01-01-2003 Wednesday 11:30 AM
**HAPPY NEW YEAR!**

Hey everybody! We made it! A new year is here! I hope you all had a wonderful night last night. Ours was pretty good. Man oh man do I have a stinker of a headache this morning. Oh, it is so painful! I need to drink some water and get hydrated. Oh man! I am pretty sleepy also. Maybe I will go back to bed and take a nap.

So here we have it, what do you think? Does it feel like a new year kids? I think it does. How in the World am I ever going to remember to write 2003? Did anything crazy happen on New Years Eve? We took it pretty easy and had a mellow bringing in of the new year. We must be getting old. It was fun. I think today we are going to chill in front of the tube and then later this evening we may go see "8 Mile" at the Bagdad. That might be good.

Alright! I need to get to work on the JPP! I need a job pronto! That will be the first order of business this new year. I'm going to get going on that right now. Oh man, maybe I'll take a nap first.

01-03-03 Friday 8:26 AM
Good morning everyone! Day number 3 of the new year. So far so good? Not too much happening yet. The sun shining through the clouds right now looks very majestic It seems like it was a little bit warmer yesterday. Boy it sure has been raining though.

I pushed ahead with the JPP yesterday. I'm feeling hopeful people. I think that the real action probably won't start until Monday. Quite a few people have been out of the office these last 2 days. That's okay though. The only way to be successful I think is to do something every single day towards the JPP. Today I'm going to go through my notes and battle plans and put a list together of people I need to talk to on Monday.

Ah yes, New Years resolutions. That's one of them I think.
Keep better notes. I keep quite a few already, but I think this year I need to keep even better, more detailed notes. I think that 'keeping better notes' would go with 'get more organized'.
Once again this year I will have 'read more books' as a resolution. Like I said though last week, it should be 'finish more books'. You know, I don't think I finished a single book last year. No wait, I did read and finish 3 of those "Series of Unfortunate Events" books.
I need to 'increase the drama' on this here web page this year. I need to take it up a notch and really go to town. I am quite fearful of becoming stale.
Also with web related work, I would like to 'complete a Double Darren CD' this year. At least 10 songs. This is my last year to try and become a rock star. No, just kidding. I'm sure I would always be open to being a rock star.

One thing I have kind of been thinking about the last 47 hours has been going back to school this year. Wow, what do you think about that one? I'm still not sure what I would go back and study yet but maybe more schooling is in my future. It would probably be art related what ever it was. Am I too old?

I think I had some more resolutions, but they seemed to have slipped my mind at the moment. Oh yeah, another one was 'be more diligent'. I should treat some of these little projects that come in this year with a little more respect I think. No task is too small my friends. The work I have been thinking of as lame is still as important as the really cool big projects that come in.

I'm sure there's more and I'm sure I'll add it as the days progress. January is such a fun month that way. You get all introspective and make valiant plans for the year, then come November you're barely hanging in there, screaming for a new January.

01-07-03 Tuesday
Hey kids, how's it going? I took a couple of days off. With such a strong showing there in December, I felt like I could afford a few days of rest to collect my thoughts. I'm back now and ready to rumble! Anything exciting happen in my absence? We had a pretty good weekend last weekend. We did a few things. Baby-sitted the nephews, had dinner guests over, went to a birthday party. Those kinds of things.

It's pretty sunny out there right now. I just got back from taking the dog out to the rest room. The wind is kind of blustery and awfully cold. We haven't had any rain this week so far.

Oh yeah, I fixed the PC the other day. I got this free virus detection software off of the internet called AVG. That did the trick. When I was finally able to get it running, it found a worm and a virus that had infected 15 files. That stuff is pretty wacky I think. My computer had worms! It seems to be running alright now, although I think I should probably free up some hard drive space before too long.

The Job Procurement Program is going forward as planned. Gosh people, this is getting tough. I made up a poster for the wall where I can see the various leads and resumes I have out. I really love how no one returns phone calls. I'm going to have to fill that puppy up before I get any bites I think. Believe it or not, I think the JPP is actually pointing me to the direction of more schooling. How in the World am I ever going to manage that? People it is getting rough and tumble.

Well, what to do today? I think first I will work on some of the JPP of course like I will be doing every single day. Then I think I'll do some chores. I'll probably take the dog for a walk and hopefully continue on with some reading. Yep, that sounds like a plan.

TOP^

01-08-03 Wednesday
Good morning. It's sunny out there once more this morning. The frost came though. People were scraping their car windows this morning. Not me though. I just watched from the comfort of my warm house. Poor suckers. No wait I'm the poor sucker. At least I'm warm though. You know, little Phillip was being kind of snippy with me this morning. What's that guys deal huh? He was pulling a bit too much on the leash and wouldn't go in after potty time. I think... Oh that's it! He just puked in the front room. He must have had an upset tummy. That's what he gets for eating all that weird stuff he finds on the ground. Poor guy. I should play with him and take him for a walk today.

Not much going on around here today. Except for the occasional pukings. It has been a slow week. I have a meeting with an admissions director at a school I am interested in today. That's cool I guess. I don't know about the whole schooling idea. How in the World is that going to work? It would be kind of fun to go back though. Why not really? I'm not doing anything on the outside. Maybe I'll go get some smarts, ride this lousy economy out, and try again in a couple of years huh? It would be nice to feel creative again. It would be good to meet some new people and make some new contacts. We'll see.

Have any of you been watching the show "24" with Kiefer Sutherland? It's pretty good. We've been tuning in to every episode. You know the drill right? There's a nuclear bomb set to go off somewhere in Las Angeles and Kiefer's character Jack has 24 hours to find and stop it. Each episode is in real time as one of the 24 hours. We're coming up to 5 PM next. Last nights episode was good. They try to throw as many crazy cliff hangers in as the can. Each week you tune in to make sure Jack didn't die in the horrible event they left him in last week.

You know, I think that cable TV was a benefit to me when I had it. Maybe I should get it again. It seems that with more choices I was watching better quality television. Do you think? The commercials were better, I could watch creative music videos, more educational television, and of course the Cartoon Network. Cable TV just seems more hip and artistic than our boring regular Broadcast television Actually it's all crap though right? Maybe cable is just a better quality crap though.

Well I've got to go get some paperwork organized. Oh man, I wish I had a cup of coffee. We've been out for the last couple of days. I really could use a cup. Maybe I'll try to buy some later today.

01-09-03 Thursday
Oh yes! Coffee is finally brewing in the Noodle house! Oh it is going to be so good. This morning we are brewing coffee roasted by our lovely friends at Portland's own, Stumptown Coffee Roasters. The Guatemalan blend I believe. Another bright, crisp, and chilly morning has greeted us here today. How are you all doing? You know, I'm doing pretty good. I feel great, I had a good nights sleep, I'm going to drink some delicious coffee, and today is going to be a wonderful day. Hold on one second, I've got to go take the dog out to go potty.

Gosh, am I a loon or what? That first paragraph sounds like the opening to the peaceful, morning in the forest scenes from Warner Bothers cartoons. I can just see the birds and hear the music. Hold on one more second, it's coffee time! Oh yes quite tasty! Today one of the things I really need to do is take the dog for a long walk. Yesterday we took a pretty short one and I think we're going to have to burn off more energy than that today. Maybe we can go on the old Freedom Walk route. Yeah, see what all of the hipsters are up to. Maybe we'll go down and see what the always handsome Eugene is up to. Yes, we should take our walk early in the day so that we can come back and attend to other matters.

Well kids, my meeting at the school yesterday went quite well. I was there for like two hours. I toured the campus and checked out some of their equipment. It looks good. Man oh man! What am I thinking? I am totally excited. I think I'm going to go for it. This may just be the answer! I'm going to load up on student loans and get more education. I think I'm going to go for a bachelors in multimedia and web design. Oh my, the classes and course work look so fun and exciting. I think that I have gone as far as I'm going to go in today's economic climate, and I think a better education will open more doors for me in the future. So for now I guess, the Noodles will be as poor or poorer than last year, but smarter.

Me being a 30 year old college student will put a new spin on this here website won't it? Now I'll have topics about homework and raiding the sorority house. Maybe I'll have a school work area here on the page where you can look at projects I am working on. It's going to be cool because I will get to dabble more in audio, video editing and animation. Oh I can just feel the dams on my creativity starting to crack. They're trickling people!

01-10-03 Friday
Boy it seems a bit colder these last couple of days. The wind was blowing pretty good yesterday and I could feel a cool breeze blowing through our lame windows all over the house. One of these days we are going to get those puppies fixed. I swear! It's another sunny morning again. I think they are predicting a lot of rain for this weekend.

Hey the weekend is almost here for you people. Do you have any plans for it? We don't have anything too big planned I don't think. Oh yeah the Rock Kats are playing tomorrow night at the Aladdin Theater. No wait, they're called Phil and the Blanks now. That should be pretty fun. Other than that I think it's going to be laying low like usual.

Yesterday I took Phillip on a really long walk down to Eugene's shop. That was pretty fun. I think that wore him out for a little while. That dude has just got so much energy. I'll wrestle around with him and throw the ball after I get done here.

Oh my gosh. Have I talked about how much I hate our bank yet? Oh I hate them so. Our finances are all jumbled up into a big mess now and I totally think it's partly to do with that stupid bank. Sometimes I wish I was more like one of those people that throws a fit to get their way. I think I expressed that I was angry but I'm too mellow to be able to cause a real ruckus. They just won't listen to reason over there. Oh well. I've wasted too much ink on them already.

Today I've got to go sell some CDs, deposit some more checks into the evil bank and head over to my old high school to get my transcripts for college. The old high school. That's not that big of a deal since I really only moved 2 towns over after graduation. I don't have anyone I really care to see over there, just in and out. Well yeah, it's been like 12 years since I've been there. I've got a letter of intent to write and more paperwork to fill out today also. It's kind of nice having a task list again.

TOP^

01-12-03 Sunday
Good Sunday morning people. How are you doing? Doing pretty good here. I caught a cold somewhere. I was pretty groggy and snotty last night. I feel a little bit cleared up this morning. I've got some microwaved coffee now, I'm listening to This American Life on the radio, and I'm heading back to the land of good health.

My goodness! I am such a bad uncle. In the middle of my cold induced stupor, we realized that we forgot to go to my youngest nephew's first birthday party yesterday. Man, we felt so bad! I am SO sorry little Noodle! Please forgive me. I hope that years from now he won't come and call me on the carpet for not going to his 1st birthday.

So what's going on today? I'm not sure. I don't think there is anything going on today. Maybe I should double check though to make sure we don't miss anything. I will do some reading today. I've been doing well with my reading resolution so far this year. Maybe I'll do some drawing today also. I think my cold has subsided enough to do the chores I skipped last night due to my cold excuse. That's about it I guess. Nothing too excited. A new Simpsons is on tonight. That's good.

Isn't it interesting how places and things change when you don't see them for a number of years? This isn't a very original observation I realize, but I experienced it again on Friday when I went back to my high school to get my transcripts. Things looked like they did when I was attending but different. I think maybe the building didn't recognize me as a 30 year old. The thing I found the most interesting about the visit was how only a couple of city blocks were the strange things to me. I have been to the city of Oregon City millions of times since I have graduated, just not to the block that the school is on, or in the building. Everything was very familiar and on my same current time line until I got to that block. I've only lived in this state, and I can only imagine going back home to a different state and being blown away by how much everything has changed.

I passed by a girl there in the hall who was talking on a cell phone. Do they let cell phones in school now? They didn't have those as readily available when I was going to school, and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have allowed them in school interrupting learning. I wanted to look around more than I did but felt old and thought people would think it was strange if I was walking around looking at stuff.

01-13-03 Monday 9:35 AM
The start of a new business week my friends. Lame Monday here again. It's very dark and damp outside this morning. The temperature doesn't seem to be as cold as it has been. How did your weekend finish up? Ours wrapped up nice and uneventfully, I'm going to need some coffee to get me kick started. Hold on. There, I got the coffee started. Okay where was I? Man, I'm drawing a blank.

Well, I think this will be a good week. I've got a few things going on this week. The main thing happening this week is on Thursday when I turn in my school application. I still have to get some things done for it but I'm pretty much ready. The one thing I do have to finish up today or tomorrow is a paper on why I like multimedia. I will probably wait till tomorrow to finish it, because I don't seem to be writing very well today.

So I was having some wine last night and surfing around on that thing they call the "World Wide Web" when I stumbled upon my friend Moby's web page again. You know Moby right? The electronic pop music sensation? I was skimming through his journal posts and found it quite interesting that several of his posts sounded just like mine. Descriptions of the weather outside, conversations about coffee, and gazing out the window ponderings of life. That's pretty cool that a multi-million album selling rock star and a poor Portland artist can have equal voices and be only a click away from each other. He wrote a lot more about politics in his journal though of course. I looked for his email all over that website so I could send him the desktop wallpaper for January, but it was no where to be found. It did have some contact information for a publicist or something of the sort. Maybe that's the difference between us I guess. I can be contacted at anytime you'd like and he only pretends to be down on the same level with all of us. Do any of you have Moby's email? I want to send him a picture. Oh that's silly. See I get stuck on these weird tangents every once and a while.

Alright, I'm outta here. I've got to go find my slippers. My feet are cold. Maybe I will brave the weather today and take the dog out for a long walk. Yes, that might be nice.

01-14-03 Tuesday
Hey yo, what's up? It's kind of chilly in here. Hold on one second I've got to go put some more pants on and go microwave myself some coffee. Once again we have another wet one outside. So when does Winter end? This really isn't a Winter though is it? There hasn't been any snow or ice yet. That would be kind of nice, to shake things up a bit. This grey stuff gets old in a hurry. I guess it hasn't been grey for that long yet. Wasn't the Sun shining here last week?

So yeah, I was all gung ho about the JPP a week ago and now where does it sit? I made a poster for it and everything. It's on hold for now. Taking the school route was a path I hadn't fully explored when creating the JPP. Perhaps once I get into school I could start up the PTJPP, Part Time Job Procurement Program. It is kind of nice having the JPP on hold. I can relax a little bit now knowing that I'm going the education route instead of the employment route. I actually sat down and played video games for the first time in 8 months. It was fun. Before I was too stressed and worried about what emails or job postings I was missing.

K has decided to transfer to a different school. We're kind of concerned about that currently. There was some testing unpleasantness and just an overall sense of annoyance with the old school. It will work out though, K is a 4.0 student and will have no trouble at the new digs. I hope that we can figure it out soon so that she can get settled and that financial aid can roll back in. God, what a weird existence the two of us lead now days.

I've got to write my paper today. I actually discovered yesterday though that they aren't looking for a paper. They are requesting a 150 word PARAGRAPH. See, it was a test. You've got to get up pretty early to trick the old Noodle. They don't want a long winded paper, they want a well thought out and to the point paragraph. 150 words, that's nothing! I write 150 words just about the weather every day.

After my paragraph I think I may play some more video games and do some more reading. I took the dog for a short walk yesterday but I don't think that was good enough. He's starting to get cabin fever and is really going to need a long hike in the out of doors today.

TOP^

01-16-03 Thursday
Good morning to you. See now, wasn't I just commenting on how grey it was the other day? Out pops the Sun this morning to chase away the grey. It's quite lovely outside once again. You know, you really can't complain about the Winter we are having. I guess you could but then you would sound like an idiot. Hold on one second I've go to go microwave me some coffee.

There, much better. Well I am off to have another meeting at the school. I finished up my applications and am ready to go. I finished my paragraph and think I got that sounding pretty good. Quite exciting. I'm looking forward to getting back to school. You know that is still a ways away. April will be when I start and that's a few months from now. What should I be doing in the mean time? Gosh Noodle, I don't know, how about trying to get out there and make some money! Oh yeah. I do have a few calls in for freelance, part time work. Maybe that will come through in the next month or so. It would be nice to eat and pay the mortgage.

