The Jack Noodle Journal

Well folks, so much for April! Gone just as soon as it started huh? Hold on one second, I hear the microwave beeping. My leftover coffee is done. Yeah, April really wasn’t that bad of a month. Is there a 31 in April? Let me see. Nope, this is it. The last day of April. Alright! Hurray for May. Yesterday there was quite the thunder and lightning storm here. It was pretty cool. We don’t get very many dramatic storms like that in these parts. Lots of lightning flashes. The rain came down in bucket fulls also. It wasn’t that cold yesterday and it was sunny the whole day until 6 when the storm started. I do believe that it is going to be sunny this weekend.

I went to my time management discussion last night. It was actually very helpful. The school counselor lady that was running it had some good suggestions. One thing I think that would help me is a daily planner. There was some good thoughts on those during the meeting. I usually have a to do list, if not on paper then in my head, but the daily planner scheme works more at structuring the time during the day. At 9 I will work on the journal, at 10 I will check my email and surf the web. One thing that she said that I thought was good was to have a daily planner, a weekly planner and a quarter planner. A person could really go manic with all that planning huh? One would need to schedule some time to do all of the planning. I think that a daily and weekly plan is a pretty good start for me. Today I have a to do list going and I’m also going to see how much time everything takes me. One thing that I know already is a time burglar is email and web surfing. I need to cut those 2 things down to once or twice a day.

See though, this journal here is almost like a daily planner. I pretty much go through a list of things I need to do during the day. Gosh is this journal really that boring? I need to spice it up a bit huh? No, I don’t need to spice things up. I’m sure something interesting will come along on it’s own. Give it a few days and something strange will have happened or a new rant will surface.

I listened to an internet radio station that wasn’t mine yesterday and heard some good stuff. That is one of the many cool things about the internet, all of the new music and performers that you can be introduced to. Yesterday I wrote down a few names of bands whose songs I really liked on that internet station. A band called Iron and Wine had a cool song called “upward Over the Mountain”. Adorable had the song “Summer Side”. An act called the Postal Service had a song called “Such Great Heights”. I need to investigate those kids closer during my daily allotment of web surfing time.

I really don’t need any more music though because I have decide to only listen to the new Radiohead CD over and over again. It is very good. At first I was like, yeah this is pretty good, it sounds like a Radiohead album, but then I listened again a few more times and was blown away. It is quite the tear jerker, gut puncher. I have been thinking of it with the current state of the World as a backdrop, and picture a lost child who is wandering around a European boardwalk on the ocean looking for her parents. Lots of good sounds and elements to it. I think I’m going to listen to it again right now.

Good morning everyone! Oh my goodness. I can’t even believe it. The Sun is out this morning! Yesterday I was mowing the lawn and the rain came down right as I finished and continued on for most of the night. I’m looking at the lawn now and it looks quite handsome. A friend inquired about my dandelion situation this year. I’ve decided whatever happens is fine when it comes to those yellow headed devils. Last year here in the journal, I went on and on about how I hated those dandelions. I’m going to have a more relaxed approach this year. I think If I keep the grass down really short every week then it will look okay. I probably will let it grow out a bit when the summer weather hits. I don’t want a dust bowl of course.

Yes, so here we are, Tuesday. The start of my second weekend. School was good yesterday. I think my math test went alright. I hope I got an okay score. I wasn’t totally lost while I was taking it, so that is good. The next test I have to study for is in my basic web design class on Thursday. The instructor said a big part of this midterm will be seeing how well you memorized the html codes. That’s pretty cool. I think one of these days I should redo this whole Noodle site over and write it all out by hand. October is the scheduled redo month, but maybe it will be sooner.

I’ve got quite a list of things to work on today as usual. I’m feeling pretty good about the day so far. I have a time management seminar to go to tonight. Yep, you read that right. It seems that others have been battling with this time thing also. How do we juggle all of these responsibilities while in school? Hopefully they will have some good suggestions that I haven’t thought of yet. Even if they don’t cover anything new it will be good to hear someone state the obvious again.

So my grandparents are going to be in town this weekend. Up from California. It will be good to see them. They are in town to see my dad perform in the spring play at his church. On Saturday I will be baby sitting my nephews and the grandparents said they would be there to help. I will be able to have a nice visit with them then. I will have to consider their visit though when I’m working on my weekend homework time management.

Ha ha, gosh, enough already with the time stuff, Noodle! K thinks I need to relax more. I think she may be right. That is easier said than done though. I’ve got worries people! Actually in the grand scheme of things I don’t have much to worry about at all. Lots of people on the planet have it far worse than me.

