The Further Office Adventures of Chaz Yorick

Too much to do

2008-03-24T16:26:45Z

Between Video projects, business projects, searching for paying projects or jobs, answering correspondense, and real estate challenges, I have got a TO DO list longer than my arm.

And instead of being on my arm, the list is actually split up onto several scraps of paper.

News Story - Winter Park Sidewalk Arts Fest

2008-03-15T00:49:57Z

Central Florida News . TV

www.centralfloridanews.tv

We went out to the Winter Park Sidewalk Arts Fest today.

Check out the story. And check out the Event. The event runs Friday March 14th through Sunday March 16th

Megacon 2008

2008-03-06T17:20:35Z

Central Florida News . TV

www.centralfloridanews.tv

This is a high energy local online news organization that is just launching. Check the site out Friday March 7th (tomorrow) starting around 1pm and see us streaming live from Megacon 2008. We will be there shooting one story, but perhaps shooting several stories. Watch live behind the scenes as we put together interviews and shoot local news features that will end up on the site.

Video video everywhere

2008-03-06T17:16:36Z

Today I am editing the video that I shot a week or so ago with another poet. (see last post)
The deadline to submit poetry videos to the bordersmedia.com poetry contest is tomorrow.

Finished reading my novel-so-far and continued writing. That is really good news.

Yesterday I shot, edited, and finished the first news story to be posted on a local online news site that I am working with.

The word for today is VIDEO

2008-02-29T14:26:11Z

Didn't get around to reading through my novel-so-far last night. Need to do that before I can continue writing.
(too many priorites. too many projects)
Today I'm about to shoot poetry videos with a local poet so that we have material to submit to the bordersmedia.com contest. Think the deadline is less than a week away.

Later I have a meeting to organize the internship program for centralfloridanews.tv and to discuss what stories we want to shoot at Megacon 2008.

Busy day.

Jumpstart

2008-02-28T19:14:56Z

Maybe I can find something to write again and maybe I can't.

Maybe writing here is just an excuse not to work on the novel.

Yes, the novel. That's what this is about. Jumpstarting the novel that I already started. I need to finish. It seems challenging, but I'm probably making a bigger deal about the challenge than there really should be.

So here I am with 12,000 words. I think the story should be about 36,000 words. That would give me about 120 pages. The story seems right on track for that to be the right number of words to tell the story that needs to be told.

I need to read the whole thing aloud so I remember what the story is. I've got someone reading through it already and making notes about sections that I need to elaborate on. I've already got about a page of notes about things I need to explain better or add detail to.

Giant Spider Terrorist Attacks NASA - news story

2007-12-17T17:54:30Z

Found the raw NASA footage and had to put together a news story for it. Hope you enjoy. I know I enjoyed making it.

Nanowrimo

2007-11-01T17:51:23Z

I need to start writing. I know what I'm going to write about. I just need to get started. This is me at zero words.

For those who don't know. Nanowrimo is National Novel Writers Month. The point is to write a 50,000 word novel within the month of November. If you are up to the challenge and want to know more you can still sign up. (its free) check out www.nanowrimo.org

The politics of Open Mic Nights

2007-05-19T01:43:56Z

Had another great week at "Wednesday Open Words" at Austin Coffee again this week. Another record turnout. 18 readers.

This is not meant to brag. I'm doing a lot of things right, but I also have several other people working with me behind the scenes making everything work fantastically. I think God is even on my side, so I should probably cut down on some of the dirty poems, hmmmm. lol

I never realized I would enjoy hosting an open mic night as much as I am. The poets and audience that have been attending have been great. I couldn't ask for a better mix of talent and styles. I find myself constantly suggesting other venues that might also fit their styles. I still see myself as part of a bigger community and I feel that if I can plug poets into the larger community then there is a better chance that they will get hooked on the scene and keep comming out. That means attending my own night as well.

Since I entered the ranks of Open Mic Hosts I've noticed that people have been feeding me a lot more rumors than they used to. This is also causing some of my friends to get bent out of shape.

1. I find rumors amusing so feel free to keep feeding me them.

2. I don't put too much stock in most of them.

3. I am at peace with everyone I know. There are no battles going on between me and anyone else.

4. Since I am not bent out of shape by any rumors, neither should any of my friends. It isn't worth the energy. (especially since there is nothing that is worth paying any attention to)

5. I support all the other nights and venues, even the ones that conflict with my own. I know that this town is big enough for multiple venues as long as we work to expand the base. Besides, not everyone has the same tastes.