Oh dear goodness people! I played video games most of the day yesterday. It was so fun. I played "Jak and Daxter". That game is quite exciting. I'd be playing it now if I didn't have somewhere to be. I'll play it some more when I get home. I don't think I've talked about that game here in a while. I had stopped playing it because I had gotten to a spot that was impossible for me to get pass. After some beers a few months ago, a friend of mine got me pass the spot and I recently just started playing it again. I'm at a really good spot now that I am eager to continue. I think that is my favorite type of genre for a game. The jump around, collect coins, find the hidden passage, adventure game. This one is cool because you can just wander around and solve things here and there. You don't have to go in a specific order.

01-18-03 Saturday
Man oh man. I slept in a little bit this morning. Getting started a tad later. That's okay though, I slept well. I feel pretty refreshed this morning. It's another sunny one out there! Hey, the weekend kind of snuck up on us, didn't it? Well this whole week was a kind of strange weekend week. I think we are permanently stuck on Saturday here at the Noodle house. What do you folks have planned for weekend fun? We once again, are laying pretty low here. I think we are going to go see Mr. Baptist and Ms. Bee later today.

Oh yeah. The meeting at my school went great on Thursday. I turned in my stuff and got some more things to complete. I got a huge stack of financial aid papers to fill out and sign my life away on. It looks like everything is a go. I'm still in the applying stage, but it seems like that is really only a formality and I'm in. That would be pretty silly and strange if I didn't get accepted there. I kind of just thought I would be accepted automatically. Is that pompous or what? One cool thing I found out on Thursday is that the job placement people help you find part time work right away. You don't have to start school to begin using their services. Gosh you get educated and they find work for you. I was doing this unemployed thing all wrong last year.

My video game faze is continuing people! I'm a video game playing mad man now! I went and rented the one that I had been eyeing for a while, "Ratchet and Clank". Oh my goodness, it is a gorgeous game. It's very similar to the other one I own, Jak and Daxter. They are both adventure games. Ratchet and Clank is more of a sci-fi game. There are robots and space ships everywhere. The weapons that you go around collecting and purchasing are quite zany. The craziest one I've gotten so far is the suck canon. It's sucks your enemies up into the gun and then shoots them out as a missile back at your other enemies. The game is really fun. It's more of a visual game and gadget collecting game than Jak and Daxter. It's not as difficult either. That being said though, I am actually stuck on a section that keeps filling up with water and drowning me. I think I should probably find some scuba gear. I'm trying to finish the game all in one rental so I don't have to go out and buy it. If I had money though, I totally would. I highly recommend Ratchet and Clank. It is very entertaining.

Video game playing is taking up a large portion of my time these last few days. I do need to get back to some reading, drawing and creating one of these days. I want to add more products to the Noodle shop before too long here. Things aren't flying off the shelves there, it's more just for fun. I also need to put some ideas down on paper before I forget them. Well, if past video game fazes are any indication, I probably have about another week until this one passes. They seem to often occur in January don't they? I'll get back to the important work after that.

01-22-03 Wednesday 9:17 AM
Hey! Hey! Long time no see, people! How have you been doing? It's going pretty okay here. Sorry I haven't written in so long. I Had put the computer away and was too lazy to get it out yesterday. Not much has been going on these last few days. We are continuing our hermit lifestyle and have been staying in seclusion. Slow times at the Noodle house. I'll get back on the writing train now, I promise.

We've got rain outside again! The Sun has finally decided to leave us again and the rain is back. It's pretty dark out this morning. I think they said this is the start of a pretty wet rest of the week. K officially declared that winter was over the other day and that spring is here now. She has already put up her Valentines Day decorations. I tried to convince her that we were still due for a month or 2 more of winter, but she wouldn't hear it.

My life has still been revolving around Ratchet and Clank these last few days. I am sick with addiction to it. I have been playing the video game constantly. I think I may be nearing the end of it, but I'm not sure. Today is the last day that I can play it before I have to return it to the video store. Maybe I will make one last push to finish it after I hang up here. I am definitely going to rent it again if I don't finish it today. It has been a very fun game. My eyes are totally blood shot from staring at the TV screen so much.

Speaking of TV, why does it suck so much? I don't know why I am always surprised. Maybe it has always sucked and it has taken me this long in life to come to terms with it. 24 wasn't on last night, so that they could show a 2 hour "reality" show. Oh yeah, a new Simpsons wasn't on so that they could show "Something About Mary". Movies on network television once again! I can't believe there are so many reality shows. They totally suck you in if you're not careful. I can't believe there are so many people watching them. They're bad people! I miss the days of good old fiction.

Who cares though really? I shouldn't be rotting my brain with TV and video games anyway. I should be pursuing more academic pastimes. I should be trying to exercise my brain with creating. I should be reading, writing, drawing, painting, filming and computing.

TOP^

01-23-03 Thursday
Good morning all. It looks like we have a bit of a break from the rain fall this morning. The Sun is trying to poke it's head out. We went for a night time dog walk last night and it was amazing out. We were all bundled up and the rain had just stopped so everything was crisp and clean. It was really fun. Phillip loved it.

One of the stops on the walk last night was to take Ratchet and Clank back to the video store. I was so close to finishing it, but didn't. Gosh, I'm really starting to feel withdrawals from not having it. I keep thinking, "Oh yes, I could get a hundred thousand bolts to buy the Ryno gun on the hover board racing level when I play it this morning." I won't be playing it this morning! I think I will wait a while and then rent it again. I can't buy it for sure now though that I'm almost finished. That's good, seeing how I don't have any money anyway. Very fun game. One of you have to play it so we can talk about it and see if you liked it like I did. Oh man! Do you know what? I never found the chicken gun that they always show in the TV commercials for it. Well I'm really going to have to rent it again now.

Ah, no more video games. Now I can take my life back and get to work again. What will I do today? What has been suffering during the video game faze? I need to get back to doing some reading. That will be a good start. There are a couple of emails waiting for me that I have been meaning to respond to. I must get to work on this web site and I definitely need to do something about the transmission. All the songs on there are like oldie, classic rock tunes now that it has been so long since I have updated them.

Later today I am going to go over to my brother's house and visit with them. That should be fun. I have the "Muppets Take Manhattan" DVD I got off a cereal box that I want to see with my nephews. I also have to get the video camera out and make them a copy of the eldest Noodle's Christmas pageant.

01-24-03 Friday
Hey there all. The weekend is almost here! Yeah! Do you have any exciting plans? It's raining now, but man was it a nice day yesterday! It was like a warm spring day. I can't believe this weather. My apologies to you if you are reading this while in the East or South of the country, I guess you guys are getting buried in the snow!

Not much going on here again as usual today. Gosh I'm having trouble staying focused on this journal this morning. Hold on let me get some more coffee. That may help.

K is off starting her first day at a new part time job. Good for her! Thankfully one of us started working! Hey wait a second though, that's not fair! She went out and got the first job she applied for. Why was it taking me so long? This part time gig will help bring in some dough while she is between schools. I need to go out a get something now. Between the two of us we could actually have a full time worker in this house!

Oh boy, was I mad at the cat yesterday! I usually have my coffee (not anymore though) sitting on a stool next to my desk here in the laboratory. Pierre jumped up and knocked the coffee cup off of the stool and all over the carpet. I was really mad because this is the second time this week that he's done the same thing! Coffee is not good for light carpets people! I am definitely keeping an eye on my coffee cup while that jerk is in here from now on. We got quite a bit of it up off the carpet but there are some stains. At first the mess looked like someone got stabbed in here. It kind of stinks in here now like old coffee grounds. We have a couple of carpet stain remover cleaners, but I think we may have to get one of those foamy kinds or get a steam cleaner.

So I have been tuning in to Moby's journal and a couple of other ones for fun the last few days, and they have been logging some good thoughts about the up coming war in Iraq. It's been making me wonder if I should put my two cents in. What could I possibly add to the debate? Should I be including more serious commentary than how my cat has been destroying my carpet? Actually I think what's not being said here in the journal is kind of telling in it's own right isn't it? The distractions and changes of subject that keep one going from day to day.

I just don't know where to begin. I am very overwhelmed with how lame everything in the World is. I'm not sure what to do about it. Yeah the President sucks and war is bad, but I am poor, unemployed, can't afford to buy a beer and that seems to be taking center stage for me personally. Almost everyone I know is out of work or in fear of being out of work, the state I live in is out of money, kids here don't have any money for their schools. Things are bad here at home and the jerks in charge and a large portion of brain dead Americans think we should be messing around in other countries. I'm tired of this crap.

I miss the good old days. Maybe the good times will come back again soon? Let's keep our fingers crossed. Until that day I'll keep writing about Pierre and Phillip.

01-25-03 Saturday
It's balmy out there this morning! I took the dog out earlier just wearing a tee shirt and sweats, and I wasn't even cold. I was almost comfortable. It's great for sure, but isn't this warm weather a little weird? Tell me people, is it from the green house effects? Global warming? Maybe I shouldn't go outside anymore.

So last night I gathered up my pennies and went and had a beer with Eugene and New Friend Joel at the Basement Pub. It was good to get out of the house finally. I think I talked too much though. I got too excited being out in public and all.

So what's going on today? Not much here. I am trying to avoid the temptation to go out and rent Ratchet and Clank again. K is off at day number 2 of her new job. She likes it so far. It seems pretty cool. I'm home alone today with the boys. Phillip has decided to sit on my lap and snore now. He hasn't done that in a while and is a bit bigger than last time. It's putting a strain on my right arm and throwing my typing off.

Today I need to get some chores out of the way. I need to pick up a little bit here in the laboratory. I'm looking for a manual I printed out for one of my music programs and have where it could be narrowed down to 2 spots. Yep, not much going on today. We may go see Mr. Baptist later in the evening, but I'm not sure.

TOP^

01-26-03 Sunday
Hello. How are you doing this fine morning? Things are fair here. It was another warm evening last night. It rained pretty hard, There was this tin can outside on the ground that the water kept pelting and making a loud clang. It was going all night until I finally went outside and picked the can up. I can't believe I let it go that long now that I think about it. It was driving me crazy. I think they said that it's suppose to keep raining throughout the day today.

It's Super Bowl Sunday today. What do you think about that? Who cares? Super Bowl Sunday is lame. Football is lame. Who's even playing? No, just kidding. I'm sure football is fine. We may head off to a Super Bowl party today, but probably not. I'm sure we won't see the game.

Hey I'm back. I had a big pause there. I stopped writing in mid journal. I can't think of anything to write today. Well, let's see. Hmmm, Nope nothing.

01-28-03 Tuesday
Oh people! I am in dire need of coffee. Hold on. I am going to go make some before I fall over and die. Okay I got the pot started. It's a little bit cooler outside this morning and a little more wet. The Sun poked through some yesterday afternoon. Maybe it will come back later today.

I had started a journal entry yesterday when loud knocks interrupted me and presented my father at the door. I love when people frighten me and the dog by coming over unannounced. It was okay though. We hung out a bit and then went and had breakfast at Denny's. I never got back to the journal entry so I just scrapped it and started over today.

So what's going on today? Not much here. I need to make some phone calls and get some documents in order I guess. I need to get to work on the February desktop for you people in the Desktop of the Month Club. I have got a few ideas floating around for it. I just need to sit down and get going on it. Ah, coffee, hold on. There that's it.

So George W's state of the union address is tonight. Are you tuning in? It's kind of hard not to since it's on every channel. It will be interesting to hear what he's got to say. The state of my union is in need of some help, I know that much. It sure would be nice if the President said something meaningful about getting the economy back on it's feet and putting the focus on getting Americans some jobs. I really don't need to hear anything about Iraq. I'm not holding my breath about tonight's speech. I just liked fantasizing there for a second that I had faith in my government.

On to more uplifting news. I got a few emails about people wondering how my schooling situation was going. Yeah, I guess I haven't mentioned it here in a while. So far so good on the school front kids! I was accepted at the Art Institute of Portland. I was pretty sure I would be but it was still fun getting an acceptance letter in the mail. Right now I am trying to figure out with my financial aid officer how we are going to fund this great adventure. Once all that gets figured out I will be starting in April. I need to get a hold of my job placement guy and get placed somewhere as soon as possible. Everything seems to be moving along, I just wish it was April now and I could start and finally breathe a sigh of relief.

01-29-03 Wednesday
So I think I'm going to start getting up earlier in the morning. I seem to get more done in the morning and kind of waste my afternoons. Maybe I will get even more done if I get up earlier. Oh my gosh, I am totally turning into an old man. My grandparents and other older folk always get up at insane hours don't they? K kind of gets annoyed with the early to rise thing because that means that I'm usually falling asleep at a total grade school hour. She likes to stay up late. I think my school schedule will be mostly classes in the morning.

Well, did you see the President's speech? I was tempted to turn it a couple of times but held on through the whole thing. I tried to really concentrate on what he said, and it was tough staying focused. Boy oh boy. I'm not sure what to say. I'm going to have to check in to a few web sites and see what other people are saying. Quite strange. Did anyone else think that he threw way too much out there so that people wouldn't stay on any topic too long? He talked about all kinds of things that people haven't been discussing for a while. Drug addicts, aids in Africa, clones, hydro electric cars? Those are definitely topics of concern but they sure haven't been out in the forefront of public debate as of late. I told K that he should have thrown the violence in Hollywood in for good measure. It was totally a magic show I thought. Watch my hands wave around up here, look at these topics over here while I move the real topics past you and out the door. I'm not too good with figures but it seemed like he was throwing a lot of money at things. What is one to do? The democrats rebuttal was okay and stay more focused on current topics, but didn't really provide any plans or solutions either.

Oh, the other topic from yesterday was measure 28. It was a special election that we voted on here in Oregon. It didn't pass. It was suppose to raise taxes temporarily to try and help battle the budget crises that Oregon is currently facing. I'm not too keen on paying more taxes but somebody has to pay for our kids education, and police men. I don't really know the whole story of course but I'm sure there is some sort of reorganization that can be done to manage the budget better. I think that's what people who voted no wanted. State government to be more on the ball. Who knows.

Wow, discussing politics is a good way to fill up typing space huh? There's a few things going on today. I have a couple of meetings with people to discuss part time work. I hope those go well. Oh man, January is almost over isn't it? I didn't notice if the month went fast or slow. I think it was somewhere in between. Just a normal speed month.

TOP^

01-30-03 Thursday
The rain has been coming down the last few days. I got soaked waiting for the bus downtown yesterday. Lots of rain. That's good though because that means snow up in the mountains. I think the snow pack is a little low this year, and that always translates into someone moaning and groaning about the water supply in the summer.

I got started on the journal a little later this morning because we were busy taking Mr. Baptist and Ms. Bee to the airport. They're heading out to Las Vegas today. This is the second time this week that we dropped people off there. Earlier it was Lianne and Martin who were flying off to Hawaii to see Seth and Alicia. I wish I was flying somewhere! Always the driver never the flyer.

Have I mentioned yet this week how much I hate our bank? I think we'll be shopping for a new one soon. God they annoy me so much I can barely type. To be fair I'm sure their lameness is partly our fault. If we had loads of money sitting in there we wouldn't be running into these problems.

My meetings went well yesterday. The Job Procurement Program may be taken down from the shelf and dusted off soon here. I've got some good leads on some part time work and have quite the Student Employment Advisor in my corner now. You know it really won't take too much to turn things around here at the Noodle house.

Not too much planned for today that I know of. We'll probably take the boy for a walk later if the rain clears up a little. I'm kind of sleepy today. I don't think I slept very well last night. Maybe I should go take a nap before continuing my day.

01-31-03 Friday
The rain continues my friends. It must have rained all night. I have got to fix that stupid gutter by our bedroom window. It makes it sound like a torrential downpour is happening. Man, I can hear it from in here now. I wonder if something is blocking the gutter? It kind of looks like there's a hole in it. The news said yesterday that we are in the middle of a flood alert. We have to pay attention to the possible dangers of the rising rivers. There isn't any flooding yet but we have to be alert until Sunday evening just in case. I should go down in the basement and make sure it isn't filling with water.

