Wasatch Adaptive Sports is a wonderful non-profit organization located up at Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort. I met them through an assignment at school. I was taking an entrepreneur class and was on a team that had the opportunity to work with a non-profit that was doing well but always could do better.

Over the seven week class, we finished the project and handed in the report (I think we received an “A”,) but I wanted to continue working with Wasatch Adaptive Sports. I worked on their website for a while off and on and we recently changed from this to this. I wanted to address some key things in the redesign of their website.

Step 1: Capture the Locale

Snowbird is nestled about 6 miles up Little Cottonwood Canyon and is a gorgeous area. It is probably one of the top ten places I have been. I wanted to capture the mountain on  the site in a way that really stood out. They gave me an awesome image that really displayed the rugged area. It worked as a good backdrop to the site and frames the structure of the site nicely.

Step 2: Get a Professional Theme

I didn’t create the theme on my own. I made a million little adjustments but I can’t take all the credit. I used the Camelus theme from Themeforest. I’ve been away from day to day design since I graduated from Dixie State College in their Visual Technology Program over 8 years ago. I am finding that the more I get back into the graphic design groove, things are becoming less rusty and hopefully I’ll be able to leave the training wheels behind at some point.

Step 3: Get the  “Real” Content Together

It’s funny how when you deal with real content things seem to take shape better. Initially, when I created the site I had a bunch of “lorem ipsum” dummy text that I would put in the content areas. When I showed the Wasatch Adaptive staff I could tell they were just glossing over those sections of gobbledygook. It wasn’t until I put actual text where it would go on the webpage approval started clicking. Once the content was in (even though some of it had to be rewritten,) the design was approved and was set out on one of the Xmission servers around 1AM.

Step 4: SEO, HTTP, Flickr, and other stuff

I’m still new at some of this. I found that if I continue to make small adjustments to the site things seem to work well. I added better titles to the pages and attempted to speed up the download times. I’ve noticed that once you have a site up and  running it’s kind of like a pet. It needs quite a bit of upkeep and care.

Step 5: What’s Next?

I’m still getting my feet wet with design, website management, and marketing. If another non-profit or paid gig comes along I would take it. But for now I think my next project will have something to do with the color pink.

Our house is pretty crazy on Sunday morning. Eat breakfast. Get dressed. Go to church. It’s generally a sprint from shaking off sleep to sitting with the congregation. This morning was no different. We arrived at church in a rush. It seems whenever I rush I get an odd feeling. I had the feeling that I was missing something.

At church, I listened to some talks, taught a lesson to five year olds, and picked up my wife and kids to go home. It’s about this time I start thinking about a Sunday afternoon nap. The Sunday nap may be one of the best inventions made. I shouldn’t even call it a nap, it’s more of a hibernation of sort. I will sometimes snooze for a good two to three hours. I don’t always wake up in the best mood but the nap is terrific. And it’s only moments away.

I pulled the van into the garage. I opened the van doors. Started getting the kids out. Then I went to open the door that goes from our garage to our house. It’s locked. No biggie. Wait. The key is not on the key-ring. No. No. The door. Locked. Nap. Gone.

Now we’ve been here before. We’ve locked ourselves out about three times of this house. We’ve only lived here four years. Your probably thinking it’s not difficult to run to Lowes and pick up a key. I didn’t. It’s not difficult to run to the neighbors and call a locksmith. I didn’t want too – I did that about a month before. Plus, the last locksmith that came was creepy.

My anger is starting to build at this point. I decide to walk around the house and look in windows, test out doors, and find myself getting more and more upset every time I slip on the snow. I made it around the house. I was starting to get really mad. I can’t believe I didn’t put a key somewhere (even one in the garage would have made sense.)

I’ve lost the ability to reason at this point. I took a good long look at the door. I thought I could kick it in. I walked up the concrete steps and sized it up a little bit. If I give it a good kick, it’s going to open up. I did just that. I stood on the steps and channeled my inner Jean Claude Van Damme.

Door splinters went everywhere from the door moulding. It was one of the stupidest/manliest moments of my life.

I was going to fix it this weekend. My wife went out for a bit and I decided it was time to tear out the damaged part of the frame. I thought I would just have to remove one side of the frame and put in a replacement piece. I checked at Lowes and I found something I thought would work. I ripped out the rest of the moulding and then the real work began. I started swinging a hammer busting out the existing frame. That wasn’t working well so I grabbed a chisel and started prying it out. I was starting to see some results when I thought I could just saw it out. I started sawing and prying and cutting and pulling. I noticed that I was tearing apart the entire frame of the door. The upper frame was starting to bend and the lower part of the frame was starting to come loose from the cement. This door was anchored in cement? What? Shoot me. Well I kept working at it and tore the part out along with a large piece of cement.

My wife came home and could see I was pretty upset. She also noticed that I had made quite a big mess and tools were all over the kitchen. She asked if I wanted to call my dad (he can fix anything.) After a small discussion about how “I can do anything my dad can do,” I relented and called him. He will be over to help next weekend.