Holiday Hiatus

Not surprisingly, I underestimated how much time, energy, etc. the moving, cleaning, painting, etc. would take -- plus toss in Christmas and New Years for good measure! So, in order to not go completely insane, I'm doing the sensible thing and taking a break from the blogging for a couple weeks. I'll see you after the new year, and it will most likely be with a slightly less intense blogging schedule until post-CES. (For those that aren't in the technology world, CES is the Consumer Electronics Show; it's held every year in Las Vegas, and I usually go to cover the show for my job at AnandTech -- and I'll be there this year once again.)

Take care!
Jarred

December 20, 2012: It's Official!

Today marks a big milestone in the life of the Washington Walton Clan: it's the first time my wife and I have ever bought a house. Hooray! No more renting, no more landlords, no more wondering if our rent payments will go up at the end of the lease, and no more wondering what we can and can't do with the yard, house, rooms, etc. It's something we've been wanting for years, but there were times when I never thought it would actually happen. But I'm getting ahead of myself; let's start with the quick rundown of the day.

The morning was spent catching up on email and such, as usual, but I also checked in with Alex (realtor), Dallon (bank loan officer/2nd counselor), and Edith (escrow agent). At the start of the day, things were starting to feel a bit iffy as far as whether we could close today or if it wouldn't be until tomorrow. Apparently there was a $100 discrepancy between what the escrow company had on their papers and what the lending bank had on theirs, so naturally that had to get worked out, and who knows how long that would take!

What's more, I've been struggling to get motivated on the last stages of packing -- things like my office are a mess, and I have been waiting to just start taking computers and laptops and such to the new house. Hearing we might not close just takes even more energy out of you. Then around 12:30PM, Alex actually dropped by to get us to sign a one-day extension of the closing date, "just in case". Arrrgh! He commented something like, "Yeah, I'm not sure we'll be able to close today, but we'll close by tomorrow for sure." I responded, "No way -- think positive! We will close today!" What really stinks is that the house is empty, Alex can drop by the county to get the keys, but we can't claim the house until it's registered at the county. So we wait, and try to get motivated.

Around 2:30PM, Alex dropped by to give me the keys, but we were still waiting for the final say on when we'd close. But, now things were looking better -- apparently the discrepancy was worked out. Alex gave me the keys to the house, but we still had to wait to go over. (Technically, I think he's not supposed to give us the keys, but what are we going to do? Start moving in while the listing agent is at the house cleaning up a few things?) Around 3:00PM, we were told that we would definitely be closing, though, which was awesome -- we just had to wait until the papers were officially filed with the county, which would be around 4:30PM, and that's basically what happened.

Unbeknownst to Becky, I had made plans for the evening as well. We were going to go check the house out, measure, and maybe even start painting the rooms that need work. But I also wanted to celebrate, so I called my friend Tom Nelson for advice on the best Thai food in town (Becky and I went to a Thai restaurant as one of our first dates ever, so I thought it would be a great way to celebrate); Tom recommended the Lemon Grass Cafe, and I had heard good things about the place but had never been there. I also arranged babysitting so we could go "work" at the new house. Of course, Becky had to ruin the surprise a bit by talking about dinner for the kids and babysitter, and I had to say, "We're going out" so that she wouldn't fix food for the two of us as well. But she didn't know where we were going at least!

Long story short, Sarah came by to babysit, we went out to dinner, and then we had dessert and checked out our home. We got the yellow curry with chicken (always a good bet -- and I liked the sweet potatoes added to the mix!) and something called Seven Flavor Beef, which was also really yummy with lots of sprouts. For dessert, we decided to go use our "O Card" (discount card from Olympia High School) and hit Dairy Queen for Blizzards. Then we went to the house and started looking for all the stuff we needed to buy/fix/change/etc. There are about 20 lights that need replacing, the toilets all have at least some minor issue (two have leaky gaskets and the master bedroom doesn't have the valve inside the top tank), nearly all of the curtain rods are gone (plus the ones that are there look like crap), the back screen door needs to be replaced, and there are some seriously nasty spots on the carpet in a couple rooms. We already knew all of this, but just going through and checking everything out to make our to do list, you quickly realize how much there is to buy! The refrigerator needs serious cleaning, three of the outdoor light fixtures need to be replaced, and there's still all the painting. Whew!

We didn't actually do any shopping/cleaning/work however, as Caleb and Corbin were both apparently unhappy (mostly Caleb) and Sarah needed some help. So after taking measurements and writing down most of our list, we headed home and called it a night. I finished off with some reading as usual, this time much of the concluding chapters of Alma where Moroni gets the Lamanites drunk and arms the prisoners so that they take over without any loss of life; and meanwhile, the heart of the Nephite lands is going to hell in a handbasket and singing merrily all the way. Moroni writes a letter, and says some things that I think many of us would do well to apply to our lives and society:

Alma 60: 11: "Behold, could ye suppose that ye could sit upon your thrones, and because of the exceeding goodness of God ye could do nothing and he would deliver you? Behold, if ye have supposed this ye have supposed in vain." (Book of Mormon, pp. 359) Or to paraphrase: "Do you think you can sit back and relax and take it easy and life will go well? That you can have everything you need and desire and all you need to do is ask for it? If that's the type of attitude you have, you're living a lie."

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages/day through the end of the year: Alma 55-60, pp. 346-361)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: No
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: No
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: No
6) One doTERRA blog post: Yes (From Treating Sickness to Promoting Wellness)
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): Yes
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: No
10) Contact doTERRA front line: Yes
11) 15 minutes organizing office area: Yes
12) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: No - moving week.
13) Early to bed, early to rise: No (1:30AM to 8:00AM)
14) One AnandTech pipeline or article: No

December 19, 2012: Phone Calls

I think today was my official phone call day. First, however, we got a notification from Verizon that we went over our plan minutes, which is a great way to start the day! I ended up using Skype for most of my calls, just so I wouldn't get hit with $0.37/minute overage charges -- what a complete joke! Anyway, I talked to Comcast, the power and gas company, and the trash company to get things set up at the new home. Here's hoping everything goes well and we still close tomorrow! Besides that, packing and a bit of work summed up the day.

For my Book of Mormon reading, today continued with the warring between the Nephites and Lamanites, adding Teancum and Lehi to the mix, and Amalickiah got the spear to the heart treatment from Teancum -- love that story, though I'm not sure it's what the Lord would actually want done. Anyway, that brings in Ammoron, the brother of Amalickiah, who's just as bad. After both sides take some prisoners, I love Moroni's response to Ammoron requesting a prisoner exchange:

Alma 54: 11: "But behold, it supposeth me that I talk to you concerning these things in vain; or it supposeth me that thou art a child of hell; therefore I will close my epistle by telling you that I will not exchange prisoners, save it be on conditions that ye will deliver up a man and his wife and his children, for one prisoner; if this be the case that ye will do it, I will exchange." (Book of Mormon, pp. 345)

Ah, we just can't get away with such language these days, can we? But that's not my real quote for the day. For that, I want to focus on something more inspiring:

Alma 50: 18-19: "And they did prosper exceedingly, and they became exceedingly rich; yea, and they did multiply and wax strong in the land. And thus we see how merciful and just are all the dealings of the Lord, to the fulfilling of all his words unto the children of men." (Book of Mormon, pp. 345)

For Seven Habits, I'm reading the chapter on habit 4: Think Win/Win. The basic idea is simple: in any interaction, if both sides don't come out happy, the result is not optimal. He gives six paradigms for human interaction (Win/Win, Win/Lose, Lose/Win, Lose/Lose, Win, and Win/Win or No Deal), then explains how each functions and why Win/Win (or No Deal) are the best options. But on the Win/Lose paradigm, which is how so much of the world functions, I found this statement enlightening:

‎"Most of life is not a competition. We don't have to live each day competing with our spouse, our children, our coworkers, our neighbors, and our friends. 'Who's winning in your marriage?' is a ridiculous question. If both people aren't winning, both are losing." (Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Think Win/Win, p. 209)

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages/day through the end of the year: Alma 49-54, pp. 330-345)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: Yes (Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, pp. 204-216)
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: No
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: No
6) One doTERRA blog post: Yes (Oregano Comparison Revisited)
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): Yes
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: No
10) Contact doTERRA front line: Yes
11) 15 minutes organizing office area: Other packing most of day, but yes.
12) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: No - moving week.
13) Early to bed, early to rise: No (2:00AM to 9:30AM)
14) One AnandTech pipeline or article: No

December 18, 2012: Closing Time

Today was crazy. There's no other way to put it. First thing to mention is that our loan officer had sent the necessary paperwork to the escrow company yesterday, and we were hoping to hear back from them and get things moving forward. Now, we're dealing with ServiceLink, who works for Fannie Mae, which basically means they work for the government. I'm not saying all government employees are slow, but there's a lot of red tape and such and things can take longer than expected. So, yesterday at around 3PM our loan officer sent the papers to the bank and we were left waiting to hear when we'd get to meet with a notary and sign all the important papers. 5PM came and went with no word from ServiceLink, so contacting them was on my top priority list for the morning.

