Kaboom!

Ooo...this is going to be fun, I can't see everything that I am typing (the blame goes to the monitor, it's been spastic lately)...I hope it turns out alright. So, this has been a very weird holiday season for me. Christmas came so fast that it has yet to hit me. If it wasn't for a song I heard in our annual ward program, I believe I wouldn't have felt any Christmas spirit at all. I love Christmas, but it was so rushed this year. On a happier note though, I received the coveted Star Wars dvd collection. That 4th disc is amazing! I've watched all of it, except for the stuff about the games and the tv spots. It's amazing how people put their whole life into something like that, just for our entertainment benfits.

Anyways. So, it is the end of one year, and the beginning of another. 2004 has been amazing, I can't wait to see what happens in 2005, even if it is full of tragedy and war, there is enough good to make it worth the trials. Can I just say....that tsunami in Indonesia....wow. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and the earth has literally been changed. ("The world is changed, I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. All that once was, is lost") It's amazing; what can happen in a matter of moments can change an entire generation.

Well, enough of that right now. I hope you all have a wonderful New Year celebration. I'm stuck at home, waiting to watch Regis (he's subbing for Dick Clark, due to a recent stroke) with my family...what a wonderful tradition. :o) HAPPY NEW YEAR!
(Oh, and I might get to see real fireworks...depends if there's too much snow right now, I suppose)

Come one, come all

Yup, the thirtyfirst day of this month will go up in flames and smoke at midnight. I mean... uh... I haven't decided to do anything dangerous that has to do with fireworks on that night to celebrate. But hey, maybe I'll change my mind. Everybody come and see how things turn out.

Party begins 1900 hours sharp. I'm trying to throw together some games that involve thinking (not enough to make it un-fun).

Thanks for the sermon, Jarrett. This Christmas was a unique one for me. We did things a little different at my house. The parents slept through the night and the kids got up and impersonated Santa.

I had a job interview this morning which went rather well. The good news is that I will likely never work past 5 at the job and not on weekends either. Now I just have to figure out a schedule that will work between that, my other job, school, and everything else. Fun fun fun. Also, if I get the job, I'll be working with Aaron Chavez. How cool is that?

I tried to find it. But it's hard to know if you've found something if you don't know exactly what it looks like. Also, the fact that not too many places even sell anything like it doesn't help much.

The windows in this building are automated, noisy, and irresponsible. The just open and close whenever they feel like it.

Umkay. Now I'm done for a while.

Gotta love that Windows 95!

Okay, so I got the Mother of all Errors today.

I was running Windows 95 as a virtual machine to do some testing and suddenly I was met rather hastily with this Win3.1-esque error window that said:

Error loading Explorer.exe
You need to reinstall Windows.

The only button on the box was [OK]. Uh, no [Cancel]? No [Let's Try to Rethink Life]? Just [OK]. So I clicked [OK] and waited as the virtual machine froze up. I then shut down the virtual machine and then rebooted it. Fortunately, there is no harm done. Reinstalling a virtual machine isn't as big a deal as reinstalling a real machine, but it does take a long time. So, needless to say, I was relieved to discover that my Windows 95 virtual machine passed unscathed.

For those of you wondering "What the crap is a virtual machine?", I have a tidbit of information for you. A virtual machine is a machine that runs on another machine. For instance, on my computer at home, I run Windows Server 2003. But, to avoid having to have another computer, I have a virtual machine set up on my Windows Server which runs Windows XP. So, with the virtual machine concept, I essentially have a Windows XP computer that runs on a Windows Server 2003 computer. It makes it so that I can run Windows XP stuff without having to buy a separate computer for Windows XP. :)

May the Force be with you.

Cue the Russians!

(clap hands) didle-um didle-um didle-um dum dum,
and so forth.

Jon:
While I am dreadfully excited to hear that JÞII will be digitized, I am in Colorado all this week (until 12/29). So I won't be able to help this week. Maybe next.

Jessica: I know to an extent how you feel, and am sorry to hear it. Though I have no idea who you're talking about. OH, and your website gets better and better.


