This post will not be read by the people seeing it on my Facebook or Twitter feeds. Instead, it will be specifically sought out by a small fraction of the Internet who grew up in an explicitly Christian culture. I will become the #1 source when someone Googles “Hold On by Michael W. Smith McGee and Me Soundtrack”.
If you happened to grow up like I did, you were born in the early 1980s and were at church at least twice a week.
And on those days where the teacher was out in Children’s Church (the class where all the kids went during the main church service on Sunday mornings), you walked into the room to see a TV set up with a McGee and Me! VHS set up.
The series consisted of the protagonist Nick (played by Joseph Dammann) who liked draw. That alone was enough reason for me to like the show since I shared the same name and hobby as the main character.
Nick’s doodle, McGee, helped him navigate through moral decisions. Each episode contained an awesome original song composed by James Covell.
All together, there were about a dozen of McGee and Me! episodes. Perhaps the rarest one was “Take Me out of the Ball Game,” which was the only one not to contain a James Covell song.
Instead, its feature song was “Hold On,” by the legendary Michael W. Smith. Strangely, this song was not featured on any other Michael W. Smith album, nor was it on the CD version of the soundtrack; it was only on the cassette version, which I owned.
Another thing that made this song more rare and unheard, was that in addition to the episode being harder to purchase because it was released after the peak of the series popularity, the song was not featured during the action sequence of the episode, but instead during the closing credits.
But as a 6th grader who got my hands on the cassette tape version of the McGee and Me! soundtrack, I didn’t know any of this. I just knew I loved the song.
In fact, I bought my first portable cassette player especially so I could listen to this soundtrack. All the songs were amazing, but my favorite was “Hold On” by Michael W. Smith.
I think it’s safe to say that the “new original song for every new episode” formula in my original webseries, Jack-Man, has something I learned from seeing McGee and Me! as a kid and loving the soundtrack.
Please feel free to share your own warm memories of McGee and Me! Show me I’m not alone in my nostalgic thoughts!
Last night I finished the 1989 movie, Back to the Future Part 2, which takes place in the future: October 2015.
I suppose now that I’m officially living in the future, it’s quite appropriate that I announce that as of last night at 9:01 PM, I am now a smart phone owner.
That makes me the last cool person you know to finally get a smart phone.
At this point, who do you know who doesn’t have one? I literally don’t know anyone in my social circle who doesn’t have a smart phone.
In fact, it’s not unheard of here in the Nashville area to see a homeless man selling newspapers to people stopped at the red lights, but then to see him check his smart phone during the green lights when the cars are no longer stopped in front of him.
I’m not sure how that all works out, but obviously, it only proves how counter-cultural my own lack of a smart phone has made me up until now.
Here’s the truth: I kind of hate smart phones. Actually, if it were up to me (it’s not- it’s up to my wife), I wouldn’t own a cell phone at all.
Sure, it’s ironic that a blogger with a YouTube channel doesn’t like the idea of always being “connected and plugged in”.
It’s just that I refuse to become another cliché who looks down at my phone to acknowledge another Facebook “like” while you are trying to talk to me, face to face in real time. It’s perhaps my rebellion of that cliche that keeps from wanting to be so connected and plugged in.
After all, a guy I recently met at Whole Foods, Jarrid Wilson, did a blog post that went viral; which addresses this social issue: “Why I Am Getting a Divorce in 2014.”
He’s actually talking about “divorcing” his smart phone.
See, that’s the whole point. I despise the concept of naturally and gradually disconnecting from real life via a smart phone, allowing myself to believe the illusion that what’s going on in my Facebook feed is more important than my family right in front of me.
It reminds me of the 1980 Genesis song, “Turn It on Again”. The protagonist of the song watches TV so much that he begins to get lonely when the characters of his favorite shows aren’t on. I see a parallel with people who constantly check and update social media, via their smart phones:
“I can show you some of the people in my life
It’s driving me mad just another way of passing the day
I, I get so lonely when she’s not there
Turn it on, turn it on, turn it on again
Turn it on, turn it on, turn it on again
I can see another face”
Someone on my Facebook page for Family Friendly Daddy Blog immediately asked me last night, after I posted my 1st official Instagram post (featured below), what made me decide to finally get a smart phone.
Here’s my answer:
After being with Verizon for at least a dozen years, things finally got to the point with where they no longer offered incentives to faithful customers like me to stay; customers who always paid on time; no more free phones, for sure. Those days are gone.
I even walked in to my Verizon store to calmly explain I would be leaving them if they couldn’t provide me a free “dumb phone” to keep my budget the same; since I was nearing the end of my latest 2 year contract.
Verizon sincerely yet simply apologized they could not. I tried.
This time around, it was going to cost just as much to have “regular service” with them, as it would to finally just get a smart phone.
So now my wife and I are with a hilariously named service provider called Puppy Wireless; which is basically a 3rd party that uses Verizon’s towers.
Here’s the one and only part of being a smart phone owner that excites me:
There’s a good chance I can grow my “blog business” because of it.
I now have access to Instagram, which means I am more attractive to Acorn, an influence company I have worked with a little on the side.
For example, I did a project for them earlier in the summer in which I promoted the mobile app game, Best Fiends, by featuring the product in a Jack-Man video I made, in lieu of an Instagram post.
With my Instagram account @nickshellwrites, which is the same as my Twitter handle, I am pretty sure I will find myself with a much steadier stream of blogging gigs through Acorn, which pays me to advertise for their clients.
