I was recently watching the film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and was struck by this observation:

Galadriel: Why the halfling? Gandalf: I don't know. Saruman believes that it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But that is not what I have found. I have found it is the small things – everyday deeds of ordinary folk – that keeps the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love.

I've been a fan of the band Dirty Loops for years. I was looking for YouTube videos featuring their bassist, Henrik Linder (who is an absolute BEAST), and stumbled across a video that had been buried by the YouTube algorithm, but deserves to be seen and heard!

A few days ago I was listening to the General Conference talk by Elder Jonathan S. Schmitt who spoke about the many names of Jesus Christ.

I've never been a fan of country music. Until now.

Earlier this month, I went on a trip with my family to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. We stayed at a campground situated between the two parks. We use an MVNO (Ting) for our cell phone service to save money and, therefore, had no service at our camp. In fact, during the few days we spent exploring that magnificent part of the world, we had little or no service at all.

(And plan to eventually switch to an Android phone.)

Back in May, I upgraded from an iPhone SE 1st Gen (2016) to an iPhone 12 Mini. But after the initial novelty wore off, I realized that, while it might be newer and more sophisticated on papery, it actually provided a worse overall user experience for me than the 6-year-old iPhone it replaced. So when my wife an son needed phone upgrades, I decided to make some changes.

I have always known the importance of keeping a personal journal or diary. But for four decades of mortal life thus far, my journal keeping has been sparse.

A principle is “a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning.”

We all have deeply-held principles by which we live our lives. Some of those principles may be innate – a part of us as long as we can remember. Some principles were taught to us by our parents or families. Other principles we adopt throughout our lives as we learn and grow.

I enjoy reading biographies, especially of people who have overcome tremendous challenges and done something good and meaningful with their lives.

Most recently, I have read a couple of memoirs by Duane “Dog” Chapman, famously known as Dog the Bounty Hunter.

As I was reading these books, for some reason I kept pondering the idiom:

Can't see the forest for the trees.

I tend to go through phases where I get obsessed with certain things, getting really into them and wanting to learn all I can about them. For my latest obsession of the past couple weeks, I blame Pluto TV.

Pluto TV is a free online video streaming service that works like traditional over-the-air TV in that it has channels and each channel is just a continuous broadcast of content with commercial breaks. You just “tune in” to a Pluto TV channel and watch whatever is on at the time.

When my favorite Star Trek series (TNG, DS9, and VOY) disappeared from Amazon Prime and Hulu, my brother told me there was a Star Trek channel on Pluto TV. I started checking out their other channels and bookmarking a few.

Then I found their Dog the Bounty Hunter channel. I remembered watching and enjoying that show back in the day. So I watched a few episodes and I was hooked (again). It's entertaining. But I also find it uplifting.