Five Mile Pass

Four guys.  One playground.

Don't miss the timer!

And just because:

More pics here.

The latest Mormon-"ism"

I'm certainly not the first to be posting this; online Latter-day Saints are spreading our new meme like wildfire, and how joyous an experience it has been!  For those who haven't seen it, here is the footage from the end of Conference this past Sunday:





Every time I see this, I can't help but laugh my butt off and play it again.  Perhaps even better are all the jokes that are sprouting from this guy's fun little Conference moment.  Special thanks to two of my friends Sarah for pointing them out to me:

(More posters can be seen at LDS Friends.)


The famous Conference Smiler is one Daniel from Australia, who said of his moment on camera (via YouTube), "I stood up and saw the back of my head on the big screen so I thought the nice thing to do would be to smile, so I did."  Way to be, Daniel.  I'm glad you got to be here for Conference, and that you did smile at the camera--not just because I've gotten some great laughs from it, but because of the simple lesson you teach in that the Gospel is all about happiness.  At the very least, it brightened my day.

Flecks of gold

Well, it's the Monday after General Conference, so let's talk about it!  Every so often I'll probably be posting my favorite talks here (there sure were some awesome ones), but out of all of them I think my top favorite might have been by Elder M. Russell Ballard.  I love what he had to say about being positive and treating other people the way Christ would treat them:





All of this weekend's talks can be found here.  I'm grateful for the things that have been said, as well as those personal things that the Spirit whispered to me during the conference that I needed to know.  I'm excited for the opportunity to study these words and apply them in my life to become a better person. 

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is simple and optimistic.  It brings me happiness and leads me to make good changes in my life.  The heavens are indeed open.  God answers prayer and speaks to the individual, and He also speaks to the entire world through His chosen messengers in this day, just as He did anciently.  He is as active in His work today as He was at the creation of the world.  And He is concerned and involved in every one of our lives.  That's why General Conference means so much to me: because God is watching over all of us, and will not leave us without guidance.  

Racing the sun

I've always had a hard time getting up early in the morning, but when I do I never regret it.  There are so many little rewards in beating the sun out of bed, and it's the little things that matter most.  It's not money, or possessions, or recognition, or even having control over one's life that make living so joyful--it's spending time with the people you care about; the smell of spring on the cool air; a sunrise over the mountains, and being awake to see it.  If life and society were to crumble in such a way that I would lose everything else, there would still be the sunrise.

A night at the opera

Anyone who's gone through my iPod might tell you of my obsession with Final Fantasy.  Of all my favorite video games, this series takes top honor--not merely for the gameplay, but for the music, story lines, and other artistic elements of the games themselves.  The Final Fantasy series truly is, in every respect, a thing of beauty.

One of the greatest moments of the series is the opera from Final Fantasy VI.  And it is just as the name implies:

There's an opera in the middle of the freaking game.

Of all the music Nobuo Uematsu composed for these games, this little segment of Final Fantasy VI could very well be the most triumphant.  At the very least, it was among the most memorable.

But in the game, you don't really get to watch the whole thing play out.  See, during the performance, an evil octopus drops onto the stage and you have to fight him.  That leads to other things, and it kind of interrupts the show a bit.

You should have seen the way I geeked out today when I found the following video.  Someone took the opera scene from the game, removed the interruptions and added more animation to complete the play (in English, no less), and applied the full orchestral version of the music!  I about died, but in a good way.

To put it simply, what we have here is a masterpiece.  Even if you're not into the games, I highly doubt you'll be disappointed with this powerful-yet-geeky music experience:

Lego Mario, Mega Man, and Link

A couple weeks ago, my brother acquired the 25th anniversary edition of Super Mario All Stars: a collection of a few classic titles from the Mario series, along with a CD of music and sound effects from the games and a book documenting the history of the world's favorite plumber.  The cover of the book looked something like this:

 

Yeah. . . .  When I saw it I couldn't help but create a version in Lego. 

Not that I was the first to come up with the idea, or anything.  There's a bunch of Lego video game sprites running around the Internet already.  But this was one of those big light bulb moments for me, because lately I've wanted to try something different from what I normally do with Lego.  And this hit me just right!

A slightly lesser known interest of mine is video games.  I don't really play them much at all anymore, but I love the characters, the art, the music, the stories--pretty much everything about them.  On top of that, many of my childhood memories involve video games in a major way.  I grew up with these characters and have a history with them.

So I decided that video game sprites would be my "new thing" with Lego, and soon began to work on more.  This one of Mega Man is my favorite so far:

 

I've really enjoyed the change from three-dimensional scene building to two-dimensional pixel art.  Even though I'm following pictures as a guide, there are challenges to this style that I've never really encountered before, and I love the way the finished product looks.  From a distance, it's even easy for me to forget the pictures are made with Lego.

In addition to that, I now have a use for many colors that have normally gone neglected in my collection: for example, the light blue for Mega Man.  Link, from the original Legend of Zelda, gave me an opportunity to make use of my lime green and burnt orange:

Link was the most difficult of these builds for me, because I didn't have very many pieces in the right colors.  In fact, I had to double the dimensions of the picture because I didn't have any burnt orange in a size smaller than 2x2.  Even after that, I had to do a lot of stretching, and ended up using all but two or three of my burnt orange pieces.  I wouldn't have finished if it weren't for a surprise visit my mom made to a Lego store on a trip some time ago (and no, I didn't put her up to it!). 

So those are the first of my Lego video game sprites.  Expect more in the near future; there are a lot of characters I want to try.  I make no promises, but if you'd like to see a favorite character of yours, feel free to let me know!

What Christ can do

On top of the piano in his classroom, my Institute teacher keeps two arrangements of plants. 

On one end sits a sad display of bent twigs, stripped of everything but a few desperately clinging leaves.

On the other end sits a bouquet of remarkable beauty.  The flowers steal the attention away from its miserable partner, and even the vase shines under the classroom lights.

Who stands between them?

Not even the most dried-out, worn, hopeless twig is beyond the healing power of the Savior.


For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.  --Romans 8:18