The Jack Noodle Journal

Hey yo! What up?

Just got done wrapping up a pretty fun weekend. Oh wait, it’s still going because Mondays are part of the Noodle weekend as well. Oh yeah.
I have been having fun hanging with my homies K and Mr. Baptist. Molly Marcy is here with me right now as I type. Her friends Phillip and Abby are at daycare.

Good fun times for sure.

On Saturday night I went over to a party hosted at Nemo design. Yep, the same place I was gushing about a few posts back. The party was a CD release party for the band Boy Eats Drum Machine . It was a pretty fun and interesting (people watching-wise) party. Reports say there were 400 people there. It was cool to see what the inside of the Nemo building looked like. I didn’t get many scoops on how one goes about working with those cats though. I saw 4 faces I recognized from my school days, one of which I talked to. I saw a couple of friends and was able to tell the keyboard player from Menomena that I was absolutely in love with their album. I had a lot of fun. Thanks to my buddy G for accompanying me.

Yeah, starting to drink again is definitely harder than stopping drinking. I am so out of practice now. It sucks. So annoying. This year off, low tolerance thing is frustrating.

We saw it! The circle is now complete.
Sunday afternoon we went and watched the “Simpsons Movie” . You know people, I am going to have to say it was pretty impressive. It was a fun ride. I will have to watch it again though. I was so nervous about it sucking that I wasn’t able to relax during the whole movie. It was fun to see everybody up on the big screen. The couple of big time zingers that are in the movie are true doozies. I won’t ruin them for you if you haven’t seen it yet. The things they got away with in the movie that they aren’t allowed to do on the small screen made me blush like I would when hearing a grandparent say a swear word.

There are quite a few Simpsons haters out there now days that say the show use to be great but lost it years ago. It’s bizarre reading some reviews of the Simpsons movie that mostly just talk about the TV show and barely mention the movie. As a long time Simpsons fan I can say that I was quite happy and felt like they had done me proud. With all the hopes and build up to the movie it would have been almost impossible to do a masterful work that lived up to everyone’s mammoth expectations.

I do want to see it again.

Tonight I am going to head over to the life drawing studio and do some more drawing. Last Monday night’s drawing experience was magnificent. It felt SO good to be drawing again. I was concentrating so hard on my drawing that I was totally exhausted at the end of the three hours. I was sweating bullets during a portion of the evening and was working up a bit of a panic thinking that I had forgotten how to draw. Tonight I’m going to try to eat before I go so I have more energy. I am totally going to try to go drawing every Monday night from now on. It was inspiring and energized my whole week.

I think we are heading over to Henry’s right now for breakfast.

Here we are. I made it!

It has been a whole year since I have had a drink of alcohol. My how the time flies!

I don’t think I was clinical or at the point of needing to attend meetings, but a year ago I was consuming quite a bit of spirits. I needed to take some time off and slow it down.

I found it interesting during the year long fast how many people couldn’t figure out what I was doing or were annoyed by my not drinking. I didn’t want it to be a “thing”, I just wanted to try out the World without a buzz for a while to see what it was like again. I wasn’t commenting on your level of drinking, people. It was my own personal deal.

We run in pretty wet circles so the first couple of months of not drinking were pretty tough. The last few months of not drinking were a breeze. Just a matter of habit breaking. I could totally keep going with the not drinking thing but I’m not going to. A year off is fine. If I kept going and went several years without drinking I think it would have turned into a “thing”. It would have been weird to have a nice cold beer after 15 years of not drinking.

Yes, it was a good year dry. I felt somewhat better and didn’t miss hangovers.
I had a clear head.
I knew if I said something stupid it wasn’t the alcohol talking. I was just being stupid.
I don’t need a drink in my hand to have a good time at get togethers.

Yes, I was more happy this year than last.

It was a good experiment.

I won’t be drinking now as much as I did before.

I’m going to go have a beer after work tonight with my work chums and celebrate my new war on sobriety.
Everything in moderation though of course.

CHEERS!

There aren’t enough hours in the weekend.

So much to do.

I have quite a few projects I want to work on.

Another packed weekend has come and gone.

Maybe I would have felt like there was more time if I wouldn’t have taken all this work home from the office that I will now be spending my Monday completing.
Perhaps I should stop writing about it and get to work on it.