Speaking of relaxing, this just came to me again. Lately I have been having another batch of bad dreams. I’m beginning to think that it may be coming from falling asleep in front of the TV. There’s that evil TV again! One I had the night before last was too horrible to mention again. I will say it did involve the term “Running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off”. No there weren’t any chickens in the dream. The dream I had last night was that I was a marine over in Iraq involved with the current clean up. We were breaking open one of Saddam’s safes and taking all of the gold out of it. It was definitely like a scene out of that Gulf War 1 movie, “Three Kings”. It wasn’t really that scary, it just had a really sinister feel to it. I think I did get shot in the arm by some roving bandits though.

Good weekend morning to you. Doing pretty good here. I smell a fresh pot of coffee brewing in the other room that I must go investigate. It’s kind of wet and grey outside this morning. It does have a hint of the first signs that the Sun may poke through today. I really need to mow the lawn but it has been wet for a week. I think I scratched left eye sometime last night. It’s kind of puffy and itchy.

I have a math midterm test tomorrow, so I have been trying to study as hard as I can. We have a practice test that we can study from, but some of it seems unfamiliar to me. It almost feels like I missed a class. I didn’t though so I’m not sure what’s going on. I got some good studying in last night so I should be okay. I hope. Oh man.

Have I mentioned that I am really enjoying my typography class? I am. It has been very interesting to me. I think I will try to take all of the typography courses. We have been studying the history of type. It goes along well with the history of art. I have been studying the surrealists on my own but now I am beginning to think that I need to look closer at the futurists and the Dada movement. Who the heck is this Wassily Kadinsky guy? He demands some closer investigation.

I think we are going to Mr. Baptist’s brother’s 70th birthday party today. I hope it goes fast. I really should be doing math homework instead. Oh well I guess it’s important that the Noodles are represented at the event. Hopefully I ‘ll have some time tonight to finish up my final studying.

Hello! Oh dang, I didn’t leave myself very much time for typing this morning. I’ve still got to get ready and finish this giant cup of coffee before I go. I missed it once again! We had another earthquake here yesterday. It was a little 3.5 earthquake around 12:30 PM. I think I was on the bus in transit. K felt it though. Crazy. I didn’t feel the last one a few years ago either. I was standing at work talking then and someone said “Hey did you feel it?”. No I didn’t. Come on do it again. No, actually you know it’s a good thing I don’t feel these little trimmers. That’s all I need now is for my house to fall down in an earthquake. Growing up I had a friend who’s parents wanted to move out of Portland because they thought that a giant earthquake was coming to destroy Portland and swallow up all of the sinners. Knock on wood that that one doesn’t happen. All of the news stations are going to have news stories for the rest of the week on earthquakes, emergency preparedness and “The Big One”.

So yesterday I got a lot of work done and watched TV. See now, how does that work? I still don’t have a handle on this time thing. I didn’t do any chores or yard work though. Maybe that’s where the time came from. I need to get it worked out to where I can do chores, watch TV, work on the projects and do homework all in one day.

I had to write 2 papers yesterday and I found it to be quick and easy thanks I’m sure to all of the exercise writing I get here. Thanks everybody for strengthening my writing muscle! I also noticed that I found it very easy to fill up space and go on and on about nothing at all. COOL.

Oh man, I’ve got to go. I’m going to be late if I don’t get a move on.

I thought I would leave you kids a quick early morning post before heading off to school. I don’t know though, I’m pretty sleepy right now. Maybe I should go put some coffee in me before typing. There has been quite a bit of rain around these parts lately. I hope to see the Sun one of these days soon.

A mighty congratulations goes out to the lovely Lianne who got the keys to her very own house this week. Woo hoo! We were over there yesterday checking it out. K helped with some of the cleaning while I sat on the floor in a corner and worked on my homework. It has an awesome fenced in yard that Phillip ran himself stupid in. It’s a nice house and it will be interesting having a new location and surroundings to add to the Noodle history. Nice work!

Well people, there are many Noodle works of art hanging up all around the city. Perhaps one is even as close as outside your door hanging on a telephone pole. The boys in the band went out and blanketed the town with their concert flyer. I think it turned out pretty good. I’m getting pretty close to that whole idea of being able to see it from your car I think. I would have had it perfect this time if I would have lightened the back more. Yes, please go out to a telephone post near you, see the poster and then come to the show on Friday.

K went and saw the Cat Power concert last night. She said it was pretty good. I stayed home and didn’t do anything. It was definitely K’s time to see a show. She had missed the big ones like the Notwist and Interpol shows so she is beginning to rectify that situation by getting to the concerts. I’m not too familiar with Cat Power. I know I’ve heard a couple of her / their songs.