People, brace yourselves for a bit of bad news. There isn't any coffee in the house! Oh no. What am I going to do? I can't believe that I am even able to type. Are any of my sentences making sense? I'm really going to have to find a solution to this coffee crises.

We had a pretty good time last night. We went and had cheap Mexican food at La Cruda with G and Stu. I was so hungry. Actually I am kind of feeling hungry again right now. Dang it, I didn't eat enough last night! After La Cruda we went to a new place called Nocturnal. It was pretty cool. It's kind of like an arts community center, bar, gallery, show venue place. The building was remodeled nicely. It looked like someone threw a lot of money at it. The bar was in the basement. I think we will be going back there. I think they were showing an art movie that someone made but we missed it.

Well, it's the last day of January people. Are you ready to be embraced by the evil clutches of February? What's going on today you ask? Why, I'm not too sure. I think I am going to send out a few resumes for the JPP, and then I'm going to do some drawing. I should start by going to the store and getting some coffee so that I can function properly.

February 2003

02-01-03 Saturday 9:43 AM
Good morning everyone! How are you all doing? We took on some water yesterday in the basement. I haven't checked it out yet today. Hopefully the water level has gone back down. The basement is unfinished and they actually call it a wet basement, so I guess the flood waters are suppose to do that. The furnace isn't coming on now once again. I hope the rising waters and furnace trouble aren't connected. I should probably go down and check it out soon.

Hey, I just went down and checked it out. The water has receded. The furnace seems to have the same problem that it has been having every year. Clogged trigger filter or something like that. I need to go back and look at last year's journal, I think the furnace trouble was right around the same time wasn't it? Well guess what kids? I'm fixing that piece of junk myself this time!

Yes we did have some flooding around the area yesterday. The heavy rains made the rivers rise. The news had shots of people driving and walking around in the knee deep waters. It wasn't nearly as dramatic as the floods of 96. Woo wee, now that was a flood. The rivers rose to the roof tops and everybody thought that downtown was going to be washed away.

Not much happening today. K is at work again today. She has been working more than she had thought she would be so that's good. I'm going to go in to school for an open house thingy and meet some of the teachers. That should be interesting I guess. I hope I can think of things to talk about and ask them. I'm not too good coming up with things to say to strangers at those sort of things. Maybe I'll think of some questions now before I go. Do you think I should drive over there? I don't really feel like riding the bus. Maybe I should drive. Yeah and then I'll buy some coffee down there and get my parking validated. Yep that's the plan.

I'm going to try to scrape some money together so that I can buy some Interpol tickets today. They're coming back to town on Valentines day so K and I thought that seeing them play would be our Valentine treat. They were excellent last time I saw them. K has been kicking herself ever since for not going. That first Interpol show was sold out and turning people away at the door. This Valentines show they're playing at a bigger venue. I hope tickets aren't already sold out. That would stink.

TOP^

02-02-03 Sunday
Hey there! I found it interesting that during yesterday's journal entry I had a shield of ignorance protecting me. I hadn't heard anything about the space shuttle Columbia blowing up yet at that time. Crazy. Pretty sad for the families. Could anything else happen in today's World? Why does everything have to be nuts all the time? Oh wait, I shouldn't be tempting the fates like that. So once again the news media is beating this story into the ground. I've learned my lesson and turned the TV off when it's behaving like that. Vultures. One last thought though: Didn't a black hawk helicopter crash last week killing it's crew? Why haven't there been any stories on those people and how great Americans they were? Astronauts must be higher on the food chain. I guess the space program does do more for the collective imagination. I still remember when the Challenger shuttle blew up. It seemed more shocking for everyone then because the shuttle program was so new.

I wonder how long I could keep a shield of ignorance up? I would have to avoid all news broadcasts, actually I would have to not watch TV at all. I couldn't look at any newspapers when I walked down the street. I couldn't look at any web sites that had news blurbs. I'd have to tell my friends and family to try as hard as they could to not talk about any current events with me. A shield of ignorance would be very difficult to maintain. It would be bliss though I think. If you could go about your life as you normally do without too much avoidance, only missing out on every form of news media, I think you'd be doing pretty good. That sort of thing is easier to do when you are on vacation. Even easier if you are vacationing in a different country.

I went to my school's open house yesterday. That was pretty alright. I got to see some of the student's work and talk to a few of the instructors. I am very eager to get started. This waiting around thing is driving me crazy. I realized yesterday that I really want to be the top of my class there. I want to do amazing work, get a 4 point average, and crush everyone with the Noodle magic. In a nice way of course. Is that too vain of me? Do I sound like a numbskull when I say that my number one goal is to be the Michael Jordan of the Art Institute?

We waited too long kids! Interpol is sold out. Wow 2 weeks before the show. Yes people, they are that good. They're awesome. If you haven't heard Interpol yet, run out and buy the CD NOW! We'll have to think of something else fun to do now on Valentines.

Not too much going on here today. I think we'll probably take the dog for a walk again. I took him yesterday out on the town and we had loads of fun. Thank God there's finally a new Simpsons on tonight! How long has it been? Sheesh!

02-03-03 Monday
I fixed the furnace yesterday. Yes sir. This guy. It was really easy. I guess seeing somebody come out twice before and do the same thing was lesson enough for me. The heat is on now and warming us nicely. The weather seems to have calmed down out there. The rains and floods have stopped for now. Wasn't ground hogs day a couple of days ago? I wonder what the verdict was?

K and I had a really good day yesterday. We went on a long walk with Phillip down the esplanade, across the Steel Bridge, into downtown and through the Pearl District. It was really cool to watch the high Willamette river and all the trees and debris zoom on by. The river was really brown. We wandered around the Pearl and looked at all of the shops and galleries. It was a nice day for walking and we managed to miss 2 flash rain storms and stayed dry the whole day.

We stopped at the CD store and took turns looking at music while the other one was outside with the dog. I stayed within my self imposed budget and got 2 used CDs. With K's funds she got a couple of cool kitchen items. I got the White Stripes CD, "White Blood Cells" and I got a Fontanelle CD, "Style Drift". Both are really good. I know I'm about a year behind on the White Stripes craze, but I'm older now and it takes me longer to get to things. Oh, there's a new Bonnie Prince Billy CD out that I was meaning to listen to but didn't.

After we were done with downtown, we headed back to SE and went to the Lucky Lab for lunch. They allow dogs in the back covered area, so Phillip could have his fun also. I had an excellent Italian grinder there. When we finally got Phillip home he was exhausted.

In the evening we watch a nice healthy hour of the Simpsons, set the VCR to record our other stories, and went out again to the Moon and Six Pence. There once again we watched Eugene's brother Brian, play in the old time band, Foghorn. Those boys are excellent. The Moon and Six Pence is a really nice English style pub.

To finish off the evening we went to the airport and picked up Mr. Baptist and Ms. Bee. Their trip to Vegas was just dandy.

So that was it for a fun Sunday. I've got some things I have to work on today that should keep me busy for most of the day. I should get to them now while I've got a fire going under me for them.

02-05-03 Wednesday
Good morning all. Gosh, it is a little chilly out this morning. I think I'll go put a sweatshirt on. How have you all been doing? It's been a quiet week so far here at the Noodle compound. I am pretty sleepy right now. I don't think I slept very well last night. I don't know if I dare speak it, but I think I actually drank too much coffee yesterday. See, and now I need more coffee to bring me back up to center. Oh that evil bean.

Man, we were TV watching fools last night. We are so bad. We watched 24, Smallville, NYPD Blue and that new show, Kingpin. That's all the TV we watched all day so maybe we aren't totally sick. 4 hours is way below the daily American average isn't it? All of the shows were pretty good. Kingpin won the top spot while Smallville crawled into the stink spot. Tuesday is a good TV night for us.

Not too much going on here today. We've finally got all of our W2s in so I'm going to see if I can start on our taxes today. I can't believe it. I sat on my lame ass all last year and still made more money than people in some countries that work their fingers to the bone. That's disgusting. God bless America! It stinks now because I underestimated my figures for financial aid, and I won't be getting as much funding. I made too much not working. Oh man, what the heck is wrong with me? I'm complaining now about not getting as much free money. Okay I'm going to slowly back up out of this one now.

I am still hunting for that music program manual that I keep mentioning here off and on. Have you guys seen it? I need to locate it, or maybe just forget it and get back to making some Double Darren tunes. Once I'm back in school I've been thinking about putting a flyer up on the bulletin board in the commons area looking for more band members. Maybe I should wait and meet some of my classmates before signing them up to something that would require me to spend more time with them.

TOP^

02-06-03 Thursday
So much for this week. On with the weekend. I know the weeks not over yet, but it still seems to have gone pretty fast. Unfortunately it was one of those weeks where I waited around for people I've contacted about stuff to call. I'm going to stop doing that. I've wasted a lot of time. I need to be more aggressive, get back in touch with them first and keep at them. Screw it. I also need to stop waiting for others and just go forward on my own. You've got to do it for you and yours because no ones gonna do it for you. What? I have no idea where this is going. Actually I do, but my riddles aren't helping you at home out.

I had a horrible dream last night. I dreamt that I was in some sort of interior design class and we were listening to the teacher talk and we were moving some boxes around for some reason. Some things that I can't remember too much about happened, and then the dream sort of switched to a camera view like it was a news broadcast or something. The long shot was of a bunch of people carrying boxes across this log that was acting as a bridge over a river of lava. As we were watching from the bank of the river, the log dislodged and fell into the lava. A man was instantly vaporized as he fell into the hot lava. It was so creepy. He just slipped under the surface and disappeared as he entered without a splash. The people outside of the lava were all freaked out but the people who were burning in it didn't seem too bothered. A lady was trying to pull her friend out and her arms dripped off, then her stomach fell in, chest, neck, head dripped away. Everyone looked like they were covered in spaghetti sauce. Very gruesome. Body parts coming off and floating down in the lava and burning up.

It seems a little silly now and overly dramatic, but boy was I freaked out when I woke up. I'm sure it wouldn't take someone too long to come up with some meaning to that one. Interesting though: I wasn't burning up in the lava. I was watching in horror from safety as others burned up. Hmm? What does that imply?

So is there another weird email virus going around? I just got another email from a friend who I know didn't send it with a virus sounding attachment on it. There was no message just the attachment and the subject title was something like "Cool Flash Here". I hate the idea that someone could be getting email from me that I didn't send. What in the World? I'm going to delete all of the addresses out of my address books and only check email on my MAC. Yeah, that will show them.

Well, today I really need to start the taxes. I know I said I was going to yesterday, but I didn't get to it. Not too much going on besides that today. I think tonight we would like to try to go to First Thursday and check out some of the gallery openings. That's always fun. I need to go get a paper and read about what's out there art wise so that I can plan a travel route.

02-08-03 Saturday 9:23 AM
Good morning Sunshine! How are you all doing this lovely morning? It looks like we have some frost outside. It seems to me that this is only the 2nd window scraping morning that we have had this winter. That is of course if my records are correct. I think I heard the weather man say as I was drifting off to sleep last night, that this is going to be the last cold weekend of the winter. Is that true? Could it be that we are leaving the winter behind us now and moving on? Well that is great news! I've got some fresh coffee brewing right now. Hold on one second while I go get a cup.

Yes! That coffee is exactly what I was needing. It occurred to me this morning, or maybe it was last night, that I am going to need to speed up my typing. I'm going to be taking quite a few coding classes and html stuffs once school starts. I'm sure the instructor isn't going to wait around for me and my hunt and peck style while I look for the tilde key. I think that I am going to start practicing here in the journal and type as fast as I can every morning. I will ask you to please forgive the typos in advance. Actually, that will be good for the journal. I will get more thoughts down before I forget them.

I saw a great DVD the other day. I watched "Spirited Away". It is a beautiful Japanese anime movie. It had a great children's fantasy, fairy tale, wicked witch story. There are some cool creatures and ideas in it. I was totally sucked into the World they created and was glued to the TV from start to finish. It was created by the same people who made "Princess Mononoke". I don't think it's available here in the states yet. I borrowed it from my friend who ordered it from Hong Kong. It might actually still be in movie theaters around town now that I think about it. The version I saw only had English subtitles. I'm really glad I saw it that way. I watched the preview of the US version on the internet and thought the English overdub stunk. I think the original Japanese voices really added to the atmosphere of the story for me. Keep your eyes peeled and watch it when you get a chance.

Taxes are all finished up. Maybe I shouldn't talk about it here since IRS spies are everywhere, but I'm never really sure if I do them right. I pretty much just followed along and did my taxes like I did last year. Nobody gave me any grief last year so I should be okay right? This is the earliest that we have ever had them done. We will be getting a pretty nice refund this year. You know, they can't really tax you if you don't make any money during the year.

Tonight the cute kids of Fantastic Idea Project will be playing their pop rock tunes at Disjecta. It should be an excellent show. You all should attend. The lovely G did the poster art for tonight's event.

02-09-03 Sunday
That furnace! It stopped working again last night. Don't worry though, I went down and fixed it again. It was that crazy clogged trigger filter again. At least I know how to fix it now without paying. I need a longer wire for plunging.

My arms are so sore. I am just not meant for lifting, people. I went smelt fishing with Mr. Baptist yesterday. Lifting that net up and down the river is what did it to my wimpy arms. I had a whole bunch of fun fishing. We caught quite a few smelt. It was slow going at first but it picked up when the sun started setting. We are soaking them in a salt and honey brine right now and then we will smoke them. I'll be eating fish every day for a while now. Things that you catch yourself taste better you know.

The Fantastic Idea Project show last night was great. You guys did a good job. I like that Disjecta place. The other bands that played were pretty cool also. There was some low tech electronics experimenting that made me want to get in front of an audience one of these days with the Double Darren project. That would be fun. I need to get more than 2 songs done though. I was looking through some stacks of papers the other day and found a list of band names that we had been working on. One of them was really good and I think it should be used for something in the future.

I think I'm going to head over to my friend Officer Steve's house today. There are some video games that need playing.

TOP^

02-11-03 Tuesday
Hello, hello there. I hope this morning sees you well. The sun is shining bright today. I know that this may be a little bit early, but I was walking to my car last night and I got that whiff, that smell of summer. You know how the air always felt and tasted during summer? I swear I caught some of it. Maybe it was spring that I tasted. Maybe it was just someone's dryer vent. What ever it was it was good and I'm excited and anxious for the real smells, tastes, and feelings of spring and summer.

Speaking of smells and tastes, I have been a fish smoking fool these last few days. We're actually still smoking the first batch, so I guess I haven't been too crazy with the smoking. We've got an electric smoker going on the back porch. The smell of smoked smelt is slowly trickling through the house. No, no, that's a good thing. It makes me hungry though. I will probably take out the first batch when I get done here. I hope that we don't give ourselves food poisoning or botulism. That wouldn't be good. They've been smoking for 24 hours so we should be okay right?

I have free seminars at the school every day this week. They're little 2 hour overviews of different topics. Last night we took a basic tour of the digital video editing program, Avid Express. It was pretty cool. I enjoy video editing. I have to be careful now with my student discount on computer software. I can see myself getting into lots of expensive programs. Luckily having to pay for the schooling will keep me from buying too much of anything. During tonight's seminar we will be looking at various multimedia program demos. This is a good way for me to slowly slide back into the school routine.

We are going to take the dog for a long walk this morning. That dude needs some exercise!

02-12-03 Wednesday
We've got more Sun this morning. It's so nice around these parts. I feel sorry for you people that are still stuck in winter. Yesterday was just gorgeous. We went on a long walk at the University of Portland with the dog. That was pretty fun. When we got home we did some chores and I mowed the lawn. Yep that's right. I mowed the lawn already this early in the year. Is that strange? No, what am I talking about? People have been cutting the grass for a couple of weeks now. Our lawn looks great. I remember being fixated on the condition of the lawn last year, and this year won't be any different. When it gets weed filed and dried out later, I need to remember how beautiful it looks now. Green and full of life. Oh man, almost nothing beats the smell of freshly cut grass. Well I guess the smell of freshly baked bread does.

