The Jack Noodle Journal

Happy birthday to my lovely baby doll. The best damn girl in the whole World. Sorry other ladies, K leaves you chumps in the dust.
We are talking about a birthday get together on Saturday.

Can’t type now. More later.

YO! Happy Monday to you.

Don’t email me at the office today because I am not there.
Yep. I got the powers that be to agree to allow me to work the four 10s I had requested. I’ll be working at the office now Tuesday through Friday. I’m pretty stoked. I worked four 10s coloring comics at the Horse many moons ago and I seem to recollect that it was fun times.

I was a tad annoyed last week that it required the amount of effort that it did to get the powers that be to agree to it. I’m still working 40 solid hours folks, what’s the big deal? I think sometimes it’s just easier to say no to things even when there isn’t much reason to. Oh well, I’m starting to get over it now. I am a hard worker and the hemming and hawing has caused me to feel the urge to work even harder to prove that I am the asset that I think I am. I am the shit people! A pro. I deserve my four 10s. Hey wait a second. Were the bosses using reverse psychology on me to get me to work harder? Argh! Foiled again.

I picked Mondays to have off over Fridays because I felt that my Mondays could be better used as work days than Fridays. Fridays off would have just been an excuse to start the weekend fun earlier. Mondays will always feel like the start of a work week no matter if you are home or at the office.

That is my plan. Use Mondays to work entirely on my own projects and schemes. During the summer months it will be used to spend more time with the vacationing K but when her work starts up again it will be projects and schemes. Well wait, there will be projects and scheming during the summer months as well, but maybe not as intense due to playtime.

I’ve been interested in business literature and how-to entrepreneurial endeavors off and on since school wrapped up. I was reminded of this again while reading my pal the Couv Operator’s blog praising the book “The Dip” by Seth Godin. It’s a pretty good book. I bought the audio version from our friends at iTunes. There are some interesting ideas and common sense moments of “oh yeah, well I should have thought of that”. After listening to the Dip I was led down the “well if you liked this, try this” path to the book “The 4-Hour Workweek” by Timothy Ferriss. I got that puppy at Powell’s last night. I started reading it before going to bed. It’s a pretty quick read so far. There are some good ideas in that book as well.

Now my head is filled with Career guidance and life goal planning schemes. The books are a tad on the author interviewed with Oprah spectrum but I’m getting to that mid-thirties age where I am comfortable sitting in her audience cheering and dabbing a tear from my eye.

Yes, this career guidance, self-help, life goal planning is playing into my four 10s. I’m thinking that my goal will be to start the frog on a slow, low heat boil so that it doesn’t notice that it is being cooked. Four 10s will eventually lead to 40 hours of telecommuting. Shhh! Don’t say anything though, remember, slow boil.

Today, first off, I am going to start making a list of all the things I would like to tackle on my Mondays.

One thing that I need to work on right away is getting the Noodle computer lab cleaned up and in working order. I need to get that room to the point of being comfortable enough to actually feel like sitting in there and working. It’s a mess. As long time readers of the journal and compound visitors can attest, that room has always been a mess. I thinking getting rid of the PC and it’s stupid vertical computer desk will be a big first step. Buying a nice desk and comfortable office chair will do wonders in creating an environment that one would want to spend time in.

Another thing I have to get on is speeding up my connection to the internet. I’m going to need a faster modem or get some kind of WiFi booster. Being able to download large files using FTP in a timely fashion is going to be of huge importance in furthering my future endeavors.

I have a couple of design projects for a few of you kids that I need to get on the burner and out the door. Maybe now that I have Mondays for project working, I’ll be able to pump out some logos and illustrations.

The big daddy of all my big daddies is getting my video stuff going. Video? Yes video. VIDEO!
The heart of my creative desires is with the video. I don’t feel like I have spent any time at all with it.
I need to get all up to speed with my Final Cut Pro. I need to start filming everything with my new camera.
Have my whole process figured out down to a science.
One of my first goals with the video is to put up a YouTube video that gets at least a thousand hits.

Okay, let me at ‘em!

Happy Friday to you!

Hooray for K! Today is the last day of school for her. Now she has the whole summer free of work. Oh the joys of a teacher during the summer months!
I am very happy for and proud of K. She had a good school year. She’ll be going back to the same gig next year so she doesn’t have the burden of looking for a job like she did last summer.
Let the summer fun begin!

I had a pretty full week. Stayed up late on Monday night. Had a meal with old school chums on Tuesday night. Went to a bizarre company Christmas party on Wednesday night (go-cart racing. Pizza Hut eating, oh yeah it’s June isn’t it?). Hung out with Mr. Baptist and Ms. Bee last night. We Drove Mr. Baptist and Ms. Bee to the airport at 4:30 this morning. Those two are flying out for vacationing in Mexico. My brother is graduating with his MBA tonight and I might get over there to see that.

Feeew!
I think we have a full weekend coming up as well.
I still have a day of Friday work left to finish.

I’m going to buckle down here soon and get in a zone.

I have been playing around on Digg.com for the last couple of days. Have you ever dug Digg? It’s pretty interesting and entertaining. It’s a text book study of the art of information design. Showing several different ways you can manipulate and dress up the same data in different outfits. I am quite impressed with the Swarm version. It’s hypnotizing.

