If you haven't heard, this year is the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible. I don't usually give having the bible in an English version much thought, but with various celebrations of this anniversary year, I've been able to realize what a big deal it is to have it and how many people lost their lives to bring this to pass. I'd like to share some of the things I've heard in conjunction with this year. This program followed this forum at BYU and I found them both quite interesting and both taught me more about the bible and specifically the KJV. I was further intrigued when I came across this article. I really enjoy history and learning more about it, it makes me want to fulfill dreams of being a scholar, to learn languages, read dusty tomes perhaps, and know things that really smart people have known, or people in very enlightened or academic times. Should you have any such ambitions, I submit the KJV to you as a place to start, after all it is a year to celebrate.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Book of Mormon in ASL online
I have the Book of Mormon in ASL (American Sign Language) on a set of DVDs which I've been watching but my computer is older and my DVD player is picky and so I was very happy to find it online here. I thought I'd share just in case anybody else wanted to know.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Lucca
Lucca is a lovely little walled city near Pisa. We stayed there overnight in a nice little bed and breakfast and the next morning we took a walk around the wall before we left the next morning.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Anne Shirley
I've been spending some time with my friend Anne Shirley, I believe I've posted about her before. I really have come to love her, so much so that it seems I read all or some of the books in her series by L. M. Montgomery every year, like To Kill A Mockingbird, but I might actually read that about every six months. Anyway I believe I got my introduction to Anne through the movies made about her, the ones made in the 80s. When Anne and I were first acquainted, I liked the movies so much that I thought it futile to read Anne of Green Gables because the movie covered it so well, I would start with Anne of Avonlea (because the second movie is actually a conglomeration of the next four books or so) and read through to Rilla of Ingleside (I believe the last few books are somewhat lesser known, they're not always included in sets sold and they have more to do with Anne's children than with Anne herself). I loved the movies, and the portrayals in them and I'd watch them over and over. They came out with Anne of Green Gables the Continuing Story, which I also enjoyed, even thought I knew it had nothing to do with Anne, at best it could be derived from Rilla of Ingleside.
I'm getting side tracked, the point is that I had a period where I was not watching the Anne movies every year and I met her more through the pages, I found a strange thing when I again saw the movies - I didn't love them the same way I had. I had previously thought they captured Anne, but now the Anne in the movies is not really the Anne I know, indeed I think it would be very difficult for a movie to really do justice to her. I suppose it's because I've gotten to know her better. I've been reading Anne of Green Gables, the first book that I used to skip and I've been loving it. I would invite you to get to know Anne Shirley as well, remember it's "Anne spelled with and e"
I'm getting side tracked, the point is that I had a period where I was not watching the Anne movies every year and I met her more through the pages, I found a strange thing when I again saw the movies - I didn't love them the same way I had. I had previously thought they captured Anne, but now the Anne in the movies is not really the Anne I know, indeed I think it would be very difficult for a movie to really do justice to her. I suppose it's because I've gotten to know her better. I've been reading Anne of Green Gables, the first book that I used to skip and I've been loving it. I would invite you to get to know Anne Shirley as well, remember it's "Anne spelled with and e"
Saturday, July 9, 2011
I know I haven't done very good about blogging about Italy, I'm not going to continue the previous post today, this will be about the pantheon. 
The pantheon is probably one of the oldest churches/temples out there, and I believe it's been in use from its pagan days until present in its life as a catholic church. The pantheon was the biggest dome until the Duomo in Florence was finished. 
The pantheon was studied by those who built the renaissance domes. It's absolutely beautiful in the Pantheon, the dome is gorgeous and made even more so by the wonderful effect of the light coming down from the oculus. 
We wandered around a little bit, seeing the beauty and the tombs of important Italians and then we sat for a while, listened to an audio tour and just took it all in. I think it's one of my favorite places that we visited in Italy.
The pantheon is probably one of the oldest churches/temples out there, and I believe it's been in use from its pagan days until present in its life as a catholic church. The pantheon was the biggest dome until the Duomo in Florence was finished. 
The pantheon was studied by those who built the renaissance domes. It's absolutely beautiful in the Pantheon, the dome is gorgeous and made even more so by the wonderful effect of the light coming down from the oculus. 
