The Jack Noodle Journal

I’ve been crafting a list in my head. A list in one’s head isn’t very useful so I thought I would type it out here.

- I really enjoy drawing. I don’t seem to ever do it anymore. I should really start drawing again. I keep saying this. I think it’s good to keep saying because maybe one day I will do it. Drawing is the foundation of everything.

- Illustration. Illustration builds on drawing. Getting illustration work is awesome. I’ve done quite a bit of illustration in the past. Detailed product illustration. Used the computer program Adobe Illustrator quite a bit in the past. Not so much these days. Editorial illustration and fictitious drawings and doodles are more entertaining than product illustration.

- Not into painting. I’m able to get painting like effects when needed using the computer.

- Love being on the computer working. Not so into programing, coding, or computer engineering stuff. Artsy stuff on the computer. Don’t know much about how computers work. Enjoy web surfing, Googling, blogging, tweeting and Facebooking (who doesn’t though?).

- Web design is fine. I know. I have a degree in multimedia and web design. I can get in there and figure out web code, CSS, ActionScripting and the like but it takes me a long time. Perhaps I am more of a front end guy. Design and strategy.

- Flash is good. I would like to learn more about it and be able to bust out some cool products using it. Need to study up on ActionScript 3.0.

- Final Cut Pro is pretty awesome. I need to spend more time using it and editing more video projects.

- I am really interested in digital video. I am in heaven while working on video projects. I’m not overly anxious to make a movie or work on a big Hollywood project. I’m content working on little things for the internet. Maybe some day commercials?

- Motion graphics. Yes. Would like to do this.

- Photography is fine. Not into just photography alone for photography’s sake. Pictures taken will be used for other projects. I do like to exercise my eyeballs using a camera. Having a good eye and being able to capture an interesting image using a still camera or video camera is an important foundation skill like drawing is.

- Yay to graphic design. I like to think of myself as a graphic designer. Page layout. Images and text. Logo design. Putting it all together on the page. I think that typography is way cool. Would love to be more of a typographer. Haven’t worked directly with print in a while. Most of my stuff has been for screens. Haven’t dealt with laying out large seas of text in a few years. Need more work on laying out multipage documents for print. Need more experience with programs Quark and InDesign.

- Advertising and marketing fields? Sure.

- I enjoy writing. I like filling up this here blog with typing. I think typing up briefs, ideas, thoughts, theories and subjects related to projects or work related tasks is something I would be into. Creative writing is really fun. I’m not aching to pull the great American novel out of my soul though.

- Communication. Yes. Communicating in a visual fashion. Getting a story out. Moving in an emotional way the great unwashed masses.

- I enjoy problem solving and working on teams that are coming up with unique solutions to graphic design and visual challenges. Wow, that was a textbook sentence of something there.

Hmmm let me see… What else is there? I’m running out of steam.

- Bottom lining it here: I like being creative and doing creative things. What does that mean? I don’t know how to articulate it perfectly, but I do know when I’m in the middle of it.

G Noodle and I have been hitting the public library now on a weekly basis. We have been taking the stroller up to the Belmont branch. I love the library. There’s something soothing and relaxing about being in a library isn’t there?

I know, I know. Many of you have been digging the library for years. A couple of you have told me again and again that I should just get this or that at the library. Why didn’t I believe the library was so grand when you told me back then? I’m hooked now. You guys were right.

The thing I have finally caught on doing is going the library’s website where you can access their card catalog (do they still call it a “card” catalog?). After you find something you are looking for you can put a hold on it and have them send your item to the neighborhood branch of the library that is closest to you. They then send you an email saying your item is there and you walk over like G and I have been doing and get it.

I have been checking out music CDs that way. They are pretty close to being up to date with their music selection. Well, I guess I have been able to find lots of stuff that I have been looking for. Some items you put on hold have a line to wait in for a bit. I’ve been entering the titles of all of the albums I have been listening to but holding off buying this year. Moby’s album “Last Night” that I’ve wanted for a while, the newest Raconteurs disc, the newest Marilyn Manson album, the Pet Shop Boys CD “Yes” and a couple of Sonic Youth albums I was missing were all at the library. Not bad.

I have also been educating myself on jazz by getting some awesome jazz CDs at the library. Coltrane, Miles, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong. I might be overdosing on the jazz. I watched the first couple of episodes of the Ken Burns jazz documentary on Netflix instant view and that has also fueled my jazz curiosity and hunger. Good stuff. There are some interesting stories and legends about some of those cool jazz cats.

The jazz musics are very good to listen to while working. I feel like it sparks some sort of creativity in the back of my mind whilst listening.