At around 10AM, I called the number I have to see what was happening. "I just literally got the email from your loan officer about five minutes ago; I've been looking it over and I'll be contacting a mobile notary and they'll get in touch with you shortly." Now, if she received the email five minutes ago, that's really weird, because ServiceLink received the papers yesterday and confirmed with our loan officer that they had received them. Ugh. But they said they would contact a notary and we'd hear from him and then figure out where to meet up and sign the papers. Great.

We waited some more, and I was getting antsy as we neared 11AM -- and so was my wife. I told her I was going to shower and if no one called before I was done, "heads would roll" or something like that. LOL. So anyway, I finished my shower and I got out 20 minutes later (with my toddler having joined me), and just as I was drying off my phone rang...with the notary. We set up the meeting for 12:30PM, which would be right up against the deadline for getting things done today.

Caleb was asleep, Corbin and I still needed to get dressed, and we had about four or five inches of snow last night so that wasn't going to help matters. Our house is half packed up with clothes no longer in the dressers and closets, boxes are everywhere, etc. But, the good news is we made it to the bank where we would meet with the notary (with our loan officer there as well -- something the notary said he has never had a bank willing to do before! Thanks Dallon!)

We signed all the papers, but there were a couple missing items: first, we needed to wire the remaining closing costs and deposit to the escrow agency. Fine. Second, and a bit of a surprise: I needed a valid driver's license, and mine had expired last month. I sort of laughed, because my loan officer has known me for five years, and I have a license that was valid for several years and has my picture that suddenly doesn't work as ID. I understand saying it's not valid for driving, but come on: it's still me on the card! After signing, we had to run me to the DMV, my wife went to the bank, and we figured we'd hook back up in a bit. Except, the DMV was understaffed because about half of the employees called off thanks to the snow in the morning. Which meant my 25 minute wait time took about 75 minutes. But, all's well that ends well and we got everything done. Hopefully everything gets processed quickly and properly and we'll close on Thursday, especially since I've now scheduled my Internet service to be disconnected on Friday morning. Yikes!

After the craziness of the morning and early afternoon, my wife and I decided to celebrate by going and visiting our (soon to be) new house, and then we went on a drive to a little place called A Taste of Eden where we wanted to buy some yummy balsamic vinegar as a gift for some family members. Sadly, they were closed today because of a family gathering. Just one of those days.... ;-)

My Book of Mormon reading for the day covered the beginning of the "big wars" among the Nephites and Lamanites, with the introduction of Captain Moroni. We also meet some very wicked people, specifically Amalickiah. Anyway, I love the description Mormon gives of Captain Moroni; I'm not going to quote the whole section, but basically Alma 48: 11-13 and some other verses give a description of the character of Moroni; then we get this awesome statement of his character:

Alma 48: 17: "If all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men." (Book of Mormon, pp. 329)

Is it any wonder that Mormon, the great prophet that took all the records of the Nephites and abridged/edited/summarized them in the Book of Mormon, when he had a son he named him Moroni? You can see just how much Mormon respected and loved Captain Moroni with those verses. I also caught up on some "good book" reading with the Seven Habits:

‎"One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, we build the trust of those who are present. When you defend those who are absent, you retain the trust of those present." (Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Paradigms of Interdependence, p. 196)

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages/day through the end of the year: Alma 43-48, pp. 313-330)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: Yes (Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Paradigms of Interdependence, pp. 185-203)
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: No
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: No
6) One doTERRA blog post: Yes (Quick Addendum on Oil Pulling)
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): Yes (I got mentioned by name in the leadership call by Kirk -- woot!)
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: Talked to people at DMV; no mention of doTERRA, though.
10) Contact doTERRA front line: No
11) 15 minutes organizing office area: Other packing
12) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: No
13) Early to bed, early to rise: No (1:30AM to 9:00AM)
14) One AnandTech pipeline or article: No (Edited Corsair SSD article; should post tomorrow)

December 17, 2012: Week Five

Monday, the start of yet another week, which means I should be checking in on my weekly as well as daily tasks. I think I forgot to do that last week, so I'm going to get that out of the way this week and commit to doing better!

I got off to a bit of a sluggish start today, I have to admit -- the two boys are not sleeping that well, particularly Corbin, probably because of all the packing. I got up and let him watch Kipper the Dog for almost two hours while I tried to sleep a bit more on the couch. Caleb was wandering around downstairs as well while Becky tried to get more sleep upstairs; how he managed to stay out of trouble I don't know, but he survived my napping until I finally started the day at around 9:30AM.

After breakfast and checking the inbox, I discovered that I had an AMD call coming up at 11:30AM, and that they were going to let us discuss the contents of the press briefing immediately following the call. That kicked off a rather hectic three hours as I put together the content of a short article. You can read my summary if you're interested, but basically AMD is announcing the Radeon HD 8000M line earlier than expected. The lower performance parts are all using a new GPU design, while the higher end 8800M series will basically use the same core architecture as 7800M, only clocked lower on the GPU and higher on the RAM. The new GPU for the lower tier cards was actually a bit of a surprise, though, so that was nice.

Most of my other work today involved getting stuff packed up to ship off, including four laptops that should have all gone out a long time ago. Sorry AVADirect and Eurocom! Your hardware is in the mail, now, and it's all still in good condition. I also had to schedule a U-Haul van for moving on Saturday, and then try to make sure the closing date is still going to happen. I think Fannie Mae is like most government stuff: slow, ponderous, and totally inefficient; hopefully we can still close by Thursday!

Reading this evening comes from Alma, continuing his words to his son Helaman, and concluding with his lengthier sermon to the wayward Corianton. I think as parents, we should all learn to treat wayward children in this fashion, and it's good to know that Corianton actually turned his life around as well. I think I might have had more than a bit of Corianton in me earlier in my life, and it took a serious mistake (my first marriage) to get me back on the right track. That brings me to my quote for the day; if I had studied better as a youth, I think I would have made a lot of different choices. The good thing is that no matter where we are, we can still repent and correct our course.

Alma 37: 35, 37: "O, remember, my son, and learn wisdom in thy youth; yea, learn in thy youth to keep the commandments of God.... Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day." (Book of Mormon, pp. 303)

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages/day through the end of the year: Alma 37-42, pp. 300-313)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: Yes (Seven Habits of Highly Effective People)
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: No
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: No
6) One doTERRA blog post: Yes (Lotus vs. Spa Vapor Diffuser Review)
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): Yes
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: One (Becky: Megan)
10) Contact doTERRA front line: Yes
11) 15 minutes organizing office area: Yes (Yay -- laptops are shipped finally!)
12) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: Yes
13) Early to bed, early to rise: No (2:00AM to 9:30AM)
14) One AnandTech pipeline or article: Yes (AMD Announces Their First 8000M GPUs)

Weekly Check Up:
1) Family Home Evening: Yes (Alana read us My Gift to Jesus)
2) Attend church: Yes
3) Check weight on scale: Yes (Monday night: 208.8 lbs., 19.9% BEI)
4) doTERRA weekly call: Yes
5) doTERRA blog week-in-review post: Not yet
6) Talk with home teaching families: Yes, at church
7) Family Council: Sort of: plan for packing/moving
8) One hour house cleanup: Yes (packing and moving preparation)
9) At least one full review posted: Yes (Holiday 2012 Ultrabook and Ultraportable Guide)
10) Call mom and at least two other siblings: Yes (mom, Cade, Thane, Russ, and Derrik; I need to call my sisters this week!)

