The Jack Noodle Journal

Hello all! I am writing this entry from the beautiful state of Idaho. Actually it doesn’t seem that beautiful yet but supposedly we are going somewhere today that is pretty. Wait a second, they said it was on the Oregon border. No Idaho is pretty. Sucker Creek and Leslie gulch is where we’re going. Yesterday we went to the Old Boise Penitentiary. That was pretty cool. I can’t imagine being locked up in that place. I’m so stupid I forgot to take my camera. I missed some good pictures. There was interesting pictures and stories about the prisoners. There was some cool things there like old cars and letter presses that were being stored at the prison by the Idaho historical society.

We are having a good visit with the folks. Today I quizzed my mom on what she was thinking about during “THE” Car wreck. When we were all younger, like 25 years ago, my family was in a really bad car wreck. A lady ran a red light and smashed into the side of our car. My brother who was practically a baby at the time, was thrown from the car and almost died. Memory is an interesting thing at times isn’t it? I remember that I was taking a nap in the back seat and woke up suddenly in the floor and my nose was all bloody. I remember some lady helping me and I sat down on the sidewalk. Everyone was so scared for my brother. Being a kid at the time I only had a limited understanding of the happenings. Being an adult now, I was trying to imagine what it would be like for me if I was my mom or dad in that situation. It was kind of interesting to think about what in the World she might have been thinking after seeing her baby fly through the passenger side window and landing on the sidewalk. How scary that must have been. She was like 24 or 25 when that happened. That’s almost 6 years younger than I am right now. She of course said it was horrible. She had knocked her head on the dashboard so everything was foggy for her at the time. She had stories though mostly about after the wreck and the people that helped in the family and such.

The end of August and yes, the end of Summer, is fast approaching. It sure did zoom by. Oh man, I’ve got to mail some bills in that I have been putting off.

It was pretty warm here yesterday. K and I drove out to the Joy Creek Nursery in Scappoose and looked around. I was getting quite heated and sweaty while looking at the gardens. I still sort of feel like I’m on the verge of getting a cold or something. Perhaps it is in my head. The nursery though was gorgeous. The view and woods out there were quite pretty. K bought a couple of plants to add to our yard. I wish it would rain here soon. Our yard totally needs some liquids. The sunflowers are starting to tip over.

I’ve got to clean this place up. The laboratory is a mess. I cleaned up half way last week like I said, but never finished it. Now it’s worse than if I would have never have started. God what a mess. I may just clean the rest of this house up while I’m at it. I think of course there are also dishes in the sink that need clean. Man! Sucks! Come on Noodle, take a deep breath, relax, take one chore at a time.

Hey what kind of plans do you kids have for Labor Day? I’m not sure if we have anything going yet or not. We all should get together and have an end of Summer party. There’s some of you out there who I haven’t seen in a while and miss. We all need to get back together, regroup and start laying out plans for the Fall. K has been threatening to have a harvest party where everyone brings the bounty from there gardens. That traditionally is closer to the Fall though isn’t it?

Oh yeah, I just remembered something. Geoffrey and I were talking last night and we were thinking that it would be cool to do a multimedia music project. Something to help spread the 62nd & Radish name around town. Music CD with multimedia content, website, packaging, booklets, the whole works. We kind of tossed around a few story ideas. We are hooked up with quite a few band kids, but if you guys out there hear of a person or band who would be into that kind of collaborative art project, let me know. Keep your ears open for Uncle Noodle kids. We were thinking it would be an electronic type band, but a combination of different styles would of course be cool.

Uh oh the puppy is sniffing around. That means he’s looking to go potty. Got to run.

Skipping every other day is starting to be a trend here Noodle, and I don’t like it. I need to get back to my daily journal routine. You guys need to be in the know, and that can only truly be achieved with the frequent daily posts. Maybe one of these days I should do hourly posts. No, that’s silly. The only thing hourly posts would be about is how I’ve been writing all day instead of being outside bike riding.

