Yesterday at church, I had a couple of thoughts which I neglected to write down.  I think I'll write them down now. Something I might have written down in my previous scripture studies is my question as to why Lehi's family didn't think about getting the plates of brass / Ishmael's family before they left for the wilderness?  I would th...

I'm not in the mood to write much, but since it's a goal, I'll keep it. One thing I noticed and had a question about was why Nephi, Sariah, and Sam didn't know where to go in Lehi's dream.  Verse 14 lays it out quite plainly. The first thing that came to mind was Lehi was the leader of the family.  He was the director and it was his d...

Something I've never really ever thought of, and maybe simply because it's so obvious, but... When Nephi goes on in his rant toward those who were desirous to go to Jerusalem, he keeps saying "How could you forget?".  Things like "How have you forgotten the great things the Lord hath done for us" makes an incredible assum...

I just got done reading a wonderful article in which the author tries to describe the core differences between the "open source" mentality and the proprietary one.  He does a great job of being objective and is generally well-thought out. Since I began using Linux, being myself a capitalist, I've battled the idea that the open sour...

I'm not exactly sure what happened, but I lost the post I just wrote about chapter 6. I didn't realize how short it was, so I wrote about the importance of scriptures spoken of in verse 5.  If we didn't have scriptures, our kids would eventually lose the commandments of God (unless, of course, it was revealed again). Also, it's good to not...

I just got done reading an excerpt on Sony's new "open", "non-DRM" solution to downloading their music legally. As I understand it, you have to go to a store, buy some sort of card for $12.99 which has a magic code on it, get the code, go to a website, enter the code, and then you are able to download one of their whole 37 alb...

Man... I'm just tired.  Today was weird..  So... Studying chapter 5 right now, I'm brought to another realization that even the families of Prophets aren't perfect (hello, Lehi was a prophet, and he managed to have Laman and Lemuel...) The specifics to which I refer is Sariah's murmuring, and reaction when she saw her 4 boys return fr...

I was sifting through my various RSS feeds a couple of minutes ago, and one popped up from TomsHardware which I thought might be interesting.  So I opened it up in my browser, and before I could even read the title, my eyes were drawn to this ad by Microsoft.  The image itself isn't very funny, but man-oh-man, the captions which came to m...

One way I really enjoy reading the scriptures is from a very empathetic point of view.  I find I learn more when I study, if I try to imagine what would *really* be going on if I were actually within the scripture. Chapter 4 is perfect for this.  Reading somewhat between the lines of the first part of this chapter allows us to imagine ...

Within the first 5 verses of this chapter, I'm reminded again of how a person works who is truly interested in God's commandments. Lehi was commanded of the Lord to have his sons return to Jerusalem to get the plates of brass from Laban. Telling Laman and Lemuel would most certainly have some consequences in that they would automatically assu...

So, these chapters are pretty small, but for some reason, I think there's quite a significance in this one.  Not quite sure if I've found it yet, but the reason I think this, is - originally, this text was not included in the scripture - and it is Christ talking himself.  I wonder why Moroni felt the need, or was inspired to include it?&n...

 Not too much to write about on this one.  I guess I could try to memorize all the relationships mentioned.  hehe. Genealogy must have been pretty important back then (pretty important now-a-days, too), because they mentioned that it would be possible for us to have the history of the entire world up to that time.  Interesting...

Less than one month until I board a plane and fly to the tropical islands!! WAHOO!!  It's going to be sweet.  My nephew, Christian, just graduated from high school and to celebrate, a bunch of us are taking him to Hawaii (my mom, Paige, Christian and his parents, Robyn and Tim and myself and Tiffy).  We will be going to Maui for 2 da...

 I apologize for the complete lack of posts in March.  I've been having so much fun recording, I forget to write about it. If you'd like to stay more up-to-date with the studio happenings, I tend to post much more information on Advanced Budget Studio's Facebook page than on the blog.  It's just easier. So, head on over to Facebo...

Due to the amazing success Advanced Budget Studios has had in the short time since opening, we've added a few new toys to the studio.  We now employ an Audix D6 kick microphone, which adds some serious punch to any acoustic drum tracks. We also now have some serious firepower on acoustic guitars and drum overheads.  We've acquired a mat...

Well...  All I can really say today is: "Thank heavens for time." The reason I say that, is because if it weren't for time, we'd never get over our sicknesses, and holy crud, I'm about done with this one. Today was the first day Sarah really felt good enough to be home with the kids happy, and healthy for the most part, and if she...

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: ...

Beyond yesterday's post, I haven't posted anything in awhile.  I guess it's because nothing really interesting has happened lately. My kids are growing like weeds, and I try to enjoy them when want to, and I'm trying to want to more often.  That's kind of a sad statement, but I don't believe I am a "born-to-parent" type of guy...

So, about 4 or 5 years ago, I met a guy named Jesse Crowley, and we played music together.  At first we played music that other people wrote, but then Jesse got bored with that, and decided to write Christmas music instead.  We recorded a few Christmas albums, and I think they turned out pretty good. So, Jesse decided that wasn't enough...

I read Mosiah 18 yesterday and found that due to the mindset I'm having now of an overall perspective, it was hard to get into all the details of what Alma was saying.  This is a great chapter for new members, or people who are trying to understand baptism. One question I have always had with this scripture is, "Where did Alma get the ...

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...

Heh....  If you know me at all, you probably know a couple of things about me (in no particular order): I love Linux and gentoo I own a 2007 Mustang GT I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I really loathe the idea of DRM. Now, before I get into the details,  DRM just makes me sick.  I ha...

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...

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...

Interesting how verse 3 is pretty much an exact parallel with the light of Christ in our lives. Verse 4 is yet another example of taking a pretty huge risk in the name of God.  Getting into ships, the likes of which none of them had ever seen before, being built by the blueprints of God.  Closing the doors, with all your family inside, ...

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 ...

Happy 4th of July to everyone! We finally finished mixing and mastering Ear Candy's debut single, Tell Me Why, and quite frankly, we've loved working on it here in the studio.  The finished copy can be heard in our samples section, and Ear Candy has made it freely available to anyone and everyone who would like a copy. Just let them know h...

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...

 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...

Hmm....  I'm wondering how I can write this entry without offending anyone, so... if you are offended by it, I'm sorry.  What is going to be said has to be said, and it will, hopefully, enlighten at least someone. Due to this wonderful blog, I've been feeling quite pensive lately and liking the change.  Midst this change, I asked on...