The Jack Noodle Journal

Yes I am back kids. So sorry for leaving you. I am back from Idaho and I am back from the internet being down here at the Noodle compound. Gosh, I really have a lot of journal updates to catch up on. Yeah, woo hoo for the every single day of 2004 Project! I’m not sure what happened. I’ll be good now on the last day of September, I promise! Wait. Is this the last day of September? Is there a 31st?

I noticed this morning when I took the dogs out, that it seems to be staying darker longer. It’s fall my friends. Soon it will be pitch black at this hour and we will all have to put our snow boots on before going outside. It’s not really that cold out this morning. Hold on one moment won’t you while I go microwave some coffee? I am having trouble organizing my thoughts this morning.

I had a good time visiting my Mom and Greg in Idaho. It was wonderful staying somewhere that had food in the refrigerator. Phillip and I made the 5 hour road trip to Baker City, Oregon where we saw my parent’s new woodland, ghost town property, and then we rode the 2 remaining hours to Idaho with them. My mother’s birthday was over the weekend so I got to spend it with her. It was very nice to see her again. I had a couple of thoughts of grabbing K and the kids and moving back in with mommy. Leave this depressing Oregon behind. Yeah, I don’t think anybody would be happy with that living arrangement. Our combined 5 animals would be the first of the many problems that would arise.

While in Idaho, my mother and I went through some papers she had on our family genealogy. We spend quite a few hours going through the stuff and trying to figure out our family tree. Some of the papers we had were from relatives in Norway so everything was written in Norwegian. It took a bit of time for us to decode some of it. One thing we discovered that we became obsessed with proving was that we are… Hold on let me figure out how it works. Okay. We come from the same descendants as Norway’s greatest 17th-century writer, Petter Dass. He’s a great (to the six power) cousin. We come from the Falkener line. That’s on my grandfather’s father’s side. My grandfather’s mother’s side is the side of the family that has the Norwegian writer, Rolvaag. We come from a long line of fishermen and writers. That is why mom was especially interested in getting Dass as part of our make up. She is a hopefully soon to be published writer and having writers in our blood is good evidence that we will be bound for the best sellers list!

Looking at your genealogy is pretty addictive. It’s kind of an over 30 thing to do though isn’t it? Is it dorky to say it’s addictive? I’m pretty surprised at all of the things that were able to find about our ancestors on the internet. I am really getting into studying Norway. I am looking for good countries to move to if George W gets elected again. I think my trip to Europe really sparked my interest in my roots.

While at my mom’s house, using her fully functional internet, I finally bit the bullet and checked my grades for last term. It was really causing me pain wondering how I did. I’m glad I didn’t hold out longer, because I was able to relax after I knew what the grades were. An A, two Bs, and two Cs. Not the greatest grades in the World, but they will do fine for now. I am so into getting another 4 point next term. That will show the bastards!

Fall 2004 term starts next week! I had a pretty good break. My class schedule is all over the map this coming term. I have a Saturday class for crying out loud! I’m ready for it this time! No more terms like last term. Including this fall, there are only 4 terms left! Thank goodness! I’m sure if I have the constitution for any more terms.

I need to get going on my personal studies and I need to get the new Noodle web page up and running! My Norway studies have been distracting me a bit, but once I figure all that out, it’s back to work on the other projects. I should put some new photos up for you guys and try to fill in some of the holes in the journal with the paper entries I have. My 12 days of Europe entries are typed up. I should hand those over to you guys. Not enough hours in the day I tell you!

Tonight I will be going to see the band “Snow Patrol” in concert with my lovely friend Ayrica. I’m going to take some bottles back for their deposit so I can buy myself a drink there. It should be a pretty cool concert. K was supposed to go but she has been sick the last few days.

Howdy kids. Sorry about any confusion here over the last few days. There has been a misunderstanding at the phone company and our phone and just today the internet, has been down. Until the matter has been resolved I’ll continue on with the journals and upload them to you wonderful readers at a different time. Yes, this is the life we lead. This 2004 Project, every single day of the year business is starting to come unbuttoned. We’ll get her back up and running shortly, don’t worry.