I’m beginning to think that I am watching too much TV again. I know that I have wrote about this topic here before, maybe last year, but I think it’s time to revisit it. You know I have been trying to pay attention to my time management now that I am in school again. Maybe it’s the closer attention that is causing me to freak out about how there aren’t enough hours in the day. Where the heck is all my time going? Watching 1 to 4 hours of TV every night can’t be helping, can it? I’ve got to cut it out. I could be working on homework, reading or working on my contest piece during that time. Maybe if I only turn it on when my stories are on, instead of turning it on and looking for anything to watch. Maybe instead of turning it on every evening to watch Simpsons reruns, I should wait for the new episodes on Sunday. I don’t know. It really is an age old dilemma and I’m sure I will be struggling with it for many years to come.

Yo! Yo! What up? How has the beginning of your week gone so far? It’s been about par for course here. I had a pretty good Monday. School went well. Today is the start of another weekend for me. It’s kind of rainy out today. It doesn’t seem to be that cold outside right now though. Have any of you heard what the weather is suppose to be like this week? Ah yes, I slept in a bit this morning to catch up on my rest. I feel great today. The lovely K has made some coffee for us. She is currently manning the other computer right now. I think I am going to get a cup and get this day started right now!

I have quite a lot on my plate for today. I’m feeling good that It is all going to get finished. One new addition to the list is a rock poster for the young Martin and his Transmission West crew. They are playing on Friday at the Red and Black cafe. I kind of thought you were playing at the Ash Street Saloon though? I should probably find out before I finish up the posters. I’ve got a pretty good idea I think. I want to do something this time around that you can instantly see from your car driving down the street. We’ll see. I think a really strong image may be more important than being able to read it from your car. If you like what you see then you may stop and read what the sign says right?

April is beginning to wind down now, so I can’t loose track of the time. That Adobe design competition deadline is still a little ways off, but it’s sneaking ever closer. I’m planning on spending a good portion of time today working on it. It may seem like I have been working on it for a long time the way I always talk about it, but I think I’ve probably only spent 12 hours on it so far. It’s really almost done, I’m just stuck on this one section. It should look pretty good when it’s done.

To round out the day and for the rest of the week I will be spending time with my homework. I’ve got quite a bit of reading to do. I’m still not falling behind, but I mustn’t rest for a second on the education. I must fight, fight FIGHT! There is an early math midterm next week. Sucks. So far math has been alright, but now I am reminded again why I don’t like math. Those tests! What the heck? If my teacher wants a math anxiety free class like he says, why is he giving tests? I don’t know. Well, I must keep at it and pass this math BS. Don’t give up Noodle, just study real hard. I need to borrow a better calculator from my brother this week.

That’s pretty much it for today. I think we have a couple of events to attend this week like the Transmission West show, and a Last Thursday art show. I think I will try to keep my activities other than work to a minimum and alcohol free so that I can stay sharp for the Noodle battles this week.

Happy Easter Sunday to you all! How are you doing? I’m doing pretty well this morning. Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day. I wonder if today will be sunny? We don’t have much planned for today. I think we will be going to Mr. Baptist’s house a little bit later for an Easter dinner.

The little guy Phillip had a wonderful birthday party last night. Thanks to all who attended and brought the puppy toys! It was very nice seeing everybody. Phillip played so hard and got SO tired. We should have a party for him everyday so that our guests can wear him out. Phillip looked like he had a hangover when I took him out to go potty this morning. It was a very fun party.

One of the presents that Phillip got from his uncle Matt was a copy of the new Radiohead album that isn’t out yet. “Hail to the Thief”. Oh my goodness people, it is so good! Those guys. They continually have excellent albums. I heard that a bootleg of the new album was floating around the internet and was going to try to avoid listening to it until the official version came out, but with it sitting in front of me I quickly changed my mind. It is very good. I will probably buy the real version when it comes out so there’s no harm hearing it early right? I need to listen to it more closely away from the noise of a puppy party.

I’ll be taking my homework with me to Mr. Baptist’s house today. I have quite a bit of reading to do. I was totally going to try to do my math homework before Sunday, but look, here we are. I’ll be doing my math on Sunday again. It’s not my fault that the week went by so fast. ARGH! I’m totally going to do my next weeks math homework before next Sunday.

Hey, is there a new Simpsons tonight? I hope so. I’ll check. Last weeks episode was awesome. I had it taped and actually watched it again yesterday.

Good morning everybody. How are you all doing? The weekend is almost here folks! This week went by pretty fast didn’t it? Oh my, sorry about that last entry. I was off my rocker there briefly. I think it was due to sleep deprivation. I feel better now. I got some rest. I do need some coffee right now actually. Hold on won’t you, while I go make some? There’s no school today. They are calling it institute day or in service day, but I think in reality it’s called Good Friday.

So what should I do today? I have quite a bit to do. I started some chores last night that I need to finish up this morning. We are getting the house in shape for Phillip’s birthday party tomorrow evening. To her credit, K has done a large portion of the cleaning and preparing. I’ll be in charge of the things to do while she’s at work. I think that will be fun. It will be nice seeing some of you that we haven’t seen in a while. Phillip will be quite pleased.

