Ichabod of Illinois

Spring Quarter update

2009-05-22T14:22:00.000-07:00

What's been going on?

-March/April - I (w/ Kindel's support) pushed hard to prepare for my PhD qualifying exam at the end of April. This was hard. I'm happy that it's over with.

-April 28 - passed my qualifying exam!

- April 30 - Kindel's birthday, she turned 20-something

- May 15 - 17 - short vacation in beautiful Monterey, CA; while it was blazing hot in Silicon Valley (where we live), Monterey was a cool 70 degrees! The water was way too cold to swim, but it was sure pretty!

> May (May and beyond) -
-I will be interning with a start-up in the area. I'll help solve the world's biggest environmental problems while doing some soul searching.
-Kindel will wrap up (teaching) school in the next few weeks. She has taken a summer job as a nanny for some friends. She's excited to have a relaxing summer and have fun hanging out with a toddler.
-My folks are finally visiting! We're excited to host my dad and step-mom in June, as well as my step-dad, mom, and younger brother in August. It's gonna be a blast.

If you think you might come to California, I think you should! Visit us, we'd love to have you!

End of Winter Quarter

2009-03-29T15:12:00.000-07:00

Highlights -

Last week was Stanford's Spring break. My building was going through office renovations over the break, so I stayed home to work on a paper. The paper is a description of the research I plan to do for my PhD and is the basis for my "candidacy" exam on April 28th. The second draft is complete and off to my boss for review. If anyone is interested in reading it, I can forward you a copy when we finalize it. The topic is "abiotic nitrate reduction by iron(II) surface and aqueous complexes". It's a real thriller, let me tell you!

Last Sunday, Matthew Smith from Indellible Grace Music gave an awesome concert at a local church. If you haven't heard of Indellible Grace, they're another group of musicians which I recommend. Their specialty is taking old hymns (greather than 200 years old) and rewriting the music to them. The hope is that hymns (i.e. the lyrics) will continue to be a part of church worship for this and the next generation of Christians. You can listen to samples of their songs at www.igracemusic.com.

I also was able to spend more time with Kindel during the afternoons. We made it over to the park to hit a volleyball around and to the bay for a walk. Yesterday, Saturday, we took advantage of the Spring weather and went for a hike. Wow, the hills were clothed with rich, vivid green trees and grass! We're feeling for all of our Midwest-friends and family who are blanketed with snow, and for our family in drought-ridden areas. God has once again been gracious to the Valley by bring such wonderful weather!

I've also been reading through Isaiah, and in ch. 19 God tells Isaiah of a recession which will come upon the Egyptian people. Vs. 10 sums it up: "Those who are the pillars of the land will be crushed, and all who work for pay will be grieved." The beginning of the chapter is vivid with language of judgement and that's why the drought, famine, and recession come. However, the end of the chapter is pouring over with God's mercy, "the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day" (21). What I took from this passage is that God brings about trouble (in the form of famine, recession, etc.) so that we'll find our treasure in him. Those who suffer as a result of this trouble need to hear the good news that God is a burden-lifting-God. He may not take us out of the trouble, but he'll 1) reorient our lives to focus on what's most important, and 2) provide joy everlasting.
- This is also one of the points of John 16. Jesus says that the disciples will have trouble, however He, Jesus, came to make their joy complete. Wow, this is really counter intuitive to our culture.

Recommended album

2009-03-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

I always appreciate it when someone recommends good, Christian music. I recently bought an album from Sovereign Grace Ministries which I think is worth sharing.

The album is "Looked Upon" by Na Band.

Here are the lyrics from the song "Thy Way, Not Mine". I find the words encouraging because graduate student life has been rough and I need to be reminded that God is lovingly guiding me down on the path. Music has a special way of communicating deep truths.

Verse 1
Thy way, not mine, O Lord
However dark it be
Lead me by Thine own hand
Choose out the path for me, for me

Verse 2
Smooth let it be or rough
It will still be the best
Winding or straight, it leads
Right onward to Thy rest

Chorus 1
I dare not choose my lot
I would not, if I might
Choose Thou for me, my God
So I can walk aright

Verse 3
Take Thou my cup, and it
With joy or sorrow fill
As best to Thee may seem
Choose Thou my good and ill

Chorus 2
Not mine, not mine the choice
In all things great or small
Be Thou my guide, my strength
My wisdom and my all, my wisdom and my all

FYI... This song was originally written in 1857!

2009-02-21T16:30:00.000-08:00

The desire to post has been there, but what to write? Maybe a good place to start is a list of some of the most significant things which have happened in my life during the past few months.

1. Made new friends - we've been able to hang out and get to know a newer couple at our church. We jive really well and frequent the law school game nights they host. To say the least, they've been very encouraging and are a hoot!

2. Men's group - I've met with a few men from church every during the past 8 months. God has used this group, along with my wife, to help me follow Jesus with greater fervor.

3. Rolan died - one of the guys in the above mentioned men's group was recently killed in an accident.

4. Research adventures - I've narrowed down my dissertation research, been preparing my PhD qualifying exam proposal, and made some progress on that research. The PhD qualifying exam will be in late April.

5. Slacked off on school work to hang out with my wife! Or, had Kindel help me in lab, grinding soil, washing glassware, or taking notes.

6. Driving around snow-packed Vancouver. I had never been to Vancourver before, so the 6 feet of snow seemed "normal." However, all of the natives assured me that snow always melts over night, and the weather was far from normal. Our two days in BC were spent dodging large mounds of snow while we drove all over Vancouver for a wedding which Kindel was in.

One of the funnier moments during our busier holiday season was had at the Denver airport. We had been waiting for our next flight and were perplexed to why we had not started boarding. In our confusion, and while looking at the sunset over the Rockies, Kindel and I realized, at the same moment, that our watches were still on Central Time!

The least we can do in light of the new administration

2008-12-12T12:31:00.000-08:00

I think that in light of the imminent Obama administration, the least we can do is let him know that we oppose his promise to sign FOCA his first day in office.

"The Freedom of Choice Act" (FOCA):

FOCA would establish the right to abortion as a fundamental right (like the right to free speech) and wipe away every restriction on abortion nationwide.

It will eradicate state and federal abortion laws the majority of Americans support and prevent states from enacting protective measures in the future.

FOCA will do away with state laws on parental involvement, on partial-birth abortion, and on all other protections.
FOCA will compel taxpayer funding of abortions.
FOCA will force faith-based hospitals and healthcare facilities to perform abortions.

Please read the expert analysis by Americans United for Life (AUL) and sign the Fight FOCA petition at: http://www.FightFOCA.com

haven't seen that one...

2008-09-20T17:58:00.000-07:00

We've uploaded a number of Kenya photos to photobucket, so drop me an email (preferably) or comment and I'll forward the link your way. Prior to the trip we purchased a new camera and two 4 gigabyte memory cards. The camera took amazing photos when the correct autofocus feature mode was used. I had the wrong mode selected for most of the trip and some of the photos came out fuzzy. Needless to say, we filled an entire memory card.

Here's a little taste of what we encountered:

We saw these lions in Masai Mara, the large Serengeti game preserve in Kenya. We came upon these lions by way of the numerous safari vehicles that had gathered in at this spot. Commercial tourist drivers are in the Mara with tourists every day. They have radios to talk with other drivers in order to make sure their clients get a diverse safari. Basically, it's all about the tips and providing the clients with a good story to take back to their friends and family.

Nonetheless, the lions were amazing to behold! Earlier that morning, they had take down a cape buffalo for breakfast.

A week ago we hosted a bbq at our apartment. We have wonderful friends, and as a result, we had a wonderful party. We're also especially thankful that our apartment was comfortable enough for us to host everyone. Lastly, we're thankful for the strength God gave us in order to stay up well past our bed time! A couple of the evening's highlights... Michael boiled brats in beer and onions, then bbqed them! Steven showed off his amazing thumb muscles... Drew and I are soooo envious! And Adam stole the cooking show by making an amazing jumbalaya.

Our friends love it when we put their pictures on the internet... I'm assuming.

To Kenya and Back Again (a post by Kindel)

2008-08-31T19:21:00.000-07:00

Hi dear friends and family!
It has been a long time since you've heard from us (in any lengthy fashion) about our travels in Kenya and then our return trip home. I hope to recount to you in a detailed and yet concise way. We both really enjoyed our time in Kenya visiting my parents, seeing wildlife and Kenyan geography, and interacting with the locals.

Our time in Kenya
Our time in Kenya started early in the morning of July 31. We arrived in Jomo Kenyatta International Airport at 6:30am and were quite ready to get off the plane and be at our destination. I, especially, was eager to get off the plane because I had gotten sick the last 2 hours in the air and was throwing up basically the only thing left in my stomach: water and bile. Not a fun experience. My parents were there to pick us up and we were able to wave and smile and gaze at each other through the glass that separated us while we waited for our luggage. All our luggage arrived and we were quickly off in the car my parents are using this year (borrowed from other missionaries). The first introduction Paul got to Kenya was the driving experience. He sat in the front seat as my dad drove - and it was an adventure with all the crazy driving, traffic, not to mention they drive on the other side of the road! We ran a few errands that my dad had to make for the vehicle shop at RVA and then we went to an American owned coffee shop called Java House. We had a scrumptious omlet breakfast. (After that meal I was feeling quite swell.)

RVA (July 31-Aug 3)
Our first few days were spent at RVA (Rift Valley Academy) to visit with my folks, adjust to the time change (they are 10 hours ahead of California time), and relax. Paul was very kind to me by complying with my method of fighting jet lag. We took a short nap the day we arrived, but other than that we were up in the morning and to bed at "normal" hours. We took a tour of the campus and were able to check out the new cafeteria construction that is still going on there. We played a game of racquetball (which really wiped us out physically) and went for walks around the perimeter of campus (called Guard's Trail). The day we left for the Abedares we had a clear view across the valley to Mt. Longonot (the volcano). For me, it was so great to be back at RVA again (I hadn't been back in 4 years).

Abedares (Aug. 3-Aug 5)
The Abedares are a mountainous region north of RVA. It is known for its moorland peaks, waterfalls, and bamboo forest. Elephants, buffalo, black leopards (very rare), and many deer-like creatures roam the area, but due to the thick forest, they are hard to see. We stayed in a rustic cabin with no electricity for 2 nights. We spent our evenings huddling by the fireplace playing cards and talking. Our daytime was spent driving around looking in vain for animals (except I did spot a black leopard that we all got a look at, but not long enough to take a picture), admiring the awesome waterfalls, and fishing in a stream for trout (which we could see, but could not catch). We were gone from the cabin all day, taking our lunch with us and having a picnic by the stream where the men were fishing. We were able to see a few deer-like creatures and a couple buffalo (not to mention the black leopard!!!!), and I think these sightings only whet our appetite for more animal viewing. Good thing we were leaving for Maasai Mara in two days!

RVA (night of Aug. 5)
We went back to RVA for a night to do laundry and pack for the Mara. Our clothes options for the Mara were very different than the Abedares, because the Abedares were really cold (high elevation ~10,000 ft.) and the Mara was out in the sunny and warm to hot temperatures.

Maasai Mara (Aug. 6-9)
Our first day heading out to Maasai Mara took a long time (6 hours bumping around in a Land Cruiser). By the time we reached our first tented camp (Karen Blixen Camp) for the night we were all pretty hot, dusty, and tired. Thankfully, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the camp was right on the edge of a river, home to about 39 hippos and 2 crocodiles. On top of this excitement, while sitting in their lawn chairs on the edge of the river, we watched all sorts of animals (giraffe, zebra, elephant, buffalo, gazelle (and other deer-like creatures), warthog etc. coming down to the water to drink! We decided NOT to get back in the car to drive around when we could just sit there (unmoving) and enjoy watching the animals! To say the least, we spent 3 hours sitting there enjoying the scenery and wildlife. Our tents were awesome as well. Two things we really liked about the rooms were: 1) the beds were new and VERY comfortable (we slept in a long time the next morning!!) and 2) they had outdoor showers - so we took a shower under the stars that night! Quite a charming and romantic place. If we could do it again, we'd stay there 2 nights instead of one.

Our second day we left Karen Blixen and drove into the Mara game park. We spent the day picture hunting animals while making our way all the way down through the park to our next tented camp (Sekanani Camp - where we stayed 2 nights). One of our exciting finds was a group of 3 cheetah lying under a lone tree in the middle of nowhere. Due to exciting viewing, we didn't get into our camp until about 6pm (the sun sets at 6:30 and it is dark by about 7pm). Our new hosts were a little worried about us, but were quite glad to see we had made it safely. We soon learned that we were their ONLY guests that night - so we received lots of attention. Dinner was quiet and relaxing. The dining area was lit with lights placed inside ostrich eggs. My dad was enthralled with the idea and made a mental note to look for some eggs of his own. It really was quite charming and peaceful. Both here and at the other camp we had Maasai escorts to and from our camp at night - since wild animals were not barred from coming into the camp. The guards were friendly and helped us with our water heater and electricity when each night they went berserk on us.

On our last full day in the Mara (Friday) we went on a leopard hunt. They are hard to find because they are mostly in trees and can blend in so well that you can easily miss them. We talked with some tour vans (those guys drive the Mara every day and know where to find stuff) that gave us directions on finding some quite a distance from where we were. We decided to go look for it and took off across the savanna. I have to comment on the landscape - it really is breathtaking and so easily missed when engrossed in looking for animals. Many times I was forced to stop and just take it all in - quite awesome! Just as we were arriving near the river where the leopard was seen, it started POURING rain. It was a downpour! The dust and dirt immediately turned into slippery mud and we were all over the road! The rain made looking in the trees for the leopard very difficult - and we didn't see anything (but that doesn't mean it wasn't there!). On our way back we got stuck in a huge ditch/rut. Thankfully, my dad was able to rock the car back and forth until he was able to get us out of there (remember, it was still raining a LOT). We eventually drove out of the rain and hit drier ground (so goes the rains in Africa). We noticed a group of about 12 tour vans and figured they were all looking at something exciting. We started to go over to them, but crossing the ditch near the road ended up stalling our car and killing the engine. When my dad tried to restart it, there was nothing there. Our battery was fried. Thankfully there were many vehicles around to pull us out of the ditch and in the process were able to jump-start our car. Since our mechanically competent men knew that the battery was no good, we decided to skip out on looking at the 20 some lions (which the tour vans were looking at) and head for the home of some missionaries we know who live just outside the park (and very close to the camp we were staying at). We had a bit of a time finding a road to their house (it was one of those situations where you can see the house, but can't see how to get there) but once we found it (via help of a local Maasai, who through offering to help and then jumping on our car took us there, despite the fact that we insisted we didn't need the help) we met the missionary families living on the compound with our friends and tried to get a new battery. The town near them didn't have one so we got back in the car and drove very quickly to our camp. We didn't get there until about 7:20 - which was after dark and which also made our poor hosts even more nervous. We were all happy to be back after such a long, eventful day.

We left Sat. morning with a visitor in our car - a son of one of the managers there who needed a ride to a town on our way. We stopped in a town about 2 hours out from the park to buy a new battery (we had started the car by pushing it down a hill). That done, we felt better and headed home. It was great to be back at RVA and out of the bumpy car. What a great safari we had!!!!

RVA (Aug. 9-18)
We spent the rest of our nights at RVA from there on out after the Mara. Paul picked up a new hobby of woodworking. My dad was the wood shop teacher last year, so had access to the shop as well as lots of knowledge and skill that Paul tapped into and learned from. His first pieces of wood work will be hung in our apartment soon, with enlarged pictures from our trip (he made two very nice picture frames). I got into walking around campus just about every day and tried to convince either my mom or Paul to join me. I also spent time with my mom while Paul was in the wood shop. We made some cookies, played games of Yahtzee, and she even let me cut her hair! We had a fun time together and I'm thankful for it. Paul and I also got to help my parents with their jobs/responsibilities around campus. We helped set up apts. for new staff coming in and cleaned our very dirty safari cars (we took one to the Abedares and one to the Mara). We seemed to fit right in to the life there, as one afternoon my mom and I were walking up to visit a couple that were my class sponsors when we saw a truck go by with a bunch of Kenyans and furniture. The truck stopped in front of us half way up the hill and to my surprise Paul got out of the truck and was holding a clip board and was obviously giving the men directions! I soon learned that while my dad and he were heading to the wood shop, my dad had 3 people come to him at once and ask for help with 3 different things. Since they all needed immediate attention, Paul was put in charge of one job - directing the men to houses where they were delivering furniture - while my dad went to deal with the other two requests.

Nakuru Game Park (Aug. 12)
We took a day trip to the famous Nakuru Game Park. It is famous for it's rhino and flamingo population. We saw both! We got some great close-ups of the rhinos and Paul and I enjoyed running next to the lake scaring up with flamingo. We also did some shopping (i.e. bartering) in Nakuru.

CURE Children's Hospital (Aug. 13)
After making cookies, my mom, Paul and I went down to the local children's hospital to visit kids who had undergone bone surgery and their moms who hang out in the hospital until their child was ready to go home. We brought them cookies (which they loved!) and joined them for their "spiritual hour" where they sang some songs, shared, and listened to a short devotional given by staff there. It was an eye opening time to see these people who were so happy and thankful when they had so little.

