Supafly.com

Today is the third day of my month of staying away from the studio. I still check my email, get back to phone calls, and have a meeting here and there. But for the most part, I am taking this month to get my life back together. I’ve worked too hard for too long, and my home life desperately needs some attention.

Before I left for Georgia, this was the list I compiled of things I need to do:

Outdoors:
- Take pictures while I do all of the landscape work
- Contact city to get permission to dig for new landscaping
- Cut down unhealthy Mesquite, plant a young Chilean Mesquite tree and a Bougainvillea vine on the corner of my lot. Make a metal trellis and attach it to the wall. Add fresh decorative gravel.
- Add landscaping mounds and a dry creek bed in the front yard, plant a Texas Ebony tree.
- Finish backyard with a concrete curb, three different kinds of rock, a weed barrier, and two new plants.
- Plant a wall of six Oleander trees in the backyard
- Install and paint outdoor shutters on the front of the house
- Spray weed preventer on all gravel surfaces
- Install security lighting around house
- Install two new ceiling fans in the back porch.
- Touch up paint
- Train the yellow-flower vine out front
- Plant ground cover out front to replace the hibiscus
- Paint all gates

Indoors:
- Demolition the kitchen and dining room
- Design and install new kitchen cabinets, appliances (this is a big job)
- Pull up all flooring in non-bedroom rooms
- Install new lighting and flooring
- Refinish dining room table
- Get rid of fish tank
- Paint the garage, install cabinets and work bench
- Install French patio doors in the master bedroom
- Install new sink and cabinets in master bathroom, fix tile
- Recessed lighting in the hallway

Web:
- Finish designing and then launch the new nomoho.com
- Print five shirts, launch nomoho.com store
- Send out promotional emails to friends and family
- Find shipping solution
- Re-outfit the guest room to be a second office
- Make splash pages for all my sites that aren’t up: jp2hero.com, sayhitome.com, kustoms.com,
-Make simple, CSS-driven new version of this website, supafly.com.

Cars:
- Element: get new black rims, install a different alarm, design outside graphics, pay someone to do it
- Chevy: get it moving, licensed and insured, new exhaust, begin suspension work, put on nomoho.com decals, get a trailer

Random Personal:
- Get a new laptop battery
- Business transactions
- Set up auto bill-pay for all utilities
- Real estate transactions
- Pray a rosary each day

So I hope to get all of that done in the next month. I know it probably won’t happen, but I at least want to give it a chance.

On the way home from the airport in Phoenix, I stopped off to see Candyce at her college. It was only fifteen minutes, but it felt good to see her again. I haven’t seen her that much in the past two months, and it’s getting very difficult. She has a busy semester at school, and it is getting irritation. The last sixty days have been an endless chain of class, homework, work, homework, sleep, homework… I’ve never seen anyone go like this for so long.

I resent her professors because all they have to do is snap their fingers and she pours twenty hours into a project. I’m left on the outside of her life, trying to be a supportive boyfriend. This is just not a good time for me. But the 15-minute visit was awesome.

Feeling jealous of the time Candyce gives her school work, I decided not to drive straight home, but to drive to the nursery instead. If she was going to obsess over her homework, I could do the same. I needed to pickup some Oleander trees for my backyard. Oleanders are a flowery bush that is sometimes trained into being a tree. I have a total of six now, and they will make a screen so I don’t look at my neighbors anymore. I have lived in this house for three years now, and I’m tired of going into my backyard “sanctuary” just to make eye-contact with a woman washing her dishes. So my plan is to plant the three today.

This next month is going to be very good for me. I need to work with my hands in the backyard and not on a computer. I need to exercise and pray. I need to get my life back together.

This Thanksgiving I told myself I was going to slow down so I could find new things to think about. Normally my days off are committed to accomplishing tangible things, like doing my laundry or working on my car. So I decided not to do any of that, but try to free up some space in my brain to be inspired.

So today is Thanksgiving. I joined Candyce’s family at their grandparent’s home here in Phoenix. Two of Candyce’s friends from ASU joined us because their family was too far away. It was really beautiful to see them really feel at home with Candyce’s family.

Once dinner was over, everyone slid into soft chairs in the living room and started watching Batman. I was excited because they bad guys were driving cars that look like my ‘54 Bel Air. My mind started to sparkle with ideas, so I stretched out on the bed in the guest bedroom and let my mind wander.

Right now my mind is not focused on new missions. I already have plenty of cool missions that I have not accomplished. I know that they are worth fighting for, and I will accomplish them soon. So instead of thinking of goals, I focused on how to accomplish goals. Because once you get in the habit of achieving goals, then next habit you ned to is to make sure each new goal is more ambitious than the last.

After letting my imagination run wild, I realize that ambition by itself is inherently shallow. It’s almost always coupled with greed and vanity. In the material world, that’s not a problem, but in the world of ministry it is a grave problem. I can’t expect God to sit back and applaud my ambition. It is absolutely crucial that I pray. Otherwise, I’m just another male out to conquer an empire. Prayer tempers ambition.

