It is halftime on Saturday for General Conference. While I watch these great men from afar, it made me think of a few close up experiences I have had. (more…)

Of my wife and my five remaining grandparents, four of them are nearing the end.
(more…)

I recently had the opportunity to attend some Social Media training where I work. I thought it was interesting in light of church work. The gist of the training was that if you affiliate yourself with the company online, you are representing the company, and yes you can be fired for representing the company in a bad light. (There are hundreds of examples, but I thought a good one was the example of the two employees that caused Domino’s Pizza stock to collapse after getting a million views of them doing gross things at work on a youtube video). I think the church suffers a similar risk as I, with all my good intentions, am out here shooting my mouth off. On top of this, I also suffer a great risk, as I, in a flight of fancy, forget the very public and unalterable nature of the internet. (Think of the Fedex employee who got fired for tweeting how much he hated where his customer lived). My reputation can be damaged forever based on one blog comment which I can never delete because I don’t own the blog I commented on, and google snatched it up and archived it, etc.

While the church cannot fire its lay ministry for putting the church in a bad light, and I don’t think any of us can afford to hire our own PR firm to filter our public statements, I thought I’d highlight the 1 Do and 3 Don’t Dos from the training I got at work.

1. Do be genuine, authentic, and honest.

2. Do not bash the competition ever.

3. Do not say mean or unkind things to anyone.

4. Do not disclose private information.

Good rules to live by anyway, but especially good rules as we represent the church online (whether we want to or not). I am going to try harder in the future to follow these rules. If you catch me getting out of line, let me know. For the times I have been out of line in the past, I apologize.

I need to be clean shaven on September 15th. That is the first day of the mustache growing contest my brothers and I are starting. The contest ends November 15 so we get two months to grow the most awesomely awesome mustaches we can muster.

Lest you think the competition will be easy, there happen to be six Johnston brothers and one brother-in-law in on the contest ranging in age from 25-45. I am not sure what sort of mustache I will bust out. The first couple of weeks will be spent growing a base mustache or Van Dyke and from there I will see what I can do. I’ll probably post a few pictures of the contestants at some point.

The amusing part about the timing of this contest is that my boy Q-dog is getting baptized in October so the family pictures will have his dad and several uncles sporting sweet mustaches.

A family with six boys does what it can to bond after everyone grows up, no? (Feel free to fire up a mustache growing contest among your brothers too if you wish)

Lisa: You did fix them, right Dad? Because even a single faulty unit could corrupt every other computer in the world.
Homer: That can’t be true, honey. If it were I’d be terrified.

I recently checked out some books from Oxford’s “A Very Short Introduction” series. I started with A Very Short Introduction to Economics but gave up about two thirds of the way through due to it being extremely boring. Next in the hopper was A Very Short Introduction to Consciousness by Susan Blackmore. This one was plenty interesting but it made me want to strangle Susan Blackmore on several occasions. (more…)

I originally wrote this with the intention that it would be my first post in my Gospel Principles series, but it is not quite what I wanted to say, so I am going to rewrite. Still, consider this draft 1, and come back around January for Draft 2.

Before thoroughly discussing who our Heavenly Father is, it is essential to understand a few basic concepts that are fundamental to LDS theology. The first of these is the eternal nature of matter, and thus, by implication, the eternal nature of the reality we exist in. Thus it can be said our faith “holds strictly to the conception of a material universe.” [1] Also, eternal laws bind this universe, and these laws bind anything within this universe. [2] [3]

(more…)

I frankly don’t get it.

We live in a fairly new neighborhood with a K-8 public elementary/middle school in it. My kids walk the half a mile to and from school every day. Starting this year all four of them will go to and fro together. I think it is great. The kids are flourishing socially and academically (as they have in every school they’ve attended.)

