The First Record I Ever Bought January 29, 2009
Posted by markgeil in Music.10 comments
They’re playing this game on Facebook in which they share 25 obscure facts about themselves. I say “they” because I have yet to join the Facebook hordes. One day. Nonetheless, I shall now steal their little game with a slight variation.
I shall post one obscure fact about myself at a time. This would be incredibly narcissistic without comments, so I implore you to add your own response to each post. It’s easy to comment, really. You don’t have to use your real name or register or anything. I don’t even think you have to fill in an email address or URL. Try it. You’ll like it.
Here’s today’s topic: The First Record I Ever Bought
Here’s my response:
My first ever record was Synchronicity by the Police. It’s not officially the first record I ever bought, because Mom and Dad gave it to me when I got my first stereo. I would be embarrassed to admit that it was the cassette except that the cassette had bonus tracks that were not on the vinyl album. I wore that cassette out, literally. I knew every word of every song. I probably still do. Even “Mother”.
The first record I ever bought, like with my own money, was Alpha by Asia. I was always a sucker for Roger Dean album covers. I bought it at the Record Bar at a mall in Raleigh, after much deliberation. I felt like a real teenager, whipping the cash out of my Velcro wallet, though I was not yet one.
Now please, do tell. What’s the first record you ever bought?
Your iPod is not cool because you don’t have Pope Phones January 28, 2009
Posted by markgeil in Things that amuse me.add a comment
Sometimes, meaning gets lost in translation. This becomes especially delightful when the translation involves consumer electronics. I give you the Pope Phone:
Hear the Pope, apparently, in Duo Bass Beast Turbo Bass! There are two of them! And they’re fast! And they’re also “beast”, which must be what all the cool kids say. Or something about the Pope and Revelation and… let’s not go there.
You’ll also notice these cost, apparently, $19,000. This is the Pontiff we’re talking about, people.
My Compassionate Rubber Band January 26, 2009
Posted by markgeil in Compassion.Tags: Compassion International
add a comment
I have a rubber band around my wrist today. It’s the rubber band that wrapped up a set of ten plastic pouches filled with photographs and names. The rubber band is on my wrist this today to remind me to pray for those photographs and names.
Those ten plastic pouches contained photographs and names of Compassion children waiting to be sponsored. I volunteered for Compassion last night at a Travis Cottrell concert featuring Beth Moore (I’m a groupie now – see last post), Cindy Morgan, and a surprise appearance by Shaun Groves. Shaun opened with his stirring reminder of what exactly the Good News of Jesus is. I’ve seen it before, but it never gets old. Please watch below if you have some time. Then, we passed out packets. Each volunteer took two sets of ten packets each. I took off the rubber band, slipped it on my wrist, and said a quick prayer for the packets. Once Shaun invited people to respond, hands shot up across the room. No hesitation. My first set of ten packets was gone before the fifth row. As I handed each one out, I prayed. I am acutely aware that these are not just packets. They are children, real children with real eyes and ears and runny noses, with real moms and dads (sometimes) and real villages and real poverty. With Compassion, each child is linked to one and only one sponsor. That’s why I prayed. As each child reached an outstretched hand, I prayed,
”God, please direct this child to the right person.”
That’s all I really had time to pray. I meant more, though. I meant that I wanted God to do some divine match-making. That he would direct a person or a family with more means than they realize to a child with less means than any of us realize and that this divine match would last as that child grows and learns and is rescued. But I was in a hurry. I think God got it. I hustled to the back, and we grabbed the packets that had already been spread out on the tables in the lobby. Those were gone just as quickly. Hundreds of hands were still raised by the time we had handed out all 250 packets. I said my prayer about 25 times, I think. After I sat back down, I prayed for the people with a hand still up, that they would visit a table or find the website and not let a little inconvenience prevent them from changing a child’s life forever.
At the end of the night, we had some packets returned to our table. That’s okay. The point was for people to learn more about the program. Some of those children returned to our table were sponsored by others. By the end of the night we only had two left on our little table, and one of the artists from the show sponsored one of them! I said my prayer again. All told, 189 children were sponsored last night. I pray that each is a God-directed match. A “match made in Heaven,” as it were. That’s what I pray each time I notice the rubber band on my wrist.
Please watch this video, and pray about what you are saved for. Maybe a small part of that is sponsoring a child.
