I’ve been banging away at the CSS for this blog for a while; tonight I finally sat down and changed the content of the blog to match the design I had in mind.

Still not one hundred percent there.  The center column of content is pretty much where I want it to be (much more scannable than the old version) but the sidebar on the right seems out of place, and the header on top should be blue, not black.

Getting further into this requires some PHP work and CSS which I fear is beyond me at 1am late on a Friday, after a productive week of work.  Off to bed, and maybe some additional work tomorrow.

A recent visit to Notre Dame reveals a lot of construction next to DeBartolo Hall.

Google reveals that there’s a whole site devoted to ND architecture.

It reveals that this giant hole in the campus is a massive addition to the law school:

The new addition to the existing Law School will be located directly south of the existing building on a site once occupied by the campus post office.

The addition will be three stories plus a partial basement totaling 85,500 square feet. The materials and overall design compliment the original Law School building.

More at the official page of the Law School expansion.

There is no finer dinner on the go than a good book, 20 McNuggets, and large fries.

Facebook lets you volunteer a lot of information about yourself: gender, relationship status, hometown, political views, etc.  My younger Facebook friends seem perfectly willing to post a lot of personal information on a public space.

While browsing my friends’ profiles (i.e. the people who I have added as friends), I noticed that a lot of them have religious views that differ from my own.  Here’s a random sampling of what people listed as their religious views:

• Spiritual Seeker
• Atheist
• Newly Catholic again
• Thuggee, only people who have seen Indiana Jones would know what the heck this is.
• Christian – Catholic
• If it matters, don’t be my friend
• John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme”
• Christian – Protestant
• god is dead

The last one got to me – being a Roman Catholic I believe that God is very much alive and active in our lives.  I imagine that the person who wrote it thought it was an offhand comment rather than a deep reflection of their innermost theology, but the list of “religious views” above indicates that at best, religious views are not something my friends take too seriously.

I edited the Facebook profile to try and offer a sense of my own Catholic identity.  I added my favorite Biblical quote (“If God is for us, who can be against us? -Romans 8:31″) but felt that it wasn’t enough – Facebook doesn’t let you customize the layout of your information so there’s no way to put “Religious views” at the top of your information.

However, it also got me thinking about the various ways I’m providing a Catholic presence online.  Ideally, I think people should be able to tell I’m Catholic by the content I’m producing, not the words I enter in the “religious views” box. 

Luckily the Holy Spirit has provided me with opportunities to use my web skills to glorify God, and the grace to take advantage of them.  I hope in the future my web sites and online presence can better communicate the message that God is alive.

Optimus Primes – Primeapalooza, originally uploaded by JasonCross.

Nice photo of Optimus Prime figures throughout the years. I own the one on the far right, which is the “Generation 1″ version and the daddy of them all.