The Jack Noodle Journal

You know, I think I better get a pot of coffee started before I try to sit and write to you lovely people. I’m pretty tired for some reason. Hold on one second. There we go. Get myself perked up so I can get these fingers typing.

It’s fairly grey out there this morning. I think we may see some rain today. I hope it gets a little warmer. I may need to start wearing a coat again if it keeps up like this. I have been needing a new coat for a few years now, but haven’t got one because I haven’t really been wearing one. You don’t get exposed to the elements when you are just going from car to building to car to house. I guess we have been walking the dog more, so I do get out on occasion.

I wrapped up my work week at Jantzen last night. I stayed pretty late working on stuff. They were really under the gun there last night. I would have liked to have help more but I was getting punchy. I think I did a pretty good job there. Hopefully they call back. I am going in to adidas later today to do some computer system moving work. That’s going to be just today and tomorrow. Wow I had a pretty good work week.

Tonight K and I are going to that early spring registration dinner party at the school. That should be fun. I wonder if the food is going to be any good? At the other events that had pretty good sandwich and vegetable plates. The main event for me will be signing up for my classes. It will be exciting to see what my schedule is going to be in April. I need to pencil some classes in this morning because I won’t have time after work. I better get to that.

Man, February has already come to an end. 28 day months are so puny. I need to get to work on the next desktop of the month. March is coming with a whole new batch of bills that may or may not get paid. Oh great. At least we will have a nice chunk from me working this week.

We’ve got another cold one this morning kids. It does feel like a last attempt by winter to make more of an impression on us than she has. You can totally tell that spring is almost here. Spring is just probably waiting patiently on the side lines while winter has her fit. “Okay, okay, everyone knows you’re truly a force to reckon with. Now can I go on please?”

Well what’s going on with you today? Not much here. I’m heading in to Jantzen today for what I think may be the last day in a while. Their busy is schedule is wrapping up on Thursday and then I think it will be slow there again so I will be back on call. That would be nice to be called in by them every once and a while. That would really be good work to do while in school. We’ll have to wait and see I guess.

I haven’t talked to some of you in quite a while. It’s been at least a week or so for some of you, my buddies. I hope you are doing well. Everyone has been pretty busy I guess. I work a couple of days and feel out of touch with the real people. I guess I’m not use to the whole working thing anymore. If I did it more frequently I would have a better balance of friends and job. I will get on the horn and call you people tonight or tomorrow, I promise. I absolutely must contact mother and brother right away and see how they have been.

I can’t believe it’s just Wednesday. It seems like it should be a Saturday or at least a Friday. Actually yesterday really seemed to be more of a weekend day.

Uh oh, looks like I’m running out of time, got to go to work. Slow typer once again.

Good morning. You fans of the journal, both of you, are probably quite annoyed with these few times that I have worked in the last year aren’t you? It seems easier for me to shirk my journal responsibilities when I’m writing entries before work. Don’t worry kids, I’m sure I’ll be without work before too long, and I’ll be able to get back to the meaty entries.

Work? Yes, work is going alright. They are really making me work for my freelance wage, let me tell you. I didn’t realize how rusty I was at some things until somebody pushed my nose to the grind. It was strange for a moment but things seem to be working out okay now. Oh yeah, I’ll be going back to work at adidas Thursday and Friday. That should be pretty fun. Woo wee, when it rains it pours around the Noodle house eh? It looks like I’ll be working around 40 hours this week. Tell you what though, I am ready for school to start.

It has been kind of chilly around these parts the last few days. Is winter still fighting to stay alive? The sun is shining so that has been helping to warm things up a bit. Spring will be here before we know it. I’ve declared it once again people! This coming summer will be one of the best summers of our lives. I can’t wait. Good times are right around the corner.

Well hmm… What else can my slow typing fit in? It’s Tuesday. That means it’s our must see TV night. I know it’s sad looking forward to an evening of TV watching, but it’s what I do.

Happy, sunny, Sunday to you all! How is it going? It looks very nice and sunny outside this morning. I have some microwaved coffee here and another pot of fresh coffee brewing now. I feel pretty good this morning. How have you been doing? I can’t believe this is the last day of the weekend. It kind of went pretty fast didn’t it? I have to work on Monday so maybe that has something to do with it.

I didn’t do much of anything yesterday. I decided to make it a day of rest. I just laid around and watched TV, videos and DVDs. I watched Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” again on DVD. Man, that’s an excellent movie. I had never watched it straight through before yesterday. I had always seen bits and pieces at different times that made up a whole viewing. The making of footage was excellent on the DVD. That movie was all stop motion animation. No computers were used. That will probably be one of the last animations to do it that way. They’ll all be like Toy Story from now on. The attention to detail on the puppets and scenery was just amazing. Making that movie looked like a lot of hard work.

