The Jack Noodle Journal

Well kids, our first week with K back to work and the new experimental schedule initiated went great. Thanks for asking.

I think everything is going to be fine.

Make no mistake though, it was hard work. I think with some time and practice it will get easier.

The highlight of my week was definitely hanging out with the G-ster. He is a wonderful little guy. He was very patient with my bumblings this week. He did cry a bit but fortunately I was able to figure out what he needed and cranked the valve to get water works to stop (what?). I had been worried that I wouldn’t be able to sooth him and he would cry all day long.

A couple of times I was able to lay him down for his naps and he took a couple of long ones. Most of the time his eyes popped right open when I would set him down so I had to pick him back up at which time he would fall back to sleep again. I had kind of thought that I might be able to do some computer work during his nap time, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for now.

I actually joined him during nap time several times and caught up on my Zs.

I’m learning.

Next week I think I am going to actually try to leave the house and hit the town with the boy.

This week my computer said, “No more virtual tiles can be allocated”.
Wow. It’s never said that before. I didn’t even know I had virtual tiles. My fix to that problem was to do all of my liquifying to the file before I increased the canvas size to fit the image into the template. I think the liquifying of larger files was causing my computer to lock up and not give me my virtual tiles.

The working part of my week was definitely tougher than the enjoyable Gilby portions. It’s gonna be hard nailing down my 20 hours at home I think. I got to it though this first week.

With this work I’m doing there’s “real” time and then “per file” time. I think I explained it to K well enough to get a scoff. I’m trying to spend an average of 20 minutes per file. That means 60 files equal 20 hours. Well, the items I was given this last week are known to be the toughest type of apparel image that we’ve got for this certain project. Several of the items took well over 20 minutes to finish. This is the real time. The actual physical time that you are sitting in front of the computer.

See, you don’t want to go too slow on your per file average because then the bosses start to question your productivity. You also don’t want to fudge the number so badly that you are spending all of your days working. You gots to go fast baby! I was able to get my “per file” time and my “real” time pretty close to the same number (not quite) so that’s good. I don’t mind taking a little bit of time off of the books because I’m feeling compensated a bit by the fact that I am at home. Even still though, I don’t want to be working for free.

There was also a bit of file creep that I am going to have to be on guard for. I went in one night last week to QC someone else’s work and while I was in the office, got loaded up with more items to work on. That was fine and I finished them up that night, but eventually I had to tell them that I had reached my 20 hours and the stuff that they were piling on was going to have to go to next week’s 20 hours.

Overall the work went well and I think it will straighten it’s self out and run more smoothly with a few weeks time. I did actually turn in more work than if I had been in the office the whole week.

Oh man, working at home was far more relaxing than being in the office. When I got into the office for my 2 days of work I made sure to tone down my relaxed, well rested happiness. The other workers wouldn’t have gone for an over abundance of jolly rubbed in their faces.

Everyone at work seemed pretty cool about me doing my 2 days at home. I had been worried that people would be annoyed, but they weren’t. I’m doing my best to make it as easy as possible for the people that are tied into my schedule. I think it’s going to be a good thing once it’s all hammered out.

One of my coworkers asked me how long I was going to work my wacky schedule for.
I said, “Five years”.
He looked puzzled and then said, “No, I mean the schedule that you worked this week”.
I said, “Yeah I know. Five years”.

I have been listening to the new Byrne and Eno album, “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today” on their website for free for about a week now. I’ll probably buy a CD version of it come pay day. It’s quite good. I wasn’t on board all the way during the first listen but could tell then that I would love it half way through the second.

This got me going on David Byrne, “That man’s voice is just dreamy”. I have a couple of David Byrne albums that I listened to next.

Now I am currently enjoying all the Talking Heads I can get my hands on. Gosh, Talking Heads’ music is just so delicious! K picked up the double CD, “Sand in the Vaseline” some time ago and G Noodle and I have been listening to it on repeat this week. It’s got all the hits. G Noodle loves Talking Heads. His favorite song is “Stay Up Late“. We have been doing some good dancing before nap times.