On the female gender, of which I might soon be a part January 26, 2009
Posted by markgeil in Family, Posts that remind me of how cool Micronauts were.Tags: Beth Moore
add a comment
When I was a kid, my older brothers and I thought it was the very height of insult to call each other girl names. My oldest brother Steve became Stephanie. The middle brother Eric was easy – Erica. I became Marsha. Conversations would regularly disintegrate into girl-name calling.
“You broke my Micronauts Battle Cruiser!”
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
“Dummy!”
“Idiot!”
“Erica!”
“Marsha!”
Wrestling ensued. Suffice it to say, being called a girl was just about the lowest of low. In fact, two gender-related instances from my childhood had such an impact that I still remember them today. The first was in that volatile window between the times when I was old enough to answer the phone and when I was old enough for my voice to change. On several occasions, I would answer said phone in the manliest “Hello” by little voice could muster, and the caller would cheerfully say, “Hey Dot!” That’s Mom’s name. That’s devastation. I mean, think about it (and I did think about it!): a dad, three sons, and a mom. One lone female. Shouldn’t the odds be pretty good that the caller would assume a male was answering? Alas, my crestfallen girly voice would have to reply, “This is Mark. Just a minute.”
The other scarring incident was that fateful Halloween in which I wanted to dress as a ghost. Now, in the Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin special, all the kids just cut two holes in a white sheet and they were ghosts (except for poor Charlie Brown, who was not good with scissors). My mother (and if there were ever an appropriate time for the idiom “Bless her heart”, this was the one) wanted to take ghost-costuming to the next level. She designed a masterpiece, with white face paint and fabric and even white gauze to create the ethereal other-worldly effect you just can’t get with a sheet. I was stoked.
First house. Empty candy bag practically bristling with the anticipation of the chocolate goodness that would fill it. First chorus of “Trick or Treat” from my friends and me. The lady at the door starts handing out the goods and commenting on our costumes. When it’s my turn, she uttered the phrase that would ruin my evening, that would haunt me to this day. She did not faint from shock, thinking I was a real ghost. She did not recoil in fear and run to protect her own children. Instead, she said,
“What a beautiful bride!”
Alas, my crestfallen girly voice replied, “I’m a ghost.” And she was not the last to stick that dagger in my heart. The candy must have been good, because I kept trick-or-treating the whole night, finally preempting the costume evaluation with my own declaration: “I’m not a bride. I’m a ghost.” We didn’t say “freakin’” then, but it would have been a good adjective.
I am happy to report that I grew up, and the balance of my childhood was wonderful. My brothers and I manage intelligent conversations now and rarely call each other by our girl-names. We spend more time calling out real girl names. Steve has two daughters, Eric has twin daughters, and I have three! They have sons to complement their girly houses, but not I. It’s all girly, all the time at Chez ATL Geils.
I remembered all these stories today because I might be turning into a girl. I don’t trip over matchbox cars and baseballs in our house; instead, I vacuum up pony-tail-holders. I can even operate a pony-tail-holder, sort-of. I watched figure skating this weekend. Mostly it was on when I was in the room, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t watch a little, mainly looking for the crashes. I even turned it on yesterday to TiVo it for my wife, and for a few seconds there I was alone in a room while a male-ish figure skater with some fishnet glove things over what looked like painted fingernails sat in a chair weeping. I can even paint fingernails, sort-of. I’m even doing a Beth Moore Bible study! My wife bought it, and it’s about John, the Disciple, and he’s my favorite character in the Bible next to Jesus, so I’m doing it on my own time. It’s not intentionally girly, but she’s definitely a woman used to communicating with other women. And if all that wasn’t enough to irrevocably damage my man card, I went to a concert last night featuring Beth Moore! I’m like one of those women-Beth-Moore-groupies now! Maybe you and I can have coffee sometime and talk about what Beth Moore was wearing and just how sweet she was and how that makes me feel in my emotions and my inner self.
But there I sat, with Beth Moore teaching me a thing or two about the Bible (turns out she’s really good at that), with my wife beside me, Sarah and Hannah down the row, and Rebekah making her way past the lot of them to get to Mommy’s lap. Bek had hit the wall, and when she hits the wall, she falls asleep. No matter where she is. No matter how loud Travis Cottrell is belting the soft-rock praise music. She crashes. And there she crashed, on Mommy’s lap, spilling over onto mine and kicking several people in the process. Her soft blonde hair draped across my shoulder. Her sleepy eyes with their long eyelashes gently closed. Pink crocs slid off onto the floor and she was out. There I sat, Beth-Moore-Groupies all around me, my four girly-girls beside me and even a little bit on top of me, and I prayed, thanking God for this life.
