03-01-02 Friday
Hey happy March to you all! This month is going to be an excellent month! Can't you just feel it in the air?

Last night we went and checked out the art scene on Alberta street, over in North East. There were some shows open for Last Thursday. Boy it was nice and crowded. Lots of people were braving the cold to see the artwork. There was some neato art projects and experiments.

We were out on the evening mission to see "The Cell Project". That was something to behold for sure. It's a conceptual and performance art piece. A hollowed out, old power station that artists from around town painted and added sculptures and installations to. It was cool because it didn't have any lights so you needed flashlights to see the art at night. You also had to be careful not to fall in any holes or you may never have been found again. The whole thing was a maze of weirdness. It kind of had a haunted house feel to it but people didn't pop out and try to spook you.
One of the "cells" was completely covered with mirrors, walls, floor, ceiling. When You went in it was kind of disorienting because you felt like you were up higher than you actually were.

Yes it was a fun evening of art viewing. Going out and seeing works is something we are going to keep trying to do more of. If you can get past the initial act of pulling yourself off of the couch, away from the television and into the car, it's not that tough to get out and about.

Hey congratulations are in order today for the lovely G! She has broken the shackles of oppression and can now join us suckers in this desolate environment of pauper joy. Pabst Blue Ribbon is a name you will become familiar with

03-02-02 Saturday
Well geeze. Hello all. Your humble narrator is sitting in the life giving rays of the beautiful Sun shining through my window, as I type this. How are you all doing? Good I hope. Well, not much going on here this morning. We are laying low this weekend I believe. Not by choice of course. This money fast we are on mandates it.

The sunshine is great but it is still cold. We got the Sun now give us a bit more in the temperature department and we'll be set. I guess the Sun has been burning off all of the cloud cover allowing the heat to escape.

This boring... Hold on, let me go make some coffee and see if anything interesting comes to mind while I'm in there.

Hmmm. Well I think we're going to do some gardening today. We may also go over and see if we can help Eugene at his new space.

Nope nothing....

03-04-02 Monday
Hey YO! Back at it again for another week. And bring it back to Monday and... fade.
I see the Sun this morning again but they say rain clouds are on their way. Oh well it was fun while it lasted.

We had a pretty good day yesterday. We went out on a Sunday drive to the country and got some rocks. Yep, we're building up a rock embankment in front. It looks pretty cool so far but we need more rocks. It was a great day for a drive and hike through the woods.

I need to get a new bicycle soon. We are planning on starting up the bicycle gang again. This last weekend would have been great for a bike ride. Oh well. This part of town that we rest our heads in here, is great for pedaling.

I am really going to make a solid effort to get a lot of work done this week. Just you wait... You'll see... You'll all see.

Speaking of... Check out the Noodle Shop to the left there. Get out your credit cards and order yourself a new limited edition Red Rat Revolt baseball tee-shirt or Red Rat Revolt baby doll tee.
What the heck is a Red Rat Revolt? Don't worry my friends it will make sense in time. The shirts are a premature preview to one of the major projects I'm hammering away at.

TOP^

03-05-02 Tuesday
Here comes the rain again. That's okay though because the plants and animals all need the moisture to live.

Mr. Baptist and I did some serious yard work yesterday. Gosh, 2 days in a row for me. We used a chipper and made a pile of leaves and branches into dust. Those chippers are pretty cool machines. I did feel the temptation to throw crazy things in there like the cement garden gnome, but I restrained myself.
After the yard debris chipping, I did some hole digging and dirt moving. I was pretty sore last night but I feel alright this morning.

We need more rocks. I've started to worry about my obsession with rocks. I've been thinking about rocks a lot in the last 48 hours. I think it won't subside until my rock wall is complete. We will probably add some plants to the rock wall and make it into a rock garden thing. Do you think anyone would be annoyed if I went down to the Willamette river and got some big ass river rocks?

Boy what should I do today? I don't think I will be doing any yard work. I think what I will be working on is the projects. I also need to figure out a way to make some money. Ah ha! Eureka! What if I could figure out a way to get paid to do the projects?
Remember how everyone was rich and the economy was booming before George Bush Jr. took office? Money is stupid. I apologize. I will try not to speak of it as often in these fine journals.

03-06-02 Wednesday
Good morning all! I slept in a wee bit there. I had a good sleep.
Hey it's Wednesday again. Time for the weekly, "Keeping It Real, Freedom Walk". Looks like I may have some company on the legendary walk this afternoon. My buddy G talked of joining the mission earlier this week. She can spread the good G word, and I'll spread the Noodle love. I would like to head the tour over to Excalibur to look at comic books again. I think I need to get a G.I. Joe comic, and maybe that Alias book.

It's pretty wet out there today. I wonder if my buddy G will be up for the challenge of the "rain" Freedom Walk. You just got to stay bundled up and relatively dry. I guess you could take an umbrella also. I always forget that one.

Hey I got an email from Portugal last night complimenting the Transmission. I was quite excited about that. Friends, the Noodle love is spreading all over the globe! Thank you everyone for the emails you have been sending in. Be you from Portugal or from up the road, I love to get 'em. Maybe one of these days I'll be one of those people that has so many emails that they can't find the time to respond to them all. As it is now I could respond to the email I'm getting and get a conversation about rock gardens going back and forth.

Okay Noodle, you got to get back to work buddy. I spent a lot of time staring out the window yesterday. I've got to focus today. Drawing, writing, coloring, or computing. Pick one and go for it man!

03-07-02 Thursday
Hey! There's no snow on the ground this morning. What the heck were they talking about? It was pretty cold last night though. The rain drops looked like they wanted to be snow flakes.

The Freedom Walk was spectacular yesterday. Luckily I took my own advise and brought an umbrella. I would have been quite damp without one. G ended up not traveling with me, but that was okay because the lovely K joined instead. I had to explain some of the rituals to her but she really got out and kept it real. After the Freedom Walk we went and stuffed ourselves silly buffet style at Sweet Tomatoes.

I did get some comics yesterday, all of which I enjoyed. I got G.I. Joe #1-2, Alias #7 and Steampunk #11. I need some suggestions. What other comics will I really enjoy? I get to the shop and there are so many I forget what I came in for. The internet helps a bit with suggestions but I like the comfort of that whole word of mouth thing. One book I probably will get into that I saw yesterday is that "Lucifer" book. It looks pretty interesting. Kind of Sandmanish.

Tonight is First Thursday once again. Time to go check out the gallery scene. I have a couple of things I would like to see tonight. I also picked up a flyer for a free electronic music show so maybe we'll check that out also. I'll tell you what though, I'm not going anywhere if the weather behaves like it did last night.

TOP^

03-09-02 Saturday
I guess I was wrong about the snow. It did show up after all. It didn't stay on the ground for very long though. We had a few days of strange weather. Rain, snow, sleet, sunshine, wind, clouds. Alright already Winter, you made your point. We were wrong for disrespecting you. You are powerful and Spring isn't here yet. I'm sorry for hurting your feelings.

Once again, not much happening around here this weekend. K is off taking another test for her schooling. I think I'm going to try and get my chores done and clean up a bit around the laboratory so she doesn't have to come home to a mess.
Something's got to give pretty soon here. We can't keep this funk of nonactivity up for much longer. Something good is around the corner, I'm sure.

Believe it or not I actually did some work on the projects yesterday. I went through some of my archives and got some of the old art organized. Man I found some gems. It's crazy how all of that work has piled up over the years. Some diamonds in the rough. It's good now I have the semblance of a direction going for the next few days.

03-10-02 Sunday
Good rainy morning to you!
Today we are going to head out into that stinky weather and get some more rocks. We need to keep building that rock wall baby!
Go out to my dad's, load up some rocks, eat lunch, talk, race home, unload rocks, watch the Simpsons.

Last night was a pretty fun evening. We went to this house where hundreds,,, No wait.. Twenties of bands were playing. It was pretty crazy. I don't know where all those kids came from. There was quite a few cuties in attendance. Some of those fresh young faces were making me feel old. We got there at about 8 PM and I guess everyone had been watching bands and drinking beer since noon.

We were there to see our friends play in their new band called "Fake Fake". They played in the basement and did a fine job. It was funny to step back and observe the whole scene. The bands would wait, mostly patiently, work themselves into the line up to play, and when they finally got up in front of an audience they were playing to other bands who were waiting to get up on stage and play. I think K, Lori, and I were the only people who weren't in a band there. Each band's set was pretty short so that the next band could get up. There was some nice rock in the house that evening.

Towards the end of our time there we saw "MinMae" play. Gosh I love the tunes those kids make. I requested "The Bastard" and my wish was granted. Actually quite a few people requested "The Bastard" so I don't think it was just me. I'll have to do some artwork for those kids one of these days.

Finally I leave you with a quote that was funny and made more sense last night:
"The big dog lets himself out!"

03-11-02 Monday
So did you all see the never before seen trailer last night for "Star Wars, Episode II, Attack of the Clones"? It looks okay. Looks like there is more fighting this time around so that's good. They say it is suppose to be darker than Episode I so that's good too.

Remember how excited everyone was when Episode I came out? I couldn't wait back then. I don't think I'm as excited this time. I think Episode I helped me realize that I was approaching 30, and things that were so magical as a kid were going to be a bit harder to come by in the adult world.

It's a blustery day out there this morning. Wind and rain. The house is colder I think when the wind blows. You can walk through the front room and feel a breeze blow through your toupee.

We got a huge load of rocks yesterday. Success! We will probably only need one more big load of rocks and the rock garden will be well stocked. It looks good. I was pretty tired last night after all that lifting and grunting. We also got some plants from the woods to transplant out here in the urban world. We got two good sized ferns and planted them in the front. The wind is blowing them around now. I hope they have enough strength to take it.

Well I think this is going to be an excellent work week. I'm planning on getting quite a few things done.

TOP^

03-13-02 Wednesday
Well Once again, time to go on my Quest for Fire today. I've got to get out there and see how my Peeps are doing. The weather hasn't let up yet this week so the journey is going to be a wet one again. I don't think I'm going to go to the comic book shop today. Maybe next week.

Oh geeze wait... I've got to get some coffee, I can't think.
There that's a little bit better.

Yes the weekly walk will do me good. I've got to get the Hell out of here!