Also with that in the pipeline, my YouTube channel has finally begun to start making me some money. Plus, in the near future, I will be featuring ads on my blog for Beacon Ads; a Christian company who found my “family friendly” daddy blog to be appropriate for their advertisers.
Over this next year, I am going to really be making a much more conscious effort to make my blog more of a business; not just a hobby.
And as much as I don’t want to admit it, a smart phone can be a great tool to help make that happen.
One of the main reasons I refused to get a smart phone all this time is because I refused to change my budget over it. But if I can make up the financial loss of having to pay for a data plan, not to mention my phone, I suppose it’s worth it if it also leads to me actually making money.
I am a bitter, cheap, old man. I just happen to only be 34 years old.
Sure, I have a smart phone now… but that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.
Tonight we were able to “practice Halloween” at your preschool with all your friends. You got to be the coolest person possible: Captain America.
It was funny because all your friends who were boys were also dressed up as super heroes; but there were conveniently no duplicates: Batman, Iron Man, Spiderman…
As for Mommy and me, we took a more minimalist approach:
Mommy wore a zebra mask and I wore my cave man hat which I’ve owned for years.
(At Target, your costume only cost us $10 and Mommy’s mask was only $3.)
I like the fact you wanted to make sure your stuffed animal, Kitty, was dressed in costume too; as a baby in a onesie.
And by the way, you got a whole lot of candy! The proportion of candy-to-kids was definitely in your favor.
However, there’s a decent chance it’s going to rain on Saturday, which is Halloween.
So even though we are finally moved in to a nice suburban neighborhood where we can truly just walk door to door, instead of driving to a decent place, we may get rained out! Therefore, tonight served as our back-up plan to that happening to us.
And to set the mood for Halloween, I let you watch the 1984 Steven Spielberg movie, Gremlins; which is currently free on Amazon Prime right now.
I admit to having a few reservations in that it, along with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Jones, were the very first movies to be released under the PG-13 rating; as opposed to PG.
Granted, you watched Ant-Man and it was no issue for you.
I don’t regret my decision. You didn’t recognize the bad words, since to you, “stupid” is the one that concerns you the most right now.
And though parts of it are obviously creepy and violent, it was nothing you hadn’t seen on Goosebumps. I’m not saying I recommend showing Gremlins to all 5 year-olds, but I feel confident in us being able to enjoy it together.
You were on the edge on your seat the whole time, and you loved Gizmo. Not to mention, you’ve already proclaimed that when we go to Nonna and Papa’s house next time, you’ll be bringing home my old Gizmo doll.
This past weekend, exactly two months before Christmas, our family bought our first official artificial Christmas tree. I call in our “clip-on tie” Christmas tree.
I am very pleased with it. Not only did we only pay $30 for it by the time we used our Lowe’s coupon, but the tree came pre-lit!
It’s no secret that while I am gifted in the creative department, I am completely bankrupt when it comes to mechanical skills.
But there was nothing complicated about assembling this tree. I just took it out of the box and stuck it in its stand.
The tree came in two halves with a connected cord for the lights. So I just simply spread out the twigs like a fan and was done.
In the 7 years Mommy and I have been married, we never really bothered to get a little Christmas tree since we lived in a townhouse and opened the presents at Nonna and Papa’s house anyway.
Things changed this year, though. We have our own real house.
Romantically Mommy and I liked the idea of a real tree, but Mommy didn’t like the idea of the mess it would bring in our new house, and I didn’t like the idea of having to set it up.
So a 4 and a half foot tall “clip-on” tie version of a Christmas tree ended up being the perfect fit for our family.
As I was taking care of the tree, Mommy was wrapping the gifts for our extended family, while listening to traditional Christmas music on YouTube.
Christmas is about 2 months away, but our tree is up and the gifts are bought and wrapped.
With all the inevitable upcoming holiday clichés, like “the hustle and bustle of Christmas,” this is our family’s attempt to get ahead of the stress.
Mommy is now officially one week into in her 2nd trimester with you. I have noticed her nausea has seemed to have majorly subsided since crossing that line.
However, her hunger cravings are on still on full speed! And as for me, I’m along for the ride and enjoying it…
After all, it’s only right that I should “sympathize” with her hunger cravings. The best way for me to do so is to join Mommy on this!
She and your brother Jack made some vegan chocolate chip cookies this weekend. And yesterday, Mommy had me pick up some vegan cake from Whole Foods.
(And Halloween is coming up this weekend. I can only imagine the temptations Mommy will face!)
Until now, we’ve never kept fruit juice in the house, because truthfully, it’s just sugar water with vitamins. It’s a processed food so we stay away from it. Once the sugar is extracted from the fruit’s fiber, so much of the nutrition is gone and it just becomes a classier form of high calorie junk food; mostly empty calories.
But here lately, Mommy has been craving grape juice, so now we always keep some in the fridge.
It had been about 6 years since I had enjoyed a nice full glass of grape juice. Because I used to have eczema (dyshidrosis), I had to stop drinking juice because it always instantly flared up my rashes.
But now that I’ve been a vegan for 2 and a half years, I guess it somehow flushed out my body of the toxins causing my eczema to even go back into remission.
Therefore, I discovered that I can now get away with drinking grape juice again! It’s like candy to me!
I see it as a bad habit that I am enjoying a little too much right now. However, this is the time to live it up. (I’ll need to pull the plug on that once you are born, though.)
Your development inside of Mommy’s tummy is causing her to crave more of stuff she wouldn’t normally want. So I might as well enjoy a little bit of the fun along the way.
