The Jack Noodle Journal

I downloaded, oh wait, uploaded some photos from our Arizona / Mexico trip that we were on a few weeks ago. Take a look.
I wasn’t paying attention to the chronological placement of the photos in Flickr this time around. They are kind of in reverse order. Start on page two and move up to page one.

The trip to Arizona was definitely the highlight of our Holiday Adventure Season (prove me wrong New Years). We had a great time visiting Mr. Baptist and Ms. Bee.
It was really cool to see their new house project.

They recently purchased some land outside of Tucson (anyone else annoyed with trying to figure out how to spell Tucson?). We were out in the desert. It was warmer than Portland by a bit but during the night it might have been colder. It was more dry than Portland for sure.

The homestead they took over is called Solar Haven and it even comes with it’s own website. Pretty cool, buy the house and we’ll throw in it’s website (actually Mr. Baptist doesn’t have anything to do with the website yet). It’s a pretty informative website. Jim and Mindy must be the folks who sold Solar Haven to Mr. Baptist. It was interesting to see the photos of the house as they were building it.

Solar Haven as Jim and Mindy had envisioned it, is an exercise in sustainable living. It was cool. We were totally off of the grid. Everything was powered with solar and wind power. It can be done! The house was built using straw bale construction (which I only know a little bit about). The straw bale walls had a really cool texture to them.

Mr. Baptist and Ms. Bee are putting alot of their own touches, tweaks and ideas into Solar Haven, but I think they are sticking pretty close to Jim and Mindy’s dream. They lucked out and got quite a few of the construction workers that had been already working on the project to continue building. They are planning on two more months of work before the house is complete.

K and I noticed that the property had a relaxing, good energy about it. It was nice. There were thousands of coyotes out there at night whose howls weren’t relaxing or filled with good energy.
“Everything kills everything out there in that desert,” A wise old timer told me.
Mr. Phillip won’t be visiting there anytime soon.
Internet came through a wifi card cellphone line somehow and there was a satellite for TV viewing, but they don’t watch TV so didn’t see the need to pay for it.
All the necessities for living off the grid in the desert and being a hermit.
Pretty sweet.

We went down and spent a day in Mexico. We were right on the border in a town called Nogales. It might be the nicest Mexican border town I have been in so far.
While we were down there it snowed! Yep. Snow in Mexico. It didn’t stick though.

I am feeling much better today. Thanks for all of your prayers and magic potions.
Gosh that was a stinker. Sore throat, fever, head and body aches.
I fought through my agony and went to work on Friday.

Right now I am loading up another stack of CDs onto my iPod. It’s a big stack.
I was sitting here watching the loader bar creep along when I thought,
“Well I should be writing a post instead of just sitting here watching songs load!”

Here I am.

One thing I have discovered:
If you take the disc callout off of the title of a double CD album, you have one long seamless iPod listening experience.

Example:
Miles Davis, Bitches Brew (disc 1)
Miles Davis, Bitches Brew (disc 2)

can be transformed into:
Miles Davis, Bitches Brew

It’s truly the way that the Mr. Daviss, the Floyds who happen to be pink and the pumpkin smashers of the World intended for you to listen to their music. One long uninterrupted experience.

While cleaning out our CD drawers I was shocked to discover how many old friends I have been neglecting! There really is no reason to keep buying new CDs with so many gems just sitting there collecting dust not being listened to.

Just one of the many examples is the great CD, “Lift Your Tiny Fists Like Antenaes to Heaven” by Godspeed You Black Emperor. Holy crap what a doosey! Drop everything you are doing and go buy a copy. Well, you should probably sample it first.
I can’t wait to fill my ear buds with that business.

I’m going to say it here. Even though I’m feeling a tad weak still from being sick, I’m willing to fight you on this one.
The best Beastie Boys album of all time is “Check Your Head”.
It really is.

Gosh, what a charmed life. Sitting around loading albums onto an iPod.

While I’m sitting here doing that and you are sitting there reading about me doing that, there is someone out there in the World who is struggling to feed her starving baby. Somewhere else a family could be hiding from gunmen who want to drag them out to the street and kill them.

We’ve got it good here, you and I, don’t we?

Downer.
No, I’m just saying.
Makes you think.

It’s true. Your humble narrator has fallen ill and stayed home from work today.
Sucks!

I feel horrible. I’ve got a foggy headache, a sore throat, the sweats and the shivers. I just sneezed.
My whole body is aching.

My sickness hit me right around 12 yesterday.

I feel bad for calling in sick and missing work. That makes me mad. I shouldn’t feel guilty for being sick.
The office isn’t going to crumble just because I stayed home to recover.

I think this was my first sick day of the year. So close to the end of 2006.

Well, I am going to rest now and drink some tea.

Mr. Snethen has a very good piece (calling blog posts “pieces” is cool) on the 2006 album year in review here. I am thus reminded by said piece that I have been meaning to write up a Noodle year in review. I did devote a lot of ink to the tunes I listened to this year here in the journal so a wrap up is definitely due.