Happy Birthday to the lovely Eugene. If there is a finer chap in Portland I have yet to meet him. 30 yrs old. Don't worry buddy I'm almost there with you. Yes his twin brother Benny is 30 today also. Hopefully I can scrape some change together to get out with you guys tonight. It's a birthday filled week. We had quite the fun at the handsome Matt's birthday dinner on Monday evening. You March babies are a good bunch of folks.

I need to really stay alert on my walk today. Portland has been filled with crime this week. Have you seen the news? Another kidnapping happening in Oregon City. A shooting resulting in death in broad daylight downtown. A bank robbery yesterday with shots fired. Damn it people stop it. This isn't good. Everybody needs to chill out and get back to following the Golden Rule. I've got enough going on without worrying about getting stepped on by you losers. Remember our enemies are in the Axis of Evil, not here.

03-14-02 Thursday
Is it only Thursday? For some reason I thought today was Friday. Nope. Getting ahead of myself. It's been chilly the last few days. I'm getting tired of it. I'm getting tired of a lot of things.

Last night was pretty fun. We went out and celebrated Eugene's birthday. We went to happy hour at the Bonfire then finished it off with some bluegrass music over at a place called the "Mad Hatter" down in the "Rabbit Hole". Good time had by all. That's it for events now. No going out for the rest of the weekend.

Everybody still enjoying the Transmission? Yes me too. I'm getting quite a few hits on that puppy, which is cool. I think I'm going to up the quality a bit here soon so it will be 56k instead of 28.8. I think the songs will sound better. That's a request I've gotten a time or two now, and you must give the people what they want.

We are really digging a CD here at the house called "Neon Golden" by a band called "The Notwist". Martin brought it over and unfortunately it's a copy (for shame). So we don't know anything about them. It's good though. Moments of Pet Shop Boys, moments of Squarepusher, moments of Radiohead. I'll have to do some research on them and get back to you kids. I think it's an import.

I'm also currently investigating these bands: "The Clientele" and "Zero 7".

03-15-02 Friday
Well would you look at that. I caught a cold! It's been so long since I've had one that I didn't know what was happening to me at first. I'm all stuffed up and dizzy. Actually I feel a bit better than yesterday so maybe it's leaving. It was kind of good to be sick because at least I could finally rest and had an excuse to lay around the house.

Hey the weekend is almost here! What sort of fun do you guys have planned? There will be no fun for me this weekend. Maybe once I regain my strength we should go out to Beavercreek and get more rocks huh? I don't know about that though, it's suppose to snow tomorrow. SNOW! Enough already I say again. It's time for spring.

I started doing our taxes the other day. How confusing. I'm not a math guy. It doesn't make any sense to me. I started doing them on the H&R Block site, and I'm not sure if that's right either. I can't tell if the numbers are going in the right place. This is the first year we can't just do the 1040 EZ. Well I'll figure it out. It can't be that tough. Maybe I should read the instructions.

TOP^

03-17-02 Sunday 9:01 AM
Good morning all. I hope this grey morning finds you well. Hey today is St. Patrick's day isn't it? Well that's just great. I better go put on some green before K wakes up and starts pinching. It doesn't look like we will be doing much celebrating today, just continuing on with the chillin' and laying low.

It looks like my cold has faded. I started to feel bad again on Friday night but I feel alright now. Friday night? Is that right? Yes I think so. I have been off the last few days. I thought Friday was Saturday, and I thought it was Sunday all day yesterday. I'm caught up now I think.

We rented some pretty alright movies the other day. We saw "Session 9" and "The Man Who Cried". Yeah crazy, I had never heard of them either.

Session 9 was a horror, thriller type movie about a hazmat team that was cleaning asbestos out of a hundred year old insane asylum. It was pretty creepy. You know how it works, one by one everybody goes nuts. I don't think it was overly "BOO!" scary. It was just extremely intense. There was an awesomely graphic scene with this lobotomy ice pick thingy. Oh man, the sound was excellent. It really added to the spookiness. David Caruso from "NYPD Blue" fame was in that one.

The Man Who Cried was okay. It had some great actors in it. The always handsome Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Cate Blanchett, and John Turturro were all in it. The story was about a Russian girl during World War II who was trying to get to America to reunite with her father. Johnny Depp played a Gypsy. John Turturro played an opera singer. I always like watching him, he's great. I think we were all getting sleepy during that one because it was getting late in the evening.

Congratulations go out to my precious bride! K was accepted to the university that she was trying to get into. The lovely lady will be going to get her masters in teaching. Hooray! Bring on the student loans my friends. I'm going to have to get off my ass and get a job now. Ha ha well, I knew that day was coming anyway.

03-20-02 Wednesday
Hey! Hey! YO! What up?
Hey folks I'm back. I had a few days there of monotony. A vacation of melancholy if you will. I feel a bit better this morning.
What's been going on with you cats huh?

So are any of you missing a bicycle? K and I woke up the day after St. Patrick's day and found that a bike had been parked in our front yard next to the fence. Who knows how it got there. It could have been a drunk St. Patrick's day celebrator that left it there because they were too drunk to drive. Maybe it was stolen and left there by the drunk thief? We left it there for about a day to see if the person would come back, but they didn't. I rode it down to Eugene's shop yesterday and It rides pretty well. It did even better when I filled the back tire up with air.

The projects? Oh gosh the projects. Yes I know. I've got to get to work on them. I'm still going through emails looking for a proper patron to support me. Some of you make a good argument for sponsorship. I still haven't ruled the adoption thing out either so be patient.

I DID work on the transmission the other day. Beefed it up a bit. I think It sounds better now. You can still fit quite a few songs into a 56K broadcast. Maybe I'll just have to rotate the playlist a bit more now for variety.

03-21-02 Thursday
I forgot to mention it yesterday, but hey it's Spring now! Yeah! No more winter! It looks like it may just take today, sunshine and no rain yet. Hey maybe that calls for a bike ride today.

Man I did not sleep well at all last night. I kept tossing and turning all night long. Sucked. Second night in a row. Maybe it's something I'm eating or too much coffee huh? Yesterday on my freedom walk I investigated a CD by the band N.E.R.D. Later that night I was surprised to see that they were the musical guests on the Letterman show. I got tired of waiting through the other guests to see them so I turned it off and went to bed. During the tossing and turning faze of my attempts at sleep, I discovered that my brain was stuck on a loop thinking about N.E.R.D. That's all I could think about for some reason. Does that ever happen to you guys? In your half awake state something has an unreasonable amount of urgency. I guess my brain could have been stuck on anything. The N.E.R.D. CD was pretty good but not worth losing sleep over. Gosh and here I am now still stuck in my N.E.R.D. loop, writing about it.

My mother flew in from Idaho last night and we picked her up at the airport. Her and Greg are all moved in and she starts a new job next week. She's here for the weekend to see the new baby finally. It was very nice to see her. We dropped her off at my grandparent's house in Vancouver. I may tag along with them to go see the baby and visit today.

TOP^

03-23-02 Saturday
Boy! This is the leanest week here in the journals so far this year. Not too much entered in by yours truly. Never fear though, you shan't get rid of me that easily. Soon I'll be back in the saddle with a vengeance and you'll be begging me to shut up.

I've been laying low this week. Not much going on around here. I've been chilling. Hold on... I must of course, go start a pot of coffee.
Yeah so I think I'm at the tail end of a revaluation period. I'm clearing out the stock room, and taking inventory. I feel pretty good. Beginning preparations for a good old fashioned Spring cleaning.

Yeah speaking of, today might be a pretty good day to get some yard work going. The sun is nice, bright and tempting, but it tricks you into going outside where it is still cold and windy. I don't care though, I'm just happy to see the sun again.
I'm going to try and have a lawn that is the envy of the neighborhood this season. I should get out there and cut it for starters. I need to get over and take Matt up on his lawn mower offer. We also need to get some more rocks for our wonderful rock garden.

K's lovely father Mr. Baptist and his lovely girlfriend Bee left for Las Vegas the other day. K is very stoked because Bee left her Mazda Miata. I think we will be racing around with the top down, for part of the day today. K really digs that little car, maybe one day we'll have to get her one. I just keep picturing those damn SUVs driving over the top of us.

We had a nice visit with my mother yesterday. Very good to see her. Hopefully she got to see the baby this morning. I'm going to take her back to the airport later today.

03-24-02 Sunday
It looks like I missed my lawn mowing window of opportunity. We've got rain again. Oh well maybe it will clear up tomorrow.
K and I did have some good fun driving around in the Miata yesterday. The sun was shining, the top was down, the birds were singing.

What to do today? I'm not sure. I think K is heading off with friends this afternoon. Maybe I'll go to the bookstore and look at some art and graphic design books. I looked at some design magazines yesterday and was quite stimulated. Getting some inspiration for the projects.

Hey the Academy Awards are tonight huh? Are you going to watch? I don't have too much of an interest in watching. I haven't seen that many of the nominated movies. I've seen Moulin Rouge, Beautiful Mind, Lord of the Rings, hmm what else? Is Mulholland Drive, and Black Hawk Down up for anything? Well I guess I've seen a few of the nominees. I don't really care who wins this year.

Boy I had a stinker of a dream last night. It was horrible. The basic idea of it was that I was held down by a bunch of church thugs while a muscle bound, nutty guy with a chip on his shoulder, punched me as hard as he could in the nose. I'm sure he broke it. I've been having strange dreams again. Maybe I should stop my stressing and worrying two hours before going to sleep so it can all digest properly.

03-25-02 Monday
ARGH! Monday again! There is no coffee in the house this morning! I don't know if I'll make it. I don't think I can type another word.
The weekend sure was short wasn't it?
Uh hmm... Man! I may have to buy some coffee and get some brewing before I can continue with this. I'm falling asleep.

We didn't watch the Academy Awards last night. Looks like it went on fine without us. I don't think we missed much anyway. I was a little upset that the Simpsons weren't on. We watched a couple of videos instead. We saw "Ghost World" and a movie called "The Thin Blue Line". Both were pretty good flicks.

"Ghost World" was better than I thought it would be. There were some interesting characters in it. The two main girls weren't as snotty as I was thinking they would be. Steve Buscemi was great once again. The movie did get kind of long in the middle. The movie made me want to start getting into Daniel Clowes comic series "Eightball". I've always thought I would like it but just haven't read it yet.

"The Thin Blue Line" was pretty good. It was a documentary about a man that was wrongly accused of shooting a police man and getting life in prison. We really like some of the director's other works. His name is Errol Morris. He did the movies "Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control" and "Mr. Death". All of his work is in the documentary style. They are really interesting. The way he films them is pretty cool also.

