The Jack Noodle Journal

I am writing this post wire-free!

Yep. I went and bought an Apple Airport Extreme Base Station this morning. The Noodle Compound is wi-fi enabled. I have internet access on the front porch all the way to the back porch. I am sitting comfortably now in the front room on the floor at the coffee table. I am watching the news and drinking a refreshing Miller High Life. I don’t ever have to go into the uncomfortable, messy laboratory again if I don’t want to. It’s cool because my old computer Pierre, is also connected to the internet at the same time via old fashioned wires. I’m not gaining any speed though with this set up because everything is still connected to my DSL modem. I was told during re-setting up my internet connection a few months ago with Qwest due to nonpayment that there is a faster modem out there right now than the one I am currently using. Maybe I’ll get a faster DSL modem in the future.

The weekend is going pretty swell. We took a nice walk with the dogs this morning over to Hawthorne to get some coffee and do some banking. It was a pretty nice day weather wise. When we got back home the dogs got a bath and we did some chores. I did some dishes, moping and vacuuming. We are settling in now for a shrimp dinner.

I feel pretty good today. I’ve had several topics that I had thought of bringing up here in the journal last week that didn’t make it in. I think that I am going to have to set up a journal schedule and keep up with it. I need to adjust to a working 40 hours a week schedule. I am quite fond of writing in the mornings so I will probably add morning writing to my work day.

Another early morning write for me. This week has been weird already time-wise due to Presidents’ day on Monday. I am a day behind. I think that the Winter Olympics being on has also thrown our schedule off. We don’t know which day is which without the programing of “must see TV” guiding the way. Let’s see it’s not thursday yet because My Name is Earl isn’t on yet. Actually it has been nice getting away from our TV schedule.

To add to our sitting in front of the television time though, we signed up for Netflix for the first time the other day. We’ll see how that goes. They sure make it easy for you. Last night I spent an hour or so rating movies I have seen and seeing what kind of recommendations they were giving me from my ratings. That is kind of a cool system. The one-time web geek in me is curious about the nuts and bolts of how it does the figuring for you. I think there is a way to get out of the recommendations loop and just look at movies that aren’t what the computer thinks you will like.

My dream of never leaving the house is slowly coming to fruition. I don’t have to go to the video store anymore thanks to Netflix. I don’t have to go to the record store anymore thanks to iTunes. Alright, I guess I only have two services cutting down my real world time. I’m not much of an early adapter though. If I tried a little bit harder I could cut down more of my brick and mortar experiences. I don’t technically have to go to the bank anymore. I could get direct deposits and pay bills online. Does Safeway still deliver groceries?

I’ve got to get ready for work.

Still waiting to hear back from Place #4. This waiting around crap is getting old. I know that sometimes people aren’t sitting in front of their computers as many hours a day as I am, but come on, reply back to your emails already! These jobs are loosing their cool factors in relation to how long it takes them to reply back to emails.

I was doing the figuring in the shower this morning and I think it has been 5 months since I have paid a student loan bill. Woops. Yes it’s true folks, we aren’t very good about paying bills here. I can only imagine what my credit report looks like. I better hang up here and write a few checks before I hop on the bus.

Hey there. I had started a post yesterday but never finished it. It’s gone now. I’ll start over. I’m due for a long post one of these days. We had a nice and almost warm day yesterday. K and the puppies pulled me away from the laboratory and outside into the sun and fresh air for a dog walk. It was a good walk.

We had a pretty good weekend I guess. We didn’t do too much. We had the whole gang over for game night and pizza on Saturday. That was pretty fun. We didn’t play very many games though. We played one game of Star Wars Trivial Pursuit. Only the guys were geeky enough to play. The ladies couldn’t be bothered with such a game. We are fairly well versed in the Star Wars Universe so the questions were pretty easy for us. I don’t think that game would be very fun for someone who wasn’t a fan of the movies. Seth was the ultimate winner and biggest geek. It was a close game though.

It’s Presidents’ day today. Wait, how does that apostrophe work. There we go.
Yeah I know, who cares. Our current President has really tarnished the good holiday. Yeah Presidents’ day. Are there cards you can buy for Presidents’ day? I wonder if the President gets a cake? I am off from work today and so is K. I guess the office observes all postal holidays. K is a teacher of course and we all know how that works. Not too many places take Presidents’ day off do they?

