Supafly.com

It’s been a long but exciting day for lifeteen.com and nomoho.com. I worked on the online store on lifeteen.com almost all day. It’s so beautiful to watch it all come together. This store is going for our ministry for two reasons:

1. We can start bringing in money through the website. Since I started working for lifeteen.com in 2001, we have not brought in any money. It’s seen as an “investment” in our ministry, but because it doesn’t bring in money, I have to pinch pennies every fifteen seconds. So once the website can start being a source of income, I’ll have more help to run the site, which will give me more creative freedom to make the site what it should be: fresh, exciting, and quality.

2. It can showcase what we do. With an online store, we are able to show visitors to the website what we do. Sometimes they come to the site they think that’s all there is to our organization, but in reality we have 980 parish Life Teen programs, three summer camps, and dozens of conferences throughout the year. On top of all of that, we have written and created resources that can really help a lot of churches do better work: things like books, training manuals, retreat guides, training DVDS, etc. Plus, we have cool shirts that teens really want, but could never get. When all of that is nicely organized in our online store, it becomes more like an online showcase.

::::::::

So now an update on nomoho.com. I don’t know if I’ve written about this in the past month, but I FINALLY got the custom-made NoMoHo belt buckle in the mail. It looks terrific–everything I wanted. So I called the manufacturer and gave them the go-ahead to make the rest of the buckles. This is so good because I’ve spent the past year working with different manufacturers to find the best buckle at the best price, and now it’s finally coming together.
I took down the old nomoho.com yesterday so I can start loading it with a Yahoo! Store. It took a while to figure out how I wanted to host the store, and I concluded that Yahoo! had the most reliable and easy-to-use store, all the while good looking. So now I’m tearing through the step-by-step process to get the store online. At the same time, I’m researching to find the most reliable and economical print shop to create the shirts. The designs are already done, so once I find the right business, it’ll all happen pretty quickly.

My sister is compiling all the email addresses from my guestbook here on supafly.com, so I’ll be able to let everyone know that the site is up. I’m always traveling, so I’ll be able to promote the site throughout the country through the rest of the fall and into the winter. But honestly, I don’t think I’m going to have to work too hard to get the word out because people are already really excited about the site, and it’s not even cool yet. I hope the word will spread.

Once the site is up, the next step is to customize my Honda Element and ‘54 Chevy to promote the site. I’ve decided to do the Element first because it’s my daily driver and it’ll bring more exposure. Plus, the Chevy will be mostly just me working on it, so I’d rather do that later in the year when it’s cooler outside so I can work on it in my garage.

When the cars are done is when I’ll begin putting together press releases to bring some traffic to the website. This is going to be particularly fun, but I don’t want to spoil any of the fun, so I’ll avoid writing about it.

::::

Summary
For both of these websites, the work is hard and takes up a lot of time. I know that this will all pay off soon, and I will be thankful that I gave it all I had. Success is built on a clear vision, hard work, and tenacity. It’s going to be awesome when it all comes together.
All of this work on my other sites has meant I have not updated this website as much as I’d like. I’m realizing that I can’t multitask as well as I did a year ago–mostly because I’m doing more now that I was a year ago. Plus, the idea of “multitasking” can be an illusion that business=productivity, and that’s rarely the case. When I can, I take it one thing at a time.

I’m beginning to think that I need to wait and remodel my kitchen in the spring of next year, rather than in the next couple months. The biggest reason is because I need to focus and get nomoho.com up, but also because it’s not good to do remodeling projects through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. Everyone goes on vacation and you are left with an incomplete kitchen. We’ll see.

A;lot’s happened. So here we go…

Candyce’s Birthday Week
I’ve dedicated last week to celebrating Candyce’s 22nd birthday. Each day of the week I tried to do something special, all leading to Thursday night when we made dinner at my house. We had so much fun leaning back in our big chairs in the backyard sipping wine and eating our favorite things.

We had her birthday dinner on Thursday night even though Friday was her birthday because I was scheduled to travel to St. Louis this weekend. But earlier in the week I figured out that I wasn’t even going to St. Louis, which sucks because Candyce planned a trip to San Diego to spend the weekend with her family, rather than sit at home all alone on her birthday. So I booked a ticket to San Diego and prepared for the grand surprise.

It was a thrill to drive Candyce to the airport, knowing that she thought I was hopping on a plane to St. Louis. I printed out my boarding pass and then showed it to her. Her jaw dropped and she looked at me like something was wrong and right at the same time. An hour and a half later, we’re having lunch in La Jolla overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Random Fun and Inspiration
One thing I love about weekends in San Diego is I usually get a lot of creative inspiration from unexpected places. Like after lunch we drove up the Pacific Coast Highway and stopped off at surf shop. I was excited to look at how surfer and skater clothes are evolving. For the past five years, it’s been the same thing: T-shirts with logos. It was a bore to look at new stuff because it was never new. But now it’s getting more edgy and artsy. As a designer, it was inspiring to flip through racks of clothes.