TOP^

03-26-02 Tuesday
Hey today is my Dad's birthday. Happy Birthday Dad.

It sure was nice out yesterday. I met Martin over at Stumptown Coffee Roasters to give him his keys back. On the way over I was attacked by G who also joined me for a cup of coffee. Those kids are alright. Man there was a huge crowd of unemployed sunbathing coffee drinkers sitting outside of Stumptown. It was a good scene.

After hanging out there I went and helped Eugene and friends move the printshop. The presses and the big stuff had already been moved by professionals. I helped out with the smaller things and the various odds and ends. The shop is looking pretty cool. Almost done kids!

K and I went downtown and looked at some books at Powell's. We looked at the gardening books for ideas and I rummaged through some art books. I bought a book on silk screening. I have been studying it a bit over this last weekend and I think I am going to set up a little silk screen printing operation here one of these days. I think that would be pretty cool. I did a bit of silk screening in high school and really enjoyed it.

After Powell's we went and looked at the new "Whole Foods" grocery store. Yep It's a grocery store. It's part of the buildings that are going into that Weinhard's brewery district. I think that is going to be a pretty interesting part of town when it is all finished. Boy what a giant building project. I'm glad they are keeping little bits and pieces of the old brewery building intact.

03-27-02 Wednesday
Well I got that lawn mowed. Yep pretty exciting eh? It looks good now. I think I may go out and roll around in it later this afternoon. Thanks again to Matt for the use of the lawn mower. K is giving me grief because I'm not using the push mower I bought last year. I don't know about that push mower. Besides the obvious annoyance of the pushing thing, I believe that the push mowers cause more weeds to pop up than their power mower brothers. Do you think there is anything to that theory? I'll show you all and go out and get a riding lawn mower.

Looks like it is that time of week again. Time for the Freedom Walk! The weather for these journeys is only going to continue to get better. I love it. I'm like a new man with a little bit of sunshine. I think I may head over to the comic shop today. It's been about a month since I bought those last issues hasn't it? I don't think I'll go to Excalibur today though, I may try a different comic shop over on Burnside called Future Dreams or something like that. Their old location stunk but I haven't seen the new spot yet.

I am still trying to get going on working on my projects. Some other lame things have been getting in the way of the experiments lately. Don't you worry I'm still on task. I've got some other ideas now that are also fighting for elbow room with the projects.

03-29-02 Friday
Yesterday was an awesome day. I was pretty happy with how yesterday went. I got some self promo stuff done in the morning. Then I got interviewed by Good Morning America.

Later I went to Milwaukie and had lunch with a couple of old chums from the Pony. It sure was nice to see those kids! They gave me a tour of the place again. Some things are different around there, while some things seemed to have stayed the same. It looked like they had a lot more artwork up on the walls this time. Yes it was good to wander through the old haunts. Hey, who knows? We'll have to wait and see?

Have I mentioned yet in this post that I am digging this Spring time weather and sunlight? Well I am.

K and I went jogging last night. Ha Ha! Yes you read that right. She and some of her friends are planning on running in a marathon. I don't think I'll be running in the marathon, but I am planning on training with my buddy. I'll be her coach. I feel pretty good this morning after last night's jog. I've been trying exercise and get healthy this last month. I don't know why I haven't tried that earlier. I think maybe with the jogging I should start lifting weights. Yeah I'm going to get totally buff so you guys won't be able to recognize me.

When we got home from jogging I talked to my friend Simon on the phone. He's currently living in Chicago. Simon and I went to grade school on up together. It was good to hear that he is doing good. I kind of miss that guy. Last time I saw him was at the wedding.

Well today is going to be a smashing day also! I've got some good things already lined up for this morning. I hope my cheeriness isn't making you sick, it just feels good to feel good.

Oh, I was just joking about that Good Morning America thing. That would have been funny though, right?

TOP^

03-30-02 Saturday
Wow March is almost over! I feel rather indifferent about this last month. It wasn't good and it wasn't bad. I'm telling you though, April is going to be SWEET.

We went on an evening bike ride last night. It was pretty cool. K and I rode our bikes to La Cruda and had some tasty Mexican food. Hey once again, are any of you missing a bicycle? The bike I'm riding isn't mine, it was just left on our lawn. If you see me riding your bike just let me know and I'll give it back.

After our dinner we rode the bicycles up Hawthorne to see our friend Joel. We watched Joel as he trained for another notch on his black belt. Is that right, notch? Maybe it's degree. Boy that sure was interesting. They were practicing the martial art Pukulan. Joel's test he is doing this weekend is 52 hours long, straight without sleep. It involves lots of physical and mental endurance. Ha! I thought our 15 minute jogging was tough. When we were there viewing and gawking Joel was fighting with other students who weren't part of the 52 hour test. Man, awesome moves. With the punches and kicks it looked like there was a bit of wrestling thrown in for good measure. Some of it looked pretty painful. I don't think getting punched and kicked is my kind of thing.
Joel GREAT job! You looked great. You're still at it now as I type this. Boy are you tired?

I think we are heading out today to get some more rocks for our rock garden. Then I think we may do some jogging and then we will pick Mr. Baptist and Ms. Bee up at the airport.

03-31-02 Sunday
Happy Easter everybody! Do you all have your Easter dresses on? We are going out on an Easter egg hunt a little bit later today I think. Hopefully there's an Easter brunch in our future also. I'm hungry.

Well the rock garden is almost complete. We got more rocks yesterday and did some serious construction on that puppy. One more load of medium sized rocks and I think we will be set on the rocks. We've got to add some dirt and the actual plants next. Without the plants and flowers it's just a rock pile and not a garden. Boy we were tired and sore after yesterday's hard work.

We fell right to sleep last night. K and I have been doing this weird talking in our sleep thing lately. Last night I think she was saying that I scared her with my snoring, and she thought a car was driving over her face. Crazy. I asked her about it this morning and she says that I was snoring everywhere last night. In front of the television, in the bathroom, and when I went to sleep in bed. I kind of think she is making the whole thing up, because I didn't hear anything. I sure was tired though, so I guess snoring isn't that unreasonable. I totally fell right to sleep.

You know, I hope there is a new episode of the Simpsons on tonight. It seems like forever since I have seen a new one.

APRIL 2002

04-03-02 Wednesday
Hey everybody! How goes it? This is the first entry for April. I've been busy the last few days. I took the red car to the shop. We planted flowers, plants, rocks and dirt. I took Pierre to the heart doctor for his check up. I've been riding my bike around. I've been keeping busy, keeping away from the laboratory and staying out in the Great Outdoors enjoying the beautiful Spring weather. I've been staying off of the computers. Continuing with the frequency of the posts may prove to be a difficult task if everything keeps going in this beautiful fashion. I'll do it though, fear not sexy reader, I'm still here for you. I'll just have to start the day earlier to make time for this marvelous web site.

It's Wednesday today again! Woo Hoo! I'm off on my Freedom Walk again. Excellent day for walking and keeping it real for my brothers and sisters. I need to get over to the comic book shop today I think and get some comics. Yes comics will give me a moments pleasure. I'm not sure how many more Freedom Walks I will be having. I'm cautiously optimistic that I will have to pass the Freedom Walk torch on before too long.

I have to go get the red car out of the shop later today. 300 or so dollars for that sucker. Argh! How the heck are we suppose to pay for that huh? Well I guess it's the cards to the rescue once again. The economic stunts we have been pulling these last few months are going to be with us for awhile.

Tomorrow is First Thursday again. Perhaps I should get a gang together and go look at some art tomorrow night. K has her Spanish class tomorrow so she won't be going. Maybe I should go out on my own and check things out. That might be kind of fun.

TOP^

04-04-02 Thursday
Another lovely day out there! The Sun is shining brightly.
Yesterday was great out on the Freedom Walk. I was just soaking up the Sun. I was actually getting kind of hot out there. I walked down Burnside to Future Dreams and looked at comics then I did the usual route down Hawthorne.

I bought the trade paperback comic collecting the first few issues of the comic book "Transmetropolitan". It's pretty cool. I had the first issue from many moons ago, but didn't follow it. It's a kind of a cyber punkish book.

I didn't see as many people out slacking yesterday. Could this be a sign? Is work picking up? Are the brothers and sisters leaving the Sun filled sidewalks for the dark, dank offices again? Yes I think I must do that soon also. Hey maybe the economy is picking up.

Happy Birthday to the always gentlemanly Stuart. K and I road our bikes last night out to a place called "The Spare Room" in Northeast to celebrate Stuart's big day. That Spare Room was quite the place. It was an old bowling alley converted into a restaurant lounge thing. That was a good, healthy bike ride. When all was said and done, to and from was about 7 miles of pedalling. Man we are nuts!

04-05-02 Friday
The clouds are back. Send in the clouds. Don't bother they're here.
I'm still going to get out there this morning and mow the lawn before it starts raining. K took the day off today. Too bad for her. She should have taken yesterday off. We can still get some yard work done today though.

I have kind of been feeling a cold coming on the last few days. I've had a soar throat that has been coming and going and I've had the sniffles. I think a cold has been threatening to catch me for awhile.

Last night Martin and I went and checked out the First Thursday scene. Boy it was a scene alright. Hundreds and hundreds of people out walking around. Way crowded. I was worried we wouldn't find a parking place. I think that people took advantage of the night's beautiful weather. I guess it has been a while since I had wandered around that part of town. There were lots of new buildings and scenery up that I hadn't seen before. It was hard to remember where some of the galleries were.

We saw some good artwork. I'm still always quite impressed by the brothers and sisters who sell their artwork away from the gallery scene out on the streets and sidewalks. Oh wait that still is part of the gallery scene.

One of the gallery shows that was pretty cool was the "City Fusion 2002" show. It's a collection of independant artists who's goal is "to present a forum of visual arts accessible to the community." There was some nice stuff there. I enjoyed the paintings by Trina Hesson very crisp and bold with strong colors.

We saw a lot of student work at the galleries at Pacific Northwest College of Art. Great stuff. Calling that stuff "student" work is a little silly. Sure they are technically students of PNCA but some of their work was better than the so called "pros" in the other galleries that evening. I wonder if I could just sign up for one or two of their classes. I'm interested in learning about etching.

The blue ribbon prize for the night goes to the artist named Tim Miller at Gallery 114. He had a bunch of really cool sculpture machine things. The machines were made out of rocks, pebbles, gears and wires. They all moved, raised and lowered the pebbles and did things. Some of them were interactive, the viewer could push a button or turn a crank to get the machine to work. One of the stone machines had a pager hooked up to it with a phone number that you could call that would activate the pager and start the machine. Way cool.

