and technology. Since I started using Google Reader, I have increased what I read and what I am interested in. Although 14 of those 55 blogs are from Google, or Google related, I also find that I am reading many blogs related to space and NASA. In fact 5 of my subscriptions are to NASA sites. Anyway, let me get to the point here, I know that most of you do not like to use a Blog reader, but I have another good reason for you to use one. On the LDS.org site there are many blogs you can subscribe to. Many of them are great, but If you are going to read them I would recommend using a reader such as Google Reader. That way you can subscribe to multiple sites, and can view them all in one site.
In order go use a Reader you must get a account. Like all other services, Google reader is free, and 99.9% of all Blogs are free to subscribe to.
Once you create an account, all you have to do is look for the little orange RSS Feed button on a page, like the one listed below. There are many different views of these feed buttons, but they are almost always orange, and always have the white shape on them.


You just click on that button, it is that simple, and then you can read anything that any of these blogs post without even visiting the sites.

Re: Simtek Fence

It looks like I am going to be posting three times today. Here is the first one. If you don’t know, I work for SimTek Fence. I manage there website along with other things. On my original post, and the reason I started posting is so I could increase the standings of the SimTek Fence Website. By putting blog posts and likes all over the internet, a search engine thinks that the site is more popular then it really is, therefore it increases the standing of the website in the search engine. It is called Website Optimization. It is complicated stuff. Anyway, I started posting in order to use my blog as a location to help boost the stats of that site. I realized just recently that my blog is set to where Google does not see it, which makes my attempt to at increasing the site states almost useless. The only way it helps is to have other people click on the links provided in the text. That way it references it as a bounce, and not a link. Anyway, I don’t want to go into to much detail. If I do, I will probably confuse every one.

Nerd

Nerd:
1. An intelligent but single-minded person obsessed with a nonsocial hobby or pursuit.
2. A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept.

Does that sound like someone we know?

My Blog Content

I thought I would take a minute and talk about all of the stuff on my side bar, and bottom bar. So here we go.
The first thing you see if a box with a bunch of things links in it. This is a read my favorite blog posts from all of the blogs that I read. I use a program called Google reader, which allows me to share my favorite blog posts. Once I push share on Google reader it show up in this box. You will see posts from multiple blogs in this box including things about Google, and about NASA along with many other things.
The second thing you will see is a photo feed that is reading the Google logos that someone has put together and posted on Picasa web albums. The photo should change every once in a while.
The third thing is a feed from my Pandora Radio account. It is displaying my bookmarked artists.
The forth thing is a bunch of videos from Simtekfence.com. I like there fence, and so I thought I would post these videos on my blog.
The fifth thing is the "subscribe to this blog" link on the bottom of the page. If you click on this it allows you to save my blog to Google reader or any other reader that you choose.
Anyway, that is it for now.

Pandora Radio

Recently I discovered Pandora Radio. It is a website where you can go and listen to music from your favorite artist. The program also chooses songs that are similar to the songs by that artist. It is quite a thing. To find out more about it, visit www.pandora.com.