bierkergaard

Introducing to my left is a new member of the Bierker household, the Vitamix . Essentially, it a super-sized stud of a blender, pulverizing fruit and vegetables to smoothie status in seconds. A typical blender is a 90 pound weakling on the beach waiting to get sand kicked in his face from this 250 pound beef-cake brute. You'd think Letterman would have developed a shtick on blending objects with this thing by now. The Cuisinart we were using previously literally wasn't cutting it. The best it could do was create a drink that had the consistency of crunchy peanut butter. Lina's gag reflex was triggered while I happily gulped the jagged wreckage down. Plus, the Vitamix is simple to set-up, use, and clean, as compared to the B.S. Mechanical Engineering degree requirement for the Cuisinart. I have been drinking Low Sodium V-8 for years, hoping that and a vitamin would cover my nutritional needs on the vegetable part of the food pyramid. I know that the Food Pyramid is out...

I have been in the School Counselor chair for two days since returning from about a month and a half away. Fittingly, I had the Country Omelet at the Diner down the road as my last meal for breakfast before heading to work. It was a sausage gravy on top of cheese and eggs on top of home fries monstrosity, washed down with three or four cups of coffee. My summer vacation died happy and contended. I love my work but I have to share that this chair scares me sometimes. The responsibility, the pressure, the desire to serve beyond mere duty and dollars. What I do is important because it influences the destiny of young people. The chair humbles me yet ultimately helps me become the person I am called to be. What is the "chair" God has put you in to fulfill your purpose? Paul even saw his chains as purposeful. Philippians 1:12-14 12 Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters,that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. 13 As a result, it has...

J.K. Rowling said something quite profound in her Commencement Address at Harvard in June of 2008. " So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life." Matthew 16:18 On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it

I follow close to 100 blogs. It is not that I read all of them all of the time but last night I gleaned the fields to see what wisdom in words existed. There was a bountiful harvest, almost too much for me to digest in a night. At some point, I am stuffed and it does little good to keep eating. As a writer, I figure reading is a good way to see how others write and what works and why. One blog that has been on the menu for awhile is People of the Second Chance. I spent a good deal of time reading over the posts last night and then came back for more this morning. As I prepare for my 20th year as a high school counselor (I am back to work tomorrow) on this final day of summer vacation, I really wanted to delve into something deeply sustaining to provide spiritual nourishment to my soul for the long year ahead. I needed to be fed so that I can feed. I try to be a hope merchant. So, I downloaded the POTSC Gracenomics book for Kindle...at $ 2.99, it cost less than a meal at Mickey ...

No, I am not taking steroids. Instead, we (Lina & I) are drinking smoothies (with the pulp) of organically grown greens and fruit. Whole foods. Usually, the glass bottle in the picture functions as my beer growler. You know that we are serious about it when such a replacement transpires. Lina and I have been on a mission of sorts to find locally grown and organic vegetables and fruits. One would think that here in Lancaster County, in some of the richest farmland in the world, that would be not much of a challenge. Not so, as we have discovered. Here, like everywhere in US, agribusiness dominates the market from field to store shelf. Any produce in the stores that is organic tends to be priced much higher leading consumers to opt for less healthfully grown and less sustainable options. Thus, It was with great joy that I found that Marietta has a farmer's market (click) with mostly organic vegetables and fruits on Sundays. The market is moderate in pricing and wonderful...

The riots in London and other cities "over there" give us pause. As Gil Smart noted in his Smart Talk video, it is also here. In places like Philadelphia, flash mobs attack innocent bystanders and bum rush stores. There is here, although the fires are not burning as high here yet. Fueling some of this anti-social activities are the youths use of social networking and smart-phones. Ah, technology. Can be used for good or bad. The human heart is the problem as Jesus said. We can't outrun our problems with our tools, for our tools can be used to destroy just as easily as they can to create. I have to think that Cain killed Abel with more than just his bare hands. Probably used a tool for tilling the soil for crushing a skull. At the source of all human anti-social action is sin, or maybe I should write it SIN as to not allow eyes to pass over such a word and move on to other words. For if we don't diagnose the disease properly, the cure will elude us. The same si...