It was quite a good evening. Great weather, great art. I got some ideas and little bits of inspiration which is the whole reason I go to that sort of thing.

04-07-02 Sunday 9:57 AM
Did you remember to set your clocks forward this morning? Spring forward. Gosh I don't know why they have to keep messing with the time. There are quite a few places in the World that don't celebrate daylight savings time right? I like this one though. Lighter in the evening is awesome.

I think my cold is beginning to fade. I don't have much of a sore throat anymore and just a mild runny nose. I'll be back to jogging and push ups in no time.

Yesterday was a pretty cool day. My buddy Matthew and I went down and filmed skateboarders at the demonstration at the Department of Skateboarding. The DOS is a brand new indoor skate park over in Northeast. It was totally rad. There were some actual pros there for the demo. A few old timers, Lance Mountain and Mark Gonzales were pretty much the only names I recognized. Those guys were around back when I was still skating many years ago. The skate park is really cool. Lots of stuff to skate on. They have a giant bowl ramp in a room off from the main room. What a great place for kids. I wish I would have had that sort of place to skate at when I was a young chap. We got some pretty good footage that we can edit down into a hip skate video.

We got some more rocks and ferns out in Beavercreek after the skating. Looks like our rock garden is nearing it's completion. I'm going to try and get outside today and work on it.

TOP^

04-08-02 Monday
The Sun came out yesterday afternoon, and it came out again this morning. I've got to try and get out into it today because it is suppose to go away again late this afternoon when some rain hits us.

We got some good yard work done. More flowers planted, and the lawn mowed. Believe it or not, the rock garden is pretty much built. We have to add a few more plants to it and some more soil, then it's pretty much done.

I know I've said it here a hundred times before, but man that Simpsons is one amazing show! It was pretty awesome last night. Homer smoking the wacky tabacky was a laugh riot. What was up with those crows? That was crazy and made no sense. I loved it!

Speaking of television, have you seen "The Osbournes" yet? That show is crazy. It's a reality (I guess) show, that films Ozzy Osbourne and his family. It's really funny. It's pretty much like watching an episode of "The Munsters". They sit around in there mansion in Beverly Hills and go about their lives as a loving family. We watched a bunch of back to back episodes at our friends house over the weekend.

I have a project due on the 30th of April that I have to get going on. I want to have it done way before that though. The other night I had a nightmare about blowing it off till the last day. I felt the shame and sadness of procrastination in the dream. I awoke in a sweat. I can't that dream become reality.

On man! Now I've gone and stressed myself out again. I've got a lot of things to do today. I better get to it. So much to do, so little time!

04-09-02 Tuesday
Hey today is my brother's birthday. Happy Birthday TJ! I wonder if he is going to do anything fun for his special day? Well hold on, let me go email him now and ask him. Done and done.

Mother Nature is watering our plants and lawn today. That's good. The little guys and gals need it. The cloudy weather is okay for me today also because I have indoor things to do that were getting set aside by the fine sun filled weather we've been having.

One of the things I need to do as soon as possible is clean this laboratory up! It has gotten out of control again. Papers are everywhere, coffee stains all over everything, clothes thrown this way and that. I really believe that a messy work space hinders my work on the projects, and I can't get anything going properly.

Another thing I have to wrap up today is our taxes. Man! Every year we say we are going to get them done earlier and every year we end up waiting till the last week. I wish oh I wish we would have done them earlier this year. We've got it all figured out now I think. Mr. Baptist helped us.

Oh and of course there are the dishes that need washing stacked up in the sink.

Yesterday I was playing around with my old computer, my first computer. What a sad little flower she is. I set it all back up and cleaned the mouse and keyboard. The keys were sticking from where I spilled a beer long ago. It still works great. It's a Macintosh Centris 650. It was a nice machine 12 years ago. I don't know what to do with it now. It's only got 8 meg of RAM. Ha ha. I think the hard drive is pretty small also. I was thinking of putting it out on the back porch as the "Porch Computer". No, somebody would probably steal it. Ha! Maybe it's old enough to be not even worth stealing? It's kind of cool cause it has all of the OLD, OLD versions of graphics programs on there like Photoshop 3. It might be kind of an interesting project to do something now using only that computer and not any of the newer ones. That would kind of be like using rocks for weight lifting instead of dumbbells. Yeah old school!

04-10-02 Wednesday
Howdy all. How is it going?
Wow it's Wednesday again. My favorite day of the week. Time to keep it real on the Freedom Walk again. This may be a brief walk today. I think we may try to go jogging later also. A Freedom Run eh? It's a bit wet out this morning so I will have to bundle up. I would like to head over to the comic shop also, but we'll have to see.

I'm kind of tired and hungry this morning, maybe I should go back to bed for a little while longer. No I must continue with my chores. I got some of them done yesterday but I still have a few left for today. Noodle! Clean this laboratory! Man! It's a pig sty! Oh yeah, taxes.

God what a monotonous last couple of months this has been! I hope you kids at home haven't been too bored with my lack of anything exciting here. ARGH! I'm ready for something else let me tell you. Yes I am a bit down in the dumps this morning. Here let me get some coffee maybe that will help. I don't know, things will pick up. They have to, right? I still firmly believe that this will be the best Summer ever, but getting there is really starting to be a drag.

Well perhaps some excitement will come my way today? Oh, after I fill out my tax forms of course.

TOP^

04-11-02 Thursday
The taxes are all complete! I know you were all worried about us getting them done, but we did. Now we wait for the refund to roll on in! We should have done an electronic filing so the cash would get here faster but we didn't. I kind of wanted to pen and paper it this year just to see where the numbers were going. This was our first year not using the EZ form. Boring! Boring! Boring!

Yesterday I did some writing. Gosh that felt nice. I'm doing some quick bursts of typing, getting a rough sketch of Red Rat Revolt down as quick as I can (which isn't very quick since I am a slow typist). I think after I get a bunch of raw material down, I will go back, edit and fine tune. I just have to give birth to a large chunk of what is in my head now so it doesn't go away.

You know, I have this multimedia disk that I have been taking around to meetings with me and showing off my work. Maybe I should get to work on fixing that up for my meetings next week. I want to add the booklet CD and the squirrel movie to it. Maybe I should get to editing that skateboarding footage so I could add that too huh? Hmm yes folks, I do believe we have a project! That will keep me distracted for the rest of the day!

Oh wait Jack. You still haven't cleaned up this laboratory! Maybe you should do that first before you start playing around with the experiments?

04-12-02 Friday
Happy Friday to you all! The weekend is almost here for us to enjoy! Any exciting plans for any of you? Nothing going on here as usual.

I'm looking out the window now and I'm a little perturbed. I was suppose to have a lawn that was the jewel of the neighborhood. It's lovely for sure, but filled with dandelions! I was keeping it well maintain and trimmed to hopefully fight the dandelions. That's not working I guess. K doesn't want to use any evil environment damaging chemicals on our lawn and garden. Is there such a thing as nontoxic weed killer? The words nontoxic and killer don't really go together do they? Well I've got to do something because those little yellow flowers aren't going to win this year, I swear! Oh man! They're out there laughing at me.

I had a pretty good day with the experiments yesterday. I got some good progress going on a couple of the projects. Gosh actually doing something during the day really makes me feel good. I'm going to keep it up today so I can get some of these grand projects finished. I have got to go over to the art store a little bit later today and get some supplies. I think I am going to try that store on Burnside and see what it's like. My friend Joe always used to talk about that store during our carpool adventures. Maybe I'll stop by the comic book store on my way over and look at stuff. I'll probably ride the bike down there. I don't feel like walking today.

04-13-02 Saturday
Hello once again my friends. It's another gloomy cloudy Saturday out there today. Woo Hoo! It seems like it has been clearing up the last few days more towards the evening time. Hold on let me pull back the drapes. You know, I just read over the last few entries this week and do you know what I haven't done yet? I haven't cleaned this damn laboratory! What is wrong with me? Well in my own defense, if I may, I have been actually spending a bit of time working on the projects.

Hey that reminds me. Yesterday on my bike ride, I stopped by Excalibur, the comic shop, and found that they are having a 50% off sale all weekend. Yep that's right boys and girls. Get out there and buy up those comics! Tell them Jack Noodle sent you and they'll give you an extra weird look, and not know what you are talking about. I was going to buy some items but then remembered I didn't have any green. That keeps coming up quite a bit now days. Being poor sucks.

I was able to get my art supplies though. That's pretty cool. I've been busy working on my secret project that I have only recently hinted to here. Don't worry folks soon it will be finished, and I can tell you all about it and you can come and see it. What? Hey. Hey. Be patient.

TOP^

04-15-02 Monday
Happy Tax Day! I hope you all have a peaceful and joy filled holiday. Well we didn't wait till the very last minute, we made it in a few days before the deadline. Hold on one second I've got to go start the coffee...

The weekend was okay. Not much happened. We chilled and hung out mostly. We had some friends over for dinner on Saturday night. That was pretty fun. On Sunday we did a little bit of yard work. I pulled up about half a garbage can full of weeds. K planted a bunch of irises that we got from the Wagners. Sunday evening Eugene came over and we finished off the weekend in the warm glow of the television.

Hey the Simpsons was a rerun last night, but it was that absolutely amazing snoring episode. You know that was on not too long ago, I commented on it here I believe. Hmm maybe I'll look through the journal to see when that Simpsons first aired.

Alright there were 2 incidents in the Portland area yesterday where people were shot by police officers. I think it's a shame for everyone involved, and I'm a little bothered that police are going around shooting people. What really troubles me are these tweakers and criminals that are screwing around, bringing pain and suffering to others and then getting themselves shot.

One of the people shot yesterday was a guy who broke into a house with another guy to burgle it. The owners came home, discovered the break in, and called the cops from a neighbor's house. The police surrounded the house and told the burglars to come out with their hands up. One of the burglars came out the front door with a gun in his hand and was shot by the cops. This was all in broad daylight. What the Hell? That doesn't make any sense!

Is it the bad economy or what? It seems like crazy acts of crime are on the rise. People enough is enough! Everybody leave each other alone and we'll all be fine. Man! You tweakers are scaring me.

This is going to be a good week for me working on the projects. I anticipate getting a lot of work done. Speaking of, I should probably get to it.