So I had a semi-bad dream last night, or maybe it was this morning. It wasn't a scary dream though. A friend of mine was sad and worried about the state of the World and the state of everything. I felt so bad for the person and was surprised that this person felt this way. In the dream I started getting worried and anxiety filled. When I woke up I realized it wasn't dream and I've been a ball of nerves like that for a year or so now. Then I came in here to write the journal and I read the internet news sites about imminent terrorist attacks and war. I make the rounds on other journals and blogs to find that they are writing about being freaked out and worried. Now I am writing about being stressed out about current events, and how uneasy I am about the future. It's like a big freaking snow ball getting bigger as it rolls down the hill. I'm so tired of worrying about everything. I've got to get myself out of this funk. I will try to focus on the positive things like mowing the lawn.

Yeah. See, now I lost my train of thought. Okay positive, positive. Hold on one second. I've got to get some more coffee and think about this one for a bit. Oh here's one, a band that we really like is coming to town on Sunday. Notwist is playing at the Blackbird I hear. I'm going to have to double check my information, but that's cool. Maybe that will help make up for missing Interpol on Valentines day. You know, that Blackbird place gets some pretty good acts in.

I have been doing some research on the CD ROM called "Gadget: Past as Future". It was created in 1994 by a man in Japan named Haruhiko Shono. I remember holding the game in my hands back then thinking I should get it but never did. A few years later I found a book on it that was real cheap because the cover was ripped. The images in the book were great. I was really into the whole "steam punk" thing back then, which I would group this into. Really fancy 3D computer rendered illustrations that were top notch at the time. The game really wasn't much of a game as it was a interactive story or novel that you traveled through. It was critically acclaimed and I think it still holds mustard today. I found a few places on the internet that still have the CD ROM for sale. I should get it.

The reason I've been looking into it is because I would like to do something like that one of these days. Well since I haven't actually looked at it, I would like to do something that I am imagining it to be like. I'm trying to think of different ideas and projects that I could work on once I'm back in school. I'm working on putting together a list of things that I like style wise so that I can have a direction to explore once I get in. Gosh, is that weird? No, I don't think so. Man! April is just so far away. I need to start schooling now. A "These are a few of my favorite things" list probably isn't such a bad idea. I could make the list and then explore what it is that I like about those things. Then whittle it down even further until I have the whole thing mapped out.

02-15-03 Saturday
Hello everybody! How are you all doing? Things are going pretty well here. It's raining outside this morning. The lawn is getting some moisture so that is good. Hopefully it will stay green longer this year. I haven't tuned in to the journal for a couple of days. Sorry about that. I haven't forgotten about you though, I swear. A few things happened while I was away.

On Thursday I was called in to do some freelance at a pretty cool company. Color corrections is mostly what I worked on. Finally someone called me instead of me sleeping on their doorstep! I was so pleased. It was nice to be doing the work I was put on this Earth to do once again. I am on the call list now there which is cool. I was hoping to go in again on Friday, but they had it covered. I would love to get more work from them in the future. That would work so well with my impending school schedule.

Yes School. Thursday night I finished up my week of free seminars there. The talks and demos were pretty cool. It definitely wetted my appetite for more sitting in classroom activities. Wednesday's discussion on the importance of a broad liberal arts education to go with your design education was particularly interesting to me. I totally agree with casting a wide net when it comes to interests and knowledge. It helps your work I think. That was kind of what I was exploring in the last journal entry. They mentioned some writers and books I would like to look into. It's too bad I have that "can't finish a book I start" thing hanging over my head still.

Thursday's talk was pretty good also, but it left a strange taste in my mouth. Maybe it was because I was tired from actually working 8 hours that day. They had a panel of people talking who were currently in the biz. It gave me the feeling of a have and have nots. Being in the audience I kind of felt talked down to. Maybe I should get use to that again being a student. I think of myself as a have who is just looking for the right connections to a good gig. Maybe they were actually scared of the audience because they saw a room full of people who were eventually coming after them. People who were hungry and wanted it more. I want it bad and I'm going to do my best to knock them from their pedestals. What's up with this move out of Portland talk? People who come here from places like Boston and New York say things like "Yeah, you really have to be willing to move to get the good jobs". What the Hell? It's not our fault you started somewhere lame before finding out how cool Portland was. We should leave here and go to Boston and New York so people from there can come here? I don't think so. Anyway, I think I was in a bad mood Thursday night.

We went to a new bar on Thursday after K picked me up from school. It's called "East". It was pretty fancy inside. The place was designed by the same people that did the big green tube. It was quite hip and stylish with strange chairs, mirrors and such. We'll probably go back there again. The drinks were a tad bit pricey, but wouldn't be too bad during happy hour.

How was your Valentines Day? Ours was pretty okay. We went on a fun 2 mile walk with Phillip down to a nature reserve type thing by K's work, and over by Oaks Park. It was really fun. The weather was just perfect and the scenery was beautiful. It's cool that little spots of nature can still exist so close to the city. Move out of Portland? Please! Give me a break. After that fun filled afternoon we went home and spent the rest of the evening eating pizza and watching TV.

TOP^

02-16-03 Sunday
Good afternoon all. It stopped raining and the Sun has come out. I've got a good cup of coffee going and we just finished listening to This American Life on the radio. Oh my goodness. Once again so good. There was a tear jerker story about how Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace stunk and how that was the beginning of the end of the good times. Man oh man. I never thought of it in those terms. I totally feel the same way, maybe that was the reason I got a little teary eyed. Actually we had good times still in 2000 around the time of the wedding events, but that was it after that. The end of the good times sounds a bit extreme. I guess it's just that bad things happened after those times. The economy going South, September 11th, war with Iraq. I feel good about things turning around one of these days soon, so that is kind of a pleasant thought. You guys should totally check that episode out though, it was good. It's probably on the This American Life web site.

I did some work on a Double Darren song yesterday. Yes you read that right. It sounds pretty good so far. I'm kind of pleased about yesterday's work because I actually feel like I am learning how to use my programs a little bit better. They're pretty complicated, but I think if I keep working on them I may eventually have them figured out. I need to get the tunes all on one computer. I have been making the music on the MAC and then sending them to be recorded on the PC. I told Martin about the name I had for a new project and he informed me that he had a friend in Texas who's band was already called that. "We Talked About Murder". There's no way that I could have thought of that on my own without Martin's input. He must have told me that name and I stored it away in my brain and thought of it again later, thinking it was my own idea. SPOOKY...

I am SO excited! Tonight is the 300th episode of the Simpsons! That's a lot of shows. Have I really seen all of them? I have to have missed some of them. That's like 150 hours of TV viewing. Wow.

02-17-03 Monday
Ah lovely. Another grey, rainy, Monday morning. I barely slept at all last night. The animals were up and jumping around all night long. It was mostly just the stupid cat. Right when I would just be about to sleep he would jump on something or move around and wake me up. I felt like I was going crazy at around 5 this morning. I'll show those guys though. I'll be there all day today waking them up when they try to take their naps. Boy, I sure am sleepy.

We went and took the boy up to the Pittock Mansion yesterday and to Forest Park. We had a good hike. The rain came down in buckets for a while there and we got pretty wet. I kind of think I have the sniffles because of that this morning. If you are ever in town and want a good view of downtown Portland, or if you are taking someone on a tour, definitely go to the Pittock Mansion. Gosh, I must be tired this morning if I am writing tourist tips.

The hour of all new Simpsons was wonderful last night, I thought the 301st episode was a little more funny than the 300th. Something about the 300th episode looked a little different. I wonder if they changed something with the animation on that episode?

I spent quite a bit of time working with my music programs again yesterday. I am picking up a lot now. Those programs really can make some cool sounds. It won't be too much longer and I will have hundreds of new Double Darren songs. I will probably work on them some more today. I should go over to G's house and see if she'll let me borrow their keyboard amp so I can really turn it up and rock out. Yeah, that would be fun. I should film myself and see if an hour of me rocking out on the computer is something anyone would want to or should see.

Another thing I have to do this week is get my student loans figured out for school. This is really starting to turn into a headache. It seems pretty simple to me, I don't have any money, so give me the money and let me go to school. I don't understand why they have to get in there and make it any harder than that. I think it's smooth sailing on to education land once this is solved.

02-18-03 Tuesday
Do you know what? I think I'm getting a cold. I just had a mild sneezing fit and after that I could tell. My nose is running and now I have a reason to feel achy. Colds are a much more entertaining thing to have when you actually have somewhere to be or a job to go to. Now that I'm just sitting around the house, the cold has no impact. This is what I would have been doing without a cold anyway. I wish I had Ratchet and Clank to play. It's probably not a real cold. I don't seem to get real colds. This sniffles thing will probably be gone by tonight or tomorrow morning.

Man oh man, the East coast really has the snow huh? I thought we were heading in to spring with the weather WE have been having. They are still neck deep in snow drifts out there. It kind of looks like it might be kind of fun to play in. It probably is fun if your car isn't buried or smashed and the roof of your house isn't caved in. The news said that there have been about a dozen deaths while shoveling snow. Did I hear that right? Isn't that crazy? Is it people having heart attacks or slipping and falling? Shovelling snow is dangerous I guess.

I think I need to get back to work on the research that I was doing last week. I've got some good directions started. Figuring out the things I like or would like to learn more about once school starts is a good idea. What if my own personal studies are more interesting than my actual school work though? Maybe I should teach a class? Just kidding. I want to look closer at some artists I like and become more knowledgeable of the different movements in art history. I want a stronger grip on the 'isms. What makes post modern post and not just modern? It seems like I knew some of the answers to these questions before but forgot somewhere along the way.

Another thing I need to do is update this web site. I haven't mentioned that in a while. I think I have been comfortable with just working on the journal lately. I haven't spent any time on anything else. One of these days though I'm going to have to change it up a bit here. Version 04 is getting stale. I need to do some house cleaning around here and take some of the files I'm not using anymore off of the server at least.

Yesterday I constructed the Double Darren tune, "Pine Tree Meadows". It's a lovely ambient instrumental tune. It's okay I guess. I may try to figure out some vocals to add to it. The more I use this stuff the more I get worried about being able to make anything interesting with it. I've got the software down, now I just have to figure out how to make music. I guess the more I practice, the easier it will get. I wonder if I could take some music courses to satisfy my general ed credits?

TOP^

02-21-03 Friday 8:18 AM
Hey everybody! Good morning to you. How are you all doing? It seems like forever since we've last spoke. This week that started out rather mediocre has really come around and turned out pretty good. I have been working some more freelance the last couple of days at the company I worked at last week. I've been working at Jantzen Swim Wear. I have been drawing women's swimsuits for most of the week. I can't think of a better combination. I love drawing and I love women in swimsuits. Come on Noodle, it's all business, buddy. This freelance work has really come at a good time. Hopefully they will need me to work there next week.

I finally got all my school funding squared away also. Boy it was pretty annoying there for a few hours. For some reason banking institutions don't find K and my situation as charming as we do. Our creative banking and bill paying magic tricks don't work to well uptown. We finally had to call my dad in to straighten the whole thing out and co sign how embarrassing I'm 30 for Lou's sake! What ever though, finished for now. Now the next step in schooling is figuring out my class schedule next week. They're having a dinner thing that we are going to, a spring early registration party I guess.

Well, I've got to head off to work now. Gosh, I wish that I was able to write that sentence more in this journal. Ah, it sounds so nice just saying it out loud. Hey the weekend is almost here! What are the big plans for this weekend? Come on people, tell me. Nothing much going on here that I know of. I think I am going to sit down and do some good creative drawing, writing, reading, music making tomorrow.

02-23-03 Sunday
Happy, sunny, Sunday to you all! How is it going? It looks very nice and sunny outside this morning. I have some microwaved coffee here and another pot of fresh coffee brewing now. I feel pretty good this morning. How have you been doing? I can't believe this is the last day of the weekend. It kind of went pretty fast didn't it? I have to work on Monday so maybe that has something to do with it.

I didn't do much of anything yesterday. I decided to make it a day of rest. I just laid around and watched TV, videos and DVDs. I watched Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" again on DVD. Man, that's an excellent movie. I had never watched it straight through before yesterday. I had always seen bits and pieces at different times that made up a whole viewing. The making of footage was excellent on the DVD. That movie was all stop motion animation. No computers were used. That will probably be one of the last animations to do it that way. They'll all be like Toy Story from now on. The attention to detail on the puppets and scenery was just amazing. Making that movie looked like a lot of hard work.

I watched the first Lord of the Rings movie again also. See, I told you I didn't do anything. I think I like that movie more now after seeing the Two Towers. I am pretty excited to see how it will all turn out in the final movie "The Return of the King".

Another couple of movies I am eager to see is the new Matrix films. I wasn't really that interested until I saw the "Animatrix" animations on the internet. Have you guys watched them yet? They're pretty cool. A bunch of different animators made some cartoon shorts that take place in the Matrix world. They are very fancy and well done. I think there's 7 different episodes and they plan on releasing them all together on DVD. The new Matrix movies look pretty sweet. I hadn't seen a really good trailer until recently, so I wasn't too sure if I was going to need to see another couple of sequels. I think they will wow us again.

Not too much going on here today. I think we are going to look at a house later with Mr. Baptist and Ms. Bee. Something they are thinking about getting or something? I'm not sure what the whole story is. I think we will try to take the boy for a walk also. I am due for a haircut again sometime soon. I need to look pretty this next week for my student ID photo.

02-25-03 Tuesday
Good morning. You fans of the journal, both of you, are probably quite annoyed with these few times that I have worked in the last year aren't you? It seems easier for me to shirk my journal responsibilities when I'm writing entries before work. Don't worry kids, I'm sure I'll be without work before too long, and I'll be able to get back to the meaty entries.

Work? Yes, work is going alright. They are really making me work for my freelance wage, let me tell you. I didn't realize how rusty I was at some things until somebody pushed my nose to the grind. It was strange for a moment but things seem to be working out okay now. Oh yeah, I'll be going back to work at adidas Thursday and Friday. That should be pretty fun. Woo wee, when it rains it pours around the Noodle house eh? It looks like I'll be working around 40 hours this week. Tell you what though, I am ready for school to start.

It has been kind of chilly around these parts the last few days. Is winter still fighting to stay alive? The sun is shining so that has been helping to warm things up a bit. Spring will be here before we know it. I've declared it once again people! This coming summer will be one of the best summers of our lives. I can't wait. Good times are right around the corner.

Well hmm... What else can my slow typing fit in? It's Tuesday. That means it's our must see TV night. I know it's sad looking forward to an evening of TV watching, but it's what I do.

TOP^

02-26-03 Wednesday
We've got another cold one this morning kids. It does feel like a last attempt by winter to make more of an impression on us than she has. You can totally tell that spring is almost here. Spring is just probably waiting patiently on the side lines while winter has her fit. "Okay, okay, everyone knows you're truly a force to reckon with. Now can I go on please?"

Well what's going on with you today? Not much here. I'm heading in to Jantzen today for what I think may be the last day in a while. Their busy is schedule is wrapping up on Thursday and then I think it will be slow there again so I will be back on call. That would be nice to be called in by them every once and a while. That would really be good work to do while in school. We'll have to wait and see I guess.

I haven't talked to some of you in quite a while. It's been at least a week or so for some of you, my buddies. I hope you are doing well. Everyone has been pretty busy I guess. I work a couple of days and feel out of touch with the real people. I guess I'm not use to the whole working thing anymore. If I did it more frequently I would have a better balance of friends and job. I will get on the horn and call you people tonight or tomorrow, I promise. I absolutely must contact mother and brother right away and see how they have been.

I can't believe it's just Wednesday. It seems like it should be a Saturday or at least a Friday. Actually yesterday really seemed to be more of a weekend day.

