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...

This entry begins the documenting of my studies of the Book of Mormon in my "journal".  One of my new year's resolutions for 2008 is to read, study, and write about every chapter in the Book of Mormon.  I figured today was as good a time as any to begin. And so I begin with the Introduction of the Book of Mormon. --- I nev...

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...

My brother and I are really close with each other. We usually go out of town with our parents. Since we only have each other (because we are the only children that our parents has), we see to it that we will have many happy memories with together. We have different likes and dislikes when it comes to having a fun time. He loves swimming and I don&r...

I've gotta ask.  Well, before I do, let me preface the question with the scripture found in 1st Nephi 19.  Nephi says he won't write anything unless he thinks it's sacred.  Assuming that the prophets after Mosiah thought the same thing, I've gotta ask.  Why are verses 1 through 19 even here?  I know the Book of Mormon is tr...

Cecilia lost her first tooth on Monday!!  It is quite a funny story.  Her tooth has been loose for a while now and it got to the point where I am sure Jason or I could of pulled it out, but she did not want us to try.  When she woke up Monday morning and we were eating breakfast it looked like her tooth was hanging half off and I a...

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...

So, we've been busy at the studio lately.   So much so, I've neglected to update the site's samples.   We've got a few new ones up, and so I thought I'd let everyone know a bit about em'. ScramJet : Tread Softly  -  ScramJet is a band out of Salt Lake City, dead-set on bringing their musical vision to life.  They kn...

Awhile back, almost every gentoo / gnome computer I built would do this wonderful thing called "auto-mounting" all devices plugged in via USB. Well, I really didn't know what or how this was done until it started not doing it any more. So, I went over to my brother's house armed with a determination to figure this stuff out, and I'll ...

Well today I woke up and got dressed and all ready for my date. Then my mom came in and told me that I was not going the date unless he called to ask me... So I pretty much gave up on that! Then my cell phone rings and he said that he called my house but my Pa was on the computer so it not ring, I talked to him about where he wanted to meet and whe...

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...

I just got back from a wonderful evening spent with my wife, Shaun, Tiffy, Shane, and Becca.  We went to Weber State to see the annual drum core competition. Let me just say....  Amazing.  Yup...  Amazing....  That's what it was. It also got me to thinking about a lot of things.  For some reason lots of normal things...

I've been debating writing this down for quite some time now, but I think it's time now to write it. What I am penning is a more detailed account of what happened this day during my mission. It was April of 1996, two months before I would return home from my 2-year service as a missionary for our Lord Jesus Christ. I was serving in a leade...

Although I've got quite good at it, I've been in web development for too long.  My passion has always been in music, and it's about time I did something about it. Knowing that I need to keep my family safe, and having been bitten some by risky endeavors, I'm taking baby steps at first, but it's now official. Advanced Budget Studios is offi...

Okay..  I've never thought of this before, but, how convenient do you think it was for Samuel to climb up on a wall, built around a city most likely to keep people out?  Yeah, I don't think it could have been that easy.  How often do we find any reason at all to get out of doing what God wants us to do?  Well, God told Samuel he...

Holy cow, there's some weird crap on the Internet. I was just sifting through Youtube for some comic relief from the daily grind when I wondered where in the world Marilyn Manson had gone.  When I was younger, I was pretty much disgusted and amazed at the slim amount of MM media I was exposed to.  I haven't heard anything about him for y...

The video above is of a band called "Florez", who really did quite well.  But the real reason for the video above is for the LDSMusicians group to see Art City Park, where the LDSFest will be held this year. I just did a quick panoramic for people to analyze and with which to become informed. That's really all.  We got bored a...

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...

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...

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...

I've just gotta say....  Man alive, I love open source.  I've also gotta pay my dues. ILMJ uses a wonderful open source editor called fckeditor.  It is simply amazing.  I haven't done much with it, but without it - this website wouldn't even be close to being usable yet. I just got done configuring the image-upload process, an...