Merry Christmas to all, for as Isaiah wrote,
"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."
And again:
"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!"
9:6 and 52:7, respectively.

Let us all sing, "Glory to God in the highest." For are there any gladder tidings than the coming of Our Lord to this earth?

"And behold, he shall be born of Mary, at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers, she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel, who shall conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost, and bring forth a Son, yea, even the Son of God.
And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.
Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance."

Even as it was, so it is now and ever shall be -- sicut erat in principio, et in saecula saeculorum.

What then for us?
"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

Now, we can't be perfect as mortals. That comes much later. But, are we not commanded? Yes. How then are we to 'be perfect'? There, friends, is the Good News. Through Christ, we can be perfect, we can take the 'easy yoke.'

"Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall dent yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind, strength, then is his grace sufficent for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ."
And again:
"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

So: Humble ourselves, and keep the commandments inasmuch as we can; and then is his grace sufficient -- but it isn't, "Do all you can, and then grace applies". Rather it is, "Come unto Christ -- take upon you His name, covenant with Him, and grace will apply immediately." Grace is of course divine aid, assisting us beyond our own strength: we cannot save ourselves, we cannot do everything all the time. But we can try, and we can come unto Christ; and then, we're okay. It's enough.

What do we do?
Well, there are lots of commandments. But:
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

Love your neighbor. It's Christmas!

Anyway, that's my Christmas Eve sermon.

The choir and congregation will now sing, "Silent Night" in the Austrian Style.

Crashing cars and phone calls

How would it be to come out of a house to get in your car that you parked in front of the house only to find the car gone? Well, that is going to be the experience of some lucky Kaysvillian. His 1992 Honda CRX decided to go on a little trip all by itself. Unfortunately, for the car, it didn't have a good sense of direction and couldn't stay on the road. The poor thing ended up in the back yard easement of my office kissing the back bumper of a Tahoe.

Keep in mind, though, what the brave little car had to go through to get down there. First, it had to completely cross Main Street in Kaysville, which is a four-lane road with a median. It did all this without hitting any other cars actually driving on the road. Next, it had to jump up over the curb, miss a big tree in the front yard and careen down the front yard, which is a considerable grade. While coming down the hill in the front yard, it had to miss a bunch of small fruit trees and the telephone box. Then, the little car had to choose to hit the Tahoe rather than a house directly on the other side of the Tahoe. Meanwhile, the driver/owner of the car can't be found anywhere. The car did a solo act.

So, that was the excitement at my work today. How 'bout you? :)

"Free at last! Thank God Almighty I'm free at last"

TTFN!

annoucing

read the jingly blog!!!

(cue the sound of wind blowing through a ghost blog)

Not too busy in this digital hallway since we're down to finals week. Oh, well. Tomorrow it will all be over (except for the concert on Saturday). Anyone who reads this is invited to my parties. The dates and times are on the paper that I gave you. If you didn't get one, ask me about it or post your name here and I'll tell you.

I'm FREE!!! No more homework, no more books. No more teachers' dirty spectacles. [WHAT?]

limited edition blog of the day: Bloggity

No, for reals. Sarah and Amer and me made Bloggity. Too cool, no?

Laters

~film review~

So, I saw National Treasure this weekend. First of all, I am not a fan of Nicholas Cage and the previews for the film had me completely uninterested. But, I was with a group of friends that went to see it and it was free for me, so I saw it. What an amazing film! I loved it! I guess I should listen to my own advice... don't pay attention to the previews, the movies aren't always what they are made out to be. I have to agree with Jon, though, it did have it's weakness of not really being plausible and people knew some of those things just off the top of their heads (yeah right, it's more like the script told them to say it), but it was still really good. I love how it weaves the clues in and out of the plot, it really keeps you on the edge. Well, anyways, I had to tell everyone what a fun movie that was. See it, you'll love it! Have a great week! (oh and Nicholas Cage wasn't his normal, weird character, he did a really good job)

Random Stuff (Like lesson 25)

1. A Song for Ben (and co.)

2. Handel rocks

3. Jon, did you speak with full honesty when you said, everyone? Or did you mean, Those usually indicated by 'everyone'?

4. Yay for South Africa

Feelin' the weather

Hello, it's been awhile since I've written, so I figured that I would, since I have time right now. I called my mother last night and received some sobbering news about somebody I've know since I was little. One of my teachers passed away on Monday. I've never really experienced knowing someone so long and then finding out that they've passed on. It's amazing how hard it hit me (**I need a hug**). I'm just greatful for the knowledge that I have; that he's ok and that he'll be with his family again someday.