One question I have is, are these lists called “year end reviews” or “year in reviews”? Does it matter?

The required opening paragraph I am finding in the 2006 year in review pieces that I have been reading starts by stating how difficult it has now become in our pop music culture to write up a concise list. I think it’s true. Everybody’s list is different. We are getting our music from many different sources now. That is stating the obvious now days. I love it. I am glad that we no longer have to stand in lines at Musicland and Tower Records waiting for them to hand us our standard issue CDs of “Achy Breaky Heart”.

I was surprised this year by how many albums and artists making people’s best of lists that I hadn’t heard of before.

In the olden days I would turn to Rolling Stone (the paper version) to get my year in review report. I started there this year just as a reminder of what came out that I had forgotten about. From Rolling Stones top 50 I have 12 of their picks currently on my iPod. Six of the artists on the Rolling Stone list I hadn’t heard of before.

Looking back over my iTunes library, I see that I have acquired quite the stack of music this year. I am surprised by some of the albums that I thought were 2005 albums. Paul Simon, Gnarls Barkley, and Wolfmother must have all been released way early in the year. Is that right?

These are the top albums I listened to this year that raised the hair on the back of my neck, making me say, “Dang, this is some good stuff!”
I tried to get it down to 10. Sorry to those albums I forgot. These are the ones I listened to the most over the year for sure though.

Here’s the list:

1. “The Eraser” by Thom Yorke
2. “Young Machetes” by The Blood Brothers
3. “The Information” by Beck
4. “Drums Not Dead” by The Liars
5. “Supernature” by Goldfrapp
6. “The Crane Wife” by The Decemberists
7. “The Garden” by Zero 7
8. “Begin to hope” by Regina Spektor
9. “Broken Boy Soliders” by The Raconteurs
10a. “Wolfmother” by Wolfmother
10b. “St. Elsewhere” by Gnarls Barkley
10c. “Surprise” by Paul Simon
10d. “I’m a Big Sister, and I’m a Girl, and I’m a Princess, and this is my Horse” by Underworld

By reading everyone’s 2006 picks one gets a good shopping list to start off 2007 right.

Merry Christmas all! Woo Hoo!

Was Santa good to you?

Are you reading this post now on one of your Christmas presents? Did you get a new electronic device? Is the Noodle Journal flashing across your new computer screen? Did you get a Christmas PDA? A cellphone that reads the internets? A microwave that can surf the web?

We are having a splendid holiday season. Last night we went out to Newburg to Aunt Gina and Uncle Mark’s. The night before that we were out in Clackamas at my brother’s and this afternoon we are going to Beavercreek to Pa’s house.

Time to get ready for Valentine’s Day.

Hey there all. We’re back!

Yep, we have been in Arizona for the last 4 or so days. Did you miss me?
It was a fun trip.
We went down and visited Mr. Baptist and Ms. Bee. K’s folks.

I was going to write a post while away and pretend like I was still in Portland. Although I had a few things to say, I lacked the energy at the time.

I’m going to posts some photos and write a serious run down of the trip later. Maybe tonight?

Right now I am back at the office. I have to work the two remaining days of the week and then it’s holiday time.

Yep I am in my birthday suit today.

Your humble narrator has made it through another year!
I’m starting to feel like an adult now at 34. I had a feeling that adulthood would catch me at some point.

I am now curious about things like frequent urination.

The birthday fairy brought me an iPod! Woo Hoo! I’m one of THOSE people now.
Finally! I have been talking about wanting an iPod here in the journal since 2001.

I am busy loading up mountains of music.

Yes I am realizing I am now an adult.
Remember growing up when the old folks listened to their old timer music like the Beach Boys and Frank Sinatra?
Now the kids today see this 34 year old as that old timer!
Not only does my old timer iPod have the Beach Boys and Sinatra on it but also the new old timer music like Nirvana’s “Nevermind”, Depeche Mode’s “Violator” and the Cure’s “Disintegration”.

“Gosh, those children of the 90s are so old fashioned”

At least I’m not as old as Mr. Snethen.

Merry Birthday all!

Gosh I am feeling groggy today.
I’m surprised I even made it into the office this morning I’m so sleepy.

I just poured myself a pint of coffee. Maybe that will help wake me up. After that I will have two pints of water. I need to drink more water.
Last week at this time I was feeling great. Wide awake and ready to take on the World.

I went to bed at a decent hour last night. That’s not it.
I drank a couple of glasses of milk before bed.
I wonder if the milk is making me groggy? Are milk hangovers possible?

I hope I’m not getting sick. Poor K has been sick for the last three days. Cold, sore throat and the achy business.

I’m almost sure during my bus and MAX ride that I was like that sleepwalking character in the cartoons who sleepwalks through several pitfalls nearly getting creamed. Walking through traffic, almost getting hit by cars. Walking past a grand piano being hoisted up into a building when the cable breaks and the piano nearly smashes him. Walking across that steel beam as the crane lifts it way up onto the skyscraper construction site.

