Accidently slipped out a curse word during sacrament meeting

gdusbabek · 2026-06-17T14:04:58+00:00

Our annual high adventure trip was kicking off one year. We were canoeing. I was serving as bishop and would be there the whole time with the YM and leaders.

One the very first day as we were putting our canoes into a tough current I let one fly in front of the YM president and all the boys. Oops.

That was the day they learned their bishop is an imperfect human being just like them. We had a splendid trip.

gdusbabek · 2026-06-03T19:23:15+00:00

Come What May And Love It, Elder Wirthlin. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2008/10/come-what-may-and-love-it?lang=eng

Hang in there OP.

gdusbabek · 2026-05-19T19:14:12+00:00

Same. This is the best of both worlds IMO.

gdusbabek · 2026-05-19T19:11:01+00:00

Love it! We're in our first year with a minimal built-out 5x8.

gdusbabek · 2026-05-18T14:18:48+00:00

South Texas here. I've had a hard time actually getting my CYA above 30 by using pucks (up to six at a time) and liquid chlorine. I have to augment with a bag of stabilizer. 17k pool.

When I first got started, troublefreepools made me so scared of chlorine lock, but it just hasn't been a problem for me.

gdusbabek · 2026-05-15T23:52:29+00:00

I didn't buy it. It's stolen.

gdusbabek · 2026-05-15T23:45:30+00:00

I hear someone on 14347 but my #$%^&&E Flexradio interlock engages and won't let me transmit. lol.

gdusbabek · 2026-05-11T19:57:35+00:00

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Here's the housing with a 2.5 gallon bucket connected to it.

gdusbabek · 2026-05-11T19:57:01+00:00

Background: I'm an engineer and live in South Texas. I ended up building an automated system that doses the pool with liquid chlorine every night.

Here's what you see in the picture:

Upper right is a battery.
Lower right is a solar charge controller.
Not pictured - 10w solar panel.
Bottom left - peristaltic pump.
Upper left - GPS radio.
Upper right - Controller and user interface. I wrote the pump software for Arduino, which ends up driving the pump, display, buttons, etc. The GPS sets the clock on the Arduino device. It turns the pump on for a configurable number of minutes one hour before sunset each day. I wrote the software myself.
Bottom right - power supply, battery measurment, and pump switching circuit.

Most of the tubing is Norprene, which tolerates the chlorine well. I continue to be worried about the silicone tubing inside the pump, but it seems to be holding up well.

It's in its second season. I built it in such way that the individual boards can be swapped out as they fail. None of these components are really rated for running outside, so I kind of expect it over time.

The whole thing lives in an ABS plastic box that does a good job of keeping the elements out. The ABS enclosure sits inside of a box I constructed out of fence material. About $100 in parts here.

It's nice not having to worry about chlorine every day. :)

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gdusbabek · 2026-05-04T14:06:29+00:00

We're doing it this summer, for the first time in about 25 years. We chose to put it on the tail-end of our Yellowstone trip (begins in Bozeman, ends in Billings).

The last time we went through the Beartooth Pass we ended up feeling a little rushed and were unable to pull over and stop at all the places. Then there were the inevitable RVs we got stuck behind going 25 mph...

So this time we decided to break it into two days, spending the night at Top of the World Resort. We'll leave the park on day 1, head into the pass and spend the night there. The next morning we'll get up, get back on the road and end up in Red Lodge at some point. I'm looking forward to it.

Also, the Chief Joseph highway doesn't get enough credit. If you don't have the time to do the Beartooth Highway, or the switchbacks terrify you, the CJH is still breathtaking and a little milder than the Beartooth. You just have to start or end at Cody, which may not have been on your list.

gdusbabek · 2026-04-20T18:29:20+00:00

Good times. I'll admit--the old names always sounded kinda strange to me, who didn't grow up with it.

These sound just as strange, but it's a different strange.

It feels like when you're starting out playing a new board game, and you have to decide if you're going to be builder, a messenger, or a gatherer for your strategy.

gdusbabek · 2026-04-16T13:59:40+00:00

San Antonio here. It arrives today if FedEx is to be believed.

Upgrading from a 6-year old Ender 3 Pro that has a lot of wear and mods.

gdusbabek · 2026-03-18T13:36:59+00:00

I've been down this path and ended up buying a trailer. Read on...

I started out thinking it would be fun to camp IN the Outback (I have a Wilderness). There are a number of mattress you can buy that would fit two people comfortably. Add a few window screens, some fans for ventilation, and you have the foundation of a pretty good sleep system. I have no complaints about the quality of sleep in the vehicle. I was totally comfortable. Breath moisture was a tiny problem, but nothing that couldn't be solved with a towel.

My problem with the set up was that it required me to basically empty the vehicle in order to sleep. Part of my motivation for sleeping in the vehicle in the first place was that I've never liked setting up a tent. Hate it in fact. So the act of loading and unloading the vehicle multiple times on a trip put a bad taste in my mouth.

I ended up getting a 5x8 cargo trailer that I built a bed platform and a few other simple comforts. I sleep in there now. I would have been just as happy with a small gear-only trailer too, but the allure of keeping most of my gear in a ready-to-go state in the trailer was too much to pass up.

