It’s not how many times you fall down. It’s how many times you get back up.
I’m not the smartest guy. Not the most handsome (most days). Not the strongest. Not the most water-resistant. But, overall, I consider myself a fairly successful guy. Recently, though, I faced quite the bout with failure.
It happened sometime between January 14th and January 16th. I honestly can’t tell you when exactly, but what I can tell you is that it has taught me quite the lesson.
You hear it from preachers and self-help gurus all the time - You’re going to slip up. You’re going to experience failure. Life may be a box of chocolates, but someday, you’re going to bite into one and it’s going to taste a lot like Vegemite. I hear you, Reverend, but your words, while designed to build me up, feel more like they’re rubbing my face in it.
I don’t want this to be depressing. So let me turn this around for you. It’s true. You will fail. Sometimes you’ll feel like you’re at rock bottom, but remember: you could always find one of those drills like Bruce Willis used in Armageddon and get lower. But once you fall to the bottom of that mine you just drilled from rock bottom, rise up. Shake the lava off your feet and walk around your abyss with your head held high. Things will turn around for you. After all, things are looking up. Well, I guess from the abyss, you’re looking up.
Since blogging is about sharing your personal experiences, I’ll pay my dues. From my experience, yes, maybe I felt like crying a little bit when I realized what happened. How could I let something so small turn into such a heroic failure? So much hard work and dedication put in, only to let one slip up ruin the whole thing. Life’s not fair. Simba might end up with Nala, but who’s to say that one day he might not get trampled by a herd of wildebeests dispatched by his scrawny brother with incredibly long elbow hair?
We all face failures. If you haven’t, you will. I did. Like High School Musical taught us, we’re all in this together. Maybe this post will allow me to be your Bill Withers.
We may not all be the same, but you put your pants on one leg at a time, just like I do. Just like I have done most every day since January 14th, 15th or 16th. You see, for the first time in a long time, I made a New Year’s Resolution: When I wear pants, I’m not going to put them on one leg at a time. I couldn’t have been more successful for the first two weeks. Then I went on a weekend ski trip (yes, it was the same trip I took last year). One of those three mornings, I climbed out of my tiny bunk bed and put my pants on one leg at a time, crushing my hopes and dreams. Sad thing is, I didn't even realize it until I got back. But as soon as I was back in my own house ready to get dressed it hit me like a Mythbusters' cannonball: oops.
Not all is lost. Every once in a while, when the sun peeks through the curtains, lighting up the silence of the morning, I’ll take a seat on the bed, take a deep breath of warm air, and slide my pants on two legs at a time for nostalgia’s sake. Because, after all, it’s not how many times you fall, it’s how many times you pull your pants up.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Boogers
What took me so long? Well, snuggle up with a cup of hot chocolate and let me tell you a story...
Once upon a time I grew an extra bone in my face.
We spent a long time together, me and that extra bone. But, alas, some medical professional came along and told us we weren’t supposed to be together. So, he stole my extra bone from me.
What you just read is basically the preface to the rest of my life. After multiple doctors threatened to peel my face off to no avail, I had my extra bone taken out of my sinus cavity through my nose. It was as fun as it sounds.
I won’t go into gross specifics about the procedure, though I am kind of proud of some of the fun facts. Suffice (Sufficed? I’ve never really seen this term written) it to say, when it was all said and done, I looked like Sloth from The Goonies.
Let’s talk about what effect the guy above can have on kids. Some, I made hide behind their parents. Others, I was transformed into a Pavlovian experiment on paranoia. Seriously, every time he saw me, the kid would say “Paranoid” and reach toward my eye. He thought it was hilarious when I flinched the next week when he said “Paranoid” and didn’t lift a finger. Still others, I provoked to ask in a crowded elevator, “What happened to your nose?” I have to give credit to the pain medication for keeping me from responding with something that would have caused her father to rip another bone out my face.
That elevator took me to my first follow up doctor’s visit. This is where I learned how a sinus doctor really makes his money. I’m not volunteering to pay more, but those guys don’t make enough money. For the past month, I have periodically visited the good doctor, and he has proceeded to pull enormous items out of my nose. It’s like my sinus cavity is Mary Poppins’ purse.
I’m absolutely positive there was some point in my life where I wanted to see how big a booger I could pick out of my nose. If only the current version of me could visit that 4 year-old version, some of these things are big enough for me to autograph and give one to the young me to put in a trophy case.
This, like so many of my posts before, ultimately has no point. That said, there are a few of things I’d like you to know before you leave…
First, you ever listen to your own voicemail message and think, “Is that really what I sound like?” Well, I haven’t voicemail tested it, but the post-surgery voice in my head sounds exactly like Phil Vassar when I sing along to the radio in the car. No matter whose song is on.
Secondly, there’s a lovely anesthesiologist at Vanderbilt. She’s very good at her job – I don’t remember any of my surgery. However, if my life was a Scream movie, she would be Ghostface. She might very well haunt me for the rest of my life… I’m lying in the bed pre-surgery, only a paper towel gown between Ghostface and the natural me. She then tells me what she’s going to do to me once I’m out. It’s nothing dirty at all, but it’s in that vicinity. And it rhymes with quatheterization. At least I was unconscious for that experience. I was also unconscious when Ghostface terrorized me again by paralyzing my legs. Legitimately. Now, I’m all for not moving during a surgery, but I think a stern talking to would have gotten the job done. Instead, I woke up with no pain in my head, but my legs felt like a piece of chewing gum in a vampire’s mouth. My legs didn’t work right for 2 weeks.