I watched the first Lord of the Rings movie again also. See, I told you I didn’t do anything. I think I like that movie more now after seeing the Two Towers. I am pretty excited to see how it will all turn out in the final movie “The Return of the King”.

Another couple of movies I am eager to see is the new Matrix films. I wasn’t really that interested until I saw the “Animatrix” animations on the internet. Have you guys watched them yet? They’re pretty cool. A bunch of different animators made some cartoon shorts that take place in the Matrix world. They are very fancy and well done. I think there’s 7 different episodes and they plan on releasing them all together on DVD. The new Matrix movies look pretty sweet. I hadn’t seen a really good trailer until recently, so I wasn’t too sure if I was going to need to see another couple of sequels. I think they will wow us again.

Not too much going on here today. I think we are going to look at a house later with Mr. Baptist and Ms. Bee. Something they are thinking about getting or something? I’m not sure what the whole story is. I think we will try to take the boy for a walk also. I am due for a haircut again sometime soon. I need to look pretty this next week for my student ID photo.

Hey everybody! Good morning to you. How are you all doing? It seems like forever since we’ve last spoke. This week that started out rather mediocre has really come around and turned out pretty good. I have been working some more freelance the last couple of days at the company I worked at last week. I’ve been working at Jantzen Swim Wear. I have been drawing women’s swimsuits for most of the week. I can’t think of a better combination. I love drawing and I love women in swimsuits. Come on Noodle, it’s all business, buddy. This freelance work has really come at a good time. Hopefully they will need me to work there next week.

I finally got all my school funding squared away also. Boy it was pretty annoying there for a few hours. For some reason banking institutions don’t find K and my situation as charming as we do. Our creative banking and bill paying magic tricks don’t work to well uptown. We finally had to call my dad in to straighten the whole thing out and co sign how embarrassing I’m 30 for Lou’s sake! What ever though, finished for now. Now the next step in schooling is figuring out my class schedule next week. They’re having a dinner thing that we are going to, a spring early registration party I guess.

Well, I’ve got to head off to work now. Gosh, I wish that I was able to write that sentence more in this journal. Ah, it sounds so nice just saying it out loud. Hey the weekend is almost here! What are the big plans for this weekend? Come on people, tell me. Nothing much going on here that I know of. I think I am going to sit down and do some good creative drawing, writing, reading, music making tomorrow.

Do you know what? I think I’m getting a cold. I just had a mild sneezing fit and after that I could tell. My nose is running and now I have a reason to feel achy. Colds are a much more entertaining thing to have when you actually have somewhere to be or a job to go to. Now that I’m just sitting around the house, the cold has no impact. This is what I would have been doing without a cold anyway. I wish I had Ratchet and Clank to play. It’s probably not a real cold. I don’t seem to get real colds. This sniffles thing will probably be gone by tonight or tomorrow morning.

Man oh man, the East coast really has the snow huh? I thought we were heading in to spring with the weather WE have been having. They are still neck deep in snow drifts out there. It kind of looks like it might be kind of fun to play in. It probably is fun if your car isn’t buried or smashed and the roof of your house isn’t caved in. The news said that there have been about a dozen deaths while shoveling snow. Did I hear that right? Isn’t that crazy? Is it people having heart attacks or slipping and falling? Shovelling snow is dangerous I guess.

I think I need to get back to work on the research that I was doing last week. I’ve got some good directions started. Figuring out the things I like or would like to learn more about once school starts is a good idea. What if my own personal studies are more interesting than my actual school work though? Maybe I should teach a class? Just kidding. I want to look closer at some artists I like and become more knowledgeable of the different movements in art history. I want a stronger grip on the ‘isms. What makes post modern post and not just modern? It seems like I knew some of the answers to these questions before but forgot somewhere along the way.

Another thing I need to do is update this web site. I haven’t mentioned that in a while. I think I have been comfortable with just working on the journal lately. I haven’t spent any time on anything else. One of these days though I’m going to have to change it up a bit here. Version 04 is getting stale. I need to do some house cleaning around here and take some of the files I’m not using anymore off of the server at least.

Yesterday I constructed the Double Darren tune, “Pine Tree Meadows”. It’s a lovely ambient instrumental tune. It’s okay I guess. I may try to figure out some vocals to add to it. The more I use this stuff the more I get worried about being able to make anything interesting with it. I’ve got the software down, now I just have to figure out how to make music. I guess the more I practice, the easier it will get. I wonder if I could take some music courses to satisfy my general ed credits?