Uh oh, looks like I'm running out of time, got to go to work. Slow typer once again.

02-27-03 Thursday
You know, I think I better get a pot of coffee started before I try to sit and write to you lovely people. I'm pretty tired for some reason. Hold on one second. There we go. Get myself perked up so I can get these fingers typing.

It's fairly grey out there this morning. I think we may see some rain today. I hope it gets a little warmer. I may need to start wearing a coat again if it keeps up like this. I have been needing a new coat for a few years now, but haven't got one because I haven't really been wearing one. You don't get exposed to the elements when you are just going from car to building to car to house. I guess we have been walking the dog more, so I do get out on occasion.

I wrapped up my work week at Jantzen last night. I stayed pretty late working on stuff. They were really under the gun there last night. I would have liked to have help more but I was getting punchy. I think I did a pretty good job there. Hopefully they call back. I am going in to adidas later today to do some computer system moving work. That's going to be just today and tomorrow. Wow I had a pretty good work week.

Tonight K and I are going to that early spring registration dinner party at the school. That should be fun. I wonder if the food is going to be any good? At the other events that had pretty good sandwich and vegetable plates. The main event for me will be signing up for my classes. It will be exciting to see what my schedule is going to be in April. I need to pencil some classes in this morning because I won't have time after work. I better get to that.

Man, February has already come to an end. 28 day months are so puny. I need to get to work on the next desktop of the month. March is coming with a whole new batch of bills that may or may not get paid. Oh great. At least we will have a nice chunk from me working this week.

March 2003

03-02-03 Sunday
Good morning my good people. How are you doing this fine day? It looks pretty grey outside this morning. I think we will probably see some rain today. Yesterday was a very sunny, gorgeous day. I didn't really do much with it though. That stinks. I more or less just caught up with my sleeping yesterday. I'm well rested today so I think that's good.

Well let's see. What has been happening since the last post? I worked 2 days at adidas. We went to the early registration dinner at the school. We went out on Friday night and tied one on. Recovered on Saturday and here we are now on Sunday.

I did a little bit of reading yesterday and watched the Twin Peaks pilot again on video. Man oh Man I love that Twin Peaks stuff. David Lynch is so cool. I would like to see Mulholland Drive again. I would also love to buy Twin Peaks on DVD if I ever had any extra money. I think I will be studying surrealism as part of my personal studies that I will be working on while in school. I think the different schools of thought I will be looking at to apply to my work will be surrealism, futurism, and escapism. I think the current state of affairs in the World will be welcoming some sort of escapist movement if it hasn't already. Yeah, I will be looking at those things closer in the next few weeks.

I have my schedule now for school. I am pretty excited. I've got a typography class, an overview class on multimedia, a basic web design class, an image manipulation class and a math class. 15 credits starting in April. I think that most of the classes should be pretty easy because they are mostly introductory classes. I am a little concerned about math. I'm going to have to work pretty hard on that one because I am not a math student at all. I will definitely take care of my math credits as soon as possible so I can get that crap out of the way.

Today I am going to do some drawing and reading. I am behind on finishing up the desktop for March. We have a bit of bill and paperwork to get organized today also. Oh yeah, Martin's new band, "Transmission" will be playing tonight at the Ash Street saloon. I think we will probably be checking that out.

TOP^

03-04-03 Tuesday
Hello everybody. How goes it on this wet Tuesday morning? Ah man, hold on one second please. I started out again here thinking I could do some typing without coffee. When will I learn? I'll go make some now. Yes, so it is a little drizzly out there. I guess they are saying that it is suppose to rain most of the week. That's okay with me.

There wasn't much happening around here yesterday and there's not much going on today. I will probably try to start out doing some chores this morning. Then I'll wait around to see if any checks come in the mail so we can go get some groceries and K and I can get our hair cut. There are a couple of projects I could get working on. I'm going to be getting the band Transmission's CD art work together and I think I'm going to do a poster for a Fantastic Idea Project concert later this month. The band Transmission is not affiliated with my button up there that says Transmission, and leads to my internet radio broadcast, although I will probably add them to the play list one of these days.

So there's no work here yet this week. Little murmurs of possible paying gigs, but nothing solid yet. I got a call on Sunday from a place I had put an application in to back in August. They want an interview on Thursday. It had been so long since I had thought of the place that I couldn't figure out for a second how they got my number. No big deal really, it would be a part time retail job to help me while I am in school. Something a little bit more reliable than these high paying freelance wait on call missions.

I think we should try to figure out something fun to do today. It seems like days have been going by too fast without fun in them. Maybe we could go take the dog to a new park? Maybe we could go for a drive somewhere? You know, we haven't been to the beach in a while. There's got to be some sort of happy fun to be had today isn't there?

03-05-03 Wednesday 10:40 AM
The days continue to slowly click by. It is dark, cold and wet out there once again. I am quietly typing with the cat sitting on my lap. My coffee is cold but I will go and microwave it in a little while. Staring out the window my soul cries out, but who will listen? Who will listen? Ha ha, no just kidding. I'm going to go make a fresh pot and my soul isn't crying this morning.

So what the heck? Did you kids try to log on yesterday to read about the happenings of your favorite Noodle and get a "Site deactivated due to non payment" message? How embarrassing for me huh? Well I can safely say that it was a mess up by my server. This web site is the one bill that I do keep current. I think I may have had so much traffic yesterday that it shut down their system briefly. Yeah, that's it. Lame. Well what ever it was it seems to be fixed, because I'm typing and your reading this now, right?

Not much is going on here again today. Gosh we are like 3 for 3 days this week of inactivity. We did go on a pretty sizable walk yesterday with the dog in the rain. That was pretty nice. I can't wait for the reasonably warmer spring and summer months that will be here soon. We'll have some fun walks then. Maybe today we will be able to find a way to break the cycle of this boring week. I really have to get started on these projects I keep procrastinating. God I hate putting stuff off! I will not be this way with my upcoming homework. I swear. I can't be.

One CD I have been listening to is the Prince and the New Power Generation's CD That I call "7". I'm not sure exactly what it's called. It's the CD with the Prince symbol on the front. Maybe it's the symbol album. Well, what ever it is called, I absolutely love it. Prince is so cool. It's the CD that has the "Sexy MF" song on it and "7". He's got a lot of cool electronics on this one. I was reading up on it a bit on the internet and guess he made the CD to be a kind of rock opera, concept album. You can kind of tell there's a story going on throughout. It's got a lot of that pseudo religious, spacey, Egyptian, sex genre, that Prince is so famous for, all over it. It was made in 1992. Oh my goodness, that is starting to be a long time ago isn't it? That seems like it was just yesterday. You should all run out and go buy this CD as soon as you get the chance. It's excellent.

Okay I am off now. I must get to drawing. I must complete some projects today.

03-07-03 Friday
I just remembered the cool dream I had. I was in a college type gym class with some friends. We were dressed down and getting read to play basket ball or something. A fight breaks out and we are all punching each other in the face. We weren't angry or anything, we were just boxing, Fight Club style. In the dream I must have been more muscular because I was fighting this total meat head and we were punching each other in the face pretty hard. It was awesome. Once again, another weird one to analyze.

Friday at last! I thought this day would never come. We have got some heavy rain out this morning. Alright, now it is just drizzling. I am glad the weekend is here. Now maybe something cool can happen. It has been a pretty lame week so far. Last night was a bit better so maybe that is a sign that things are picking up. Hold on, yes you've guessed it, I've got to go make some coffee.

We went and checked out some of the scene down at First Thursday. There was some pretty good art at the places we visited. Have I not explained what First Thursday was in a while here for some of you new visitors to the journal? Well, the first Thursday of every month here in Portland, the galleries around town premiere their new shows for the month. We ended up at hipster, Japanese, store, shop, gallery called Just Be that I had been meaning to go into for a while. It was pretty cool. Our friends Matt and Beth had some jewelry items displayed there. We took Phillip out on the town with us so he could greet his peoples. We got pretty soaked by the rain by the end of the evening.

When we got home we finally watched the Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise movie, "Minority Report". We had fallen asleep at the beginning the first time we tried to watch it, so we had to finish it up. That movie was pretty good. A million times better than that piece of junk A.I. I liked the science fiction elements quite a bit. I thought the Spiders and the cars looked pretty cool. I also liked the way it had a dark blue sepia tone, or monochromatic look to it.

Hey a special shout out to Officer Steve and his lovely bride Michelle. They just gave birth to the beautiful Erin, a bouncing baby girl. Good work you two! I'm sure we'll be by before too long to celebrate the joy.

TOP^

03-11-03 Tuesday
Hello everybody! Yes it's me. Don't worry. I'm not dead. I'm still here. Sorry I haven't written in so long. I ran out of things to say there for a few days. I saved up now though and have a few more words in me. This is the second day in a row that I didn't have any coffee. Can you even believe it? I think I will put a stop to that none coffee drinking today. I may even go to the store and buy some before this entry is finished. Watch now, I'm going to over compensate for not drinking any coffee and down like 3 gallons today.

So what's been going on people? Not much has been happening around this dump. We did have a pretty okay weekend, but now we're back to crapville. It's only Tuesday, this week has some time to turn itself around. Perhaps this will actually be a really cool week. Wouldn't that be nice? Maybe I'll do my best to stay positive and find some fun and cheer that will make this week the best week so far this year!

Gosh aren't World events troubling? Things are so lame out there now. War with Iraq starting up within a week or so, several different countries with missiles pointing at us. Man, why does the US have to stick their nose in everything? Why don't we just pull back and take our toys home and stop playing with these kids? There's plenty of things we can do around here. The President doesn't even pretend to talk about the economy anymore. Our people need jobs, money, food and coffee, dude! Very troubling.

We had been having some good conversations on the Noodle message board a few days back. I decided that I would go in and make the board fancy and ended up wrecking the whole thing. Boy, that stinks! Now I am in the middle of trying to figure out how to fix it. The codes and commands are in perl script, which I had heard of before but never used. I kind of enjoy coding when it works. It's like a puzzle. When things don't work it is quite frustrating. This coding stuff is a pretty good preview of school isn't it?

Yeah school. It seems like lately I haven't been doing anything but waiting for school to start. Counting down. Is it because I'm excited? I don't know, I guess. I don't feel that excited. I'm just ready for a change I think. I'm a little concerned about getting some work to bring in some money here. I would really be quite happy to have some stable part time work. Yeah so school is about to start in a few weeks, woo hoo. I'm sure I will be more excited when I am finally sitting in a classroom.

03-12-03 Wednesday 9:28 AM
Hello Wednesday, what you knowing? I've come to watch your flowers growing. Yes, good morning everyone. What is the good word? It's raining outside and it is warm and dry inside. Why am I so happy you ask? Well, I am happy because we finally have coffee in the house! Yes. A pot of it is brewing right now. We have plenty of coffee now. K bought some yesterday that I didn't see and I bought more this morning. We are stocking up my friends.

How's it been going? Anything going on with you people today? Not too much happening around these parts. I'm going to try to work on some projects today I hope. You know what? I would really like to get another gallery showing. That sure was fun last year when I was in that show in May. I really should have continued on with that sort of thing. There really is no excuse except for being lazy. With all this free time I should be just cranking out the artwork. It's that going to First Thursday crap last week that has gotten me thinking this way again. I've got some ideas for a way of doing some paintings that I think will be pretty cool. I'm going to have quite a few art supplies when school starts that I can use to further the cause also.

I know I keep saying this, and here I go again. I am totally going to work on this here website one of these days. Maybe I should just keep saying that over and over again, then one of these days it will come true. I need to freshen up some of this stuff for sure. Did any of you notice the transmission being down? Well it's back up now. I need to spend some time with that puppy as soon as possible. Golden oldies on there now. So much to do, so much to do.

We rented a couple of movies last night. It has been a long time since we have done that. We rented the movies "Frailty" and "About a Boy". We watched Frailty last night, tonight we'll watch About a boy. Frailty was just alright. It's a Steven King thriller. I'm pretty sure it bombed at the box office last year. It was pretty creepy for a while and then as so often happens, the end falls apart and gets extremely lame. We were in the mood to see a creepy movie and wanted to see "The Ring" but that was all checked out. I think About a Boy will be good.

03-14-03 Friday
Good Lord, I can't believe it is Friday already. This week went really fast. Last Friday wasn't I commenting on how slow that week had been going? My internal clock is all out of whack I guess. How are you all doing this morning? I'm doing pretty good. Do you have any big plans this weekend? Today is K's pay day so we are pretty excited about that around these parts. Hold on, it's time to make the coffee. I've got to turn the heat up also. It's chilly.

The little guy Pierre has been having seizures again this week. Man, they are so troubling. We think that his medication levels may be a little low this week because of a couple of missed dosages. It sucks, right when you start to think that your cat is well, another episode pops up. This batch of seizures is rather disturbing because he has been biting down on stuff pretty hard. Most of the time he had bit down on the carpet getting his teeth stuck, but this morning he had a hold of his own arm. Dangerous! Everyone say a little prayer for little Pierre.

Yesterday, I had to get out of the house so I went on a little window shopping spree. It was pretty fun. I was a mall rat. I made a shopping list of things I would be getting if I had money. One thing I would be getting for sure is a new printer. I looked at a couple of laser printers. I also looked at a new digital camera. I am quite fond of the Canon Digital Elph. Something that is quite a bit smaller than what I have now, more portable. I would take more pictures for sure with that puppy. The other thing I investigated was painting supplies. I thumbed through some acrylic painting, how to books. I must start painting soon.

TOP^

03-17-03 Monday
Good morning my fine fellows. Merry St. Patrick's day to you. I hope you are all wearing green today, I don't want to have to pinch you. Do you all have plans to celebrate the day with green beer? I sure am tired this morning. Maybe I should go back to bed. Hold on I need to check and see if there is any coffee I can microwave.

We had an insane weekend. Some of it was the good kind of insane while other parts of the weekend were the bad kind of insane. On Saturday night we went and baby sat my nephews. That was very fun. On the way there though my red car died. I walked to my brother's house which wasn't too far away. We figured that the car need a new battery so we went and got a new battery and put it in. It started up after that. After the baby sitting gig we went out to our friends house in Clackamas where they were having a shin dig. That lasted till about 6 in the morning. We went home and slept most of the day on Sunday. Sunday evening we went and saw the wonderful Martin rock it at the Black Bird. He played in three different bands and did an awesome job.

So yes, now it's St. Patty's day. I'm going to try and not do too much of anything today I think. I really need to do some resting. I think we will be going to the Falls View after K gets off of work, with Mr. Baptist. That's it though. I'm not Irish anyway so I shouldn't feel any obligation to Patty should I?

So is the War with Iraq starting today? How lame. They have dragged this thing out for so long now it's hard to know what to think anymore. Did anyone really believe with all the build up of troops over there that Bush would bring the boys back home without fighting? Lame.

03-18-03 Tuesday
My goodness, can it be? Am I writing two journal posts in a row? Will wonders never cease? How is everybody? I feel pretty good this morning. Our St. Patrick activities yesterday were nice and very mellow. We didn't get too out of hand this year.

So last night, or I guess it would be early morning, I went to take the dog out to go to the bathroom. The steps were wet and the dog did a little bit of a pull and I slipped and fell down the stairs. Man! I split my knuckles open pretty good on my right hand. No people, it wasn't an alcohol induced stumble. You know terrorists are pretty scary, but I'm almost more afraid of everyday household dangers. One false move and you could be dead. Accidently mowing you leg off or slipping and cracking your head open in the shower, that stuff is scary! I need to take it easy. I'm getting to be an older man now and I don't want to break a hip.

Well I already read the news web sites to see if war broke out while I was sleeping. Nothing yet. Remember when I spoke of the Shield of Ignorance a few months ago? Waking up in the morning and typing up a journal entry before reading or hearing any news. What a nice little time of innocence before starting the day. Maybe I should continue to try to achieve a Shield of Ignorance each morning and only read the news and get updated after I write here. Then we can all look back and say, "Gee, look at what a pleasant and happy day Noodle was having on the 18th before he had heard that the war had started and 12 thousand people had been gassed."