I have been doing a lot of hanging out this week. The Hawaiians have been staying here and we have been chilling. Seth got the Star Wars DVDs and the THX1138 DVD, so it has been a George Lucas week here. We also rented the new Star Wars Battlefront video game and we have been playing that. Pretty geeky stuff my friends!

Grades for the Summer 2004 term came out today. I was not going to look but then I could resist. Then I discovered that my internet was down this morning and I couldn’t check them now anyway. I hope that they are better than I think they are. I’m scared.

I am going to be heading off to Idaho for the weekend. I hope you won’t miss me too badly.

Good morning to you! I heard on the news that it was supposed to be in the 70s today and until just a few seconds ago I didn’t believe them. The Sun just popped through the clouds just now. I’m wearing a black turtle neck sweater now. I wonder if that is going to be too warm of an outfit?

The Hawaiians stayed the night last night and we had some fun.

Happy Monday afternoon to you! I just woke up from about a 45 minute nap. I think I’m going to back and continue napping after I get done with you here. I have actually been working on cleaning up here most of the day before nap time. I got up at 8 and took the dogs to their doggy day care. I went through my schoolwork, emptied out my folders and put everything into my school file box. It’s starting to look good in here. K is at school today.

I haven’t been paying much attention to the bills that have been coming in the mail these last few months. I went through our important document shredding pile today. It was kind of interesting getting reacquainted with the money we owe and the nice people that have been sending us mail stating as much. We may be down now, but you guys will really been for it when we get up on our feet. What you’ll be in for I’m not sure yet, but you’ll see. There will be no room for player haters in the future Noodle World.

Hold on one second. The phone is ringing. Ah yes. It was the Hawaiians. They’ll be here for a visit in about a half an hour. I’m going to have to straighten up this place a little bit more and make my stacks look a little bit more presentable. Hold on one second.

The Sun came out today. It was cold and foggy this morning, but it’s really nice out now. I probably should have went outside and mowed the lawn. Hopefully it will stay dry tomorrow and I can mow the lawn and do some yard maintenance then. It is really amazing how fast our summer left us this year. It was gone in about 4 hours one day. Boom. That’s it. Summer is over.

We were very disappointed last night. The next DVD in our Sopranos viewing was checked out. When we finally do get the next one we should rent the one right after it so that we won’t have this lull in our viewing fun.

Hey there. I was just sitting here stuck in a stare looking out the window at the rose bush in the yard. I’m feeling kind of sleepy now. I also have the sniffles. I have been cleaning out the bookshelf here in the laboratory and I really got the dust flying so maybe my congestion is from that. I hope I’m not getting a cold. I kind of feel like a cold is lurking. It’s hiding and waiting to pounce on me. I should go take a nap.

K and I went over to the Marcy house last night and played a lively game of Monopoly until about 2:30 in the morning. It was pretty fun. I ran out of all of my money though and had thousands of dollars in IOUs by the time the game wrapped up. I have enjoyed our every once and a while game nights.

Not much going on today. We had breakfast at Henry’s this morning. It was very tasty. Tonight we are going to return a bag of check books and credit cards that we found in our yard to it’s rightful owner. We are meeting this guy at the restaurant that he works at and he is rewarding us for finding his stuff with a drink and appetizers. Who can turn down a free drink and appetizers huh? I think tonight we are going to get the next DVD of the Sopranos and continue watching that.

Yes, I am taking apart this laboratory and getting it cleaned up and organized. It has been fun going through the books and papers that were stuffed into this bookshelf. I have been going slow and looking through pictures, notes and old schoolwork. Tomorrow I am going to continue on with the cleaning. What’s the hurry? I’ve got nothing but time now. I have got a pretty good stack of stuff going. I found some books that I haven’t looked at in a while that I am setting aside for closer inspection. Life is so much better when things are organized and not a mess.

Once I get my work area straightened out, I am going to do some serious studying and get my battle plan in order. I also have to start designing the new JackNoodle.com website that I will be revealing in October. I have a few ideas already. I need to do some sketches and start to get the structure and the coding going.

