bierkergaard

After a very difficult week where one of our student's passed away, I came home Friday night fairly emotionally concussed. There is really only one therapeutic response for this...sleep. My mind needs to rest and rejuvenate in total silence. After about an hour and change of deep rest, I was ready to roll and do something. The neurons had cooled. One of my good buddies had FB Messaged me while I dozed, announcing that it was the weekend. He knows me well enough to realize that I was napping. It is fairly common on Friday afternoons. If I don't nap, then a quiet night at home is usually my next best option. School counseling typically takes a pound of flesh from me, and sometimes much more. This was one of those weeks.   Thus, we planned to hang out with the agreement that it needed to be outside and include beer. So, we decided upon Columbia Kettleworks, our go-to in this part of the county. Close to my haus, great beer, and the town needs cash. As we sipped our brews...

Everything but the kitchen sink.  Etymology:   B ased  on  the   idea   that  if  you   brought   many   things  to  someone,  a  kitchen   sink  is  one  of  the   last   things   you   would   bring   because  it is  difficult  to  move. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2003. Yesterday, I was scrubbing down the shower stall in my house. Through years of neglect and disassociation, over 50 years in the making, I have a high degree of tolerance for grime as compared to most humans. I have gotten better in recognizing that others may not have the same filth fortitude as I, so I have made strides in being sensitive that my ways cause others to want to hurl.  With the males of the immediate family coming to my estate in Columbia in early June, where my dad is the only person who has a higher tolerance ...

* From McLaren's Commentary This week my heart has been aching. It hurts now as I write... I have a congenital heart murmur condition and it would probably be prudent for me to have it examined again since I am on the other side of 50. As a teen-athlete getting physicals for school sports the attending doctor would always react to my heart murmur in the stethoscope with the question, "Are you allowed to play sports?" I and my mom would have to assure the physicians that all was cool. When I have a lot on my mind, my heart tends to hurt. One thing weighing on me is teaching a class of 26 ninth graders "Study Skills" with all the joy and suffering therein. 45 days, 80 minutes a day. This along with the day-in/day-out school counselor responsibilities which are usually fairly demanding. I am grateful for the opportunity to help kids with their lives but have decided to not teach just study skills, which would be akin to having both mine and their teeth d...

I was reminded by Facebook Memories that it has been a year since being out at the Los Angeles Festival of Books held on the campus of USC. Going to the Fest helped me zero in on writing in what are my niche areas of craft (food, beer, and coffee) in the larger context of culture with some theological and philosophical seasoning. Still haven't received that traffic ticket for making a right turn without first stopping. I got that photo flash... In the 365 days since L.A., I have had four essays published in reputable magazines with national audiences. I am even getting paid or in the case of my Jamaica coffee essay, bartered with the editor to be paid in coffee beans! That was cool! Coffee Lovers Magazine is out of Seattle of course and it has been fun to delve into that cup of coffee culture more deeply. My essay about Jamaica Blue Mountain and it legendary coffee is sooooo loooong that it is going to be published in three or four installments in upcoming issues in additi...

Today, around 12:00 at church, my Facebook Messenger dinged. I swear I have turned off notifications but I think every time it does an update, it reverts back. In this case it was helpful because it gave me a heads up that I might have missed. A couple I have know for close to a decade who I don't see as often as in times past (we attend different churches and other variables) let me know that they were heading to my part of Lancaster County to ride their bikes on the rail-trail along the Susquehanna river. "Heck, yeah," I thought, "I am in." It was a beautiful early Spring morning/afternoon. On the cool side, pristine, and sunny. A perfect combination on the WTO (Weather To Order) touchscreen. This couple is younger and fitter than I, but the rail-trail is is only at a slight grade incline on the way up. We did go off trail for 5-6 miles in search of the White Cliffs of Conoy only to find the road to it closed and blocked with signage stating that tresp...

Back in the day, when I started doing my own laundry, I would wash anything that I wore once. It was college. And yes, I had to learn the lesson of not mixing my whites with colors after turning my underwear pink.  I still recall one of the dudes on my floor using a broomstick/pole (minus the broom itself) to stuff all his laundry into one washing machine to save on spending quarters. From what recall, he may have even been standing atop the machine.      As I got older, I came to understand that this wear once/wash once was an enormous waste of time, water, money, energy, etc. I am not sure when I wised up. I think it was when I started to notice that my dress pants were fading and falling apart.  Dirt is destructive to the fibers of fabric. It acts as sandpaper grinding down the threads to threadbare. So, there is a spectrum in laundering clothes but my guess is that most of us wash our clothes too often and too much. All that lint? That used to be your ...

After a winter of nearly and nary zero snowfall, old Mother Nature decided to send us a Northeaster' mid-March semi-blizzard Stella on Monday night into Tuesday. It turned out to be a substantial amount. About 12 inches or so, with bands of more and less depending on your domicile location. My general shoveling of snow philosophy, honed by years of living in the 'burbs, is to shovel early and shovel often. One can decide to watch the snow fall platonically inside the cozy cave as it were (for all of you who took Philosophy 101 in college) but at some point, sooner or later, you have to pick up the shovel and throw some snow. Or bear the consequences. Back-pain payment with the interest ache. Present small amounts per shovel vs. future big debt payment at the end. I watched a neighbor a couple of days ago attempt to remove snow from their driveway after a couple of days of melting then re-freezing. A mess, that is what is was. As I was out early on the shovel Tuesday, ...