bierkergaard

On New Year's Day Lina and I on the way back from Philly stopped by IKEA to buy bookshelves. We were pleased when the four 8 ft boxes fit into my Honda Civic. It was like a magic trick. With Lina driving, I crawled into the back of the car. My abs constricted and cramped severely causing great pain; I moved my right arm and elbow on top of the boxes to try to a pull myself out of the involuntary fetal position. "CRACK" went the glass in the picture frame (that was on top of the boxes). So, we (me feeling like quite the bad boy) went back into IKEA to buy another frame. The store rep said that they probably would replace it for free and encouraged us to go to the return counter. Both he and the clerk were somewhat astonished when we said that we were not going to do that--I just needed to throw the cracked frame out and that we'd purchase another. It felt good for me to confess my guilt. Reminds me of what the Tax Collecter said in Luke (in Jesus's story about

My wife and I just returned from California and Las Vegas. We were visiting her parents and family who live in the Los Angeles region. First Vegas...Vegas reminds me of a girl with low self-worth who attracts the attention from the boys by being easy, attention that she would not otherwise get. They use her, she uses them. Maybe the founders and growers of the town felt they had to go seemier and seedier than the rest of the country to put Las Vegas on the map. We saw the show "O" which was a remarkable spectacle of acrobatics, athletics, and agility, but was oddly absent in terms of story and even bizarre. There were dudes dressed like old-time members of Parliament with red coats and powdered white wigs, water nymphs, a guy on fire reading the paper, muscleman, fire jugglers, a foursome of contortionist, and an unfunny clown--a real theatre of the absurd. So, I found the show a lot like Vegas itself...flashy but empty, and frustrating and profoundly unsatisfying. After Vega