I really tried to sleep in this morning I swear. I woke up at 8:00 AM and just couldn’t fall back to sleep. I did fall asleep this afternoon and took a nap on the couch so that should count as sleeping in, only later in the day. It has been very chilly here today and I think that is why we are all sleepy here at the Noodle compound. It is gray and wet outside. It’s hard to stay awake also when there are cats and dogs sleeping on top of you.

I have done one thing so far on this lazy Saturday. There was a dead squirrel out in front on the sidewalk that I had to bag and throw in the garbage. I was sitting in the front room reading and could hear people walking by outside and commenting on the sorry bastard. He really got it. Poor squirrel looked like he was in pain. Must have been hit by a car.

I read quite a bit of the book I got at the library yesterday. I got my Norwegian ancestor O. E. Rolvaag’s greatest hit, “Giants in the Earth”. So far it’s pretty good. It’s about Norwegian immigrant settlers putting their stake down on the vast prairie lands of the American Midwest. Not my usual fare but I am really enjoying it.

I got quite a few other books at the library. I got some art books and some graphic design books. We had a good time looking at books yesterday. K and I should really go to the library more often. I would save some money at the bookstore if I remembered that books can be checked out in the library.

Oh yes, before the library I went to the school graduate portfolio show. It was pretty good. I thought that the graphic design students work was impressive. They had the most graduates of any department this term. I wasn’t very impressed with my major, multimedias showing. They didn’t put much into the presentation of their work I thought. They just had a computer screen for you to look at when you got to their table. I tell you people, when I graduate I am going to have a giant presentation with quite a few screens and structures and artwork hanging from the ceiling. It is going to be an over the top celebration.

That’s part of the reason I couldn’t sleep in this morning. I was thinking about what my portfolio day was going to be like.

Well, gosh. What are we going to do for the rest of the evening? I’m not sure. I really need to go through my stacks of papers piling up here in the laboratory. I need to dismantle my school work, reflect on it a bit and put it away. I am also going to make a big break time to do list so I can get organized. I’ll probably wait until Monday before going through any school work though. The wounds are still too fresh.

Martin brought my Playstation 2 back to me last night. I have been toying with the idea of renting a game and playing that. I don’t know though, a game would suck up a lot of time and I have a lot of things that I want to do. I also don’t know what kind of games are out there right now. What’s a good one to play now days?

Good morning to you beautiful people! How are you doing? I’m doing fairly well this morning. You know though, hold on one second. I have got to go make some coffee. I need to wake up a bit before I talk to you kids. Oh yes, that is much better.

It’s totally chilly here this morning. It has been raining and everything is soaked outside. I had to put on a sweater. I’m kind of hoping for a dry day in the next couple of days so that I can mow the lawn again. There is all kinds of yard work waiting for me out there.

I finished up my Europe paper. I’m not thrilled with how the paper turned out. I am so much better than this. That’s it for the 2004 Summer term. Woo freaking hoo! What a struggle! I had a rough time of it there towards the end. It’s over now though. I wish I felt like it was over. Everything hasn’t settled down yet I guess. I’m dreading my grades. I’m not sure why school was so tough this term. I think it must have been a poisonous combination of a number of things. Money issues and losing my job was definitely the grand finale of the term.

Now it’s time for me to regroup and get back on track. I’m totally going to figure some things out in the next 2 weeks and try to get going in the right direction again. Only 4 more terms left and I need to make this crap count. I need to get organized and get back into attack mode. Rolling with the punches isn’t working for me. I need to be like President Bush and punch first.

Throughout my time at school each term I have been studying things on the side that have interested me. I am going to get all of those things together during this time off and continue looking at those things more seriously now. I’m going to look closer at some of the things I discovered in Europe. Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, the Secession, Wiener Werkstatte, and Art Nouveau. I am also pulling some other bits together for my personal course work: green, sustainable design, minimalism, and usability. I am actually a descendant of the Norwegian writer Ole Edvart Rolvaag (I know, what?) I am planning on learning more about him and his writing. That will take me into learning about Norway, and Scandinavian design. I am also still working on Dante’s Inferno. What else? Oh yes, I would like to do some sort of sound design video project with the schools equipment while I still have access to it. I will also be practising my web coding so that I will be able to catch up with the other kids. So that’s the list. No, I won’t be doing all of that in the next to weeks, I’m just organizing it all to take in throughout the rest of the year.

