I’m writing from my room on the eighth floor of the Omni Hotel in downtown Atlanta. Actually, it’s my friend Paul George’s hotel room, and he gave me a cot in the corner.

I have an hour before I have anything to do, so I am enjoying laying here in bed, watching “This Old House” on the TV, then looking out the huge window onto the Atlanta Skyline. Then I look at this laptop. The room is at the end of the hall, and we have a huge bay window that opens up the view of the skyscrapers of Downtown and Midtown. Last night it was a quiet thrill to look out over the sparkling city. I’ve always loved city lights, and I always will.

I am here in Atlanta for the National Catholic Youth Conference, known by everyone here as NCYC. Youth groups come in from around the country every two years to the host city for several days of talks, entertainment, and hang out time. The attendance this year is low, about 17,000 teenagers. In years past, it’s been almost twice that. But regardless, that’s still a lot of teenagers.

The thing to do here is to build up the personality of your group. You wear matching shirts, hats, or whatever makes you look most ridiculous. You make friends with other groups by trading little gizmos or trinkets. A group from Texas might have little cowboy pins, and a group from Lima, Ohio, will give away baggies of lima beans. It’s silly circus of teenagers, but it helps people get to know each other.

Life Teen has sponsored two concert stages, and we have a large booth set up where we tell people about our youth group program, our summer camps, and we sell T-shirts. In the past few NCYCs, I’ve given sessions where people come and sit down in a room while I talk. This year I am an MC for one of our stages. I’m glad that my role has changed, because I do not have the energy to prepare for a session to entertain, engage, and inspire teenagers in a tight forty-five minutes.

All day every day I work on lifeteen.com, a site for Catholic teenagers. And here I am; at the National Catholic Youth Conference, and I am stunned by how many teenagers that don’t know about our website. I mean, this is our target demographic, and it looks to me like we are failing. We should have a Greyhound bus wrapped with “lifeteen.com”, parked right in the front of the convention center.

It’s just; weird feeling to have spinning in my chest…a mix of disappointment and frustration.; Am I frustrated because I am impatient? Or am I frustrated because I’m tired of working so hard for so long by myself? I just can’t understand why the 17,000 teenagers in the arena two blocks from here don’t know about my website dedicated to them.

Well, my hour is up. It’s time to go downstairs and introduce some bands.