I am going to make a potato salad for the party. Yes that’s right, me cooking. Potato salad is one of my favorite foods and I discovered how easy it was to make a few weeks ago. Now I am working on the perfect recipe. This batch I am going to try using regular potatoes, sweet potatoes and red potatoes. Blue cheese, onions, mustard, pepper, mayonnaise and pickles are all mandatory items. Celery will be included, but it must be chopped down into smaller slices then last time. Oh yes, and hard boiled eggs.

Once I get the house straightened up, I really need to hit the books. Staying up with the required reading has been a challenge. I must have not done any homework last time I was in school. I don’t remember all of this reading. Don’t get me wrong, I totally love it. You know though, now that I think about it, there hasn’t been that much homework, I just have been busy doing other things like making potato salad and laying on the couch. This term has been good in getting my feet wet and I think I’m getting a handle on that whole time management thing. I’m kind of glad I’m not working now, I wouldn’t know where to fit it in.

Holy shit people! The Notwist last night was absolutely amazing! Actually the correct term would probably be The Notwist this morning. They played a very long set. I am very tired right now. I have to go to my basic web design class very soon now. Goodness though, what a great night of rock and roll! Lots of computer laptop work mixed with the traditional rock. Peoples that is so what I need to do with the Double Darren work. It can totally work! Those Notwist boys had so many different things going on at once that it was hard to figure out where the sounds were coming from. Perfect combination of electronics and live parts I thought. I can’t believe that I was thinking about not going. If Notwist is coming to your town soon, then go see them.

Ah yes. It has been a pretty packed couple of days. I have been working on school projects and contest projects and that seems to be taking up quite a bit of my time. I went to a guest speaker talk on Tuesday that was quite good. Diane Fenster. I was really impressed with her work. She is a digital artist and photographer. She had some really nice pieces and was telling some interesting stories. That’s one thing I’ve noticed that I am way into this time around with my schooling is hearing all of the different life stories and influences that people have had. So cool. I’ve been a good note taker lately and have been getting names that these speakers have been calling out as influences.

Last night before the Notwist show, I went to the Devgroup NW meeting. Pretty sweet. Why the heck hadn’t I gone there before? The evenings topic was blogs. Yes you know, that’s what this here Noodle journal is. Kind of interesting hearing someone talk about it. Nick Finck was the dude that gave the talk. He really had some good things to say about where the power of blogs were taking us. It made me really appreciate and not take for granted what I have going on here and the eyes that are looking this way. One thing though that they always talk about when discussions of blogging come up, is linking. People like to tune into blogs because they can get links to other pages and topics that they may llike. What the Hell? Should I be doing your work for you? You guys know I like Twin Peaks! Go and read about it and watch it on your own. Don’t wait for me to tell you. Putting all of the links in of stuff that I like would take a long time. I figure that I’ll just talk about the shit that I think is cool and then you can cut and paste it into google and find your own links. A couple of the web journals I tune into don’t really do the link thing. Moby’s and Douglas Rushkoff don’t have very many links but they still dole out interesting nuggets that you can investigate on your own. I like the way I’m doing it here and don’t think I’ll be loading this page up with butt loads of links. I do think it is so cool getting email from people that stumble on to the Noodle journal from places and connections that I wouldn’t have imagined and quite enjoyed hearing an analysis of the whole blogging fad.

Oh my goodness. I am going to be so tired in class today. Oh well, I’ll rest this afternoon.

Today is the day! *HAPPY BIRTHDAY PHILLIP!*
Phillip is 1 year old today. Nice work little buddy. Looking good. He is laying down on the floor next to me chewing a bone right now. Wow. The little guy has been on the planet now for one whole year. Time flies. Born on tax day. We are planning a birthday party for him on Saturday. Don’t tell him though, because it’s a surprise.

Boy oh boy his brother Pierre was sick this morning. He must have eaten something bad. He puked in several different spots around the house. Come on kitty! Enough already. This sick thing and keeping us awake is really getting old. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to take care of a human child, knowing how difficult my 2 animal children are. At least with the animal children you can put them in a room and shut door for a while to get your rest.

There’s quite a bit I would like to do today, so I better get to it. The top thing on my list to work on today is the Transmission West competition piece. I really have to buckle down and crank that puppy out. A few hours of solid, hard work on it will do me good. After I do that I need to get to some homework. There’s a seminar, guest speaker at the school later today that I want to go to and a multimedia meeting tomorrow night that I would like to attend. Also tomorrow night Notwist is play at Berbati’s. I’m not sure if I’m going to that yet. I really should though. Maybe I’ll listen to the CD right now and that will help me with my decision.