bierkergaard

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...