Confrontation and contention has always been an interesting thing for me.  For one, I hate it and I don't know how to deal with it.  I'm a passionate person in every sense of the word.  The moment I feel like I'm being attacked, it's everything I have to do to keep my head level and my blood from boiling.  Unfortunately, this ke...

The first thing that stood out to me this time around was the anger of Lamoni's father.  Try to place yourself in the situation Lamoni found himself in.  There are so many variables in the situation, it's hard to imagine exactly what was going on with the family undercurrents, but holy cow.  Lamoni's father drew his freaking sword an...

One thing that comes to mind while reading the first verses of this chapter is, "If I were a queen, and my servants brought me my unconscious husband, I'd immediately want to know who did it." - and Ammon did it.  That doesn't make much sense to me.  Obviously the times of the Book of Mormon were , uh, different, so that could e...

It's been awhile since I continued on in my quest to read and write about each and every chapter in the Book of Mormon, but, I'm still at it!  I'm gonna finish!  Here's Alma 18: The first thing I notice this time around is something I don't think I've ever noticed before. In order to feel badly about doing something, you have to at le...

Lately, I've been viewing a few Disney flicks on DVD.  I got Bolt and Bedtime Stories.  Because I usually rent them on redbox and can only have them for a day, I will rip them, and then when I get around to it, I'll watch em' then delete them.  No problems with that, as far as I can see.  I rent them to view them once, and that'...

Lately, I've been getting a lot of feedback concerning lost entries from I Love My Journal.  Occasionally, I would even lose one myself. The session timer for ILoveMyJournal.com is set to 2 hours, which means that you can stay logged in to the stie for 2 hours without being logged out due to inactivity. I initially thought was long enough,...

I've been debating on whether or not to write about this, and if I write about it, whether or not to make it public. Well... As you can see, I decided to make it public.  and to write about it. I came to work two days ago with the intent on working on the last of the original PHP projects still having a chance on making it through the me...

So lately I haven't had any major projects going on involving programming, and I started to miss it, so I decided to act upon a thought I had about a month ago. That thought consisted of me wanting a definitive answer to my almost 10,000-photo collection of digital images which seems to keep growing, and staying totally unorganized. So, two day...

Well...  Yesterday, a friend of mine had told me he had the privilege of being formally taught how to tune a snare drum. I read what he had to say (he posted it on facebook, so if you're not his friend, I imagine you can't read it, but here's the link anyway) So, today, I went and investigated a bit of whether I could get the proper tool...

The beginning of this chapter is one of my favorites.  I love verse 2 and 3. True friendship, at least in my case, is always born of spiritual origin.  The friends I've had that have lasted have always had a solid spiritual foundation.  And yes... Finding that old friends have kept the faith and increased in the knowledge of the Lo...

The spirit of this talk came to me about 1/3 of the way through reading it. It spoke to me of an immense gratitude which I feel for being a member of this church.  Not only is it this church, but it is His church.  I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the same church which Jesus Christ himself set up when he was ...

Herod the Fink is a Christmas collaboration project between Jesse Crowley and Jason Jones which has been going on now for 3 glorious years at Advanced Budget Studios.  This year's offering is a 4-song EP. The music this year ranges from a bluegrass crossing punk style of "Joy To The World" to an introspective look in to each of our...

I've been pondering on how I am to write about this without seeming haughty or prideful, because quite honestly, I feel nothing more than blessed beyond words. When I was offered this job, it just felt right.  Six months previous to my being offered this job, I was offered another job in SLC which seemed right in every aspect but the fact th...

 Another very short one.  If I understand it correctly, the prayer states that by partaking of the water, we are covenanting (or "witnessing") unto God that we will always remember Christ.  I believe a few chapters ago, I wrote quite an entry on the importance of remembering.  As evidenced by the inclusion of it in a w...

About 2 months ago, a great musician, designer, and friend sent me a new design idea for AdvancedBudgetStudios.com.  After getting various opinions, I decided to have a go at it.  Also, with all the free time I had during the holidays, I thought it would be a good time to get crackin'. So, without further ado, I present you the new and ...