I just heard that it is suppose to be 92 degrees today. For some reason I thought that we were done with the warmer weather. There I go again, ending Summer prematurely. You know yesterday seemed pretty hot also. I was outside doing yard work yesterday and got quite sweaty. Some guys were trimming the Laurel hedge behind the house, and were kind enough to come around to my side and trim it. Man, that bush was out of control. Now the sunlight can actually come through to the back yard.

We finished the first season of the Sopranos last night. 13 episodes. Very good. We are totally into the story and love the characters now. It stinks though because now we are jonesing for season two. Of course the season finale left a lot of cliff hangers. We’ll have to keep going with those pretty soon here.

I don’t have anything planned for today. Maybe I will read and write today. That might be kind of fun. Maybe I’ll do some drawing. Remember when I use to go on the Freedom Walk every Wednesday? Maybe I should start that up again. That always made me feel pretty good. I’ve kind of been out of focus these last few weeks. I need to regroup and figure out what the heck I’m going to do. I’ve got to get some sort of plan going. This floating around crap is getting SO old. This sure has been a strange 9 months.

Good Monday morning to you all. How goes it? Well the weekend wrapped up nicely. The Fantastic Idea Project concert on Saturday evening was Fantastic. As was the after show party. You FIP kids are quite talented. I can’t wait to see your next gig. The soapbox derby on Sunday morning was excellent also. There were some wacky vehicles. My favorite one was the giant boom box.

We are deep into the first season of “The Sopranos” now. We saw quite a few episodes yesterday. Good show. I dig that James Gandolfini. I think that the writing is really good on that puppy. I guess season 3 comes out tomorrow on DVD. That means the TV season is season 4? Geeze we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

Did you all hear about the grim tale coming from Oregon City this weekend? They found one of the missing girls bodies and another body that more than likely is the second girl. Buried in their neighbors yard. Ashley Pond and Miranda Gaddis. Quite bizarre, evil and sad eh? There has been quite a bit of coverage of it this weekend on the news. I tuned in a time or two. They found one of the bodies on Saturday evening and the other one on Sunday. They’re still searching the property. Wouldn’t that be crazy if they found another body or two? When I was a little kid my parents were friends with the people who lived in that house at that time. I think we actually had dinner there a time or two. That Weaver bastard didn’t live there then.

Well what to do today? I think we may take the golf in to get worked on today or tomorrow. K heads back to school this week. Looks like it’s going to be just me and the animals again during the day.

Once again, another late morning. I need to start getting up earlier. To do that though I’m just going to have to go to sleep earlier the night before I guess. This morning I have a headache and there is no coffee in the house. I am such a cry baby.

We started watching the “Sopranos” Season 1 last night on DVD. We’ve got 5 days before we have to return it. There’s 4 discs. We got about half way through the first episode before we fell asleep. It’s a really good show. We haven’t had cable for a year or two now, so we’ve missed a couple of good shows.

Boy oh boy we’ve got a busy weekend still ahead of us. Tonight is the Fantastic Idea Project concert at the Red and Black, and tomorrow is the soap box derby up on Mt. Tabor. K says we may be going to the Italian festival today? I’m not sure what that entails. Oh yeah, not this weekend but one of these days we are talking about going out on a road trip to go see my mother in Idaho. Mr. Baptist and Ms. Bee may go with us. That would be fun.

You know, this Summer was alright. I know that I declared that this Summer would be the best Summer of our lives. I don’t think it quite made it to that level, but you know, it wasn’t that bad, we did some fun things. There was quite a bit of worry with money issues but for the most part things were gravy. Hey Noodle! Summer isn’t over yet man! We’ve got a lot more adventures ahead of us before we talk about end of Summer crap.

I was trying to sleep in a bit this morning, but really didn’t sleep in much later did I? I’m trying to catch up on my sleep so that I won’t feel so tired. I kind of felt like I was getting a cold yesterday. We’ve been pretty active and busy as of late so maybe my body is slowing it down so I can get some energy back.

