Rich Low, Poor Exalted

I (Sean) had an interesting experience and conversation while acting as a Republican 'poll watcher' on election day at our precinct. My Deomocrat counterpart was a friendly lady about my age I judged, with strong Liberal views on things, and was, I'm sure, very happy that Obama was elected. Our conversations ranged on various issues, including making socialized medicine the way of the land, and giving less-privileged people more help. I felt like I had to agree in a way with what she saw in the plight of various people, but with certain reservations and ideas of my own.

One important thing I gathered from her is that she feels people really do want to work for what they get, and by extension, improve their lot. This sounds good to me, but to really get to the core of the issue, I wanted to gather some information from our LDS Church sources to help delineate what I believe about the issue of 'taking from the rich, giving to the poor'. So, here are some of my findings and opinions, which reflect my Church's teachings, but for the normal disclaimer, all these ideas are not necessarily the views/policies of the Church. See 'http://lds.org' for the Church's views, which I quote here in various places.

D&C 56:16-20: rich must give to poor; poor must be satisfied and labor with own hands
D&C 68:30-31: idlers, eyes full of greediness
D&C 75:29: be diligent, idler shall not have place
D&C 104:13-18: every man is an accountable steward; poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low.
Mosiah 2:14: King Benjamin labored with own hands for his sustenance, that people not be laden with taxes
Mosiah 4:16-28: rich should impart; poor should say 'i give not because i have not', but would give if had
4 Nephi 1:2-3,7,15-16: dealt justly with one another, had all things in common, no rich and poor, but all were free; did prosper exceedingly; no contention, could not be a happier people
Acts 2:44: had all things in common
Acts 4:32-37: one heart, had all things in common, none lacked

Early Trunk or Treaties

Hey, how many of you have a Trunk or Treat or similar before Halloween? Our church ends up doing one every year, which is a nice quick cheap way to get plenty of good nutritious food for all involved. Two weeks of this excellent diet should clean out the young 'uns of any unneeded and unwanted word of wisdom-type material.

The kiddos even brought friends along to share the tum-tum yum-yums.

Poor Adam thought he was going to be stolen off to Afghanistan before he got to try out the new fad diet:

Sean's Freedom Run 2008

Hey, it was great to get back to the Provo Freedom Run again on Jul 4, 2008, the last time being 1994.

Back then in 1994, I remember starting around the Provo temple, then going south on 900 East, east on Center, then back west on Center St, then north on University to the Cougar track. That was a nice downhill for the most part, and I think I got around 40 mins - I was younger back then too. It was kinda fun to see Steve Young on the course, at his football pinnacle time. (Gossip note: I think he was running with a football friend and a girl, but I don't think that girl is his current wife.)

Anyway, this time was from Kiwanis Park, north to Univ Pkwy, west to Canyon, south to Univ, south to 100 S, east and up to Center, a spur past 900 E, then back north on 900 E. That first uphill was nice to get done at the first, then get downhill for a long while. It hurt as always to run, but just keep going. I had fun doing some high-stepping in front of the family at 750 E Center (thanks for the cheering, folks :-) ), which actually got me a little tired out. That final uphill to the finish was a long drag, oof, but that last stretch to the finish was a happy thing to come to. I'm happy to say I sprinted the last 1/2 block to the end.

So, I finished with 44:24 (see
Freedom Run 2008 results). Good ol' Joel Sybrowsky of course showed the way with his 40:30 or so - what an animal! I'm happy with what I did, and I think this was my fastest 10k since 1994 - wow, especially considering that me and other young whipper-snappers hiked Timp the day before; yes, I'll say we're pretty awesome.

Alright, now to relax a little more, but not too much - gotta keep the active edge to be able to keep up with our almost 2-yearold twins along with the others, and be able to hike more montanas !