Finally, yes, my nose is straighter now. Thanks for noticing.
Once upon a time I grew an extra bone in my face.
We spent a long time together, me and that extra bone. But, alas, some medical professional came along and told us we weren’t supposed to be together. So, he stole my extra bone from me.
What you just read is basically the preface to the rest of my life. After multiple doctors threatened to peel my face off to no avail, I had my extra bone taken out of my sinus cavity through my nose. It was as fun as it sounds.
I won’t go into gross specifics about the procedure, though I am kind of proud of some of the fun facts. Suffice (Sufficed? I’ve never really seen this term written) it to say, when it was all said and done, I looked like Sloth from The Goonies.
Let’s talk about what effect the guy above can have on kids. Some, I made hide behind their parents. Others, I was transformed into a Pavlovian experiment on paranoia. Seriously, every time he saw me, the kid would say “Paranoid” and reach toward my eye. He thought it was hilarious when I flinched the next week when he said “Paranoid” and didn’t lift a finger. Still others, I provoked to ask in a crowded elevator, “What happened to your nose?” I have to give credit to the pain medication for keeping me from responding with something that would have caused her father to rip another bone out my face.That elevator took me to my first follow up doctor’s visit. This is where I learned how a sinus doctor really makes his money. I’m not volunteering to pay more, but those guys don’t make enough money. For the past month, I have periodically visited the good doctor, and he has proceeded to pull enormous items out of my nose. It’s like my sinus cavity is Mary Poppins’ purse.
I’m absolutely positive there was some point in my life where I wanted to see how big a booger I could pick out of my nose. If only the current version of me could visit that 4 year-old version, some of these things are big enough for me to autograph and give one to the young me to put in a trophy case.
This, like so many of my posts before, ultimately has no point. That said, there are a few of things I’d like you to know before you leave…
First, you ever listen to your own voicemail message and think, “Is that really what I sound like?” Well, I haven’t voicemail tested it, but the post-surgery voice in my head sounds exactly like Phil Vassar when I sing along to the radio in the car. No matter whose song is on.
Secondly, there’s a lovely anesthesiologist at Vanderbilt. She’s very good at her job – I don’t remember any of my surgery. However, if my life was a Scream movie, she would be Ghostface. She might very well haunt me for the rest of my life… I’m lying in the bed pre-surgery, only a paper towel gown between Ghostface and the natural me. She then tells me what she’s going to do to me once I’m out. It’s nothing dirty at all, but it’s in that vicinity. And it rhymes with quatheterization. At least I was unconscious for that experience. I was also unconscious when Ghostface terrorized me again by paralyzing my legs. Legitimately. Now, I’m all for not moving during a surgery, but I think a stern talking to would have gotten the job done. Instead, I woke up with no pain in my head, but my legs felt like a piece of chewing gum in a vampire’s mouth. My legs didn’t work right for 2 weeks.
Finally, yes, my nose is straighter now. Thanks for noticing.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
The Beats Go On
So you bought a pair of Beats by Dr. Dre. Congratulations. Personally, I would have bought some $10 earbuds at Wal-Mart and made an extra mortgage payment, but to each his own.
[Note: I understand there is an earbud variety of Beats. The following applies only to the Princess Leia version.]
I’ve spent my fair share of time in airports, and besides the charter buses that take NFL teams from the hotel to the stadium, I’m pretty sure there’s not a higher per-capita rate of Beats than at an airport. So, from a biased observer, before purchasing your Beats, please consider the following suggestions of things that don’t go with your Dre earmuffs...
1. Business casual attire. I’ll give you the extremes, suits and sweats, but the middle ground is not up for debate. A tucked in polo shirt and a pair of Beats are, in fact, mutually exclusive.
2. Bifocals. I started to write glasses. Then I remembered the Usher edition Beats that come with the oversized sunglasses attached. Then I considered writing prescription glasses, but that would exclude some of the urban prep population which has surprisingly proven that Beats can go with a sweatervest.
3. A baby. If you have to choose between diapers and Dre, clearly the baby will take the diapers for granted and crap on them anyway – go with the headphones.
4. A ponytail. Unless said ponytail is made up of dreadlocks.
5. A WNBA jersey. Absolutely nothing goes with a WNBA jersey.
6. An off-brand compression shirt. I don’t care if Ray Lewis walked up to me in an airport with his Beats on. If he was wearing a BCG compression shirt, I’d laugh at him. Ok, that’s not true.
7. A guitar case. I know what you’re thinking: “Why shouldn’t a hippie get to listen to Phil Keaggy on the headphones of his choice?” Have you heard the old round-peg-in-a-square-hole analogy? Stick to your square short sleeve button-ups.