December 16, 2012: Reflections

It's weird now: we're getting down to the last week of officially living at our current home. I've been here for just over five years, and during that time you make a lot of friends. One thing that we haven't been very good about is getting to know our neighbors; rarely do our kids go outside and play with other children, and it just feels like a very closed community. We're a part of the problem as well, though -- here we are getting ready to move in the next five days, and I don't think I've personally told more than one of our immediate neighbors! Keith and Ha are probably the closest friends we have in the area, and I haven't taken the time to go over there and say goodbye. So that's on my to do list for the week!

We had choir practice this morning, and naturally I showed up a few minutes late, but they really wanted me there to sing the tenor part for the Christmas music. We've got plenty of guys that can sing reasonably well, but I guess I'm one of the few tenors who consistently comes to choir -- especially since they called one of the other tenors to be the choir director. The cantata that we're doing is actually quite a bit more difficult than most of the music we've sung in the past, which I like on the one hand, but I dislike the other people really struggling to get their parts right. We've got one more practice scheduled, Saturday morning right before we pick up the van, and then I'm going to see how many of the men I can convince to come help us load up. It's going to be a crazy day, that's for sure!

Continuing with the Book of Mormon reading, so far I only missed that one day and I'm now well past the half way mark. Today I read about the Zoramites and the Rameumptom, then Alma's awesome talks on faith, the atonement, and the purpose of the Law of Moses. That was followed with Amulek testifying of Christ and reiterating what Alma had just said. Then we get the Zoramites expelling all the converts, wars between the Nephites and Lamanites + Zoramites, and the beginning of Alma's words to his son Helaman. There are so many great scripture in this section, so let's just hit a few of the highlights.

Alma 31: 5: "And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God." (Book of Mormon, pp. 285) What I like about this is how it introduces some of what comes next, and you gain an understanding of what sort of "preaching of the word" they're talking about. For example, here are a few snippets showing their desire, Alma's lecture on faith, and Amulek's talk about the purpose of the Law of Moses:

Alma 31: 35: "Behold, O Lord, their souls are precious, and many of them are our brethren; therefore, give unto us, O Lord, power and wisdom that we may bring these, our brethren, again unto thee." (Book of Mormon, pp. 287)

Alma 32: 21: "And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true." (Book of Mormon, pp. 289)

Alma 34: 10, 14: "For it is expedient that there should be a great and last sacrifice; yea, not a sacrifice of man, neither of beast, neither of any manner of fowl; for it shall not be a human sacrifice; but it must be an infinite and eternal sacrifice.... And behold, this is the whole meaning of the law, every whit pointing to that great and last sacrifice; and that great and last sacrifice will be the Son of God, yea, infinite and eternal." (Book of Mormon, pp. 293-294)

With all the great things I just read, that leads me to the real tragedy of the past week. I probably should have said something about this earlier, but there was another mass shooting at an elementary school, this time in Connecticut on Friday. What I can only assume is a terribly mentally ill man (Adam Lanza) killed his mother, who taught kindergartners, and then went to the school and shot up the place, focusing on his mother's class. Last I heard, there are 20 dead children and 7 adults, including the shooter.

There are so many things to say and think about a tragedy like this, and I imagine in 20 years when my children are grown we will still be hearing about this incident -- and probably others like it, unfortunately. I think the real problem is systemic -- we have so much in our society that just isn't right, with entitlements, lack of caring, kicking God out of the public eye, ignoring mental health, overprescribing medications, etc. Outlawing guns isn't the answer -- there have been five killing rampages at schools in China using cleavers and other large knives in the past year -- and pointing the finger isn't going to help either.

What we need is more love, compassion, service, friendliness, and general humanity. What we need is more people to be like the reformed Alma the Younger and the Sons of Mosiah, willing to go out there and serve and preach for decades in order to "lead people to do that which is just". Who cares whether you vote Republican, Democrat, or something else -- we can still be friends and help each other! I have no idea what really went on to get Adam Lanza to the point where he would do something like this, but he must have been living in some sort of real or imagined nightmare. God bless all those who are and continue to be affected by this.


Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages/day through the end of the year: Alma 31-36, pp. 285-300)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: No
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: No
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: No
6) One doTERRA blog post: Yes (Bring Back the TerraZyme!)
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): N/A
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: Yes (two members)
10) Contact doTERRA front line: N/A
11) 15 minutes organizing office area: N/A
12) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: N/A
13) Early to bed, early to rise: No (2:00AM to 9:00AM)
14) One AnandTech pipeline or article: N/A

December 15, 2012: Saturday is a special day!

Today we spent nearly the whole day working on packing and preparing to move. I also had a friend from church drop off a laptop for me to try and fix it -- looks like the hard drive is either dying or perhaps just the FAT got corrupted, but either way I had to resort to using SystemRescueCD to try and copy off the data. Ugh -- what a pain! Alana had fun sliding down the stairs on our old crib mattress, which we replaced; Becky told her to try it and after some coaxing she did it once and the two of them were laughing so hard it almost made the cry. Naturally, that distracted Alana for most of the rest of the day, and now the mattress is falling apart from all the friction. Still, it was fun and I made a video of the event for posterity.

After the day spent packing, we took the family out for dinner to celebrate. Our initial plan was to go to Red Robin, but we took too long and when we arrived at 6:30PM there was a huge line and about an hour wait. Looking for a secondary option, we ended up at the Iron Rabbit, a local place that was nice and not too crowded. I got a tasty burger, Becky got a salmon sandwich, and the kids got grilled chicken/chicken strips to share. It was all very good, and to top it all off they have their own micro-brew root beer for $3.25 that comes with free refills -- first time I've seen that for a specialty root beer! We all ordered some and had a great time. Dessert we ended up going to Twisties Frozen Yogurt, as they were out of the berry cobbler we wanted to try, and the other dessert options weren't as exciting. All in all, it was a fun night and a good day of working.

Continuing my Book of Mormon reading, I'm back to a more serious/spiritual quote this time. Considering Alma the Younger's conversion story, it really puts the whole quote in perspective: he feels he was saved by having the angel experience, and imagine how good it would be to help others. Of course, we all have our agency, and even seeing an angel wouldn't necessarily convert someone (e.g. consider Laman and Lemuel).

Alma 29: 1-2: "O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people! Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth." (Book of Mormon, pp. 279)

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages/day through the end of the year: Alma 25-30, pp. 271-285)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: No
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: No
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: No
6) One doTERRA blog post: No
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): Webinar (Understanding doTERRA Compensation Plan)
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: No
10) Contact doTERRA front line: No
11) 15 minutes organizing office area: Continue packing
12) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: N/A
13) Early to bed, early to rise: No (2:00AM to 9:30AM)
14) One AnandTech pipeline or article: N/A

December 14, 2012: TGIF

It's been a busy week, and today was no exception. I think we've finally got everything done with the lending bank to get the final papers back; we were randomly selected for an audit by the QA department it seems, which means they wanted to verify my income more thoroughly. With my boss on a trip to meet with HTC in Taiwan, that made for a bit of last minute craziness! Anyway, thanks Anand for signing/sending that employment verification back; now we should get the paperwork by Monday and hopefully close Wednesday (but worst-case, it should be Thursday).

I'm writing this the following morning (again), so I'll keep it short. I didn't get my reading done until the evening, but we did family home evening (Alana read us the story, My Gift to Jesus), and Corbin is going a little stir crazy with us being home all the time, packing, putting stuff away, etc. It will be good to finish the move so he can settle back into some semblance of normalcy.