04-16-02 Tuesday
I made lasagna last night. That's a pretty big deal for me. I don't know how to cook. I don't like cooking. I can barely stand to be in the kitchen. Well that's a bit much I guess. I just feel like I could be doing something else while I'm cooking. I feel like I'm wasting my time. Another big waste of time is dish washing. Last night was okay though once I got started. The lasagna tasted pretty good.

Gosh another dark, gloomy day today. It's suppose to clear up starting Thursday I think. I'm going to try to get out of the house today. I was kind of a zombie hermit yesterday. I did make some good advances on the experiments though. I think I need to get out and talk to people. Being a zombie hermit isn't good for ones social life I would imagine. I need to shave off this ZZ Top beard for starters.

I'm going to add some more songs to the transmission pretty soon here. I hope the audience isn't getting tired of the same 100 songs playing over and over again. It stinks though, I haven't had any new music for a long time. Not since early February me thinks. Friends and family are trying their best to keep me up to date with the keen music happenings. I have borrowed a few CDs, and my friend Matt has been making K and I new music mix CDs, but I am way out of the know on my own. I used to be so on top of it. What happened? Well hopefully one of these days I'll be able to discover hip music again on my own and get back into the game. Until then you'll have to accept the tastes of my advisers.

04-18-02 Thursday
HEY! Hope you are having a good morning. I've got quite a bit of stuff to do today. I think one of the important things I need to do today is regroup and evaluate the Noodle battle plan. Some of these bastards are being left unchecked and that can't continue. No, I can't blame anyone but myself. I've been working fairly hard, but I need to work even harder to put these player haters in their place.

I didn't go out on my Freedom Walk yesterday. ARGH! I feel bad about that. I apologize to anyone who came out and waited on the route to cheer me on. It's a shame, I just didn't feel like going out in the rain yesterday. I know I've braved far wetter days to go out on the journey, I just wasn't up for it. Perhaps this is a good thing though. By breaking the routine, maybe I avoided being ambushed by my enemies yesterday. You can't keep it too repetitive or they'll be able to learn your patterns. Don't worry though friends, freedom is still one of the utmost concerns and I'm still up for the fight even though I missed the walk yesterday. Maybe I'll go on a Freedom Bike Ride today?

K has been sick all week. Poor thing. She's a mess. I think she may have caught that cold that I had a few weeks ago. It's hitting her a bit harder than it hit me though. I hope she gets better soon.

TOP^

04-19-02 Friday 10:32 AM
Well there goes another week, zooming by. On with another boring weekend. No, just kidding, this weekend will be awesome, I swear.
Gosh, I slept in a bit this morning. I was a tired little boy. I've slept pretty good the last few evenings. K has been having trouble sleeping so she has been sleeping out in the front room. On my goodness, I am horrible! HA HA HA HA!

Whoa! Easy buddy. No, K has been sick all week! It's been a weird scene around here with us hanging out at home all week. I think she may be feeling a bit better. She wants to go for a walk and get some coffee. The fresh air will do her good.

Last night Eugene and I went out to my alma mater, Portland Community College, to look at printing presses. Well the old school looks the same as when I left it. Well not really, lots of stuff was moved around. Boy, I'm glad I don't go there anymore. That doesn't look very fun. Schooling? Eh, I don't know. I might take a class or two again eventually. I would probably take an English class or a writing class. A printing class would be interesting to me I think. The actual sitting in class thing would be okay, I just don't want to deal with that whole registering, paying and driving thing.

Hey! Tah dah! I finished the secret experiment that I have been working on this week. Woo hoo! I think it looks pretty cool. I will give you kids more details in the future, and I will give you scoops on how to come and see it!

04-20-02 Saturday
Where is this sunshine that they had forecasted for today? I'm shivering. I wish we would hurry up and get to the mornings where we could leave the heat off. Maybe the Sun will poke his face out later today. I'm going to set my lawn chair and sun tan lotion next to the door, so that if I see even a hint of sunshine, I can race outside and sit in it.

What do you guys and gals have planned for the weekend? Boy, we really don't have anything planned yet. It stinks too, because I'm in the mood for once to actually go out and do something. Maybe it's because we've been hold up here all week. Perhaps we will go hang out with Mr. Baptist and Bee.

We have been watching some pretty cool shows that our friends have been recording off of cable. They have several episodes recorded in a row of each show so you get like a whole movie length dose of the show instead of quick hour or half hour shots.

The first show we have been watching is Errol Morris's "First Person". You remember Errol Morris is that guy that I was talking about a few weeks ago that did that "Thin Blue Line" movie we watched and "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control". First Person is a show that is him just interviewing people. He's using his trademark filming contraption where the person being interviewed looks into a TV monitor at the interviewer instead of a camera. The person interviewing is in the other room or out of sight. The camera that films the person is hidden and gets the image by using mirrors. None of that made sense did it? Supposedly people don't ham it up as much when they aren't in front of a camera. It's a pretty interesting show. The people being interviewed are normal everyday people, but they sure are strange. Some of it gets kind of creepy at times.

My favorite of the two shows is Louis Theroux's "Weird Weekends". Louis is adorable, we love him. It's a documentary interview show also. Louis is a reporter from the BBC who goes out and tries to understand different bits of American culture each week. He goes out to Area 51 on one show, he goes and studies the Home Shopping Network on another. He is fun to watch because he seems to be really sincere in trying to understand people, asks honest questions, and a lot of the time the people take it the wrong way and think he is making fun of them. Good Show. Makes me want to get cable again.

Oh shoot! There's the sunshine! I've got to go sit in it!

04-22-02 Monday
Okay! BUR! I am cold. Looks like something is wrong with the furnace again. That piece of crap! It seems like we had just got it going not too long ago. I bet it's something to do with that lousy thermostat. Well at least the Summer is coming soon and we won't be needing the furnace for heat. My coffee cup should keep me warm for now. Oh I see the Sun shining through the clouds now. The Sun will warm me up. I think maybe I'll go for a bike ride later today.

We had a pretty alright weekend. We went and hung with the Wagners on Saturday and Mr. Baptist and Bee on Sunday. K is finally feeling better and went back to work this morning. I've got the house all to myself once again.

On Saturday I mowed the lawn again. I'm trying another new theory with my dandelion battle. I bagged the lawn clippings this time instead of mulching. I figure if I cut the dandelions and put them in one pile instead of sprayed across the lawn that should keep them from spreading right? The next step is poison I think. I must have a super model lawn, that's all there is to it.

So we recorded and watched the X-Files last night. We figured we would watch the last 5 episodes until it gets canceled. Boy what the heck is going on with that show? Have you guys been watching it? We haven't seen it at all this year, and now none of it makes sense. Who the heck are these new agents? What is a Super Soldier? Where is Scully's baby? We used to love the X-Files and tuned in every week. Now it's just bad. Kind of good they are canceling it. Well to give it justice, I actually missed quite a bit of what was going on because I kept falling asleep.

TOP^

04-23-02 Tuesday
My what a beautiful morning! I may have to go out and find a cafe somewhere and have breakfast and a newspaper outside. Hmm breakfast sounds good. I'm pretty hungry this morning. It's suppose to be a bit warmer today and tomorrow. Woo Hoo!

Gosh, what to do today. You know I really should be enjoying all this extra time. A few weeks from now when I'm up to my neck in work, I'll be whining about how I wasted my free time. I don't know though, I'm staring out the window now, becoming hypnotized, knowing I probably won't be spending too much time working in this dank laboratory today. Maybe a walk to the comic shop? I went on a good bike ride yesterday.

Oh man I got stuck in a stare there.
I really need to get going on some creative stuff, let me tell you. I'm feeling a little stale lately. I've been doing things, and working on some of the projects, but I guess I want more. I have been spending quite a bit of time chasing after the almighty dollar lately, doing things that will hopefully help me in that arena. That's no fun though, only depressing. I need to get to a point where I can relax again and not be worried. Maybe creativity will be back again when I can get calmed down.

04-24-02 Wednesday
Oh my goodness! Another amazing day outside! I can't wait to get out there! Yesterday was sweet. I actually got a blanket and laid out in the backyard.

Today's Freedom Walk is going to be absolutely amazing! I think I'm going to drag my buddy G out with me today. That girl needs to get out and join me in the freedom fight. We need to hit the streets and keep it real. I actually walked through my route yesterday, so this is the second Freedom Walk this week. I hope I'm not too much of a rerun for the people. I think we will try to hit the comic book store today. I didn't go there yesterday.

Hey happy birthday to Bee's daughter Sarah! We went out and had some birthday fun last night. K and I cycled to the events. It was a good night for a bike ride. Today will be a good day for peddling also. Last night we went to the Snake and Weasel, and then we went to the Basement Pub. We didn't stay there long. We finished off the evening at Squeeze.

Don't let me forget to buy some coffee today! Gosh I can't believe I've made it this far this morning without coffee.

Well that's about it for me! I can't stand being inside another second! This computer is getting shut off, and I'm going to put some suntan lotion on my forehead.

04-25-02 Thursday
I don't believe it! I think I am getting a cold again! What is up with that? I don't need another cold.

Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous! We had an awesome freedom walk. G joined me and we fought bravely against the suckers and player haters. We walked a bit further this route. We walked down to Eugene's shop and had a look around, then walked all the way up Hawthorne to 47th. Good work G. That was quite a bit of exercise, maybe that is why I have a cold this morning.

Gosh darn it! The furnace trouble is really starting to bug me! It looks like the problem is the same problem as last time and the same piece malfunction! We just changed that piece! Maybe I'll have to call and have a professional repair man come out and fix it this time. Like we really have that in our budget.

Oh, who cares...

Hey I was in the comic shop yesterday and saw that the comic for Star Wars Episode 2 is out now. I skimmed through it and glanced at the pictures. Looks like it's going to be a good one maybe. Lots of battle scenes from what I could see. I guess the novel is out now also. Martin is reading it. That's interesting that the whole thing was kept as a secret for so long and now it's out there available for you to read and ruin the surprise of the movie anytime you want.

I think I'm going to try to get out to see last Thursday tonight. Hit the Alberta strip. Hopefully I will be in a better mood by then.

TOP^

04-26-02 Friday
Wow. I can't believe it's Friday again. This week flew by once again. It got cloudy out there again. Looks like we've got rain scheduled for the weekend also. I'm glad I have been taking advantage of the Sun while it's here. I have to be careful, G and I were laughing about me looking like a Sun soaked surfer when I go into my interviews. Leather face.