Bus Trip/Little Lambs (Aug. 15)
One of the RVA student experiences is to ride in a school bus through the tunnel that is on the road to the school. The buses fit with only inches to spare on either side of the rear view mirrors. The road into RVA is very steep and very twisty. Paul braved the front seat as we road in a bus with my dad to the top of the hill (RVA is in the middle of the hillside overlooking the Rift Valley and the road to Nairobi is at the top of that hill) to get it checked with a professional. I had to look away many times because it seemed like the bus was about to go over the edge of the turn. We made it to the top and back down again (thankfully!!).
Later that day we came back up the mountain (in a car this time) to visit the AIDS orphans at a daycare center called Little Lambs. We played games with them and enjoyed listening to them recite their memory verses and sing us songs. I handed out a book to each kid. The books were made by my students from last year. The kids were VERY excited to receive their own book. One little girl didn't know she could keep it and when we were leaving tried to give it back to my dad. When he assured her it was hers to keep, she gave him a huge hug and smiled. We left the group of about 35 kids sitting on the grass reading their new books.

Nairobi/Kitengela Glass/Airport - Goodbye Kenya (Aug 18)
We left RVA around noon and spent the day in Nairobi. We saw tea and coffee plantations along the way. We experienced the newest and biggest mall in Nairobi. We drove way out of town to a glass factory where they make blown glass objects from recycled glass. We got to stand very close to the furnace and watch the men make a bowl. Too cool! We did a little shopping and then headed back into town for dinner.

We ate dinner at Java House - talk about great food! Then we drove to the airport getting in the last few minutes of visiting before my parents dropped us off and we were back into traveling mode. As we sat for the last 3 hours in the airport, we found a spot to watch the Olympics on TV. We got on the plane for London at midnight and were both so tired we fell asleep and slept almost the entire flight!

Home Again (Aug 19)
We flew into San Francisco around 1:15pm and got all our luggage and jumped on the BART. We switched trains 3 times with out last leg of train ride on Cal Train. Once we got into Mountain View I was stationed with the luggage near the parking lot of the train stop while Paul walked over to our friends' apt. to pick up our truck we had left there. Unfortunately our adventures were not over yet. About 15 minutes after Paul left me he called me with the news that the truck was NOT THERE. I thought he was joking. We quickly started to realize that the idea of a stolen vehicle could be reality. Thankfully, it was not stolen, but had been towed the day before. Paul spent the next hour and a half walking over to the tow-truck place (which thankfully wasn't too far from the train station, since he was on foot) then to the police station (a good walk from the tow-truck place) to finally getting permission and paying the appropriate people to get the truck released. We didn't get home until after 5pm. We got a few groceries and went to bed by 7:45 as you can imagine we were exhausted.

I started work the next morning and Paul went to school too. Since then, we have been working the rest of this week and have enjoyed the lazy weekend. We are glad to be home but have fond memories of Kenya. Paul told some friends at church today that he'd like to go back. I have no problem with that! :)

Love to you all,

Paul and Kindel

Bipolar weather

2008-05-17T17:09:00.000-07:00

The joke around CA is that being a weatherman is the easiest job around. "Tomorrow it will be sunny with a high of 75. The following day will be sunny with a high of 75..." You get the picture.

On Kindel's birthday (a couple of weeks ago) we watched the sunset over the Pacific Ocean. It was cold. The howling winds made it feel mighty chilly, but the temp was probably a meger 55 degrees. Nonetheless, we were bundled up and covered with a blanket.

Two days ago, it was hot (i.e. 100 degrees F). Our apartment doesn't have air conditioning, but we've come up with a few ways to stay cool. They include swimming in our complex' pool, spraying ourselves with water and standing in front of a fan, drinking ice-cold Sprite and water, and minimizing our work in kitchen during the day and early evening.

While we haven't really suffered as a result of the heat, our butter has.

On another note, check out this exciting new book in the world of soil science:
I guess there's a whole field dedicated to studying soil science for the sake of forensic analysis. Who would of thought?

The science of dirt

2008-04-27T16:34:00.001-07:00

Much of what my research focuses on involves the chemistry and microbiology of soil. When talking to folks about it, I'll often use the word 'dirt', but the correct technical term is 'soil'. The properties of soil are very important to us. For instance the texture and structure of soil are the main factors influencing water infiltration rate. If the soil is too compacted, water won't flow through it.

We recently visit Williams Farms in Northern California to take a look the soil profile that develops in rice paddies. The picture reveals some interesting things about that environment.

For instance...
The field is about as dry as it gets, but not far below the surface, the soil color and moisture content drastically changes. The lower horizon stays saturated even when the upper horizon dries out, and this phenomena controls the colors. Single-cell microrganisms in the lower soil do not have access to oxygen, but they have the ability to breathe other chemical compounds. One such compound, Fe, is found throughout the entire soil profile. When oxygen is limited, the organisms essentially breathe rust, aka iron (3+) - iron 'missing' 3 electrons, and produce as a by product iron (2+) - iron missing 2 electrons. The upper part of this soil profile has plenty of oxygen, so the iron (2+) has reformed rust. The lower part of the profile never sees much oxygen, so the iron remains in the iron(2+) chemical form. Once the field is flooded for rice farming, the upper horizon of the soil will quickly become void of oxygen and return to a grey color.

Iron(3+) compounds are responsible for controlling nutrient and contaminant mobility in the environment. Thus, iron environmental chemistry is very important and worth understanding.

Here another student and I are taking soil samples and characterizing soil from the profile.

This is a great picture of a soil clod from the transition area between the upper and lower horizons. The patches of orange are rust and indicate where old roots used to be. During the rice growing season, roots pushed through the soil. After the field dried out and rice was harvested, the roots died and were eaten up by microorganisms. Oxygen was able to transfer through the area where the dead root used to be, and this oxygen reacted with the iron to form rust. However, the dense clay texture of the soil limited how far the oxygen could penetrate into the bulk soil, so much of the soil remained iron (2+) - the non-rust form.

Amazing, huh?!

Yuri - the excuse

2008-04-13T16:32:00.000-07:00

Michael B. had invited Austin, Kindel, and I to attend the Yuri's Night celebration at NASA Ames facility this weekend. I guess there is a long tradition of celebrating everything regarding 'space' and technology, and in particularly noting that one of the big advancements in came about when the first cosmonaut orbited the earth - Yuri G. I don't remember his last name, and it's not important. Austin came down with the flu, but is still planning to come our way from Indiana sometime this week.

Yuri's Night was a crazy mix of Bay area culture. It was composed of the techy/nerd group (I kind of include Michael in this crowd, but he's no a nerd) and the electronic music/dress in black and think Aliens are real folk. Yeah, this is a gross over generalization of a complex mix of people. Nonetheless, Kindel and I were probably the weirdest people there, being that we weren't dressed up in some ridiculous costume and weren't in the tech industry. The only main group of people not represented (from the Bay area culture) were the yuppies - those with the big bucks and drive the bling-mobiles, or those who act like it.

Nonetheless, there was some incredibly cool stuff that I wouldn't have gotten to see or participate in, such as:

Tesla Roadster - an all electric sports car which Kindel I were able to sit in

Airplane acrobatics show - these guys were in acrobatics and made us sick to watch

Skytran presentation on futuristic mass transportation - this is the stuff sci-fi writers dreamed of, but is now showing great potential
NASA's astrobiology group - I was fairly familiar with their word, but it was nice to put some faces to their names (you know, authors of articles I've read).

Dude's singing karaoke on a machine that they powered by pedaling a bicycle.

Finally, this cool presentation on some recently released and continually updated images of earth from outerspace - the coolest part was when the presenter displayed earth with its thousands of satellites in orbit. We're talking about a massive array of satellites all around the globe. Very cool.

We probably won't do Yuri's Night again, but we're glad to have the time with friends and experience yet another adventure in the Bay area.

The update

2008-03-16T16:42:00.000-07:00

Kindel has been sending monthly updates to our family, and we thought that our friends may also like hearing how we've been. Enjoy!

~~~~~

Hi,

It has been too long since I sat down to write an update on Paul and myself. We have been quite busy in the past few weeks with Paul finishing up 2nd quarter and with my students having a state writing test. It seems like the weeks go by so fast - and although the weekends are somewhat refreshing...it doesn't take long to hit the next week!

Paul has recently been reading a lot of articles, trying to pin point an area where he can begin his PhD research. As of Friday, (yesterday), he thinks he'll focus on rice patties and the water flow etc in the soil. Something to do with the electron flow and what organisms in the soil eat. This is so exciting for us, since he has been hoping to start up his research and field studies sooner than later. He hopes to be using my Uncle Terry's fields as his work sites - which means no long trips overseas. A good thing for us now, as we wanted to be able to make the longer trips together...and with a closer field site near family, its better for us all around. He is eager (and ready) to get started doing some observation/experiments.

For me, school has been crazy these last three weeks. I am not sure what happened, but the meetings increased and the grading increased - all enough to make me one busy little teacher. I have learned some lessons with presenting material, as well as felt the sting of disappointment when my students struggle through certain things. Overall, though it has been more difficult recently, I'm learning and growing and thankful for it all.

Last weekend Paul and I had so much fun. Friday night we hung out at home and did our usual thing of watching LOST online. Then, Sat. after we spent some time in the morning working on school stuff, we went to a preserve nearby and went mountain biking. It was a beautiful day - and a fun time together. Sunday, Paul went with me to Stanford so I could practice sand volleyball with a group of students who are starting a team for intramurals. I think I will be able to join them, since I have a Stanford ID. I hope so! It was so fun playing volleyball again. Paul sat in the shade to read articles for school..but he said that if we practice this Sunday, he wants to play too. :)

The weather has been really nice here recently, so it is fun for us to get out and do more outdoors activities. Paul is riding his bike to school almost everyday (which is also a prayer request). I get out to a local park as much as I can. It is refreshing to be outside, after being cooped up in a room teaching all day.

This weekend has been more of a study weekend for Paul. My students just finished up their 2nd trimester, so all grades were due Friday. Now, I have the weekend "off." Since Paul is studying/working on his two take home finals, a friend from my younger days has reappeared in my life and she (Crystal Carlson) came down from Berkeley to spend half the day with me yesterday. She and I went out to a local Mexican place for lunch, then went to the park for a walk (and to enjoy the beautiful, partly cloudy day), then out for coffee, and I dropped her off at the train station around 5:30pm. Then, I went home to make dinner for us - as Sarah and Micheal Bloem were coming over. We had a nice evening talking with them and playing Rummy Cube.

Today is Sunday, Palm Sunday, and Paul and I are not quite sure what we'll do. We'll likely go over to Stanford for some sand volleyball, then maybe run by the store to get a new butter dish. Our old one is just too slippery, as it doesn't have a handle. We will rest and relax for the rest of the day - enjoying the fading weekend as much as we can.

Oh, and before I forget, there is one more piece of sharing I wish to relate with you. Quite a while ago I received an email through a group on campus about sending in pieces of writing for a new magazine/publication that was starting up. I got really excited about it, sent in quite a few pieces of writing...and then didn't hear anything from them for months. Just this past week I DID get an email back from them - and they want to publish one of my stories!!! I am totally excited, and hope that this might be the start of a new adventure. I am attaching the story, which is called "Out of Service" so you can see it. The publishing agent is called Vox Clara, and they have asked for more of my stories. (They also said they use some of the other stories I've already sent in other publishings.)

We love you all and miss you. Hope all is well for you.

Love,

Paul and Kindel

~~~~~

P.S. I can send Kindel's story your way if you simply leave a comment or email me.

2007-11-28T18:24:00.000-08:00

I spent a nice Fall break with Kindel's family in Northern California. Besides finally winning a hand of cards against the family and playing mafia with the extended family, we had a good deal of time to catch up. Two questions were frequently asked of me - how do you like Mountain View? And, how's Stanford going? Here are the answers:

Kindel and I both generally like living in the Bay area. From all of our exploring of the hills around valley, I think we most enjoyed Portola Redwood State Park. It was close to home, yet off of the beaten path, and contained some beautiful wountains (large hills) and valleys filled with giant redwood trees. Monteray Bay seemed like a really cool place, too. So, what we like most of our new home town is all of the extra stuff around to visit and experience. We've also come across some nice parks around the area, which help lessen fast paced mood of the Penninsula. We're not fond of the rat race which tends to drive much of Bay area life, nor do we like how expensive housing and food is. However, we have a great apartment and God has kept excellent food on our plates (through Kindel's excellent cooking).

I think my last post indicated that I was starting a new research project and classes, and so much of what I think about Stanford comes directly from these endevors. All in all, Stanford has been relaxed and fairly low-pressure. My research project has provided results that confirm our intial hypotheses. The results came at just the right time to present them at a conference in New Orleans. There seems little pressure from my advisor to latch onto a thesis project, though, and so I'm working on over coming the inertia of laziness and distractions to think about the next round of experiments that I'd like pursue.

My classes have been excellent in content and work load. I took the advice of other students and took two courses this quarter - environmental microbiology and physical hydrogeology. It has been one of those quarters/semesters in which I feel as though I've learned a whole lot of cool stuff. While I've had plenty of busy work, homework has been very doable, leaving plenty of time for research.

All in all, I really like the school. The profs are excited to teach and work with students, there is a ton of money available for whatever, we have a high intensity X-ray light source on campus, there are always interesting lectures to attend, and if I tried, I could probably find free food any day of the week (coffee and donuts on Monday, brown bag seminars w/ lunch provided, etc.)

Well, there you have it. Questions, comments, suggestions?

2007-09-21T18:37:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-09-12T18:42:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-07-24T11:46:00.000-07:00

Two and a half weeks ago I married Kindel Joy Kramer at a beautiful wedding ceremony in Biggs, California. Just as the hand of the Sovereign One brought Kindel and I together in the first place, so too he lavished His grace upon all of the wedding preparations , yielding a beautiful ceremony at the Riverwood Farms walnut orchard. My bride was absolutely beautiful in her three-generation wedding dress. After the morning wedding, a reception was held at Kindel's home church. I could not have imagined the ceremony going any better or being any more beautiful - the temperature was a pleasant 84 (or so) degrees, a stark reprieve from the blistering 100+ days during the rest of the week; the walnut trees provided a 60 ft tall sanctuary; and Kindel was stunningly clothed in satin and arrived at the ceremony entrance riding in her uncle's model-T Ford.

The reception following the ceremony was packed! Many women from the church joined together to help feed the 200+ people in attendance. They fixed pasta and lettuce salads, sandwiches, and served ice cream, rolls, and pies (all of which were home-made). Kindel and I enjoyed greeting all of our guests and were surprised to see a few people we thought wouldn't be able to make it. After the dessert and the tossing of Kindel's boquet, we were off to Mazatlan Mexico on our honeymoon.

I'd should also recognize the Kramer aunts that completely prepared the rehersal dinner and helped out with numerous other wedding tasks.

I tend to put off thinking about things until I absolutely have to, and so the week prior to the wedding was the most nerve wracking for me. The wedding event itself - the people, standing in front of an audience, reading Scripture in front of everyone - was mostly on my mind. Kindel and I felt prepared to live with each other and looked at the wedding as the event that finally solidified our commitment. Also on my mind the week prior to the event was that many of my (and our) friends from Kansas and Illinois (or Colorado, New York, Alaska, etc.) we wouldn't get to see. I've missed all of you, but am thankful what time we have had together. And even though many of you couldn't make the wedding and Kansas reception, we still felt your love and prayers through the nice cards, emails, and gifts you sent. Thank you for your kindness and support during this time.

Thankfully Kindel and I have a roomy apartment in Mountain View (S. of San Fran.), and we'd love to host anyone coming our way. More on the apartment later.

Wedding pictures are available online at Kindel's PhotoBucket website. The photos were accidentally uploaded in reverse order.

2007-06-27T12:03:00.000-07:00

Most of you will understand that the four weeks leading up to the wedding has been very busy. Kindel and I left Illinois on June 6 to be in Kansas for a wedding reception on the 9th and spend time with friends and family. The reception was a blast! About 80 people came to celebrate with us. Mom did a wonderful job putting it all together, and thanks is due to all of the family for their share in helping out. I have dial-up internet, so I have yet to put any pics online.

Monday June 11th, Kindel and I drove 15 hrs to Evanston, WY, and completed the drive to CA the next day. While in Kansas we had sold Kindel's car to my younger brother, which made the Cali trip easier and more fun. The truck did very well in crossing the country without cruise control.

Since then, we've been hanging out in Northern California trying to get the wedding details finalized. The wedding will be in Kindel's walnut farm, with walnut trees serving as massive arches, rising 60 feet to make our "sanctuary." We've had a lot of fun outside of wedding planning, too.

Kindel and I drove up to Lassen Volcanic Nat'l Park for birthday (June 20) and hiked out to a hot springs area. Cherri, Kindel's sister, and I also made salsa (HT to Ramona for the recipe) for a salsa contest at a local farmer's market (we took 3rd). Kindel has a HUGE bridal shower on Saturday, so Steve, Kabon (K's dad and bro) and I are headed up for an over night trip to the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Because there has been a good deal of stuff to do it has been easy to neglect or minimize seeking to follow Jesus. Please pray that we would continue to recognize that God is always abiding with us and has brought us near to him through his son's blood.

Thanks and I'll probably update some time after the wedding!

Paul

Reception

2007-05-27T16:15:00.000-07:00

A message from my mom:

Hello to Paul's friends and family!

Today is the RSVP date for the Kansas reception. If you have not sent in your reservation card yet, but are still planning on coming, you may go ahead and send it in the mail or call me at (785) 272-8316. If you did not get a reception invitation, and you would like to come, please contact Paul or Kindel for details. I need a head count so I order enough food.

Thanks! Hope to see you all there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
P.S. Kindel and I know of friends from IL that are planning to attend the KS reception. Please email me if you want their name and number in order to set up a carpool.

