The Jack Noodle Journal

One of the annoying things about keeping the bun in the oven secret to ourselves for 12 or so weeks was that we had a whole butt load of questions that would have been perfect for you cats that have already been down this road. We were pretty freaked out with it at first. Lots of okay now whats. We seem to be calmed down a bit now. The cat’s out of the bag and there are plenty of helpful friends and family gathered around with stories and advice. I’m sure the giant freak outs will come when the third trimester is here and baby’s ready to spring forth.

We went in and had our first ultrasound and blood tests about a week and a half ago. That was pretty amazing. We got to see the blurry little ball that is baby. The technician that operated the ultra sound said that the form of ultrasound technology used now to get such a clear picture of baby this early on is only 3 years old. Wow. Cool stuff.

Everything checked out. Good ultrasound and perfect blood work. Baby is in good shape so far.
We were so worried that there was going to be something wrong. I’m not sure why we were so worried. I guess irrational fear is par for the course?

This got me to thinking. I am now signed up for a lifetime of concern and worry. That got me calmed down a bit actually. Baby’s first ultrasound is just the beginning. I will be concerned with baby’s well being for the rest of my life. I mean look at Mr. Baptist. He just turned 66 and still has the concern and worry of his baby giving birth to my baby. My parents will also always be concerned with how I’m doing. I guess I knew this all before but I didn’t really KNOW it like this. Being concerned and invested in the well being of another human is new for me. I don’t worry about myself at all. I worry about K on occasion but not like this. This is something new. It probably won’t be so dramatic in a few years though right?

I need to get my thesaurus out and look up some new words for concern.

A couple of books have been pretty good for us so far. As a new papa I am finding the book “The Expectant Father” by Armin A. Brott and Jennifer Ash to be really good. I’m reading along as the weeks progress. Yes, it was one of the books that he had in the movie “Knocked Up”. While we were watching it I blurted out to K, “Hey, there’s my book”.

I’m actually quite offended by all the jokey “dads to be” books that are out there. Treating papa like a big dumb ape. I’m disgusted with the notion that there actually are dudes out there not taking an active role in their pregnancy. Come on guys! Turn off the football game and learn about the little person that’s growing inside your lady’s belly! Step up to the plate and be a man.

So yeah, due to the jokey nature of a lot of the dad books (that aren’t The Expectant Father book), I’m finding K’s mommy books to be far more informative. My favorite of hers so far is “The Pregnancy Countdown Book” by Susan Magee. Another good one we got at the library was “The Newly Non-Drinking Girl’s Guide to Pregnancy” by Jackie Rose and Caroline Angel. We really could have used that book before K was outed as pregnant due to her not drinking.

There’s more. There are quite a few books out there. We’ve got a good stack going. I’ll mention more in the future if any of them move me. One that we keep hearing about being legendary that we’re going to check out is “Spiritual Midwifery” by Ina May Gaskin. Looks good.

At the office I have been listening to the PregTASTIC Pregnancy Podcasts. It’s a really good show. You can go down through the list and pick the episodes that cover your questions and concerns. The host of each episode is a group of pregnant women that interview guests and talk about how their pregnancies are going.

It’s kind of funny how this sort of infotainment is only going to be interesting to me for another 6 or 7 months. I guess I’ll be moving on to diaper changing podcasts and kid’s stuff after that.

Ah yes!
We have reached the thousandth post.
Oh my goodness! 1000 posts.
It’s hard to believe.

Woo Hoo!

298 comments. Nice work kids.

I’ve been a journal (man diary) writer for several hundred years. It looks like the first entry here on the web was way back on August 18th, 2001. That’s like a million years ago. What the heck was I talking about back then? Who was that dude? Quite a few events have transpired during the writing of this journal. I’m planning on going back and skimming through some of the past entries this week.

Sure, it takes other blogger people less than 6 years to get to a thousand. I took my own sweet time though. I don’t think I wrote more than once a day very often. That’s 1000 days in the life of. There are a few missing months. Oh yes, and there is that whole business of not writing any entries during 2005. I would have been to a thousand posts a year earlier if it wasn’t for 2005!

Thank you all for tuning in to my adventures. I enjoy the pestering I receive from you peoples when I let 7 to 10 days pass without posting.

There are many folks out there who believe that people should only blog if they have some important political, news worthy, mainstream press defeating scoop to write about using an journalistic voice of authority that garners millions of eyeballs daily. I’m definitely not one of those detractors. I totally write here in the Jack Noodle Journal because I think it’s fun and I enjoy the exercise. Sure, some of this stuff is boring. If a few people show up every once and while to read about what I did over the weekend or what music I’m listening to, then that’s great. I write mostly for myself not millions of eyeballs.