Eugene and I had an awesome bike ride last night! We rode over to Northeast to see the last Thursday art events. There was some nice artwork out. There was quite the crowd out viewing the art. My legs are slightly sore this morning. That Eugene peddles faster than I am use to.

I had a pretty good idea yesterday. I should write some stuff down and work on the idea today. That's me 1000 ideas, 2 or 3 of which get completed. That's okay though, I'll get as much of the idea down as I can and then save it for a rainy day. I was also thinking that I should get back to working on my CAN comic strip. Remember that? Yeah I think maybe I will work on that a little bit today and see where that takes me. I'm in better mood than I was yesterday so maybe I'll feel more creative.

04-28-02 Sunday 9:31AM
I just had the worst dream. I dreamt that I was at a job interview with about a hundred people. I was waiting around patiently, and put on one of the several ties that I pulled out of my pants pockets. The screener lady that we went through before being interviewed comes out and gives me the riot act for spelling university wrong. Gosh she was such a jerk. I can still hear her voice in my head. She had corrected the whole resume like it was a test. "If I were grading this paper I would probably give it a C-. That just isn't acceptable for working here." I felt like telling her, "Wow I guess you can afford to be an ass to me because you have a thousand other people applying for the same spot." By the time I thought of saying that to her though I was awake and she was gone. It was one of those very vivid detailed dreams. When I woke up and realized where I was again, I was filled with anxiety and dread. Gosh I don't think the worry has worn off yet. I'm still freaked out. Man, people with jobs think they are so cool! Well they're not you know. ARGH!

Hey where the Hell did the sun go? Boy the weather people screwed the weekend up. It was suppose to be cloudy yesterday and sunny today, but it was sunny yesterday and cloudy today. Well I guess there's still time for the sun to break through. I've got to go out and mow the dandelions today.

The idea I had been going over in my head on Friday is a little bit bigger now. I thought of some more things yesterday during my dish washing marathon. I think this one is really good this time. K also thinks it's good. It's all things I've tossed around before but with some different twists. I've got to write some of this stuff down while it's exciting and fresh in my mind.

04-29-02 Monday
Good Monday morning to you my friends! What a lovely day it is out there. The birds are singing, the Sun is shining, the air smells of freshly trimmed dandelions, love and peace are dancing cheek to cheek.

Yesterday was almost as beautiful as this morning. We had a fun day. K and I got some yard work done. I dug up some stumps and mowed the lawn. Our friend Eugene came over for a visit. We went on a bit of a walk and then we went on a bit of a bike ride.

Well, what to do today? Hmmm... I guess I could continue to stare out the window like this for a few more hours. No, that probably wouldn't be too good for me. I do believe that I should probably go out on another bike ride. I need to get to doing some writing and drawing soon. Maybe I'll take the computer outside and do some typing in the backyard.

Well everyone I can tell you about the secret project now. Yours truly has a painting showing in an art show starting this Thursday. Yeah for me! It's pretty cool. I'm pretty excited. It's a group show at a gallery here in town called Disjecta. It's called the "Presidents Show". All of the artists chose a President to do a piece about. I got James Madison. There are some cool kids showing, I hope my painting holds it own, and I don't crash and burn. The opening reception thing is on Thursday night, you all should attend and support me and Mr. Madison.

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MAY 2002

05-01-02 Wednesday 8:03AM
A new month is upon us! A new month is upon us! Happy May Day everybody. Are you all going to go out and protest today? Is that only a Portland thing or do people around the World use May Day as an excuse to riot? What are they protesting? Is it an environmental issue?

Hey it's Wednesday. The best day of the week. Hump day. These boots were made for walking on the Freedom Walk. Gosh this is going on the 6th month of Freedom. I really didn't think it would last this long. I thought for sure I would be behind a desk already. Well Freedom is a bitter lover and I'm sure she'll be finished with me before too long. It's a little cloudy out there today. At least it's not that cold.

We have been watching some episodes of the show "Frontier House" on PBS. It's pretty good. I'm a weak man, that's why I stay away from those reality shows, they suck me right in. This is one about a group of families that give up all of their modern conveniences and go live out in the wilderness using only things that would have existed in 1883 or so. It's kind of a history show about the way of life long ago compared to now. Boy the stars of the show handle it pretty well but it's fun to watch how whiny some of them get. I think they should combine the Osbournes show and Frontier House and have Ozzy and family roughing it in the Wild West.

Well I took my painting in to Disjecta last night. I'm pretty excited for tomorrow. We saw a few of the other Presidents while we were there. Looks like it's going to be a good show. You know I sure enjoyed that painting thing. I should do more paintings.

05-02-02 Thursday
Boy is my face red about the May Day questions I had yesterday. The peaceful marches around the World are held for workers rights. It is also a time to bring attention to bad corporations and governments that treat their workers poorly. I had it all explained to me yesterday. Thanks everybody. The emails were also helpful. I am on board now! I'm just struggling to be a worker, let alone have rights.

It's a little rainy out today. That's good though, the lawn needs the rain. You know, I don't see as many dandelions out there this week. I wonder if bagging my clippings is starting to help?

Tonight is First Thursday, Art Night! I'm not sure if we are going to go see any other galleries tonight. That might be fun though. Maybe I'll take my camera to the President's Show. The unveiling of James Madison is fast approaching! I saw a tiny blurb about the show in the Willamette Week. I wish there was more advertising for it. I barely saw any telephone poles. Maybe we'll get more write ups when everyone sees how great the work is.

Well I need to get started on my next painting. We'll see how this show tonight goes first. Hopefully they don't confiscate my brushes and tell me to stick to computing. Nah, it will be good I'm sure.

05-03-02 Friday
Happy Friday to you all. I know I say this every week, but man, did this week fly by or what? Here comes the weekend!

The art show last night was a smashing success! Mr. James Madison and I did alright. Quite a few people showed up, which was good. Thanks to everybody who came to see me, you made my week. Thanks to the always beautiful K and the equally beautiful Comet Club who made the Presidential banana cake sandwiches, they were gobbled up! I met some new faces last night. Hopefully I will get invited to some other shows now. I found the whole experience to be quite fun. I should probably keep practicing with the painting though, so I can keep getting better hopefully.

Well what to do now? I am as always, continuing with the experiments. They are going rather slow lately. My main mission has been trying to get funding so that I can keep the laboratory running smoothly. Hopefully soon I will get to a place where I can get back to concentrating on the new scheme.

Oh man. Poor Martin. He got his car broken into and his stereo, school books and some other things were stolen. Gosh darn it! I'm sorry buddy. I hate that. Why do people have to mess with other peoples stuff? I saw on the news the other day the police were after another car prowler who they had hold up in a house he broke into to hide. I don't think they shot that guy. Also they busted a gigantic identity theft ring. The people they caught had been stealing things from a bank's dumpsters. The bank that I frequent! People please believe me when I say I have nothing. Don't break into my stuff, leave my car alone, and stay off the lawn while you're at it.

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05-04-02 Saturday
We were dancing machines last night! Eugene, K and I cut some serious carpets here at the house. What were we thinking? I have no idea. My legs are kind of sore this morning. Gosh we were nuts. It was pretty fun though. Yesterday didn't feel like a Friday for some reason. It's Saturday today and believe you me, we are going to treat it like a Saturday!

Well as soon as K wakes up, I think that we may ride our bikes to Oregon City. Now that is REALLY crazy! It's like 12 miles away! Hopefully we can make it. We will try to get to Mr. Baptist's house. It should be a pretty nice ride there's nice bike trails all the way there. I need to get a bike helmet.

I'm listening to NPR right now and they're doing a show on the Rodney King, LA riots, ten years later. Man things sound tough down there still. I can't believe I was worried about crime here in Portland. If I lived in Los Angeles I would be an absolute basket case. I wouldn't be able to leave the house. Yes Portland is a good town.

I don't know about this bike ride thing now that I think about it. It looks like It might start raining any second. I don't think I want to ride in the rain.

05-05-02 Sunday
CINCO DE MAYO! Curse the wretched day! I mean it's great for Mexico and their defeat of the French in 1862, but the day stinks for yours truly. The 5th of May has been my Friday the 13th for quite a while now. Bad things seem to happen on that day for me. The last few years I have been laying low and not doing anything until the day passes so that has helped stop the trend of bad luck. Like with all special days the reasons for observing the tradition are often forgotten. With me I think Cinco De Mayo has an evil girlfriend anniversary, a back stabbing art project going bad, a gut wrenching bout with the flu or food poisoning and probably some form of financial difficulty. What ever the start of the observance, it was enough for me to continue to pay heed to the evil date.

Can you even believe it! K and I DID end up riding our bikes to Oregon City! We figure that's about 16 miles. Are we crazy or what? It took about 3 hours. We weren't riding very fast. It was a great ride. The day was beautiful for it. We stopped at a few spots on the way. We stopped at my brother's house and said hi. For the most part the city bike trails along interstate 205 where pretty good. We only had 2 sketchy parts we had to take a bit of a detour at 212 and then again in Gladstone. Oh and we had to walk up the gigantic hill right at the end before Mr. Baptist's house.

When we finally made it to Oregon City, we found that Mr. Baptist and Ms. Bee weren't there! We couldn't see riding back 16 miles so we were hoping Mr. Baptist would put our bikes in his vehicle and drive us home. Luckily we were able to get Lori and Martin on the phone and they came out to get us. We stopped on the way home at Oregon City McMenamins for food and beers. We left the bikes at Mr. Baptist's house.

SHAME on you car drivers though! Man! What a bunch of jerks. We got yelled at once and people really don't care to give bicycles any room or tolerance at all. What a backwards World we live in! The bikes should get the main roads and the jerks in SUVs should get the side strips.

05-06-02 Monday
Well I made it! Nothing bad happened to me yesterday. We went out actually and Martin made Mexican food for us. No bad luck events crossed my path. It was good to be safe though just in case. I did have some pretty horrendous dreams last night. Man I can dream up some whoppers. Looking back through this journal it shows I have bad dreams in waves and then dry spells with no bad dreams. I'm awfully skittish and on edge lately I wonder if that is crossing over into my dream life? Ah whatever.

Have I said it yet today? Happy Monday! This is going to be a great week. I can already tell. Now Mr. Sun needs to poke through those clouds though and warm us up! Mr. Noodle is going to have a good week with the projects and a good week with the freedom.

