Hmmm....  It's hard to write about something so wonderful when I'm not in the mood...  But I've found that when I feel like "blah", and I write about something wonderful, I usually am feeling closer to wonderful when I'm done... So, here goes. First off, I'm at work, so I don't have any pictures, but I'll update it when I get...

I cannot remember the last time it actually full-on snowed on Christmas day.  For the past 5 years or so, there have been seasons where it almost snowed and threatened to snow, but it's always been a disappointment. This year, however, I believe there's hope.  At least that's what the weather people are saying.  Let's cross our fi...

Verses 5 and 6 are cause for simple reinforcement that external events do not necessarily cause internal changes.  Yes, they had a horrific war which caused the death of so many husbands, fathers, sons, etc...  And yes, that caused a lot of people to become baptized.... but, that didn't seem to matter much.  The very next year, it se...

Seems that this chapter is all about "markings" and the prophecies about the curses put upon people (and which people put upon themselves). I can feel the doctrine behind this chapter, and I caught myself frequently asking myself why Mormon included this chapter.  No doubt there's some serious doctrine in here, but this time around...

I find it interesting the way they referred to Nehor in verse 1:  a man "after the order of the man that slew Gideon by the sword, who was executed according to the law".  Why didn't they just say "Nehor"?  Especially seeing that writing in plates was so hard. In verse 10, Mormon notes the intent with which Aml...

Interesting that one of the first-mentioned doctrines that Nehor was said to have taught was the very doctrine that led to the beginning of wickedness for the Nephites time and time again.  Pride.  "Being popular"...  Seems to resound with the core of what the adversary teaches.  Verse 4 pretty much testifies to his pr...

The new lamp for my projector arrived today and much rejoicing was heard among the land. Since our lamp burned out 5-8 months ago, we've been using a TV to entertain our kids, providing them with movies and TV cartoons and all the other goodness with which MythTV blesses our lives. With the return of our lamp, I wanted a way to extend the life ...

Ya know...  I thought that with 4.5 hours of sleep last night, I'd feel a heckuva lot sleepier than I do.  I guess miracles do happen. Since our wonderful Samuel was born, my wife and I have been getting considerably less sleep than we otherwise would.  This is to be expected; it comes with the whole package of parenthood. I ha...

Awhile back, I found that many DVD titles released by Sony weren't able to be viewed with mplayer.  This annoyed me. So, I investigated a bit and found that VLC (another wonderful media player) could not only play them back, but also rip them with ease.  Up until a bit ago, this has been the case since the writing of that article. Whe...

Well, I thought I had more pictures of Sam, but I don't.  I will have to be better about taking more pictures of him.  There was a really cute one of him smiling, but it is on the other carmera.  Next post will have to be a smiling one of him.  Here is one new one of Sam with Luci and some other cute pictures of the kids. ...

So...  Interesting that one of the reasons cited for Heth's righteousness is his remembering what the Lord had done for his people, specirfically, bringing Jared and his kin over the ocean.  There has got to be something behind the whole "remember what the Lord has done for you" thing, and living a righteous life.  Heck.. E...

Okay..  So I installed Ubuntu on my brother's computer about 3 weeks ago, and he has been loving it!  Before that, he had been using gentoo with me as his personal admin, which I didn't mind because he rarely needed it, and when he did, it was usually a 10-30 minute fix, no problem. So, he liked it so much, and from what I could tell, ...

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...

Oh wow.  Man, life just keeps getting more and more interesting...  along with frustrating, slightly scary, and faith-promoting.  I won't get into the details here, though, because I want to talk about something else. One thing which came at me as quite intriguing today during church was the concept of "Doctrine of Gratitude&...

I was recently reading this article about yet another virus which affects Microsoft.  In reading it, some of the comments below stated such things like, "The patch was already released, so just run your auto-updater and be done with it!".  Seems logical, right? Yeah... Actually, it does.  The exact same mechanism exists ...

Hi, haven't come to your site in a while. I loved catching up on your scripture reading. I like to get emails from askgramps.com he was the mission pres. at the mtc at some point and you can ask him anything. well what do you think of this... please let me know. Where can I find the account of when Joseph and Samuel Smith went into a room in the h...

Most normal people would be exhausted right about now, but I guess when ya love what ya do, doing more of it is just invigorating.  So, yesterday evening we were at it again with The Blue Aces, recording the last single, which is sure to be a hit, of their first demo!  The song is called Dance With Me.  Now it's on to the mixing and ...

Hmm.... Today was pretty good. Stake Conference was surprisingly good, although I don't remember much of what was said. The Spirit was strong, and I guess that's all that really matters, if ya don't remember anything, that is. :) Anyway... I wonder how next week is gonna be with my new job. I'm really going to have to figure out how to set up...

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...

Man...  When, at the beginning of this year, I wrote that 2009 was gonna be a doozie, I didn't know the half of it. After having been employed for only a month, two days ago, Monday, at 5:00pm, my superior came in to my office and told me, with a red face, that they had to let me go.  The red face was undoubtedly due to the fact that nob...

Man... I'm so tired right now, but I've just gotta write about this. Tonight was the first show Jesse and I put on in the little "House Concert" tour we're going on. It was very low-key, but when the time came to play, the people just kept pouring in.  At the end of the show was the only time I had the sense to count how many peo...

 If the fortifications that Moroni built in the beginning were enough to astonish the Lamanites to the point that they were afraid to fight, and then failed to kill even one Nephite, while they themselves were slain to the tune of over 1,000 - I can only imagine what the additional fortifications did...  Goes to show that a good Christian...

My last place of employment had a large amount of data being imported from multiple companies on a daily basis which was then imported into a database and processed throughout the company. I was the lucky guy who got to write the application which imported all of the data from as many as 10 different locations daily. Having never directly dealt...

The golden rule seems to have come out of this chapter. The first thing that caught my attention in this chapter is the possible meaning of verses 4 and 5.  the "mote in thy brother's eye" verses.  Some people would interpret this as "live and let live", or "worry about yourself, not others".   To...

 So...  In what has turned out to be my monthly updates, I don't have much to report this time, as progress on the studio portion of the house has been waiting for the actual house to be built.  Right now, the studio is comprised of two large concrete boxes in my basement. What I do have to report on is something I hadn't expected...

 So, I'm pretty sure these words are being spoken to us, the Gentiles, and they are meant for people living now.  The last chapter was spoken to those who would be alive during the coming of the Book of Mormon, and it doesn't seem like this chapter deviates from that. Interesting that included in the list of "wicked ways" is t...

Okay... I'm getting like crazy frustrated here... You know all those wonderful firefox extensions which allow web developers like me to work even faster and more efficiently?  Well...  They must all hate me. I've heard incredible things about Firebug and Y-Slow as far as web development tools go, but can I use them? Apparently no...

Heh... I remember a couple of months back (or has it been a year now?) when Microsoft announced to the world that the years of delay were now over, as they were finally releasing the famed Microsoft Vista Operating System!!!!!! The world (and peasants) rejoiced. About a week after that, my father called me up and told me he was considering th...

As you most assuredly can see, if this is on the front-page of I Love My Journal, there have been some major changes here. It all started about 2.5 weeks ago when I started reading some great comments people have been posting, and some really good entries from jonzee, and catherine.hahn.  I felt people deserved a better place to post both th...

This morning, Steve broke in to chat and said something to the effect of "Pride sucks." Ya know... I completely agree with him. Pride does suck. I wonder why... I've heard it said that "Pride is the only unforgivable sin." This is the doctrine according to me because I can't remember who said it, nor if it was an authority figure, so.... no ...