The real reason I am excited about this 1000th post is because it was the post I was waiting for to spring a big announcement on you folks:

K AND I ARE GOING TO HAVE A BABY!!!

Yes, you read that right. The beautiful little lady is pregnant.
We are so freaking excited!
We are currently nearing the end of the 12th week.
3 months into it. Baby is due in April.

We were waiting at least 12 weeks before telling anybody because that’s what the books and a couple of websites we read said was a good amount of time. We’re not so sure about that now. Keeping the secret was pretty tough. That waiting 12 weeks might be a bit old fashioned. Several of you were wise to the fact that something was up. We probably should have spilled the beans sooner to our inner circle.

We aren’t going to find out if baby is a girl or boy until he or she is born.

I’m going to be a Papa. It is totally crazy.
We had been trying for a while so this was planned. I didn’t realize just how much “planning” it would take.

K came and told me at work when we went to lunch. I was very happy. It was a strange feeling though. I was like, “Oh my gosh. What have we done?”. The IDEA of having a baby is definitely different than the REALITY of being pregnant.

So far everything has been a million times more intense than anything I have ever heard or read. What a roller coaster! It is way more exciting than I imagined it would be.

Ah yes. It is good to have the news open to the journal. Now I’ll be able to get it all down for the record.
I’ve got quite a bit of typing ahead of me.

We are going to have an interesting NEXT 1000 posts eh?

Yes, I have a pretty cool mom. I’m sure that’s where a lot of my cool comes from.
She started pursuing the craft of writing when brother and I were still in high school. Gosh, maybe it was earlier than that. I remember her typing her first novel out on a funky electronic typewriter. When she would make an edit she would have to type whole chapters over. This was before she went with the word processors on the computer. I’m pretty impressed with her stick-to-it-ness. Writing is hard work.

Now her work has paid off and we all have the pleasure of seeing her first novel in print!

We are so very proud of the lady! The name of her book is “Maya’s Gold” and you all can run right over and purchase it here. I haven’t read it yet, but I’m definately planning on it once I get my copy. It’s a romance novel with a bit of a mystery thrown in. Not my usual genre for reading, but I’m going love every minute of it.

I’ve done a bit of design for her over the last few months. I didn’t do the cover of this novel though. I did up some business cards for her and got her website up and running. You can look at what we have so far at maryvine.com. Working on the website has been pretty fun. It still needs some work before being finished of course. I think it looks classy. Yes, I am using a free CSS template. I know, I know. I’m reminded constantly while working on it, that I haven’t done a stitch of web development since leaving school.

I did get a taste again of what I was so fond of while working on web stuff. Getting lost in the flow of whittling away at something. Doing constant little tweaks and adjustments, then checking for instant results after the upload.

I need to do more web work.

Oh yes, happy birthday tomorrow as well mom!

Hey there, hey there.
Just coming down from a good weekend. Nice work everybody.

Oh my goodness. Did you happen to catch the Family Guy season premiere Star Wars episode? It was so freaking good! I’m not much of a Family Guy fan but I might be swayed into watching it more this season just from the magnificent season opener. I got teary eyed a couple of times with their send up of Star Wars. Masterfully done. I totally want to see it again. The ships looked really good. It almost seemed like they animated over the top of the actual footage for some of it.

The season premiere of the Simpsons on the other hand, didn’t do anything for me. Dang it guys!

My nephew Caleb had a birthday party yesterday and old man Seth had one Saturday night. The birthday boys did it up right. Fun time had by all.
The two parties occupied different ends of the spectrum of course.
There was some crazy, silliness being had on Saturday. I was laughing my head off.
There were some really strange photos being taken.

The theme for Seth’s birthday was the Last Supper. Seth who turned 32 wanted to celebrate Jesus being 33 when he died. It made sense at the time but I think we were off by a year somewhere in there. Seth just wanted to beat everybody else who will be turning 33 next year to the Last Supper party.

Alright. I’ve got to get going on some more web work for my Ma.

Yesterday I had a Radiohead marathon listening session. I listened to four of their albums in a row. Good golly I love those kids. It got me to wondering, when are they going to release a new album? I’m curious what the internets have to say about that matter? I should check into it.
Yes, I am a weirdo. During my marathon, I started to get anxious and had a bit of a panic attack when the thought came that it could be possible that Radiohead might not ever release a new album again.