Gosh, war. What strange times we live in. I have a feeling I am really going to be annoyed with the media coverage of Gulf War 2. I already am annoyed. Our television programs are already starting to be preempted by news coverage and the war hasn't started yet. We had tried to tape the show we like on ABC called "Miracles" and what was on the tape instead was coverage on how they were going to cover the war once it started. These news people are totally jumping at the bit to get this thing going. It's really bizarre and sick. They even said stuff like "With this war you will see the action in real time". This isn't a movie people, sheesh! I have a feeling that K and I will be renting a lot of videos soon.

I've got to go put some band aids on my knuckles and get some coffee in me now.

03-19-03 Wednesday 9:22 AM
Good rainy morning to all of you. How is everybody? I am doing pretty good. Things have been kind of slow around the Noodle house these last 2 days. Not much going on. We have kind of been hiding out. Screening phone calls, staying inside, doing some house cleaning. We're hunkering down and getting ready for the war. It's been rainy most of the week. I'm looking out the window now and think we need a couple of dry days so I can go out and mow the lawn.

K and I picked a couple of things to watch once we get sick of the war coverage. We will watch the "Six Feet Under" season one DVDs and I think I want to try to rent that British show from the 60s "The Prisoner" that I have a strange curiosity about. I think that would probably be entertaining. Maybe we will have to make an event of it. Have people over and watch the series together. The thing about watching a television series in that fashion is that everyone gets excited to see the next episode and can't wait for the others. Someone won't make it one night and say, "No, you guys continue on without me". Then the whole thing unravels. Maybe if you did one tape per sitting.

I haven't been doing too much creatively in the last week or so. I'm not sure what the deal is. I've been on hold. I haven't really been that bothered by my laziness either. School is almost starting also. Maybe I am waiting for that. Waiting these two months after deciding to go back has perhaps made the event anticlimactic. I really need to get a part time job also. We need to start getting some money back in this place. Perhaps the overall uncertainty about every single element in existence has caused me to shut down and become sluggish. Some day soon it will all turn around for us won't it?

I think to help fight the doldrums today, I will take the boy for a long walk. That's what will do us both good. We need some fresh air! It is Wednesday, and that is perhaps is a signal that I should revisit my old long lost friend. The Freedom Walk. I need to get out there and say hello to my people. Go out and spread some Noodle love. That's what the brothers and sisters need right now, a warm smile and a pat on the back.

TOP^

03-21-03 Friday
Good morning to you, lovely peoples! Well, there was barely any rain yesterday, but it's back this morning. Luckily I was able to get out and mow the lawn yesterday. It looks very nice out there. I need to do some work on all of the edges. They are a little overgrown. The next order of business after the edges will be to trim back the ivy and cut back the branches on the holly tree.

So hey, yeah the war has started. This is my first entry after shots were fired on Wednesday. Man oh man. Sad times, people. Yesterday we went ahead and tried on our wartime Shield of Ignorance here at the Noodle house. It worked out pretty good. We avoided all but 45 minutes of the 24 hour war coverage. I think that is how we will probably continue to do it. 45 minutes to an hour is enough to keep up to date of the goings on without making you obsessed. We had a nice day away from the television and news. We got out and did some yard work, cleaned the house, went grocery shopping, wrung our hands over being poor, and did some good reading of books that we got at the library.

I came up with a way that I can contribute to the war effort here at home. I got my patriotic red, white and blue out of the closet and put that shirt together there to the left of us. I think it is quite handsome. It's good because it immediately shows what kind of American you are. I thought of it after seeing hundreds of war protestors blocking the streets here in Portland last night. It sure would have been helpful for me watching if a few of them had tee shirts on explaining what their situation was. There is a huge amount of unemployed people out there that wish their government would spend at least an hour a day talking about the economy and the unemployment rate instead of always fighting a war with someone.

Wait a second. If I am always talking about war here, is that going to effect you at home that are trying to maintain your own Shield of Ignorance? I'll tone it down. I wouldn't want you to have to stop coming here,

I think we will be having a pretty nice weekend around these parts. My mother is coming to town for a visit. Ya hoo! It will be so nice to see her. We've got dinner engagements up at my grandparents house and then another get together at my brother's house the next day. Our schedule is getting pretty filled up. That's a nice change of events.

03-23-03 Sunday
Hey there, hey there. How goes it? I think today they are saying that the rain is going to stop for most of the day. That will be good. Now we can get out there and try to get some yard work done. I got a pretty good start out there on Thursday, but then got rained out the next couple of days.

The weekend has been going pretty well so far. Not too much to report. We had a nice evening at my grandparents house last night visiting with my mom. Very nice to see that lovely lady. We are heading over to my brother's house later to have dinner. That should be tasty.

I watched a few more episodes of Twin Peaks again yesterday. Gosh, that show is excellent. I have seen it all the way through before and now it looks like because of my wartime boredom, I may be heading through the whole thing again. I was concentrating on the symbolism and repeating themes that Lynch has going through that show. Quite interesting. The nonsense makes sense if you look at the whole thing with surrealist goggles on. Everything about Twin Peaks revolves around the dream world.

Our favorite radio show, This American Life wasn't on this morning thanks to the war coverage. Dang it! Our whole schedule is thrown off. Listen to me. How silly is that? I should be counting my blessing that I am not over in the desert right now fighting. I should be thankful that our troops our fighting for me and fighting to keep my favorite radio stations on the air. GEEZE... Oh my goodness, I am going to flip out if a new episode of the Simpsons is preempted tonight.

03-25-03 Tuesday 9:36 AM
Yes, back at it on a rainy Tuesday morning. It doesn't feel like a Tuesday yet. More like a Sunday. The rain stopped for a little while yesterday and I was able to do a few things outside. I moved our big pile of yard debris from one corner of the yard to the other. Our neighbor is trying to rent the top unit in his house and commented on us taking our yard debris to the dump. Funny thing about it was that some of his yard debris was in the pile. To be fair though, our pile was across the line on his side. We won't be stacking anything there from now on. I still would like to get out there and do some edging this week.

We had another lovely evening at my grandparent's house last night. They fed us a spaghetti dinner that hit the spot. We had a good long discussion with my mom that was quite entertaining. I think we got pretty close to solving all of the World's problems. I'm going to leave here in a little bit and go take her to the airport. I was glad that she came out for her visit. Next time we will have to fly out and see her. That would be fun. Someday when there's more money I guess.

Still not much is going on around here. I took the dog for a long walk yesterday while it was still sunny. That is always good to do. Maybe if the rain stops today then we will be able to go again. I need to get to work on a poster for the big rock show this weekend at the Mississippi Pizza Pub. Phil and the Blanks, Transmission and Fantastic Idea Project. An all-star line up! I have totally been procrastinating doing the poster for some reason. I'll have to do it today so that they can have something to put up to advertise the show. I have an idea, I just need to sit down and draw it out.

We watched Donnie Darko again the other evening. Man oh man is that a good movie! People, if you haven't seen this, run out immediately and rent it. We bought it cheap on DVD so we can watch it over and over again. That movie goes along well with my current fascination with surrealism. It kind of leaves you feeling hopeless but happy at the end. That's strange.

TOP^

03-26-03 Wednesday
Well good morning to you fine peoples! I hope everyone is doing fine. Hold on one second. I've got a fresh pot of coffee that is calling my name. Oh man, it smells so good. Nothing beats the smell of fresh coffee in the morning. Well, actually I can think of a couple of things that top it in the morning. No, the smell of fresh coffee in the morning is the best. Looks like the rain has stopped for right now. It will start up in a few minutes I am sure. It is very dark, grey and cloudy out there at this moment. Even though it's wet out right now, I can still feel it in the wind that camping season is about to begin.

Okay, Wednesday is here, hump day, Freedom Walk day, best day of the week. So what's going on today? Nothing that I can think of right off the top of my head. Oh duh, yes. It's my dad's birthday today. Happy birthday old man! What is that? 53? My dad surprised me by asking me to clarify something I had written here in the journal the other day so I know he can see this. I'll have to give you a call later today and see what you are up to.

So besides it being my dad's birthday, nothing else is going on. I finished up the poster for the rock show on Saturday. It looks pretty good. I think it's growing on me. I'll have to see it on a telephone pole to see what I think. If you guys want to check it out, send me an email and I'll email it to you.

We rented the movie "The Ring" last night. Oh my goodness! It was quite the gem. Last night we had everything set right to see a scary movie. The lights were off, it was after midnight, we were totally focused on the movie, and were a little scared and freaked out before even starting the movie. Yes people, get those same settings in your house and rent the Ring. It was way creepy. I was uneasy the whole time. There were a few jump out and BOO you moments, but for the most part it was quietly sinister. It had a lot of haunting images. You know the story right? You watch a video and then die after seeing it. It was a remake of a Japanese movie. That would be interesting to see one day. Anyway, K and I give the Ring 2 thumbs up.

03-28-03 Friday 10:38 AM
I heard yesterday that it is suppose to be 71 degrees here tomorrow. Can that be true or did I just imagine it? It's almost sunny right now so maybe we are on our way to it. Yes! Spring is here people! I did for sure hear them say yesterday that it has rained 26 out of 27 days so far this March here in Portland. See people, that's why everything is so green here. I hope it is 71 tomorrow. I will totally get out there and get some yard work and dog walking done. Hold on one second, I left my coffee in the microwave.

So boy oh boy, we've already started on what looks like will be a busy weekend for the folks here at the Noodle compound. It's about time we got something going on the weekend! It all started yesterday. I went in and was a member of a focus group that was being surveyed. The company I'm on call for does all kinds of surveys for different products and they call you to be a part of a group when you fit a certain demographic. It was pretty fun. The group met in a room with a big one way mirror and everything. The product we were discussing was beer. Yep. It quickly turned into a Pabst Blue Ribbon love fest. After an hour of questioning we were let go and given 75 dollars cash. I hope they call back for more focus groups. That's an easy hour of work for 75 bucks. I tried to answer intelligently and seriously so that they could see I was a professional test subject.

Last night we had dinner at the Delta cafe with Martin and Lianne. The food was tasty and filling. For some reason I had quite the craving for Pabst Blue Ribbon. K and I rented a couple more movies. We got "Igby Goes Down" and that surfer girl movie "Blue Crush". I fell asleep through most of the Igby Goes Down movie. I'm going to watch the Blue Crush movie today and am sure I will be wide awake.

I will be heading over to the school this afternoon to check out the winter graduates portfolio day. People from the business world come and check the work out and then the public is allowed to come and view it. I'm definitely going to check out the multimedia work to see what I will have to crush once I get in. I'll probably quiz the students and see if they think that have made a wise decision in picking the school now that they have graduated. No, I probably won't ask that one. I don't want to know if the answer is negative. I will be interested in hearing how they liked the program though. I wonder if any of the work will be impressive enough to land a job today? The job market is still bad like I think it is isn't it? Maybe this is still not a good time to be graduating and entering the job market?

Tonight we are going to see a rock show at Nocturnal. I like that Nocturnal place. I've only been there once but keep looking for excuses to go back. When ever I get off my lazy butt and create some artwork, I would like to show there. Tonight we'll be checking out some experimental music acts. Point Line Plain is a friend of a friend's band and the other act I've been meaning to see is The Planet The. It should be a fun evening.

Tomorrow night is the rock show at the Mississippi Pizza pub. It will be a good show for us because all of the bands playing are Noodle friends and family. Fantastic Idea Project, Transmission, and Phil and the Blanks. It should be fun and exciting. Plus the pizza there is great.

So that is the schedule. I think there is room to stuff a few more activities in. Sunday is pretty open so far. Fantastic Idea Project is playing at the Black Bird, but we'll have to see what our energy level is like then and how much of the focus group money we have left.

03-30-03 Sunday
Woo ha! Oh my goodness! Papa has a headache! It is so bright outside right now. People, It is so beautiful out there. The weather is perfect. We need to get outside as soon as possible. Oh yeah. Hey happy day, This American Life is on this morning. Maybe that means the Simpsons is new tonight. Damn you war! Oh man yes, so headache here did I already say that?

So the weekend has been going pretty good so far. We saw quite a good show last night. You guys did great. Hold on I've got to get some coffee.

TOP^

03-31-03 Monday 10:30 AM
Good morning everybody! Boy howdy, sorry about that last entry there. I didn't make it out of the starting gates. So how have you been doing? I've been okay. Luckily my headache went away eventually yesterday. Gosh that was lame. We had a couple of really nice days this last weekend weather wise. Saturday and Sunday were both in the 70s and sunny. It doesn't seem like we will be as lucky today. It's grey and the rain has come back.

Today is the last day of March. Yep, April is here tomorrow. I don't feel one way or the other about it. March didn't have anything really great to it. Hopefully April will be better. 7 days until school starts. Hey this is my final week of freedom! I go in on Thursday this week for an orientation day, then it all starts up for real next Monday with my math class. Now that the start time is closer I think I'm getting more excited. All that waiting around during March had made me stir crazy.

Oh yes, the portfolio day at the school last Friday was pretty interesting. I am already planning for my own portfolio day in my head. There was a few cool things that I saw, but I think I was hoping to be more impressed. I wonder if anyone got hired as a result of that portfolio day? Good for them though, what a nice way to celebrate completing school. They all looked happy to be done, but scared at the idea of having to go find a job now.

Speaking of jobs, I really have to get something soon. I need to start paying some bills again. All I want now is some crappy part time thing that I can do while in school. Come on people, it doesn't have to be a great job, I'll settle for quite a bit now days. You know though, I haven't really been actively looking at all during March. Maybe that's why I haven't been finding anything. I haven't been looking. It's pretty crazy how that works.

April 2003

04-01-03 Tuesday
Happy April Fools day to you all! If I was more with it today, I would totally play a prank on you. Maybe I should get a cup of coffee and see if that perks up my funny bone at all. Nope, that didn't help. I wonder what the history of April Fools day is? It's probably something absolutely insane, some sort of evil king beheading commoners during the Dark Ages, or something to do with a plague I bet. I'll have to look it up when I'm done here.

Ah ha see, I let the Shield of Ignorance down for a few minutes and what do I get? "Poisson d'Avril'. Or as we like to say, "April Fish". So the wonderful internet tells me that April Fools day is a French tradition dating back to 1564. I guess everyone switched over to the Gregorian calendar and New Years was moved to January 1st instead of where it had originally been at the first week of April or the first week of Spring. The people that didn't know the calendar had changed still had New Years parties in April and the people in the know made fun of them and pranked them with fake party invites and gifts. You know, April would be a great time to celebrate New Years. Spring is here, the flowers are blooming, winter is dead, new life is springing forth. Ah yes. Maybe I'll start having New Years parties in April.

Hey what the heck?:
In England, jokes are played only in the morning. Fools are called 'gobs' or 'gobby' and the victim of a joke is called a 'noodle.' It was considered back luck to play a practical joke on someone after noon.
Now they're making fun of my name? I haven't been the victim of a joke yet today.

Well not much going on again here today. I'll probably be checking the various employment web sites looking for a gig. I sent some resumes off to some good places yesterday. Hopefully I will hear back. I've got quite a bit of house work to do today. Maybe if the Sun comes out later I'll take the dog for a walk.

Oh yeah, last night K and I did something fun. They were showing Twin Peaks episodes 5 and 6 at the Mission Movie Theatre Pub last night in Northwest for free. It was pretty cool seeing Agent Cooper so big up on the movie screen. We thought it was strange where some of the people in the audience laughed. We had never thought of Twin Peaks as a comedy. Maybe the people in the audience thought the quirkiness was humorous? I wonder if they are going to keep going through the whole series every Monday night? That might be kind of fun to make a thing of it.