8. A cd player.
9. A large carry-on bag. Stop carrying-on large bags.
10. An EZ Smoker. I’m all for folks kicking the habit, but these things look ridiculous. If you puff on your EZ Smoker while wearing Beats by Dr. Dre during an earthquake, you increase the likelihood that you fall into an abyss between two tectonic plates by approximately 384%. Are you willing to take that risk?
I can't stop you from buying expensive headphones, but I hope to gently urge you not to pair your new headphones with any of the aforementioned items. On behalf of the entire population, thank you.
[Note: I understand there is an earbud variety of Beats. The following applies only to the Princess Leia version.]
I’ve spent my fair share of time in airports, and besides the charter buses that take NFL teams from the hotel to the stadium, I’m pretty sure there’s not a higher per-capita rate of Beats than at an airport. So, from a biased observer, before purchasing your Beats, please consider the following suggestions of things that don’t go with your Dre earmuffs...
1. Business casual attire. I’ll give you the extremes, suits and sweats, but the middle ground is not up for debate. A tucked in polo shirt and a pair of Beats are, in fact, mutually exclusive.
2. Bifocals. I started to write glasses. Then I remembered the Usher edition Beats that come with the oversized sunglasses attached. Then I considered writing prescription glasses, but that would exclude some of the urban prep population which has surprisingly proven that Beats can go with a sweatervest.
3. A baby. If you have to choose between diapers and Dre, clearly the baby will take the diapers for granted and crap on them anyway – go with the headphones.
4. A ponytail. Unless said ponytail is made up of dreadlocks.
5. A WNBA jersey. Absolutely nothing goes with a WNBA jersey.
6. An off-brand compression shirt. I don’t care if Ray Lewis walked up to me in an airport with his Beats on. If he was wearing a BCG compression shirt, I’d laugh at him. Ok, that’s not true.
7. A guitar case. I know what you’re thinking: “Why shouldn’t a hippie get to listen to Phil Keaggy on the headphones of his choice?” Have you heard the old round-peg-in-a-square-hole analogy? Stick to your square short sleeve button-ups.
8. A cd player.
9. A large carry-on bag. Stop carrying-on large bags.
10. An EZ Smoker. I’m all for folks kicking the habit, but these things look ridiculous. If you puff on your EZ Smoker while wearing Beats by Dr. Dre during an earthquake, you increase the likelihood that you fall into an abyss between two tectonic plates by approximately 384%. Are you willing to take that risk?
I can't stop you from buying expensive headphones, but I hope to gently urge you not to pair your new headphones with any of the aforementioned items. On behalf of the entire population, thank you.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Miami (Ad)Vice
I just returned from Miami, which apparently is Spanish for North Cuba. When you go, you should learn Spanish and drive a really expensive car, and you’ll fit in wonderfully... I am genuinely surprised I didn’t have to clear Customs to get back into Nashville. On to the highlights…
Homeless folks in Miami don’t sell newspapers. They do carry around giant paper cups. As a gentleman walked in front of our rental car last night, the greasy rich guy in his convertible coupe next to us did something that I can’t quite come up with an appropriate adjective for. As we pulled up to the red light, he was already stopped, top down, dog riding shotgun. As the paper cup headed his way, the guy rolled up the passenger window… on his tiny convertible… with the top down. This action achieved his desired result I guess, and he followed it up by shooting a sly smile towards our car. It was just weird.
You know who wouldn’t have stood for such an act? The nun we met down there. “Sister” was chosen to give us the tour of the catholic facility we were working in. As she led us around, we caught her fiddling around on her iPhone. Someone thought aloud, “I didn’t know the sisters were so well connected.” Her response? “It’s going to take me a while to get used to it. I really miss my Blackberry.”
To emphasize the size of the room we were in, Sister exclaimed, “You have to think about how many Hispanics it takes to take someone to the hospital… It’s at least twelve.” As we moved on to the psych area, “I’ve already reserved my room here.” All jokes aside, Sister closed out our tour by lighting us up with a 20 minute sermon on the Good Samaritan. Then she offered us mints, but we had to take 3 in honor of the Trinity. Sister exclaimed that some people try to take 4 for the gospels. One of our group replied, what about the 12 apostles?
While I did not experience a hurricane in Miami this week, I did, a la LeBron, take my palette to South Beach. I ate ceviche for the second time in my life. To sum up that experience, it’s like sushi – after mama bird chews it up first. I also consumed half a shot of Cuban coffee. I don’t like American coffee. I also don’t like Cuban coffee. Good news is that Cuban coffee comes in a communion cup, so there’s less to dislike. The final of my unique eating experiences was dinner Wednesday night. We worked late and were all tired, so we decided to stop at Fresh Market to pick up some dinner. Turns out, it takes 45 minutes to get a $23 dinner at a fancy grocery store. Then you have to heat it up in your hotel microwave that was in its prime when Johnny Carson was still on TV. I turned the knob to 15 seconds, walked away, and returned a minute later to find the plastic container melted and the knob on 15 seconds.
Overall, a fairly uneventful trip. However, I did have a revelation in the airport that I will share with you next time.