Continuing my Book of Mormon reading, I like this quote simply because it shows what great love this woman had for her husband. Some day, I hope my wife can say the same about me:

Alma 19: 5: "I would that ye should go in and see my husband, for he has been laid upon his bed for the space of two days and two nights; and some say that he is not dead, but others say that he is dead and that he stinketh, and that he ought to be placed in the sepulchre; but as for myself, to me he doth not stink." (Book of Mormon, pp. 256)

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages/day through the end of the year: Alma 19-24, pp. 256-271)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: No
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: No
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: No
6) One doTERRA blog post: Yes (Eleven Great Things about Network Marketing)
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): Yes
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: No
10) Contact doTERRA front line: No
11) 15 minutes organizing office area: Continue packing
12) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: Yes
13) Early to bed, early to rise: No (3:00AM to 9:30AM)
14) One AnandTech pipeline or article: Yes (AMD HD 7970M Video)

December 13: 2012: Derailed

It figures that after a good day yesterday, today was extremely busy and I ended up not getting to a bunch of my daily tasks. I picked up a good friend Kirk Hamilton from the airport (my doTERRA mentor) for a doTERRA fondue party in the evening, then took him back up that way. All told, that was four hours of driving, five or six hours at the party, and not enough time left to get other things done. Now I need to catch up on my blog and reading, plus a bunch of other stuff.

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: No (make it up tomorrow!)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: No
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: No
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: No
6) One doTERRA blog post: Yes (doTERRA Body Wraps, Part Two)
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): Yes
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: No
10) Contact doTERRA front line: Yes
11) 15 minutes organizing office area: Continue packing
12) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: No
13) Early to bed, early to rise: No (2:00AM to 8:30AM)
14) One AnandTech pipeline or article: No

December 12, 2012: Back on Track

Today was a good day and I feel like I accomplished most of the things I set out to do. Oh, sure, I could have done more packing, but I did my work, read some good material, and didn't waste too much time. Everything is moving in the right direction, and I'm feeling optimistic about the next week or two. I've got a new potential doTERRA recruit along with actually signing someone up, and I'm confident they'll have a good experience with the products. We've got some interesting plans for tomorrow as well, including me running to the airport to pick up my upline mentor. It may be a bit stressful, but it will also be a good growth experience! I also did a new experiment -- see below for the link.

For the readings, which is what I'll focus on for the remainder, I read the end of the Alma, Amulek, and Ammonihah episode (hint: Ammonihah is wicked and gets their just reward), and then we get into the Sons of Mosiah, specifically Ammon. I love how awesome he is -- he's the type of leader people want to follow, the type of person I'd like to be. If Seven Habits of Highly Effective People existed in Nephite times, Ammon would have read it, internalized it, and he would have been a model of high efficiency! So that's what I'm going to focus on here, with a few quotes from Ammon to King Limhi:

Alma 17: 23: "Yea, I desire to dwell among this people for a time; yea, and perhaps until the day I die." 17: 25: "I will be thy servant." 18: 22: "Ammon being wise, yet harmless..." (The Book of Mormon, pp. 252, 255)

It's that last part that we so often fail at: being wise and harmless, or I prefer meek/humble. So often we're looking to hand people our prescription glasses, with the comment, "These work really well for me, I'm sure they'll work for you!" Or as another saying puts it: "People will never care how much you know until they know how much you care."

From the Seven Habits, most of what I read today was about being a good manager and learning to delegate -- not just in work, but in the family and other roles you might have. This summary of the importance of proper delegation (not "Gopher Delegation" but "Stewardship Delegation"): "Trust is the highest form of human motivation. It brings out the very best in people. But it takes time and patience, and it doesn't preclude the necessity to train and develop people so that their competency can rise to the level of that trust." (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Chapter 5: Put First Things First, pp. 178)

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages per day through the end of the year: Alma 13-18, pp. 241-256)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: Yes (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, chapter 5, pp. 170-184, Appendix A and B, pp. 321-340)
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: Yes (Discussed Seven Habits story about delegation of caring for the yard with Becky)
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: No
6) One doTERRA blog post: Yes (doTERRA Slim and Sassy Body Wraps)
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): Yes
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: Yes (Audrey and Michelle)
10) Contact doTERRA front line: Yes
11) 15 minutes organizing office area: Yes (Packing other parts of house)
12) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: Yes
13) Early to bed, early to rise: No (2:00AM to 8:30AM)
14) One AnandTech pipeline or article: No

December 11, 2012

It's very late, and it's been a long day, so I'm going to keep this short. We did some packing, I did a bunch of work, Becky did some errands as well, and the good news of the day is that it sounds like we might potentially close a couple days early on the house. Even two days earlier (e.g. on the 18th) would be great, as we'd then have the chance to get more stuff over and unpacked for Christmas. Anyway, we'll see how it goes.

Alma and Amulek are the reading for the day, which I just completed -- yes, I'm doing this backwards, as I should be reading in the morning first thing. That's my resolution for tomorrow: read first, then do other stuff! Anyway, being it's Christmas, the scripture is a nice lead up to the birth of the Savior:

Alma 9: 26: "And not many days hence the Son of God shall come in his glory; and his glory shall be the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace, equity, and truth, full of patience, mercy, and long-suffering, quick to hear the cries of his people and to answer their prayers." (The Book of Mormon, pp. 231)

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages per day through the end of the year: Alma 8-12, pp. 226-241)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: No
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: No
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: No
6) One doTERRA blog post: Yes (Purify Your Life, Purify Your Environment -- not my best ever)
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): Yes
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: No
10) 15 minutes organizing office area: No (Time spent packing other areas)
11) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: Yes (and then some, which is why it's 2:41AM!)
12) Early to bed, early to rise: No (2:00AM to 9:00AM)
13) One AnandTech pipeline or article: Yes (Holiday 2012 Ultrabook and Ultraportable Guide)

December 10, 2012: Closer to Closing!

We're getting ever closer to closing on the new place now! Today we delivered what I think will be the final pieces of pre-closing paperwork to our realtor and the lending bank. The underwriting bank for the lending of course went through our statements for the past few months and wanted to know about any deposits of more than $450, so we had to jump through a few hoops to get them copies of deposited checks but otherwise things are going as planned.

By the sound of it, we should be all set to close on December 20 -- but no sooner, unfortunately; I was hoping we might have a chance to move a few more things over and get ready to celebrate Christmas. As it stands, our current house has no decorations up, since we're going to be leaving in ten days. That means our poor kids are not getting to experience the full spectacle of Christmas, but I suppose they'll just have to make do.

Corbin went over to play with Caralynn for a few hours, which gave us a bit of time to pack without him running interference. Of course, the only thing I really wanted to do while he was away was to catch up on sleep, but I resisted the urge and instead took care of the above paperwork and banking errands, followed by shoving a bunch of stuff into the garage. The rest of the day was spent working on testing laptops and editing articles, plus dinner, chasing Corbin around, etc. until finally I did some reading at the end of the day. I've been nodding off while reading so I just kept it to one book; tomorrow I'll see if I can find time for additional reading.

I read Alma up through chapter 7 tonight, which covers the five years of Alma the Younger as chief judge, a few wars, the king-makers (Nehor and Amlici), and his leaving the judgement seat to focus on the ministry. In his preaching of repentance, Alma asks a lot of penetrating questions, one of the best of which is my quote for the day; it was also the subject of Elder Cook's talk at the most recent General Conference -- that talk is definitely worth a read if you have a few minutes!

Alma 5: 26: "And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?" (The Book of Mormon, pp. 219)

The daily doTERRA Leadership call was also really good today, focusing on a positive attitude and referencing the book How Full Is Your Bucket? I discussed this on my doTERRA blog, but long story short I'm going to really try to be more positive and less critical this week -- shoot for that 5:1 ratio of positive to negative interactions!