Have any of you seen the Spider Man movie yet? I haven't. I heard it's suppose to be pretty good though. It looks like something I might enjoy. The computer graphics on some of the stuff I have seen so far looks kind of bad. Maybe it looks more realistic on the big screen. I still don't know why directors think it's okay to use computer graphics that aren't seamless. What the heck is up with the new Scooby Doo movie? Crap I tells you! I may go see Spider Man this week. Stars Wars will be here next week.

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05-07-02 Tuesday
ARGH! It's so COLD this morning! What in the World!? It's still May right? I didn't sleep through the Summer did I? LAME. Gosh I am in a foul mood this morning. I'm sorry folks... Hold on, let me take a breath. I'm going to go get some coffee. There that's a little better. The coffee is nice and hot. Well I see some sunshine out there. Maybe things aren't that bad. Maybe I should go for a walk today if it stays dry. That will cheer me up. This melancholy is probably due to yesterday's stagnant Monday.

So I was at the Basement pub the other night with Eugene, and I ran into a friend who informed us that her shop / store was closing down. Dang it! I've been troubled ever since hearing that. I am so tired of this current economic climate. Man! Enough already. Remember last year at this time? It wasn't like this. I'm ready for recovery people. Bring it on. Keep the faith Noodle, slow and steady wins the race my friend. Once again, ARGH!

You know today might have been a good day for a bike ride. Too bad my bike is still out at Mr. Baptist's house. That bike ride we took last weekend was SO fun. What a good time. I think that we will have to do another long trek soon. We crossed another trail called the Spring Water trail that might be a fun trip. It heads out towards Mt. Hood. It use to be an old railroad line that they took out and made into a bike trail.

05-08-02 Wednesday
I happened upon a free ticket to the Buffalo Daughter concert last night. What an excellent show! Buffalo Daughter is a rock / electronic band from Japan. SuGar and Yumiko the two front women had an awesome combination of cute, tough, and robotic going. They all were great musicians. Several of the tunes took on an astral, hypnotic vibe. It was a great diversion for me. The electric beeps and pulses excited my stale creativity. It's just what the doctor ordered. I woke up this morning energized and ready to continue on with the fight! Thanks again Matt for accommodating me.

Speaking of fights, you all know what today is right? It's Wednesday. Time for the Freedom Walk! The Sun is finally shining this morning, and I think it will be a good afternoon to keep it real with the people. Ah yes. I feel better this morning. I need to get out and mow the lawn today. I can probably find some more chores to do while I'm out there.

Uh huh, nice, warm cup of coffee. It doesn't seem to be as cold this morning as it was yesterday. Hey by the way, how are you cats doing? Send me an email and tell me what's up. I haven't heard from some of you in awhile.

I think I should add some more tunes to the Transmission soon. I will probably add some Buffalo Daughter tunes for you to listen to.

05-09-02 Thursday
Awfully cloudy and cold this morning. Hopefully it will warm up a little bit later. Well I mowed the lawn yesterday. It's looking good people let me tell you. I may be a little premature in saying this, but I think that I may have won the war against the dandelions. I'm telling you, I'm keeping them cut and now I have been seeing less of the yellow headed monsters. It could be that the Sun hasn't been shining on them and they're tucked away in hiding. There are still several hundred weeds in my lawn, so my work is cut out for me. At least it is nicely cut and green now.

Oh the projects... Yes I know. I need to get back to work on them. I have kind of let them go this week. Soon hopefully I can get back to some serious work on the secret experiments. Yeah and doing another painting is something I should get to also. There was a show I was interested in entering a few weeks ago, but now I'm not sure if that show is still happening. Maybe I should find out huh?

So have any of you been sending resumes out? I have. Boy it stinks. I'm just picturing stacks and stacks of paper on some poor HR person's desk. I've got one out now to a place that I know I would totally be great for, but I just know my resume is on the bottom of a giant stack. It is definitely an employers market. Hey for those of you that are sending resumes out, I'm sorry that my resume is taking up space with yours and I accept your apology for your resume taking eyes away from mine.

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05-10-02 Friday
Weekend! Weekend! Weekend!
YEE HAW. Boy, I started this week off in kind of a funk, but managed to turn it around by the end. Hopefully it's sunny tomorrow so we can get our bikes back and go on a bike ride.

Martin and I went and saw Spider Man yesterday morning. Hey, not too bad. It was pretty good. There was a few stupid things in it, but I think the good outweighed the bad. Tobey Maguire was a great Peter Parker. I like that guy. It was kind of fun to watch him learn how to use his powers. Some movies the heros just automatically know how to use their powers. It was good to see Spider Man practicing. Willem Dafoe did a good job as the Green Goblin I thought. The special effects were lame and obvious I thought in about 3 places but for the most part they were pretty good. Overall it was a good traditional superhero movie. It reminded me of the first Batman movie or the Christopher Reeve Superman movies.

Oh no. There is no coffee in the house this morning! What am I going to do? Well I probably will have to walk to the store and get some coffee. I don't think I will be able to start the morning off right without my coffee.

05-13-02 Monday
What a lovely weekend that was. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. The sun came out and the temperature went up. I got a little sunburn on my melon. We did some yard work. Mr. Baptist helped us rotor till up some new flower beds. We planted some gigantic "Land of the Lost", size lilies in the front. I hope those transplant well, they're cool. Thanks to Anne for those.

Mother's Day was yesterday. How did it go, everybody? Did you give your mother the props she is due? We went out to a christening in the morning and then an after christening brunch. After the brunch we went and filled our bellys at a barbecue. I gave my mom a call way over there in Idaho. I miss that lady. Mr. Baptist and I may go on a road / fishing trip out that way before too long hopefully.

Yes, excellent weekend. We even got a bike ride in once we got the bikes back from Oregon City.

This is going to be a good week my friends! I can just feel it! Mr. Noodle, you say that at the start of every weekend. No this time it's for real.

Before it starts though, I've got some chores to do this morning. There are some dishes that have been waiting for me to come and clean them.

05-14-02 Tuesday
Looks like today is going to be a better day weather wise. I see some nice sunshine this morning. I need to get out in it today I think. Maybe I will rake up the mountain of leaves that have fallen from the holly tree. Maybe I will go take a bike ride. I got to get out of here no matter what I do. I've got enough on my TO DO list to keep me busy for the whole day. I think I will start it off with sitting on the back porch with a cup of coffee. It sure is nice and relaxing out there with the morning Sun shining down on you.

Gosh, you know, I think I need to spice things up around here! I'm not really this boring. I am quite capable of turning up the heat and making things exciting. I swear! As soon as I shake this funk off you won't even recognize me, the energy will be turned up so many notches. I really am better than this. You'll see.

I must, I must, update that gosh darn transmission. I know you have been waiting patiently. Thanks again for the emails about Noodle Radio. Although I can't take everyone's request, I am definitely paying attention to your suggestions. They have been very helpful. I do have some new things I have been listening to that I should share with you kids. Speaking of, let me say once again that I love the CD "Neon Golden" by the band Notwist. Gosh so good! Another CD I want to hear is "Source Tags and Codes" by the band: And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead. Martin said it was just alright, but it sounds like something I would like from what I read.

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05-15-02 Wednesday
Hey Star Wars is soon upon us people! I am so excited! Aren't you? I can't wait to see more light saber battles. I hear Yoda is going to kick some butt this episode... No wait, don't tell me. I'm sure some of my associates have already seen the movie and could ruin the whole thing for me. I think I will probably wait a day or two to see it. I do want to see it this weekend. Some of my chums were going to try to get some tickets for the 12 AM showing tomorrow morning, or would that be tonight? Gosh has it already been 2 years? I remember talking to my friend Seth after Phantom Menace, saying how 2 years was too long to wait for the next one.

Well it's cloudy out there now, but the Sun is suppose to be out later today. Yesterday turned out to be really nice around the afternoon. I let the lawn get a bit taller this time so it could grow in a bit more. I think it will be due for a trim in a day or two.

Wednesday, kids! Best day of the week. Time for the Freedom Walk! I'm sorry to say it people, but this could be the LAST Freedom Walk. No, don't worry I will still keep the freedom in my heart, but the time of me doing it on the Man's dime is running out. You know me though I will still keep it real for all the homies. We'll see. I go find out today if I can still keep the torch lit.

05-18-02 Saturday
HEY, HEY, HEY. Did you miss me? I'm back baby!
I was mistaken last entry. Phantom Menace came out in 99 which makes the time between, 3 years. That makes my point even more valid though. It's been 3 years! Time flies! Thanks to Lewis from North Carolina for bringing that error to my attention.

Happy Birthday to the lovely Ms. Rebecca! I'm right behind you with the whole 30 thing. She had an entertaining shin dig in the park and the mandatory drinking afterwords of course. The theme was "street games". There was hop scotch, jump rope, marbles and other games. The real action was at the 4 square court. Oh my goodness! I thought Eugene was a balls out bike rider, but man you should see Eugene and brother Benny ride. Those kids are nuts together. Speed demons!

Boy it seems like a lot has happened since the last entry. Hmmm I'm sure I'm missing something.

We got to baby sit my nephews on Thursday night. Them are some good kids! I got to play with the elder Noodle and K had the baby Noodle duties. We had so much fun! Elder Noodle ran me ragged. That kid has got some energy! We played in the sandbox. I have much admiration for my brother and wife. I can't imagine having a baby. I would be a nervous wreck!

No Star Wars here yet. Have you kids seen it? I want to. I want to! I kind of think it is going to be way too crowded this weekend. I may go during school hours next week. Martin saw it and he was ecstatic. It was so funny. He wanted so bad to talk about it, but I covered my ears and went "La! La! La! La! La! La! La! La!"

05-20-02 Monday
Oh my god people! Didn't the last episode of the X-Files suck? I can't believe how bad it stunk. I was so angry the whole time it was playing last night. Two hours of pure crap. The acting was laughable. The lines they were reading off the prompters was garbage. Who cares if the smoking man came back? Was that suppose to be a surprise? How can a show that use to be so good turn into such a pile? Man! I'm going to write my congressman and complain. I want those 2 hours of my life back. Shame on the X-Files creators! The truth is out there? Who cares. The Simpsons on the other hand, was pure genius as usual.

The Sun is shining bright this morning! People, believe me this time when I say it, this week is going to be AWESOME. For real this time. I swear... Oh wait, the Sun went behind a cloud... No wait, here it comes again.