Homeless folks in Miami don’t sell newspapers. They do carry around giant paper cups. As a gentleman walked in front of our rental car last night, the greasy rich guy in his convertible coupe next to us did something that I can’t quite come up with an appropriate adjective for. As we pulled up to the red light, he was already stopped, top down, dog riding shotgun. As the paper cup headed his way, the guy rolled up the passenger window… on his tiny convertible… with the top down. This action achieved his desired result I guess, and he followed it up by shooting a sly smile towards our car. It was just weird.
You know who wouldn’t have stood for such an act? The nun we met down there. “Sister” was chosen to give us the tour of the catholic facility we were working in. As she led us around, we caught her fiddling around on her iPhone. Someone thought aloud, “I didn’t know the sisters were so well connected.” Her response? “It’s going to take me a while to get used to it. I really miss my Blackberry.”
To emphasize the size of the room we were in, Sister exclaimed, “You have to think about how many Hispanics it takes to take someone to the hospital… It’s at least twelve.” As we moved on to the psych area, “I’ve already reserved my room here.” All jokes aside, Sister closed out our tour by lighting us up with a 20 minute sermon on the Good Samaritan. Then she offered us mints, but we had to take 3 in honor of the Trinity. Sister exclaimed that some people try to take 4 for the gospels. One of our group replied, what about the 12 apostles?
While I did not experience a hurricane in Miami this week, I did, a la LeBron, take my palette to South Beach. I ate ceviche for the second time in my life. To sum up that experience, it’s like sushi – after mama bird chews it up first. I also consumed half a shot of Cuban coffee. I don’t like American coffee. I also don’t like Cuban coffee. Good news is that Cuban coffee comes in a communion cup, so there’s less to dislike. The final of my unique eating experiences was dinner Wednesday night. We worked late and were all tired, so we decided to stop at Fresh Market to pick up some dinner. Turns out, it takes 45 minutes to get a $23 dinner at a fancy grocery store. Then you have to heat it up in your hotel microwave that was in its prime when Johnny Carson was still on TV. I turned the knob to 15 seconds, walked away, and returned a minute later to find the plastic container melted and the knob on 15 seconds.
Overall, a fairly uneventful trip. However, I did have a revelation in the airport that I will share with you next time.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Last Day of the Church Camp Memoirs
Last post about camp - I know, it seems like forever to me too. In case you missed it: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, and Day 5.
Day five is the last day of camp for the younger kids. We have family night where we invite up all the parents and siblings so they can see a little bit of what camp was like for their kids. The real reason we have family night is so we have an excuse for the parents to take their little kids back, leaving us with the ones who are capable of taking showers without being reminded, the ones who don’t immediately begin weeping at the sound of an airhorn, and the ones who know that may not really be the Lion King in that square.
Prior to family night, we put the campers through the proverbial ringer. After breakfast, worship, and class, we have the annual Tug-O-War competition and the Big Blue Ball.
If you thought kids don’t start lacing up their cleats (or enormous hiking boots that provide no competitive advantage whatsoever) for Tug-O-War, you’d be wrong. After approximately 20 matchups, we crowned a champion. Then we moved on.
The Big Blue Ball is a 6 to 7 (depending on how much time you spend filling it up) foot tall inflatable blue ball. Technically, the object is to push the ball back to your team’s cone, knocking it down, and earning points for your team. In actuality, if you are over the age of 15, you have one of two distinct goals: 1) Try not to sweat by standing as far away from the ball as possible and maintaining your swagger (I’m pretty sure that’s the modern day equivalent of “looking cool”) or 2) Run at the ball as hard as you can in hopes of paralyzing the person on the other side of it. This will be one of my favorite parts of camp each year until the day someone actually gets paralyzed by the Big Blue Ball. (LINK TO LAST YEAR’S POST ON CODY’S TRUCK) There were only two or three shots worth noting: One dislocated a rib (who knew?), and the other sent one of the youth ministers parallel to the ground. Good times.
That was the morning. After lunch and guys’ creek time, we dusted off the Slip-n-Slide, in its new old location. More slope, less air, more rocks to run across, less rocks to slide across. You win some, you lose some. News from the Slip-n-Slide: a concussion-free year.
Straight from the Slip-n-Slide, we headed back down to the creek for the mud pit. The mud pit is patch of dirt that we dug up probably 4 years ago. One of the counselors considers this mud pit his baby. He tills it annually and, this year, he brought up a fire hose, paired it with a water pump provided by one of the other staff, and we pumped the mud pit full of an endless supply of creek water.
For the first year ever, I didn’t get in the creek or the mud pit all week (aside from standing in up to my ankles, holding the fire hose to fill it up). Some streaks have to come to an end (though I’m still not going to spend my own money on a Starbucks drink).
After all that, we reunited camper and parent. I’m sure the parents thought their kids hadn’t bathed all week. That was probably true for a couple of them. We showed the lip-dub and the camp slide show, announced the Campers of the Week, sang another round of “Ish Convish Conductor”, crowned the team champions for the week, and shipped off the young ones.
We then had some free time before we cranked up the Thursday Night Devo. Part of this time was given to the Lipscomb counselors to give their pitch for the alma mater. As they provide free labor for the week, it seems only fair we give them half an hour to convince our East Nashville kids to drop $80,000 on an education. As the rest of the staff broke from our meeting, I hustled up to the mess hall to see if I could catch the last of the presentation. I walked into a dance party. Lipscomb: Clearly not as conservative as Freed.