We also look forward to seeing many of you there! I agree with mom. If you didn't receive an invitation would like to attend, call her or email me. We'd love to have you!

Graduation

2007-05-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

Kindel (officially) and I (unofficially) graduated on Sunday. We attended her ceremony, where she received a fake diploma and got to wear a really cool robe and colorful scarf type thing. My thesis is ready to deposit and I'll do that sometime this summer. So I'm not quite official regarding my graduation requirements. However, I borrowed Kindel's cap and gown to take some photos Sunday afternoon. Check out the "IL Graduation" folder in my photobucket (link at right).

Last week I put together a rough draft of a manuscript for publication in a professional research journal. Think of a research journal as a magazine filled with wordy articles that report the results of various research projects throughout the world. Publishing is very important if one plans to have a productive academic career because this is where the rest of the research community can see and critique your work. My advisor will review the manuscript and we'll submit it soon. There's no gaurantee, though, that it will be accepted.

Kindel and I also had our last pre-marital counseling meeting last night. We had 5 meetings with Pastor J. and his wife that covered some very important topics. Most of all, though, we had a ton of fun, and as a result are looking all the more forward to marriage. We're excited and we hope to include you in on that excitement at our wedding events.

Cheers!

2007-05-02T09:38:00.000-07:00

My masters thesis defense was Tuesday morning, and I'm glad to report that I passed. While, the term "defense" may sound intimidating, I'm in the Sciences, not Jedi school. I had given a departmental seminar in March, so I was required to give an official defense seminar. Instead, I updated a PowerPoint showing my results and used that to guide us through the thesis document. I really enjoyed myself - my committee members are very knowledgeable, but easy going.

With our academics well in order (this is the last week of student teaching), Kindel and I gearing up to move out to California the first week of June. We're sad to leave all of our friends, our church, and campus. California will be a lot fun, though, especially starting out fresh as a married couple.

On the marriage note - wedding plans are coming together, I think. We're blessed to have a lot of help from both sides of the family, which has made the burden on Kindel and I much lighter. It has also helped keep our time free for more meaningful events. Recently those events have included watching Mission Impossible 3, getting run out of Allerton Park by a battalion of mosquito's, swinging in a hammock under a nearly full moon, fishing (Kindel is now up to four or so fish!), church potlucks, and a UIUC symphony concert (tonight). So, thanks to all of you who have taken some of the wedding load away from us!

Until next time...

2007-04-23T08:12:00.000-07:00

Kindel's birthday is a week from today and in light of that we decided to have a few friends over to her home. She and I had planned to have a friends over, but she didn't realize that I intended for us to celebrate her birthday, too.

It's tradition in my family to decorate with streamers and baloons during the week of someone's birthday. Kindel was quite surprised to see the decorations when she returned from Bloomington...

I had also made dessert - homemade ice cream and shortcake, which were well received by the whole group. We also sang "Happy Birthday" and had Kindel blow out a candel on her cake. Afterward, we played a rousing game of Balderdash. If you haven't played this before, its a game that makes use of your creative abilities to make up definitions for weird words, plots for unknown movie titles, the significance of an unknown historical figure, and much more. I highly recommend Balderdash.

Some other random stuff from the past few weeks:

My advisor has since gotten back to me with my second draft. He and I were well pleased with the first and the revisal processes has been smooth and quick. I'll defend it before my comittee on May 1.

Ben, my old roommate, came with me to Kindel's on Saturday. He and I had fried up some brats and did some fishing. While I basically got skunked, he caught a very nice bass. I've posted some pictures of ben and the fish in my Photobucket.

Last Friday Michael and Anthony hosted a "cheap beer tasting party." It was similar in form to a wine tasting party, with the exception that all of the beverages tasted pretty bad. I thought that the event was a good idea, because "what if there was a cheap beer out there that really tasted good?" As Michael put it, there are times when you don't want to "spend $9 for a six pack of beer with a name I can't pronounce, from a country I've never heard of." The intention was to have a sip or two the 13 cheap beers that we all brought and rate them on aroma and flavor. Busch original came in first, but all in all, I really disliked everything I tried. So, I've decided to stick to my guns with the more expensive drink - Goose Island Honkers Ale. I can't really think of a situation where the only available refreshment, including water, would be cheap beer. But if for some reason I was in a situation like that, I'd go with the Miller Lite.

2007-04-11T08:06:00.000-07:00

I took a common personality test for pre-marrital counseling. Kindel and I have discussed the validity of the outcome, and I feel as though their assessment was a healthy one. There are limits, however. See what you think:

Portrait of an ESTP

2007-04-06T13:08:00.000-07:00

Thursday morning I turned the first draft of my thesis over to my advisor. I should have it back in a week or so to complete the editing and add/delete content. Until then, I'm riding the wave of low responsibilities. Kindel also has a few days off from student teaching, so we're trying to make the most of our 'free' time... for her that has involved doing some side jobs and working on wedding stuff. Not much of a break, eh? I have gotten to spend more time in God's Word and at the gym. This morning Matt L. from church was kickin' some tail in cut-throat on the raquetball court. (For those that don't know cut-throat is a 3 person version of raquetball). I'd be interested in playing him one-on-one.

On another note, I received my official rejection email from Johns Hopkins University. Not that I was holding out or anything, but I was curious what happened with that.

Supa Wien

2007-04-02T19:07:00.000-07:00

Just over a week ago I return from a short mission trip to Austria, of which I was prayerfully and monetarily supported by many of you. Thank you for having faith that God had called me to go, and thank you for any prayers that were said. God was clearly at work.

Our week consisted of working with three different groups of students. Monday and Tuesday a number of the Americans came along side the OSM (Austrian IV) students at the agricultural university (BoKU) in a book table outreach. Tuesday was more eventful for those at BoKU, being that there were more people to talk with and much more time spent in prayer. Monday evening we also attend the city-wide OSM large group, not too dissimilar to an IV large group. We sang and worshiped through Scripture together. It was a wonderful blessing to share in worship with our Austrian Christian family, and I think they felt the same about us. One of the guys that attended the meeting said that he had never heard singing at the venue any louder than it had been that night. Yes, we were very loud!

Alan and I spent Tuesday afternoon in Lintz, a neighboring town, with Ewald, the Vienna OSM staff member. We handed out flyers to publicize an talk that was held Thursday evening on the validity of the resurrection. The flyers were witty, our spirits were high, and Ewald’s passion for students kept us looking for places and people to solicit. Thursday evening most of the whole group spent the evening in Lintz praying with the Christian students and staff in preparation for the lecture. Andrew, the itinerant evangelist, spoke well of God’s making clear that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. The room was full, yes with a number of Christians, but that is who God called to hear that evening’s message. I’m hopeful that the message from that evening will spread.

I’ll revert back to Wednesday, now, when we visited Slovakia, just to the South of Austria. Austrian towns and countryside are quite colorful, eclectic, and a little spunky. Bratislava was a nice contrast to the hills ‘alive with the sound of music,’ because it gave us a little hint of what it was like to live under communism. Let me tell you, the Christians we met in this town are passionate for living in relationship with God. They have big dreams for their friends and country and hearts ready to do what it takes to see God work his wonders. We were blessed with coming along side them for an evening outreach in the dorms of their university. After splitting up in pairs, we administered surveys door-to-door to get an idea of what the people want and need in their lives. They also provided information on a Jesus-type movie they were to show the next evening. Working along side the Slovakians was precious. We felt an intimate connection with them, and as Joe noted, this is precisely because we shared closely in the joy and pain of their labors.

Friday evening we attended the OSM international student meeting. It’s a “coffee shop” type thing in the basement of one of the local evangelical churches. A good number of non-Christian international students were in attendance. God blessed your prayers that evening as Tara and I shared our testimonies.

Overall, we came to understand that the we had similar struggles when it came to faith: we all desire close, genuine Christian fellowship; we want to hear God speaking to us and to be more prayerful; we want to reach out to those around us, families including; and we want to know where God is calling us in life. Pray for the Austrian and Slovakian students in these ways.

Lastly, though, there are some unique prayer requests: The ministries and churches are in need of deep, Christ-centered books and materials translated into German or Slavik. Ewald really, really wants John Stott’s book on The Cross in German. Please pray for that. And finally, please pray for the four young men that took Alan and I in for the week. They blessed us more than we could have ever imagined, and we hope that they would encounter God through Jesus Christ in a very acute, personal way.

Thank you so much for sending me and the whole team. We hope and pray that you would receive the “reward in heaven” that Jesus said comes to those who fast, pray, and give faithfully.

Amen.

2007-03-23T03:25:00.000-07:00

We're back in Vienna, having spent Wednesday in Slovakia and Thursday in Lintz. We are spending the evening with students at an International Coffee House hosted by OSM. A number of non-Christian students may be there among other Christians that have heard about the event. Tara and I will both be sharing our testimony (we only get 5 minutes per person, though!).

Lastly, please pray for the Christrian European students as they long to see their friends and family know the one true God.

36 hours until we're back in Illinois.

Thank you,
Paul

2007-03-20T15:44:00.000-07:00

Hello from Vienna to my friends, family and fiance!

The Grad IV team has been in Austria for four days and have done a variety of things. We all attended various churches with our hosts and friends on Sunday. Alan, Joe and I had a personal translator sitting behind us during the service. We hooked up with some Austrian students at the Agriulture University, BOKU, on Monday to pray and help with a book table outreach. Some also helped with that today. Monday evening we attended OSM (Austrian Student Ministry) large group to worship together as students. This was encouraging all around. I was told by one of our friends that "the singing was really loud tonight." Yes, it was joyful, too! Praise God! Today Alan and I went with Ewald (OSM Staff) to Lintz (sp?), west of Vienna to hand out flyers for an evangalistic talk that will be held at Keplar University (in Lintz) Thursday evening. The whole group will be staying in Lintz Thursday to hear the talk, and we will return to Vienna on Friday.

At this point most of us are just really tired. I'm on schedule with the time, but have yet to catch up on sleep. We're also spiritually weary, needing that precious alone time with God. Please pray over these things. Please pray, too, for our friendships with our hosts, that we would encourage them, and pray that God's work would be accomplished at the Universities and through the Austrian Students.

Thank you!

Paul and the team.

2007-03-16T08:22:00.000-07:00

Good morning!

Kindel and I are at the apex of wedding planning, as many of you know. Thanks for your help and prayers! God has been so wonderful to keep Kindel and I desirous to acknowledge him through the whole process. Our Bible study this week discussed that the precursors to idolatry are failing to recognize God's work in the world and neglecting to give him thanks (Romans 1). God is helping me learn that it is good to be weak and to trust in Him.

I'm off to Vienna, Austria this evening. We'll arrive in country about 11 am Saturday morning. Our schedule calls for us to be home in Chicago at 5 pm Saturday, March 24th. Thank you for praying for this! The entire team is very excited.

I'll update, if possible, from Austria.

Cheers!

Paul

Wedding!

2007-03-07T04:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday evening, I proposed to Kindel! More details to come at a later date, but I have a few photos available at my PhotoBucket and some below.

Most important, though, she said 'Yes'!

And for my distant family and friends, here's your first glimpse at her engagement ring.

2007-03-05T18:56:00.000-08:00

Since starting graduate school I've become accustomed to hoping that each semester would be longer. I always get crunched for time and once week 12 hits, I feel as though one or two extra weeks we make everything apple pie - sweet and good. I was feeling completely overwhelmed Sunday morning with all of the events of this semester coming to a mini-climax here in early March. I really, really wanted an extra week. God answered that request with a 'Yes'.

I had thought for the past, oh, six months that the Vienna trip was scheduled for the 10th through the 18th. This made my schedule a little complicated with all of the traveling and presentations that I'm giving. After speaking to my church on Sunday about the Spring Break trip, some friends informed me that I had my dates wrong. My initial reaction was "No way. I couldn't have gotten this wrong." I did get it wrong. Praise God! And I now have an extra week in my schedule! Amazing!

On another note... the Stanford trip rocked! Next year, this blog will be titled something like "Fighting illini-ichabod in the Bay Area". Doesn't that roll right off the tongue?

More later...

2007-02-21T06:27:00.000-08:00

To answer the most recent question - I've been trying to keep the ball rolling on writing. It's all too easy to distract myself with meaningless activity and take time away from my thesis. That said, the thesis is coming along fairly well. I started writing up my 'materials and methods' section about a month ago and am now moving right along through 'results'. I have decided that I'm much better prepared to write the results up prior to drafting the introduction. The process is detailed and, well, slow.

Kindel and I are halfway through our fifth month together, and very happy to be where we're at. We are excited at the possibilities the summer and next year hold - traveling, lots of weddings to attend, moving, etc. Since her and I decided that Stanford would be the best opportunity to finish my graduate studies, she has been searching for jobs in the SF Bay area.

The highlight of the past couple weeks has been the Bible study Kindel and I are in with Pastor D. Gospel Transformation (see the link in the sidebar) is, as the title alludes to, very Gospel oriented - it's about looking to Jesus as the one who has and will finish God's work in our lives and in the world. Last week we studied how to apply to our lives justification by faith - God's paying once and for all for our sin by Jesus' blood, and God accounting to us Christ righteousness (yes, like an accountant placing money in an account), thus placing us in the favored position of the righteous. God actually puts Jesus' righteousness in our account and so we now are seated with Christ in the heavenly realms - the place of perfect righteousness. God's favor will never leave us, even as guilty as we may feel about not 'making the mark' or being the 'Christian God intends us to be' God's countenance shines upon us. Kindel and I are learning how to apply this concept to our lives.

In the upcoming weeks I'll be headed to California to visit Stanford, preparing my departmental lecture, and getting ready to spend spring break in Vienna. Thanks to all of you who are prayerfully and financially supporting the Vienna trip. I'm still in need of further financial support; so if you'd like to help out, drop me an email.

Let me know how all of you have been.

Justified,

pb&j

2007-02-06T03:17:00.000-08:00

29% of the weekend was spent driving. In fact, Kindel and I spent as much time in the car as we did sleeping. While that may sound bad, all of that time was spent commuting to and from Topeka for my mom's birthday. I'm not sure I had ever seen mom as excited as she was when Kindel and I surprised her Saturday evening. While our time together as a family was short, it was great to see them. What stood out most to me, though, was my sister's faithful service to the family. She consistently puts the family's interest abover her own. As a result, mom was given a wonderful surpise birthday party, filled with her closest friends and family.

I'd like to make mention of the meal we had Saturday evening. The family decided to patronize a local Chinese buffet - one of those that has a billion types of breaded chicken dishes, wanton soup, and an ice cream machine. The menu, however, was well above ordinary for american Chinese restaurants, and I believe I was the only one to take full advantage of it. For instance, I would have never tried octapus had I not been given that occassion Saturday evening. Matthew, my younger brother, pointed out the small, 5 inch in length octapuses that were cooked for eating pleasure. I just couldn't pass up on trying octapuse, and in Topeka of all places! Surprisingly, the two tofu-tasting sea creatures I ate were really good! If you're passing through or live in the area, I recommend visiting Panda Buffet at the West Ridge Mall of Topeka.

NEXT, and this is a big next, Kindel and I celebrate our four month anniversary tomorrow. The two of us are thankful to have spent so much time with each other this last weekend, especially in light of the usual business of our week. We've come a long way in four months and I expect the next four to be just as exciting and memorable. We don't have definitive plans for tomorrow, except that we've tossed around the idea of catching up on the two episodes of 24 that we missed.

Lastly, I fly back to Newark on Thursday for the Princeton visit.

Cheers!

Groundhog day eve

2007-02-01T05:57:00.000-08:00

A little update...

The Rutgers visit went really. The department of Environmental Science has a lot going for them: a good mix of young and old faculty; a sincere desire among the faculty to work together (throughout the whole campus, too); money; and instrumentation. The research topics are new and cutting edge, and there would be a ton of opportunity to publish. From my perspective, New Brunswick is a pretty poor location for a university. Narrow, congested, dirty streets make for difficult travel, and this is compounded by the natural business of life in the Northeast.

I've also been invited to meet faculty and tour departments at Princeton, Stanford, and Notre Dame. My schedule is starting to fill up travel, and while it's an honor to be invited to visit these programs, there's also a downside. Traveling can take away from the time needed to write up my thesis.

Furthermore, Vienna is just around the corner. Much thanks to all of you who have prayerfully and financially supported me with regard to the trip to Austria.

Finally, Kindel is excelling at the teaching process. She had a reviewer watch her teaching yesterday, and by God's grace she had everyone's keen attention and involvement in the classroom. In fact, the reviewer crossed out the title of the "Improvements" column on her note sheet, and wrote in "suggestions".

If you have a moment, please continue to pray with me for...
Choosing a PhD program
Writing my thesis
The Inter-Varsity trip to Vienna
Kindel and my's relationship during this busy time

Two straight lines are great!

2007-01-21T06:02:00.000-08:00

While it's still early for graduate admissions departments to make decisions on their incoming students, three of my five possibilities have contacted me. The universities haven't neccessarily made decisions, but my application has peaked their interests. I don't want to say too much more at this point, except that my first paid, departmental visit comes at the end of this week. My research has sparked some interest, too, and I've been asked to give a presentation over my MS thesis work when I visit school-number-one this week.

