bierkergaard

Along the 22 On A Snowy Day Ride Home From Thanksgiving My brother and his family extended an invitation to my dad and I to come out to Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving and the weekend thereafter. It has been a fairly consistent tradition going back over 25 and some years with some years missed for various reasons. I really look forward to it. I even like the distance required to traverse. It helps make the trip feel like a trek of sorts requiring fortitude. Like ancient mariners or pioneers going out West in search of land and fortune. "Over the bridge and through the woods to grandmother's house we go" type of stuff. The last couple of times we have gone out, my dad and I have paired up and driven out and back together. My dad has a flexible schedule and I have that following Monday off because is is the first day of deer hunting season in Pennsylvania. And since I work at a rural/suburban school, having that day is pretty much a must. Otherwise, we have a lot of s...

Building off last week's blog about the Life of Brian (go back and peruse, I really can't recount if you have not already read it) I have a few additional observations as a 56 year old man who has an above-average understanding of the biblical story and theology. I admit, in the modern world, that ain't saying a lot. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King. When I first encountered the Life of Brian in 1983, I had very little understanding of the Bible. My Catholic Sunday School exposure that ended somewhere around the 4th Grade, gave me some general context. I guess I believed in God and assumed Jesus was more that the average bloke. Outside of that. not much else. I distanced myself from the nominal Catholicism that I experienced, and then returned to faith through the Catholic Church in my late teens. I found its emphasis of tradition over what the Bible actually said to be weird. The root is first, then the fruit. I found Rome's theology to be i...

Several weeks ago I made a comment on a Facebook BBC post about the Life of Brian Monty Python film. See above.  By the time all of the comments had ceased, it had over a hundred comments back and forth, some of them mine, most of them from others. From people from all over the English speaking world. Here is the back-story. Back in college, on Friday nights, there were free movies in the Student Memorial Center. One Friday Eve I sauntered into the Life of Brian and walked out about 10-15 minutes in. At the time, I thought that character "Brian" was just Jesus by a different name. The Monty Python gang, wink-wink, demurring it was about a fictional would-be reluctant Messiah named "Brian." I was Pre-Christian at the time but considered it unwise to mock God. Or at least not take any chances. I thought that the film was blasphemous. I didn't realize the clues at the film's opening scenes that gave away the identity of Brian not being Jesus. The clu...

I was going to blog this week but decided to give myself a break this week and next. I am headed out of town soon for Thanksgiving Break. Sometimes, it is cool to admit to not be feeling it. I will be back in a couple of weeks. A lot of cool things happening.

Friday morning around 6:00 AM, I was doing my thrice-weekly run. This actually ties into my social media Pt. II which I think I can finish next week.  The run. It is not a marathon. Instead, a 25 minute jog around my neighborhood. It was dark. I heard one of those muffler-enhanced compact cars rounding the bend. I typically run against the traffic (not that there are any cars usually besides a stray or two) but it depends where I am on the route to determine what I do. I decided to hop over the curb and run down the sidewalk until early-rising homey in the hood car went by. Little did I know that the sidewalk ahead was uneven. Uneven sidewalks happen a lot in older cities because tree roots underneath can alter the sidewalk like plate tectonics. I went down like a sack of potatoes and I got mashed. But, I live in suburbia. I wasn't expecting it. I laid on the concrete sidewalk for about 30 or so seconds. I came down on my right hip. My right leg is the only body appendage...

Several weeks  ago I traveled to the Lancaster County City-State of Lititz. AKA Lititz Island. I call it that because it is hard to get to through narrow and congested South to North roads. It is self-contained, offering small town charm and quaint stores, and is a bit upscale for this area. It can be a bit touristy. Compared to Columbia, Lititz is the precocious favorite child and Columbia is left scrubbing the floors and doing other chores like the family black sheep on a Friday Night while the rest of the family is out at Applebees. I had a four-layered visit planned. Going to Zest specialty cookware and food store to exchange my CO2 canister for my carbonated water dispenser. Zest is the only store in Pa. that takes exchanges and the price of a new canister is quite a bit cheaper than Amazon Prime, visit a coffee shop that close friends of mine just bought called Slate, eat at a great Mexican joint on Main Street titled Chilangos, decidedly not-uber-upscale, and end the n...