The Thursday Night Devo is a devotional for the older kids that’s at a little deeper level than the rest of the week. As the week’s theme was “By Faith,” the event began with blindfolds and packing the kids into church vans. As the youth ministers approached from attempting to disorient the kids by driving around in circles, one van pulled up singing “Ish Convish Conductor.” Seriously, this song is the musical equivalent of the plague. The ministers unloaded the unseeing on the softball field and told them to find “an object.”
There was no object.
A couple of exercises in faith later, the kids removed the blindfolds and realized they had somehow ended up in the middle of the woods. A couple of the staff had built a fire. As we arrived, it was burning green. I’m no expert on fire, but the burning in my throat confirmed my suspicion that the green flames probably were not a good thing. Poison Ivy of the lungs, all around.
Five songs into the devo, the fire was all but out. No big deal. Just makes it easier to see the stars. A few songs later, we sang “Light the Fire,” and God threw us a bone and rekindled the flame a little. No Elijah consuming the rocks kind of thing, but kind of cool nonetheless.
The devo ended a little before 11, and the kids were given free time for the rest of the night. Usually, bedtime is set at 3 am on Friday morning. Because, if you had just spent a week of sleep-deprived activity that is designed to be both physically and mentally draining, what else would you want to do besides stay up until 3?
More dance party was followed by the annual counselor basketball game. Due to my foot being about as sturdy as instant mashed potatoes, I pulled out my referee shirt and whistle to ref the game. Before halftime, I retired. Mostly because I had only called 3 fouls, wasn’t really interested in the game, wasn’t really feeling the growing competitiveness amongst the staff, and loved being told how terrible I was at reffing. Church camp. Plus, there was an angel sitting on the sidelines willing to scratch my head throughout the game… Pretty easy decision.
I went to bed early, at 2. I went to sleep less early, at 4:30. Thanks, guys.
In short (via long, quite long), it was an awesome week with awesome people. Thanks for reading... Next time will be totally unrelated.
Day five is the last day of camp for the younger kids. We have family night where we invite up all the parents and siblings so they can see a little bit of what camp was like for their kids. The real reason we have family night is so we have an excuse for the parents to take their little kids back, leaving us with the ones who are capable of taking showers without being reminded, the ones who don’t immediately begin weeping at the sound of an airhorn, and the ones who know that may not really be the Lion King in that square.
Prior to family night, we put the campers through the proverbial ringer. After breakfast, worship, and class, we have the annual Tug-O-War competition and the Big Blue Ball.
If you thought kids don’t start lacing up their cleats (or enormous hiking boots that provide no competitive advantage whatsoever) for Tug-O-War, you’d be wrong. After approximately 20 matchups, we crowned a champion. Then we moved on.
The Big Blue Ball is a 6 to 7 (depending on how much time you spend filling it up) foot tall inflatable blue ball. Technically, the object is to push the ball back to your team’s cone, knocking it down, and earning points for your team. In actuality, if you are over the age of 15, you have one of two distinct goals: 1) Try not to sweat by standing as far away from the ball as possible and maintaining your swagger (I’m pretty sure that’s the modern day equivalent of “looking cool”) or 2) Run at the ball as hard as you can in hopes of paralyzing the person on the other side of it. This will be one of my favorite parts of camp each year until the day someone actually gets paralyzed by the Big Blue Ball. (LINK TO LAST YEAR’S POST ON CODY’S TRUCK) There were only two or three shots worth noting: One dislocated a rib (who knew?), and the other sent one of the youth ministers parallel to the ground. Good times.
That was the morning. After lunch and guys’ creek time, we dusted off the Slip-n-Slide, in its new old location. More slope, less air, more rocks to run across, less rocks to slide across. You win some, you lose some. News from the Slip-n-Slide: a concussion-free year.
Straight from the Slip-n-Slide, we headed back down to the creek for the mud pit. The mud pit is patch of dirt that we dug up probably 4 years ago. One of the counselors considers this mud pit his baby. He tills it annually and, this year, he brought up a fire hose, paired it with a water pump provided by one of the other staff, and we pumped the mud pit full of an endless supply of creek water.
For the first year ever, I didn’t get in the creek or the mud pit all week (aside from standing in up to my ankles, holding the fire hose to fill it up). Some streaks have to come to an end (though I’m still not going to spend my own money on a Starbucks drink).
After all that, we reunited camper and parent. I’m sure the parents thought their kids hadn’t bathed all week. That was probably true for a couple of them. We showed the lip-dub and the camp slide show, announced the Campers of the Week, sang another round of “Ish Convish Conductor”, crowned the team champions for the week, and shipped off the young ones.
We then had some free time before we cranked up the Thursday Night Devo. Part of this time was given to the Lipscomb counselors to give their pitch for the alma mater. As they provide free labor for the week, it seems only fair we give them half an hour to convince our East Nashville kids to drop $80,000 on an education. As the rest of the staff broke from our meeting, I hustled up to the mess hall to see if I could catch the last of the presentation. I walked into a dance party. Lipscomb: Clearly not as conservative as Freed.
