This talk was wonderful!  It brought many memories of my adolescence to mind, along with quite a few ponderous questions which I had never before contemplated. I'm not sure if it's my current mood, or the Spirit or what, but this talk was wonderful. It brought back memories of my own childhood, when I made decisions which would bring on ma...

Okay, I was watching the latest Miss Universe the other day and it was kind of like watching a train wreck.  You don't want to look, but you can't bring yourself to turn away.  The interesting part about it was the question and answer portion which is supposed to be the most important part of the competition (yeah right!).  They had ...

Hmm.... I enjoyed this talk, but I'm not entirely sure what to write about it. The three aspects of gaining a burning testimony of light and truth given are completely true: Learn True Doctrine Gain Pure Testimony Live Gospel Courageously I remember something my mission president said about the first one.  He said som...

Ya know...  I really liked this talk.  There were points in it where I found his words coming through my mind's eye of the past. While growing up, I was probably on the extreme of what Elder Zwick was trying to convey.  Instead of being tempted to go along with the crowd, I thought the crowd was stupid, and I didn't need them. ...

I just got done reading, listening to, and watching the general conference talk "Ask In Faith", by Elder David A. Bednar. I must say, having missed the original broadcasting of this conference, I heard all the hype about this talk in the ensuing weeks and months.  It seemed that this talk was all the rage about learning how to &quo...

This morning I woke up and just was in a good mood...  Feeling very grateful for lots of things...  So, I decided to make a video of it all, and I think it turned out okay. Just a jumble of thoughts and emotions from yours truly. Enjoy.  ...

This time through Mosiah 3, I had a few interruptions, so I wasn't able to concentrate as much as I would have liked, but family really does come first, so, ya gotta do what ya gotta do... Anyway..  Mosiah 3, to me, this time rang loudly of what the Atonement of Jesus Christ is all about.  It speaks of who needs the Atonement, who is c...

I just spent the last three hours trying to figure out why my OpenFire 3.5.2 instance was installing just fine, saying that it was running just fine, but in reality was not running at all. Neither port 9090, nor 9091 was open, both ports 9090, and 9091 were closed. ps -A | grep openfire returned nothing - at all. Yet, /etc/init.d/openfire sta...

It's been a long time since I have read the Book of Mormon.  Well, I decided to repent tonight and read where I left off at Mosiah. One scripture which always stands out to me in this chapter is the latter portion of verse 9.  King Benjamin is telling people how they should prepare themselves to hear his message, and thus he says: ...

When I'm not listening to music, I love listening to a few AM talk radio programs.  Well, about six months ago, one of my favorite radio stations, KNRS 570 AM radio, changed their streaming program that let people use the Internet to hear their content. This change effectively shut-out all Linux users.  I chatted with 4 other Linux use...

Okay.... Yes.. Collin knows he's cool.  Actually, he's just happy to be on his way to Monterey to enjoy the various wonderful goings-on there. Anyway...  I thought I'd list the reasons I love Monterey while I'm waiting for everyone to get ready for the day.  So... Here goes: By far the best reason to come to Monterey Califo...

Man...  I've got to settle on which type of keyboard I'm going to use.   I can't be switching keyboards from work to home and back.  I might have a nervous breakdown. Anyway...  We just got done bathing Samuel, and these pictures were too cute to idly pass by. You can see that the mohawk has been successfully passed on ...

Okay...  I remember having read this awhile ago and cross-referencing Alma 16:10 about the destruction of the city of Ammonihah in one day, but I didn't remember that it wasn't a prophet who said that.  It was one of the non-believers.  One of the people who was trying to refute what Alma was talking about up and said, "yo,...

At the beginning of this year, one of the things I wanted to accomplish by next year was to write enough songs to create an album.  So far I have 3 songs I reallly like, and one which I think should be destroyed by fire.  Not too shabby, considering it's only the beginning of February. When I was 26, 1 day after I had broken up with my...

I went to bed yesterday around 9:00pm, and I should have learned by now that when I go to bed that early, I wake up about 3 hours later and am up for half the night. So, I might as well see what I can hack out in my journal. Lately, I've been pondering how I can be more of an example to those around me.  An example of what?  I'm not...