I also have the Talking Heads albums, “More Songs About Buildings And Food” and “Remain In Light“. I’m planning on acquiring more soon.

(as documented by Gilby)

Mommy’s gone and went back to work!

Woke up happy and full of smiles.
Got diaper changed and put on our clothes.
Helped Papa make some coffee.
Played on play mat activity thingy.
Had a bottle.
Sat in Bumpo Chair in kitchen. Watched Papa put away dishes.
Played with noisy, worm, butterfly toy thingy.
Made a few spit ups.
Made Papa spill his coffee on his shirt (ha ha).
Listened to some Coldplay.
Practiced my kicks on the bed. Can’t quite get the crawling stance down yet.
Made Papa dance around to Coldplay while holding me.
Fell asleep.
Laid down for a nap at 11:15 AM.

Woke up at 12:02 PM.
Papa watched Perry Mason. I laid next to him and fell asleep again.
Later, we went outside and walked around the yard.
Grandma came over for a visit!
Grandma gave me another bottle at 1:10 PM.
Grandma left at 2:45 PM.
About this time it was time for a diaper change and a new outfit.
We listened to some Gnarls Barkley and I made Papa dance some more.
Fell asleep again for about 10 minutes.

Mommy got home at 3:42 PM. I was very happy to see her.

Pheeeeeeeeeeew!
Papa and my first day home alone was pretty great. It went off without a hitch.

I think we’ll be okay.

Okay, so how is this going to work again?

Boy oh boy oh boy oh baby boy!

As you may recall, I made the case to the bosses at the beginning of this month. Everyone involved has been very cool and open to the idea! It looks like we are on for a trial run. I will be working 2 days at the office and telecommuting from home the remaining 2 days of the work week. I will be able watch the Little Noodle while K is at work.

We have been setting the nuts and bolts up and it looks like it’s going to be pretty sweet. Everything is golden on paper. I am all emailed up and can check my work email from home. My files are loaded up from the office onto the FTP server and I download them at home. When I’m done I send my files back up, they go on their merry way and I download some more work. The FTP download is pretty speedy but I think that the upload from my rickety internet speed connection may be slower.

There have already been a couple of hiccups in the few early opening stages of this process. Let’s call them challenges. The one we bumped into Friday concerning next week, is that one of the major links in the chain, my man on the office end, will be gone on vacation for the next two weeks. Ah ha! See, how does this fit in with the Noodle teleworking? Looks like I am going to have to go in on a couple of evenings next week and fill in some of the gaps the vacationer left with his vacationing. That’s fine though, whatever it takes. My ultimate goal is to make everything seamless so that the fact that I am staying home and baby sitting during the day never crosses anyone’s mind or affects the functioning of the company. I want to stay under the radar as much as possible.

One of the other challenges so far is that I forgot just how powerful my work computer is. It always runs so quietly and smoothly that I don’t notice it’s working out really hard tasks. I’m currently setting up my home machine and I’m bumping into a few “Uh ohs”. My little girl can’t handle the real workings that my work big boy machine cuts through like butter. I just dumped a whole bunch of files off of my home computer and that seems to be helping. I have all of my settings right now, Wacom tablet and pen are adjusted accordingly, and I am good to go. When my telecommuting really takes off I am going to have to get a more powerful machine.

I’m pretty nervous about all this now. It’s going to be hard work! Are there really enough hours in the week? I’m not cutting back on any work hours to care for the youngin. I’m keeping all of my hours and adding a 20 hour a week daycare job on top of it (send your kids).

I imagine it will be hard for K going back to work at first. She’s been with the little guy every day now for over 4 months (well plus the 9 months if you want to count it that way). It will be tough leaving him and going to work for the day.

It is going to be so awesome though, really! Enough of the hand wringing. We are going to make this work.

I’m getting excited.

I’m going to be able to hang out with one really cool dude during the week.

A pretty amazing thing I was thinking about the other day is that by getting things going like this and working the routine the way we will be, I will be giving Gilby and myself (well maybe just me currently) memories that we will have forever.