04-04-03 Friday
My goodness! Is it Friday already? Where the heck did this week go? Good morning to you all. How's it going? It's going pretty good here this morning. The coffee is on and the dog just stole my slipper. I've got a bit of a chill now. It has been winter like here towards the end of this week. Our 70 degree temperatures last week was just a cruel tease. My oh my, the weekend is almost here. So what are the plans? My final weekend before school starts.

The new student orientation was yesterday and it was pretty fun. So far so good I guess. They let you walk around and check everything out, so you almost got the feel of being a student. It's getting exciting. I got to meet finally with all of the students that are starting in the same multimedia program as I am, and the head of the department gave a talk. There's 10 kids all together starting this spring in the multimedia program. I got my official schedule, my student ID, my books list and my brand new art supplies. I am ready to go.

Oh man, the art supplies are quite exciting. They put together a big carrier full of all the supplies you'll need for your classes. When I got home, I pulled it all out and rolled around in them on the floor. Luckily the cost of the art supplies was just added in to the tuition, so I won't have to see the bill for a couple of years. I am planning on make some of my own art projects with those tools.

I've got to get into the book store and buy my school books. Hopefully I can find them used and cheap. Books are going to hit the Noodle pocket book pretty hard I think. Maybe this weekend I will just start with my Monday math and image manipulation classes.

I rented and started playing the game "Dark Cloud 2" the other day. It's pretty cool. It's more from the role playing genre of video game, which I am not that experienced. Some of the play is kind of complicated for me. The reason this game caught my eye was because the character rendering and design was so fancy. Very gorgeous. It's strange. The game seems to have really detailed 2D with really detailed 3D. Very pleasing to the eyes. I probably would have been mad at myself if I had bought it, because the role playing genre isn't my cup of tea. I am very glad I rented it though.

We saw the movie, "Red Dragon" last night. Not Bad. You know, it's the prequel to "Silence of the Lambs" and "Hannibal". It was so much better than Hannibal. Hannibal was horrible. Edward Norton does a fine job once again. Anthony Hopkins and Ralph Fiennes were quite menacing in their roles as killers. This movie definitely tried to get back to the Silence of the Lambs creepiness and not so much of the Hannibal gore fest. I wouldn't tell you to put it high on your must rent list, but if the one you went to the video store to get is out, then this one would make a fine second choice.

Oh God, this house is a pig sty. People, I will be spending most of the day cleaning today. I hate cleaning. This house really needs it though, so I need to finally get of my butt and do some work around here. I am telling you people, it looks like a herd of wild boars stampeded through here. I have got to get it all done before K gets home from work or I am dead meat. I need to get things cleaned up enough to last more than a couple of hours so I can do some of my own stuff before having to clean again.

Hey, who ever keeps calling here on the phone, please leave a message. The constant calling and hanging up before leaving a message is driving me crazy. Oh wait, maybe asking for it to stop will make the person do it more.

TOP^

04-05-03 Saturday
Hello again my friends! Welcome to another wet and grey Saturday morning. Please hold while I go heat up the coffee from yesterday. Well, yeah. How is it going for you today? Anything fun happening? Not too much going down here today that I know of. I think I may walk over to Powell's bookstore on Hawthorne and get a few of my text books later today if it stays fairly dry. I think I'll play some more of that Dark Cloud 2 game also.

Oh my goodness! The animals were driving me batty last night. I looked at the clock when I first woke up and it was 4 in the morning. The cat was jumping on the drawers in our bedroom next to our TV. He kept pushing stuff around with his paws making little rustling noises. Then the dog would wake up, move around in the bed and jump on the floor and look at the cat. I sprayed the cat with the water bottle, but he continued to jump on the drawers over and over again. The dog would get settled and then move around again and stare at the cat when the cat would make noise. I was getting so angry! They both were just staring at me with their evil wide awake eyes. Finally at 6 I just gave up and pulled the covers and pillow over my head so I couldn't see or hear them. Today if I see either one of those bastards napping, I'm going to wake them right up.

We watched another movie last night. It was called "The Good Girl" and it was good. Just like the title says. The Good Girl was a fairly dismal tale about a women who is unhappy in a small Texas town. It starred "Friends" star, Jennifer Aniston as the good girl. She did an alright job acting in it. You almost could get it out of your head that it was someone other than Rachel, but not quite. It also starred Donnie Darko himself, Jake Gyllenhaal. Who? He's fun to watch on screen. I hope he gets into more movies.

So I actually got the house pretty cleaned up yesterday! Woo hoo! That means that today I can be more self involved and work on some of my own chores. If I just don't touch anything, or eat off any dishes then the house should stay intact. I've got to start writing up some notes and begin preparing for my first day of school. I am going to document the entire day of April 7th, 2003 so that I can have a before and after record of my return to school. When summer 2005 rolls around, I will have a gage to look at to see how far I have come. Yes my educational experience will be well documented with all of the multimedia elements, text, photos, drawings, sound, animations and video. By the end of it all I want to have it all collected into DVD portfolio that you can watch in your living room.

04-07-03 Monday
Hey hey everybody! Today is the day. I made it. The first day of school! Well I'm still getting ready so I better hurry up here before it's time to go. Ah at last a student. Boy the weather outside sure hasn't cooperated with my special day. I won't let the grey, rainy, day ruin my fun though. Hold on one sec, I've got to get my coffee.

Okay I'm going to document this day. This is the starting point. Mark this page. I'm going to actually write out some notes and thoughts on paper as well today. I was going to shoot some video this morning, but I think that was a little bit ambitious. I'll get it documented though don't worry. It would be good also to record my thoughts about how lame this day in World history is with the war still going on and the American economy in the toilet.

I'm pretty tired this morning, and I feel like I have a cold. Gosh! Come on Noodle, liven up! Pierre was an absolute jerk this morning. Once again at 4, he jumped up on the drawers in the bedroom and knocked everything on the floor. He then went into the kitchen turned his food over, jumped on counter and knocked things off, and then to top it off he knocks the garbage over. What the heck is that cat's problem? Didn't he know that I needed my rest for my special day today?

Okay I got to go pack my bags and get my text books. Wish me luck.

04-08-03 Tuesday
Howdy folks! Well everybody, I made it through the first day of school. Woo Hoo! Hooray for me. Now only 2 and a half years left. Yesterday was pretty fun. 2 classes under my belt yesterday, 3 more left for the week. It felt pretty cool sitting in class again. I wrote down some good notes about goals, thoughts and ideas in my little pocket journal that I have. Perhaps one day I will incorporate those notes somewhere here on the web site. I want to add a section here called "School Yard". I'll have school work and notes up there.

I only had one moment of terror when I thought I was going to be called on the carpet for not being knowledgeable enough to be in the math class I was signed up for. I don't think he would have kicked me out, he was just seeing where each student's skill level was by giving them an entrance exam. Luckily I fudged my way through it enough to stay. People, this is the only math class I need for my degree. I don't want to take a refresher course or a prerequisite. Just this one class and that is it. I hate math. I made the mistake of telling a 19 year old student sitting next to me that I hadn't had a math class in 10 years. Noodle listen, they are ALL younger than you are. From now on don't mention your age or any details that could give away your age. I remember the first time I attempted college and how annoyed I was by those 2 or 3 old folks in the class that continually talked about how old they were.

One of the things I have decided to do is to enter every single student design competition that I can find. I had thought about entering competitions a few years ago but most of them you had to be in school to enter. Guess what kids? I'm in school now. The competition I have my eyes set on now is the Adobe design competition. I have the rough sketches for what I want to submit to them already drawn. I just need to execute it. The deadline for those submissions is May 15th. That would be pretty cool to win. Even placing would be cool.

No classes again until Thursday. Well gosh, what am I suppose to do until then? I guess I could do homework. I'm going to have a lot of reading. I MUST keep up with the homework. That is the only thing that could cause me harm. Today I think I will get out there and mow the lawn again. It's suppose to be the only day without rain this week. After the lawn there's a few more chores I could do around here.

Hooray for us! K and I actually kept with a weekly event more than just the first week. We went to the Mission Theater Pub again last night and saw the next free installment of Twin Peaks. Pretty fun. There weren't as many people this time because they didn't advertise it in the newspaper. They played episode 7. They are getting the shows from the DVD collection which only has the 1st season. What will they do when we get to season 2? Yes, that was a good way to end the first day of school, a burger and a beer. We're planning on being there next week for episodes 8 and 9.

TOP^

04-11-03 Friday
Good early morning to you! Yes, Friday is here already. One more day of school and then the weekend is here. How have you all been doing? I've only talked to about 5 or 6 of you this week. Well wait, that's more people than I thought I had talked to now that I add it all up. It feels like I haven't seen some of you in at least a couple of weeks. I hope you are all doing well. I was so happy this morning that I almost burst into tears! This was the first night all week that I slept through the night without being woken up by that stupid cat, Pierre! I actually feel pretty rested right now. Hey new friend Ayrica, you may be on to something with the whole switching the heart medication delivery times around scheme.

Two more classes to go today and then I'll have had them all. I was very impressed yesterday with my basic web design, html class. We are actually going to memorize and be tested on code. Cool. That's the kind of thing the nerd inside of me has always wanted to do. It's kind of weird for me that my schedule is split like it is. It's almost like there is a weekend in the middle of the week, all of the school happens on Thursday and Friday, and then I have another weekend. My classes are all spread out through the week. I still have some time management issues to work out. It's still the first week though, I'm sure a good balance of school, chores and Noodle time will work itself out, right?

I am quite happy with the drawing and work that I have put into my project for the Adobe design competition. It's looking pretty good so far. I still have a lot of hours of work left. Maybe between homework assignments this weekend I can find some time to squeeze it in. The project is actually doubling as the Transmission West CD art. I hope they like it when I'm done. I kind of veered off in my own direction after deciding to enter it into the contest. I need to get that puppy done ASAP.

So they captured Baghdad huh? Well that's just great I guess. I sure wish this whole business was over with. I just don't believe and have a hard time trusting the images that they are currently letting us see on the TV. There's still something fishy going on. I hope this is it for country attacking. Probably not though. It's nice that they are going to rebuild and fix everything that they bombed and destroyed over there. When are they going to come back here and fix everything that they have destroyed at home?

I've got to get ready for school now. Adios!

04-12-03 Saturday
Well hello there! How's it going? You know, I am really going to have to get some coffee filters. I'm in need of a caffeine boost this morning. Looks like we are going to have some more rain today! Surprise, surprise. I wish it would let up and dry out for a day or at least 8 hours, so I could get out there and mow the lawn. The grass is getting tall again. I keep missing my window of opportunity.

Today I need to make a "to do" list and get organized. Time management is going to be a big assignment for me this quarter. Hold on one second, let me get a pen to jot my list down. Top of the list today will be to get some checks written and put some bills in the mail. I think the second order of business will be to go to the store and get some coffee filters.

I had a pretty fun night last night. I went to the Black Bird and saw my good friend Martin play drums in the band The Miss and with Andy Camp. Slack Jaw was also playing and another band who's name I didn't catch. A very nice evening of rock. Lots of kids came to see Slack Jaw. They have been around for quite a while. They sounded pretty good. Martin was amazing as usual. K stayed home with the boys and made a cake for a cake bake off competition that we will be going to tonight.

Hey, I made it through my first week of school. So far so good my friends. I think I will do quite well at the Art Institute. I evaluated my classes during the bus ride home and came up with some conclusions. In order of difficulty I made a list. Not really difficulty I guess, but classes I will have to stay on top of or I will have trouble. First on the list as most difficult will be math. Second I am going to have to say will be the survey of media technology. Not because it's really that hard but because there was a different structure to the class and a bit of lawlessness amongst the students that made it hard for me to concentrate I don't know, will keep an eye on that one. Next would be my web design class. Then the next two are pretty much tied for easiest but I'll say image manipulation will be next and then typography for the easiest class because the teacher seems to be more laid back. My favorites so far are web design and typography. I learned a lot yesterday in the typography class.

04-14-03 Monday 7:07 AM
Hey people! Welcome to the start of a new school week. Hooray! Monday is here again! Mondays are so lame. How was your weekend? Ours was pretty okay. I wrapped the weekend up with a bowling game and burgers with my brother and dad last night. That was fun. I didn't score very high though. I lost both games. I think the weekend needed to be a day longer. I almost made it through my to do list, but not quite. Oh well, my midweek weekend starts tomorrow so I can keep working on my list then.

I stayed ahead of my homework pretty well. I really got into the middle of my math homework yesterday and realized that I will need to do that homework sooner in the week and spread it out over a couple of days instead of waiting to do it all on Sunday. It didn't look like as much on the syllabus, but once I started, it just kept going and going. Tons of little questions mixed in. I got it taken care of though, don't you worry.

Spirited Away is coming out on DVD finally here in America tomorrow. Man that is one cool movie, people. You all should rent it if you get the chance. Gorgeous animations. I think I would like to buy it. Hmmm I wonder if we have any of our tax return money left? I should treat myself shouldn't I? I haven't got myself anything nice in quite a while have I?

Well, I think we are in for an awesome week. I hope the sun comes out and hangs out with us for a few days at least. The one thing I must get done this week is my Transmission West competition piece. It was tormenting me all weekend. I'll have it finished by this Thursday. I've got a good feeling about this week though. I think that something good will happen for you and I this week. Mark my words.

TOP^

04-15-03 Tuesday
Today is the day! *HAPPY BIRTHDAY PHILLIP!*
Phillip is 1 year old today. Nice work little buddy. Looking good. He is laying down on the floor next to me chewing a bone right now. Wow. The little guy has been on the planet now for one whole year. Time flies. Born on tax day. We are planning a birthday party for him on Saturday. Don't tell him though, because it's a surprise.

Boy oh boy his brother Pierre was sick this morning. He must have eaten something bad. He puked in several different spots around the house. Come on kitty! Enough already. This sick thing and keeping us awake is really getting old. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to take care of a human child, knowing how difficult my 2 animal children are. At least with the animal children you can put them in a room and shut door for a while to get your rest.

There's quite a bit I would like to do today, so I better get to it. The top thing on my list to work on today is the Transmission West competition piece. I really have to buckle down and crank that puppy out. A few hours of solid, hard work on it will do me good. After I do that I need to get to some homework. There's a seminar, guest speaker at the school later today that I want to go to and a multimedia meeting tomorrow night that I would like to attend. Also tomorrow night Notwist is play at Berbati's. I'm not sure if I'm going to that yet. I really should though. Maybe I'll listen to the CD right now and that will help me with my decision.

04-17-03 Thursday
Holy shit people! The Notwist last night was absolutely amazing! Actually the correct term would probably be The Notwist this morning. They played a very long set. I am very tired right now. I have to go to my basic web design class very soon now. Goodness though, what a great night of rock and roll! Lots of computer laptop work mixed with the traditional rock. Peoples that is so what I need to do with the Double Darren work. It can totally work! Those Notwist boys had so many different things going on at once that it was hard to figure out where the sounds were coming from. Perfect combination of electronics and live parts I thought. I can't believe that I was thinking about not going. If Notwist is coming to your town soon, then go see them.

Ah yes. It has been a pretty packed couple of days. I have been working on school projects and contest projects and that seems to be taking up quite a bit of my time. I went to a guest speaker talk on Tuesday that was quite good. Diane Fenster. I was really impressed with her work. She is a digital artist and photographer. She had some really nice pieces and was telling some interesting stories. That's one thing I've noticed that I am way into this time around with my schooling is hearing all of the different life stories and influences that people have had. So cool. I've been a good note taker lately and have been getting names that these speakers have been calling out as influences.