I wouldn’t trade it for a thing.
On Leadership January 16, 2009
Posted by markgeil in Philosophical musings.Tags: inauguration, leadership, president
1 comment so far
On the week before we inaugurate a new president, some wise words about leadership from Rebekah, age 7:
“I don’t like to be the leader. People are always stepping on my heels. And sometimes I don’t know which way to go.”
Last night, President Bush delivered his farewell address to the nation. I am sure there were times during his eight years of service that he would have agreed with Rebekah. He seemed to have more than his fair share of difficult decisions during his two terms, and there were undoubtedly times when he didn’t know which way to go. During some of those times, he probably didn’t like being the leader. Especially with all those people stepping on his heels.
What’s a leader to do when he’s not sure which way to go, and leading is not much fun, and someone has stepped so hard on your heel that the back of your foot has slid right out? He must rely unwaveringly on his principles, and those principles had better be established before the difficult decisions come along. Like it or not, President Bush relied on his principles. Last night, he spoke of an overriding belief that freedom is to be favored over oppression. Few would argue with that sentiment. I imagine if you took a poll, “freedom” would beat “oppression” in a landslide. But when it’s more than a sentiment, when it’s a bedrock principle that guides the most difficult decisions, it can become divisive.
Bush stated that, “Iraq has gone from a brutal dictatorship and a sworn enemy of America to an Arab democracy at the heart of the Middle East and a friend of the United States.” I know, you might want to argue with several aspects of his statement. That’s not my point. This is not an apologetic on policy. The decisions to invade Iraq, to remove Hussein from power, to remain in Iraq today, have all been agonizingly difficult. Like it or not, President Bush relied on his principles: freedom is to be favored over oppression.
Consider this, the most poignant part of his speech: “Like all who have held this office before me, I have experienced setbacks and there are things I would do differently, if given the chance.
“Yet, I’ve always acted with the best interests of our country in mind. I have followed my conscience and done what I thought was right. You may not agree with some tough decisions I have made, but I hope you can agree that I was willing to make the tough decisions.”
Agreed.
Some debate whether great leaders are born or made. Either way, there are times when we are all called upon to lead. Even Rebekah, who doesn’t like being the leader, will have to make decisions. Sometimes these will be difficult decisions. Sometimes others will have to follow her lead, even in crisis. Great leaders may be born that way, but principles, certitude, core values, these are not natural, not inborn. These are made. As Rebekah’s father, and therefore a leader, I know my highest priority: the establishment of a foundation of ethics in my daughters; an awareness and understanding of the God that I love; a deeply rooted sense of morality.
President Bush will take some time away from the tough decisions. His feet will remain safely ensconced in his shoes. Our daughters don’t have too many difficult choices to make yet, but they will. Before they come, I’ll keep doing my best to lay the foundation they’ll need. And whether she believes it or not, I’ve seen enough of a spark in little Rebekah to make me think people will be following her one day soon.
My prayers are with Presidents Bush and Obama, and they’re different prayers for different seasons of life. My prayer for our country continues to be this: that she be guided by leaders of principle, leaders who know right from wrong and choose what is right, leaders who follow God’s will with a discernment established long before the crises. If we all pray such a prayer, it won’t be an imposition to ask,
God bless America.
The Judgmental Grammar Snob is Literally All Bent Out of Shape January 14, 2009
Posted by markgeil in Literally the best post ever!.3 comments
I’m a judgmental grammar snob. The good thing is, I’m not the most vocal grammar snob around. I have learned that it’s usually best to cast my stones in my head, except when I’m correcting my children, which is my duty as a parent, right? And I do know I’m not perfect. See, I just started a sentence with an article.
This morning, though, I must join the chorus of grammarians who sadly see another word slipping away. That word is “literally”. Once upon a time it was an adverb meaning something actually happened, word-for-word, without exaggeration. Somehow, though, we as a society have made a collective decision (I voted nay) to give the word the opposite meaning! Now it means, “What follows is a figure of speech, an idiom, an exaggeration that did not actually happen.”