The presentation deadline could not have come at a better time. I'm just now organizing and analyzing my data in order to start writing my thesis. Having spent numerous extra hours mining my dataset, a few *amazing* correlations have become apparant within the urban streams I study. One sloping, straight line is a very good thing. Two sloping, straight lines is a great thing! Furthermore, the statistics are reasonable and interpretable! Please pray for me I as I become more familiar with the chemistry theory behind the results I see in my data. Please pray for me as I give a practice presentation on Tuesday and the real thing on Friday.

The week ended in the home of a math professor, where Kindel and I babysat his three children. Being my first babysitting experience, it started a little akward for me. After dinner, though, we all seemed much more comfortable around each other - comfortable enough for the kids to tie us (mainly Kindel) up countless times and to countless household objects. Our last event with kids was a rousing game of Battleship. The oldest son, at 5 years old, and I used an iron-tuff defense to confuse the enemy (Kindel and the two other children), leading to their defeat! Their parents arrived home at the end of our game, refreshed from what may have been the "best meal they have had in Champaign-Urbana, and maybe the best meal they have ever had." Praise God!

Kindel starts student teaching at Urbana High School this week. She has four classes, I think, two sophomore and two senior. Please pray for her (and I) as she begins teaching.

Blessings...

Wedding?

2007-01-08T18:11:00.000-08:00

Kindel took me as her date to a wedding in Bloomington this weekend. Here's a pic prior to the service. I'll put more in my PhotoBucket later.

Though I must say, I could not have been more blessed to have that woman next to me. She's absolutely wonderful!

Sugar Pine Point State Park. Lake Tahoe. CA.

2007-01-06T13:11:00.000-08:00

Breaking into the New Year

2007-01-03T08:24:00.000-08:00

On December 14th I traveled across Illinois and Missouri to my home in Kansas City. I left during the middle of finals week to catch a flight from Kansas City to Sacramento, California, where I would visit Kindel and her family. With all of the anxiety and excitement, I managed to get a good hour of sleep before leaving Kansas City Friday morning.

I had been discussing research opportunities with a professor from Stanford before the semester ended. Wanting to support my PhD search, Kindel made it a priority to find time during our first day in CA to visit Stanford's campus and meet with my faculty contact. To psych me up for the rest of the trip, Kindel scheduled lunch with her family shortly after I arrived. Our short, yet fun lunch set the stage for the rest of the trip - it would be busy, genuine, and rewarding.

Stanford rocked! In summary, there is a very high probability that I'll be accepted and be returning for the official visit in early February. There is an equally high probability that upon being accepted, I'll complete my PhD education at Stanford. The research centers on Arsenic environmental chemistry. Arsenic contamination in ground water drinking wells of South East Asia represents the the most expansive case of poisoning in the world. My field research would be conducted in Cambodia. Even more exciting is the leading by the Spirit that Kindel and I have received, encouraging us to move to the same geographic region together. California would be a good place for both us.

Family...

If you didn't know, Kindel's parents serve at a the Rift Valley Academy in Kenya, Africa. They were back visiting for the month of December. They're not sure the next time they will be visiting the States. Because of this, it was really important for me to spend quite a bit of time with them. Steve and Lori are extraordinary people - full of the Spirit, very funny, genuinely caring, and intelligent. While much of our time was planned - family visits and events - the extra time during my three-day visit extension was probably the most memorable. The Denver airport closing kept me in CA for a little while longer. With the extended family expecting me to be have left, Kindel and I were able to relax outside of some type of schedule. I was warmly welcomed into Kindel's family during the entire trip, but this was especially acute during the the last three days. It was an exceptionally fun and rewarding visit. I really look forward to spending more time with them.

During our time in CA we spent a few days at Lake Tahoe, which included sledding, hiking, and hot-tubing. Kindel and I also spent quite a bit of time in her home town and the surrounding communities. Biggs, where K grew up, isn't too big. Settled in orchard and rice country, it is kind of charming, though.

Accident...

My last full day in CA, Kindel and I headed out to visit Yosemite National Park. It was a beautiful Saturday and the drive couldn't have been easier in her uncle's Dodge Ram 2500 (yes, it had a Hemi). Just North of the park, though, Kindel and got in an accident while driving down a grade toward a bridge. The accident could have been quite bad, but God had other plans. The concrete guard rails kept the truck from falling into the 80 foot ravine and we didn't hit any other vehicles because of minimal traffic. Kindel and I walked away from the accident with insignificant injuries. AAA and excellent insurance made it so that neither of us had to pay anything. Both of us are thankful for God guiding our vehicle through the accident that Saturday morning.

Pictures are available. See my PhotoBucket link at the right.

Blessings,

Paul

2006-12-08T06:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a happy anniversary for Kindel and I! Raquetball, salad and rice, cribbage, who could ask for anything more? It was great.

As of this morning, I have 4/5 PhD applications complete. Princeton, Stanford, Rutgers, and Johns Hopkins applications are all in the hands of their respective admissions departments. My application to Notre Dame is taking a little longer, but will be finished soon. I'll be informed of my acceptance status any time between early February and early April. At that time I'll have to decide if I want to be a Tiger, Cardinal, Scarlet Knight, Blue Jay, or Fighting Irish.

If I had to choose off of the mascots, which could be final decision factor, I'd have to go with Princeton. Who wouldn't want to be a growling/purring tiger??? Chalk it up the testosterone, if you like. The pictures tell the whole story:

Bronze statue of the mascot outside Princeton's Nassau Hall. Festive, eh?

Even if the football team sucks, who wouldn't be amused by this mascot for an hour or two?

Grrrrrrrrrr.

2006-12-04T07:04:00.000-08:00

The University of Notre Dame is among the five schools I'm interested in doing my PhD at. Surprisingly, this is quite the application. They require two of everything - letters, transcripts, personal statements. But what brought that common, confused smile to my face was a question asking my religion! Some of the answers not shown in the picture below include Catholic, Baptist, Buddhist, Christian, Episcopalian, Jewish, and Eastern! What should I choose???

2006-11-26T17:05:00.000-08:00

I'd like to highlight a few events during my visit to Kansas.

Fishing - Beautiful Beaver Lake was situated adjacent to the town of Rogers - the birthplace of a chain of small, quaint hometown grocery stores known as Wal-Mart. The Wal-Marts were more plentiful than the bass on this trip, though.

Thanksgiving -

I had made a batch of spicy green curry and rice for dinner Wednesday evening. Kindel managed to get most of a whole bowl down. After a bowl and a half, I could barely take the heat. A few minutes later, I opted for yet another bowl of fire. Green curry has a wonderful taste, but a nasty bite. The rest of my family decided to heat up leftover spaghetti. I can't blame them.

That was Wednesday. Thursday, my stomach was tumultuous. The well-hyped Thanksgiving meal tasted wonderful, but the Asian curry decided that it was time to take on the traditional American food in mortal combat. By the end of the night, the kung fu fighting curry had been beaten down with a good ol' 'merican butt whoopin' turkey sandwich.

As my mother noted in her last comment, Kindel fit in really well with the whole family. Her joyful disposition and openness was a blessing to everyone there, especially me. She made the time I spent with my family very enjoyable.

Friday - My sister and brother-in-law hosted my dad and step mom, along with Kindel and I, for very nice lasagna dinner. Michelle's hospitality and growing patience toward me are both things to marvel at. I can't thank her and Mike enough for all they did for Kindel and I this week.

Saturday -

Hours of travel from Kansas City to Wichita - 6
Number of Bedores in a tiny house - 40
Amount of food needed to feed this mass of people - a ton
Kindel schooling my family in cards - priceless!

And a notable exchange during Saturday's Bedore Thanksgiving:
J: "Be quiet out there, we're trying to listen to the game in here!"
D: "The television's on mute."
J" "I can hear it."

Sunday - Kindel and I had a pleasant ride back to Kansas. Much thanks to God that her and I enjoyed all of our time with each other in the last 136 hours. When do we get to do it again? In two and a half weeks, with the Kramer family! It's gonna rock!

For all my homies in Cap-City

2006-11-15T14:12:00.000-08:00

I'll be driving to Kansas on Friday and staying with my pops through Sunday. My dad, stepbrother, and myself are going fishing in Arkansas on Saturday. Hopefully, we'll catch some delicious bass.

Sunday evening I plan to drive into Topeka. I'll be doing work on Washburn's campus most of Monday - stuff like finishing graduate school applications, entering data for research, etc. Maybe I'll see some of you there!

Kindel arrives in Kansas City half past noon on Tuesday, upon which, I'll pick her up and then head back to Topeka. Her and I will hang around through Friday to visit with family and friends. Then we're off to KC to chill with the rest of my family until Kindel and I leave for IL on Sunday.

CUOP

2006-11-06T09:18:00.000-08:00

It has been a happy and busy few weeks.

Two weeks ago I gave a couple of lectures in the Chemistry class I TA. The time demand for preparing lectures is quite high, but I learned a ton about adsorption phenomena. Prior to a lecture I'm usually a little nervous, but it seems that as soon as I introduce our material that my confidence increases and the rest of the lecture flies by. I presented a few examples of adsorption theory as it is used in the research literature and the students responded positively. Some even commented on how interesting the studies were! I sure didn't expect that.

And, last week I gave presentation covering my preliminary research results. Although I initially didn't think my results were all that impressive, my group thought differently. There always seems to be so much more work that I can do, but having this lecture really forced me to spend some time looking at the data I've already collected. The comments I've gotten on my results have been really encouraging.

I'm also nearly complete with the applications to a few PhD programs. While this is an expensive process, I'm hopeful that the response to my applications will help me make a decision as to what/where to study. I'm pretty sure that I've told a number of you not to let me apply to schools where their average winter temp is less than the average in central IL. Well, I'm pretty sure I'm violating that rule, although some have informed me that the East coast is generally a little warmer.

Thursday of this week I'm headed to Louisville for a medical missions conference. Because my mind has been busy with other things, I don't really have any expectations for the conference. That said, I am looking forward to relaxing my body and brain for a few days, as well as hanging out with people that aren't in academics.

Lastly, and very important, tommorrow marks the one month anniversary of Kindel and my's dating relationship. Our time spent talking, laughing, and praying together has been some of the most enjoyable of my life. I look forward to another month of it - especially with all of the family visits ahead! Thank you for your faithful prayers and wisdom-filled encouragement.

Blog to ya later.
btw - CUOP = Coarse Update On Paul

Troops

2006-11-02T05:52:00.000-08:00

The excerpt below from the NY Times article Medic Aids Fallen Marine With Skill and a Prayer was posted for a few reasons.

1) It just reminded me of how little I pray for our troops. The question posed to the reporter is one that I could hear the soldier asking me: "Do you pray? Do that. I'd appreciate it."

2) The images of blood and death are commonly found in the Bible and remind us that we all will perish according to plans of our Providential Sustainer. There is no such thing as an untimely death in God's eyes, so do not fear those that hurt your body, but fear Him who judges impartially according to each man's works.

3) How far will we go to protect the innocent and administer God's Kingdom of peace and righteousness on the Earth? I recently read an article in the times about child slavery in Africa. I've drafted a post asking the question "How does the doctrine of 'Justification by Faith Alone' impact the Christian's life, such that they're encouraged to get involved with this issue?" I am personally convicted that I fall so short of any sincere, deep desire to speak up or dedicate time such issues. Thus I feel inadequate to publish the drafted blog post. The Medic article is convicting as well.

Anyway, here's my original post from this morning - that which was written before I penned my thoughts, above...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He looked at the reporter beside him. “Do you pray?” he asked. “Do that. I’d appreciate it.” ...

He sat quietly again. A few minutes passed. “The first casualty we had here — his name was James Hirlston — he was his good friend.”

“Hirlston got shot in the head, too,” he said.

He said something about Iraqi snipers that could not be printed here.

Then he was back to the subject of Lance Corporal Smith.

“I really thank God that he was breathing when I got to him, because it means that I can do something with him,” he said. “It helps. People ask you, ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’ It helps, because if he’s breathing, you’re doing something.”

...

He paused. “Smith is my friend.”

He looked at his bloody hands. “You got some water?” he said. “I want some water. I just want to wash my wedding band.”

“Thou shall not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day,” said the big marine, Lance Cpl. Daniel B. Nicholson. “For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.”

“Help us Lord,” he said. “We need your help. It’s the only way we’re going to get through this.”

From Medic Aids Fallen Marine With Skill and a Prayer (NY Times)

2006-10-27T06:13:00.000-07:00

Did you know that not only is BET a hip-hop, groovy televeision station, but it is also used to describe multilayer adsorption of a gas or solute to a solid, adhering surface? Who would have guessed (except those that have had some P-chem)?

I have had to lecture this week to my environmental chemistry class and if you haven't guessed this already, my topic is adsorption phenomena. I didn't really know the material in-depth until this week, but it's not the most difficult to conceptually (or mathematically) understand for those that have had a good deal of chemistry, physics or thermodynamics. I fall in the first category. The real challenge is translating the notes I have, which are very theoretical, into something the students will be able to comprehend. Thankfully, on Tuesday after some prolonged brain storming, the good Lord helped me start writing a student-friendly lecture for Wed's class. And again, thank God, the lecture went really well!

Because of the lectures I have to give, research has been put aside this week. I've welcomed a little more rest and time with the Great Rest-Giver. I've also welcomed a little more time with Kindel and friends. Yesterday evening Kindel came by my office to spend some time praying with each other. From our time sharing scripture with each other, one of the themes we recognized is that while we often keep ourselves from seeing God's work in our lives, he'll frequently just come along side us in amazing, surprising ways. He could just leave us in our obtuse understanding of His work (and character), but out of his love, we find him jumping into our boat and calming the storm. In prayer, we both showed a desire to have deeper friendships with those around us - inside or outside the church - it doesn't matter. We'd like to be more confident of our position in God's kingdom, thus becoming more vulnerable with those God brings in our lives. Easy thing to say, but this can be hard, painful, and time-consuming. Worth it? I think so.

Well, have a nice weekend.

An attractive sequential extraction

2006-10-19T09:17:00.000-07:00

Honestly, I feel like crap, but I am alive.

Research has required a lot of effort lately. I don't know how to describe the week I've had, but I can clearly say that I've put in about twice as much work as usual - time, mind, body. It has been hard. Over last three days I 've had a steady intake of caffeine, mostly from coffee. Thankfully, though, I did get about 8 hours of sleep last night. While it was much needed, my body, in the form of a sore body and splitting headache, is still responding as though it could use another 10 hours in bed.

Even amidst the demanding schedule of work, the task of extracting different forms of phosphate from my sediment samples is going really well. Monday evening I messed up pretty bad and start over, but since then I've been granted a wholesome capacity to perform my lab work well.

On another note, I've decided to apply to the Vienna trip. This doesn't guarantee that I'll be attending, but it's the first step in investigating the ineffable Creator's plan for my spring break. I also did this when praying about spending the summer of 2005 in Thailand. Please continue to give me feedback on this - I've talk to maybe three people about it. Especially all of you from church that read my blog!

Thanks again to all of you that care enough about me to visit my website. Thank you for you prayers and thoughts, I am an unworthy recipient.

Vienna

2006-10-14T09:45:00.000-07:00

My faithful and infrequent readers, I could use your prayer and advice.

Through the Graduate Student InterVarsity chapter at UIUC an opportunity has arisen to spend 10 days in Vienna to aide the Austrian Student Mission. The spirit about the trip is unique - a small group of American graduate students will travel to Vienna to be an occasion for which the Austrian students can do outreach on campus. This may initially sound like any other 'mission trip', but the InterVarsity view of outreach is not what I would consider traditional. As graduate students we would help lead discussions about the relevency of the Christian faith to the academic world. Hopefully, we would have the opportunity to share about how we see the neccessity to integrate faith and academics within our discipline.

While fruitful and good, the mission-oriented trips I've taken in the past have not purposefully taken advantage of the gifts I've been given regarding academics and intellect. And so it excites me to think about the poweful witness my personal faith story - that which includes the spiritual and intellectual - could have on such a trip as this.

The dates of the trip are March 16 (fly out Fri; arrive Sat) to March 24 (fly back on Sat). If I attended the trip, it might be wise to stay a few extra days to tour the Austrian or German countryside.

Your prayers, questions and comments and very welcome.

Thank you.

Crash

2006-10-11T20:19:00.000-07:00

I crashed into Marcin...

Jeremy ate some dirt and hugged a tree...

And Marcin took a nice tumble.

More pics of our Kickapoo crash-course in my PhotoBucket (See links section).

DTR

2006-10-08T17:56:00.000-07:00

Israel's (the Church) relationship to God is marked by a series of covenants. In the discussion that I helped lead this summer it was noted that each stage of the progression of God's covenants is marked by an inaugeration ceremony of sorts. Furthermore, during the era of a particular covenant, the relationship between God and the people is often renewed. For example, the covenant between God and the Church during the Mosaic era had an inaugeration ceremony that took place on Mount Sinai. God declares what he has done for the people, basically who He is and his great deeds, and then makes known how his people will relate to him and be blessed. His people will keep the law. During the time period before David, the Mosaic covenant is often renewed by a public reading of the law. Inaugeratory and renewal ceremonies can be thought of in modern terms as "defining the relationship" or as DTRs. Daily instances of DTRs come in family and friend relationships.

Today at lunch I was sharing some good news with Austin and other friends. In describing what had happened, Austing declared "Oh, so you had a DTR! That's awesome!" And so, my thoughts immediately took a tangent to the idea of God's covenantal dealings with his people. Any thoughtful tangent to God's covenanting with his people is a good tangent! Anyway, all of this is introduction to that good news I shared with some of my friends and church family this afternoon.