The Thursday Night Devo is a devotional for the older kids that’s at a little deeper level than the rest of the week. As the week’s theme was “By Faith,” the event began with blindfolds and packing the kids into church vans. As the youth ministers approached from attempting to disorient the kids by driving around in circles, one van pulled up singing “Ish Convish Conductor.” Seriously, this song is the musical equivalent of the plague. The ministers unloaded the unseeing on the softball field and told them to find “an object.”
There was no object.
A couple of exercises in faith later, the kids removed the blindfolds and realized they had somehow ended up in the middle of the woods. A couple of the staff had built a fire. As we arrived, it was burning green. I’m no expert on fire, but the burning in my throat confirmed my suspicion that the green flames probably were not a good thing. Poison Ivy of the lungs, all around.
Five songs into the devo, the fire was all but out. No big deal. Just makes it easier to see the stars. A few songs later, we sang “Light the Fire,” and God threw us a bone and rekindled the flame a little. No Elijah consuming the rocks kind of thing, but kind of cool nonetheless.
The devo ended a little before 11, and the kids were given free time for the rest of the night. Usually, bedtime is set at 3 am on Friday morning. Because, if you had just spent a week of sleep-deprived activity that is designed to be both physically and mentally draining, what else would you want to do besides stay up until 3?
More dance party was followed by the annual counselor basketball game. Due to my foot being about as sturdy as instant mashed potatoes, I pulled out my referee shirt and whistle to ref the game. Before halftime, I retired. Mostly because I had only called 3 fouls, wasn’t really interested in the game, wasn’t really feeling the growing competitiveness amongst the staff, and loved being told how terrible I was at reffing. Church camp. Plus, there was an angel sitting on the sidelines willing to scratch my head throughout the game… Pretty easy decision.
I went to bed early, at 2. I went to sleep less early, at 4:30. Thanks, guys.
In short (via long, quite long), it was an awesome week with awesome people. Thanks for reading... Next time will be totally unrelated.
Experts Did a Study
Let me expand a little further on this Hollywood Squares thing that has been mentioned previously… We have one counselor contestant, “Madeline”, who takes on a different camper contestant each day. The squares are filled with counselors or counselors dressed as characters. I wrote all that simply to list off some of the characters we have included. See below.
Dorothy of Oz fame, Monkey Man (pretty simple: a guy in a gorilla costume), someone impersonating one of the preachers who was up here with us, the Chiquita Banana lady, SPATA (this was a guy dressed as someone from 300), a silent fireman, Mario, Luigi, the Lion King (a lion costume with the Burger King guy’s head on top), and a Spider Monkey (Monkey Man wearing a Spiderman mask)… Not a bad lineup.
Yesterday was the day we were introduced to “Ish Convish Conductor.” Imagine Hanson’s “Mmm-Bop,” but in some mashup of Russian, German, and Hindi, and set to the tune of “Itsy-Bitsy Spider.” For those who were there, you remember. And now you will have this song stuck in your heads for the rest of the day. You’re welcome.
Yesterday, a couple of the girls began their quest of setting me up with one of the girl counselors. Yesterday, I discovered teenage girls have no off switch. I don’t intend that to sound mean; in fact, bless their hearts. These girls spoke to me at every opportunity and never spoke of anything other than their girl counselor target for me. So, Mom, I have a confession to make… Kidding. I will not announce true love via a post on here [NOTE: still uncomfortable with the term “blog”].
Looking ahead to today, those girls decided to write me a note from Girl Counselor. As one of my duties is daily mail call, I received my note while Girl Counselor was sitting across the table helping sort mail. It’s one thing when guys try to write like girls. It’s a whole ‘nother animal when girls try to write as other girls. I was sitting on about a 15% chance the note was real. I went with the odds. Within 10 minutes, one of the campers approached and admitted she wrote the note because she was “scared, and didn’t want me to think it was real.” Wimp. Bless your heart.
What else happened yesterday? Well, we filled up a few hundred water balloons. Some with soap. No pickle juice balloons this year. We used all of that in the Super Soakers. We made shields for the night games. These shields were supposed to be used to block a water balloon. We made the shields out of cardboard and Gorilla tape. We then charged kids points (the fake currency of choice) to buy the shields to protect themselves during our convoluted game of capture the flag. For the record, I am of the opinion that if you can’t get out of the way of a balloon, you can’t block said balloon with a cardboard shield. The suckers bought every one of them.
Finally, we closed out the night with an older kids’ devotional. We had it under a new pavilion they had built at the top of camp on the soccer/softball fields. While normally, I would want to not have a roof over my head at night up there in order to see the thousands of stars that span your view, last night was cloudy, so I was game. Turns out, not only was it cloudy, but the camp was surrounded by heat lightning strikes in the distance. It was pretty amazing to have praise time with a constant lightning show going on all around. Aside from the fact that the shelter basically served as a sauna (or perhaps one of those heat boxes you see on movies like Cool Hand Luke) in the 95 degree heat at 10:30 at night, it was a pretty awesome devo. Another day down…
Primer for tomorrow: Blue Ball.