To wit: I heard an interview on the radio this morning with a high school senior, a member of the South Cobb High School band from right here in my county. They’ve been selected to play in the inaugural parade in D.C. next week. The proud student spoke of her hard work thusly: “I started as a freshman, so I’ve been working my butt off, literally, for four years.” How sad. She finally gets to play in the biggest event of her life and she has no butt.
If you stop and think about it, most people who use the word “literally” like our dear band member should instead be using “figuratively”, which happens to be the complete opposite word!
Recently, Joe Biden took the word to new heights in his campaign speeches. In declaring that Obama, “made his mark literally from day one reaching across the aisle to pass legislation to secure the world’s deadliest weapons,” Biden would have us believe that on very his first day in the hallowed halls of the Capitol, he left some sort of mark or blemish (Sharpie, perhaps?) on one side of the aisle. It’s good for him that he wasn’t kicked out after that apparent episode of first-day vandalism.
Newsweek’s Andrew Romano noted that the Vice President-elect noted emphatically in a speech that Obama has the ability to “literally, literally change the direction of the world.” Not only can he somehow alter the orbit of the entire planet, he can DOUBLE-LITERALLY alter the orbit of the entire planet. I saw Superman do that once, when he made the planet spin backwards, but I don’t think that was real. In another speech, Biden stated that “your children’s futures [are] literally, literally, literally at stake.” Wow! TRIPLE-LITERALLY!
Many have written about this sad death of a word. Today, I join the crusade. I literally shall not rest until we have literally grabbed this word, literally, from jaws of misuse and returned it to its rightful place in our noble dictionaries. I wonder how long this will take. I do need my sleep.
Accident-Prone January 12, 2009
Posted by markgeil in Family.Tags: brothers
add a comment
I posed the following question in my injury biomechanics course last week. We were defining “injury” and noticing how we often use the word “accident” when certain factors often make an injury less-than-accidental. Then I threw out some stats about numbers of injuries and how much they cost the healthcare system. And finally the question:
Are certain people really “accident-prone”? I think we all have experience with people in our lives (maybe it’s you!) who seem to get hurt more than everyone else. But why? Is it something physiological? Are their tendons a little too tight, so their muscles don’t function quite as smoothly? Or maybe their balance is just a little off. Perhaps their neural networks are a little convoluted and they wind up a tad uncoordinated.
Then I posed a different theory. Maybe the ones we call “accident prone” are actually the most coordinated, the most perfectly put-together. Maybe sports come so easily to them that they tend to be more active, and they push things a little too hard sometimes.
We had both in my family. My older brothers were more natural athletes than me. The middle brother, Eric, in particular. He’s the one dunking on me and my older brother. Clearly charging, though.
He’s one of those guys who can take up a new sport, learn the basic rules, and play pretty well within the first 15 or so minutes. The rest of us have a word for those natural, effortless abilities: annoying. I’m among the rest of us. I can take up a new sport, learn the basic rules, and play pretty well after at least five months of daily practice. I can’t for the life of me wad up a piece of paper and throw it in a trash can. I always miss, even if the trash can is right beside my chair. Our recycling bins are in our garage, right by the door. I open the garage door to toss a can toward the recycling bin, and it somehow manages to bounce and roll and settle directly under the geometric center of my car. Baffling.
I could take up an obscure sport, like, say, Mountain Unicycling. I could buy the finest equipment and pay a fortune for private lessons. I could join a club and we could meet for mountain unicycling trips every weekend for a year. I could be pretty good at mountain unicycling. Then my brother could be visiting, and I’d invite him along on one of our trips. He would mention that he’s never even been on a unicycle and joke about how the rest of the club would have to wait up for him at the end, but he would be a good sport and come along. Then we’d get to the mountain, and explain how to get on a unicycle. He’d try it out, fall off once or twice, and then cruise down the mountain at twice my speed. At the bottom, he’d humbly say, “Yeah, that is fun! Thanks for inviting me.”
Guess which one of us is accident prone? Eric. At family gatherings we gather around the table and jovially recall his litany of bizarre injuries. There was the loud one when we were kids playing touch football in the street. He was the receiver, looking over his shoulder at full sprint to follow the incoming pass, as good receivers do, when head made direct impact with mailbox. He’s still got a great scar on his arm from tripping on the last hurdle during some championship track meet. He had to sit out of a couple of soccer seasons – not games – due to excessive concussions. He even had some bizarre tear in the pleural cavity around his lungs during some pick-up game. People just don’t get pleural cavity tears during recreational sports!