Think about it.
How many fond memories can you conjure up of that wonderful day you had sitting in your cubicle? I think we totally send those memories to the trash bin.

Now I will be able to remember those awesome days when I got to sit at home and watch my little boy grow up.

Yes. I will be happily working my ass off for that.

We finished up watching “The Wire” TV series last night. All 5 seasons in the can now. Oh so, so, so good. Marvelous.

I’m still really upset about the something that involved the someone 2 episodes or so before the end. Man! Come on. Really?

We are now experiencing the familiar grief and loss that comes when you finish up a whole series on DVD. You spend several months, night after night with these characters that you have grown to love as real people, and they are just yanked away from you with the end of the show. You find yourself days after, wondering what a character would be doing right at this moment.

I’m looking forward to reading all the spoilers and commentaries about The Wire on the internet that I was avoiding.

Next up I believe is “Mad Men“. We are already one disc into it. We’ll see. During the first episode, the series premiere, I was thinking to myself, “My god, this may be the greatest show I have ever seen!”. With each proceeding episode, that outrageous statement is fading. I actually might not be into this one as much. I guess once my interest in the characters takes hold, I’ll be sucked in.

Last weekend we spent a wonderful time at the Brumley compound down in Tyee. Was it Tyee or Roseburg? Where were we? We were down by the Umqua river. I do know that much. The river was absolutely amazing during our 100 degree weather. Oh it felt so good!

I got a pretty healthy sunburn on my back. Ouch!

Oh yeah, we discovered that the Little Noodle’s travel limit in the car is at about 2 and half hours currently. He was not having it after that. He had shots the day of our drive down and I think that might have had something to do with his rage. He really tries hard though. He’s a good boy.

While down there I took quite a few black and white photographs with my digital camera. I had been thinking about black and white for a little while. Before I would have said that one should always take their digital photographs in color and switch them to black and white in the computer. I don’t think that way anymore. I think one takes better black and white digital photos when the camera settings are black and white. I was better able to focus on my contrasts, textures, light and finding nice blacks without the color getting in the way.

I suppose that if one truly was a professional, they would be able to take their photos in color and be smart enough to capture their contrasts and do the grey scale switch in their heads without shooting in BW.

I think I got some good shots. You can check some of them out here as usual. I might have pushed the darks down too low though on some of these photos.

I have been really enjoying snapping photos. In a speedy fashion it helps combat the lament of not creating art and feeling like a giant creative slug. You can get your art on while struggling with a busy schedule, baby juggling and overall general tiredness.

The Little Noodle is 4 months old today!

Have you noticed that it takes a moment to not say “He’s a 4 month year old”. Maybe it’s just me.

Can you believe it? Time IS flying.

I remember thinking that his first month seemed to go on forever. Now the months really are zooming by. I want the time to slow down now more than anything. This baby stuff is going by way too fast! There seems to be new developments and new things he’s starting to do daily. Sometimes hourly.

A couple of weeks ago I made a vow to myself to try to stay in the moment as much as possible and not push the future.

There’s no rush G. Take your time and try to remain a baby as long as possible.

Big Baby Seth and I were screwing around the other day and for some reason he thought it would be good to take a photo of the top of his head with his cell phone. I also felt like this was something that had to be done so I took one of my own.

Yeah.

We both realized that our plan wasn’t the best. There’s a reason your eyeballs can’t reach every acre of your body. I won’t be curiously photographing anything in the near future.

Really? Is that what it looks like up there? I swear I don’t look like that from the front.

I was thinking about growing my hair out but now I’m not so sure. I don’t think my hair will grow out. The sides are pretty strong. There has to be some sort of cool comb over style out there that I could fashion and start a new craze with.

Maybe bald man pony tails aren’t so cool?

Perhaps I will just keep shaving my dome and call it good.

I’m pretty secure with my follicle ineptitude (hence posting of painful picture).
I feel pretty handsome most mornings.

I really can’t stand the dudes that moan and grown about their bald heads. It’s gone baby, just chill! I have found throughout my travels that the people that comment on my hairstylings tend to be mostly the dudes who are fearful and insecure about their own hairlines receding into the distance.