We did a few fun things over the weekend that stick out: Saturday morning cartoons, a soccer game, and college football. I haven’t watched Saturday morning cartoons in a long time, but I couldn’t believe how many shows from my childhood they’ve reinvented. I don’t know if this is a new thing, but they have a new G. I. Joe called “Sigma Six” with the same characters from 20 years ago. Except now the animation is a mix of cell-shaded 3D and traditional animation. The scenes were more dynamic and explosive. It was quite a creative upgrade from the original show. I’m almost 27, and I think I’m going to Tivo that show. They also have a newer “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

The next fun thing was later that afternoon seeing Candyce’s youngest sister play soccer. She’s maybe eight years old, and to watch little girls that age play soccer is just funny. They have so much energy and emotion and still manage to have fun. Her team name was “The Jolly Ranchers” and the other team was–get this–”The Smashing Pumpkins.” How cool is that? I sat in front of Billy Corgan five years ago at the MTV Video Music Awards. I wonder if he knows that little girls soccer teams are naming themselves after his band.

Candyce’s dad is the coach, so I had fun with that. I showed all the exaggerated responses of a soccer mom. The other team would get close to scoring on us, and I’d stand up and throw my hands in the air, and turn my back to the field, pace around in circles, and then sit back down before doing it all over again. I’d run up to John after a time-out and harass him about his team’s performance. I’d yell out stupid things that made no sense: Give ‘em the heater! Don’t make the monkey mumble! Get ‘em on the up swing! I’d encourage random girls on the field.

The last fun experience over the weekend was watching college football with the guys. I love college football, but I’ve been so busy traveling over the past several years that I’ve had no chance to watch games except in bars at the airport. So to hang out with Danny, Johnny, and John on the couch in front of the big screen was a lot of fun.

September 11
Yesterday was September 11th, so I started the day by praying the rosary while I walked around the neighborhood. I don’t know how to deal with commemorating a day like that, but I figured prayer was the best I had do give. It was the perfect morning too. The air was chilly enough to make the morning sun feel good on my shoulders. I love the fall.

Last night was the very first Life Teen Mass at St. Pat’s, Candyce’s family’s church in Carlsbad. Candyce’s mom has worked hard for two years to make this day happen, so it was really beautiful to be there when it all finally came together. I was asked to speak at the beginning of the Life Night to get things started. I was so impressed with how many kids came for the night. This is the beginning of a very good thing at St. Pat’s. It’s going to become a fun, loving, and exciting place for teenagers. It’s going to become my church when I’m in San Diego.

Back in Arizona
This morning was kind of random. John had rented an Impala earlier in the week for a business trip, and we used it to get to the airport. But as we were loading in, I heard him talking about treasure hunting with a friend on his cell phone, and those conversations always go one for a while. So I asked if I should drive, and he handed me the keys. It was such a random experience having my girlfriend’s dad in the back seat of the car while I drove his car.

Back in Arizona…Candyce and I went to Einstein’s for a late breakfast before I dropped her off at school. It was a good day at work. Even though I was tired from lack of sleep, I was refreshed by a fun weekend. It was fun catching up with friends at the Studio and getting back to work.

This is going to be a big week of loading the online store on lifeteen.com during the day, and at night working on the re-launch of nomoho.com.

It’s been difficult to see all of the pain and suffering that people of New Orleans are going through–especially because I used to live there. I’m happy to keep lifeteen.com updated with the stories of people close by who are trying to help out. It’s been crazy at work…I’m so tired. But events like this hurricane and the flooding really put life in perspective. I am blessed.

It’s Labor Day Weekend, and I couldn’t be more excited. It’s been an intense week at work. Hurricane Katrina hit, and I’ve tried to keep lifeteen.com updated with relevant content. Our friend Paul George has been a key figure in a refuge effort an hour outside of New Orleans. He sent me email updates and photos that I in turn posted to the site.

Any week on lifeteen.com is insanely busy. We update the site at least 30 times each day. Adam Robo and I work like madmen to keep it all together. So keeping the Katrina feature updated adds to the insanity. On top of that, I’ve spent most of the week loading the online store. This includes sorting through thousands of Carlos’s photos, formatting graphics, reviewing inventory, writing product descriptions, and entering it all into the backend. Each product requires over 250 mouse-click decisions just to enter it into the store. When you consider we have 150+ products to enter-in the store, you can see it’s a big project.

I’m beginning to realize that many people within Life Teen do not understand how hard Adam and I work each day to make the website come to life. It’s not that they don’t care–they just don’t know. I’m not looking down on them, but they are too busy with their own responsibilities to spend time trying to grasp my own responsibilities. This becomes a big issue when people expect more of us and we’re already giving all we have.

The website has become a cornerstone of our ministry, and everyone wants to be represented on the site. But nobody knows how much work we come into everyday; there is literally not enough time to do anything more. There’s no time to clear up misunderstandings through meetings or conference calls. We need two more people on staff before we can even answer the phone or reply to someone’s email.

So I took three hours this morning—my Saturday morning–to calculate how much BIGGER the new site is than the old one. Maybe hard numbers will help people understand me and Adam’s situation. I hate to use my Saturday morning like that, but something had to be done. I have three pages of stats, but here’s what stands out the most:

Number of Pages of Content:
V1: 562
V2: 3,868
=688% larger

Page Views / Month
V1: 610,000
V2: 3,000,030
=491% larger

So when we go back to the studio after Labor day, I’ll give these numbers to Mark and see what it means in the bigger picture. I’m hoping that these statistics will open people’s eyes to the impact of the website, and what we need to do to make the most of it. That’s when I can explain that the solution isn’t expecting us to do more, it’s about getting us help so we CAN do more.