So, maybe my theory holds true. Maybe the most coordinated are the most accident-prone. Of course, I suppose that wouldn’t explain the time Eric had to be rushed to the emergency room with a chicken bone in his throat. Nowadays, it seems that my oldest brother Steve and I are the ones who get hurt more often. We’ve both joined adult soccer leagues, and we enjoy recounting our weekly ailments to one another. Still, I think there’s a difference between being accident-prone and just getting old.
Finally, for your viewing pleasure, and since you undoubtedly thought I was joking, witness Mountain Unicycling:
Behold, the skies preach January 4, 2009
Posted by markgeil in Posts written while inspired by air travel.1 comment so far
It’s been gloomy in Atlanta. Rainy during the day, foggy in the evening, a pretty constant layer of clouds making the sky gray. Reminds me of our winters in Columbus, Ohio, when the skies were gray for months on end every winter.
But then I got on an airplane. Once we rose above that thick layer of clouds, a new landscape emerged. Bright sunshine highlighted a white sea. As the flight continued, the sun set all orange and red and purple. Brilliant.
We haven’t the slightest clue what the wonder of heaven is. When Moses got even near the presence of the Living God, his face literally glowed so brightly he had to wear a veil. All the people on the roads and houses of Middle America, the ones I was flying over, only saw gray gloom. I saw a breathtaking sunset. If the heavens are skyward, I guess you could say that my perspective was closer to God.
I’m sure God whips up even more beautiful wonders in those heavens, but they’re just too much for us to handle. For now, I’m reminded that God is God, and though we cannot touch His majesty, it’s comforting to know that He’s all about beauty when we’re all about gloom; that He paints the heavens just for fun; and that His perspective is awfully refreshing.
All is Quiet on New Year’s Day January 1, 2009
Posted by markgeil in Family.Tags: New Year's Day
add a comment
Happy New Year.
I stayed up to watch the ball drop last night, and then stayed up a little bit longer to watch the motorcycle dude on ESPN jump to the top of the fake Arc de Triomphe in Vegas.
Our two youngest daughters had every intention of staying up until midnight, but neither made it. Rebekah threw in the towel early, and asked me to carry her to bed “like a princess”. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend her last few waking minutes of 2008. Hannah fell asleep on the couch, with the promise that I would wake her up at 11:50. I kept the promise. I also woke her up at 11:52, and again at 11:55. That last time she managed to stay awake, and watched what might have been her first ever ball drop. I walked her sleepy self to bed and finished watching motorcycle dude while fireworks exploded in the street outside.
I was terribly disappointed with the television offerings this year. I like awards shows and year end countdowns, and there were scarcely any. I think every single specialty channel should have a “top ten ____ of 2008″ show on New Year’s Eve. MTV2 did have a top ten music videos show, but I didn’t know any of the songs. In my perfect world, I would have been able to switch to the top ten restaurants on the Food Network, or the year’s biggest advances in science on Discovery, or the biggest movies of 2008 on a movie channel. I was able to listen to the year’s best country songs on the radio this morning. All the females in my house, which is everyone in my house except for me, were pleased to hear that the number one song was “Our Song” by Taylor Swift.
Funny how we do so much reflecting and resolving on such an arbitrary day. We could always turn the annual calendar over on February 11th, or August 8th, right? Still, I think it’s wise that we take a few days of each year to do a bit of soul-searching, first looking back and using those images to look forward. I can look back to just last night and resolve to keep carrying Rebekah “like a princess” as long as she’ll let me.
I can look back just a few days ago, when we finished our year of reading the Bible together as a family. We went to a little island at a small college campus to read the final chapter of Revelation, since John was writing down the visions while exiled on the island of Patmos. Just as we read the last verse aloud, all together, a nearby bell tower began the noon chime. As those bells tolled an extraordinary year of growth and exploration of God’s Word, I resolve to keep diving in to the Bible in 2009, and to try to make sure my family is doing the same.
I won’t look back too much, though. January will get busy, and time for reflection will slip away. That’s why I’m grateful for New Year’s Day, for a bit of peace and quiet before the nose hits the grindstone. Maybe that’s another good resolution: to make more time for reflection.