At the start of the Summer, a brother of mine (biological) and I went to an epic concert down at the Mann Music Center to experience The Nationals perform. I had blogged about it previously on Bierkergaard. Front row and center. The lead singer took my iPhone and filmed two minutes of on-stage footage. Pretty epic. On the drive down to the Mann, my brother mentioned (suggested) that I use Cruise Control, which I disdained. Philly-area is active in-your-face driving. However, I did make a mental note that Cruise Control was certainly an under-underutilized feature of my automobile. Most of my driving doesn't lend itself to Cruise Control. Yet, I considered that I should use should the opportunity manifest itself. I had the prime opportunity going North in Pa and West in New York State last weekend. Large swaths of straight highway particularly in NY with NY State Troopers manning the garrison, where staying within the posted speed limits was wise. I turned on the Cruise Cont...

A Holiday Service on Christmas Day 2018, Portland. I will tie in the picture at the end...just you wait and see! I heard from some of you about the blog. Thanks for the kind and encouraging words. Particular shout out to my dad and brother (to keep him from being associated with my blog, which are my thoughts alone) he shall remain incognito. He knows of whom I speak. My dad really wouldn't care. He is an impervious 80 something long past giving a rip what people think and blowback. I have three brothers. Ponder this... I am fixing to start packing for my travels Buffalo to visit my good friend H. We are going to go to the Eagles vs. Bills game tomorrow. The Eagles got flogged by the Cowboys on national television last Sunday night. I sensed it was going to be a stinker after the first turnover. Only confirmed by the second turnover. Both turnovers lead to touchdowns. Eagles down by 14 points before Joe Philly Six-Pack could chug his first can Natty Ice. I went to bed. ...

I have to share an inside thought: I have thought recently about killing off this Bierkergaard Blog. I have been at it for a decade or so. I have seen many other blogs begin, launch, crash, and then die. The blog world is a junkyard. Once bright and gleaming, now rusted and decrepit. Warning: This becomes a rant...if you are still game, hop on for the ride. I have a larger readership than most. I am approaching 400,000 page views overall ( 373,543). Yet, sometimes I feel as if am blogging into the abyss. I get some feedback occasionally from my dad who is probably my most faithful reader which really flatters me. My dad is no fool and he also really doesn't subscribe to my faith perspective in the least. Besides knowing that it is important to me and that religion is useful to guide social norms. He is Nietzsche-Lite. A philosophical Nihilist who is not nasty about it. Intellectually, he thinks Christianity is not really True but has truths in it if that makes any sense. T...

I have returned from the Birthday Weekend in Leesburg, Virginia. A quaint little city a lot like Lancaster and designed to suck cash out my bank-account. The weekend was dedicated to victuals and I had the pleasure of hanging out with a college friend of over three decades. When I travel to new towns and cities where I don't know anyone, I typically will attempt to find lodging that is close to where I want to spend time, must be walkable. It will usually be a hotel, maybe a B & B, but never AirBnB unless I am totally separate from the host and have a dedicated space where I don't have to interact and relate. I don't want to negotiate that and prefer a cordial yet  professional interaction with the staff. I want to do my thing with no drag. One of the guilty pleasure of staying in a hotel is a full Cable TV package. At home, I am Basic Cable and spend my time watching CSPAN 2 BOOKTV and related geeky programs. Plus, Eagles football because I apparently enjoy pain...

Deuteronomy  32:2 My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass: Every year around this time I have to seek out a new Devotional for the coming year. For some reason, I have it keyed to October. I'd like to say that I have it aligned intentionally with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. But, I can't say that this is the case.  Rosh Hashanah (Hebrew:  ראש השנה ), (literally "head of the year"), is the Jewish New Year. It is the first of the High Holidays or Yamim Noraim ("Days of Awe"), celebrated ten days before Yom Kippur. Rosh Hashanah is observed on the first two days of Tishrei, the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar. It is described in the Torah as  יום תרועה  (Yom Teru'ah, a day of sounding [the Shofar]). Rosh Hashana begins at sundown on Sun, 29 September 2019. I think it happens in the calendar because I have several school events at ...

A couple of weeks ago, I stopped by AJ's Surplus Grocery. It is close to my house and I was hoping it would be one of those quirky groceries that had some semi-healthy foods interspersed with all of the other snacky-snack and uber-carb stuff. Think proteins, Guac, nuts, etc.  This coupon came up on Facebook a week later. It was like trying to find water in the Sahara. It was crap junk food up and down the aisles and all over. Metabolic Disorder Dumpster Land. I wound up buying a couple of pieces of pork, some peanuts, Buffalo Wing bites, a couple of cans of beans, and three small containers of lime juice to flavor my seltzer. I walked out with my purchase and an employee of the store came out soon after me to corral some shopping carts out in the parking lot. He engaged me in conversation. Asked me if that was the first time I had visited (it just had opened) and how my shopping experience was. It was one of those moments where I was cornered. I didn't want to lie or ...