For the past seven weeks I've developed a good and very enjoyable friendship with Kindel, a wonderful young woman I met at church. As Kindel and I have spent more and more time together, we've both prayerfully felt the desire to a committed relationship with each other. Yesterday evening her and I took a beautiful hike through Kickapoo State Park. During which, it took all of the two and a half hour hike to finally work up the courage to tell Kindel what I felt, and during this pleasant conversation we redefined our relationship. As Austin called it, we had our first DTR.

I'll follow up on this later, but I'm happy to share the news with you.

Servetus

2006-10-06T15:16:00.000-07:00

Genesis 2:15 "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it."

Calvin's commentary: "Moses now adds, that the earth was given to man, with this condition, that he should occupy himself in its cultivation. Whence it follows that men were created to employ themselves in some work, and not to lie down in inactivity and idleness. This labour, truly, was pleasant, and full of delight, entirely exempt from all trouble and weariness; since however God ordained that man should be exercised in the culture of the ground, he condemned in his person, all indolent repose. Wherefore, nothing is more contrary to the order of nature, than to consume life in eating, drinking, and sleeping, while in the meantime we propose nothing to ourselves to do.

Moses adds, that the custody of the garden was given in charge to Adam, to show that we possess the things which God has committed to our hands, on the condition, that being content with a frugal and moderate use of them, we should take care of what shall remain. Let him who possesses a field, so partake of its yearly fruits, that he may not suffer the ground to be injured by his negligence; but let him endeavour to hand it down to posterity as he received it, or even better cultivated. Let him so feed on its fruits that he neither dissipates it by luxury, nor permits to be marred or ruined by neglect.

Moreover, that this economy, and this diligence, with respect to those good things which God has given us to enjoy, may flourish among us; let every one regard himself as the steward of God in all things which he possesses. Then he will neither conduct himself dissolutely, nor corrupt by abuse those things which God requires to be preserved." (emphasis added)

Well, Calvin, shall burn those who willingly neglect the land, considering such Christians as heretics?

What's really important?

2006-10-05T16:03:00.000-07:00

"Religion asks us to reanalyze what is really important ... it asks us to give away or sacrifice what is difficult to give away." R. McKim

Two conferences in three days, both intriguing. First up was the Illinois Water Conference where I learned that the sediment I sampled the last two trips I took to Chicago isn't any good. I need to analyze it fresh. Currently on my plate is the U of I's Workshop on Religion and the Environment. I had made plans to attend a lecture entitled "Salvation and Ecology", but ended up getting to hear McKim's talk entitled "Can the Religions Help?"

Here are are the thoughts I penned out in an email a couple of minutes ago:

Although McKim encouraged the audience to look intently to the world's relgions in addressing the numerous environmental issues of our day, it sure made me think about my personal religion. Fasting, sacrificing time for prayer or fellowship, money toward tithing are central aspects of Christian devotion. Is this where the Christian idea of sacrifice ends? Or, will it extend to the sphere of God's creation? After sin, well, and resulting from it, the world is faced with numerous problems - food shortages, population explosion, poor drinking water. Should a true religion claim to have the answers to such problems? Can Christianity rise to answer the spiritual, as well as the humanitarian and environmental problems of our day?

Lookin' forward and lookin' back

2006-10-01T15:03:00.000-07:00

Week 7. Most of the folks I'm friends with keep the same sort of yearly schedule I do. It's based on the semester system of the academic world. At this point in our calender, we're not primarily thinking it's now october 1st and have this, this, and this to do. It's a "I have 9 weeks left in the semester, two projects due between now and then, and a fall break where I'll procrastinate while laying up with family and friends. Nonetheless, I was extremely surprised to hear that this is week 7.

Pic 1: Here some of us are at the Pumpkin Fest a few weeks ago. Front (L to R) - Adrielle, Josh B., Kindel, and me. Back - Karen, Matt, Bryan, Janine, and Melody.

God has been very good. Let me reminisce on His grace and love:

The new people God has brought into my life have lavished encouragement on me. To tell you truth, the past three or four weeks I've felt spiritually parched. Upon listening or reading the words of those pleased by God's nearness and ever-present love, my heart lights up with desire to be in that place again! So easily I go back to the same routine of neglecting the Spirit's call. And the Great Shepard has kept true to his promise to go after every wandering sheep that is his. It's through my friends and family, including those at my local church, that my faith is being built up.

My adviser confirmed that I'm on track to graduate in May. I have a couple of life options I'm pursuing for post-graduation: a PhD program or work. I've spent much more time thinking about PhD programs over fixing up my resume or looking for job opportunities. Maybe it's just that time of the year? I often think, though, that the only real job option available for someone with my education is, well, to stay in academics. Where does an environmental chemist look for a job? I don't want to sit behind an instrument all day, pushing the 'start' button and filling out reports. So I'll preface my next paragraph with the comment that I have not fairly considered the job option.

Nonetheless, I've been very encouraged in my search for a PhD program. After making some contacts with local profs., I think that I have what it takes to get into some decent environmental science or engineering programs. Some of the email discussions have been particularly useful in helping me see what type of adviser, group, department, and project that will best suit me. Ask me sometime about how I've seen Providence working through this process.

Research and TAing have been going very well, but they keep me quite busy. Because of a full schedule, it's been a little more difficult to keep up with friends. At lunch today someone noted that I had basically disappeared for a few weeks. Well, there's truth to that.

Some prayer requests before I finish:

Spiritual health that positively affects my relationships
Consistent and healthy balance of time
Leading and fair decision making w/ regard to work and more grad school
Unspoken request for some healthy problems among family members

For some reason this passage was brought to mind:
"When our days there were ended, we departed and went on our journey, and they all, with wives and children, accompanied us until we were outside the city. And kneeling down on the beach, we prayed and said farewell to one another. Then we went on board the ship, and they returned home." Acts 21: 5-6

The Pope and Islam

2006-09-21T12:20:00.000-07:00

I've been apologetic toward Pope Benedict XVI since his speech last Tuesday at Regensburg University. This is not because of any anti-Islamic vein within, but because he and I are both sinners redeembed by the blood of Jesus. He is in a very difficult position as spiritual leader for the Catholic world. And as Derek Webb says, Jesus and the Gospel are not safe to preach.

If you have the time, I'd encourage you to read Pastor John Pipers wisdom-filled response to Pope's speech: How Christians Should Respond to Muslim Outrage at the Pope's Regensburg Message About Violence and Reason

Oh, and Webb also said "there's no point in having a platform to stand on if you're not standing on it saying things that are probably going to get you knocked off of it."

A renewed beginning

2006-09-14T15:21:00.000-07:00

I'm in a very unusual semester and am just now getting into a comfortable routine. While a number classes interested me this semester, like Surfaces and Colloids or Soil Organic Matter, my adviser and I thought it best if I spent my time focusing on research. My obligations to the school are two research and to assist in teaching an upperdivision class in my department. TAing isn't too difficult and provides me the opportunity to lecture. For instance, the professor is out of town for two weeks and I'm lecturing in his absence. I'm stepping up my commitment to research and speeding up my timetable a little bit.

I've also sheered back my commitments to extracirricular activities. Yes, I've decided to race in some Mountain Bike races, but this is a weekend activity that incorporates spending time with friends. Seeing the PCA church plant off the ground is something very important to me. God has been and continues to be with the church, blessing those involved, the unchurched community, and the rest of the local churches through this ministry.

Thirdly, my semester is purposefully marked with spending time with my friends. It's true that my friends help me enjoy and see God. Likewise, they're in need of the same thing - mainly, joy and peace. Together as friends, bonded by the Spirit, I hope that we'll be encouraged to bring in the foriegner - those that don't know blessings of being in communion with one another through Christ.

I guess you could say that the semester is marked by mission: Mainly, what it means to see God work through my talents as an academic and teacher; how the local church is a vessel of unity and healing (personal and community) to the glory of God; and finally, the role of close, personal fellowship in the Covenant community as a means of knowing and sharing Jesus.

Let us press on to know Him.

Darwin's doubt

2006-09-14T08:23:00.000-07:00

"With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" ~Chuck D. (Charles Darwin)

Coming out party.

2006-09-04T15:54:00.000-07:00

The invitation read:

"New, used, and abused grad students,

You are invited to Dan and Paul's Apartment Tuesday evening for the second of the general welcome parties. Your hosts, Dan and I, have been labeled the "danimal" and a "self proclaimed adonis", respectively...

We invite you to bring a token or object from your closet, something with a story, that you can show-and-tell with the rest of the bunch. For example, I have a pink Care Bear backpack that I wore around during my senior year of undergrad. It has a story and is cute. Your object may or may not be cute, but bring it and surprise us.

On a more serious note, this is a great opportunity to continue getting to know each other. We hope and pray that the Spirit would lead us to deepen our friendships; and above all, that Christ would be glorified in our fellowship." ~pb (28 Aug 2006)

Dan and I herald the message and the grad students came. The co-sponsors arrived first, bringing with them munchies and drinks (thanks Josh, Austin and Michael). Many grad students, old and new, made it out to our humble apartment in order to celebrate the will of God in keeping us in academics, and new and renewed friendships. The stories about our closet crap were priceless. I only wish I could recount them all. I'll do my best:

Josh B. once participated in the largest annual cross country race in the nation. Along with the rest of the runners, he dawned an interesting article of clothing. In his case, the pink bucket-cap actually compliments his smile.

While in Nigeria, Michael became acquainted with a local brewery called More Beer. He visited the establishment and used his whiteness to get free paraphernalia. Evidentially, not too many Dutch, white guys are seen in those parts; so, it's a big deal when one comes knocking on the gate, wanting free t-shirts and hats.

Brittany is an affinity for stealing precious, silica minerals from West-coast beaches. This vet/surfer girl took this sand from the beach just before taking off for plains of IL.

Heidi showcased her nut-in-a-jewelry-box. An older, close family friend knelt down as if to propose to her. While an engagement ring was way out of the question, the anticipation was too much. The plastic nut was to help her remember to never take herself too seriously. Great story.

Austin of Lockslee showcased his sword and even gave a live demonstration of his sword wielding skills. Michael tossed an apple up into the night air and in one swipe Austin had successfully severed the fruit in two pieces. Don't line up too soon, ladies, because this Lancelot is engaged!

Kindel wore these waffle-stompers to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro, the tallest summit in Africa. While at the top, her party played nine-holes of golf ( italicized part added for emphasis). In all actuality, they did hit golf balls off the peak.

"F" - for Fluorine. This notebook tells the whole story. Nina lit to chemistry at a young age and like most chemists she kept a handy dandy notebook. Her high school chemistry memoirs recount her first encounter with "The Mole" and electronegativity.

Danimal shared a home-made, pastel pillow that Sara S. (his g/f) mailed to him from TX. I think After starting the knit-job, she realized a whole sweater made out of that yarn would look like pretty barf. So, she annealed it into a pillow and sent it Dan, who named it "Squarie".

It's quite the inconvenience to roll and unroll my jeans every time I want to commute on my bicycle to school (rolling the jeans up keeps my sprockets and back wheel from eating up my pant legs). So, I bought some man-pris from Kohl's young women's department. While they're comfortable and will fix my problem, I haven't had the guts to wear them in public. Yeah, the European and Asians do it, but this is 'Merica. Here's the first public appearance of yours truly in capris.

More pics are available at my PhotoBucket (link at the right).

**On a sad note, Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, died yesterday. He was pierced through the heart by the barb of a very large sting ray. I really enjoyed his shows and appreciated his support of conservation. Pray for his family and fans during this time.

Post-welcome party pre-blog

2006-08-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all of you who came to the welcome party. Dan and I really enjoyed having a packed apartment and were very amused by your junk. I'll post pics and commentary after I return from Chicago Thursday evening.

pb

2006-08-26T16:24:00.000-07:00

Recap from week:

I) Lecture Friday afternoon

Friday afternoon I lectured in Environmental Chemistry in the stead of the main professor. The task started to become more intimidating about 20 minutes before hand, but God providentially intervened to help me make a smooth transition to speaking. I forgot something for class and showed up later than I preferred, making it neccessary to jump right into the lecture. The material, a review of subatomic particles and elemental symbology, was seemed a little trivial to the students. Even so, my presentation felt a little convoluted as I tried to explain how the S-orbitals of the 4th electronic energy level are initially lower in energy than the d-orbitals of the 3rd electronic energy level. Thankfully, most of them remembered this from general chemistry, saving me from an inadequate review of the concept.

II) Race warm-up and Grad IV, Friday Evening.

Friday evening I headed out with Anthony and some members from Illini Cycling to the race course for Saturday morning's mountain bike race. We covered about a third of course before A. and I had to leave - 1st Grad IV large group was going on, so I needed to be back. I dropped A. off and headed straight to union (yes, without a shower) to Grad I.V. The 1st large group, while the same format as last year, was nonetheless entertaining and informative.

We were given a two-fold ice breaker: 1) we split up into groups based upon home-town geography. As a group we we were to come up w/ (a) unique things/qualities resident to our geography and (b) values that were consistently held among the area's peoples (i.e. Midwest boasts of the Mississippi Watershed Basin; we have tornados and snow - sometimes concurrently occuring; and often we're emotionally reserved, yet always seen as cheery) . 2) we split up into groups based upon discipline (non-life sciences, life sciences, engineering, humanities, society). We then discussed what major world issues our fields address and how faith is important to our discipline. The second grouping helped us see where most of the new students fit discipline-wise. It was quite surprising to see that the society group (journalism, social work, medical students, urban planning, etc.) was one of the largest, compared to its small numbers over the past year. Hard or non-life sciences (physics, math, chemistry, atmospheric sciences and computer science) was also very large. Engineering had a relatively small group considering they have traditionally dominated the Grad IV population.

III) Race Day Summary.

Now on to Race Day!!! The morning started at a sobering 6am wake up call to "The Saints Go Marching In". A. and Jeremy rolled over about 6:45 in order to pick me up and meet the rest of the team. We were at Kickapoo by 7:45, plenty early for our 9 am race. After warming up on the trail and getting my first endo (a type of crash where you go over the top of your handle bars) in, I was all ready to race. Initially, I started out at a pace that would exhaust me in the first 5 miles, so I decided to take it down a notch. I took a semi-early spill two or three miles in, hitting my left kidney with the handle bar. At this point, I was in 5th (out of 15-16 riders in the beginner class), close on the trail behind a racer from Butler University (or College, I don't know). The trail is amazing - it's filled with tons of ups and downs, jumps, sharp turns, long climbs and descents, and narrow trails, difficult to negotiate. It was sooo much fun!!! I took another spill probably 6 miles into the race - this one came after my right handle bar clipped a tree and my bicycle went sideways. After a long, tricky downhill I was nearly a mile from the finish. I picked up the pace, flying around turns, taking jumps and wouldn't you know, I hit another tree! This was the most severe of my crashes. I went into a turn way too fast, slamming into a tree with my left shoulder. Needless to say, I went down and hard. Being so close to the finish, I quickly stood up, made sure my shoulder wasn't broken and took off for the finish. All in all, I was really pleased with my performance. I placed 5th with a time of 57:40, ~3 minutes behind the leader. I guess the question remains, would I do it again or will I race again this year? Yes, I will probably race again this season. It was just too much fun not to.

Here are a few photos.

1) Jeremy is stocking up on essential race food - Tostitos and Gatorade.

2) Here I am, winded and red-faced after the race. I edited my lower body out of the picture. It's not all that revealed, especially because I have black shorts on. You can find the full picture at my photobucket site (see link at left). Also, all of us had to borrow jersies, but I'm thinking about getting one.

3) Anthony finished the race without breaking anything, praise God!

3) Jeremy also finished without any missing appendages or broken limbs, praise God!

Just as surprised as you

2006-08-24T19:34:00.000-07:00

I'm racing in a moutain bike race on Saturday. No, I can't use my new bike. Yes, I have a decent, yet worn bicycle that will do the job.

Anthony, Jeremy and I attended the Illini Cycling information meeting tonight. They're hosting the season's first race at Kickapoo State Park this weekend. And wouldn't you know, Jeremy and Anthony were up to cycling in the beginner section. So, I've got the time, bike, and spandex, why not?

Off to tune up the Fisher . . .

pb

Splish splash

2006-08-24T16:52:00.000-07:00

I had a disappointing day in the lab and am a little upset at myself. I've been using the Ferrozine method to determine dissolved Fe for the last month and today, on the most valuable samples that I need to run, I really messed up. Instead of filling the 50 mL Taylor tubes up with DI Water after adding buffer, I did it before. This meant that I couldn't quantify the final volume, and as a result, the initial Fe concentration in the sample can not be determined. I did end up quantitatively transfering the solutions to 100 mL volumetric flasks, adding buffer and diluting. This meant I had to make a whole new set of standards (7 in all) for the 100 mL volumetric sample set. No problem - just an extra 1.5 hours. In the end I did get the standard curve negotiated and the diluted samples put through the spectrophotometer, but I'm not sure how reliable the results are. The curve is okay (R-sq of 0.9964 - last week it was 0.9999997); I'll just have to wait and see how the standard deviation turns out.

And on top of that, one of those dumb online quizzes labeled me a low-ranking nerd.

A lift and quad day

2006-08-22T20:50:00.000-07:00

About a month ago God burdened my heart to be more thoughtful and purposeful in the spiritual aspects of my close friendships. Through providential ordering of our schedules, it worked for a few of us to meet yesterday evening in order to share about how God has been at work in our lives, offering praise and thanks; to exhort one another with the things we've been learning; to repent and confess; and we also concluded by praying for one another. We opened the time by listening to Derek Webb's audio commentary, found on the album House Show, for his song I Repent. This was NOT a place or time in which we came to boast about how well we are doing at the Christian life.