The album “Amnesiac” is freaking amazing! If you have been torturing yourself by withholding Radiohead listening, stop being mean and start your Radiohead journey with Amnesiac. I’m going to listen to it again first thing this morning. Man! It is SO good from beginning to end.
Wait a second. I feel like I have had this conversation before. Oh yeah. Bless ye journal.

I wonder how many duplicate thoughts I have had here over the years. Probably several. I bet I am constantly repeating the same coffee fixations over and over. It would be cool if there was a program that automatically went through the journal and grouped all of the like topics together as I typed. Yeah, I guess I could have been doing that myself with better managed keywords and categories.

My Radiohead marathon was sparked by hearing Mr. Yorke’s singing on the track “The White Flash” by the group Modeselektor. I am totally buying the Modeselektor CD come next paycheck. From what I have heard so far, it’s just what this sucker’s ears have been requesting.

Okay, I have gotten my last few musical tips and tricks from my RSS feed to the folks over at Pampelmoose. That’s big of me to give my sources up and not claim to discover these gems on my own, right? Credit where credit is due. I have been ahead of them on a few things so I am secure in my own truffling skills.

I don’t know. It might have been too early for me to hasten in the arrival of Autumn. It was pretty chilly out there this morning. Dark as well. I’m sorry Summer. Please come back. I was only joking around, I swear.

I think I’m getting a cold. I was feeling bad last night. This morning I am on the verge of being stuffed up, I am achy, and my throat has a slight touch of soreness to it. Lame. I am such a baby, I never get sick, This is probably as bad as this “cold” will get. I should suck it up and stop typing about it right… now.

Mr. Baptist is in town this week. A surprise visit to attend his brother’s wedding. We are glad to have Mr. Baptist. Now we can give him a piece of our mind in person instead of over the phone. Gosh, it’s only been a month or two since we’ve seen him last. I believe it’s his birthday tomorrow as well. Happy Birthday, old timer!

Oh man. I just went to check on the progress of my coffee brewing in the office kitchen, and found it spilled out of the coffee maker and all over the floor.

Not too much going down on the movie watching, DVD viewing front. We have been watching the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries “The Lost Room” . It’s an interesting show so far. I’m really digging the premise and mechanics of the show. I haven’t seen any episodes of the NBC show “Hereos” yet, but I imagine there are some similar elements between the two shows. People discovering super powers with an overall mystery story arch. There’s only two discs to the Lost Room. We still have the last disc left to watch so don’t tell me what happens please. I wonder why it hasn’t been picked up to be an on going series?

Overcast and gray here at the Noodle compound this morning. The air is damp and has that clean smell. I’m wearing a long sleeve shirt. I like it. I’m ready for the gray and rainy days to come back. I’m confused now though. What sort of weather do I like again? Wasn’t I just bitching about the cold, gray rainy days? Who knows.
Remind me to look at this post again in December when I’m crying about how cold it is.

I’m kind of done with the Summer. I think that last burst of 90 degree days did it to me. Lets move on already.
K is back to work, kids are back in school, the September birthday crowd is ramping up for some partying, things at the office are starting to pick up and the holiday season will be kicking out it’s TV ads anytime now.

So long Summer 2007, we had a ball and now we’re ready to call it a night.

We had some fun times over the weekend celebrating our wedding anniversary. Thanks to everyone who played. Yes, I got a tad tipsy, but come on, I was celebrating good times.
We went up and did some exploring around the Old Gorge Highway. Believe it or not I don’t think I had been to Crown Point in all of my 34 years until this weekend. Ah yes, a true Oregonian.

We did some hiking at one of the nearby falls. K has stated a couple of times in the last few weeks that we should take up hiking as a hobby. Hmmm? Yeah, that might be okay. I totally had sore legs all day yesterday from the little bit of non-professional hiking we did. Hiking would be a pretty inexpensive hobby, right? Just drive somewhere and start walking? I guess we would get into it a ways and have to go and buy all kinds of new gear, fancy hiking boots and walking sticks.

I have got a lot on my plate for today. I’m going to have to get some serious work done. All of my little projects are beginning to stack up over my head.

I need a refill of coffee. I have been starting to add cream to my cups of coffee I make here at home. I’ve usually just been a straight black coffee drinking man. I might be switching to a bit of cream at home now. Tasty.

Yes sir. K and I have been married for seven years. Hooray for us!
It has all been lollypops and puppies.

I love the little lady for sure.

