Well, six weeks after leaving the Seminary, I thought I'd provide a small bit in the way of an update about where I am now, as I have finally had a little time to settle into my new role as a member of the the non-seminarian laity. (You can see from my former post that I have figured out that cookies will now have to be made by me, rather than from some magical source that automatically replenishes the kitchen's cookie jar!).
The New Job
I was hired by the Archdiocese of St. Louis' Catholic Youth Apostolate, as the new Web Developer. The job entails a lot of web design work, for now, because two of their websites (CYC Sports and Catholic Scouting) are a getting a little long in the tooth, and are Microsoft FrontPage sites (not too sustainable for new technologies/developments). After finishing the CYA's main site (a really simple site), I am working on completely retooling the older websites, as well as maintaining (for the time being) the Office of Youth Ministry's and REAP Team's websites. On top of that, I'm working to help raise funds for the CYA—notably, using eBay and by helping with various fundraising events.
For now, I'm working with an iMac G5, an IBM Laptop, and my trusty MacBook, using Dreamweaver and TextMate for most of the grunt work in development. I'm building the new sites using the latest version of the Drupal CMS (which was just updated to 6.7 today... oh joy, already need to update!). You can see my festive workstation in the picture above; not too awesome yet, but give me some time ;-)
A Blog Here, A Blog There
As an added bonus, I get to do double the blogging in my new position! I am now a 'Catholic blogger' on the stlyouth.org website - check it out. I probably won't post to there as frequently as I post here (which means I'll rarely post on stlyouth.org, since posts here are relatively far and few between!).
My, What a Web We Weave
All this web development is leading me to something else... but the big announcement must wait—for now.
I can reveal, though, that I have finished my first website outside of the Catholic Youth Apostolate, for an awesome Catholic statue restoration company here in St. Louis. The company is Restorations Plus, and they specialize in just about anything having to do with awesome Catholic artwork and restoration. Their website is well worth a visit!