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...

Ya know, I thought up until now that verse 6 refers only to the people under the reign of king Lamoni.  Evidently, it was everyone under the king of the entire Lamanite nation.  Amazing, amazing missionary work. Heh... Yeah... In reading the rest of the chapter, it pretty much names exactly the cities which were converted.  I guess...

I've never noticed that by the way Christ speaks to his father, he is displaying total and complete humility. If Christ submits himself to the will of the Father so willingly and completely, who are we to suppose we are above doing so ourselves? "It is very enlightening and touching to me to consider how Jesus talks to His Father. In His g...

My wife left this morning for Girls' Camp (she's a leader), and so my mom came down to help with the chil'lins.  It's been good to spend some time with her. We watched The Eagle's Concert "Hell Frozen Over", and she not only watched the whole thing, but she *really* enjoyed it.  It was great. We then talked about this site I...

We've been recording a bunch of drum-takes to be added to otherwise "ready-to-go" songs lately here.  The latest of which happened to be a genre I particularly don't like much - country. But, the music sounded so good for this particular song, I decided to have at it anyway - and 4 hours later, we came up with the final result. I...

  The Power to Change Are there tears in me For who I want to be? Humbly in meek prayer, I'll extend all energy. With God's help I can abstain. A new life I can obtain. I will hold to the rod, With my life close to God Through His narrow paths I will trod.   Can these tears of mine Cleanse all my soul and mind? With the S...

Sunday morning, Luci came into our room, climbed up in our bed (Sarah and I were still half asleep in bed, as groggy as ever), and she started bouncing up and down while singing the "Green Speckled Frog" song. Although I was still not aware of most the world around me, I thought her singing was quite cute.  So about an hour later,...

I just got back from a Presbyterian church meeting with Henry, Kim, Julia, Sarah, myself and our two kids.  It was quite interesting. We walked in there about 5-10 minutes late, and went forward until we were sitting like 5 rows back from the front. A full band of 7 people was playing on a stage and was sounding quite wonderful, actually.&...

My wife and I got into a discussion a couple of nights ago which has stayed with me enough for me to mull over the questions at least a couple of times.  I'm not 100% sure of the correct answer yet, so I thought I'd blog about it. The topic at hand is a quite sacred one, so I'll treat it with as much respect as is possible. The discussio...

So...  Interesting that one of the reasons cited for Heth's righteousness is his remembering what the Lord had done for his people, specirfically, bringing Jared and his kin over the ocean.  There has got to be something behind the whole "remember what the Lord has done for you" thing, and living a righteous life.  Heck.. E...

SugarStone made a surprise appearance last Saturday, and even though the fanfare was short, they ended up leaving with a new freshly baked demo. It's called Ready Set Go, and is currently awaiting your ears on their facebook page....

Lately, I've been studying the D&C, and I came upon section 76, which isn't anything new to me, personally. I studied that section quite a bit during my mission. However, this time the coincidence of my reading this days after one of my co-workers came over and asked me"Are there any sins that Christ's atonement don't cover?" Worded that way...

Okay...  Quick story... Last Thursday, I was looking around the Internet for a great deal on a new pre-amp I want for my studio.  Happens that about 2 hours into searching, I found a deal almost too good to be true.  I found my 8-channel Focusrite Platinum Octopre for $300.00 less than anywhere I could find ($400.00 less than retai...

I'm so disappointed in the way things played out this last April.  I just finished reading President Monson's talk, and thus concluded the Priesthood session, and I so would loved to have been there.  But the past is the past, and I should consider myself grateful to be able to read the words after-the-fact. One paragraph of this talk ...

Okay.. Not really the "radio", but a cool little Internet radio station picked up Herod the Fink (a band I'm in), and decided to feature us.  They decided to play our song, "Desperate Husband's Chorus", and I think it's way cool. The radio station is called "LDS Music Today" and can be found at http://www.ldsmu...

The most striking point of this chapter, this time, was the description of the darkness which covered the land after the storm.  I've never thought about the darkness as an analogy of Christ's absence.  The more I think about it, the clearer it becomes. We know death as being a type of prison due to the body and the soul being separated...

I spent today away from my sweetheart, so I thought I'd see what kind of a "1 day love song" I could write to her.  So, I took approximately 5 hours and wrote her a love song.... or something...  It's my first attempt at recording myself playing guitar, and the lyrics consist of 8 whole words.  So...  Here ya go. ...

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...

Well....  It's late, and I'm tired, but I wanted to let you all know, that right now, I know that if I dig in and learn the Zend framework, immerse myself in it as much as I can, while maintaining some semblance of a balance in my life, short-term, I'll make it with my new employment.  I've just gotta jump in, so I sink or swim.  I t...

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...

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...