It got darn cold again last night. I thought that we were going to be done with winter. Yesterday afternoon’s sunny weather made me think spring was coming. Still too soon.

Last night we rented and watched “The Constant Gardener” and “The Fog”. The Constant Gardener was pretty good. The Fog wasn’t. The Constant Gardener had beautiful shots of Africa. I thought the cinematography was wonderful.

We knew that the Fog was going to be bad when we rented it. The only thing I have to say about it is that this is another case of misleading “Unrated” versions. I was going on about this a few weeks ago. There was nothing objectionable with the unrated version of The Fog. It was like an episode of a WB show. I’ve come to a conclusion concerning this matter and I will never speak of it again. The definition of the DVD marketing term “unrated version” means you are getting a version of the movie that existed before they submitted it to the ratings board to receive it’s rating. You’re not necessarily getting something that is more naughty. Is that something that everybody knew already?

Hold on one second. The mighty Phillip is standing by the door and has to go out to the potty. Taking dogs out to go potty in this cold weather is painful. I have to bundle up. Phillip’s bladder is definitely getting bigger and stronger though because we really wait until the last possible second to take them out. See, just like this.

Not too much planned for today. I should do something. I feel like doing something today. There is quite a bit I could do. Maybe I will continue with archiving and computer clean up that I started a few days ago. Maybe I should do some more reading. I feel a big reading secession coming up in the future.

Hey there. I didn’t write too much this week did I? Well, I am going to have to put a stop to that no writing business.

It’s cold outside folks! Winter has come back from the dead to stick it to us. The wind is blowing pretty good at this hour also. It has been cold waiting for the bus and MAX this week. This has got to be the last of the winter weather though doesn’t it? I am ready for spring and then the wonderful summer.

8 more hours of work today and then it’s the weekend. Woo Hoo! This week went by pretty fast didn’t it? My work days seemed to go by fast also which is good. I worked pretty hard on a few projects this week and time definitely speeds by when you are concentrating and trying to work fast.

I am still deliberating what I am going to do work-wise. Place #3 is a sure thing and they are planning on offering me a full time spot. Place #4 is a bit cooler than Place #3 and I would be doing more web oriented work. Place #4 is still contract, freelance with no talks of a full time permanent position. So do I turn down a permanent comfortable spot for the contract work and more experience? Place #4 has work until May 5th, so maybe Place #3 would let me come back to work for them in May. I don’t have to make any decisions until Monday so I can have the weekend to weigh all of my options. I told the lady from Place #4 that I would let her know about my availability on Monday. I haven’t said anything to Place #3 about Place #4 yet. I probably won’t until Place #4 is a for sure thing or not.

The show at the Doug Fir on Wednesday was great. We had some fun. I thought my We’re From Japan friends did quite well. They sounded good. The basement of the Doug Fir is a pretty cool space. It reminded me of some crazy bar that you would have seen in Bewitched or the Brady Bunch. I think that 4 dollars is a bit expensive for a beer though. I was very tired on Thursday at work. I could barely keep my eyes open.

Hey there. I thought I would write a quick, early morning, before work post today. How’s it going?

I just woke up from a dream in which I won an Olympic gold medal! Little ole me. Before the dream ended though, they took it away from me. It was gold for wining a swimming race. In the race we were supposed to swim 2 laps. I mistook 2 laps for down to the end of the pool and back. The olympic officials were thinking that down and back twice was 2 laps. I was wondering why I was waiting around so long for the other swimmers to finish. I’m surprised the officials didn’t notice my blunder sooner, but I made it all the way through the medal ceremony and everything before they finally noticed the error.

Tonight there’s a big show at the Doug Fir. The band I like, We’re From Japan will be playing at 9 PM. Come and see them. It’s a free show. Yeah, I know it’s a Wednesday and you have to work the next morning, but come on you’ll be fine. You don’t have to be awake for your job anyway, right? K and I are actually quite excited to see what the basement of the Doug Fir looks like. We haven’t been down there yet.

In other news, Seth and Alicia are coming back home today. Woo-hoo! Seems like they have been gone forever. They have been away on business for a month. Last time they came back from being gone I didn’t recognize them for half an hour after first seeing them. I was supposed to help them move into their new apartment today, but I’ll be at work. Sorry kids.