We wandered around a little bit, seeing the beauty and the tombs of important Italians and then we sat for a while, listened to an audio tour and just took it all in. I think it's one of my favorite places that we visited in Italy.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Italy thoughts part 1
It may be unsolicited but here is my advice to you should you be heading to Italy soon, or ever.
First advice is: GO! it was so wonderfully amazing to be in Italy, a beautiful country filled with more than it's fair share of beautiful things. When you do go, I would recommend trying to go in the off season, i.e. not summer, so that you don't have to always be surrounded by hoards of people, especially at museums etc.
Moving on, if you want the stamp in your passport, then it needs to be the first place in the EU that you visit. My first and only stamp in my passport is from France because we flew through Paris. It was sort of disappointing. Also, I'm not sure how or why but we never actually went through customs or anything like that going into France or Italy. Odd.
Driving: I would not want to ever drive in Italy, especially not in Rome, we opted not to drive when we went and we are so glad! The rides too and from the airport were a bit terrifying as we darted into lanes at the last second and drove down the middle of the road, speeding up and then coming to sudden stops. If you're going to drive in Italy, make sure that you know what you're in for and that you're up for it. Another reason I'm glad we didn't drive is that parking would have been a nightmare, there's not a lot of parking space. Where do Italians park? The better question would be, where don't they park.
Place to stay: consider renting an apartment, and if you do and you're traveling with a small group, talk to me and I'll find the info about the amazing place we stayed. It was really nice, it was a short walk from the Metro and our landlord was very kind and helpful.
Getting back to the Metro, I highly recommend that you find a place to stay that's not far from a Metro stop and that it's on the A line not the B line. The A line goes to most touristy places, and most trains are very nice and air conditioned. We tried to go on the B line as little as possible. We first went on the B line to get to the Colosseum, up until that time we always rode on the A line which is nice and clean and new. The B line train pulled up covered in graffiti, quite full, and non air conditioned. We were not impressed, and the return trip was worse, apparently it was when everyone rides the train, we were amazed to make it in the car and sure we were going to be pick pocketed. After that we avoided the B line like the plague, the only exception was to see Michelangelo's Moses at the St. Peter in Chains church, on the B line. If you must use the B line I'd recommend doing it earlier in the day or trying to figure out when busy times are (I didn't really manage this) and avoid it then.
I'm realizing how long this post will be and perhaps I should make it more than one post but I wanted to make sure and say how kind and helpful the majority of the people were. We many times asked for help and were kindly directed, etc. Thank you Italians for not being fed up with tourists.
First advice is: GO! it was so wonderfully amazing to be in Italy, a beautiful country filled with more than it's fair share of beautiful things. When you do go, I would recommend trying to go in the off season, i.e. not summer, so that you don't have to always be surrounded by hoards of people, especially at museums etc.
Moving on, if you want the stamp in your passport, then it needs to be the first place in the EU that you visit. My first and only stamp in my passport is from France because we flew through Paris. It was sort of disappointing. Also, I'm not sure how or why but we never actually went through customs or anything like that going into France or Italy. Odd.
Driving: I would not want to ever drive in Italy, especially not in Rome, we opted not to drive when we went and we are so glad! The rides too and from the airport were a bit terrifying as we darted into lanes at the last second and drove down the middle of the road, speeding up and then coming to sudden stops. If you're going to drive in Italy, make sure that you know what you're in for and that you're up for it. Another reason I'm glad we didn't drive is that parking would have been a nightmare, there's not a lot of parking space. Where do Italians park? The better question would be, where don't they park.
Place to stay: consider renting an apartment, and if you do and you're traveling with a small group, talk to me and I'll find the info about the amazing place we stayed. It was really nice, it was a short walk from the Metro and our landlord was very kind and helpful.