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages per day through the end of the year: Alma 2-7, pp. 211-226)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: No
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: No
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: No
6) One doTERRA blog post: Yes (How Full Is Your Bucket?)
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): Yes
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: No
10) 15 minutes organizing office area: No (Time spent packing master bedroom)
11) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: Yes
12) Early to bed, early to rise: No (1:30AM to 8:30AM)
13) One AnandTech pipeline or article: No (Edited/Posted LG 21:9 LCD Review)

December 9, 2012; I'm Getting Better!

After yesterday's post, I guess it was only fitting that: 1) I skipped going to choir, as when I awoke I sounded like a frog. 2) The special musical number was cancelled. 3) By the time I got to church at 1PM, I sounded okay and could actually sing the tenor part while directing the music. Of course, it was short lived and I feel a bit more froggy again as I prepare to head off to bed.

Other than church (and we left early since Corbin is coughing and thus we wouldn't be sending him to nursery, which basically means we'll be wrestling with him the rest of church), we basically just ate and tidied up around the house a bit, and then Becky and I sat down for a weekly planning session. Our goal is to pack up one room per day this week, so the upstairs should be finished by Saturday. Woohoo!

Reading the Book of Mormon today, I finished off Mosiah and read the first chapter of Alma, so that covers the conversion story of Alma the Younger and the Sons of Mosiah, the setting up of the reign of the judges, and the Sons of Mosiah leaving to the Lamanites (although it doesn't get into their story just yet). I love how Mosiah goes about setting up their change in government as well, and that's where my quote comes from tonight:

Mosiah 29: 26-27: "Now it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your law—-to do your business by the voice of the people. And if the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land."

Becky and I also did some reading from The Five Love Languages of Children, which we haven't been reading all that well lately. Tonight was chapter 11, "Speaking the Love Languages in Single-Parent Families", which is interesting as Alana falls into that category (though now we're not a single-parent family, which of course changes the dynamic yet again).

Anyway, there was a quote that I really wish some people in our family would have read and listened to the advice years ago. Had our parents been a bit more thoughtful on this matter, I think our relationships (particularly with one parent) would be much better off. In fact, I wish all of our parents -- all parents in general -- would read this book, if only to give them something to think about. I know I'm 39 now and all my siblings are even older, but as Elder Robbins pointed out in the the April 2011 Conference: "When can I check a child off my list as done? We are never done being good parents." Anyway, here's the quote regarding newly-single parents searching for love:

"A word of caution as you make new friends. The single parent at this point is extremely vulnerable to member of the opposite sex who may take advantage in a time of weakness. Because the single parent so desperately needs love, there is grave danger of accepting that love from someone who will take advantage sexually, financially, or emotionally. It is extremely important that the newly single parent be very selective in making new friends. The safest source for love is from long-term friends who know members of the extended family. A single parent who tries to satisfy the need for love in an irresponsible manner can end up with tragedy upon tragedy." (The Five Love Languages of Children, Chapter 11, Speaking the Love Languages in Single-Parent Families, pp. 188)

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages per day through the end of the year: Mosiah 26-Alma 1, pp. 196-210)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: No
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: Yes (The Five Love Languages of Children, Chapter 11, pp. 177-189)
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: No
6) One doTERRA blog post: Yes (Comparing Essential Oil Brands)
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): N/A
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: No
10) 15 minutes organizing office area: No
11) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: N/A
12) Early to bed, early to rise: No (2:00AM to 9:30AM)
13) One AnandTech pipeline or article: N/A (posted Workstation Buyer's Guide)

December 8, 2012

I got caught up on some of my work today, as well as doing some more organizing/packing of my office. I suppose it's pretty boring that we all spent the whole day at home, what with Christmas activities going on all around, but that's what we did. I edited an article to get it ready for posting come Monday morning, then I worked on recording some videos of AMD's Radeon HD 7970M in two different notebooks -- one with an Intel Core i7-3720QM and one with an AMD A10-4600M. Needless to say, the Trinity CPU aspect is a pretty huge bottleneck in many games.

Becky spent the day making frozen dinners so that we can eat and clean up quickly during the coming two weeks as we prepare to move. The kitchen was totally clean on Thursday morning, then it got dirty that afternoon/evening, then we cleaned it up again for Friday morning, then it was a disaster by Friday evening; by Saturday morning it was clean again, and by this evening it was a mess. I'm not sure why we bother sometimes, but it makes my wife happy so I go along with it. ;-)

Today's Book of Mormon reading covers the story of King Limhi and his people and their deliverance from the Lamanites. After that, I also read the two chapters about Alma (the Elder) and his people's flight, captivity, and deliverance. Some people seem to think the repetition of such common things is laziness on the part of Joseph Smith, but if that's the case then the whole Bible is full of such laziness. I prefer to think of it as the Lord repeating common themes with his people. The Book of Mormon makes the pride cycle a lot easier to see because it has been translated once -- by the power of God -- into our modern language, where the Bible has been through numerous revisions and redactors over thousands of years.

Something else I got a chuckle out of tonight was thinking about Abinadi and King Noah. I posted a picture yesterday that's commonly used in the LDS church. Try to imagine for a moment what Abinadi and Noah would have looked like. Abinadi is this old, muscular guy in chains with long white hair, and Noah is a huge, fat, wicked looking guy, right?

Except, nowhere in the record do we have any indication of Abinadi's age, and as for Noah, here's what we know: "[Gideon] fought with the king; and when the king saw that he was about to overpower him, he fled and ran and got upon the tower which was near the temple.... And the king commanded the people that they should flee before the Lamanites, and he himself did go before them, and they did flee into the wilderness...." (Mosiah 19: 5, 9; pp. 184-185) Tell me, do you picture this guy fighting with a sword, running away and climbing a tall tower, and then fleeing ahead of his people? Neither do I!

And for my quote, this one is to remind me (and all of us) that trials and difficulties are a part of life. Without resistance, how would we grow? Ask any athlete and they'll tell you: if what you're doing is easy, it's not improving you.

Mosiah 23: 21-22: "The Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith. Nevertheless—whosoever putteth his trust in him the same shall be lifted up at the last day." (The Book of Mormon, pp. 191-192)

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages per day through the end of the year: Mosiah 18-25, pp. 180-196)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: No
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: No
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: No
6) One doTERRA blog post: No
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): N/A
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: No
10) 15 minutes organizing office area: Yes (Probably an hour or so)
11) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: Five hours (on a Saturday)
12) Early to bed, early to rise: No (2:00AM to 9:30AM)
13) One AnandTech pipeline or article: N/A (Edited Workstation Guide -- forthcoming on Monday)

December 7, 2012: Relapse

Remember how I said I was feeling sick on Wednesday, then on Thursday I was feeling better but spent two hours in the pouring rain cleaning up our yard (before the landlords could arrive and see all the dead leaves everywhere)? Well, my procrastinating the yard work created a crisis that I had to address, which didn't coincide well with me having a cold coming on. Then we had an Elder's Quorum Christmas party last night, with a white elephant gift exchange -- I got rid of an old Athlon 64 3200+ with 1GB RAM, Windows XP, and an GeForce 7600 GS, which was Alana's PC for a few years. Of course, everyone was talking really loudly -- myself included -- and I've now started to lose my voice and had a bit of a relapse.

So now it's back to hitting the essential oils hard, in the hope that I'll be able to sing with the choir and special musical number at church on Sunday. Wish me luck! I did do some work of course, but with other interruptions I didn't accomplish as much as I'd like. I did manage to replace the failing fan on a Radeon HD 5850 card, so now that's working again. I remember when that was an awesome $350 high-end GPU; today, it's okay but you can readily buy them for around $100 on eBay. I found out that my HD 5670 also had a fan problem -- it had totally seized up! -- so I contacted XFX support on that one and I need to mail it in; if I'm lucky, maybe they'll send back an HD 6000 or 7000 series card instead of just replacing the fan. [Crossing fingers]

I didn't update the blog last night because it was late, so now I'm writing this Saturday morning. I skipped reading my "good book", but I did read the scriptures (my "best book") for fifteen pages. And Corbin fell out of his bed at 1AM right as I was finishing my reading, which necessitated about 45 minutes trying to get him calmed down and back to sleep. To say that I am off track on the sleeping schedule/goal is an understatement, and the pending move is just making me more antsy about everything. But, we chose to buy a house right before Christmas and I'm still certain that was the right decision; five years and ten years from now we'll look back at this, hopefully with fond memories and a chuckle or two!