I got a call from another place wanting me to come in and do contract work yesterday! We’ll call them Place #4. They are actually a place that I interviewed at last year that are calling me back. Gosh, I don’t know. I’m in pretty deep with Place #3 right now. What to do, what to do. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to hear what Place #4 is after. It would be cool if I could find a way to stuff Place #4 work in around Place #3 work. I really dig having people call me on the phone offering work. That’s a new sensation for me.

I’ve got to get going. I have to try to put a bill in the mail and take the dogs out before I head off to work. Yeah, turns out that the city isn’t too humored by our creative bill paying for the water bill.

Another beautiful morning. God bless that sunshine! I’m telling you, you can smell spring coming.

The weekend is begining to wind down. It was a pretty good weekend. We had some fun. Why is it that I have such a hard time spelling beginning? I always spell it wrong starting out and then spell check catches it. I can never remember the double n.

I stumbled on to my friend Craig’s page the other day. Craig is such an awesome artist. Nice guy also. I can’t wait for his new book to come out. His web page is nice, clean and comforting. I think his brother designed it. I was going on and on telling this girl at the Night Light on Friday that she had to read his book “Blankets”.

Hold on one second. I’ve got to go take the dogs out to go potty.

Last night we watched the movies “The 40 Year Old Virgin” and “Dark Water”. Both were pretty good.

The 40 Year Old Virgin had some funny moments. I don’t think it was as hilarious as some people had told us. It was cute. I did think that it was the most solid comedy, movie-wise that I have seen in a while. It stayed consistent throughout and didn’t fall apart at the end which is a pretty big accomplishment for any movie these days. Steve Carell was very funny in it. I like him.

I don’t know, Dark Water was okay. It was scary at times but definitely not frightening. Dark Water continues with that current trend started by “The Ring” of stealing Japanese horror movies and passing it off to the American public as an original work. A guy at the video store said that the original Japanese version was scarier than Dark Water. I tell you what though, I sure do have a thing for Jennifer Connelly. I think she is quite pretty.

I am getting really tired of these producers using “Unrated Version” as a DVD marketing tool. Remember when “Unrated Version” use to mean something? I have no idea what was unrated about the version of Dark Water that we saw. I would have rated that unrated version a PG. I think she said “shit” one time and that was it. I wish we could go back to the days when people could release a real R movie and not have to change it to PG-13 because the numbers told them they would get a bigger box office with PG-13. I may be a bit de-sensitized though. Someone was talking about how bad a scene was a few months ago and I was a bit surprised and had to re-evaluate it to see how it could be viewed as bad.

The other thing that bothers me about the DVD marketing machine now days is the “special features”. Come on if they aren’t special then don’t show them! That Dark Water DVD included 2 deleted scenes that absolutely were deleted for a reason. They shouldn’t have been even shown as deleted scenes. They both were less than 2 minutes long and added nothing to the story or any insight to the thinking of the film editor. They were just included because, “Hey, we can’t release an Unrated Version DVD without some deleted scene special features”!

You know, after reading back over those 2 paragraphs, I am going to have to say that the Dark Water DVD sucked. I talked myself out of it. Jennifer Connelly was pretty in it though.

I am beginning the process of backing up my old files and burning them to disk. I am trying to make some room on my old computer and get it cleaned up. I have all kinds of school work on there that needs to get stow away. It’s amazing how fast a computer can get filled up with files. I’m also going to go through the Noodle server space and clean that puppy out to make some room. There are a bunch of files on the server that are old and don’t connect to anything anyway.

K and I have some sort of Sunday dinner cooking project to work on together for this evening. I’m not sure what we are going to cook yet. I told her to surprise me. She’s at the grocery store right now.

Oh yeah, Valentine’s Day is coming up in a few days. I have a plan for the little lady, but I still have to construct it. Maybe I should get going on it right now while she is away.

I just got back from a journey out in the wonderful weather that we are fortunate to have today. The sun feels so good. It is a bit windy but nothing to complain about. You should really stop reading this post and get outside right now.