Getting back to the Metro, I highly recommend that you find a place to stay that's not far from a Metro stop and that it's on the A line not the B line. The A line goes to most touristy places, and most trains are very nice and air conditioned. We tried to go on the B line as little as possible. We first went on the B line to get to the Colosseum, up until that time we always rode on the A line which is nice and clean and new. The B line train pulled up covered in graffiti, quite full, and non air conditioned. We were not impressed, and the return trip was worse, apparently it was when everyone rides the train, we were amazed to make it in the car and sure we were going to be pick pocketed. After that we avoided the B line like the plague, the only exception was to see Michelangelo's Moses at the St. Peter in Chains church, on the B line. If you must use the B line I'd recommend doing it earlier in the day or trying to figure out when busy times are (I didn't really manage this) and avoid it then.I'm realizing how long this post will be and perhaps I should make it more than one post but I wanted to make sure and say how kind and helpful the majority of the people were. We many times asked for help and were kindly directed, etc. Thank you Italians for not being fed up with tourists.
Monday, June 27, 2011
A Journey to Italy
I just got back from an amazing trip to Italy with two of my best friends, we went for about 10 days to Rome, Florence, Lucca, Pisa and then back to Rome. It was such an awesome trip! I'll try and blog about it all in the next few days.
This was my first time getting a passport, and going off the continent. We took, what for me was a first transatlantic flight to Paris. The flight was long and somewhat miserable as 9+ hours on a plane can be, there were overhead movies projected, but they were all pretty stupid. Airplane food turned out to be not too terrible, not wonderful by any means, but not to bad for what it was. We had dinner and then breakfast on the flight over. We made it to Paris and that was the stamp we got in our passports (which was sort of disappointing for me, I wanted an Italian stamp). Anyway we were enjoying Charles Degual (sp?) airport and I had a delicious croissant there. Our problems started when our names came up on the screen telling us to report to a desk, this we tried to do but only stood in lines that didn't move. We gave up on the lines and got on our flight to Italy. In Italy we eventually discovered that our checked bags were still in Paris. The man we talked to told us that it was a fairly common occurrence and that we should get our bags in about 24 hours.
I would like to recommend that if you check a bag, you make sure that you have some essentials like socks and underwear in your carry on. Our bags, didn't get back to us until half way through our trip and so we had to get creative with what we had, washing socks etc. in the sink and hanging them up to dry was all too common. When we did get our luggage back we all had a small item or two missing, in my case a brand new package of socks and a tube of sunscreen, we have no idea why that happened. Also be wary of Air France, that's who we had this trouble with.
The plane trip back home was much more enjoyable because we had a plane with individual screens and so we could pick what we watched. Happily our luggage made the entire trip with us on the way back.
More to come on the trip. PS, we had a wonderful trip, but if you ever go to Italy, do it in the off season to avoid sharing the sights with a bajillion other people everywhere you go.
This was my first time getting a passport, and going off the continent. We took, what for me was a first transatlantic flight to Paris. The flight was long and somewhat miserable as 9+ hours on a plane can be, there were overhead movies projected, but they were all pretty stupid. Airplane food turned out to be not too terrible, not wonderful by any means, but not to bad for what it was. We had dinner and then breakfast on the flight over. We made it to Paris and that was the stamp we got in our passports (which was sort of disappointing for me, I wanted an Italian stamp). Anyway we were enjoying Charles Degual (sp?) airport and I had a delicious croissant there. Our problems started when our names came up on the screen telling us to report to a desk, this we tried to do but only stood in lines that didn't move. We gave up on the lines and got on our flight to Italy. In Italy we eventually discovered that our checked bags were still in Paris. The man we talked to told us that it was a fairly common occurrence and that we should get our bags in about 24 hours.
I would like to recommend that if you check a bag, you make sure that you have some essentials like socks and underwear in your carry on. Our bags, didn't get back to us until half way through our trip and so we had to get creative with what we had, washing socks etc. in the sink and hanging them up to dry was all too common. When we did get our luggage back we all had a small item or two missing, in my case a brand new package of socks and a tube of sunscreen, we have no idea why that happened. Also be wary of Air France, that's who we had this trouble with.
The plane trip back home was much more enjoyable because we had a plane with individual screens and so we could pick what we watched. Happily our luggage made the entire trip with us on the way back.
More to come on the trip. PS, we had a wonderful trip, but if you ever go to Italy, do it in the off season to avoid sharing the sights with a bajillion other people everywhere you go.
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