The Scripture is clear: As Christians we're adopted into God's family and he loves all of us equally, enjoying his communion with the Saints. Furthermore, we do not know the depths of our sinfulness, and even in our best efforts the sting and presence of sin lurks around the corners of our heart. One conclusion or summarizing statement from last evening, as Sarah put it, is that for every one glimpse of our own sinfulness that we see, we should take 10 looks at Christ. Put another way - in that moment in which your convicted that you're tired of being critical of others, judgemental, or you've fallen into that same sin once again - whenever that sense of guilt for being a horrible or wicked person befalls you - look at Christ. Look at how patient he was with the hard hearted - he persistently shared the Kingdom message with those who just couldn't get it. Look also to his healing touch and mercy upon the whores, and to his embracing the sojourner and immigrant. Also look to the cross, the place where God made known this his son will suffer God-foresakenness so that we do not have to. It's in looking at the Christ man and beholding the Father in which we are changed.

To God be the glory for blessing us with this time Monday evening.

Now, here are some pics from Quad Day (The Tuesday before classes start where 500+ organizations signup for tables arranged around the main quad. I would say upwards of 15 - 20 % of the organizations are Christian related.).

Pastor Dave and Sarah at the All Souls PCA table. I really enjoyed hanging out here for most of the day. Toward early afternoon I was growing quite weary and sun beaten, but I prayerfully asked God for a blessing upon that time. He graciously responded by bringing along a couple of new grad students very much interested in the PCA or another reformed church. Very, very good conversation.

And here's the Free Life student ministry out of the Evangelical Free Church that I also attend. Dwayne is the tall, gingerly looking fella on the right. They offered me free food and and a free plant, and lots of Jesus kind of love. It will be good to see what God does through Free Life this year.

The dregs of my alternate life

2006-08-19T18:42:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of more pics and commentary that may interest my reading audience.

When I was in High School (probably around '00/'01) a few friends and I would look for abnormal places to investigate at night. Once such place was an old stone house ten miles South of Topeka. It was supposedly "haunted". Once entered from the basement, flashlights revealed a mass of graffiti on the stone walls. The wooded property also showed remains of other, older stone buildings. A narrow trail would around the property, back into the woods. We never encountered any spooks or haunts; either way, it was a good a time - especially when we were able to freak out friends that were new to the "haunted" house.

I think Chris T. was taking the pics. The bottom pic is of myself, Carli, Tozer, and Aradan.

2006-08-17T11:48:00.000-07:00

Pedagogy, gotta love it. The past two days have been filled with policy and practice strategies for being an effective TA. The chemistry profs. seem to be some of the best, most favored teachers on campus. Can I follow in their steps? I'm a little nervous about hoping right in to being a TA, but the nerves are good. If I weren't nervous, then I probably wouldn't care about the class, nor about the students. I'll get to lecture a few times while the faculty member is out of town. In fact, next Friday is my first lecture! Topic - introduction/chemistry review. Pray for me and the students!

Also, I'm leaving tommorrow (Friday) morning for Chicago. This is yet another round of sampling streams in the Chicago metro region. Your prayers have been ehard in the past and continue to play a crucial role in God's kingdom being extended through my personal life, relationships, and work. I would appreciate more prayers over this trip, especially since I'll be going alone.

Other events on the horizon:

Grad IV New Student Orientation Kickoff
Grad IV Welcome Back Picnic
Quad Day - working a booth w/ the PCA church plant
Grad IV Welcome parties - Dan and I are hosting
Classes starting!

Let me know how I can be praying for you, too. Email or call.

In love,

Brew #2

2006-08-15T20:54:00.000-07:00

The Wort!

Jeremy's expertise in fluid dynamics proved helpful in transfering the Wort(!) to the fermentation bucket.

Nina is working the Ale Pail tap to fill the bottles. This is more work than it looks.

Bottling

A toast between friends. It was smooth, light and the honey taste was present. It's up to the remaining yeast to put the finishing touches on.

On whole different subject - here is an updated pic of my sister's (and her husband's dog) Timber.

Even further back

2006-08-11T17:48:00.000-07:00

This picture explains why there are so many women in the pictures below. Two words: bike jumping skills.

I lifeguarded during the summer of 2001 and spent my spare evenings practicing mid-air bicycle tricks. Keep smilin', because, yes, that IS me. You can even check my references at Lifesaving.net.

Another life?

2006-08-10T20:40:00.000-07:00

I grabbed these from KC's old photobucket. I just had to post them. The less explaination, the better.

Family Visit Post

2006-08-10T16:31:00.000-07:00

Pick that jaw up off the floor. It's finally here - the long awaited Family Visit Post!

Two weeks ago three of my closest family members made the 500 miles trip from Topeka to visit me in Champaign. My mom, step-dad and younger brother (Sandy, Sam and Matt, respectively) let early on a Thursday morning (early as in 4:30 am, not 8:30 am) and met up with me in the early afternoon. While Sam napped Mom, Matt and I visit my new apartment, the old house and had some lunch. They took me out to one of my favorite Chambana restaurants, Dos Reales.

Friday morning we took a blazin' hot tour of campus (hot as in temperature, not girls layin' on the quad or really cool architecture). We probably hit half of the campus, being as it's so large and it was really hot. My family got to meet one of my officemates, Chonggang, and learn a little bit about what it means to be an international student. Sam also made a friend on the engineering quad. Finally, someone that can really appreciate who he is!

That evening a few friends met us at Monicals for Pizza. This was perfect - it was a great place and time to introduce my family to friends. The pizza was really good, too.

Matthew got plenty of swimming in Friday and Saturday. The guy just loves the water, what can I say?

The next morning Nina hosted us for breakfast - crepes w/ fresh blueberries. They were so good that my mom implored our host for the recipe and has already made them atleast once. We also spent a short while at the Urbana farmer's market, where we picked up fresh corn, peaches and kettle corn. Saturday evening Pastor Dave and his wife Sherri had the four of us over for dinner.

Saturday evening was quite meaningful for me. My brother and I spent some time talking about God, life as a Christian man, and having faith. Often the events and circumstances of the world can be overwhelming. Yes, God is not safe, but he's good and he's the king. Pray that Matt and I would both trust and follow our King.

This was definently a highlight of the summer. My life is so wrapped up in the events, culture, ethic and mentality of a Christian and academic life. It was nice to show my beloved family what God is now doing through and for me. All to the praise of His glory!

Sam also gave me some pics from my trip to Kansas in early June. Here's one such photo from my memorial day bicycle ride. The morning started out sunny, but ended with a Thai-style downpour.

pre-post to the family visit post

2006-08-01T06:56:00.000-07:00

I'm a little busy this week with moving and research. For those who are looking forward to my next post, I'll try to organize it as soon as possible. Until then, feel free to keep your eyes open for a washer/dryer and ping-pong table for my new apartment.

http://chambana.craigslist.org
http://www.news-gazette.com/classifieds/merchandise/

2006-07-25T06:49:00.000-07:00

Ephesians 3: 15,16 reads "Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love."

One of the Christian fellowships I spend time at has been studying the book of Ephesians. The purpose was to understand what it means for us to be the body of Christ, the church, and what it means to be individual members of this body.

The excerpt above speaks directly about these two topics. What I've learned and hope to continue learning is:

1) Individually, each member must be working properly. Personal devotion is important, but involvement in the Church is what Paul herein stresses. I, an individual member of a (the) body, can not function as such a member without the involvement of absolutely every other member. My spiritual health is directly related to the proper functioning of the greater Christian community - that which I directly identify with (local church, family, etc.) and the worldwide body of Christ (churches and believers in Africa, Bangkok, Vatican City, etc.).

2) And, one of the greatest personal needs that I can see in the church is greater emphasis on the importance and involvement of every member. Seeing as how we were not designed to function as Christians outside of the community, there's this need to feel as though we're important and make a difference within our Church. Maybe that need is not felt or noticed. This is often the case and may be a result of our own improper understanding of what it means to be the church.

So, we are in need of personal spiritual health in order to build up the body of Christ. And, our spiritual health depends upon our involvement with and being spiritually fed from the local Christian community (not merely fed by direct preaching of the word, but also fed in the sense of expressing our knowledge and love of the Word toward each other).

Thoughts, ideas? Pray, share, think, act . . . that the "body [will] grow so that it builds itself up in love."

You are a precious member of the body of Christ. Thank God for all of you that share in this faith!

2006-07-20T11:42:00.000-07:00

Just another normal week . . .

Monday - fellowship of the huge; lab work; evening discussion on the Abrahamic covenant and circumcision, the seal of the covenant; and a nice chat with Sarah; very little sleep.

Excerpt from Monday evening's discussion (actual names are changed):
Rick: "No, I know guys that aren't circumcised. It's actually quite common to not be circumcised."

Lila: "What do you do go, around and ask guys if they're circumcised or not?"

Tim: "Yeah, as a matter of fact, that's usually the first question I ask a guy that I've just met."

Lila: "You know, you could split up your basketball teams in that manner. Circumcised versus not-circumcised."

Me: "Yeah, it would be like shirts versus skins, but skins versus no-skins."

Tuesday - more unsuccessful lab work, but I read some good research literature - evening BBQ w/ friends, including volleyball, swimming, and one of the best brisket (sp?) I've ever had.

Wednesday - fellowship of the huge - read more research literature - had a nice meeting with Pastor Dave. He's so passionate about relationship evangelism and just being a part of other's faith journeys. The work God has done in Dave is contagious - Free departmental lunch! - dismal afternoon in the lab - thunderstorms and bicycle riding (indoors). Jesse gave me a set of rollers (see picture) that laid out in my bedroom. After about fifteen minutes of holding onto a chair while peddling (and falling off three or four times) I was off for an hour long ride. It takes a lot of focus to apply equal pressure on your pedals to keep from wobbling or falling. - and I finished the night reading about the Mosaic Covenant: the Covenant of Law.

Roller track: the rear wheel sits on the back two rollers and the front, on the front roller. One starts peddling and centrifugal force keeps them up. It's a little easier than I expected.

Thanks to all of you who commented about my last post. I agree with you that it is a process and sweetly enjoyed when we recognize that it is God's work in us. Again, thanks for the encouragment and your friendship.

Therefore, patience.

2006-07-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

1 Tim 1:16 – “But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.”

The present section of my devotional life centers on patience and the man of God. In meditating on the above text, I thought that striving for patience is healthy for two reasons (not meant to be comprehensive): A) Being patient unites us with Christ. Often it is easy for me to make a quick, uninformed judgment or snap at someone. In being patient, one senses the faithfulness of the Son toward the father. Jesus deeply trusted his Father and working toward and being patient lets us into the heart of the son – one that knows the love and justice of God. B) There is a beautiful eternal aspect to patience, whereby those who are ignorant of Truth are wooed to God by our manifesting this quality. Christ, the Light of the world, in us.

I do not think it healthy to be patient just because the Bible says it’s a good thing. Nike legalism, or the “Just Do It” mentality, is deathly and such motivation is anti-Christian.

Reservation canceled

2006-07-14T07:09:00.000-07:00

Wednesday evening, before Thursday's trek to Chicago, I hopped on the bus to take me back to the office. I had left by bicycle at the office that afternoon, having elected to take the bus home during the thunderstorm. Ernie, an aquitance from Intervaristy volleyball and picnics, was sitting across from me on the bus. We hadn't seen each other for over 6 months, so he asked me to walk the quad with him on his way to church. We chatted about a number of things, but the last topic to come up was my research trip to Chicago. I told him that I drive around to streams, take samples of water and do some filtering in the field. Ernie's very emotional, enthusiastic reply: "Wow, that's awesome! That would be sooo much fun!"

We then split ways - I was off to the office and he departed for Uni. Baptist. God had used Ernie to help me remember that one of the reasons I chose this route because it was going to be a blast! Driving around, visiting streams, doing chemistry - this is what I wanted. Thanks be to a providential, loving, patient God!

Nathan and I headed to Chi-town at 7 am, Thursday morning. We worked efficiently and skillfully. Traffic wasn't bad at all, nor was my driving! Nathan did a great job navigating, too. As a result, we were able to hit all 5 sites in one day, rather than breaking them up over two days (fyi, I cancelled the hotel reservation. Hence, the title). My last sample was filtered by 6:15 pm in the parking lot of the Dominick's grocery store at the corner of 31st and Wolf Rd. We were back in CU by 9 pm.

God worked wonderfully through your prayers!

Tis the season to sample

2006-07-12T07:53:00.000-07:00

My dear friends and family,

I'm in need of specific prayer over the next few days. I'm headed to Chicago Thursday morning for an over-night trip to take water samples at my five research sites. This involves a complicated, in-field filtering process. God has been with me in preparing for this, especially through all of the hurdles. Thankfully, He has also provided a very helpful undergrad worker - whom I get along with very well. Please pray for capacity to work quickly, yet with keen skill; God's grace upon traffic and my driving abilities; and that my undergrad worker and I would work well together.

Honestly, I'm nervous about this whole thing.

Commissioned by the King,

Paul

CTNYC

2006-07-09T15:58:00.000-07:00

Over a week ago I left Champaign to take short trip to the East coast. My older (by 8 months) step brother was getting married in Ridgefield, CT; thus much of step family, that on my dad's wife's side, made the trip as well.

I left Chi-town, arriving at La Guardia three hours before any other family. When the rest arrived, though, they all came in a bunch. So much so that we needed to 13 passenger van to haul all of us around. With Grandpa Ronnie behind the wheel we all set off for Danbury. Unlike the pirates in the last post, our van was full of chiefs. It was stressful drive having 10 people yell complete different driving directions at Ronnie. While sitting quietly in the back, I watched my family go through a wide array of emotions as we got lost, went the wrong direction, and got stuck in rush hour traffic. Yes, we eventually made it to CT and only three hours late.

Friday morning Dad, Michelle (my sister), Mike (Michelle's husband) and I took the train into Manhattan. We walked around downtown for the afternoon. No list of "to dos", just out for a saunter. On our day trip we were amazed at the massive buildings towering over every street. The BMW yacht from the 2003 America's cup rested in front of one of those famous buildings (the name slips my mind); it was brazen with carbon fiber-everything. Nice, very nice. Here are two pics from that day:

BMW '03 Yacht; and a picture of Hebrew's Messiah Bold: The Chosen Beer.

A local Italian restaurant hosted us for the rehearsal dinner that evening. I give mad props to the servers and cooks for dealing with such a large party - making wonderful food and serving us so quickly. Also, looking for a nice red wine? Try Crane Valley's Merlot (CA).

The day of the wedding the same clan (Dad, M&M, and I) visited Keeler's Tavern for some revolutionary fun, literally. This Inn is located at the site of the Battle of Ridgefield, fought during the Revolutionary War. In light of the season, the historic site offered a day of arts, crafts, and reenactment. There's even a cannonball lodged in the side of the house.
Here's an original (1790) tapestry from inside the house. The next pic is of Mike and I ducking out of the way of the British cannonball. Those bloody Brits!

The wedding and reception dinner were quite nice. It would have been for enjoyable to taste a bunch of drinks from the open bar, but in light of ample over indulgence among the guests alcohol seemed distasteful that evening. Nonetheless, it was good to dance and socialize. Here are Josh and Kate doing the wedding thing. And, here's a pic of the tent and backyard where the dinner was held. I've heard that the "tent" thing is very common for weddings in this area of the states.

Sunday after the wedding we headed back to NYC. Michelle and Mike left for KC, while my stepmom's parents accompanied dad, my stepmom, Tyler (my stepbro) and myself for an extended stay in Manhattan. Briefly, we were able to visit Times Square, Canal Street, the Statue of Liberty, the Bronx Zoo and big fireworks display on the East River.

A) Here's I am with Lady Liberty in the background.

B) Tyler w/ Lennon's guitar.

C). Times Square.

D) NYC Street at night.

E) A tapir (it's like my favorite animal) at the zoo.

F) Yep, Tyler and I are breaking the law (see the red sign), but so to are 250,000 other people. Where else were we supposed to stand?

G) Tyler and I at the fireworks.

H) Chemistry, baby.

The one souvenir that I didn't have to purchase while out there: cough/cold/infected crap in the chest, all rolled into one big fat bug.

Arrrr . . . They be pirates

2006-07-09T15:37:00.000-07:00

Some friends and I went out to dinner and a movie Friday evening. In light of our choice of flicks, Pirates of the Caribbean, we opted for dinner at Jolly Roger's, an eating establishment in Urbana. Dinner was so-so, bu tthey night was made when some crazy pirates took the place by storm! Even before entering the scoundrels had taken Austin hostage.

Here's their famous leader in full regalia.

This one they called the "Italian Charlatan".

I caught one more pic as these three went out for their after dinner raid and pillage. The one on the left has a menacing, yet sexy look in his eye; and look at that shirt! With such dynamic chivalry, I bet he gets all of the ladies to smile!

The movie was pretty good for a sequel: plenty of swashbuckling action, a few decent one-liners and great special effects. The movie was quite long and lacked a comprehensive ending.

Line droppin' from NYC

2006-07-02T19:27:00.000-07:00

I'll update this coming weekend. The wedding went wonderful and NYC has been a good experience - so far!

I tried to edit in a pic, but it's not working on this Dell.

Peace Out.

The Saints Go Ridin' In

2006-06-25T19:12:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning at 6 am the alarm sounded on my phone "And the saints go marchin' in; and the saints go marchin in ..." My words were: "How appropriate, we are in the South."

