Okay..  I've never thought of this before, but, how convenient do you think it was for Samuel to climb up on a wall, built around a city most likely to keep people out?  Yeah, I don't think it could have been that easy.  How often do we find any reason at all to get out of doing what God wants us to do?  Well, God told Samuel he...

So two days ago, I found myself on the same stage with the same band I've been with for the past 5 (or so) years, playing pretty much the same songs. Except, this time, something was different.  As I walked around looking at all of the awesome vehicles on the grounds, there was just something wonderful.  I have no idea how to describe i...

Anyone who knows what Helaman 12 is all about is probably wondering how in the world I could label this chapter as "Happiness".  hehe... Yesterday, I was having a very interesting conversation about happiness with a dear friend of mine, and oddly enough, today's chapter was Helaman 12, which of course, talks all about the frailties...

Amazing...  It's almost unbelievable that in the space of less than 13 years, a whole nation can go from being wicked, to almost dying of hunger, to becoming incredibly righteous and prosperous, and then coming back to being so wicked that the combined armies of the Nephites and Lamanites can't defeat the wicked part of the people. I've bee...

So, a few weeks ago, the studio acquired a Jackson electric guitar and didn't really have any experience with it.  So a good friend and client of the studio came in and messed around a bit with it, and using a great dual-mic technique to get the most out of the amp, we managed to get a very, very nice guitar tone out of it. Soon, it will be ...

So, due to the success we've been having with the studio, we were able to upgrade our two in-studio guitars.  We bought a new black Crafter acoustic guitar, which sounds just awesome.  One of the new Herod The Fink tunes will feature the Crafter, and we're excited to get a final mix to see how it sits within the music. We also bought a ...

Amazing.  A couple of chapters ago, I was commenting on the sad state which Nephi found himself in, and the amazing faith he must have had to remain in a state of faithfulness to God, when everyone around him was wicked. I guess that's the way it goes.  God tries us to our breaking point, careful not to give us trials beyond our capabil...

Seems that the testimony of Nephi against the people of Zarahemlah was centered around their disbelief in Christ.  Interesting that, as soon a Satan has control over a people, Christ is the first doctrine which is attacked. Also the story of the finding of the murderer of Seezoram is interesting through the eyes of the foreknowledge of God.&...

Hey Guys, Okay so its been a really really long time since I last wrote anything.  I just recently remembered my password and that is a really big part of my reason for not writing.  I know this is suppose to be like a diary (right or wrong?), but I would perfer to think that its more of a letter to a best friend (hope that don't sound ...

So...  I remember Nephi coming back to his own people and seeing them in a state of wickedness, but I didn't remember that he had just been on a mission where everyone in the land northward rejected his word, too.  That would be an incredible test of faith in an of itself.  Only the most stalwart followers of God, in my view, could t...

Within the first 5 verses of this chapter, I'm reminded again of how a person works who is truly interested in God's commandments. Lehi was commanded of the Lord to have his sons return to Jerusalem to get the plates of brass from Laban. Telling Laman and Lemuel would most certainly have some consequences in that they would automatically assu...

I just got up from a nap I was taking due to my going to bed at 4:00am this morning and the first words my wife told me after coming up stairs was "President Hinckley died a few hours ago." I'm not one to get upset at death.  For some reason, I've never had a problem with people dying.  The one thought which makes this even ea...

 Man... This chapter was brutal.  Wars, wickedness, and death.  Seems to me that this is the result of giving power to Satan, letting him run rampant.  Hating your neighbor and wanting to kill him for the sake of being bloodthirsty.  So terribly sad, and unfortunate. Interesting in verse 5 that Mormon writes that the wick...

Ya know...  The explanations of the strategy of war really is interesting to me.  But when I come across verses like these, I simply can't help but get chills. I actually tear up when reading these verses.  I guess it's kind of the whole underdog syndrome.  Ya know... When there's a conflict, or a competition, and the odds are...

I guess Heavenly Father leads us in mysterious ways.  I came across this site through an engine search.   I feel God's hand upon me the last few weeks bringing me back to where I am supposed to be... Sometimes I feel so lost and I start to question could my heavenly Parents really love me?  Then some simple miracle happens and m...