My lovely lady friend, K is going back to school starting this term taking classes to get a reading endorsement to add to her teaching credentials. It seems to be going well so far.

Anyone who has read more than four posts here in the journal knows that I get antsy on occasion. Always pondering what I should be doing to shake things up.

I started wondering last week if maybe I should go back to school? Get a masters in something.

I kind of looked into the School of Advertising at the Academy of Art University before. I looked at it again last week. I’m pretty sure you can take all your courses online and get a MFA in Advertising. I am interested in art direction.

School is so expensive though. Add more student loans onto the student loans I am already paying?

I also spotted the Portland State Art Graduate Programs last week. Did I miss PSU when I last looked up MFA programs? I don’t remember them having one a couple of years ago? The Social Practices MFA program looks pretty cool. They seem to have quite a few good links on their site to tasty morsels of info.

Friend Alicia and I emailed back and forth a bit about the PSU programs. I think it looks fun. I would totally do it if I didn’t have to pay for it and didn’t have to work 40 hours a week at my job. Maybe that’s The Man talking though and I should shake off the shackles and go and make art and let my freak flag fly.

What sort of job can one get with an MFA though? A part of me thinks that getting a job shouldn’t be your only goal when getting a degree. It should also be about the experience of learning. One gets to the stage in life though when time and money invested into something requires an end result of job and career advancement or it’s not worth the effort.

In the industry in which I am involved, media arts, graphic design, web design, and the arts in general, people can go all the way to the top using their talent, hard work, good ideas and a great portfolio. A formal education isn’t always needed. With that route though I think a level of richness is missed when book smarts and academia are left out. On the job training is awesome when one can get it but there’s kind of a chicken or the egg thing with that option.

I have come up with a solution! I am going to start up the Noodle CLC! The Noodle Community Learning Center. I’m going to sign up for my own courses and teach myself how to be an art director. A self made art director? That’s pretty cool right?

One should be able to check out an education at the library. Go online these days and download your smarts?

How does one go about being self made?

This guy has a pretty good post on Googling an education.

There are a whole bunch of universities now putting up quite a few of their courses as podcasts that you can download for free and listen to.

I listened to the first hour of this conference on Hacking Education and found it to be totally fascinating. The first thing I am going to do as part of establishing the Noodle CLC is listen to the rest of it. Good stuff. Exactly what I have been rambling about here.

Hmmm. Maybe? I think this Noodle CLC, home grown art director thing could work if I get really focused, build a structure, make some goals, get a strategy and a plan going. I also have to document it all here in the journal.

That’s all the typing I can do today. I have a yelling baby who is pulling things off the table, chasing the dogs and demanding a story. Oh, in a good way though of course.

“The greatest difficulty facing the production worker is the struggle to keep oneself from being befuddled by the uninspired, soul stunting task at hand. Included in this and perhaps even more importantly, the production worker must also keep the blessed inspiration, drifting in from other realms, at bay so as to not impede the forward momentum of the production with distraction.
Embrace the machine while continually striving to be a machine. Pray for the automation of your limbs so that your mind may continue on with it’s wander.”

- Edward G. Mathews 1922 – 1956

Happy anniversary to my lovely lady and I. We made it baby! Nine years of wedded bliss is now water under the bridge!

That’s a long time. The cost of a loaf of bread on the year we got married was only $5.04!

I can’t wait to see what the next nine years holds.

Not sure what we are going to do to celebrate.

G Noodle and I are a bit under the weather this morning. He’s got a case of conjunctivitis and I’m feeling some sort of cold something or other.

We may save our celebrating for another day.

I love you Mrs. Noodle!

Hey there. Yep we have rolled around to another anniversary of the terrorist attacks that happened on 9-11-01. The 8th anniversary.

It seems like I keep hearing less and less about it as the years pass. I did hear the run down of news on the way in to the office this morning. It’s stupid to say of course, but the people that lost loved ones won’t forget.

I seem to go back on these last few 11ths of September and look through my journal entries. Reflect on my own crap for a while. The “on this day…” Wordpress widget I put in to the right there this year makes it a tad bit easier to go through the stacks.

The 2003 entry, “back to bitching about work and coffee” sums it up quite nicely.

I was telling K this morning that it’s going to be weird in the future explaining to G Noodle that there was a time when people didn’t have to take their shoes off to get through security at the airport.

I seem to be saying the same thing every year on the anniversary. The more I change the more I stay the same I guess.

I’ll try to think up something more thoughtful next year.

Oh yeah, I wasn’t doing Facebook or Twitter last year at this time either. I’m sure they’ll help me get my reverent memorial fix.

I had meant to read the Willamette Week’s Article “The Young and the Jobless” when I saw it sitting in the kitchen at the office. When I got around to it someone had already recycled (I’m sure) it. Oh wait. Yes the article is online. Hold one moment while I read it.