Ah lovely. Another grey, rainy, Monday morning. I barely slept at all last night. The animals were up and jumping around all night long. It was mostly just the stupid cat. Right when I would just be about to sleep he would jump on something or move around and wake me up. I felt like I was going crazy at around 5 this morning. I’ll show those guys though. I’ll be there all day today waking them up when they try to take their naps. Boy, I sure am sleepy.

We went and took the boy up to the Pittock Mansion yesterday and to Forest Park. We had a good hike. The rain came down in buckets for a while there and we got pretty wet. I kind of think I have the sniffles because of that this morning. If you are ever in town and want a good view of downtown Portland, or if you are taking someone on a tour, definitely go to the Pittock Mansion. Gosh, I must be tired this morning if I am writing tourist tips.

The hour of all new Simpsons was wonderful last night, I thought the 301st episode was a little more funny than the 300th. Something about the 300th episode looked a little different. I wonder if they changed something with the animation on that episode?

I spent quite a bit of time working with my music programs again yesterday. I am picking up a lot now. Those programs really can make some cool sounds. It won’t be too much longer and I will have hundreds of new Double Darren songs. I will probably work on them some more today. I should go over to G’s house and see if she’ll let me borrow their keyboard amp so I can really turn it up and rock out. Yeah, that would be fun. I should film myself and see if an hour of me rocking out on the computer is something anyone would want to or should see.

Another thing I have to do this week is get my student loans figured out for school. This is really starting to turn into a headache. It seems pretty simple to me, I don’t have any money, so give me the money and let me go to school. I don’t understand why they have to get in there and make it any harder than that. I think it’s smooth sailing on to education land once this is solved.

Good afternoon all. It stopped raining and the Sun has come out. I’ve got a good cup of coffee going and we just finished listening to This American Life on the radio. Oh my goodness. Once again so good. There was a tear jerker story about how Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace stunk and how that was the beginning of the end of the good times. Man oh man. I never thought of it in those terms. I totally feel the same way, maybe that was the reason I got a little teary eyed. Actually we had good times still in 2000 around the time of the wedding events, but that was it after that. The end of the good times sounds a bit extreme. I guess it’s just that bad things happened after those times. The economy going South, September 11th, war with Iraq. I feel good about things turning around one of these days soon, so that is kind of a pleasant thought. You guys should totally check that episode out though, it was good. It’s probably on the This American Life web site.

I did some work on a Double Darren song yesterday. Yes you read that right. It sounds pretty good so far. I’m kind of pleased about yesterday’s work because I actually feel like I am learning how to use my programs a little bit better. They’re pretty complicated, but I think if I keep working on them I may eventually have them figured out. I need to get the tunes all on one computer. I have been making the music on the MAC and then sending them to be recorded on the PC. I told Martin about the name I had for a new project and he informed me that he had a friend in Texas who’s band was already called that. “We Talked About Murder”. There’s no way that I could have thought of that on my own without Martin’s input. He must have told me that name and I stored it away in my brain and thought of it again later, thinking it was my own idea. SPOOKY…

I am SO excited! Tonight is the 300th episode of the Simpsons! That’s a lot of shows. Have I really seen all of them? I have to have missed some of them. That’s like 150 hours of TV viewing. Wow.

Hello everybody! How are you all doing? Things are going pretty well here. It’s raining outside this morning. The lawn is getting some moisture so that is good. Hopefully it will stay green longer this year. I haven’t tuned in to the journal for a couple of days. Sorry about that. I haven’t forgotten about you though, I swear. A few things happened while I was away.

On Thursday I was called in to do some freelance at a pretty cool company. Color corrections is mostly what I worked on. Finally someone called me instead of me sleeping on their doorstep! I was so pleased. It was nice to be doing the work I was put on this Earth to do once again. I am on the call list now there which is cool. I was hoping to go in again on Friday, but they had it covered. I would love to get more work from them in the future. That would work so well with my impending school schedule.

Yes School. Thursday night I finished up my week of free seminars there. The talks and demos were pretty cool. It definitely wetted my appetite for more sitting in classroom activities. Wednesday’s discussion on the importance of a broad liberal arts education to go with your design education was particularly interesting to me. I totally agree with casting a wide net when it comes to interests and knowledge. It helps your work I think. That was kind of what I was exploring in the last journal entry. They mentioned some writers and books I would like to look into. It’s too bad I have that “can’t finish a book I start” thing hanging over my head still.