I just returned from a family vacation at "Down-At-A" water-park with all my immediate family (minus Andrea) and had a blast. During the evening of the first night, the discussion was lulling a bit, so Curtis and I decided to begin discussing some doctrinal points of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. During this discussion, both Curtis and I ...

Something in verse 13 struck me as interesting, even though it probably could be considered common knowledge among the LDS population. I never remember seeing anything quite as obvious relating to happiness as Alma 41:10, which states "Wickedness never was happiness".  Well...  It's easy to inverse-ify it and say "If wic...

I read Mosiah 18 yesterday and found that due to the mindset I'm having now of an overall perspective, it was hard to get into all the details of what Alma was saying.  This is a great chapter for new members, or people who are trying to understand baptism. One question I have always had with this scripture is, "Where did Alma get the ...

Imagine for a moment you had no idea about the atonement of Christ. Now imagine you sitting there and listening to what I have to say. And the first thing you hear are the words, "God demands perfection for salvation." Not sure about you, but for me, that creates a sort of sinking feeling inside...  I put "perfection an...

All I've gotta say is - don't get on the wrong side of God.  The wrath of God shown in chapter 9 really is quite astounding. Then, in chapter 10, it's almost as if God's words were pleading to the people...  Almost as if God were remorseful of the things He had to do...  Claiming, "If ye only had kept my commandments, these th...

I honestly hope I'm never in the position to deliver a speech as the one Jacob records in this chapter.  Holy moly. He condemns pride, people seeking after riches, and chastity breakers to a degree not many other speeches can. I wonder if the words he wrote were the same words he used in the speech, because a lot of the metaphors he uses a...

I was sifting through my various RSS feeds a couple of minutes ago, and one popped up from TomsHardware which I thought might be interesting.  So I opened it up in my browser, and before I could even read the title, my eyes were drawn to this ad by Microsoft.  The image itself isn't very funny, but man-oh-man, the captions which came to m...

Quite a few people have been wondering how they can get RSS feeds which are specific to the individual users of ILoveMyJournal.com.  Until now, they couldn't. ILoveMyJournal.com now has feeds which will contain public posts from only the user you're interested in! To get it, you simply click on the RSS feed logo found within the user's blo...

I just got done making the video for this entry, so take a look if you've got a high speed Internet connection. Today was the 2nd day of the Ed Roth Memorial Reunion held in Manti, UT. There were finksters-a-plenty there on Friday, but even more on Saturday.  I lost count of how many Rat Finks I saw. So, because the days were packed, ...

The new lamp for my projector arrived today and much rejoicing was heard among the land. Since our lamp burned out 5-8 months ago, we've been using a TV to entertain our kids, providing them with movies and TV cartoons and all the other goodness with which MythTV blesses our lives. With the return of our lamp, I wanted a way to extend the life ...

Just in case you haven't heard the latest about Tiny Boats' debut album release, a good friend of the studio, Matt Mylroie, a music producer in Florida, had these good words to say about The Broken Vessels. A portion is quoted below, where the full review can be found here. "This album is hard to describe, but it is a fantastic blend of ...

Three things stood out at me during tonight's study session: 1. I wonder where the translation of the plates of Lehi are right now?  I've never read the history of the Chuch, so I don't know if it's documented there, but Joseph Smith had them, and had them returned to him after he lost them.  Did he destroy them?  Are they somewhe...

Since I've been job-hopping for the last bit, I've had the chance to install fresh gentoo builds on quite a few 64-bit computers in the last couple of months. I've also been looking at different IDEs for PHP development.  After using jEdit now for close to 5 years, I've gotta say the one which impresses me the most is Zend Studio for Eclips...

Where do I even begin?  Well...  The craziness began on Thursday of last week, so I'll start there. *THURSDAY: Every year, my uncle Cloy and Evelyn Jones have a family reunion intended for their family.  I'm not entirely sure why, but my parent's family has been invited to this reunion for a long time.  Some years we go, som...

"Some are lost because they are different. They feel as though they don’t belong. Perhaps because they are different, they find themselves slipping away from the flock. They may look, act, think, and speak differently than those around them and that sometimes causes them to assume they don’t fit in. They conclude that they are not...