Our first anniversary took place during a weird time. Four days after the September 11th, 2001 attacks. You guys all remember those journal entries right? It’s kind of cool because now the days line back to the days they were. Saturday September 15th 2007 equals a September 15th that was on a Saturday in 2001. We were out in the woods celebrating back then.

I’ll have to say it’s six years later and things aren’t nearly as dire and intense as they seemed then. Everything now is just intensely lame. That’s too bad. I almost didn’t even notice September 11th this year.

K and I on the other hand aren’t intensely lame and we are going to have an awesome year.

Right now K and the dogs are yelling at me to get the hell off the computer and get in the car to go with them to the dog park.

Later today we will be going to the Edgefield for anniversary celebrating.

This week there was an interesting thread on one of the forums I am part of with some school chums. It was started with someone presenting for review a job description that they had written for a position for their company. This got me thinking.
Much to the non-interest of the other forum members I fashioned and wrote up my dream job description. A job I would totally love to apply for.
I found it to be an excellent exercise.
I’m still fine tuning it.

Declare something and it becomes reality right? Is that a thing? Stranger things than applying for a job that you created have happened? A company will read this and think “Oh my gosh here’s a position that we need to fill that we didn’t know existed! Call this guy up and hire him.”

Wanted:

Designer person to draw up sketches, thumbnails, illustrations and
plans for web products and other cool items. Mostly an idea person
delegating tasks to others while working on the entertaining parts of
the projects when the mood strikes.

Knowledge of information design, experience design, and interface
design helpful.
Desire for a fine art background a plus.

Experience with photography and familiarity with print processes required on some projects.

Ideal candidate will have at one time or other been interested in
knowing about XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, Rails, and PHP but won’t have to
pretend to know how to implement them. Must appreciate code and how
well others can work it. If Flash is something the candidate wants to
explore then plenty of paid time will be given for experimentation.

The position also requires interest in sound design, digital video,
and motion graphics. Creating videos and making short films for the
web will be mandatory. Final Cut Pro experience a plus but time for
experimentation will also be provided.

May be required to add parts to music projects.

Content creation is key.

An important part of the position will be to stay up to date on what
is deemed “hip” by the kids by watching movies, surfing the internet,
playing video games, researching current design trends, reading and
adding content to blogs, listening to music, going to rock shows and
xtreme sporting events.

Ability to develop a knowledge and implementation of marketing, and
popular advertising trends is a plus.

Candidate will be working at a hip, super rad company, but won’t have
to jump through hoops during the interviewing process or be the king
or queen of cool to get the job. Knowing an insider or sleeping with
the boss won’t be required to land the spot.
We know you’ve got the goods champ and your work and passion will prove it!

The top applicants to this position will possess the desire in the depths of their soul to make and be part of creating cool shit. The NEED to communicate visually and express ones self artistically is the blood in their veins.

Will also be tired of suckers and The Man.

Position starts at 60K per year, includes medical, dental, 401K program and 3 weeks paid vacation.
80% of the job will be telecommuted from the employees home 20% will be at the office.
Will include occasional travel for research projects.

I don’t think I slept a wink last night. Sucks.
I don’t know what my deal is. Well, I have a few ideas actually.
I need to stop thinking once my head hits the pillow.
Turn the old noggin off.

I shouldn’t drink so much caffeine during the day either.
I do have a quad vente mocha right now. Maybe that should be it. That and one more pint of coffee.

I am feeling very spacey here at the office this morning. I am going to do my best to hideout in my cube all day and keep my headphones on.
I hope I don’t make too many sleep related mistakes today. Luckily no ones life is depending on the job I do today.

No, I’m serious. I laid there last night and watched the hours click by.

There were a couple of web thingys I found the other day that I was going to comment on and never got around to. That’s what blogs do right? Find other websites, comment on them and link to them?

The first one I found is a very important site for the American Mustache Institute. Even though my lip is currently naked, I think I am going to become a member and help them with their important cause. I am so tired of mustached Americans being discriminated against.

The other thing I found while looking at something else was this write up of the 2121 Belmont project. You know, that giant mess of construction that is going on down the road from my homestead. Pretty crazy. As a person that moved in before everything got hot, I am totally into these upscale projects coming into the neighborhood. We were so lucky to get in when we did six years ago. We totally couldn’t afford to move into the neighborhood now. It’s strange to think that the 2121 spot was an empty electric company grounds with a whole bunch of homeless people making their residence there before they knocked it all down. $550,000 for a two bedroom condo? Nice.

I have been meaning to go and take some photos of the construction and deconstruction going on in the hood. I should get on that.