Help with using a different Member Menu

Basically I'm not a fan of the existing dolphin member menu...  I would like to use CometChat bar with my site as instant messages are so much nicer.  However, I do like the notifications the dolphin member bar has about friend updates, mail, etc...  I know in cometchat you can create your own modules as i've done if for youtube and flicker on one of my other sites using cometchat.  I'm just not sure what code i'd have to place in each module to get it to work.  I imagined I could just look in the member menu code, copy it, and paste it into my custom modules.  I have been searching and searching to find the code that will grab this information.  Below are the modules/links i'd like to put into cometchat...

Mail (3) --  This will show how many unread messages are in your mailbox, and possibly show the message titles in a popup window

Notifications (4)  -- This will act just like the dolphin pop up on member  menu

Profile -- A simple link to the users profile just like member menu (would just need the variable for username to put at the end of url)

Dashboard -- Another simple link to member.php

If anyone can help, or point me in the right direction where i can find the code for mail and notifications that would be great!!!  THanks

I just found this browsing around in the database in 'sys_member_menu' --> '_mail'

/////// Get list of messages /////////////////

bx_import( 'BxTemplMailBox' );

// return list of messages ;

return BxTemplMailBox::get_member_menu_messages_list({ID});

//////////////// get unread list //////////////////

bx_import( 'BxTemplMailBox' );

// return list of new messages ;

$aRetEval= BxTemplMailBox::get_member_menu_bubble_new_messages({ID}, {iOldCount});

I think i'm just making this more difficult than it has to be...  I'm just gonna get the user id and write my own mysql code to search the databases for updated mail and spy data when the module in CometChat is opened.  On the cometchat bar i'm just going to use ajax to check the database for unread/unviewed messages and spy data so it can show that # along side the icons...  I will post back how it works when complete.