Well Seth and Alicia are off! We saw them to the plane yesterday morning. We all looked groggy at the airport due to the bon voyage party the night before. I was a little upset that I couldn’t hug Seth goodbye. We arrived a little bit later and he was already past the security check points waiting with the luggage. I got to hug Alicia but it just wasn’t the same. Good luck in Hawaii kids! Hopefully K and I will be able to visit you before to long. Poppa will have to get a job first though.

Later in the morning, after the airport, K, our friend Matt, and me went and saw the advanced Portland screening of the movie “24 Hour Party People”. It was pretty cool. It was about the new wave and club scene in Manchester, England in the late 70’s and 80’s. It showed quite a bit of the Joy Division, Happy Mondays, and New Order stories. If you like those bands then you will really dig the movie. The Ian Curtis stuff was gut wrenching. Ian Curtis was the lead singer of Joy Division who hung himself. The actor that played him did an excellent job I thought.

Last night we also rented and saw “Ali”. That was a pretty good movie also. Will Smith did a really good job as Mohammad Ali. Man, he really buffed up for that part. I only knew bits and pieces of the Ali story before. Some of that history and how he was involved with it was interesting. The movie was beautifully filmed. I really like Michael Mann as a director. Some of the shots and angles he gets are incredible.

I think today will probably be a pretty mellow Thursday. I don’t really have anything planned for today. Perhaps I will continue cleaning up this laboratory. Hey, can you even believe that August is nearly over? What the heck?

Alright! Two in a row! Back on track yeah? Gosh, I am tired this morning. Hold on one second, let me go and get some of the fresh coffee I just made. That should help. Gosh It always seems like I’m tired when I write in this journal. I got my coffee now, so I will quit whining.

We went to dinner out at Mr. Baptist’s house last night, We had a yummy chicken dinner there. When we got back home we went to Colosso where we met Seth and Alicia and their friends Michael and Sarah for drinks. Seth and Alicia are out of here tomorrow morning. Back to Hawaii. We had quite a fun time seeing them again. My liver will be glad to see them go. I think I already said it here, but they need to quit traveling around and stay put here in Portland.

I did some cleaning up a bit here in the laboratory yesterday. Man, what a pig sty. I went through quite a few stacks of my papers and now there are new stacks of organized papers sitting in the middle of the floor. I threw away some stuff but most of the things in here are valuable treasures. Like the envelope that I have saved that has a phone number on it for a person named Cathy. I don’t know anyone named Cathy. I have acquired quite a few rough sketches that were stacking up under the scanner. Partial ink drawings on ripped scraps of paper that I scan in, finish and make pretty on the computer. I found several pay stubs from the Group, which were out numbered by the pay stubs from unemployment checks. One thing that is sometimes fun to find is the occasional web address that you jotted down a long time ago and then forgot about. I found a stack of all of my notes and research from a couple of years ago, when I was studying and thinking about starting a cult.

Gosh, I need to get back to work. It’s easy for me to get side tracked when cleaning. I noticed 30 minutes fly by yesterday when I was reading a magazine I found. I have some pressing matters I need to get going on today. So cool. If I had pressing matters everyday then 62nd & Radish would be off the ground and I wouldn’t have to work for anybody but myself.

One of the things I finished up last week was a poster for my friends in the band Fantastic Idea Project. If you are around town you should look for it. It is quite handsome. Eugene did an excellent job printing it. It’s advertising the first ever FIP show, which is at the Red and Black Cafe this Saturday evening at 8. You all should attend. It will be a good show.

Oh man. Hey guys remember me? I kind of disappeared there for a few days eh? How has it been going? It’s been about the same here. It’s a little bit overcast out there today. It’s pretty chilly also.
Sweet wonderful Monday. What to do?

We had a good wrap up to the week last weekend. We went back to the beach and did some camping with Mr. Baptist, and Ms. Bee. That was pretty fun. We were down by Newport this time. It was so pretty down there. We have been going to Rockaway Beach the majority of our time recently, and that makes you forget how nice the Oregon Coast really is. Rockaway really isn’t that pretty is it? I think next time we go to the beach again, we will probably go back to Newport or Lincoln City. It does take almost 3 hours to get there which is the lame part. Once again the young Phillip had a ball.