Tour de Corn, 2006 - East Prairie, MO.

Our arrival on Friday evening left me surprised. I had no idea that South East Missouri was actually in The South. This cute, very conservative Southern town welcomed over 500 participants to this years Tour de Corn bicycle fun ride. While the people are sweet and hospitable, don't get on their nasty side.

Their annual Main Street Party was on Friday evening, which gave me a nice taste of Southern entertainment and cuisine - boxtops heaping full of boiled crawdads and fried, well fried everything.

Local Bluegrass band. For smalltown music, this group was pretty good.

Here's a pic of the Elvis impersonator - a local, of course! The theme was back to the '50s, so we were also spectators to a '50s dance off and hulahoop and chicken-dance contests.

Make sure to check out these videos: Dancin' Mary and Elvis.
Needless to say, the bicycle ride was awesome! 60 miles went by in no time, especially with multiple reststops well supplied with sweet corn! Check out the tan lines around my neck! Aren't they scary?! I think the shadow dramatizes the contrast in my skin color, but it's funny nonetheless.

Beauty and the (fill in the blank)

2006-06-14T13:38:00.000-07:00

The title explicity references my bicycle. And for you all of you who wondered if I wore spandex while riding, but were too afraid to ask, fill in the blank with the most appropriate adjective. These pics are from the Stateline 60 (May 28, 2006; Rockton, IL).

Shaving cream all over the ground

2006-06-13T07:37:00.000-07:00

The goose poop didn't stop Ben and I from catching a bunch of fish Saturday evening at his uncle's pond. We were there early enough to catch about 30 bass between the two of us.

At sunset we forced ourselves to fish for catfish. Immediately upon casting out my bait this fish was on the line.

Ben hooked a 10-pounder next.

In the last few minutes of fishing I caught the last monster.

On another note, I've found out where girls come from.

And the whirlwind is in the thorn trees

2006-06-10T12:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, Michelle (my sister)! Please leave a birthday message for my older (not by much) sister. Now that we're older it seems like her and I have been able to build a closer relationship, thanks be to God! Pray for her new job, living in a new city, and wisdom and love as she builds relationship with family and friends. I love you, Michelle!

Well, the whirlwind of a visit to the great state of Kansas is now over and I'm back to the routine of research and bicycle rides. On the visit I caught up with family: I stayed at my mother's home and spent quite a bit of time with my little brother. My mother was able to take a couple of days off and spend extra time with me, which made for some great family time. Most notable was when Matt and I were riding bieks around the neighborhood. I would ride from house to house describing stories from my childhood, most of which he had never heard before. It was great to have those memories flood back. Here's one that I didn't share with Matt:

A bunch of us boys (Brian, Patrick, Evan) liked to build forts, ride bikes and so forth. Back behind the houses on Evan's block is an open meadow-type area, scattered with trees. It seemed pretty big, from what I remember. We would ride our bicycles through the mended and pruned lawns, saws, knives and rope in hand. Most of our time was spent cutting down branches, and whole trees at that, to peice together a fort - a place that we called our own. As I recall, the fun was in construction and ammending the lodge rather than 'chillin' in our villa on the lawn.

Back to the Kansas trip . . . While in T-town my grandparents hosted a nice Memorial dinner in honor of Memorial Day, of course, and a couple of recent birthdays. I'm also quite thankful for the time I was able to spend with Jesse, Craig and Casie prior to their departure for Southeast Asia (Of course, it was great to see Kristin, too!). Jesse and I were overseas together last year and he's leading a team back to the same University this summer. A short reunion with my high school buddies also came about - we reminisced about old times over chinese food and my home-brewed beer.

The second half of the trip was spent in Kansas City. I had some awesome pizza the first night as I caught up with friends from Olathe (guys/gals from my old Bible study). Chris and Todd, from Another Man's Treasure, gave me a private concert in Chris's home. They played new stuff, old stuff, and took request - it rocked! Todd even played a cover of Caedmon's Call's song "Bus Driver." I stayed at my sister and her husbands new apartment that night and spent most of Friday with Michelle. I even had the chance to go with her to pick up her new puppy (Michelle, why haven't you sent me pics of her yet???). The rest of the weekend was spent at my dad's house. Saturday evening we had a nice dinner at a Japanese steak house with my stepmom's parents and Mike and Michelle. I don't have the chance to spend enjoyable time with my family like that very often. Sunday afternoon Justin and Jason showed me the building where their new church is located. We spent a great amount of time talking about the Lord's good work in our lives and our hope for His future accomplishments.

Now that I'm back in IL my time has been spent bicycling and in the lab/field doing research. Praise God for how motivating his love is! My time in Ephesians has also been fulfilling, while the study of the Covenants has been enlightening. My friends and I also had a party on Tuesday to unveil Michael and my's beer. It tastes even better now that the carbonation has built up! This week has been good and relaxing, praise God!

Bitter Water Brewery

2006-05-24T06:01:00.000-07:00

With finals completely over and grades in the bank, I am gearing up for a summer of playing in urban-impacted streams of Chicago. Not enough preparation has been done to set this processes in motion, but I'm going to get my feet wet anyway. My thesis research proposal is ready to be signed off on, the committee meeting last week was superb! Much thanks be to God and the faculty giving me professional guidance for my project. They even cut back some of my work, saying that I was a little too ambitious in the methods I had planned. When I return from Kansas I will be perform a 'dry run' of the main sampling sequence I've devised. Anyway, you can check out the finished version of my thesis proposal, which is significantly different from the first: Mechanisms of Phosphorus Control in Illinois Streams.

Yes, I am making a short visit to Kansas very soon! I'll be packing my stuff up Saturday evening for the return trip to KS on Sunday. I plan to be in Topeka four days and three in Kansas City, eventually leaving for IL on the 5th. At this moment, the trip looks to be a whirlwind of travel and visits, so please forgive me for not being able to visit all of you.

Friday and Saturday of this week, just before the trip home, I'm participating in the Stateline 60 - a bicycle ride along the IL/WI border. I'm looking forward to ride particularly because I purchased a new bike last weekend. My new sweetheart, Charlize, is manufactured by a Trek subsidiary known as Lemond. Here are her specs: Tour Malet. My bicycle isn't the subtle silver/grey as shown on Lemond's website, but imagine that bicycle with a vivid, dark metallic blue, and instead of a white decal on the downtube, there is a black one with white lettering. Let me be candid for a moment, Charlize is absolutely ravishing!

More news from CU: Michael and I brewed our first batch of beer over a week ago, and we bottled the lager the last night. While the carbonation has yet to build up, I have to say that the smooth, subtle amber wheat flavor is quite appealing. Michael and I just wanted to have something that resembled beer, but, praise be to Jesus, it turned out darn tasty! When I return from Kansas M and I plan to have a little party to share our brew with friends and church family. By the way, our brewery name is 'Bitter Water Brewery', named after the test for adultery as cited in Numbers, chapter 5. The reason for BWB is that often in evangelical circles an explicit or even subtle legalism is placed upon Christian consumption of alcohol. In Christ, though, there is a liberty and freedom to enjoy the drink outside of condemnation. Consumption in sin - drunkenness and impure motives - is on your head, and on the last day if the righteousness of Christ is not your covering then the mere act of drinking, or any other action not acted out in Faith, will be bitter and condemning. Michael and I ask that those who partake in the fruit of our labor do so in sincere love for the King and neighbor.

A bunch of reusable and larger bottles = $2.00 (my advisor let us borrow the big ones)

Ingredients and yeast (below) = $32

Hours spent brewing, cleaning and bottling = 10

Getting to cap, taste and see our beer bottled: absolutely priceless!!!

And the sum total of efforts - a bunch of bottled amber wheat beer and two excited graduate students who have become better friends!

Praise God!

2006-05-12T06:58:00.000-07:00

I'm not one of those that's going to apologize for not posting for a while, saying something like "Sorry for not posting for a while. Nothing has been going on around here, so . . ." Plenty has been going on, thus the paucity of recent posts.

Last week was spent preparing for this weeks finals and wrapping up a presentation and literature review for soil microbiology. I completed my finals as of yesterday and am overall pleased with how they turned out: The aquatic chemistry take home test was given out about two weeks ago and completed yesterday. Wednesday was my supposedly most difficult exam, physical inorganic chemistry, but it didn't turn out to be as tortuous as the past two. Soil microbiology was supposed to be a comprehensive exam over the whole semester, but I don't remember any questions from the previous sections of class material. These tests are usually a little tricky - in class we've focused on a more broad approach at learning a large amount of material, and the tests generally cover the broad stuff and a bunch of little specifics.

I've also taken to road cycling over the past five weeks, or so, and am now considering purchasing a new bicycle - used or new. My mountain bike isn't able to cut in on 35 and 40 mile rides; but the road bike a friend lent me has been wonderful to ride. Last Thursday I went on for a short 25-mile ride and was completely beat up by the wind! It was as though I was a sail trying to pedal my way through a strong, North wind. A ride that should have taken an hour and twenty minutes took almost 2 hours. Saturday's ride was by fire the longest I've ever undertaken - 44 miles. I've signed up for a cycling tour along the WI/IL boarder for May 28th and have registered for Tour de Corn on June something-or-other. My main goal is to complete a 100 mile ride at the end of the summer, maybe September.

Other events happening soon: Fellowship of the Huge is back in the swing of things. I've put off lifting weights because of time, electing to go for bike rides over going to the gym. I am fairly sure that next week we'll start our regular workouts again. Also, Michael and I will start brewing our own beer come this saturday. He will be leaving for a summer internship in Germany come a month from now, so we need to get a move on in fermenting some hops. If we get a complete batch by the time I visit Kansas I'll see about bringing some with me (assuming it tastes fine).

Please pray for my research: my advisor will be leaving for the summer, meaning that I'll be responsible for keeping disciplined and keeping to my goals. Please pray that the proposal and research methods become solidified and complete.

Grad IV year end video

2006-04-29T20:40:00.000-07:00

Click here to see Graduate Intervarsity's year end video. Let me qualify 'beverage' category photos by saying that most of them were taken on a scavenger hunt, atleast the those that make us look like pagans. There is a personal photo of me from the trip to St. Louis for the Jars of Clay concert. My favorite ale is only sold west of the Mississippi, so I stocked up for the rest of the semester.

Casting Crowns concert photos soon to come! I've been busy and haven't yet had the chance to post them.

Proposal is back

2006-04-21T11:43:00.000-07:00

My advisor and I went through my proposal yesterday. Since then I've been reading more research articles and have decided to change up some of the methods I thought I would use. Overall, the content was well received, but my writing does need to improve. I'll repost the next rough draft when upon completion.

It's been pretty busy the last two weeks - this shouldn't be any surprise to my faithful readers. Many of you have kept up with pressure and stress filled semester thus far, so join me in praising God that it's almost over! I have one paper yet to finish and three finals. Please be in prayer for me: that I would have a keen mind, capacity to remember, skill in learning, subtlety to interpret and eloquence in speech and writing. Please pray that God would guide me through the research process to enjoy and excell at it.

I'm planning on returning to Kansas sometime in mid-May. I've registered for an organized bicycle ride along the Wisconsin/Illinois border for May 27th, thus I'll be back in IL by then. Another option is to travel to Kansas after that weekend.

I'm also in the process of planning to attend another organized ride in Missouri toward the end of June. It's called Tour de Corn - a 60 mile ride through small town-Missouri. There's the massive street party the night before tons, leterally, of sweet corn. Check out their website:

Dan, my roommate for next year, and I have put a security deposit down on a nice apartment about a 3/4 of a mile from campus. I'm pretty excited about this place because of all the windows, natural light, space and cleanliness. It's a first floor unit, has a high number of closets, central air and heat, a relatively spacious kitchen and good size bedrooms. Dan and I should have enough room for the ping-pong table we've been dreaming about.

We'll, that's about all I have to say about that.

Proposal is in

2006-04-11T12:00:00.000-07:00

The rough draft of my proposal is in. I've uploaded the file to some web space I have on the university's server, so you can read my proposal online! Here's the link: MS_Proposal_RD_1

Favorite song

2006-04-07T13:24:00.000-07:00

A friend shared this with me:

Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people. (Richard Foster)

It has been an extrodinarily busy week: I've started writing my research proposal and continually realize how much more I have yet to learn. This next section of material in physical inorganic chemistry (group theory and vibration spectroscopy) is amazingly difficult for me. Hour after hour has flown by as I focus to comprehend this stuff. It's worth it. Why? Because God's kingdom is here! No time to explain.

Thank you for your prayers. Please do not stop, I'm needy.

Anistropy - deviation from spherical distribution

2006-04-02T19:06:00.000-07:00

I’ve been in a time-warp lately, losing complete track of weeks, days, hours and femtoseconds. The last couple of weeks have been marked by 25 hours spent learning electron paramagnetic resonance, losing myself in an alternate 3-d universe and making it through a tornado! Read on, I dare you!

Yes, I spent a horrible amount of time studying for a really hard test last week (physical inorganic chemistry). The test went much, much better than the first. Nonetheless, I have no idea how to judge my grade, seeing as how the class average on the first test was 50%! Coffee was not too friendly during those countless hours – the effects wore off way too soon! So you say that too much coffee is bad for me and that what I have is actual chemical dependence? Read on…

Monday my advisor asked about my research proposal. Where am I at with it with only 5 weeks left before summer? I hadn’t started yet! The Spirit of Genius has led me to some great articles the past few days and helped me right along with this process. Hopefully I’ll have a rough draft ready in two weeks. Feel free to ask about where I’m at with it and how I’m using my time.

The Friday of spring break Nina and I visit the Krannert Art Museu (KAM) at the U of I. You know, I really enjoy viewing classical paintings – I can relax my mind, bringing it into the painting’s story. The museum also had this 3d exhibit (Calcuart, more pics) that was way, way cool. One stands in the center of three panels with projections of these different 3d images. You don't even need drugs to take part in this psychedelic experience, it's awesome!

At Grad IV on Friday the speaker described a proper theology of the soul and body. While it wasn't too applicable, it did give a great basis for the spiritual disciplines of fasting and meditation. I would really encourage you to listen to Todd Daly's talk. Daly is the new systematic theology and ethics prof at Urbana Theological Seminary and did his PhD in 'bodily ethics'.

Oh, and without my knowing, I made it through a tornado tonight! While I was typing away on the pc the wind and rain was pounding against my office building. So much so that I didn't want to leave my desk for fear of the windows breaking. It was at this point that a tornado hit downtown Champaign (3 miles away) and proceeded to travel north to our "Wanamaker corridor". Well, praise God for the mercy of keeping me far from it.

Finally, over spring break a friend of mine had me as a guest on his radio show, Dual Exhaust: No Muffler. The show airs at 12 - 2 am Thursday mornings. You can hear the show by clicking here.

Please don't forget . . .

2006-03-21T08:31:00.000-08:00

to remind me to apply to as many PhD programs located in warm climates as possible. It's a blizzard in CU today. Dad waited with me in the snow at the bus stop. I felt kind of bad, but it's one of the best ways to get on campus with paying for parking.

Yesterday was quite nice, here and in Chicago. Dad and I made a little road trip to the Science and Industry Museum (in Chicago) yesterday. We met up with Josh, Dwayne and Nina for dinner in Chinatown. I'll give a more thorough update soon.

I wanted to post some excerpts from the book A Severe Mercy, an autobiography of Sheldon VanAuken. VanAuken was an English scholar and friend of C. S. Lewis.

Sheldon VanAuken recalls one of many discussions within their group of friends during their oxford years. They would all seem to meet at the VanAuken Studio late in the evenings, although they never planned the gatherings. Here VanAuken explains the incarnation and Davy (his wife) enthusiastically expands the example, including the Trinity.

‘Look, Richard,’ I said. ‘This afternoon Davy and I were talking about writing a novel of Oxford with the Studio in it, and us, and everybody. Now, assuming we could do it –‘
‘Assuming you could do it,’ said Richard, ‘I’d buy a copy. Not more than five shillings, though.’
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘We’re talking about the Incarnation. Okay, suppose I write it – it’s too complicated with two authors – and I put myself in it. There I am, walking down the High, wearing a Jesus tie – in the book. And let’s say I make up a lot of characters not using real people for fear of hurting their feelings. But I am in it, and I, the character, say whatever I would say in the various situations that occur in my plot.’
‘What about the Incarnation?’ said Richard.
‘That’s what I’m telling you, stupid fellow,’ I said with a grin. ‘Don’t you see? I am incarnate in my book. I am out here writing it, so I’m like God the Father. But it’s really me in the book, too, isn’t it? So that’s Jesus, the Son, right? The me in the book speaks my words - and yet they are speeches that I’ve probably never made in real life, not being in those situations. And yet can’t you see that it’s really me?’
‘Um,’ said Richard. ‘Yes, right. I see. Go on.’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘All right. I’m out here, being “the Author of all things” and I’m in the book, taking part in scenes of “drammer”. Incarnate in my book. Now, the me in the book: he’s all me, isn’t he? And he’s all character, too, isn’t he? Like the doctrine: All God and All man. It makes sense doesn’t it? And one more thing: suppose the characters run away with the story - authors are always saying that that happens. It might be necessary, whatever I had originally intended, for me to get killed - um, crucified . . . Anyhow - you see?’
‘You win,’ said Richard. ‘It does make sense that way. I’ll have to think about it.’
‘There’s something else, though,’ said Davy. ‘The other characters – made-up ones, invented ones. If Van invents characters, they’ll all, even the bad ones, have something of Van in them. Won’t they? So, you see? We all have something of God in us – God’s spirit – but only the One, Jesus, is God Incarnate. But God’s Spirit in us . . . Well, that makes the Trinity, doesn’t it? God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Actually, I’ve never seen it so clearly myself. More tea?’