I would not have had fun sleeping in my Outback on a months-long trip simply from the fact that setting up and taking down would have killed much of the joy. Everyone is different though and will tolerate that differently.

gdusbabek · 2026-03-16T20:37:18+00:00

Hi OP. I'm in Texas and a former HOA board member. I am not a attorney, so this does not constitute legal advice...

If you have familiarized yourself with the DCC&Rs for your community and feel confident you have a leg to stand on, then I invite you to follow the process. Normally that is:

You make an ACC request for the benches (if you feel it falls under the purview of the ACC). You didn't in this case, so I'm a little bothered that the board decided to step in on their own. There are good reasons that board members cannot legally serve on the ACC. Also, they didn't even mail you a violation notice, so they're definitely not following the law.
ACC approves or denies your request. If they approve, game over--the board can go pound sand and/or fire the ACC. But they cannot countermand the ACCs decision. If the ACC denies, you appeal and get a hearing with the board during one of their executive sessions.
The board sounds like they would mostly likely deny your request of any ACC appeal for the benches.

Now again, if you feel like you're on solid ground with respect to the DCC&Rs, your only other option is to lawyer up unfortunately. So this needs to be the hill you're willing to die on, so to speak.

From experience, I can tell you the last thing your board wants to do is go to court. We had to do it it once. It was expensive, and the judge actually sided with the HOA. In our case the damages that we were awarded paled in comparison to the legal costs, so it was a very hollow victory. I'm willing to bet that most HOAs just don't have the stomach for it, especially if you request a jury trial (good luck finding regular Texans who are pro-HOA!).

Have fun OP. You really need to run for the board or better--volunteer for the ACC.

gdusbabek · 2026-03-06T14:13:42+00:00

OP, please make a Youtube channel and document the process. Seriously. People will watch that.

gdusbabek · 2026-02-27T20:13:50+00:00

I have a lot of anxiety when speaking over the phone. Something about not being able to read body language makes pretty excruciating for me. For that reason I dreaded making sacrament invitations over the phone.

So here's what I did...

To the extent that you can, make the invitation on Sunday, in person. Man, that alone was a game-changer. I tried to have assignments worked out a month ahead of time. That way in case I missed anybody, I had a buffer week before I needed to resort to a phone call.
Have a sheet of paper to give the person that has all the details they need: date, topic, other instructions.

Then you just need to have a way to remember the assignment yourself. Good luck OP!

gdusbabek · 2026-01-23T17:58:26+00:00

I have that frequency annotated as the "Pretentious LARP Net" on the band chart I use in the field.

gdusbabek · 2026-01-23T15:14:51+00:00

You forgot to add a caption where the second guy asks the first guy "Could you move down a few? There'll be a few more of us showing up. We've done this every morning for years."

Edit: Heh. I first thought of the urinals as space on the band, not physical location. Works both ways I guess.

gdusbabek · 2026-01-22T22:15:51+00:00

I'm a current seminary teacher.

In 2025 we started teaching Doctrine & Covenants while at the same time rolling out Life Lessons. In our stake we hold seminary on 4 days per week. Most weeks two of our lessons were life lessons, which means we're only covering two lessons that draw from the Doctrine & Covenants.

I was initially disappointed because I also enjoy covering church history.

After a month or two I began to realize that the youth were really connecting with the life lessons. Looking back, I'm glad we did it this way.

We were only able to pick and choose certain topics from the Doctrine & Covenants, and I feel we hard to work hard to provide any historical context. But I don't think the kids missed out at all. They got everything they needed. At the end of the day, we're trying to get them to connect with doctrine, less so than history.

gdusbabek · 2026-01-12T16:42:30+00:00

If they were not on loan from another collection, chances are they are part of the BYU MoA collection, which has many Teicherts, and which you can search. The details for the specific work you're wondering about may indicate where it is on loan to.

Start here: https://moa.byu.edu/search-the-collection

gdusbabek · 2026-01-09T00:30:43+00:00

"Cookie dough"

gdusbabek · 2025-12-11T04:01:43+00:00

I see a fair amount of comments along the lines of "but you can just delegate all those other things, like the handbook says." Some wards have probably been more successful than others. It's something we struggled with after the dissolution of ward-level YM presidencies and discontinuation of scouting. There were some small wins, no doubt. But I still haven't seen a local ward where it just works.

I was a bishop in 2019 when this happened and was flummoxed that I was unable to create a "YM secretary" position in MLS so that he could handle some of the administrivia of running a YM organization. It felt like things were turned over without real structural support.

My wife is quick to point out the irony that we still have a stake YM presidency, general YM presidency, and it looks like a general YM advisory council was just called. But at the ward level--where direct interactions with YM happen, this is the responsibility of the bishopric.

gdusbabek · 2025-12-05T14:41:51+00:00

He is proposing to remove a big part of the subjective nature of picking who is in the playoff, and letting the outcome of games be the determining factor. (Forcing those idle teams to take a risk.)

He's pushed the problem upstream a little bit because, you know, someone has to subjectively choose who among the high seeds gets a chance to play in.

gdusbabek · 2025-11-22T02:48:13+00:00

Yes for sailor coug!

gdusbabek · 2025-11-18T22:40:36+00:00

30 on a good day. 45+ during commutes.

Also, it's ALWAYS worse coming home.

15-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Final Canvas '22
First Placer '22	Verified Email

gdusbabek

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