bierkergaard

Monday, I had a truly frightful experience. My iPhone at work went dead around noon; I saw the battery percentage drop like a stone to zero. Usually, during the work day (7:30 to 4:00), it will go from 100 to about 80...kind of like Florida in the summer from day to night temperature. Mayday, mayday, mayday. Some people most like their iPhones for the cool Apps, iTunes, GPS, iPod, Texting, Angry Birds, and some even might like it as a phone (although the phone feature is its most average & prosaic item). Kind of weird given its name. Not me, I depend on the Calendar, to run my life like some ear-pulling Nanny with the unruly children that is my attention span. Chaos ensues when I don't have my calendar working. I feel chronologically naked out in public. The iPhone Calendar is my Technological Adderal. So, when the iPhone died, fear came over me like a cloud of foreboding darkness. Being the astute techie that I am, I assumed that the battery went bad. I checked the web and ye

Yes, I can unstrap the Malamutes from the sled, school is cancelled. Washington Liberals like to call anything between the cities of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and their 'burbs, Pennsyltucky. I believe that we should petition instead to be called Pennsylaska during the winter months. Seriously, there needs to be some seasonal adjustment here. I haven't been to an outdoor Monster Truck event in months. What makes Pennsylvania so interesting weather-wise, is that we have the four seasons in almost equal measure, like the four suits in a card deck. And Mother Nature plans and plays her hand methodically. Just when the cold and snows begins to break us like a Russian Winter, driving souls to drink, Spring comes. As a fair maiden, she traipses onto the scene. Then Summer shows up and evolves into hot and sticky, where all I want to do is wear my tank top and shorts, and lay around laconically. Actually, I want to do that all of the year. Fall then arrives, with its cool breat

Last night, when I was a acting the dutiful citizen--watching the State of the Union address (have I told you that I am a policy wonk and my favorite cable channel is C-Span?....I was a Political Science major in college after all)--Lina and I had a woman staying over who Lina works with through Hershey. She is an outside consultant who lives in the New York City Metro region...and is Jewish. Lina and I are becoming good friends with her and her husband. He is an Englishman and a fellow former Rugger like me, who went to school with Prince William and the future Queen Kate Middleton. Hmm, I wonder if I can score an invite to the royal wedding?Nah, I don't have enough aristocratic cache. When Obama made the crack about the Salmon (I am uncertain of the jurisdiction of the Salmon above, could be fresh or salt water for all I know), our Jewish friend chimed in after Obama added as an aside, that he wasn't sure who had authority over the smoked Salmon. She said something to the ef

Mahogany-voiced Ted Williams apparently has quit Rehab and has taken more than twelve steps away from sobriety.... coulda, woulda, shoulda seen it coming. Our age is so desperate for hope and good news, we created a visage of what we wanted to believe...a 48 hour fairy tale of rags-to-riches. Not even Disney dares to spin a story so flimsy and fanciful. Krafty indeed. No one can judge Ted Williams...addictions to alcohol and drugs are cruel fiends. But I think we can judge ourselves. Forgive us Ted Williams for putting you on a pedestal. May you walk to the Cross and look up to Christ, who is the only true one worth looking up to.

Yesterday, my To-Do list was longer than the time I had allocated to get everything finished. So, I cut some corners...threw in my colored laundry with my whites (the whites were all tee-shirts--and the like--that remain unseen) so I didn't mind a colorful tint. Shaving time became the modus operandi of the day. I am blaming it on my wife who kept me in bed in the morning past 9:00. She is slow to warm and wake up in the morning like a crock pot, and a freaking high energy and fast cooking microwave at night. I am a conventional oven in the morning, and a burned out stove element in the evening. Or maybe one of those flickering and dying bunsen burners caterers put under trays of food to keep it tepid. The dying, the dying of the light. Anyway, I also usually make a stew on Saturdays--and start by defrosting the Wooly Mammoth-like frozen in the Siberian Tundra slab of meat, commencing Thursday morning in the fridge. By the time I got around to making the stew, I was pleased to fi