Sorry for the long haitus I've taken from blogging, guys.  I guess it doesn't really matter since nobody reads my blog, anyway.. Man...  This new job is really taking me for a loop.  Right now, the only way I can survive without seriously considering other alternatives is to take it a day at a time.  This in no way should sugg...

I just arrived home from a most splendid 3-hour church meeting. Yesterday morning I got a call from the elders' quorum president, in which he asked me to teach the priesthood lesson today.  I said yes, and got the information I needed to teach. The lesson was on "Obedience Born of Faith in God".  Well...  I spent about 5 ...

This talk really got me thinking about where my heart is. As I've grown older, my pet sins are still doing their best to have their portion of my heart dedicated to them.  I'm still doing my best to assure they don't. Often, I wonder how my life will differ in this aspect 5 or 10 years from now.  Will I still struggle with the same si...

For some reason, I love the commandment of paying tithing.  It's probably one of the top 10 commandments of which I have a burning testimony. I love this quote (as well as Jacob 2:19) "President Heber J. Grant stated, “I want to say to you, if you will be honest with the Lord, paying your tithing and keeping His commandments, He...

Ya know...  I didn't quite know what to write about today, but I knew I had to write about something.  Some days, I've just got to write. Fasting.  Fasting, to me, is simply going without food or water for a duration of time with the purpose of showing God I am willing to sacrifice something which is very important to me, having h...

I just got done reading a wonderful article in which the author tries to describe the core differences between the "open source" mentality and the proprietary one.  He does a great job of being objective and is generally well-thought out. Since I began using Linux, being myself a capitalist, I've battled the idea that the open sour...

Before I even begin reading this chapter, I've gotta let you know that this chapter intimidates me.  It is so doctrinally rich, I'm seriously getting anxious just thinking about having to decipher its contents here and now.  I know this anxiety is unfounded because I know that God answers prayers, and I've prayed, so... Let's get to it. ...

One thing I noticed while reading verses 7 through 11, apart from the torn emotions of all the people, was what caused their emotion. Why did they feel so "amazed" and fille with "pain and anguish", and with "exceedingly great joy"?  Well... When was the last time you felt filled with pain and anguish for some...

My mom called me up a couple of days ago to give me some not-so-great news. My dad got fired from his job.  Now, those of you who know my dad know that he isn't "fire-able" material.  While he was employed at his full-time job at the prime of his life, he happened to "keep a job" for more than 15 years, so...  ...

I just wanted to let you all know I'm experimenting with putting ads on ILoveMyJournal.  I've been paying a bit too much to host the various sites I put up, so I'm seeing if I can re-coup any of it through ads. If you want to get rid of the ads, simply log in.  As soon as you log in, all ads should disappear. I'm not 100% sure if I'm ...

During last month's testimony meeting, our wonderful Luci whispered into Sarah's ear, as the church members were expressing their feelings about Christ, that she really didn't want to go up there.  It was totally unprovoked, but as she is somewhat frightened of unfamiliar situations, was totally understandable. We told her that it was okay ...

I just arrived home from a most splendid 3-hour church meeting. Yesterday morning I got a call from the elders' quorum president, in which he asked me to teach the priesthood lesson today.  I said yes, and got the information I needed to teach. The lesson was on "Obedience Born of Faith in God".  Well...  I spent about 5 ...

 So, I've been thinking about what the first post in 2012 should be, and I've been drawing a blank.   I could talk about all the cool gear I've upgraded, and the success we had in 2011, but I've talked a lot about that stuff already  (although the new RME Madi interface, ADI-8 QS converters, and Focusrite 828 preamps are pretty stink...

Yup...  I'm one of em'.  I'm a geek.  I'm probably not as geeky as the geekiest of geeks, but I've managed to stay employed as a computer programmer for more than 5 years now.  I also spend pretty much every moment of my spare time on my computer at home.  I have geek friends and ... well...  I enjoy technology.  ...

Some quotes from the talk I found quite inspiring: Are we consciously creating righteous traditions, or is life just happening to us? Are our traditions being created in response to the loud voices of the world, or are they influenced by the still, small voice of the Spirit? Are the traditions that we are creating in our families going to make i...