That's of course part of the reason for this blog -- the major reason I'd say. I'm really bad about keeping a journal, but this sort of blog is something I can commit to. I'm not sure why one is hard while a public blog is "easy", but there you have it. Some day in fifty years, my children, grand children, and even great grand children will have a resource to visit to see how Grandpa got to be the way he is -- which will be fun, loving, full of life and laughter, and a happy old grandpa with a firm handshake, a twinkle in his eye, and a piece of candy in his pocket. :-)

My reading in the Book of Mormon today takes me into the fall of the people of Zeniff under the reign of King Noah. That of course means some great teachings from Abinadi the prophet, but most of what he says can't be taken as a single verse to quote. So if you have time and want the full effect, read Mosiah 9-17 (about 20 pages or so). Anyway, Abinadi quotes from Isaiah in his sermon, and it's one of those great passages (chapter 15). Here's where he praises those that are peacemakers and seek to make the world a better place, with specific reference to the great peacemaker Jesus Christ:

Mosiah 15: 14-19: "And these are they who have published peace, who have brought good tidings of good, who have published salvation; and said unto Zion: Thy God reigneth! And O how beautiful upon the mountains were their feet! And again, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those that are still publishing peace! And again, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who shall hereafter publish peace, yea, from this time henceforth and forever! "And behold, I say unto you, this is not all. For O how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that is the founder of peace, yea, even the Lord, who has redeemed his people; yea, him who has granted salvation unto his people; For were it not for the redemption which he hath made for his people, which was prepared from the foundation of the world, I say unto you, were it not for this, all mankind must have perished." (The Book of Mormon, pp. 176-177)

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages per day through the end of the year: Mosiah 10-17, pp. 166-180)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: No
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: No
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: No
6) One doTERRA blog post: Yes
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): Yes
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: No
10) 15 minutes organizing office area: Yes! (More like an hour -- catching up because I'm not being consistent)
11) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: No
12) Early to bed, early to rise: No (2:30AM to 9:30AM)
13) One AnandTech pipeline or article: No

December 6, 2012

I'm feeling quite a bit better today, which is good because I have a ton to do! Of course, this is written after-the-fact, but whatever. The landlord was supposed to come over at noon to look at the place, and Becky spent a lot of time last night cleaning up. This morning, I went out into the yard to finish raking up leaves, trimming trees, and in general trying to make it look like we haven't totally neglected that part of the property. I think I spent about 2.5 hours outside in the rain, trying to clear off 1000 pounds of wet, nasty leaves and moss. If I have a relapse, I'm blaming the yard work -- and thankfully, the new yard should be a lot less painful to maintain, since it's both smaller and has less gigantic trees around the property.

Besides the yard work, I wrote a bunch of emails for work today, and wrote up a short blog. I also did some more computer testing, and while I had hopes of getting the Acer S7 wrapped up today I ended up delaying that as Anand posted his iPad 4 review. Want to know why people like Apple products? That's a good place to start; personally, I'd rather go for an Android tablet like the Nexus 10 (mostly because it's about $100 cheaper, but also because I prefer Google's "open" attitude to Apple's "close mindedness" -- plus iTunes sucks!)

Other activities for the day included taking Alana to her first 10-year-old Activity Days (I read while she did her thing), cleaning up the office some, and the usual assortment of work stuff. For my reading, I finished off King Benjamin's talk today, along with getting to the start of the account of the people of Zeniff. There's a good scripture mastery in the King Benjamin address, but I also wanted to include a couple other scriptures that stood out to me. The first is a Slight Edge principle:

Mosiah 4:27: "And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order." (The Book of Mormon, pp. 157)

Isn't that so true? It's not about doing everything we need accomplish all at once; it's about small, daily disciplines that help us improve and become better. I've noticed this with my readings, doTERRA calls, and other areas: steady wins the race. The second scripture is about change and repentance, which is another good principle -- it's never too late! Here we're talking about the people of Zeniff/Limhi who are in physical bondage, but the same applies to our spiritual bondage and addictions:

Mosiah 7:33: "But if ye will turn to the Lord with full purpose of heart, and put your trust in him, and serve him with all diligence of mind, if ye do this, he will, according to his own will and pleasure, deliver you out of bondage." (The Book of Mormon, pp. 162)

The third scripture is a comparison between man and God; it's about what happens to those who won't follow the correct teachings they are given:

Mosiah 8: 20-21: "O how marvelous are the works of the Lord, and how long doth he suffer with his people; yea, and how blind and impenetrable are the understandings of the children of men; for they will not seek wisdom, neither do they desire that she should rule over them! Yea, they are as a wild flock which fleeth from the shepherd, and scattereth, and are driven, and are devoured by the beasts of the forest." (The Book of Mormon, pp. 164)

For my secular reading ;-), Put First Things First is about scheduling, prioritizing, mission statements, goals, and that sort of thing. To give the quotes context, we need the following image:

"You have to be proactive to work on Quadrant II because Quadrants I and III work on you. To say 'yes' to important Quadrant II priorities, you have to learn to say 'no' to other activities, sometimes apparently urgent things.... We say 'yes' or 'no' to things daily, usually many times a day. A center of correct principles and a focus on our personal mission empowers us with wisdom to make those judgements effectively." (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Chapter 5: Put First Things First, pp. 156-157)

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages per day through the end of the year: Enos, Jarom, Omni, Words of Mormon, Mosiah 3-9, pp. 151-165)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: Yes (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, chapter 5, pp. 156-170)
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: Yes (Discussed above with wife)
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: Yes (Two hours raking heavy, wet leaves in the hard -- yuck!)
6) One doTERRA blog post: Yes (Aroma Ace)
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): Yes
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: One (Jason)
10) 15 minutes organizing office area: Yes! (Desk is in the garage now)
11) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: No, but close
12) Early to bed, early to rise: No (2:00AM to 8:30AM)
13) One AnandTech pipeline or article: Yes (Mushkin)

December 5, 2012

The two boys are still trying to get over their colds, though they slept better last night. The bad news is that I'm getting sick, and today I was achy and lethargic, with way too much to do! Long story short, I didn't get all of my stuff done, but I did pretty well for being sick. I also imbibed/applied a lot of essential oils to try and beat the cold, to varying degrees of success. Anyway, I chose not read my "good book" yesterday or to write this blog yesterday since it was late, I was sick, and I wanted a nice hot bath. Now I'm posting this update the following afternoon.

For the Book of Mormon, I read my fifteen pages late at night, but I got it done. That got me through Enos, Jarom, Omni, Words of Mormon, and the first two chapters of Mosiah. It's pretty amazing to cover so much history in such a short time -- 10 days and I'm nearly 1/3 of the way through the Book of Mormon, with 475 years of the Nephites now past. The quote for the day is another famous one:

Mosiah 2:17: "And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." (The Book of Mormon, pp. 134)

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages per day through the end of the year: Enos, Jarom, Omni, Words of Mormon, Mosiah 1-2, pp. 135-151)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: No
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: No
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: No
6) One doTERRA blog post: No
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): Yes
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: Yes (Candice and Becky talked to Brittney)
10) 15 minutes organizing office area: Yes! (Desk is in the garage now)
11) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: Yes (Calls to TeamViewer, AnandTech chat, testing)
12) Early to bed, early to rise: No (2:00AM to 8:30AM)
13) One AnandTech pipeline or article: Yes (TeamViewer)

December 4, 2012

Today was a bit crazy, with more paperwork for the house purchase to fill out, home owners insurance quotes to get squared away -- there's still some stuff to be done there, but let me just say that it appears we'll be leaving State Farm and going with Farmers. The former gave us a quote of around $1100 per year, while the latter gave us a quote with similar coverage for just $850. And then there were the two boys; Corbin did well today for the most part, after a rather restless night last night, but Caleb couldn't seem to find a nap in him. He's still feeling congested, so that didn't help, but it meant that getting much done today was difficult.