Freedom Run 2008 results

Timpview High School 1987-88 choir mp3s

Hey fellow THS 1987-88 choir people (and anyone else that is a lover of great young choir music),
Here are links to various mp3's I recorded of our work:

THS A Cappella 1987-88
THS A Cappella Christmas 1987-88
THS Madrigals 1987-88
THS Madrigals Christmas 1987-88

Those were great times, and lots of neat/fun/inspiring/silly/etc. moments !

- Sean

Record tape/LP/analog to mp3 with Audacity

From Sean:

Plenty of us older folk have those older analog media like tape, record, etc. How to get it to mp3?
Well, I wanted some program that would record from Line In, and be able to clean up the hiss and other background noise that comes from playing this media.

I found on the web that someone used Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) to do this. So, I downloaded and installed it.

See this link for a nice more-detailed tutorial on this process, if you want more than I describe below: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Transferring_tapes_and_records_to_computer_or_CD

Also, you'll need the LAME MP3 encoder - see this page
for instructions:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=install&item=lame-mp3

To actually record from tape to MP3, here's what I do:

• - Set the recording source to 'Line In'
• - Set the recording level to around 7
• - Run a stereo cable (male-to male, get from Radio Shack or wherever)) from my tape player phono jack to the computer's sound line-in jack
• - Insert tape into player and press play, listen for a few seconds to check the volume level and adjust as necessary
• - Stop and rewind tape
• - Press record on Audacity, then press play on tape
• - When tape stops, then stop recording on Audacity - the recording will be on its own track
• - Turn over tape to other side, Press record on Audacity, then press play on tape
• - When tape stops, then stop recording on Audacity - the recording will be on a different track
• - In Audacity, on each track, clean up the noise:

• - Select about 5 secs of dead (non-music/talking) footage
• - In the menu, select 'Effects -> Noise Removal'
• - Click 'Get Noise Profile', then cancel
• - Select the entire track (can click on the empty area under the mute/leveling items)
• - In the menu, select 'Effects -> Noise Removal', then click 'Remove Noise'
• - After a few mins of processing, the noise will be pretty much removed from the track

• - Edit/splice tracks as desired

• - Edit MP3 bit rate settings:

• - In the menu, select 'Edit ->Preferences', then the 'File Formats' tab
• - In the 'MP3 Export Setup' area, choose the bit rate (I use 96 for a compromise between quality and file size), then click OK

• - Edit MP3 id tags:

• - In the menu, select 'Edit -> Edit ID3 Tags'
• - Enter desired values in the various fields, then click OK

• - Export each track separately as desired:

• - Select an entire track
• - In the menu, select 'File -> Export Selection as MP3'
• - Enter filename for the mp3 file, then click OK

• - MP3 will be created

And there you go!
See Audacity help and the tutorial link above to understand how to do more things - I often do
Amplify, or Normalize before exporting to MP3.

Neti Pot purchase cheap

From Sean:
Was it from talking to parents that I found out about Neti pots? I dunno, but it sounded like a good idea to me, so I looked around on the web for the cheapest deal, and ended up getting it from the Puritans's Pride website:

Puritans's Pride Neti Pot search

I ordered the cheap Neti Pot and a pack of the extra special salt.
Here's a video helping to know how to use it: video

So, I received the cute cheap Alladdin's lamp Neti Pot with their cool expensive pure salt, and have done the deal a few times. Frankly, I think it really does work - I felt more cleansed and free in the nez. We'll see if I really avoid more colds and sniffles, but I have to say I'm optimistic.

A la irrigacion!

'byu.net' email alias

'byu.net' email alias:
I don't know if you already know about this, but you can get your own 'byu.net' email alias:
- goto 'byu.edu'
- click 'RouteY'
- login, or get a byu/routey id
- once you login, click 'email alias manager'
- there you can setup aliases, where people email to a 'byu.net' addr, which then forwards the email to another email addr of your choosing

Thus, you can tell people your 'byu.net' address, and then change the underlying aliased address whenever you change email accounts. People will always have the right email for you - neat. Of course, you want to avoid using the byu.net address with those you don't want to get spam from.