Come on Noodle! Wake it up. A good work day is ready to be had! SLAP! SLAP! (that was me slapping my face)

In Noodle rental news it looks like we may be nearing the end of our original Netflix queue. Oh no, don’t get me wrong, we still have 101 movies on there, but we are now at the movies that we originally put at the bottom of the list when we first signed up.

“Oh well, I kind of want to see that. I’ll just put it at the bottom of the queue and it will take a long time to get here, while the movies I want to see will stay at the top.”

We have “Mona Lisa Smile” at the house now. I think I wanted to see that because of the whole Julia Roberts as an art teacher angle.

We need some more good new movies to put at the top of our queue.

We watched the Al Gore movie “An Inconvenient Truth” on Sunday. It was a great DVD. Not great in a “Pirates of the Caribbean” entertaining way, but great in an “important” and a “must see” sort of way. It was well done. The movie is a presentation of the talk that Al Gore has been giving around the World on the climate crisis, or global warming. Very disturbing stuff.

They showed some clips from the stolen 2000 US election and I was surprised at how dated everyones clothes, hairstyles, and makeup already looked. It is kind of interesting wondering how things would have been different if the Supreme Court gave Al Gore the win. Maybe things would have been a little bit better? Maybe not. It was kind of a “oh man” look how far we have descended since then realization.

There was some interesting thoughts on the need to maybe not focus so much on a “war on terror” but instead start a “war on pollution”. Sounds good to me. Both are similar sort of battles aren’t they?

Sifting through the facts and figures and looking at the evidence in the movie, I was reminded of my childhood church going days. Sitting through sermons on Revelations, the end days, the Lord’s return. There was going to be wars, famine, pestilence, storms, monsters with twelve eyes and rivers of blood. I remember sitting there in the pew hoping that the Lord would stay home. I hoped that I would be dead before having to see any of that shit. I was also worried at the time that the Lord would come back before I was able to have sex and I would have to spend eternity as a virgin (a story for another time).

The hopes of dying before this global warming maelstrom hits are over. It’s here kids. I think that “An Inconvenient Truth” did try it’s best at the end to give some sort hope that it’s still not too late and we have a chance to slow this stuff down. I don’t know though. I have a lingering, but I’m just one man, and we’re all doomed thing going.

K and I thought that it would be funny this holiday season to be that “force your views on others” family member that everyone knows and loves, by giving all of our loved ones their own copy of the “An Inconvenient Truth” DVD.

“Oh yeah, An Inconvenient Truth… That’s that Al Gore movie… Oh.. hey… well thank you. Just what I wanted.”
“You’re welcome. Merry Christmas. It’s a very important must see film.”

No we won’t be giving it as a gift.
Now I am going to feel bad for writing that if we receive it as a gift under similar conditions.
I will be recommending it to everyone as a rental though when I make the family rounds over the holidays.

It’s a wet one out there right now. Big rain drops. It wasn’t too chilly though so that’s something. I am wearing my long johns under my pants and sweater though so maybe that was what was keeping me warm. I wore my older white tennis runners this morning and I think they are taking in some water. My toes are damp. That’s what I get for sleepwalking through mud puddles.

We had a pretty good weekend. How was yours?

On Saturday we had a really fun time taking my eldest nephew out on the town. He’s a great kid. We went and looked at books at Powell’s downtown. Then we went and had lunch at Burgerville and then went to see a movie. K and I couldn’t convince him to see “Happy Feet” at OMSI. He wanted to see “Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause”. He liked it. I’m not use to doing things just because the kid wants to do it. I’m not used to be dragged anywhere by the children. It was kind of nice. Even though you can’t stand the movie and can’t follow the plot because it’s the 3rd movie in a trilogy (kidding), it’s still a pretty good flick because the kid you’re with is enjoying it.

Caleb is 7 now. That’s a pretty good age. He is almost to the point of being able to work on diabolical projects and talk Harry Potter plot points with. It was fun looking at books with him but there seemed to be a distraction point that I think will fade a bit more closer to the 9 and 10 years.

It was fun. K and I like being aunt and uncle.

Before picking the nephew up in the morning, I went to the DMV and got my license renewed. It was time. I was very excited to get a new photo on my drivers license. I put on the perfect shirt and everything. I have been growing a winter beard also so I was happy to get a record of that endeavor. Man oh man. The photo didn’t turn out like I was hoping. It looks bad. It’s kind of a funny bad though. It doesn’t look like me. I’m going to have trouble convincing people it’s my ID in the future. I look like an old man. I kind of look like George Castanza with a beard. Jason Alexander. I have gotten second and third opinions on the shot and I really do have more hair on the top of my head than the angle of the photo represents. Oh well. I’m stuck with it until 2014.

It’s nice to have my address printed on the license for real now. I had those renewal stickers that were all faded and worn off before. If I were teaching a design course, one of the assignments I would give the class would be to redesign the Oregon drivers license. God, it is looking ugly. For starters it could be greatly improved just by fixing the use of space.

I’m going to try and be a good worker here at the office this week. I have been kind of distracted the last few weeks. I’m going to focus on having a productive work week starting… Now! Go! Go!