6. I've already seen how rumors surround other hosts and also how other hosts handle rumors.

7. I've also seen what works and what doesn't work when it comes to hosting a night. (Big respect for the other hosts I know)

Consequently I move forward with confidence. I realize that we all have a lot to offer and I for one will not be bogged down by any trivial drama.

Big Love for all of you. You are all my friends.

Frog Legs

2007-05-05T21:13:06Z

I ate frog legs for the first time yesterday. I everyone who I’ve mentioned this to has had the same response. “Did they taste like chicken?”

No. Not really.

It looked a lot like chicken, but it tasted a lot more like fish. Like fish meat connected to chicken bones.

I don't make the news. . . but I wouldn't mind giving it a try.

2007-04-23T19:14:05Z

A local news station had an open call for a traffic reporter position.
A friend of mine noticed it and said, "You need to go. You need to do it."
I was able to clear my day and I went. The audition could have gone better, but I'm also my own harshest critic. I think I was fairly energetic which is good.

Too many cooks makes a wonderful stew

2007-04-19T15:27:02Z

Last night Wednesday Open Words went really well.

I spoke with Russ ahead of time. Russ brings organizes the "Orlando Poetry Group" which has been meeting on the third Wednesday of each month. In the past Russ has often hosted the entire third Wednesday himself.

The big thing I can point out is, "wow, I play well with others"

It was a great night. I also couldn't stop being amused about the fact that we had more hosts last night than a lot of poetry nights have readers. It was a good turnout. 15 readers, yeah, definately a good night.

Good News Update

2007-04-17T15:59:59Z

Great things are happening for me artistically.
It is funny how often it seems like everything happens all at once. (good or bad)

My great news is this.
I’m keeping super busy with my art.
As I approach my third week hosting Wednesday Open Words at Austin Coffee (see the flyer below), I have been given the privilege of showing my artwork on the big wall. When the good things happen they really happen big.

My artwork, acorns and all, will be hanging at Austin Coffee from April 15, 2007 until April 25th, 2007.

-------------
Wednesday Open Words

Wednesday Open Words is the Wednesday open mic poetry night at Austin Coffee & Film.

Energetic and Friendly Co-Hosts Chaz Yorick and Claire Wright provide an inclusive atmosphere where first time readers and seasoned poets alike can come together and share their words.

Read your original poetry or the poetry of your favorite author.
Read an excerpt from a short story or novel that you’ve written.
Entertain people with your political rant.
Enlighten everyone with your persuasive speech.

WHERE: Austin Coffee & Film 929 W. Fairbanks Avenue Winter Park, FL 32879
WHEN: Wednesdays at 8:30pm – 11pm

Farewell Wills Pub

2007-02-08T02:43:02Z

I took these pictures today.

This was one of the first places I read poetry.

Farewell Wills Pub

Here Come the Christmas Bonuses

2006-12-22T19:23:12Z

It is funny. Christmas bonuses are being handed out differently this year. Instead of gathering us all into the common area and handing us cards, we are being called into Mr. Pinkshirt’s office one by one. Once we get out bonuses we are able to go home early for the day. I hope I’m not the last one. I can’t wait to get out for Christmas. We get Monday and Tuesday off next week. I’d goof off until my name is called but they started blocking several internet sites, including myspace for the past couple weeks. I'm a little surprised it took them so long to block myspace. So many people have wasted so many hours on that site.

I guess I’ll just go talk with everyone else. No one is really getting anything done today.

Who Likes Day Old Donuts?

2006-12-22T16:14:40Z

Last night left work with the leftover donuts.
Everyone else had left and they were just sitting there in the common area.
My line of thinking was that no one would eat them the next day. Day old donuts are not the wonderful treat that fresh donuts are.
I took them to my friend Miss Suri’s house. She wasn’t there, but her little brother was. He was really excited about getting the donuts. I had already eaten two in the car on the way over. Realizing that they would not eat more than 8 donuts I drove home with a third donut in my hand. I slept well, realizing that I had made people happy and kept from wasting delicious donuts at the same time.

This morning when I came into work, I was verbally attacked. Not because I was two and a half hours late to work. I called in about that. But because I had taken all the leftover donuts home.

“We wanted those donuts.” Complained Buffy the Twiggy Stick Secretary.

Sally jumped in by saying, “Yeah, they’re better the next day.”

“You like day old donuts?” I questioned as if waiting for the hidden camera to come popping out.

They agreed with further complains of me taking the donuts without asking everyone’s consent.

“Ok, I’ll have to bring you all in day-old donuts.” I admitted as I walked back to my cubicle.

