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...

So... I just checked, and throughout all canonized scripture, know how many times the phrase "solemn mockery" is used?   Yup - you guessed it.  Once.  And it happens to refer to the baptizing of children.  For some reason, I think God dislikes this act a bit. Verse 14 seems kind of harsh, but if a person has nei...

Sitting here before I begin this entry, I have to sit and sigh...  A sigh of gratitude. Today has been a Sabbath of great spiritual confirmations of simple truths. While reading this entry, I suggest you click the "play" icon button  in the upper right-hand corner of this entry window.  Instead of playing the usual En...

When will I ever learn to trust my wife, my brother, and my instinct?  Probably never. You see, Ryan, my brother, noted how bald the tires are on my Mustang GT about a month ago.  My wife also noted the same thing, as well as a pretty big storm coming this weekend.  Anyway...  I'll get on with the story. Sarah and I celebra...

I told you I love you, And yet you broke my heart. you had to run around, Behind my back! Now I'm sitting here, I can't think of anyonelse! But the one thing rings in my head, Why was I never good enough for you? How come I'm alone? I wanted to give you my heart, But you just can't be true, Can you? Now your running around, Trying to m...

While Elder Scott was talking about the justice of the Father, I couldn't help but remember a very simple conversation I had with a childhood friend named Jared Peck. He was talking about scenarios of people hurting the ones he loved, and how he would get back at them.  I sat and made the required remarks such as, "oh", and "y...

Not sure why this caught my attention this time, but doesn't it seem a bit weird that Mormon was carried by his father when he was 11 years old?  It seems like he was carried on somewhat of a journey, too - to a different land.   Maybe his father was quite big and could accomplish such a task, because an 11-year-old isn't small enough to ...

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 way I really enjoy reading the scriptures is from a very empathetic point of view.  I find I learn more when I study, if I try to imagine what would *really* be going on if I were actually within the scripture. Chapter 4 is perfect for this.  Reading somewhat between the lines of the first part of this chapter allows us to imagine ...

My sister died a week short of her birthday. It was really hard but we got through it.   Today, my nephew drove me right up the wall. I couldn't believe how much energy he had and how much trouble he could get into. Ben did most of the taking care of as I was busy with helping Holly with her resume   I get to move out for the first ti...

Today I had an interesting thought.  It's a question that possibly has thousands of answers, but, since I'm on a pensive streak, I thought I'd write down some of what I came up with. The thought was "How do you tell if someone cares for you?", which also spawned the thought, "How do I tell if I care for someone else?", whi...

Wow... So, first, I've gotta give a HUGE THANK YOU to my mother-in-law and father-in-law, because it was they who bought me the tickets for my birthday last month, in the first place.  I would have never bought the tickets for myself, so wthout them, I literally would have never seen such a concert. So, THANK YOU, KIM AND HENRY!!!!  T...

Hmm....  I'm kind of tired right now, but I figured I needed to read some scriptures... This time around, I realize how being under the rule of a tyrant would be absolutely horrible.  In this case, Alma was under the rule of one (or more) of the Amulonites - which were his wicked peers when they were the king's priests.  Talk about...

Haven't even started reading this yet, and I know I'm in for a doozie.  Amalickiah, in my estimation, is one of the truest Nehor-ites in existence.  Absolutely no morals, no regard for anyone but himself - even if it means killing many people who he claims to love.  One of the most dispicable humans ever to live on earth.  Now, ...

 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...

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...

Playing this song was a joy, until I realized I'd been playing wrong for so many years. Trying to do the cover as a true cover was freakin' hard for this song.  I hope I did it justice, though. There were a few points where I totally fubbed hits, but there were only a few. So... Here it is.  Let me know what ya think....

The first verse which caught me in the reading of the last half of 2nd Nephi 9 was verse 39. The question came to mind:  "Why would God need to have us "remember" the awfulness of sin?" ...  Well...  The answer is quite simple, really.  Because Satan laces all sorts of lies within the temptation of sin.&nbs...

Today, I woke up to about 6-10 inches of fresh powdery snow all over the place.   It's actually beginning to feel like Christmas time, now! Now, most normal people would say within themselves, "Man, I hate snow on the roads.", but not me. I'm not entirely sure why I'm this way, but it's been this way ever since I can remem...

Here I am again, in my bed typing in my journal on my laptop. Ya know, life is really good. Life has dealt me a bunch of cards which I interpret as being quite possibly the "straight flush" of life. Has it been easy? Nah. But I can't complain - nope, not one bit. Now, then.. on with the story. In my last entry, I briefly mentioned that my g...

Last week, PoeticIntensity decided to join us again, with an interesting concept.  He had spent the previous evening playing some chords, and decided to make a song out of it that evening.  So we spent an hour coming up with the concept, and another 2 hours tracking it.  We then spent a few more minutes mixing it down until it sounde...