Supafly.com

So last week we launched CatholicYouthMinistry.com after twelve consecutive months of hard work. To date, this is the most comprehensive website I’ve lead from napkin sketch to production. The website could’ve been built in half the time, but I wanted to include everyone at Life Teen in the project so they could offer input and get a first-hand experience of how the Web Team manages a multitude of priorities. If this were a web design and development blog, I could write for days about the victories within the project, but this is my personal blog and I’m trying to keep this from feeling like work.

But before I move on, let’s talk about the privilege of having a job. I think it’s only fair that if you are employed right now, you should stop and be thankful for what you have. Be positive in your workplace and do good work. There are many people who would love to have your “worries” in exchange for a paycheck. As my barber told me yesterday: “I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man with no feet.”

I am NOT excited to restart classes in the MBA program. I’ve needed this winter break like Wall Street needed a bailout. The high expectations of both school and work totally wore me out in the last months of 2009, and I cannot say that I’ve regained my strength. But like it or not, I have an accounting class on Wednesday.

Sometimes I get confused about how to make priorities in this messy world. I mean, right now there are countless people buried alive in the rubble in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The earthquake has left people with so much suffering…I cannot even imagine. I got home from work yesterday and turned on the news to get a more up close look at what people were going through. The news reporter told the story of a man who lost is wife beneath a collapsed building. The husband pressed his hand against a the rubble and held his ear to a concrete slab hoping to hear her tapping below. The tapping came and went. The husband and the rescue workers prayed and dug. The segment ended with the sad reality that they had not found his wife.

The thought of losing Candyce or Norah shreds my heart. I cannot imagine the pain this guy is experiencing. At this very moment, I am sure he is still digging for his wife. Me? I am at here at Starbucks at the airport typing on my laptop. What’s my biggest problem right now? I don’t want to go to class. What’s your problem?

How am I supposed to reconcile my life of privilege with the misfortune of others?

I don’t know if there is a clear way to keep my own life moving forward while still caring for the rest of the planet. I do what I can, even if it’s not enough. …I pray for those in need. I donate money to worthy causes…I volunteer my time…I try to be a caring friend and neighbor.

I try not to get enthralled in the dazzle of the material world. Because it’s hard to be a genuine person if you are easily impressed by fortune and fame. I do try to be successful in what I do–career, education, investments–but I constantly remind myself that this too shall pass.

Ultimately, I try to be the best husband and father that I can be. If every man made their family their top priority, much of our society’s ills would wash away.

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Honestly, I am still unsettled about this. About how to make daily priorities in such a messy world. I need to pray more about this. And right now I need to finish this so I can get on my plane. Boston here I come.

For Christmas I gave Candyce’s parents a custom built-in media storage next to their fireplace. The home was built in 2002 or 2003 back when few people had flat panel TVs. So the builder created a deep vertical recess in the wall next to the fireplace about the size of an old phone booth.  I guess the idea was to have a discreet place to tuck in a television, a DVD player, and your DVD collection.

Unfortunately, the recess just does not function well with a modern-day flat panel television. Most homeowners in the neighborhood choose to hang their TVs above their fireplace because there it is centered in the room and has ample width for wide screens.

My goal was to build a cabinet within the recess that would hide the family’s TV junk like the DVD player, Blu Ray Player, X-Box, Wii, and Tivo. Plus, there needed to be plenty of room for the gaming accessories including the DJ Hero turntable, Rock Band instruments, and the numerous game controllers. I felt like that corner of the home had way too much packed into it and it always stressed me out. Plus everyone tripped over the stuff on their way out the back door. It was a hot mess.

So take a look at the photos…after the click, be sure to read the notes on the lower left.

I chose to use Pine for the shelves and Oak stained gray and then weathered for the exterior. I felt that the room had too many competing warm wood tone and I didn’t want to add yet another. The weathered gray also looks like driftwood that gathers on the shore. It’s casual and beachy.

Some details I added:

• Full-extension drawers
• Drilled holes with routed edges at the back center of each shelf. This makes it easy to feed wires up and down the cabinet
• The top half houses the media units that generate a lot of heat. The doors for this area will have stamped aluminum faces that will allow for plenty of air circulation.
• I plan on building custom bins made of Poplar to store DVDs, games, and controllers. Two bins will fit side-by-side on two shelves.

I believe that I would’ve gotten the project finished had it not been for the rain that slowed the drying of the stain on the wood. I look forward to finishing it in the future.