We watched the movie “Control” Sunday night. It was pretty amazing. That’s the movie about Ian Curtis, who was the lead singer of the band Joy Division. Yes it is sad and dark, a tad depressing, but having known the details of the story, I think we were prepared for it. It’s definately stuck with me and I have been thinking about it for the last couple of days.

I am a big fan of Joy Division’s music and that makes me wonder if the movie wouldn’t have been so great for someone who wasn’t familiar with Joy Division or the story. I’m not sure.

I think the actor who played Ian, Sam Riley, did a great job.

I love Anton Corbijn’s work and thought this was a pretty impressive first outing as a full length feature film director. His music videos are pretty awesome. The shots that he captures are what you would expect from such a great photographer.

I got to thinking about what it must be like to be one of the poor kids left behind in stories like this. I was a bit distraught during the scenes where he was holding his little baby daughter, Natalie. I started to wonder where that little baby was now days. The good ole internet gives up a quick search for Natalie Curtis and I found this great article on her thoughts about the movie. What? A MySpace page even?

I was also wondering about Frances Bean Cobain in correlation with the movie.
Oh my gosh. We are that old now.

I don’t know girls. Your dads made some awesome music, but…

Alright. That’s enough children of celebrities lurking for me.

It’s weird to imagine the headlines we’ll be reading when we’re 64 about the kids of today’s celebrities. I hope they don’t go too nutty. We love a nutty celebrity story here in the United States don’t we? It would really be cool if they did something amazing like found the cure for cancer or invented an amazing environmentally friendly energy source and the fact that their parents were famous was just a blurb way down in the bottom of the article. We’ll see.

First off you must check out the mugs on these two partners in crime. Buddies born a few days apart. I hope I am not being too presumptuous with my future imaginings of the adventures these two friends will have.

This week I was playing around with Pandora. Have you guys been to Pandora yet? It’s pretty cool. A work chum showed it to me the other day. K was quick to point out to me that it was the same website that the Shelton Twins were telling me about over a month ago. That sounds vaguely familiar and if that is the case then my sisters from other mothers get the discovery credit. I do know that it’s not a new website and that once again I’m not first to the party.

Pandora is a free internet radio station thingy who’s content is created by artist and song “seeds” that you load into it. You make your station by selecting music that you want to hear. The robots then pick selections for you that is similar to the music that you have chosen. Pandora’s music analysis is being fed with the Music Genome Project which is a crazy magical method of breaking down thousands of songs and characterizing them using things like melody, harmony and rhythm amongst other things.

It works pretty well. At first I wasn’t so sure until I started working it more and paying attention to my selections. You also have to be good about giving your up and down thumb ratings. I picked The Cure to seed my first station and didn’t realize I could keep loading more bands into one station. The more seeds you give it the better the robots are at matching what you are looking for. It was giving me weird selections with just The Cure loaded. It also wasn’t giving me any selections that I hadn’t heard before.

I have been really digging the band “Animal Collective” for a few months now. I loaded them up into a new Pandora station hoping to find more music that sounds like them. Then I loaded all of the bands listed under the iTunes Essentials list for “Freak Folk” and have a pretty awesome Pandora station now.

You should check it out. Pandora is really cool for those of us who are sitting in front of our computers with our headphones on all day. I’m discovering new music and acts this way as well.

While reading some of my thousands of Google Reader articles I noticed that the feeds have a details pull down window. This made me curious to see what the Noodle Journal Google Reader stats were. Oh man. Really? I only have one Google Reader subscriber (I think it’s Seth)? I thought for some reason I was getting more subscribers. It also tells me that my post average is only 1.9 posts a week. I need to step that up. That’s a measly figure. It’s not about the numbers Noodle, it’s not about the numbers, it’s not about the numbers. Keep your head down and keep typing my boy.

Oh yeah, the earlier weekend will be arriving here shortly for this guy. The only benefit to this week’s earlier work start day.

Please remind me to pick up a bar of bath soap this weekend won’t you? This shower liquid wash soap stuff just doesn’t cut it for me.