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...

Okay.... Yes.. Collin knows he's cool.  Actually, he's just happy to be on his way to Monterey to enjoy the various wonderful goings-on there. Anyway...  I thought I'd list the reasons I love Monterey while I'm waiting for everyone to get ready for the day.  So... Here goes: By far the best reason to come to Monterey Califo...

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...

This is my new poem, I believe it or not was really trying to write a love poem. But I guess because something happend and I got upset just before writting, this what I got. So, yeah. Take a look at " Braking me" Feel free to tell me your thoughts please.   - - - Braking me - - - No longer your here, But my scars never leave. W...

Hey Guys, Okay so its been a really really long time since I last wrote anything.  I just recently remembered my password and that is a really big part of my reason for not writing.  I know this is suppose to be like a diary (right or wrong?), but I would perfer to think that its more of a letter to a best friend (hope that don't sound ...

Today, I woke up to about 6-10 inches of fresh powdery snow all over the place.   It's actually beginning to feel like Christmas time, now! Now, most normal people would say within themselves, "Man, I hate snow on the roads.", but not me. I'm not entirely sure why I'm this way, but it's been this way ever since I can remem...

"Some are lost because they are different. They feel as though they don’t belong. Perhaps because they are different, they find themselves slipping away from the flock. They may look, act, think, and speak differently than those around them and that sometimes causes them to assume they don’t fit in. They conclude that they are not...

This morning I came to work rather ponderous, but not pondering anything in particular.  I so enjoyed Elder Holland's talk this last Sunday that I went and downloaded it, watched it, and did about 4 hours of research into the Nicene Creed, which Elder Holland mentioned. First, I must say, hearing Elder Holland's talk was... uhhh....  a...

Ya know... I didn't know if I was going to blog about anything this weekend, but something just happened definitely blog-worthy.  Nothing insane, but something that I think people might find interesting. You know, I've always heard that cats have nine lives, but I've always kind of been the one to keep that in check.  No, I don't shoot ...

Ok, I'm all confused! Theres this boy, he's a year older then me and majorly hott!  About a year I met him and fell for him :-) as girls do lol but this guy was somthing... something amazing he was perfect, I'm only 15 but I knew how perfect he was. Well we e-mailed everyday and he called me a few times. But he gose to school and leavs kinda ...

I believe that Sherem is the first "villain" of the Book of Mormon after Laman and Lemuel, who could be considered an "anti-christ".  Not 100% sure, but I don't remember anything standing out in 1st or 2nd Nephi.  This guy reminds me of Nehor, Korihor, and Amalickiah. Some points of interest this time around are: ...

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...

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...

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...

Well... I just spent the last 3 hours re-vamping around 300 lines of code for ilovemyjournal.com.  Hopefully, I've made it a lot more search-engine friendly for people who want to share their blogs, without compromising security any security. Being that this is also the 24th of July, I'm also very grateful for the pioneers, and everything the...

 So, this chapter seems to be about the rise and fall of the people, and the rulers who ruled both in righteousness and wickedness. It seems to mow through a genration with each verse that goes by - very quickly.  I guess this chapter would be a good one to illustrate the Lord's prophets making promises, and then keeping them through la...

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....  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...

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...

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'...