But we know lots of people in the neighborhood (and ward) who choose to send their children to other elementary schools. Sometimes it is a school in a neighboring district, sometimes it is a charter school in town. In each of these cases it means driving the children to and from school every day. (more…)

While I don’t consider myself much of a storyteller or very good at historical work, I really do try to take Pioneer day as an opportunity to look back at people in my pioneer heritage worth honoring. So consider this bit of family history part of the upcoming pioneer day celebration.

When Bill’s brother, Jim Ed, went away to college at Stephen F. Austin, as part of his hazing, a man held him down and shaved his head. Jim Ed went home humiliated, and said he’d had enough of school and these sorts of shenanigans. Bill got the boy’s name and then took off. He got in his car [1] and drove to the school and began asking around for the young man who’d held his brother down. The man, not knowing who Bill was, came out extended his hand to Bill, and said “What do you want to talk about?” He took the man’s hand, breaking his finger, and said “I’m not here to talk boy, I’m here to whoop your ass.” Jim Ed had no more problems with hazing at school. [2] However, Jim did have some trouble with his brother.
(more…)

In a career twist I would not have predicted, I have somehow become somewhat of an expert on the subject of mortgage refinances, loan modifications, and foreclosures over the last two years. Anyhow, odds are that you or one of your family members or friends is facing foreclosure on their home right now. I figured I could write some general advice about this subject in the hopes it might help someone.

Here is a scenario:

An LDS family in California is facing foreclosure. They bought their home at the height of the market in 2005 and now the home has dropped in value by more that $200,000. So between their first and second mortgage they owe $200,000+ more on the home than it could sell for right now. In the meantime the income of this good family has significantly decreased with the contracting U.S. economy. The upshot is that this family has no chance of being able to make their current mortgage payments over the long run. They made the full payments as long as they could, draining most of their savings in the process but now are up against the wall.

This is a fairly common situation these days. My advice to this family would be as follows: (more…)

Those of you who have been around a while may remember this post from three years ago where I was seeking suggestions for the all-Mormon cover band I had joined at the time. There were some really funny band names there so that thread is worth re-reading. Anyhow, the band eventually settled with the largely meaningless and safe name “Copper Rocket“. We practiced a lot and gigged a little over the next few years. When we did gig we mostly ended up playing outdoor events like block parties.

Copper Rocket was a fun band but we never really achieved liftoff. First, we could never settle in on a genre so the set list ended up being all over the place. The bigger problem was that we all have grown-up lives to lead and no one was able or willing to get out there and find us gigs. So we held on for a quite a while because we became friends but a few months back our drummer had to quit and that gave the bass player an out to call it quits too. At that point Copper Rocket finally crashed to earth for good.

But since we did slap together a quick demo I figured I would immortalize our little all-Mormon cover band in Arizona here at the Thang by posting those songs. (As usual I played sax in this band and handled most male lead vocals) Here they are in MP3 form:

Secret Agent Man (The band joked that we should call it Secret Asian Man because I slurred the title line. Over time the joke kinda stuck)
Back on the Chain Gang
Obladi Oblada
Video Killed the Radio Star (We sort of morphed the orginal version with the The PotUSA version)

Rest in peace Copper Rocket.

I may get the itch and start a new band again some time, but then again maybe I won’t…

I thought this was wonderful, and wanted to make sure we could all share in it. I especially loved the Covey Boys’ Madsen Impersonations, but that’s the 5 year old in me.

So many others have said so much about Madsen’s Passing, and how he impacted all our lives, I am not sure I can add anything.

I guess I can say that as a convert, his lectures on the presidents of the church series is what allowed me to have a testimony of each of the Presidents of the Church. I guess I can say he was one of the greatest orators I have ever heard and I have every talk I could find by him on my mp3 player, and they’ve been there for years, because no matter how many times I listen, I don’t get tired of them. I guess I can say that I believe he forever changed Mormonism, raising it to a higher state, making it better by his own personal efforts.

I guess I can say I never knew him personally, but I will miss him terribly.

God Speed, Brother Madsen.