My mission was to get those wedding DVDs mailed. Mission accomplished! I was going to do that yesterday but I started checking the batch of DVDs in my player and found out that they were screwed up. I’m starting to not like iDVD. One thing that I thought might be happening was that iDVD was re-encoding the encoded video every time I started to burn a new batch. I’m pretty sure it was. Kind of like when you record a copy of a copy in VHS. It was getting dirtier and dirtier with each batch.

The wedding DVD is done now and everything should be fine. I was starting to have troubling dreams about the whole project so it is good that it is out of my hair.

On my journey I also headed over to Hawthorne and went to Powell’s and Jackpot Records.

It was good to be in the record store. I checked out some of the packaging and booklets of the CDs that I have purchased on iTunes. I’m not missing much by only having the MP3 files. Bands are really going to have to up the ante with their artwork and packaging if they are going to sell physical copies of their CDs. Including extra DVDs with the CDs is a good start to increasing the value of a physical product I think. I looked at that Keane CD that I have been thinking about getting and I couldn’t justify spending $14.98 for it when iTunes has it for $10.98.

At Powell’s I purchased a book. Gosh, I know, I have so much to read already, why did I buy a new book? I should start visiting the library instead of the bookstore. The book I got though looks like it is going to be a good one. “Design Writing Research: Writing On Graphic Design” by Ellen Lupton and Abbott Miller. I can’t wait to dive into it. I heard Ellen Lupton on the Design Matters podcast and really liked what she had to say.

This “Design Writing Research” book will help me articulate what I think I am after with my 62nd & Radish plans. I think the key ingredient is “authorship”. I may be more of a fine artist. Creating for the sake of creating. Not that I have been doing much of that lately. Who knows. You kind of have to be a graphic design rock star to be any kind of success at “designer as author”.

On my way back here this afternoon, I had a horribly grumpy bus driver. I actually thought about getting off a few stops earlier due to her grumpiness. I really wasn’t interested in her bringing my good day down. I was standing in the front next to her and she kept bitching about having to pick people in wheelchairs up. She kept looking at me and complaining to me like I would agree with her that picking people in wheelchairs up sucked. I happened to get on at a stop where a lady in a wheelchair got on. I didn’t see any problem at all. The bus driver told me that was the thirteenth person in a wheelchair that she had picked up that day. What planet are you from asshole? I didn’t say anything to the bus driver. I wasn’t interested in telling her how lame she was. I just wanted to get off at my stop. I wish there was a polite way to tell someone that you thought they were a jerk and wished that they would stop talking to you.

Ah forget that crap! It’s Friday my friends! What sort of fun do you have in store for the weekend? If it stays this nice tomorrow then we are definitely going to spend most of the day outside! K gets off early today so we may even be up for some fun this evening.

Good morning all. The Sun is shining brightly this morning. I’m telling you folks, spring is almost here! Phillip is laying here in my arms getting some rays and making it hard for me to type.

I have the day off today from the office. I need to stop working so fast on my files so that I can have longer weeks of work. There are some exciting developments in the works concerning my career developments. I’ll speak more of them as soon as they are fully developed. For now I will work on developing my day off.

That’s it Phillip. You are too heavy. I can’t type with you on my lap buddy. Go lay in the sun in the front room.

I have quite a bit planned for my day. We’ll see how much of it I get done. The first order of business is to drink a bunch of coffee. After that I am going to get the cousin’s wedding DVD re-burns packaged up and take a nice walk in the sun to the post office to get those puppy sent. Then I may stop off to see Eric at his printshop. After that I need to get home and try to get as much of the kitchen cleaned as possible before K gets home from work.

Hopefully somewhere in there I will be able to get started on a creative project or two. I’m feeling good this week and I think some creativity will be knocking on my door shortly. Listening to that entrepreneurial podcast all week has really got me thinking about 62nd&R. I have had a few breakthroughs this week on that “What do you really want to do?” question that has been haunting me. I’m in the process of getting some stuff written out about 62nd&R. I am planning on using this journal to get it all solidified in writing. Hopefully it won’t be too boring for you. Who knows maybe a VC or two will read this and want to fund 62nd&R. Stranger things are happening now days.

I got tagged. Mr. Snethen called me out to play in one of the cool kid blogger games. I was so excited! It is like we are back on the playground at Beavercreek Elementary and Chris is inviting me to play with the older kids up in the heavily guarded wooden forts (the wooden forts are now long gone by the way). Alright Noodle, don’t be such a geek or you are totally out of the fort.