Ya know...  I sure would like to know what the politics of the time were back then.  Helaman's guard was able to single-handedly save the newly-appointed chief judge, by disguise, intellect, and ultimately a firm blade straight through the heart.  Yet, the account says nothing of telling anyone what was happening during the incident....

So lately, I've been posting little snippets on social networking sites about how awesome I think my wife is.  I really don't know exactly what has been throwing me into this state of absolute gratefulness for her, but it doesn't seem to be slowing down. I guess I'm just having a good hard realization that (only 2nd to God himself) she is th...

 I think these chapters are too short.  Interesting to note that the scripture says that the elder or priest would "kneel down with the church", yet the congregation doesn't kneel down today. Also interesting to note that the sacrament prayer is one of very few prayers which have to be said verbatim, and hasn't changed at all ...

So, again, something kind of odd.  Mormon was 16 when he was commissioned to be the leader of the entire Nephite army.  Is that not insane?  Seriously.  Every 16-year-old I know barely has the sense to tie their shoes in the morning!  Okay, not really, but - wow.  Mormon was 16 years old when he was put in charge of th...

It's been a while since I just sat down to write about whatever comes out of my fingers.  I now have about an hour of free time, so I think I'm gonna do just that. It's been kind of interesting that in various points in my life, I've wanted to get rid of the thoughts of doing something musical professionally, but it always seems to come back...

In response to this talk, I catch myself wondering how many degrees off I am.  Everyone makes mistakes, and I know the mistakes I make, and I wonder how far I am from the iron rod. I'm fairly certain I can figure this out quite easily through prayer, and if need be, receive the needed help to get back to where I should be. Good solid talk,...

Ya know, sometimes in this business, you've gotta use ingenuity.  And then there are other times you've just got to call it quits.  I'm really glad we didn't choose that option for last night's session, because it turned out just fine... Well.. That is, after we spent hours trying to figure out how in the world we were going to accompli...

We've done it.  We've hit the mother load.  The golden goose has landed. I had the opportunity yesterday to work with one of the most talented musicians I've ever met.  It's somebody I've highly respected the past few years, and have wanted to work with ever since I heard him play.  He's largely unknown, and has requested me om...

Interesting that I should choose to read this today, because my wife and I were talking a bit about the 2nd coming last weekend.  The second coming shall be like a "refiner's fire", which, of course, is meant to purify - or to burn out impurities.  That which abides by the law is sanctified by the same.  A talk I once heard...

So, again, something kind of odd.  Mormon was 16 when he was commissioned to be the leader of the entire Nephite army.  Is that not insane?  Seriously.  Every 16-year-old I know barely has the sense to tie their shoes in the morning!  Okay, not really, but - wow.  Mormon was 16 years old when he was put in charge of th...

One question comes to mind this time reading chapter 14 and the beginning of 15. Why in the world did Abinadi think these priests could understand what he was talking about? An interesting perspective can be had when the audience of each scripture is considered. The thing I don't get about these chapters (14 and 15), is that the doctrine A...

Ya know...  The first thing that hit me while beginning this chapter was this:  How in the world did Noah get selected to be king? I mean, really.  Verse 1 lets us know Zeniff had at least two sons.  Could his other son be that much worse than Noah was?  Burning a prophet of God at the stake?  C'mon...  I w...

I haven't been getting much sleep lately...  So I think I'll write about.... something.  I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to write about, but it's been much too long since I've written to continue not writing any longer. I found this link today, given to me by this dude.  It's a great theme for a blog, and I hope it goes far. ...

This chapter was interesting.  The first thing I noticed is that Samuel had some serious insight as to things of God.  He prophesied of the destruction of the entire Nephite nation in the last chapter, and in this chapter, he details quite specifically, events which were to occur at both the birth and the death of Christ.  Interestin...

 What a horrible, yet extremely personal and hopeful chapter.   The nature of it reminds me of the psalm of Nephi (2 nephi  4:15-end).  What horrible, horrible things were going on at the end, but it just amazes me, the strength of Mormon, and his constant prayers for Moroni - and his pleading to God for his soul to be brought b...