I'm not entirely sure where to even begin with this chapter.  So many good stories are found in this one, which can easily be likened to our own lives and our own times.  Various lessons come to mind.... For example, verses 1 through 3 are a magnificent litmus test of personal righteousness.  When someone comes at you and truthfull...

Ya know... Chatting with good friends has its benefits.  Just like think-tanks and collegeate consortiums are good for concerted cognation, a good conversation with a concerned cohort can be just as contenting. I think I've mentioned this before in my journal, but in talking with a good friend of mine, I hadn't made the connection with just...

After reading this chapter for no more than 30 seconds, I simply must type. I love verse 3. Many, many times have I been in a doctrinal discussion with someone and the other person just can't "get" what a scripture or principle means.  Verse 3 could explain why that happens to us. Some things we just can't understand without th...

When I sit and think about what I just read, the 14th chapter of 1st Nephi is pretty crazy. Just a few points... The majority of the chapter is all about the "mother of abominations" and the "whore of all the earth". I believe it's written here to clarify the impact this (these) church(es) has (have) had upon the plain and...

No, seriously, people...  Microsoft really does care....  loads and loads of caring! They care so much ABOUT MONEY it makes me sick. I just got done reading this article and I'm left with a feeling of sickening "awe" at how greedy Microsoft really is. Lately, I've been following a story about a group of people in a project...

Where do I even begin with this chapter? I remember reading it and understanding it for the first time during my mission.  It was really cool realizing that all of this stuff in this chapter is written about in history books!  It talks about Christopher Columbus discovering America, the Revolutionary War, the Bible, the coming of the Bo...

I had forgotten that in this chapter, Nephi sees the Lord descend from heaven to the people who would be born from Nephi. I put myself in his situation, and quite honestly , I have no idea how I would react.  It would be so supremely surreal - seeing your kids' kids' kids' kids, and then seeing the Savior of the world show himself unto them....

As soon as the angel of God knew Nephi's purpose and desire, the first question he asked him was "Do you believe?". I think that's a fairly important question, which we should ask ourselves each day.  If we are being tempted and we ask ourselves that question, to which we already know the answer, I can promise you the tempter's pow...

First Nephi Ten... I'm not really in a spiritual mood right now, which really is unfortunate because I know this chapter has some spiritual meat to it. One thing I can write, is when I read this chapter during my mission, and even before, I always found myself focusing on Nephi's desire to see the things his father did (in verse 17). He didn'...

Two things for tonight's study: I believe the purpose of this chapter is the same as chapter 6:  To give purpose behind the Book of Mormon.  The things Nephi is writing are things of God - things pertaining to the ministry of the people in those days. I love verse 5.  It reminds me of when Adam was commanded to build an alter and...

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 ...

 So, last weekend I had the pleasure of recording a few tunes for an upcoming independent film (more details to follow as the project continues, I'm sure), and in these situations, I just never know what to expect. In this case, I don't think I could have been more blessed.  I had the pleasure of meeting Kraig Jacobson, and recording an...

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...

From the first memories I have, my life has been lived through rhythm.  There has always been an inherent "groove" of my life.  From walking down the sidewalk after school when I was in Jr. High, pacing the rhythm of the lines in the cement, and timing my steps accordingly, keeping the "1,2,3,4" clock in my head going ...

Why is it that when I try to make friends my Ex has to come in and mess things up? Theres this girl, she's got NO friends at church and from what I hear she ain't got none at school either. I wanted to be her friend, to give her some one so she end up like me, alone. She's a really great girl, but she don't just get it, I can't tell her about my ex...

Okay...  I keep on runing into these people who have learned what I want to learn. About a year ago, I met a guy named Rick Koerber and he seemed like a normal guy.  About 6 months later, I find out he's a freaking multi-millionarie.  I also find out that he teaches how he did it, and so I learn about it.  It seems really legit...

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: ...

So... To be honest, this chapter is kind of confusing.  Verse 1 and 2 is like Moroni is talking directly to Joseph Smith, due to his referencing the ability to "translate".  That in itself is kind of cool.  I've often thought what it must have been like to be Joseph Smith receiving the plates and translating when he gets to...

Okay...  So ABS mixed a song from a band I was in called EnZign a couple of years ago, and the song hasn't been touched since.  Well, I opened it up about a week ago, and found it a bit grating on my ears.  Here, take a listen and tell me what you think of that snare drum.  Talk about piercing. Anyway...  We decided to se...

Advanced Budget Studios has been gearing up to build a control room, so we haven't had many clients come in lately, but when Fatigi comes calling, we definitely listen. Tonight's session was spent sprucing up some previous recordings,  Fishing For The Sun got a complete guitar overhaul, which made an already-awesome song even better.  S...

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...

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...

I've just gotta say....  WHAT THE %$@! ???? At work, I need to have a windows box along side my gentoo installation, so I can easily view stuff on IE 6,7,etc...  Well...  I downloaded a PDF and thought to myself, "Gee, it'd be nice to view this PDF I just downloaded..."  So, I go to Adobe.com and try to download their...

I find it so interesting that Nephi, in all cases I can think of, when stating how hard things can get, always follows it up with how blessed they are.  I believe Nephi was how I would like to, and am trying to be like.  He recognizes things are bad, yet always finishes on an optimistic note.  Personally, I beleve grounded optimism c...

 It's quite obvious that this chapter is speaking to anyone and everyone (throughout all time) who lives on this land.  Verses 9,10, and 12 are especially insightful. "What will ye that I should do that ye may have light in your vessels?" I love that question.  I never noticed outright that right after the Lord poses th...

Okay...  I know it's a little bit late, but I thought I needed to write about my B-day anyway.  It was the 14th, and evidently, the 16th, too. So, the 14th began with a great time eating lots of great food.  Pancakes for breakfast, my best friend Scott took me to my all-time favorite Thai restaurant and we got some insanely delicio...

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...

Today I needed to encode a movie I bought on Friday (Fearless), and I wanted to encode it in its native language, but have english subtitles.  The command I ended up using was this: transcode -a 0 -i Fearless.dump -M 2 -w 2200,250,100 -A -N 0x2000 -y xvid -o Fearless.avi -Z 854x480 -J extsub=2:0:0:0:0:100:255:2:3 The "a" takes care...

ILoveMyJournal announces the formal inauguration of editable entries! Yes, you heard right, folks!  You can now edit any entry you have previously entered here at ILMJ.  You can do this from two pages. First, Please make sure you are in your private journal, not in your blog.  All blog entries are also displayed within your pri...

Concerning world events, I'll be the first to say that I'm a pretty naive guy.  I keep up on stuff that's important to me, but not too much more.  I realize that this is somewhat of a flaw, so I am trying to involve myself much more with the world. That said, on the morning of Sept 10, 2001 - if you asked me what the "world trade ...