Dorothy of Oz fame, Monkey Man (pretty simple: a guy in a gorilla costume), someone impersonating one of the preachers who was up here with us, the Chiquita Banana lady, SPATA (this was a guy dressed as someone from 300), a silent fireman, Mario, Luigi, the Lion King (a lion costume with the Burger King guy’s head on top), and a Spider Monkey (Monkey Man wearing a Spiderman mask)… Not a bad lineup.
Yesterday was the day we were introduced to “Ish Convish Conductor.” Imagine Hanson’s “Mmm-Bop,” but in some mashup of Russian, German, and Hindi, and set to the tune of “Itsy-Bitsy Spider.” For those who were there, you remember. And now you will have this song stuck in your heads for the rest of the day. You’re welcome.
Yesterday, a couple of the girls began their quest of setting me up with one of the girl counselors. Yesterday, I discovered teenage girls have no off switch. I don’t intend that to sound mean; in fact, bless their hearts. These girls spoke to me at every opportunity and never spoke of anything other than their girl counselor target for me. So, Mom, I have a confession to make… Kidding. I will not announce true love via a post on here [NOTE: still uncomfortable with the term “blog”].
Looking ahead to today, those girls decided to write me a note from Girl Counselor. As one of my duties is daily mail call, I received my note while Girl Counselor was sitting across the table helping sort mail. It’s one thing when guys try to write like girls. It’s a whole ‘nother animal when girls try to write as other girls. I was sitting on about a 15% chance the note was real. I went with the odds. Within 10 minutes, one of the campers approached and admitted she wrote the note because she was “scared, and didn’t want me to think it was real.” Wimp. Bless your heart.
What else happened yesterday? Well, we filled up a few hundred water balloons. Some with soap. No pickle juice balloons this year. We used all of that in the Super Soakers. We made shields for the night games. These shields were supposed to be used to block a water balloon. We made the shields out of cardboard and Gorilla tape. We then charged kids points (the fake currency of choice) to buy the shields to protect themselves during our convoluted game of capture the flag. For the record, I am of the opinion that if you can’t get out of the way of a balloon, you can’t block said balloon with a cardboard shield. The suckers bought every one of them.
Finally, we closed out the night with an older kids’ devotional. We had it under a new pavilion they had built at the top of camp on the soccer/softball fields. While normally, I would want to not have a roof over my head at night up there in order to see the thousands of stars that span your view, last night was cloudy, so I was game. Turns out, not only was it cloudy, but the camp was surrounded by heat lightning strikes in the distance. It was pretty amazing to have praise time with a constant lightning show going on all around. Aside from the fact that the shelter basically served as a sauna (or perhaps one of those heat boxes you see on movies like Cool Hand Luke) in the 95 degree heat at 10:30 at night, it was a pretty awesome devo. Another day down…
Primer for tomorrow: Blue Ball.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Slipping with Miss Olympia
So today it caught up with me. I was physically incapable of rising and shining early this morning. Thus, I slept in… All the way until 7:30. Since I’ve put off writing about yesterday until 2:00 today, we’ll see how this goes.
I began building up my base burn (similar to a base tan, but for pale people) at the beginning of the week, but it hit its stride yesterday morning. The day was fairly uneventful until the afternoon. One of the other counselors and I were responsible for setting up the slip-n-slide (SNS). We made a bold call and moved it to a new site from the location it had held for 4 or 5 years.
You see, we use billboards for the SNS. [NOTE: One of these billboards includes a picture of Mr. and Miss Olympia scantily clad (see biceps above), so it’s always a good time to roll that one out.] This year we had 3 billboards, a one billboard improvement over last year. So we decided to move the SNS from the steeper 2-billboard location to the longer, more eventful 3-billboard location. The new location includes a lovely dip halfway through as opposed to the run of the mill free-fall at the old.
To say the SNS move was met with resistance would be one large understatement. We were trash-talked by campers and counselors alike. Most of this was probably because a vast majority of the camp population was incapable of making it to the bottom. Honestly, the potential enjoyment was higher for the large kids than the small ones, but even then it seems only one person could get air on the aforementioned dip. As a result, we’re moving the SNS back tomorrow.
The second of my three point sermon involves Ultimate Frisbee, yesterday’s free time game of choice. In a surprising turn of events, no one cried. There were some emotions running fairly strong, but everyone came out alright. Lesson learned from Ultimate: When you’re barefoot, it’s not worth trying to tap your toes in bounds. For that reason alone I had to backspace over “no one bled” earlier in this paragraph. [Editor’s Note: On the day after camp ended, I was walking to my laundry room when I blasted my pinkie toe on the door frame. After the queasiness subsided, I realized the last week of my life has been an effort to turn my right foot into instant mashed potatoes.]
Finally, we closed out the night with another camp standard: a variation of what we have so wittily titled Numerical Seek and Find. Basically, the kids have to find all the counselors in a specific order using only yes or no questions. This one we spun off as the Amazing Race. It lasted almost three episodes of the actual show... Five if you have TiVo and skip the commercials. Don’t worry though, the kids never complained about running around outside in 90 degree heat for almost 3 hours. If this were the 90s, that sentence would have been followed by the word “psych.”
