We have some new wall decor - a hand painted ceramic wall clock and wreath made of silk flowers used at our wedding. We've sort of deemed our spare bedroom as the local for all of our tacky decorations (we def. have soem cool stuff in there, though). The photo below all shows off Kindel's new haircut. Snazzy, eh? Oh, and if you can, look closely at the writing on the clock.

On another note, a while back an email was circulated to me from a couple of different sources. It pointed out that the planted Mars would be very close to Earth, and would look as big as the moon. So I kept an eye out for the red planet and believe I caught it on a good night - check out the photo below.

It's Wednesday already? Man, soon I'll be dead!

Kindel remarked at dinner yesterday evening how quickly the week has gone. I couldn't help but laugh as she sputtered the words "Tomorrow is Wednesday, already? Soon I'll be dead!" Yes, it's wednesday, and the week is half over.

It's also September 11th, and my two month RA at Stanford is about to turn into full time PhD work. My new university is on the quarter system, meaning that they start a month later than every body else and that we get four quarters in per year. Basically, I'll begin classes a week from monday. Rather, I'll begin my class a week from Monday. While it's not set in stone, I'm contemplating taking only one course this quarter in order to take more time reading current research literature. Why read more? Supposedly, reading leads to factual knowledge, which should lead to questions about those facts, which should fuel more reading and literature investigations. Once I circle that merry-go-round a hundred times or so, I might eventually figure out what to do my PhD research on.

Enough with all of the boring stuff...

Kindel and I are really enjoying Cali. Thus far, we've made it to the beach twice (near Hwy 92 and 1, and down in Santa Cruz), hiked a couple of mini-mountains, frequented the Mountain View library's weird/sporatic collection of videos, and played bocci at Rengstorff Park just around the corner. Our apartment rocks, to say the least - we even have a glimpse of the mountains from our balcany. Who would of thought? You can check all a bunch of new photos I posted by clicking on "Pauls photobucket" in the list of links to the left. I'm thinking that the "UIUC house" folder has some stuff, along with the "candids" folder.

Kindel has started teaching at a local middle school. She's responsible for daily instructing 150 7th graders in learning English Languange Arts. The kids can be crazy at times, but that can't be too surprising considering there are at least 30 kids per class. Needless to say, Kindel is keeping a tight leash on them, while enthusiastically presnting the material. I visited her 6th period class the past Friday, so I have first hand knowledge. And no, she didn't have to tell me to "sit down" or "stop talking."

Church has rocked, too. I really recommend checking out Pastor Drew's latest sermon, "The 21st Century Church", which can be found at www.gracepres.com. We've benefited greatly from the Christ centered preaching we've received at the church. The associate pastor had the pulpit over the summer, and had shared some wonderful insight on the Sermon on the Mount. We're finding that our church throws around the term "Gospel centered" quite a bit, and we feel as though the congregation as a whole really wants to live that idea out. For more on that, I again recommend Drew's sermon from this past Sunday.

Anyway, I now have a computer that more reliably connects to the net. Hopefully I can be a little more reliable in updating this thing!

I'd like to give God the glory for being my strength, fortress, shield, and justifier during the past six weeks. All of the wonderful blessings listed above pale in comparison to His magnificent love.