today is my gmas 61st birthday..or it would be if she wer here. she died about 7 months ago and i just wanted to say.....HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA!!...

Ever since I built my first computer with a K6-2 200MHZ processor back in 1998, I've never looked back.  I've been an AMD guy my whole computing career. Recently, AMD has been having some tough times with their processors, and understandably, people haven't been buying their stuff as much. For what it's worth, I definitely had my doubts ...

About a year ago, I wrote about some feelings I have toward caffeine.  Since then, my feelings haven't changed much. I try to limit the amount of caffeine consumption in which I partake.  You know, the whole "moderation in all things" crud... Well...  Through this year, I've tried quite a few different caffeinated bev...

To have that taken away which is precious to you usually results in one of two things.  Either you do what is required to get back what was taken from you, or you devalue the thing which was taken, justifying its absence. About three years ago, for one reason alone, my Temple recommend was revoked from me and the ensuing years caused me to ...

I watched this talk about 2 months ago and was very impressed by what Elder Jeffrey R. Holland proclaimed. Down to its essence, Elder Holland simply states case after case as to why it makes no sense the claim that God has ceased speaking to us. Quite frankly, I believe him.  With overwhelming evidence given, it's hard not to see the clear...

Ya know, I'm not a very good critic in so many areas, simply becuase I'm not very picky.  I like lots of kinds of food, I like lots of kinds of music, I get along with lots of types of people, etc...  But, I simply must write about this. Sitting here trying to figure out how to start this review is quite daunting considering the ma...

I just got done watching, listening, and reading the last talk of the morning conference session of Sunday this year, and President Monson is indeed our prophet. Nothing in particular spoke anything specific to me.... Well... That's not true.  The following paragraph hit home a bit, "Mortality is a period of testing, a time to prove o...

I just got done preparing my message for my home-teaching visit tonight, and after reading through the matieral the 2nd time, a thought came to my head, although I'm not sure how I'm gonna get it out.  Here goes nothing. As I was thinking of home-teaching in general, the thought came that "love" is pretty much the strongest power o...

This past Thursday, we finally decided to rip it up.  I mean, literally - rip it up. Then, we decided to take it out the backyard to see what the heck was clogging it all up. It was just as we suspected.  Collin had flushed a freaking toy cell-phone down our toilet! and yes, we took the toilet out in the backyard, twisted it, turned it...

Well... I figured I'd better write about this because I didn't have the sense to take any video of the actual party. I recorded myself going TO the party, but nothing more.  Crud. It was a good LAN party, too.  We played last Friday and Saturday.  We had the usuals there, Me, Shane and Shaun, but there were two people who never had...

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 ...

 Holy cow.  I only have 10 more chapters to go, and I'll finish the goal I set 3 years ago, to read and write about each chapter in the Book of Mormon.  I'm not sure why, but when I just realized that (like 1 minute ago), it was kind of surreal for me.  Anyway...  Here goes. Moroni 1. Moroni had to be one of the most tr...

A couple of days ago, I wrote a post about failure and innovation.  I had just seen the movie "Meet The Robinson's" which is a movie all about creativity, failures, leaving the past behind you, and always looking forward. Well...  Orson Jones gave a pretty incredible link in the 1 comment in that post. The comment containe...

I've recently had the awesome opportunity to work on a good friend's musical masterpiece.  He calls it "Vain Consolation", and it really is quite awesome.  I'll post a snippet if I can soon.  We're still waiting for some of the musical puzzle pieces to be put into place, and when that happens, we'll have a pretty incredible...

So, we're starting 3rd Nephi.  This should prove to be interesting. The first thing I noticed was, again, how quickly (and stupidly) people make up excuses for that which is obviously true. I imagine that living during the time all these miracle were happening (and increasing), would be such a gift.  The signs and miracles profesied b...

Three days ago my inlaws arrived here, and the living arrangements were such that Annie, Craig, and their two wonderful children got to bunk up with us here in Springville. I don't want to go into detail as to the exact happenings of this weekend, but I'd find it hard to maintain peace within unless I wrote a bit about something which I could im...

 So, with the new G+ hangout update, all of my Chrome extensions quit working ("My Hangouts", "Hangout Canopy", etc...), and I was wondering how in the heck to find hangouts to meet new people... Well, it's actually very easy. Within G+, search for #hangoutpost Then, in the drop-down right-side of the submenu, click &...

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...

Recently I was reading from scriptures.lds.org and decided it could be improved to make it easier to read. Here is what it looks like normally. A couple things bugged me. Narrow text is generally easier to read. So, I made it more narrow. Also, the superscript letters that signify a footnote throw off the line spacing. I figured out a cool l...

You would think I have an alterior motive for this post, due to the fact that I am currently employed by Nature's Way, but I honestly don't.  I hope you'll see why soon. I can't believe I haven't been told about, offered, showed, or by any other means received information about this product Nature's Way makes until recently. Umcka Cold Car...

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 ...

This might be the only "current events" post I ever do, but something has been puzzling me for the past 6-12 months. Last night, I watched the last half of the democratic candidates' debate on TV, and although it wasn't mentioned much, there were still a couple of references to a "downward economy", and the need for "job...

Today is a good day!  So...  Beginning in verse 12, the main theme I'm getting here is the complete polarization between God and Satan.  Within the rules God has set (such as, "Satan can't kill people", and "Man has free agency", and "God won't save someone just because they're His offspring", and such.....

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...

The majority of my coding life has been spent with two tools. PHP MySQL I don't claim to be a guru programmer, but the various professional problems which have been presented to me have always found their solution using these two tools. They're great tools. *sigh* Recently I've found out that Oracle owns both sleepy cat's db en...

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...

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...

Man... I'm tired...  I've got to see what I can make out of chapter 37 because I told myself today I would read and write about it.  So here goes. The first thing that comes to mind is that the popular verse 6 seems to come out of thin-air.  The verse before it talks about the plates of brass retaining their "brightness",...

 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...

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...