I am totally in love with Menomena .
Friend and Foe is now blasting through my home theater system as I sit here contemplating the work I want to do today.
You should check their video for “Rotten Hell”. It’s delightful.

I am planning on going and doing some drawing at a drawing studio this evening with a couple of my chums. We MUST make this a habit! Getting a drawing schedule going every Monday evening would be so beneficial to this cat. It sucks that that this something we have to force ourselves to go to starting out. Hopefully it will be easier once we have made a habit of it. I heard somewhere that it takes 8 times of doing something to make a habit.

Okay, time to get to it.

I have a school girl crush on Nemo Design.

It’s a very junior high puppy love sort of thing I believe.
The Nemo Design headquarters is just a few blocks down the road from here.
I gaze longingly at the building as I drive home from the office every night.

They put out some really cool work.

Perhaps it’s part of the Karen Johnson phenomenon. Karen Johnson was the cutest girl in the neighborhood growing up in Beavercreek. All the boys in the neighborhood had a crush on her.
Proximity see. Perhaps we were in love with her because she only lived 3 doors down.

My greatest fantasy concerning Nemo Design is working on some projects with them and then being able to walk home afterwards.

One of these days I’m going to leave a note in their locker and invite them over for a slumber party.

ah yes indeed.

Hey all. We’re back from spending the whole freakin’ weekend camping. It was freakin’ awesome.
Very lovely and relaxing.

Oh. Hold on one second the Vincente’s pizza delivery person is at the door…

Okay.

Yes camping was great.

We went to the Raab campground again with the Marcy Family Singers. I should really stop blogging about the awesomeness of Raab campground. It was packed with campers on Saturday. Everyone is invading our secret wilderness paradise.
Here’s a report from when we were there a year ago .

The river swimming was fabulous. The cold water was refreshing on the hot days. The forest up there is magnificent. The trees, canyons and rivers are gorgeous.

I tried to take as little with me as possible and just focused on relaxing. No writing or doodling and only one book of fiction reading.

We have had a number of hot days this week in Portland.
I think it got into the 100s on Tuesday didn’t it? It’s hard for me to remember because I was freezing in the air conditioned chill of the office.
I hope you all enjoyed the heat. That was it. Our annual, one week of high temperatures is over.

The warmer weather make me no type or talk good. I cooked my brain. I had trouble remembering a couple of names while conversing this week. The hot made for spotty sleeping in the evening time.

We also had an earthquake Wednesday night. Did you guys feel it? I remember thinking “Hmm that tiny little wiggle kind of felt like an earthquake”. Sure enough.

K and I went outside last night and watched the lightning and listened to the thunder. It was pretty awesome.
Dramatic weather this week.

Hey it’s Friday! Are you cats ready for some weekend fun?
I know I am.

When I get a spare moment I am going to print out a sign designed with a fancy typeface that says, “mediocrity is the enemy” and stick it up in my cube at the office. I have been thinking about this quite a bit lately. Oooh maybe I should make a tee-shirt that says this also. This is my new Noodle slogan.

I’m done with being mediocre. I need to get off my ass and go for it.
Times a wasting. I’m not getting any younger.

So much in our World these days seems mediocre. Good gods where has the passion gone?

I just googled “mediocrity is enemy” and found this blog posting that seems to say exactly what I’m talking about. I’ll have to read it in it’s entirety when I’m done posting here.
Looks like Voltaire is quoted saying, “Good is the enemy of great”. Ah man, see, yes, exactly. I have been meaning to read Voltaire.

This whole line of thought presented itself to me while watching the movie “Amadeus” a few nights back. Holy crap people! When was the last time you watched this masterpiece? I don’t think I had ever seen it all the way through before. I recommend watching it again as soon as you get the chance. I was totally inspired. It felt SO good to be moved by something again. I am planning on buying it as soon as I get near a DVD selling store.

I was moved to tears and almost started weeping like a baby during the scene where Mozart’s wife brings Salieri Mozart’s handwritten sheet music and tells him she can’t leave them with him because they are all originals. Salieri holds them in his hands and his soul is shaken to it’s core when he grasps the magnitude of Mozart’s genius. The notes are sent directly from heaven, through Mozart’s hand, down to the page perfectly without any hesitation or corrections. Salieri realizes that his work will always be only mediocre, good, but never reach the greatness of Mozart.