When we got back from camping at 9:00 Saturday night, K decided she wanted to drive another hour and a half to meet up with the rest of the crew that were camping up by Mt. Hood. From the beach, to the mountains. With the lame directions and the time of night, I didn’t think it was the best idea in the World, but she would hear nothing of it. She raced off and I stayed in town here where I went out with my charming friend Eugene.

We pretty much laid low on Sunday. Eugene came over and we watched “Zoolander”. I’m really enjoying stupid comedies now days for some reason. Zoolander was pretty good. I had some good hearty laughs.

Well I should get to work. I think I may have a busy week ahead of me, believe it or not. I’ve got a few projects to do for some people at the beginning of the week here.

It’s not as hot this morning as it was yesterday. Perhaps this heat wave is over now. It didn’t last very long did it? Boy, I am awfully sleepy this morning. I don’t know why. I didn’t stay up that late. I’ll get some coffee and see if that helps. Maybe I’ll go back to bed.

I’ve got quite a few dishes to wash this morning. I better get to those soon or K is really going to give me a thrashing. I’ll start those as soon as I hang up here, I swear.

I’ve been having bad dreams again this week. Last night I dreamt that our friend Alicia, or it could have been Lisa, went on a shooting spree. She shot her dad and then shot her mom in the face. Somebody got pushed down some stairs also. Horrible. The dreams have been gritty and violent lately.

So do you all have plans for the weekend yet? We kind of do. I think we may have to roll a dice or flip a coin to see what we are going to do. We have 2 possibilities that would be equally fun, we just have to settle for one or the other. Hey are the soap box races this weekend also? Well we will have to see those for sure.

One thing we haven’t done enough of this Summer is ride our bikes. I think that as soon as my dish washing is done, I am going to get my lady friend and take a bike ride.

Well folks, we hit 101 here yesterday. Pretty cool, pretty cool. No wait, not cool, hot. Some places around the area got to around 110. Those are definitely not normal Oregon temperatures.

We did it for you yesterday, kids. K and I went to the river. We drove about 40 minutes out to Estacada and found a spot. Once there the water was ice cold and felt so nice. The spot we picked wasn’t very good though. It wasn’t deep enough for real swimming. We waded in a few feet and sat down on some rocks. I was getting totally bitten by these crazy flies, and that was a little annoying. We ended up staying there for about 5 minutes before getting back into the car.

We then decided that it would be a good idea to get a kiddie pool for our back yard that K, Phillip and I could play in. We went to 4 different stores that were all sold out. When we finally got home we hid in the front room with a fan and all of the blinds blocking out the sun.

Later in the evening we went to a dinner engagement and met up with K’s old friends. A number of people asked us how the river was. We thought that was strange because we hadn’t said anything about the river. Then of course it all made sense. They had been tuning into these very pages and reading about our adventures here in this journal! Awesome. I love it. Keep tuning in and I will try to keep you entertained. Hey, shout out to Officer Steven! So nice to see you last night. It had been way to long. Yes, let’s get together and hang. We can play Grand Theft Auto 3. The name of that program was Final Cut Pro, I think.

Have you ever had an idea that you thought was really great and original, and then stumble upon your idea later at the store? It makes you question if it was really that original, or maybe if someone even heard you thinking it and stole it from you. It makes you wonder if maybe you had subconsciously seen the item already before you thought of the idea.

Anyway, that happened to me again yesterday. I saw a certain item in the toy section at Fred Meyers. I went to the connecting website later and saw more of what I thought was a good idea. My idea wasn’t that original I don’t think, kind of a common sense thing. It may even be pretentious of me to think of my scribbled down notes as something that even compares. The item I saw yesterday was a bit different than what I had thought, but a lot of the concepts were similar. One of the major points of my idea hadn’t been touched on though, which still leaves me with some hope. I should probably continue on with my idea. Unfortunately the company that already did what I was thinking is huge. One of the majors. Me putting something together for one of the other majors, would look like a copy cat thing. My Pearl Jam to their Nirvana. Back to the drawing board Noodle! One of your crazy schemes will hit one of these days!