I finally got to my reading late in the day once again, and I finished off the book of Jacob. I always love reading Jacob chapter 5; it's one of those portions of the Book of Mormon that testifies to me of the divinity of the work, as there is no way such a beautiful and true allegory could have been written save it were inspired by God -- certainly for Joseph Smith as a 25-year-old man with little education to have fabricated the allegory which matches well with how olive trees are actually cultivated is far fetched. So with that, here's my quote:

Jacob 6: 12: "O be wise; what can I say more?" (The Book of Mormon, pp. 133)
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: "The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don't like to do.  They don't like doing them eihter necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose." (Pp. 148-149: Putting First Things First, quoting E. M. Gray "The Common Denominator of Success")

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages per day through the end of the year: Jacob 3-7, pp. 122-135)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: Yes (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, chapter 5, pp. 145-156)
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: No
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: No
6) One doTERRA blog post: Yes
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): Yes
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: On
10) 15 minutes organizing office area: No
11) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: Mostly
12) Early to bed, early to rise: No (1:30AM to 8:30AM)
13) One AnandTech pipeline or article: No, but edited/posted SFF Buyer's Guide

December 3, 2012

Happy Monday! A lot of people hate Mondays, supposedly; I blame Garfield for that. Anyway, I don't mind Mondays -- one seventh of my life will be spent on Mondays, so it's best to embrace them and even look forward to them. It's the start of a new week, and with that it's time to buckle down and report on the last week. It's also the start of a new month, so this will be my first monthly check-in. Uh oh! Let's start with the daily stuff first.

I finished off 2 Nephi today -- one week of 15 pages per day, and I'm already over 1/5 of the way through the Book of Mormon. How's that for cool? I've never been all that good at reading 30 minutes per day in the scriptures -- much less studying and pondering for 30 minutes a day! -- but when you start to do it you will be amazed at how much you can learn. My quote today is a familiar one for LDS people, but it's something everyone can benefit from learning. The second quote is more for my own personal development and something I seriously need to work on.

2 Nephi 31: 20-21: "Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end. Amen." (The Book of Mormon, pp. 114-115)

I love what it says about enduring there; it's a slight edge principle if ever there was one! We are never standing still; we're either becoming better people, or we're stagnating and falling behind. Consider: when are you ever done being a good parent? When have you exercised enough that you can just coast for the rest of your life? At what point have you studied the scriptures enough that your faith is complete and you can now relax? Whatever aspect of life you look at, you are either curving upwards and improving or curving downwards and becoming worse.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: "Many families are managed on the basis of crises, moods, quick fixes, and instant gratification -- not on sound principles. Symptoms surface whenever stress and pressure mount: people become cynical, critical, or silent or they start yelling and overreacting. Children who observe these kinds of behavior grow up thinking the only way to solve problems is flight or fight. The core of any family is what is changeless, what is always going to be there -- shared vision and values. By writing a family mission statement, you give expression to its true foundation." (Pp. 138: Begin with the End in Mind)

That's now one more item for my agenda: work on personal, family, and business mission statements. That's not something that I'll come up with in one night and have it done, so we'll just file that for now as something to work on in the coming month.

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages per day through the end of the year: 2 Nephi 28 - Jacob 2, pp. 106-122)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: Yes (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, chapter 4, pp. 135-144)
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: No
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: No (I did some push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, but got sidetracked caring for sick kids today)
6) One doTERRA blog post: Yes
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): Yes
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: One (Trinity, online -- hi if you're reading this!)
10) 15 minutes organizing office area: No
11) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: Yes
12) Early to bed, early to rise: No (1:00AM to 8:30AM)
13) One AnandTech pipeline or article: Yes

Now for the weekly check-up:

Weekly Check Up:
1) Family Home Evening: Yes (Ward Christmas party counts, right?)
2) Attend church: Yes
3) Check weight on scale: Yes (Monday night: 207.4 lbs., 19.7% BEI)
4) doTERRA weekly call: Yes
5) doTERRA blog week-in-review post: Need to complete
6) Call home teaching families: Talked at church; told them we're moving
7) Family Council: No
8) One hour house cleanup: No (Prep for Ward Christmas party)
9) At least one full review posted: No (Distracted with buying home)
10) Call mom and at least two other siblings: Partial (talked with mom and Derrik, but need to do better)

Okay, so that's not all that good, but it's what I did and now I need to do better this week! My weight is up, at least in part because I checked it tonight rather than in the morning. This was a stressful week, and I didn't cope well with the stresses unfortunately. The monthly is only half a month I believe, but here we go:

Monthly Check Up:
1) Home teaching: Yes
2) Fast, fast offerings, and tithing: Yes
3) Date night with Becky (twice per month!): No
4) Pay bills and go over budget: Yes to paying bills, no to working on budget
5) Monthly council: No
6) doTERRA Meeting at our house: No
7) Month-in-review doTERRA blog post: Not yet
8) Pictures of body for fitness: Not yet
9) Individual date nights with children: No
10) Call dad at least once: Yes
11) Find a small service project to help with: No

Okay, so that's not even remotely close on most of the items. I need to work on setting up a schedule and then planning for it, and with three kids it gets a little crazy as you might imagine. Getting ready to move isn't helping either, but I still want these as the monthly activities I intend to do and I need to move closer to achieving them next month.

December 2, 2012: Things Are Getting Official

Today was fast and testimony meeting, which for those of you that aren't LDS, it means any of the members of the congregation are free to go up and tell about their experiences, thoughts, faith, and so forth. I don't usually go up unless I have some particularly strong reason to do so, but of course today was just such a day, as it marks the last time I'm likely to be in the Olympia 3rd Ward for Fast Sunday. So, I went up to give my testimony of the goodness of God towards me and my family over the past five years, summarized briefly below.

Five years ago, I was in the midst of a very difficult time in my life. (I didn't mention this, but I was separated from my then-wife and moving towards divorce; we had been separated for around three years and basically at the point of "irreconcilable differences".) My mom moved up to help out and spend time with me and my daughter, and that's when we moved into the 3rd Ward. I was amazed at how quickly I found great friends and this became my new home, and the people of the ward were welcoming, generous, and supportive towards me and my family. About a year later, the divorce was finalized and I began dating again. Who could have known how quickly I would find Becky, cultivate a relationship, propose, and then get married? Then less than a year later, we had our first child together, and two years after that our second.

We have definitely faced difficulties during the past five years, but I know that God has had a plan for me and has been directing my paths and blessing me and my family. In just five years, I went from separated with a bankruptcy five years previously to having a new family and being ready to buy our first house. Becky went from being single and wondering if she would ever get married to being a stay at home mother with two boys and a step-daughter. And when we look at our finances since our marriage, I truly feel blessed because somehow it always works out.

I've made lifelong friends in this area, and while we're only moving about six miles away, sometimes six miles may as well be the next state. We'll still be in the same stake and still see our old friends, and I intend to keep in touch with many of my friends, but we're definitely turning a page in our life's history. Five years ago, there's no way I could have predicted where I would be today, but the Lord knew what would be best for me and I am so grateful for his guidance and love. I am happier today than I have ever been in my life. </Testimony>

With our impending move now announced over the pulpit, I guess there's no backing out now! I joked with Becky afterwards and said, "If something happens and we don't get the home for whatever reason, I guess we're just going to have to move to Chehalis and rent some place for $900 a month instead!" I should also note that Becky was released as the first counselor in the Relief Society today, which is good because we're going to be very busy for the next few weeks!