Today K and I will be going to the portfolio show at school to see the graduates work. I am planning on going to every graduate show from now until I graduate so I can gauge what kind of work the competition is putting out. After the portfolio show we will be going to the downtown library to check out some books. I think a mellow weekend of recovery is in store for me.

On the movie front last night we saw the “Butterfly Effect” on DVD. It’s the movie starring Ashton Kutcher. It was actually not that bad. I had my doubts but a couple of people told me it was pretty good. Ashton, buddy, keep trying. You definitely aren’t Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt.

We also started in on Season 4 of “The Sopranos”. We’re 2 episodes in now. Holy crap. I forgot how good that show is. Why were we waiting so long to continue on to season 4 after season 3? Oh that’s right, we had school and work. We could have watched the whole season in one sitting last night, we were so excited.

Happy anniversary to us! The most beautiful girl in the World, K and I have been married now for four years! Woo Hoo! Hooray for us! Today we went out for a marvelous dinner at Wild Abandon.

Mark your calendars kids. Today was a day to remember!

It started off with a pretty frustrating class this morning. The Cure project didn’t get finished, so a pretty lame half done piece was turned in. I am not trusting anyone with a project next term. No more team projects for this guy. I totally have to start worrying about my portfolio and start to make some good pieces. I blame myself mostly with the Cure thing. I think I knew last night subliminally that it wasn’t going to get finished when it was in another’s corner. No finger pointing though. It stinks because I bit the dust in the two classes that I have that are taught by the same teacher. Teacher, please know that I am really better than this.

Next term I am so gonna kick some ass. I am tired of this crap. I am going to turn in stuff that will blow all of these suckers out of the water. I am so much better than this.

Riding the MAX to the office after school and feeling rather blue, I came to the realization that I should really kick it up a notch and work hard at the office. I was thinking with things so lame in the American economic world, and unemployment being so high in Oregon right now, I should be totally thankful for having a job.

Guess what! I was laid off again! Man oh man! Those Bastards!

It was such a weird thing. I was mildly upset but at the same time I was totally happy. I told my supervisor that I was surprised that I lasted a year and a month there this time. That company is ran very poorly. I don’t think I would get in trouble saying that here because everyone already knows how lame they are. They lost a giant account this time around and had to layoff a large percentage of their staff. This is the 3rd time in life that I have been laid off, and the 2nd time by that company, so maybe I am just getting used to getting called into the office and closing the door. I’m a little relieved because working there was really effecting my schooling. Unfortunately I need the money. There lies the problem. Oh well, I’m sure I will be working there again before too long and I’ll be laid off again when they lose another client.

So now school is done for the term and the office is done. Oh what is a boy to do with all of this free time and no money?

Oh yes, don’t worry. I am going to go back to the office with my hard drive tomorrow to get all of my music off of my work computer. I think I worked like 115 hours loading those 10.5 gigs onto that machine. See, how funny. I didn’t need any of the work that I did there for my portfolio, just my iTunes library. Makes you think, yes?

Happy glorious Monday evening to you! How have you been? Me? Well I am doing better now thank you. 3 classes down and only 2 more left of this evil 2004 Summer term! Woo hoo! I just got done having a little mini celebration by eating 2 cheese hotdogs without their buns, a bunch of graham crackers and a banana. Is that living or what?

I am happy that the school term is coming to a close. Have I mentioned that yet this post? Now that there are only 4 more terms left will it continue on in this painful fashion till the end? I am tired and burnt out. I am looking forward to our 2 weeks off. I am in need of a regrouping big time. I have get to get my spark back!

Don’t worry I’ll get it. I am already planning a regimen of inspiration retrieval for the next 2 and a half weeks.

Not too much has been going on around this place.