Ever since I have been a young child I have been fascinated about railroad tracks crossing roads. I am not really sure why. I think I have found it intriguing that different things can cross and still go their way with a little bit of give. Maybe an illustration on the need to just chill out in our society and let things go. It will pass. Social Media train-wrecks. We are all so easily offended.  Christians in particular should have a deep peace not so easily riled. A calmness, a consistency. The last half of summer, I spent a lot of my time driving back country roads all the way from West Virginia through Pennsylvania to upstate New York. All the same type of terrain and people. I like rural folk and enjoy the country and I tend to see more of these railroad crossings on rural roads. Nothing quite as fun for me than cruising in my Civic on a sunny day through the back country with the sun roof open.  I will until the end of my days always have a sun roof on my automo...

I kind of have decided to pick a theme and blog about it three or four times before moving on to a new topic. Today's consistency point is that it makes a difference. Just watched the Eagles win their opener over the Redskins. The Redskins had a big lead, the Eagles made some adjustments at the half, and took the game. The Redskins became inconsistent despite flashes of breaking the game open. They couldn't capitalize on the lead. Game over. It helped to have Desean Jackson back as a deep threat.  Chip Kelly took a well-deserved beating on Twitter for releasing him from the Eagles about half a decade ago or so. He started to believe like Enron that he was the smartest guy in the room. He imploded in the NFL and is now doing it in college coaching.  To apply the consistency idea to another specific area, this summer I had my car AC and my home window AC go on the fritz at the same time. I decided to fix neither. I am not a big fan of AC in cars unless it is beastly hot....

This summer I endeavored to get on the mountain bike and ride twice a week. It is a great work-out, fun, and has the element of danger that all truly worthwhile experiences offer. The adage "no risk, no reward" is so very true. If nothing is risked, typically nothing is gained. Video games give the illusion of danger but it is virtual reality, not reality.  Not even certain that reality should be in the term. Virtual Unreality might be a more apt term.  About a month ago, I was on my favorite trail. Not hard but a good 30 minute work-out. Being the summer, the woods is full of flies, skeeters, and gnats. The slower I rode, the more the insect cloud grew, triggering all of my fears and phobias of swarms of bugs. A big ass bug landed on my right arm while I was in the insectacloud and I took my left hand off the handlebars to sweep it off. I didn't want to stop as the swirling creature cloud was turning into a flashmob. The handlebar turned right and my wheel hit a roc...

Ten years ago, I was in the dissertation phase of my Ph.D. program. My adviser kept pushing me to make changes and then make changes to the changes. Unlike the course work in the Ed. Psych. program, there was no back wall to push to work up to; it was open-ended. I took the draconian step of stating on a Sunday night on the phone to him that either my dissertation framework as it was was acceptable or I was quitting the program. It was a gamble but he backed down and at least that battle was won. The War raged on though, all around.  At the same time, my marriage was collapsing, my job was as hard as it had ever been, I got Lyme's Disease, I was writing a book, and I was battling a groundhog family that was destroying my garden. I also had two close associates who I considered good friends, steal en masse my college transition research and over a decades worth of work, repackage it, and call it their own. They were Christians which made it especially painful. And then, th...

Yesterday, I tuned into my favorite daytime Saturday program. Bugs Bunny you say? No dice. CSPAN 2 BOOKTV! I was telling a buddy yesterday who was over drinking a beer or two that CSPAN 2 BOOKTV makes me so excited for Saturdays. I won't call myself a Nerd but will affirm the geekiness of this affection.  Most Americans deaden their brains with TV sports, sitcoms, "reality shows" or crime shows (mere words cannot describe how much I despise mayhem as entertainment), so I am not ashamed to having a scholarly addiction. I was ashamed of being smart for years in my thinking and writing as it made me feel effeminate. I think that is why many male writers really struggle with alcohol and addiction. Writing seems non-masculine, particularly if it is about sensitive and painful topics and the interior world.  Writing about war is manly. About how our feelings were hurt by less dramatic things, not so much. Watching BOOKTV helps makes me well informed and educated, someth...