Seeing Salieri’s passion and desire to be great is what really got me. He hit the wall with his mediocrity but his gut wrenching desire to be great was moving.
Have I become complacent in my mediocrity? So much so that I wouldn’t even recognize a master work while holding it my hands? I hope not. I’m really going try strive to recognize the mediocrity in my own life so that I will have my eyes wide open and be in awe if I get the chance to behold greatness.

Of course Mozart is amazing and inspiring in the movie as well.

The closer of Amadeus is totally a punch in the heart and call to action. Salieri is being pushed in a wheelchair through the insane asylum saying, “Mediocrities everywhere… I absolve you… I absolve you… I absolve you… I absolve you… I absolve you all!”

I love it. Mediocrity truly is a sin.

So yeah, I think striving for greatness is a marvelous goal.

WORD UP my monkeys!
How have you been doing?
We have been chilling and enjoying the summer.

It has been a great summer so far.

I’ve been meaning to type about it but “the man” forced us to stop using the internet at the office so I have been looking for times to type while not at work. Pretty lame. Maybe I’ll devote more ink to the lameness in a bit, but probably not. There is quite a case of “seat of the pants-ism” gumming up the gears at the office and it is getting quite annoying and tiring.
My schedule of four 10s is absolutely fabulous though so I won’t be saying too much to make any waves. I’m sequestered to the “squeaky wheel gets the grease” silence. It’s hard not to be squeaky sometimes. Especially if you think things would be so much easier if subject A would just do this, or subject B would just stop doing that.

I’m really digging the book “The 4-Hour Workweek” . Check it out when you can. I’m saving my squeaky wheeledness for working my four 10s schedule down to Tuesday and Wednesday working 20 hours remotely from home and only going to the office on Thursdays and Fridays.

I decided this summer instead of trying to see all the summer blockbusters and then lamenting the fact I hadn’t seen any of the summer movies, I was going to try and not see any of the summer blockbusters. So far so good. I have only seen a couple up to this point.

Last night we went and saw “Hot Fuzz” with my cousin and her husband. Is Hot Fuzz even considered a summer movie? When was it released? It was playing at one of the 2nd run cheap theaters. It was good. Those Shaun of the Dead blokes are pretty funny. We did get a little sleepy during the middle of Hot Fuzz, but were definitely awake again by the end.

The other summer movie I saw was “Live Free or Die Hard” . I went and saw it with my dad on the 4th of July. The new installment of the Die Hard franchise was absolutely amazing in it’s ridiculousness! Oh man, it was awesome. Cars were flying around everywhere and there were thousands of gun blasts and explosions. They continually one uped themselves throughout the movie and increased the insanity all the way until the end. At one point I was yelling, “Oh come on!” right there from my seat in the theater. The makers of the film didn’t apologize at all for making a big dumb action movie and revved it up 150%. I think that’s why I was so entertained. There was no doubt what you were watching. They weren’t trying to come out with any new special effects to blow your mind or write an award winning script. What you got was an action packed, popcorn popping, summer thrill ride. I can’t recommend Live Free or Die Hard as a movie, but I can absolutely recommend it as an amusement park roller coaster ride.

Oh yes. Another blockbuster we saw about a week or so ago was the “Body Worlds 3” exhibit down at OMSI. You must go see it. What people have been saying is true. It is really fascinating.
Seeing the pictures of the exhibit don’t do it justice. You have to be there walking around these bodies staring at them, getting all 3 dimensions to really appreciate it fully. Wow, that’s what I look like with all of my skin ripped off, my head cut in half, my biceps stretched out to look like flapping wings!
I definitely have a better idea of how some of the systems of the human body work together now.
I was thinking about it again today while washing the dishes and there wasn’t really that much to be grossed out by or feel queazy about at Body Worlds (not that I was ever thinking I would be, but I have heard others talk about not wanting to see it because they thought it would be too gruesome). I think one is prepared for what they are going to see when they enter the museum. It would be an entirely different story if one were to find one of those dissected bodies in a non-museum setting like a grocery store bathroom or a church confessional booth.
For the most part the bodies almost seemed like fake plastic sculptures.
It was very cool though. An opportunity for learning!

So yes, yes and yes. Summer is trucking along nicely. We have been having a fun time hanging out with all of you friends and family. Oh yes, summer is far from over, kids. More adventures are imminent!