There's another short and funny story from church today that I wanted to relate. The sacrament hymn was #191: Behold the Great Redeemer Die. I direct the music -- not that most people watch, but I'm up there waving my hand as best I know how! Anyway, as sometimes happens, it took a while for the priests to break the bread, so when we were finishing the fourth verse I looked over and saw they could use more time so I raised my right hand and held up five fingers, basically saying, "Sing verse five next!" We finished the fourth verse, I lead in to the next verse, and... nothing. I imagine I had a deer-in-headlights look as I turned towards the organist (our bishop's wife no less) and she has an equally startled expression. I think she mouthed something like, "What!?" I waived my hand again, she didn't play, and then I think we finally synced up and got going on the fifth verse. It was probably only a two or three second snafu, but let me tell you: it felt like an eternity!

After all the confusion, I looked over as we were finishing the fifth verse and the priests were done breaking bread, so I just ended and sat down. Except, as I stop and turn to sit down it dawns on me that we ended our sacrament hymn with this cheery and uplifting thought: "He died, and at the awful sight the sun in shame withdrew its light! Earth trembled, and all nature sighed, in dread response, 'A God has died!'" Hopefully I was the only one who noticed what a depressing conclusion that made (compared to the sixth verse: "He lives -- he lives. We humbly now around these sacred symbols bow and seek, as Saints of latter days, to do his will and live his praise.") So, next time Jarred: think ahead!

As for the future, if you've been reading many of my blog posts, by now you should realize that I do have a vision for the next five years. We'll add another child (maybe two?) to our family. We'll grow our doTERRA business and use the extra income to pay off other debts, pay off our house more quickly, and more importantly help other people live healthier, fuller lives. I'll continue exercising and will eventually ride the full STP (Seattle to Portland), compete in a triathlon, and even run a half-marathon (in less than two hours). I'll also continue reading the scriptures and other good books, becoming a better father, husband, home teacher, employee, and an overall more effective and productive member of society. And we'll take some awesome family vacations -- Hawaii is first up on the list! So that's the plan for the next five years, and I look forward to making it happen while we live in Tumwater.

Reading consisted most of the remaining "Isaiah chapters", which are so full of interesting material but still daunting to understand. Two days, thirty pages, and I'm basically out of Isaiah and sailing into the second 100 pages! Here's my quote for today (no "secular" book this time, as I figured it was Sunday and I could take a break). I believe this one might be scripture mastery again.

2 Nephi 25:23, 26: "For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.... And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins." (The Book of Mormon, pp. 99-100)

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages per day through the end of the year: 2 Nephi 20 - 2 Nephi 27, pp. 90-106)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: No (Sunday break)
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: No
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: No (Sunday break)
6) One doTERRA blog post: Yes (Thanks to my friend for writing most of this for me!)
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): N/A
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: Yes (at church and choir practice)
10) 15 minutes organizing office area: N/A
11) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: N/A
12) Early to bed, early to rise: No (1:30AM to 8:30AM)
13) One AnandTech pipeline or article: N/A

December 1, 2012

It's that time of year -- officially now, since it's December! Today we had our ward's Christmas party, and we were involved with some of the preparation in terms of cooking. Becky volunteered (or at least got asked and didn't say no) to make deviled eggs and sugar cookies. Unfortunately, last night our two boys were coming down with colds and didn't sleep well -- we finally got them to sleep around 4AM. Naturally, they still woke up way earlier than we would have liked, so we started the day tired and the hours flew by. In the end, I helped finish up the deviled eggs by making the filling portion, and I have to say it turned out nicely.

With all the prep work done, we headed over to the church for the party: One Night in Bethlehem. It actually came together really well, with a bunch of "bazaar stalls" set up in the gym with a variety of food stuffs and games for the kids. There was flat bread, figs, some other traditional Jewish food that they have at the Passover, stew, fruits, and of course the deviled eggs and cookies. We ate and were filled, and it was a fun time. Then we finished the evening with a live nativity, and I sang "We Three Kings" -- with a group of seven men. Ha!

Reading had to wait for the end of the day, and I missed exercising, but after finally getting the kids to bed I sat down and read my 15 pages -- and I tore through over half of the Isaiah chapters in 2 Nephi! There were a bunch of good quotes, but I'll go with the one from Handel's Messiah.

2 Nephi 19: 6 (Isaiah 9: 6): "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." (The Book of Mormon, pp. 89)

Actually, I like this second one too much to skip it -- it was on my missionary plaque back when I was serving in Denmark! 2 Nephi 12: 3: "Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths." (The Book of Mormon, pp. 81)

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: "By centering our lives on correct principles, we create a solid foundation for development of the four life-support factors. Principles are deep, fundamental truths, classic truths, generic common denominators. They are tightly interwoven threads running with exactness, consistency  beauty, and strength through the fabric of life." (Pp. 122: Begin with the End in Mind)

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages per day through the end of the year: 2 Nephi 10 - 2 Nephi 19, pp. 78-90)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: Yes (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, chapter 4, pp. 122-135)
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: Yes (Discussed TSHOHEP and visualization with Becky in regards to parenting)
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: No
6) One doTERRA blog post: Yes (Two)
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): Yes
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: Yes (several people at Christmas party)
10) 15 minutes organizing office area: No
11) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: N/A
12) Early to bed, early to rise: No (4AM to 9:30AM)
13) One AnandTech pipeline or article: N/A

November 30, 2012: House Video!

I have a bunch of cool stuff to cover today. First things first, though, it sounds like my remote troubleshooting of the computer yesterday ended in success! I finished off by doing a repair install, which disconnected TeamViewer when it got to the first reboot, so I didn't know for sure what was happening until today. Hooray for my computer skills! Total time to fix: probably four hours, though I'll charge for three just to be nice.

Second big news for the day: we had our home inspection, which went quite well. Funny enough, the guy doing the inspection is actually LDS and is in our stake, though I don't think I've ever met him before. There were some minor things that need to be looked at but nothing major that would stop us from buying; the foundation looks good, the roof is generally in good shape, and about the worst thing was the toilet: all three had some minor issues, like the gaskets need replacing or reseating on two, and one is missing the flapper valve that stops the water up top -- probably taken by the people who went through the foreclosure. But more important than all that stuff for the readers of my blog -- all five of you -- is that I made a video showing the various areas of the house, outside, etc. This will be something for all my friends and family to see, though note that this is the "before" sequence and as you'll notice several of the rooms are in desperate need of a paint job.

That should give everyone at least a reasonable idea of what our new house will be like. It's about seven years old and in reasonable shape, but with some areas that need work (particularly the yard). And sorry mom, but the vine by the front porch has to go! No way am I letting that thing get any larger and take over the side of the house!

On with the quotes from my readings today. I have two from the Book of Mormon, mostly because I really like the psalm of Nephi and so it needs to be in here, plus the second one seems like a scripture mastery -- and if it's not, it could be!

2 Nephi 4: 28: "Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul." (The Book of Mormon, pp. 64)

2 Nephi 9: 28-29: "O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish. But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God." (The Book of Mormon, pp. 75)

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: "As individuals, groups, and businesses, we're often so busy cutting through the undergrowth we don't even realize we're in the wrong jungle. And the rapidly changing environment in which we live makes effective leadership more critical than it has ever been -- in ever aspect of independent and interdependent life."" (Pp. 101: Begin with the End in Mind)

Daily Check Up:
1) Scripture study: Yes (15 pages per day through the end of the year: 2 Nephi 3 - 2 Nephi 9, pp. 60-77)
2) Morning and evening prayers: Yes
3) 15+ minutes good book: Yes (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, chapter 4, pp. 96-122)
4) 15 minutes of parenting/relationships/children book: No
5) Exercise for 30 minutes or more: Yes (Raked heavy, wet leaves in yard and hauled them to the green belt for about an hour)
6) One doTERRA blog post: Yes
7) Use doTERRA oils for something: Yes
8) doTERRA Leadership and Mentor calls (Mon-Fri): Yes
9) Talk to two people about doTERRA: One (Brendan)
10) 15 minutes organizing office area: Yes
11) Solid 8 hours (M-F) working at my job: No, around six (House inspection)
12) Early to bed, early to rise: No (1:30AM to 6:30AM)
13) One AnandTech pipeline or article: No