Thursday’s talk was pretty good also, but it left a strange taste in my mouth. Maybe it was because I was tired from actually working 8 hours that day. They had a panel of people talking who were currently in the biz. It gave me the feeling of a have and have nots. Being in the audience I kind of felt talked down to. Maybe I should get use to that again being a student. I think of myself as a have who is just looking for the right connections to a good gig. Maybe they were actually scared of the audience because they saw a room full of people who were eventually coming after them. People who were hungry and wanted it more. I want it bad and I’m going to do my best to knock them from their pedestals. What’s up with this move out of Portland talk? People who come here from places like Boston and New York say things like “Yeah, you really have to be willing to move to get the good jobs”. What the Hell? It’s not our fault you started somewhere lame before finding out how cool Portland was. We should leave here and go to Boston and New York so people from there can come here? I don’t think so. Anyway, I think I was in a bad mood Thursday night.

We went to a new bar on Thursday after K picked me up from school. It’s called “East”. It was pretty fancy inside. The place was designed by the same people that did the big green tube. It was quite hip and stylish with strange chairs, mirrors and such. We’ll probably go back there again. The drinks were a tad bit pricey, but wouldn’t be too bad during happy hour.

How was your Valentines Day? Ours was pretty okay. We went on a fun 2 mile walk with Phillip down to a nature reserve type thing by K’s work, and over by Oaks Park. It was really fun. The weather was just perfect and the scenery was beautiful. It’s cool that little spots of nature can still exist so close to the city. Move out of Portland? Please! Give me a break. After that fun filled afternoon we went home and spent the rest of the evening eating pizza and watching TV.

We’ve got more Sun this morning. It’s so nice around these parts. I feel sorry for you people that are still stuck in winter. Yesterday was just gorgeous. We went on a long walk at the University of Portland with the dog. That was pretty fun. When we got home we did some chores and I mowed the lawn. Yep that’s right. I mowed the lawn already this early in the year. Is that strange? No, what am I talking about? People have been cutting the grass for a couple of weeks now. Our lawn looks great. I remember being fixated on the condition of the lawn last year, and this year won’t be any different. When it gets weed filed and dried out later, I need to remember how beautiful it looks now. Green and full of life. Oh man, almost nothing beats the smell of freshly cut grass. Well I guess the smell of freshly baked bread does.

So I had a semi-bad dream last night, or maybe it was this morning. It wasn’t a scary dream though. A friend of mine was sad and worried about the state of the World and the state of everything. I felt so bad for the person and was surprised that this person felt this way. In the dream I started getting worried and anxiety filled. When I woke up I realized it wasn’t dream and I’ve been a ball of nerves like that for a year or so now. Then I came in here to write the journal and I read the internet news sites about imminent terrorist attacks and war. I make the rounds on other journals and blogs to find that they are writing about being freaked out and worried. Now I am writing about being stressed out about current events, and how uneasy I am about the future. It’s like a big freaking snow ball getting bigger as it rolls down the hill. I’m so tired of worrying about everything. I’ve got to get myself out of this funk. I will try to focus on the positive things like mowing the lawn.

Yeah. See, now I lost my train of thought. Okay positive, positive. Hold on one second. I’ve got to get some more coffee and think about this one for a bit. Oh here’s one, a band that we really like is coming to town on Sunday. Notwist is playing at the Blackbird I hear. I’m going to have to double check my information, but that’s cool. Maybe that will help make up for missing Interpol on Valentines day. You know, that Blackbird place gets some pretty good acts in.

I have been doing some research on the CD ROM called “Gadget: Past as Future”. It was created in 1994 by a man in Japan named Haruhiko Shono. I remember holding the game in my hands back then thinking I should get it but never did. A few years later I found a book on it that was real cheap because the cover was ripped. The images in the book were great. I was really into the whole “steam punk” thing back then, which I would group this into. Really fancy 3D computer rendered illustrations that were top notch at the time. The game really wasn’t much of a game as it was a interactive story or novel that you traveled through. It was critically acclaimed and I think it still holds mustard today. I found a few places on the internet that still have the CD ROM for sale. I should get it.

The reason I’ve been looking into it is because I would like to do something like that one of these days. Well since I haven’t actually looked at it, I would like to do something that I am imagining it to be like. I’m trying to think of different ideas and projects that I could work on once I’m back in school. I’m working on putting together a list of things that I like style wise so that I can have a direction to explore once I get in. Gosh, is that weird? No, I don’t think so. Man! April is just so far away. I need to start schooling now. A “These are a few of my favorite things” list probably isn’t such a bad idea. I could make the list and then explore what it is that I like about those things. Then whittle it down even further until I have the whole thing mapped out.