Well that was a depressing read. Good though. I liked what the guy that moved to New York said about there actually being a “working” creative class over there. Being part of the creative class here in Portland is more like a hobby. Interesting thought.

People migrating to Portland without having jobs first is a tad troubling.

Here’s another pretty good blog post on the creative kids. Oh yes. I still have a crush on Ziba. What is this Portland Incubator Experiment that they speak of? Hmmm? I should check that out.

Oh yeah. The Portland Creative Conference is also coming up on the 12th. There was an article on it in the Oregonian (oh no. wait. This is the one I was thinking of) and a blog post.

There is a lot of stuff going on in town! There also seems to be a lot of people in a bunch of different groups trying to get stuff started. That’s kind of encouraging.

One group that caught my eye last week during some tweeting, was the New Communicators. You can watch a video of one of their initial meetings here. I was going to go to the meeting but didn’t. A couple of the guys in the New Communicators are people I went to school with. The New Communicators are working to set up a series of creative events and collaborations on a couple of nights at the end of October.

There’s this amazing thread of comments here arguing back and forth about the New Communicators. I was glued to the screen. Like rubbernecking a car crash on the side of the freeway.

I think any attempt to get a community of creative folks together in the hopes of getting some collaboration going is a valiant effort. Getting people out from behind their monitors, into the daylight and public seems to be getting harder to do.

I guess I am part of the PDX creative class. At the very least I fit the age requirement given in the Willy Week article of 25-39. I would love to be a part of the creative class if I’m not already in it.

It would be cool to gang up with some of these groups and get some fires started! I think it would be fun.

I tend to not leave the compound anymore though and that seems to be a problem with these collaborations of creativity.

Getting out and being seen requires a lot of effort.

Perhaps I will continue to watch from the sidelines.

Oh geeze. You know what I should really do is get the gang I am already part of to do some creative collaborating! Like, why don’t I go up and help silkscreen tee-shirts in Shelton for example?

I don’t speak ill of the office here in the journal

But…

No. Ha ha. No buts. Over the years I have tried not to talk trash about my places of employment. That’s just a smart business policy here on the internets.

Things are going well at the office. There seems to be enough work coming in and everybody is staying busy. That’s pretty awesome given the current state of the economy that everybody is talking about.

I have crafted a new profile statement that I am putting up on my various web products. It reads as follows:

Electronic artist, production worker, professional new media dabbler, daydream yearner. Explorations in mouse clicking, video, web design, illustration, and digital photography.

Daydream yearner.

I posted this tweet the other day on Twitter and Facebook:

Just upgraded my own title to Interactive Creative Director! Please update your files accordingly while I read my new job description.

I was only halfway (three quarters) joking. What is the saying? Someone help me! Believe in something hard enough and it becomes a reality. No, now that’s not it. Hmmm. Dreams a reality something, something…

Anyway, the office isn’t looking for a interactive creative director. Yet. When they do think they need one though I’ll already be in the spot (not looking for work elsewhere). Why can’t I just declare that I am a interactive creative director?

The first step will be to figure out what an interactive creative director does. I got going on this interactive creative director position after reading a post looking for one on the Juxt Interactive site.

There seems to be a lot of tiers at Juxt. The creative director is in charge of the senior art director who is in charge of the art director who is in charge of the interactive designer who is in charge of the senior flash developer? Huh.

“Your kind will never understand war, Hobbit.”

Being an art director would be cool too. Maybe I should shoot for that instead. Yeah the interactive art director job description is pretty awesome. Maybe I should google interactive art director for more scoops.

Hey. What is this Hyper Island of which you speak?

What are you doing Noodle?

I don’t know. I guess I am just ready for some more. Give me a challenge. I am ready for hard work. Meaningful projects. More responsibilities. Stimulation. Interaction. Problem solving. Thinking up new ideas. Pretty much the duties listed on that Juxt interactive art director job description. I’m ready! Lets do it.

Oh yeah. Larger paycheck is in there somewhere also of course. … blush …

This looking at job postings activity is very similar to looking at real estate websites isn’t it?

Daydream yearner.

Just upgraded my own title to Interactive Art Director! Please update your files accordingly while I read my new job description.

good morning.

The next album I would buy if there was any money left over from payday would be “See Mystery Lights” by Portland’s very own, YACHT. You can listen to it here on their myspace page.

I am enjoying it very much. I have been blasting it through my computer speakers and rocking it in my headphones. It’s quite catchy. The song, “I’m In Love With A Ripper” was stuck in my head last night.

Give it a listen. I’m going to right now.

Okay that’s it. Carry on about your business.