Wow, I'm about to cry again, I think I'll stop now. Anyways....

Isn't this crazy weather?! I walked outside to go to the lab, and it was raining! In the middle of December! I honestly think Utah's weather needs a psychologist or something.

Ok, so who's ready for finals?! (I'm not). I have come to the harsh realization that I am in college and it's not easy anymore. (laugh all you want, I will) I have a tough final every day of finals week, except for Friday, which is graduation and the high school honor band thing. I'm so excited about the honor band. Something weird happened at my high school, and about 5 kids decided that they wanted to go. I'm so glad to see that they're getting out to see bigger and better horizons. I'm so proud of them! ;) Anyways...I think I'll stop writing now. Have a great day and good luck to anyone who has any sort of final project or test that they may be worried about. TTFN!

A list of current events in the life and times of Ben

Come see two more book reviews for your (re)viewing pleasure.
How I hate this weather (now I walk through blizzards just to get us back together).
All school work is almost completed; talk to me on Friday and I'll be a happy, no-more-schooled man.
Just wish those Jazz could get their shooting touch back.
I love Hava.
I hate it when girls do that giggly-flirty laugh, especially with guys they know they'll never get.
Along the same tangent: A cerain basketball star was called when he was in Wisconsin and right after a game and the caller didn't even know... nice prank.
I have apparently proven myself to Dr. Root; now let's see him give me a scholarship.
I get to spend Christmas with Hava.
Jeremy Reeder struck gold and dug himself up a girlfriend.
A blanket of snow covers the once clean streets of Northern Utah.
I'm almost done with Lord of the Flies.
I'll be working close to 60 hours next week; good thing I don't have any finals that week.
I'm done with this list.

Some Stuff

I wasn't going to post today, but then I found
This
So enjoy. Let me know if you get any interesting results.

A Coming out party!

Dear one and few!
Ben's new blog has been started. Come and read book reviews to your heart's content... that is if you are content with just one. I put the first book that I logged on there way back from June '03. The blog will end up being really fun and a good update of books I've read. There is also a list of books that I've got (or almost got) in my possession and is on my list to read. So come and come back for future updates and to see if I've read your favorite book or if you're looking for a new book to read, stop on by. You can get to my new blog by a slightly uncomplicated series of links. First, follow the link to Ben's blog and from there follow the link to Ben's Reading list.
Or, if you are uber-lazy, then follow this link.
Thanks one and few for your support and whatnot.
Laters, yo.

Yup. Someone said South Disneyland!

Hey, guys! Happy day! I was able to pull the tiny shard of glass from my finger this morning after it had afflicted me for nearly three weeks. My finger definitely feels better with the piece of glass out of it.

Well, Andrew, I will just have to go on the Jungle Cruise and Indiana Jones a few times especially for you. Belive me, I will too. I went there in September and rode those rides a lot. The Jungle Cruise at night, I have been told, is really funny. We tried it, but our skipper wasn't that funny. I kept laughing really loudly at the jokes because no one else was. :) I'm taking my brother's digicam, so I'll be able to post pics of the place and our adventures there. When I went in September, that was the first time I had ever ridden on Indiana Jones and let me tell you, IT IS THE COOLEST RIDE!

I think I am done with this post for the time being. If I decide to come back and edit it, well, I guess you will just see new content, eh. :) Jarrett, I learned what the word "yenta" means. If you have Linux on your computer, one of the network card drivers is called Yenta. This is a Yiddish word for a gossipmonger, namely a woman gossipmonger.

TTFN!