That was the clean stuff. While we all know church camp is generally a wholesome environment. However, most of us are also aware that that environment can serve as a conduit for shenanigans. If you’re easily offended or like general hygiene, do us both a favor and stop reading. For the rest of you who have toughed it out, allow me to share a shenanigan.
The following has been edited to fit your screen and for content. Asterisks do not indicate profanity. This story includes some instances of both fiction and non-fiction. I will identify the fiction and non-fiction at the beginning, but it is up to you to make the determination after that.
We went to church camp [non-fiction]. There were pterodactyls flying around everywhere [fiction]. When we arrived at camp, we discovered the middle school boys’ cabin had a small **** in the *****. Nearly a perfect circle, it measured probably 6 inches in diameter. [NOTE: That’s a 3 inch radius and the area would be 9π. Free math lesson for the younger audience.] It only took the high school guys until Tuesday to decide what to do with said ****. Clearly, that decision was to drop a ***** in the ****. I mean that quite literally.
Piecing together the several reports I was given, the middle school guys returned to their cabin after lunch and checked the **** as they had done every time they returned to the cabin. Only this time there was *** in the ****. Further investigations led to the discovery that the **** itself was not the original destination of the aforementioned ***** ********. It was coined “an extraction job.” The contributor used the standard ********, donned the rubber gloves required by Kentucky state law to be in the cabins, and retrieved the jewel. He then placed the trophy in a plastic bag and moved the product to the cabin next door, dropping it to its final resting place.
Editor's Note: As we look into the future, via the past, there was no hint of retribution for the asterisk act above. Back in my day... well, nevermind.
I began building up my base burn (similar to a base tan, but for pale people) at the beginning of the week, but it hit its stride yesterday morning. The day was fairly uneventful until the afternoon. One of the other counselors and I were responsible for setting up the slip-n-slide (SNS). We made a bold call and moved it to a new site from the location it had held for 4 or 5 years.
You see, we use billboards for the SNS. [NOTE: One of these billboards includes a picture of Mr. and Miss Olympia scantily clad (see biceps above), so it’s always a good time to roll that one out.] This year we had 3 billboards, a one billboard improvement over last year. So we decided to move the SNS from the steeper 2-billboard location to the longer, more eventful 3-billboard location. The new location includes a lovely dip halfway through as opposed to the run of the mill free-fall at the old.
To say the SNS move was met with resistance would be one large understatement. We were trash-talked by campers and counselors alike. Most of this was probably because a vast majority of the camp population was incapable of making it to the bottom. Honestly, the potential enjoyment was higher for the large kids than the small ones, but even then it seems only one person could get air on the aforementioned dip. As a result, we’re moving the SNS back tomorrow.
The second of my three point sermon involves Ultimate Frisbee, yesterday’s free time game of choice. In a surprising turn of events, no one cried. There were some emotions running fairly strong, but everyone came out alright. Lesson learned from Ultimate: When you’re barefoot, it’s not worth trying to tap your toes in bounds. For that reason alone I had to backspace over “no one bled” earlier in this paragraph. [Editor’s Note: On the day after camp ended, I was walking to my laundry room when I blasted my pinkie toe on the door frame. After the queasiness subsided, I realized the last week of my life has been an effort to turn my right foot into instant mashed potatoes.]
Finally, we closed out the night with another camp standard: a variation of what we have so wittily titled Numerical Seek and Find. Basically, the kids have to find all the counselors in a specific order using only yes or no questions. This one we spun off as the Amazing Race. It lasted almost three episodes of the actual show... Five if you have TiVo and skip the commercials. Don’t worry though, the kids never complained about running around outside in 90 degree heat for almost 3 hours. If this were the 90s, that sentence would have been followed by the word “psych.”
That was the clean stuff. While we all know church camp is generally a wholesome environment. However, most of us are also aware that that environment can serve as a conduit for shenanigans. If you’re easily offended or like general hygiene, do us both a favor and stop reading. For the rest of you who have toughed it out, allow me to share a shenanigan.
The following has been edited to fit your screen and for content. Asterisks do not indicate profanity. This story includes some instances of both fiction and non-fiction. I will identify the fiction and non-fiction at the beginning, but it is up to you to make the determination after that.
We went to church camp [non-fiction]. There were pterodactyls flying around everywhere [fiction]. When we arrived at camp, we discovered the middle school boys’ cabin had a small **** in the *****. Nearly a perfect circle, it measured probably 6 inches in diameter. [NOTE: That’s a 3 inch radius and the area would be 9π. Free math lesson for the younger audience.] It only took the high school guys until Tuesday to decide what to do with said ****. Clearly, that decision was to drop a ***** in the ****. I mean that quite literally.
Piecing together the several reports I was given, the middle school guys returned to their cabin after lunch and checked the **** as they had done every time they returned to the cabin. Only this time there was *** in the ****. Further investigations led to the discovery that the **** itself was not the original destination of the aforementioned ***** ********. It was coined “an extraction job.” The contributor used the standard ********, donned the rubber gloves required by Kentucky state law to be in the cabins, and retrieved the jewel. He then placed the trophy in a plastic bag and moved the product to the cabin next door, dropping it to its final resting place.
Editor's Note: As we look into the future, via the past, there was no hint of retribution for the asterisk act above. Back in my day... well, nevermind.
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