Toward the end of a long period of grief following the death of his wife, Davy, VanAuken speaks of longing for heaven.

So it appeared to me. It appeared to me that Davy and I had longed for timelessness – eternity - all our days; and the longing coupled with my post-mortem vision of the total Davy whetted my appetite for heaven. Golden streets and compulsory harp lessons may lack appeal – but timelessness? And total persons? Heaven is, indeed, home.
I attempted that spring something impossible: a sort of picture of what heaven might be. I could only describe it, though, in temporal terms. We haven’t the words for eternity. It is perhaps worth noticing how many words – italicized - suggest time and are, therefore, quite inadequate. Still, this is what I wrote:

It is a heavenly afternoon. Davy and I have just had a timeless luncheon (I am assuming that God will not waste so joyous an invention as taste). I then say to her that I shall wander down to sit beneath the beech tree and contemplate the valley for awhile, but I shall be back soon. I do so. I contemplate the valley for some hours or years – the words are meaningless here where foreverness is in the air. At all events, I contemplate it just as long as I feel like doing. Then I get up and start back, but I meet someone, C. S. Lewis, perhaps, and we sit on the bench and maybe have a pint of bitter and talk for an hour or several hours – until we have said all we have to say for now. And then I go gladly back to Davy. She, meanwhile, has played the celestial organ, an organ on which perhaps every note of a song can be heard at the same time: that is, the song not played in time with half of it gone and half yet to be heard. She has played the organ for a few minutes and is just turning to greet me when I come in. Whether I was away for an hour or a hundred years, whether she has played for ten minutes or thirty, neither of us has waited or could wait for the other. For there simply is not time, no hours, no minutes, no sense of time passing. The ticking has stopped. It is eternity.

Update from the FUNK (library)

2006-03-09T18:35:00.000-08:00

Evangelicals have made news in the science community once again. This time, however, scientists are being encouraged to join in and encourage the, rather than mock and deride. Two stories describing momentum among evangelicals in promoting the use of earth's natural resources in a wise manner have run in the March 9 edition of Nature, one of the science communities most herald magazines. Here are the articles:

A warm welcome, and
Church joins crusade over climate change.

Hopefully, evangelicals can joyfully join together in learning what the Bible's has to say about caring for creation. I'm on the prowl, anyone out there want to join me?

Some random stuff from the week:

**I shared my testimony with 8 visiting Chinese scholars (faculty from Universities in China). They all meet with an Intervaristy staff person for a weekly Bible study. As far as I know they're not Christians, but they clearly have an interest in our religion. They were quite surprised to hear that although I grew up in a Christian family and I did not officially become a Christian until 19. How could I 'pray', go to church, read the Bible and yet not be a Christian? The change: before, I was on the throne; after, I sought the one, reigning King as Lord of my life. What were visible marks/changes? - A thirst for knowing and seeing God through reading the Scripture, prayer, fellowship and service.

**I did a load of dark clothes on Sunday. Upon pulling the clothes out of the dryer I realized that I had left a pen in one of my jean pockets. Needless to say that all of clothes from that load have ink stains on them. Some are worse than others, but what can I do?

**The door buzzer (dinger) on my truck won't turn off as long as I have the key in the ignition. I took the fuse for the dinger out, but this kept the spedometer and windshieldwipers from working. I Googled the problem and hopefully will fix it tonight!

**All campus worship is tommorrow night at 7. The evangelical ministries have this gathering once a semester. It includes worship through music and a guest speaker.

**I was set to have three tests over next Thursday and Friday. Praise be to God who mercifully worked through my chemistry prof to move one test (the hardest) to after spring break! Hopefully I'll do a little better this time around!

****Thanks for the jerky, mom, Sam and Matt! It tastes great!

Concert pics

2006-03-06T09:33:00.000-08:00

Our concert and roadtrip last Tuesday was a blast! I think the drive out was experiencially on par with the concert. Demographics of those who ventured to STL: me, computer science student, nuclear engineering student, astro physics student, and a nutrition student. Needless to say, our conversations were outrageously fun. I think we've decided that playing capture the flag in the grad library stacks is a must-do for any self respecting graduate student. The stacks are 8 labrynth laden floors, including multiple areas/rooms per level, of the graduate library.

Here are some pics from the show:
Derek webb out for the encore.

Sarah Groves singing a portion of "I'll Fly Away"

Derek Webb singing his part from "I'll Fly Away"

This is from Jars of Clay's set.

I Agree With Paul!

2006-03-03T19:56:00.000-08:00

I'm about to get some weird questions! Check out Campus Crusade's recent evangelistic venture:

"The campaign is titled "I agree with Paul". "Paul" in the title is the Apostle Paul and this is how it works: For two days (Friday and Monday) we will run a large ad in the DI that simply states "Do you agree with Paul?". We will also plaster the campus with posters that have the same question.

On the third and fourth days of the campaign, the ad in the paper will change to give two different Gospel presentations that Paul gives in one of his epistles. On these two days,all Christians participating will wear the same shirt that says, "I agree with Paul".

The final day of the campaign (Thursday) will be marked by a time (12-2pm or so) on the quad where Christians from various campus ministries will give 5-10 min. testimonies saying, "Hi, my name is _____. I agree with Paul, and this is why...". The ad in the paper that day will be something of Paul's personal testimony out of maybe 1 Timothy 1:15-17 or Phillipians 3:4-9."

concert pics are coming soon!
Pray for me - class work is hard!

What Paul's breathing today...

2006-02-24T14:40:00.000-08:00

Today I'm breathing Oxygen, the ultimate oxidizing agent.

Sorry for now recent updates, but grad school is keeping me really busy. I know the bad ones from the good ones based on how easily I fall asleep.

Last Friday we had our Grad IV departmental dinners. Well, our discussion was over dessert. The non-life sciences and life science groups joined together to discuss the types of truth claims that we make being scientists. I came away from this exceedingly encouraged and wondering why we don't have these meetings more often. This is what para ministries should seek to promote - incorporating faith, beauty and truth with learning. The academic environment is not only a place where I can share Light through relationships, but a place to soak in the glory and righteousness of God in the very things I'm learning. For instance if God had not given isotopes of atomic nuclei different spin states we wouldn't have the modern NMR or MRI. Because of these devices (NMR and MRI) God's wonderful healing grace has been administered to hundreds of thousands. Furthermore, God gave us rational minds able to preform the complex mathematics behind all of the calculations in order that we could use the varying spin states of isotopes. Praise be to God!

My Iranian officemate was so interested in the reason for our meeting that she insisted on skipping a friend's birthday party to attend the departmental dinner. Talk about out reach!!! This is what God calls us to do as students - seek truth and beauty in our work - and he uses it to speak to our neighbors.

Sunday afternoon I visited an open house at the local Mosque. This highly-promoted event introduced the community to islam, and it helped explain the Islamic response to the political cartoons published overseas and locally. (Our campus made the mistake of republishing all six cartoons). This was really good for me. I was being evangelized while there, and being on the receiving end gave me a different perspective on sharing my own faith. My best advice is to listen to the people you're talking with and inquire about what they think and why they think what they do.

So I've been looking around for apartments this week, well checking out websites. I've decided that living alone next year will just be too expensive. So I need a roommate - problem solved! A friend of mine who also helps with International Friendship Link, as well as being a physics PhD student, was looking for a roommate to share an apartment with. I'm not really wanting to live in a house next year and my current roommates have already filled my spot, so everything's working out just great!

My space bar is hard to push down, as a result I'm tired of typing!
But before you go take a look at some pics from the 21st Annual Insect Fear Film Festival last Saturday evening. Nina and I attended to see the Praying Mantis Kung Fu demonstration and to watch the '50s Mantis horror flick. We also picked up bugs! And, yes, that grasshopper is the size of Nina's hand!

Oh, I'll be in St. Louis with some friends on Tuesday to see Jars of Clay and Derek Webb in concert. Anyone up for a road trip???

Dis on God or dis on engineer?

2006-02-21T07:41:00.000-08:00

Ben (my roommate) sent this link to me. It's a CNN article containing some Catholic opinions on ID. I think Ben was more taken back by the dis on engineers than the dis on God.

"The intelligent design movement belittles God. It makes God a designer, an engineer," said Vatican Observatory Director George Coyne, an astrophysicist who is also ordained. "The God of religious faith is a god of love. He did not design me." (second to last paragraph)

My 55 minutes

2006-02-14T19:43:00.000-08:00

David was successful in recording the panel discussion at Graduate Intervaristy's large group meeting last Friday. As a part of the panel, we (this includes myself) discussed how we define ourselves in different situations and our purpose behind those definitions. The array of answers were quite diverse, reflecting the diversity between each individuals faith journey. I think the members of the panel also reflect well where the members of Grad IV are at right now, spiritually. I don't agree with everything said (some was sarcasm, and I hope you can filter it out), but it's worth listening too.

Here's the link:
"Workaholics and procrastinators"

Be consciencious and don't spread mono!

2006-02-13T20:10:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day!
Heed the advice in the title (Nina's warning to me) and you'll do well on this ancient holiday. From what I know the holiday commemorates the martyr of St. Valentine who preformed illegal marriages during a time in Rome when the such was illegal. Evidentally, single, young men make better soldiers, so marriage was banned for those under a certian age. The covenant of marriage is far more important than a mere rule of man, enough so to lose your life over.

I have a test in physical inorganic chemistry on Thursday. I worked over the weekend to finish this weeks problem set, planning ahead for extra study time today (Monday). I've been meeting with a classmate to go over the problems and it just so happens that we compliment each other quite well.

Last week was marked with some wonderful events: I enjoyed a few conversations w/ friends regarding faith in Christ and union between my work as a scientist and my life as a Christian. I also shared similar thoughts while part of a panel discussion at graduate Intervarsity large group. I tried to describe that interacting with people differently was a result of faith in Christ and the presenence of the Kingdom of God. Introducing myself to my people as an environmental chemist doesn't hide the fact that I'm a Christian. Because I presuppose that the best scientific thinking is born out of Christian conviction, it is a boasting in the Cross when I myself as a scientist. I've been commissioned, or called, by God in this occupation.

Saturday morning I made cottage cheese pancakes over at Nina's. Her, myself, Austin and Dwayne had breakfast together. The pancakes were mediocre, something you should try atleast once. Who knows, I may even make them again. Nina's crepes w/ freshly whipped creme and blueberries were quite delicious. Sunday I put together a pot of Chilli - Casie's recipe, of course.

It's been cold the last few days, so I've been indulging my mind thinking about a PhD program in Arizona or California. Who knows what lies in store?

Grace and peace to all of you!

Also, Chris, if you're reading this, thanks for calling me yesterday. It really ment a lot to know of your continual care for our friendship.

"Like a woman in a trance...

2006-02-06T15:13:00.000-08:00

I wanna dance. I wanna clap my hands all night long and dance." From Webb's song "Dance". But really, Saturday evening after the b-ball loss we had our first dance party. We got down and boogied on the Dance Dance revolution video game system for X-box.

I was all over the place.

Austin was workin' both pads at the same time!

Michael was bustin' old school moves all night long!

Here's the whole gang from the evening. From the left: Michael, Sarah, DW, Sarah, Josh, Dan, Austin, Linda, PB

Currently listening too...

2006-02-03T16:50:00.000-08:00

Nothing! At church last Sunday I heard a comment that listening to too much music can keep us from appreciating the artist's intent in writing and composing the work. So this week I severely limited my music intake - like fasting. I hope that this will help me *hear* the words in worship Sunday morning, rather than just singing along.

My week has been busy - as usual. Some of the highlights:

The homework I turned in for physical inorganic came back with high grade on it, praise God! I'm really enjoying the class, even amidst racking my brain trying to figure it out. Finally, NMR makes sense!

My checkup at the doctor turned out to be another good experience. At the least, there wasn't any snapping of rubber gloves, telling me to drop my drawers, and - you know the rest. No pneumonia, though. I'm to continue taking one of the inhalers and go in for another check up in four weeks.

Sheri T., Pastor Dave's wife (PCA church plant), called me wedensday evening to see how my health was. She was sooo sincere and loving, it felt great to have the local body of Christ so concerned for me. Definently a highlight!

I also met with the associate pastor from the E-Free church (CEFC) to talk about life and church. This was profitable, as we discussed the role of para organizations and church membership. I sure have some decisions to make regarding my place of worship, but I'm leaning to commitment to the PCA church plant, and letting the congregation at CEFC know that I'll be with them another 6 months.

I celebrated Groundhog Day after Bible study yesterday evening. We watched the movie "Groundhog Day" for our party. It's a darn funny movie for us old folk.

Tommorrow morning I'm serving with my Intervarsity small group at St. Jude's soup kitchen. After that I'll burn about six or seven hours in the books and then head to the basketball game. It will be a full day.

Last, but no least, it is my mother's birthday! So wish her a happy birthday by leaving a message. She's absolutely wonderful in every way! I love you mom!

Audio Links From Grad/Faculty Ministries

2006-01-28T17:35:00.000-08:00

Barrett McRay gave an excellent talk last semester on Spiritual Formation: Compassion over competition was the basis for the talk. How the heck do you do that at grad school??? Listen to his talk - click here.

Here they are! Steve Vanderleet's talks:

"Embedding Christian Principles into Technology Design Decisions" and
"Guns Do Kill People: Bias in Technology and the Myth of Neutrality” .

Steve's Webpage

Shootin' for a stage performance

2006-01-27T14:42:00.000-08:00

So I thought I'd grow my hair out inorder to do an Elvis impersonation.... Here's how it's lookin' now.

Also, I went to the doctor today because my cough has been worsening. The nurse practitioner asked tons and questions and had a chest x-ray taken. She said that there may be a small area in my lungs where pneumonia is present, but she needs to have the radiologist look at the pictures in order to verify it. She doesn't seem to think that I have pneumonia, but she put me on an antibiotic to be sure. I also had some inhalors refilled - evidently the cough is worsening because of the reoccurance of past asthmatic problems.

Not My Research (NMR)

2006-01-22T19:29:00.000-08:00

My advisor and I met this week to discuss where my research and education are headed over the next year and a half. The NMR study we did on the Chicago samples has led to some interesting questions regarding the physical and chemical controls of phosphate levels in the streams. The plan is to continue investigating those controls and their influence on sediment composition. My advisor wants me to get the education that I desire and will do what he can to help me get there. What a guy, huh? Nonetheless, nuclear magnetic spectroscopy (NMR) is not an investigatory method that I'll be using any longer.

I'm taking three classes this semester: soil microbiology, surface water chemistry, and physical inorganic chemistry. The later has already taken quite a bit of time, but it's nice to be thoroughly challenged by the material. A friend has taken the class before and has been a big help, encouraging me and so forth. Pray for me, please - I've given myself over to extensive anxiety and fear regarding my ability to get through this semester (work load, material, extra stuff). Also, please pray for how I'm managing my time, as I'm involved with a few extra activities that are quite important, as well as keeping the blessing of the Sabbath.

Today was my second week back at church: A missionary family visited us from Mongolia. This was really exciting, as I would love to live and work among another culture, while supporting the church! One insight that I would share is what they have learned about church planting: they can bring in a ton of people to "christian-activities" or get numerous "committments for Christ" just by financially supporting the national church, rather than the local church raising their own funds. It's kind of like Bush's trickle down policy - the pastors start getting paid by missionaries from the West and in turn they start to spend dollars on things that are not Biblical, expressing tremendous greed. Their policy is to create worshipers of God, rather than money, and this has cut into their "numbers", purifying those who are committed to the Jesus and following him through thick or thin. So, when you and I hear about missionaries funnelling money into overseas missions, we must be careful to judge how that money is spent. The missionary who spoke said that when looking critically at missions agencies support of overseas work there are two questions to ask: What percent or how many nationals do they support through Western committed dollars? and, how many years are they required to spend learning the language? Language and culture can not be considered apart from each other. And, if one is to effectively reach a people group they must know the culture. Good advice!

New Wisconsea

2006-01-19T07:49:00.000-08:00

Picks from the Chicago and Wisconsin trip can be found at by clicking here.

Here are a couple to brighten my site:
1) The sunset over Green Bay, and 2) My friend the lego man

My first allegiance is to a King

2006-01-18T10:52:00.000-08:00

Today and yesterday's weather solidified my decision to only apply to grad programs located at schools in warm climates. My visit to the north east was great, but I'm tired of the cold! Keep me accountable here - don't let me reneg on this decision!

I've spent quite a bit of the last 5 days catching up with friends, going to church activities and watching sports. The PCA church plant has a Bible study that I'm attending and Im still attending the E-Free church. On top of this, classes started yesterday. I've enrolled in four classes, but because of their rigor, I think that attending two will be more than enough. Secondly, my advisor and I need to meet to discuss research, hopefully getting me more work this semester.

Check out this pic from my outing to Wisconsin. I, along with Nina and Josh, am famous!

An announcement

2006-01-11T08:59:00.000-08:00

John Piper recently announced that he has prostate cancer. After talking with Mr. and Mrs. H last night, I thought that many would be encouraged by reading his announcement letter. It can be found here: Click Me.

I'm leaving for CU, IL on Friday. Thanks for the time all of you took to spend with me, making my break quite memorable and enjoyable! I'll miss all of you.