Are you all excited for the new White Stripes album coming out next Tuesday? It’s a good one! I’ll be picking it up as soon as possible. The song “Icky Thump” is quite a barnstormer. You should check out the video for it here. It’s pretty awesome. Icky Thump is an excellent song to have blasting in your head while trying to get your hipster strut on.

I am one sleepy camper this morning.
I’ve got the coffee started on it’s brew here at the office. I am looking forward to my first pint of coffee.

The weekend has wrapped up nicely and we are starting out on what I am anticpating, but hoping won’t be, a long work week.

We stayed up late last night watching the movie “Seven” again for the hundredth time. Seth and Alicia’s lovely friend Sabrina hadn’t seen it before. It is always fun introducing someone to that movie for the first time. Gosh, Seven is a great movie. It is so gorgeously filmed. We were commenting last night on how well it has held up over time. What year was it released? Hold on let me check. Wow. 1995. That sort of seems like a long time ago doesn’t it?

Coffee is ready. Hold on one second.

Yes, it was a good weekend. We had a lot of fun with the guests who stayed with us. I think they are moving on and staying with the Castichell’s tonight or tomorrow. Taking the party over to St. Johns my people!

Yesterday we went and did some book shopping at Powell’s downtown. Man oh man. It was a dangerous scene kids. I am surprised I made it out with purchasing only one book. Everything looked so freaking good. I wanted to fill up a shopping cart with books!

A book I didn’t buy that looked awesome was “Radiohead: Welcome to the Machine: Ok Computer and the Death of the Classic Album ” by Tim Footman. It is a pretty cool dissection and study of the OK Computer album. I’m interested in the process that went into the creation of the album. The book had an analysis of the influences and directions of other albums, books, movies and art that informed the band while they were recording. It looked good.
I’ll probably wait and check it out at the library though.

I ended up buying a book on Dada and Surrealism.

Gosh, I’m sleepy.
I wonder if I’m getting a cold?

Not much going down around these parts.

Continuing our visits with Mr. Baptist.
Picked Seth and Alicia up at the airport last night. Very good to see them again.
We stayed up until about 1 last night. I’m pretty sleepy this morning.

Hold on while I go get some freshly brewed coffee, won’t you?

Hey yeah, it’s Friday!
That is good.

It was a fairly quiet work week.

My simple quest of getting the work week whittled down to 4 days instead of 5 has turned into an unnecessary annoyance that still has yet to be resolved.

On Wednesday we had a studio clean up day and I thought for sure that I had snapped both my wrists when I landed on them falling off of the skate board I was riding through the photo studio. I was trying to do a power slide and the concrete was much too slick.
I don’t think my wrist are broken but I am still sore. Even now on Friday, two days later!
I’m getting old. I have to be careful. I shouldn’t be taking skate boarding spills. My bones are too brittle.

I’m pretty sure there is a fun packed weekend in store for us. The gang will be back together and we are going to be causing some trouble.

We heard this really cool song while eating at the Bridgeport Ale House a week ago and when I asked who it was our server went and checked and told us it was Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
I learned several years ago that you MUST ask what’s playing when you hear a song you like playing in an establishment. If you don’t, that unknown song will be stuck in your head and haunt you for at least 30 days after.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah were adorned with praise for their first album a few years back and for some reason I skipped them.
The second album has received some bad reviews probably due to the fact that the first album received such good reviews.
I bought the second album, “Some Loud Thunder” this week. I love it. Be careful though. The reasons I love it are the same reasons the critics aren’t fond of it.
I’ll probably pick their first CD up this weekend.

Hey there. Happy, hot Sunday to you.
It’s a lazy Sunday.
Kind of muggy out there right now.

I was outside in the backyard doing my internet surfing but I kept losing my signal so I had to move in a little closer. One of these days I’m going to buy a couple more nodes and upgrade my DSL modem to a faster model.

The summer fun has begun my friends. K only has two more weeks left of work and then her summer break begins. Visitors to the compound have already started arriving. K’s Pa, Mr. Baptist arrived in town last Thursday and we have been having fun with that dude. Seth and Alicia will be back in town by next Thursday. We are quite happy to have our guests.

I’m not sure what kind of fun we will be having for the rest of the day. Right now I think we are in the midst of a reading and nap time. I will probably have some read and nap time once I hang up here.

You know, I haven’t seen any of the summer blockbusters yet. I haven’t caught any of the hundreds of sequels now in a theater near me. Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m starting to remember that last year was like this for me as well. I must not be much of a go to the movie theater guy anymore. I do end up seeing all of the movies, I’m just satisfied with seeing them when I rent them at home. I don’t feel the pressure for “must sees” in a theater I guess. Speaking as a Portlander, I find it is important to take advantage of any good weather summer days that we are lucky enough to get, and spending time in a dark cold movie theater seems like a waste.

Tomorrow at the office I am going to see about changing my work schedule to four 10s instead of five 8s. Now that K is nearing her summer break time, I think it would be more fun to have an extra day to play with her and the family. I’m going to try to get my schedule to be Tuesday through Friday. I can’t imagine that that would be a problem. Having Mondays off would also be good in giving me a day to work on my video and other projects. I am not spending the kind of time learning my video stuff like I would like. Having an extra day might help.