K's studious father, Mr. Baptist, bought her a dump truck full of top soil for her up coming birthday. We have been shoveling dirt all weekend. Man, we are sore! We've got some good garden beds now ready for some planting. We spread the dirt around as much as we could but there is still quite a mountain left. I will probably go out and dig in it some more today. We added some dirt to the rock garden also. I don't think we were watering the rock garden enough, some of our plants have died. They are directly in the Sun most of the day there.

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05-21-02 Tuesday 9:10 AM
Good morning everybody! How are you this lovely rain soaked morn? Me? I am just peachy. Yes our big stack of dirt is getting drenched. Should we cover it with a tarp? Hmmm, I don't know. It's going to turn into a solid brick. I shoveled a few more wheel barrel loads full yesterday before the rains came.

I watched the Japanese animation, "Metropolis" on DVD yesterday. It was pretty cool. It had some excellent art Deco designs in it. The art for the city scenes was phenomenal. The buildings and machinery were so cool looking. Some people I guess had a problem with the characters looking too cartoony, like Disney characters. I don't know, I can see what they're saying but I kind of thought the traditional looking Manga characters fit with the whole 1920's futurist look. It was a nice contrast with the realistic looking backgrounds. It got kind of long in the middle story wise I thought. Well worth seeing if you get the chance.

Hey get out those pocket books again and go visit the Noodle Shop. The hot item to purchase this month is the "Jack Noodle is an idiot" coffee mug. I got mine yesterday and it is SO nice. I'm sipping my warm coffee beverage from it right now as I type this.

So I was just wondering out loud to myself if I am ever going to see the new Star Wars movie? Gosh I can't believe I haven't seen it yet! The younger Jack would have seen it 5 times by now. Oh well.

Hey there is some wackiness brewing here at the Noodle house. I can't speak of the details yet but you guys aren't going to believe how crazy K and I are! More details to come.

05-22-02 Wednesday
How in the World was a person suppose to watch all of those great season finales last night? We only have 1 working VCR. Buffy, NYPD Blue, Smallville, 24, and Frasier were all on at the same time! Buffy and NYPD Blue were both 2 hour episodes so that didn't help. It was like a math problem. I watched the first half of Buffy, recorded Smallville, then watched the first half of NYPD Blue, went to a rock concert and recorded the 2nd half of NYPD Blue. I missed a bit that way but come on it's just television.

We saw Martin play his drums last night with the lovely Andi Camp at the Blackbird. Good job kids! We showed up a little late due to the whole TV fiasco, so we only saw the last half of their show. The girl who came on after Martin and Andi was a tremendous singer. She really had the pipes! Her name was Danielle Howle and she was from South Carolina. She had a good mix of a country, folk, blues, thing going.

Hey the Presidents Show is still up if any of you want to get down there still. Probably for another week? If you haven't seen my rendition of James Madison, there is a picture of it now here. There is also a good write up of the show here. They forgot to mention James Madison in the article because I'm even further underground than the Portland Underground artists. I think I've said it before here, but once again, Khris Soden did an excellent job organizing that show. I hope I can be involved with his next gig.

Wednesday people! I know you were a bit worried last week with my doom and gloom talk of the "death" of the Freedom Walk, but alas... The Freedom Walk continues! Today will be a beautiful day to get outside and travel amongst the hipsters. Maybe my buddy K, who is sick today, will gather up enough strength to walk with me.

Happy Birthday to the beautiful Lori today! What the heck are we going to do to celebrate your birthday tonight?

05-23-02 Thursday
People, the season finale of Smallville was great! Cliff hangers and everything you would expect from a season ender. K and I are in love with that Superman guy, he is one cute hombre.

I think we might try to go in and see Star Wars today maybe. I might call and have someone come out and fix the furnace though, so that may occupy the prime kids in school movie times. We'll see. Hold on a second I have got to get some coffee so my sentences make more sense. I'm falling back to sleep here!
There that's better.

Happy Birthday to my Super Friend G! You are the best. You rule the school. Any fun planned yet for your special day? Maybe you guys should go see Star Wars with us. That would be cool. I don't want to pay full price for it though so we'll have to go during economy hours or we'll have to sneak in without paying.

As soon as I am done with the update here, I am going to add some new tunes to the Transmission. Yes I really, finally am. I got some requests and ideas from the most excellent Martin last night. Our handsome, smart and humorous friend Joel (oh, and strong), gave some powerful suggestions and words of wisdom also. That Joel and I were laughing about how cool it was that he has a friend that works in the graphics department over at Columbia Sportswear, and how great it is that they love Mr. Noodle so much over there.

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05-25-02 Saturday
Well today is the BIG day folks! Yes the top secret event is going to go down today! I hope you are all ready to have your World rocked. Everything you thought you may have known about Mr. Noodle will be thrown out the window with one single word... TA DA! Loud thundering music begins, and lightning crashes. Oh please, those of you who don't know WILL know tomorrow morning when I pull back the curtains here in this lovely journal. Everything will begin to fill up.

I saw Fight Club again on DVD last night. Man that's a cool flick! I don't think I am tough enough to take a punch. The DVD was excellent and had some cool behind the scenes stuff. I need to watch it again and listen to the voice over commentary. I hear Ed Norton is really interesting to listen to. I was paying close attention to Brad Pitt's muscles in the movie, because that is the look of muscles that I am trying to grow. I think I am going to have to do more than 25 push ups a day.

Hey it's memorial day weekend! Do any of you have any big plans? Not much going on here, well I mean besides today. I think the lovely K and I will just be hanging out and chilling. I hear it's suppose to start raining again. We might want to get a bike ride in before the floods come.

05-26-02 Sunday 10:54 AM
Have you guessed it?
K and I got a PUPPY! Can you believe it? The lovely lad's name is PHILLIP! Woo Hoo! Boy I am tired this morning. He was a little whiney last night. Phillip is a little cutey let me tell you! He's a 6 week old Boston Terrier. The smartest little puppy you have ever seen. Well what do you think friends in Japan? Alicia and Lori had some sort of bet that a puppy would come to the Noodle house while they were away in Japan. Phillip is great, I can't wait for him to get a little older though. He looks a little like Yoda. Our first son St. Pierre Caffeine III seems to be doing okay. He seems a little pissed and confused.

Oh my goodness! We watched Donnie Darko last night. Everyone kept telling me to watch it and didn't believe them for some reason. They were right though! I loved it! Awesome movie. What a great brain teaser. That is one of those movies that you have to watch over and over again so you can figure it all out. The bunny Frank was so creepy good. I loved his voice. I would like to see the DVD of the movie to see if it had any extra stuff on it. We just had the video version last night.

We are going to watch "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" later today. It was fun going to the video store last night because we haven't been there in so long and we haven't seen any movies in a while. We had quite a bit to choose from.

05-29-02 Wednesday
Oh my goodness! Having a puppy is a lot harder than having a kitten. We're doing good though and I think we are raising the perfect gentleman. I didn't sleep very well last night because it was actually the first night that the puppy DIDN'T cry the whole night and I was laying awake thinking that he smothered in his crib sheets. What a ball of fire! I can barely get a spare moment to write in this wonderful journal. I can't hold him in my lap because the spot is saved for Pierre while I am working in the laboratory. When young Phillip finally falls to sleep this afternoon, I will have to go out and mow the lawn and see if I can get some more work done around the house. He'll probably love the sound of the lawn mower. Hold on one second.... Gosh he's just a little tiny baby. We took him to a vet check up yesterday and all the doctors and assistants were just in love with the boy.
Alright Noodle, enough with the puppy talk, let's get back to business. Hmmm... Okay, well let's see here.

We saw two more movies over Memorial Day neither one of which were Star Wars. We rented "The Heist", starring Gene Hackman and Danny DeVito. It was a movie about a gold robbery. It was directed by David Mamet. It was alright. I have seen better Mamet movies like "Homicide" for example. "The Heist" was trying too hard to be a Mamet movie. The second movie we saw was "The Man Who Wasn't There" I liked that one a bit more. It was written and directed by the Coen Brothers and starred Billy Bob Thornton, and Frances McDormand. The cinematography on that was beautiful. It was kind of a sad, dark story.

Oh boy, that puppy won't stop whining. Can't he see I'm working here? Well up on the lap he goes I guess. Sorry Pierre. You can get the spot back in a week or two. See that's how it starts, give an inch...
No he will be a well mannered dog I swear. K and I will work really hard.

Oh hey today is Wednesday. Time for the Freedom Walk again. This time I'll need a leash.

05-31-02 Friday
Day number 6 here at puppy central. We are doing just fine. A little sleepy around here though. Phillip has his sweater on this morning because it's a little chilly. It should warm up later today I hope.

Boy oh boy. Did you all see the helicopter crash on Mount Hood? Wasn't that crazy? They went up to go rescue 9 mountain climbers that fell into a crevasse and crashed the helicopter into the side of the mountain. Horrible. 3 mountain climbers died and several people, including the ones in the helicopter were injured. It was all happening live on the news. I was watching the rescue attempt and turned the TV off, I'm sure minutes before the crash, because I was bored with it. The replay of the crash I saw later in the day looked like something cooked up for an action movie. The propellers went everywhere.

Well my friends here it is: The Jack Noodle Star Wars Episode 2, Attack of the Clones review! Yes I forced K and myself away from the puppy long enough to see the movie.

People... thumbs up. I thought it was PRETTY good. I'm actually one of the Star Wars fans that didn't mind Episode 1, and I think that Episode 2 was better than that. Boy it was a beautiful picture. The whole screen was just filled with all kinds of movement through out the movie. The effects were spectacular. Some of the time though I did feel a little annoyed that I was basically watching a cartoon. The computer effects they tried to hide though, like the scenery, were perfect.

There were a few scenes I thought they could have expanded on a bit more and some they could have cut down a bit. Oh man, one scene, Anakin gets really, really pissed and it looks like we're going to see some serious Darth action when it cuts to a different scene!! I groaned! Man that scene would have been sweet! He refers back to what he did later in the movie, but that hardly has the impact. I thought the first half of the movie with the love story stuff was a bit slow, but man the second half of the movie was a real kick in the pants. WOO HOO! Excellent light saber battles.

I'm going to have to see it again soon. The first time through these last two Star Wars movies I have been so nervous and anxious that I have a hard time relaxing and enjoying the movie. I feel pretty comfortable around the 3rd time going and seem to catch all the stuff I missed the first two times. It's fun seeing the next chapter and trying to fit it into your own interpretation of the bigger picture.

TOP^