Last night before the Notwist show, I went to the Devgroup NW meeting. Pretty sweet. Why the heck hadn't I gone there before? The evenings topic was blogs. Yes you know, that's what this here Noodle journal is. Kind of interesting hearing someone talk about it. Nick Finck was the dude that gave the talk. He really had some good things to say about where the power of blogs were taking us. It made me really appreciate and not take for granted what I have going on here and the eyes that are looking this way. One thing though that they always talk about when discussions of blogging come up, is linking. People like to tune into blogs because they can get links to other pages and topics that they may like. What the Hell? Should I be doing your work for you? You guys know I like Twin Peaks! Go and read about it and watch it on your own. Don't wait for me to tell you. Putting all of the links in of stuff that I like would take a long time. I figure that I'll just talk about the shit that I think is cool and then you can cut and paste it into google and find your own links. A couple of the web journals I tune into don't really do the link thing. Moby's and Douglas Rushkoff don't have very many links but they still dole out interesting nuggets that you can investigate on your own. I like the way I'm doing it here and don't think I'll be loading this page up with butt loads of links. I do think it is so cool getting email from people that stumble on to the Noodle journal from places and connections that I wouldn't have imagined and quite enjoyed hearing an analysis of the whole blogging fad.

Oh my goodness. I am going to be so tired in class today. Oh well, I'll rest this afternoon.

04-18-03 Friday
Good morning everybody. How are you all doing? The weekend is almost here folks! This week went by pretty fast didn't it? Oh my, sorry about that last entry. I was off my rocker there briefly. I think it was due to sleep deprivation. I feel better now. I got some rest. I do need some coffee right now actually. Hold on won't you, while I go make some? There's no school today. They are calling it institute day or in service day, but I think in reality it's called Good Friday.

So what should I do today? I have quite a bit to do. I started some chores last night that I need to finish up this morning. We are getting the house in shape for Phillip's birthday party tomorrow evening. To her credit, K has done a large portion of the cleaning and preparing. I'll be in charge of the things to do while she's at work. I think that will be fun. It will be nice seeing some of you that we haven't seen in a while. Phillip will be quite pleased.

I am going to make a potato salad for the party. Yes that's right, me cooking. Potato salad is one of my favorite foods and I discovered how easy it was to make a few weeks ago. Now I am working on the perfect recipe. This batch I am going to try using regular potatoes, sweet potatoes and red potatoes. Blue cheese, onions, mustard, pepper, mayonnaise and pickles are all mandatory items. Celery will be included, but it must be chopped down into smaller slices then last time. Oh yes, and hard boiled eggs.

Once I get the house straightened up, I really need to hit the books. Staying up with the required reading has been a challenge. I must have not done any homework last time I was in school. I don't remember all of this reading. Don't get me wrong, I totally love it. You know though, now that I think about it, there hasn't been that much homework, I just have been busy doing other things like making potato salad and laying on the couch. This term has been good in getting my feet wet and I think I'm getting a handle on that whole time management thing. I'm kind of glad I'm not working now, I wouldn't know where to fit it in.

TOP^

04-20-03 Sunday
Happy Easter Sunday to you all! How are you doing? I'm doing pretty well this morning. Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day. I wonder if today will be sunny? We don't have much planned for today. I think we will be going to Mr. Baptist's house a little bit later for an Easter dinner.

The little guy Phillip had a wonderful birthday party last night. Thanks to all who attended and brought the puppy toys! It was very nice seeing everybody. Phillip played so hard and got SO tired. We should have a party for him everyday so that our guests can wear him out. Phillip looked like he had a hangover when I took him out to go potty this morning. It was a very fun party.

One of the presents that Phillip got from his uncle Matt was a copy of the new Radiohead album that isn't out yet. "Hail to the Thief". Oh my goodness people, it is so good! Those guys. They continually have excellent albums. I heard that a bootleg of the new album was floating around the internet and was going to try to avoid listening to it until the official version came out, but with it sitting in front of me I quickly changed my mind. It is very good. I will probably buy the real version when it comes out so there's no harm hearing it early right? I need to listen to it more closely away from the noise of a puppy party.

I'll be taking my homework with me to Mr. Baptist's house today. I have quite a bit of reading to do. I was totally going to try to do my math homework before Sunday, but look, here we are. I'll be doing my math on Sunday again. It's not my fault that the week went by so fast. ARGH! I'm totally going to do my next weeks math homework before next Sunday.

Hey, is there a new Simpsons tonight? I hope so. I'll check. Last weeks episode was awesome. I had it taped and actually watched it again yesterday.

04-22-03 Tuesday 11:13 AM
Yo! Yo! What up? How has the beginning of your week gone so far? It's been about par for course here. I had a pretty good Monday. School went well. Today is the start of another weekend for me. It's kind of rainy out today. It doesn't seem to be that cold outside right now though. Have any of you heard what the weather is suppose to be like this week? Ah yes, I slept in a bit this morning to catch up on my rest. I feel great today. The lovely K has made some coffee for us. She is currently manning the other computer right now. I think I am going to get a cup and get this day started right now!

I have quite a lot on my plate for today. I'm feeling good that It is all going to get finished. One new addition to the list is a rock poster for the young Martin and his Transmission West crew. They are playing on Friday at the Red and Black cafe. I kind of thought you were playing at the Ash Street Saloon though? I should probably find out before I finish up the posters. I've got a pretty good idea I think. I want to do something this time around that you can instantly see from your car driving down the street. We'll see. I think a really strong image may be more important than being able to read it from your car. If you like what you see then you may stop and read what the sign says right?

April is beginning to wind down now, so I can't loose track of the time. That Adobe design competition deadline is still a little ways off, but it's sneaking ever closer. I'm planning on spending a good portion of time today working on it. It may seem like I have been working on it for a long time the way I always talk about it, but I think I've probably only spent 12 hours on it so far. It's really almost done, I'm just stuck on this one section. It should look pretty good when it's done.

To round out the day and for the rest of the week I will be spending time with my homework. I've got quite a bit of reading to do. I'm still not falling behind, but I mustn't rest for a second on the education. I must fight, fight FIGHT! There is an early math midterm next week. Sucks. So far math has been alright, but now I am reminded again why I don't like math. Those tests! What the heck? If my teacher wants a math anxiety free class like he says, why is he giving tests? I don't know. Well, I must keep at it and pass this math BS. Don't give up Noodle, just study real hard. I need to borrow a better calculator from my brother this week.

That's pretty much it for today. I think we have a couple of events to attend this week like the Transmission West show, and a Last Thursday art show. I think I will try to keep my activities other than work to a minimum and alcohol free so that I can stay sharp for the Noodle battles this week.

04-24-03 Thursday
I thought I would leave you kids a quick early morning post before heading off to school. I don't know though, I'm pretty sleepy right now. Maybe I should go put some coffee in me before typing. There has been quite a bit of rain around these parts lately. I hope to see the Sun one of these days soon.

A mighty congratulations goes out to the lovely Lianne who got the keys to her very own house this week. Woo hoo! We were over there yesterday checking it out. K helped with some of the cleaning while I sat on the floor in a corner and worked on my homework. It has an awesome fenced in yard that Phillip ran himself stupid in. It's a nice house and it will be interesting having a new location and surroundings to add to the Noodle history. Nice work!

Well people, there are many Noodle works of art hanging up all around the city. Perhaps one is even as close as outside your door hanging on a telephone pole. The boys in the band went out and blanketed the town with their concert flyer. I think it turned out pretty good. I'm getting pretty close to that whole idea of being able to see it from your car I think. I would have had it perfect this time if I would have lightened the back more. Yes, please go out to a telephone post near you, see the poster and then come to the show on Friday.

K went and saw the Cat Power concert last night. She said it was pretty good. I stayed home and didn't do anything. It was definitely K's time to see a show. She had missed the big ones like the Notwist and Interpol shows so she is beginning to rectify that situation by getting to the concerts. I'm not too familiar with Cat Power. I know I've heard a couple of her / their songs.

I'm beginning to think that I am watching too much TV again. I know that I have wrote about this topic here before, maybe last year, but I think it's time to revisit it. You know I have been trying to pay attention to my time management now that I am in school again. Maybe it's the closer attention that is causing me to freak out about how there aren't enough hours in the day. Where the heck is all my time going? Watching 1 to 4 hours of TV every night can't be helping, can it? I've got to cut it out. I could be working on homework, reading or working on my contest piece during that time. Maybe if I only turn it on when my stories are on, instead of turning it on and looking for anything to watch. Maybe instead of turning it on every evening to watch Simpsons reruns, I should wait for the new episodes on Sunday. I don't know. It really is an age old dilemma and I'm sure I will be struggling with it for many years to come.

TOP^

04-25-03 Friday
Hello! Oh dang, I didn't leave myself very much time for typing this morning. I've still got to get ready and finish this giant cup of coffee before I go. I missed it once again! We had another earthquake here yesterday. It was a little 3.5 earthquake around 12:30 PM. I think I was on the bus in transit. K felt it though. Crazy. I didn't feel the last one a few years ago either. I was standing at work talking then and someone said "Hey did you feel it?". No I didn't. Come on do it again. No, actually you know it's a good thing I don't feel these little trimmers. That's all I need now is for my house to fall down in an earthquake. Growing up I had a friend who's parents wanted to move out of Portland because they thought that a giant earthquake was coming to destroy Portland and swallow up all of the sinners. Knock on wood that that one doesn't happen. All of the news stations are going to have news stories for the rest of the week on earthquakes, emergency preparedness and "The Big One".

So yesterday I got a lot of work done and watched TV. See now, how does that work? I still don't have a handle on this time thing. I didn't do any chores or yard work though. Maybe that's where the time came from. I need to get it worked out to where I can do chores, watch TV, work on the projects and do homework all in one day.

I had to write 2 papers yesterday and I found it to be quick and easy thanks I'm sure to all of the exercise writing I get here. Thanks everybody for strengthening my writing muscle! I also noticed that I found it very easy to fill up space and go on and on about nothing at all. COOL.

Oh man, I've got to go. I'm going to be late if I don't get a move on.

04-27-03 Sunday 10:42 AM
Good weekend morning to you. Doing pretty good here. I smell a fresh pot of coffee brewing in the other room that I must go investigate. It's kind of wet and grey outside this morning. It does have a hint of the first signs that the Sun may poke through today. I really need to mow the lawn but it has been wet for a week. I think I scratched left eye sometime last night. It's kind of puffy and itchy.

I have a math midterm test tomorrow, so I have been trying to study as hard as I can. We have a practice test that we can study from, but some of it seems unfamiliar to me. It almost feels like I missed a class. I didn't though so I'm not sure what's going on. I got some good studying in last night so I should be okay. I hope. Oh man.

Have I mentioned that I am really enjoying my typography class? I am. It has been very interesting to me. I think I will try to take all of the typography courses. We have been studying the history of type. It goes along well with the history of art. I have been studying the surrealists on my own but now I am beginning to think that I need to look closer at the futurists and the Dada movement. Who the heck is this Wassily Kadinsky guy? He demands some closer investigation.

I think we are going to Mr. Baptist's brother's 70th birthday party today. I hope it goes fast. I really should be doing math homework instead. Oh well I guess it's important that the Noodles are represented at the event. Hopefully I 'll have some time tonight to finish up my final studying.

04-29-03 Tuesday
Good morning everyone! Oh my goodness. I can't even believe it. The Sun is out this morning! Yesterday I was mowing the lawn and the rain came down right as I finished and continued on for most of the night. I'm looking at the lawn now and it looks quite handsome. A friend inquired about my dandelion situation this year. I've decided whatever happens is fine when it comes to those yellow headed devils. Last year here in the journal, I went on and on about how I hated those dandelions. I'm going to have a more relaxed approach this year. I think If I keep the grass down really short every week then it will look okay. I probably will let it grow out a bit when the summer weather hits. I don't want a dust bowl of course.

Yes, so here we are, Tuesday. The start of my second weekend. School was good yesterday. I think my math test went alright. I hope I got an okay score. I wasn't totally lost while I was taking it, so that is good. The next test I have to study for is in my basic web design class on Thursday. The instructor said a big part of this midterm will be seeing how well you memorized the html codes. That's pretty cool. I think one of these days I should redo this whole Noodle site over and write it all out by hand. October is the scheduled redo month, but maybe it will be sooner.

I've got quite a list of things to work on today as usual. I'm feeling pretty good about the day so far. I have a time management seminar to go to tonight. Yep, you read that right. It seems that others have been battling with this time thing also. How do we juggle all of these responsibilities while in school? Hopefully they will have some good suggestions that I haven't thought of yet. Even if they don't cover anything new it will be good to hear someone state the obvious again.

So my grandparents are going to be in town this weekend. Up from California. It will be good to see them. They are in town to see my dad perform in the spring play at his church. On Saturday I will be baby sitting my nephews and the grandparents said they would be there to help. I will be able to have a nice visit with them then. I will have to consider their visit though when I'm working on my weekend homework time management.

Ha ha, gosh, enough already with the time stuff, Noodle! K thinks I need to relax more. I think she may be right. That is easier said than done though. I've got worries people! Actually in the grand scheme of things I don't have much to worry about at all. Lots of people on the planet have it far worse than me.

Speaking of relaxing, this just came to me again. Lately I have been having another batch of bad dreams. I'm beginning to think that it may be coming from falling asleep in front of the TV. There's that evil TV again! One I had the night before last was too horrible to mention again. I will say it did involve the term "Running around like a chicken with it's head cut off". No there weren't any chickens in the dream. The dream I had last night was that I was a marine over in Iraq involved with the current clean up. We were breaking open one of Saddam's safes and taking all of the gold out of it. It was definitely like a scene out of that Gulf War 1 movie, "Three Kings". It wasn't really that scary, it just had a really sinister feel to it. I think I did get shot in the arm by some roving bandits though.

04-30-03 Wednesday
Well folks, so much for April! Gone just as soon as it started huh? Hold on one second, I hear the microwave beeping. My leftover coffee is done. Yeah, April really wasn't that bad of a month. Is there a 31 in April? Let me see. Nope, this is it. The last day of April. Alright! Hurray for May. Yesterday there was quite the thunder and lightning storm here. It was pretty cool. We don't get very many dramatic storms like that in these parts. Lots of lightning flashes. The rain came down in bucket fulls also. It wasn't that cold yesterday and it was sunny the whole day until 6 when the storm started. I do believe that it is going to be sunny this weekend.

I went to my time management discussion last night. It was actually very helpful. The school counselor lady that was running it had some good suggestions. One thing I think that would help me is a daily planner. There was some good thoughts on those during the meeting. I usually have a to do list, if not on paper then in my head, but the daily planner scheme works more at structuring the time during the day. At 9 I will work on the journal, at 10 I will check my email and surf the web. One thing that she said that I thought was good was to have a daily planner, a weekly planner and a quarter planner. A person could really go manic with all that planning huh? One would need to schedule some time to do all of the planning. I think that a daily and weekly plan is a pretty good start for me. Today I have a to do list going and I'm also going to see how much time everything takes me. One thing that I know already is a time burglar is email and web surfing. I need to cut those 2 things down to once or twice a day.

See though, this journal here is almost like a daily planner. I pretty much go through a list of things I need to do during the day. Gosh is this journal really that boring? I need to spice it up a bit huh? No, I don't need to spice things up. I'm sure something interesting will come along on it's own. Give it a few days and something strange will have happened or a new rant will surface.

I listened to an internet radio station that wasn't mine yesterday and heard some good stuff. That is one of the many cool things about the internet, all of the new music and performers that you can be introduced to. Yesterday I wrote down a few names of bands whose songs I really liked on that internet station. A band called Iron and Wine had a cool song called "upward Over the Mountain". Adorable had the song "Summer Side". An act called the Postal Service had a song called "Such Great Heights". I need to investigate those kids closer during my daily allotment of web surfing time.

I really don't need any more music though because I have decide to only listen to the new Radiohead CD over and over again. It is very good. At first I was like, yeah this is pretty good, it sounds like a Radiohead album, but then I listened again a few more times and was blown away. It is quite the tear jerker, gut puncher. I have been thinking of it with the current state of the World as a backdrop, and picture a lost child who is wandering around a European boardwalk on the ocean looking for her parents. Lots of good sounds and elements to it. I think I'm going to listen to it again right now.

TOP^