I think I am going to design my house like the set of a music video. I know so much of a video is in the characters, filming, and editing, but the rest of the video is the set. I work at a film and television studio, so they can help me with the lighting. Stephanie is a trained in hanging an art show.

It’ll be the home of romance, comfort, and excitement. I want HUGE pieces of art, dramatic lighting, cozy furniture, and funky stuff. I am tired of micro-designing with itty-bitty picture frames and wimpy candles. I am ready for the big strong stuff.

A few big things do more than a lot of little things. I am so hung on getting rid of clutter, I’m already excited about getting rid of stuff I don’t even have yet. I don’t hardly buy anything anymore. I own it for a few minutes walking around the store, then return it before I make it to the register. Sometimes I go out shopping just so I can not buy stuff.

I’m the only guy in the place that walks out empty handed, fist clasped together shaking them high above my head. “I got rid of clutter!”

I am a dork.

I am starting a comic strip for lifeteen.com. It’s time to add some spice to our content and comics have a lot of flavor. I’ve always thought comic books were dorky and I couldn’t get into them. I don’t like the super heroes or sci-fi stuff, but I dig fun illustrations of real life. I know comics are supposed to be for young people, but I bet that senior citizens would live vicariously through a witty character with grey hair.

I think my strip will be a lovely mix of graffiti, mod art, and graphic design. Character forms and personalities take a while to master, so I’m going to have to lean on more mod art. Oh I don’t know… I mean I started this journal because I was tired of drawing.

Beginning a new craft is intimidating. Kids were drawing comics while I was doing geometry homework. Judd from the Real World San Francisco has been doing comics for years. Why don’t I just do what I already do and keep getting better? I was reading Metropolitan Home and a designer told his wife, “keep in mind, no matter what color we paint these walls, no one is going to die.” Who cares? Let’s start painting.

If I had the time and a reason, I’d do it all. I’d design furniture, web sites, and comic strips. I’d be an architect and interior designer. I would paint, draw, sculpt, weld, and glue. I’d write more memoirs and letters to my lover. I’d own a hotrod shop. But with one lifetime, I just have to go with the flow. Right now I am a web designer, writer, and an evangelist. I collect mid-century furniture and I don’t write letters.

Today I left the studio early to check out a new retro-modern furniture store. The antique district in south Scottsdale is kind of splotchy, but there are always good finds. I stumbled across a convincing copy of an Eames lounge chair from the 60s. This chair is an icon: it’s in the Museum of Modern Art. It was a little dirty and has been used for several decades, but it was still in good shape. The storeowner knew it was a bootleg version even though he argued that it wasn’t. Otherwise, he would sell it for two thousand dollars more. I wanted to get it, but I don’t have another room for another chair.; As rewarding as shopping can sometimes be, not shopping is rewarding too.

Before I left, I was mesmerized by a wall of coo-coo clocks. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever written, “coo-coo clocks.” There is something hypnotic about those goofy gadgets. Standing strong in the corner was a stately grandfather clock. That clock is a stud. You know, I’ve tried to use an odd design concept for a year now. I’ve sketched it into bookshelf and a table for a fish tank. But those pieces of furniture are a part of a family of furniture. I’m not ready to design the whole family. But a grandfather clock is independent, perfect for my weirdo design. Tomorrow morning I’ll have to check out eBay for the guts of a grandfather clock.

Matt M. is recording a song right now, “Gospel Train.” Hopefully when I get a place, we can set up a recording studio. His songs are so good, and we never have too much good music. One song can echo around the planet. I’ve traveled enough to know that his music touches a lot of people. He has the talent, and he needs to use it.

Today was cool, windy, cloudy, sunny, and rainy. This is not typical Sonoran Desert weather. I think the weather made me weird today.

My mom and dad used to play this record for us kids when we were little.  It would probably sound pretty dumb if I were to listen to it now, but that record was pretty cool when I was young. It was a group of kids going on a camping trip with a big Bible. I didn’t understand the big Bible guy walking around, but I liked most of the songs. We played that record like there was no television. My favorite was a piece entitled, “One Step at a Time.”

You see, you can only climb a mountain one step at a time (so the big Bible told the little boy on the backpacking trip.) If you stand at the base of the mountain and look at the cap, the mission seems impossible. The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

Today at the studio, I was a spazz because I don’t know how I am going to get all this work done. I don’t even know if I know how to organize and prioritize these projects, much less make a plan to make each of them happen. So quit being a spazz and took the first step. By the end of the day, I was amazed how much work I got done.

But there I still so much more to do.

When I first took the job of Webmaster of lifeteen.com, I was a little embarrassed because I didn’t know what I would do all day. Shouldn’t this be a part time job? I knew there had to be more than just what I do here on supa-fly.com, but I never imagined lifeteen.com would become what it is today. It’s like it’s own little city. “Mayor of LIFETEEN.com.”

My first day at the studio, I was afraid that I would get done with all the cool stuff in a few months, and I would end up doing boring and unrelated things just so I wouldn’t feel bad about getting paid. After working my tail off for a year, I can’t tell you when the work will be done. This could take years.

One day at a time.