I kind of already do this music bit on the sidebar there. I have been thinking of doing a mix CD coming up here soon so maybe this will get me started. Let’s see, the rules say I am supposed to include the rules:

The rules: List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

I don’t know seven other bloggers so I won’t be able to tag anyone. Don’t screw this up Noodle!

1.”Night Swimming” – REM. This song makes me long for summer.

2. “Fix You” – Coldplay. I have already commented quite a bit on this tune over the last few weeks.

Hold on. I’ve got to turn my iTunes on.

3. “Maybe You Can Owe Me” – Architecture In Helsinki. I’m finding that people I tell about them aren’t getting into Architecture In Helsinki as much as I am.

4. “When I Destroy An Animal” – We’re From Japan. Martin and crew are playing next week at the Doug Fir. Check ‘em out.

5. “Major Label Debut” – Broken Social Scene.

6. “Soft Power” – Ladytron.

7. “Everybody’s Changing” – Keane. I’m still not sure if I am going to get this album or not. I probably will.

There you have it kids. I could have kept going since I have been listening to so much music at work lately. I have actually begun to worry about my hearing and how wearing headphones all day is affecting my ears. There are a couple of generations of men who are hard of hearing in my family and I think I might be carrying on that tradition in the future. Argh!

Hey there, hey there.

I’m sitting here in the front room entering this post. Thanks so much to whomever’s wi-fi I am borrowing. I’ve figured out the right spot to sit to catch the waves here. I’m going to get an airport station here at the compound soon so you’ll be able to borrow my wi-fi.

I can’t tell you what TV show I am watching now because it is embarrassing and I don’t want to admit to viewing it. I’ll have to say though that it is much more entertaining when they are doing the first rounds of auditions. When they get down to the finalists it is truly lame.

Today was a gorgeous day. Summer is coming people! Okay, well maybe Spring. Summer is still a ways away.

I took a walk today and found a nearby bank to deposit my check. I found a branch of my bank in walking distance of the office. I looked on the internet for the location and found that a branch of my bank is inside Emanuel Hospital. Yeah, it was a weird little place.

It sure is crazy how having a little bit of money in the bank lifts the spirits.

K and I had a nice dinner at the Barley Mill this evening. It was good eating out for the first time in several days. I had the stuffed burger. It was delicious. That stuffed burger is hit or miss, so be careful. I swore against it after having a raw one the first time at the Kennedy School. I got back on the horse though obviously.

We played a game of Scrabble at the Barley mill. It’s on. Let the games begin. We are adding a few new rules to our competition.

K just called me in to the kitchen to inform me that Pierre was up to something in the laundry room. She did that “I don’t want to alarm you” business. Gosh, just saying that automatically makes you alarmed and fearing the worse. Turns out the little guy has a mouse cornered in the back room. Yep. We have vermin inside the house now. I cleared some boxes and a bag of bottles out of the way and it scurried out. Gross. The Mouse made it away from Pierre and I. Pierre is still back there looking for it. Yep. Mice were bound to happen one of these years. This area has all kinds of critters trying to break in to your house.

Today was a pretty good day. Not too much happened.

I listened to a couple of interesting podcasts on entrepreneurialism today. You know the kind of presentations where they tell you that if you just do something that you are passionate about then everything will work out fine. Yeah, I think that is a great thing to shoot for. Sometimes it is hard to pay the bills though while you are being passionate. I think it would be fun to start up my own firm. It would be a lot of work. If only I could get someone to pay me to do the kind of artwork and projects that I like. Hmmm. I think I might be too lazy to be a proper entrepreneur. It would be cool if someone would pay me to surf the internet, look things up, write a blog and listen to new music all day. Actually that kind of is what I am doing at place #3 right now minus the internet surfing, looking things up, and writing the blog parts.

I need to get my 62nd & Radish design firm up and running and have clients beat down the door for the 62nd & Radish style. 62nd for short. I guess you could say Radish if you wanted. I think I need to write up some business plans for 62nd. I have some notes written up on the how tos of business plan writing that I should revisit.

I’ve got to go eat some dinner now before the mice get it.