"Enough Christmas"

2006-12-20T19:04:45Z

At first I thought that Elle really liked Christmas. She did a fantastic job of decorating the office. If you don’t like Christmas, she did a horrible job by decorating the office. There is a tree and lights and Christmas balls hanging from the ceiling.

Today Elle yelled at Lady Boss, “Can I take the Christmas stuff down now?” It seems that the point was not really to decorate the office for Christmas as much as it was to do something other than the normal flow of work. Then again it might be that it has become obvious that Elle is a little obsessive when it comes to people making the Christmas balls hanging from the ceiling wave back and forth. I like to give them each a whack and start them swinging as I walk from one side of the office to the other. This drives Elle nuts.

"Angry Christmas to you all!"

2006-12-13T21:19:46Z

It isn’t Christmas without a Boring Office Christmas Party at Elle’s house.
It isn’t a party at Elle’s house without Elle complaining about something afterward.
This time it is minor as she shouts at Buffy the Twiggy Stick Secretary, “You left scuff marks all over my floor. Everyone else did a good job of not making a mess, but you left big black scuff marks from your boots.”

Everyone loves a Boring Office Christmas Party

2006-12-13T13:49:40Z

Showed up late to the Boring Office Christmas Party this past weekend.
It felt good.
I showed up about two hours late. I didn’t call to say I was running late. I just showed up two hours after it was scheduled to start.
It felt good.
What were they going to do? They can’t write me up for being late. They can’t make me burn personal time.

Mr. Pinkshirt had already been drinking by the time I got there. Consequently he was as cheerful as if it was his own birthday. The fact that it was a Christmas party might make that blasphemous. I’m not sure, because I don’t care enough to put too much thought into it. One thing I am sure about is that Mr. Pinkshirt is about as good at singing as I am at getting to work on time. Randal set up a game system with Karaoke and almost everyone sang.

I had thought about bringing a porn video for the gift exchange. I thought that would be really funny. Especially since we were planning on having a Chinese gift exchange. I wonder if that is a racist term and I don’t know it. Anyway, it is good that I didn’t because we actually just did a passing game with the gifts so when you finally ended up with a gift you knew who was the person who bought it. I bought a box of Christmas chocolates. And I got candle holders in the exchange.

The party was actually pretty fun. It occurred to me that I’ve spent a bunch of time with these people. I don’t mean that as a good thing. I don’t mean that as a bad thing. Just a thing.

The Job that Stole Christmas

2006-12-09T02:15:11Z

There is so much I should have said. Work has been full of little adventures, but the past two weeks have caused me too much trouble to get online or be off-task for enough time for me to properly convey my trauma.

I felt the need to mention the upcoming trama though. The trama called Boreing Office Christmas Party. Boring Office Christmas Party takes place tomorrow night at 7pm. I need a gift for the gift exchange. I couldn't come up with an excuse good enough to get me out of it.

8 to 5 with one hour lunch. . . usually

2006-11-28T13:14:10Z

The nice thing about my job is that I never have to come in early or stay late.

Today I had to come in early. Turns out that I needed to set up the birthday stuff in John’s cubicle. This meant I had to get in early before anyone else got here. It was pretty easy to set everything up, but it just occurred to me that I didn’t buy a birthday cake either. Maybe I can do that before lunch. Hope I’ve got enough money to get me through today.

$10 for a cake
$15 for my lunch at a place I’m not sure I’ll enjoy.

Maybe I can get out early for lunch by going on the bank run with Randal.

Casual Wednesday

2006-11-22T15:04:14Z

Today was a good day for our department. It also was a tribute to Mr. Pinkshirt’s sense of kindness. Friday’s are normally casual days. Today is Wednesday but it is the last work day of the week. Would it be a casual day or not? That was the question.

Mr. Pinkshirt said yes. So today we are wearing jeans. The rest of our attire is really the same as it would be everyday. Not so much because the rest is formal. It is more like the whole quality of our attire has slowly slid downward over the past couple years. Also the shoes we wear are the same as any other day. This is not because we wear casual shoes. This is because Lady Boss has always had an issue with shoes. There is no casual day as far as shoes are concerned with Lady Boss. You must always wear dress shoes. I had all black semi-dress shoes at one point and she flipped out because they looked a little too casual. Now I just always wear plain black shoes. Nothing fancy. Just cheap black work shoes. I miss my Velcro sneakers.

In the next department over, Lenny the HR Director flatly said, “No, it’s not a Friday. You can’t wear jeans.”

Today everyone from their department is noticing how everyone in our department is wearing jeans and griping about the fact that there is no standard policy for Thanksgiving-eve attire. Sucks to be them.

Today Mr. Pinkshirt is on my good side. Lady Boss on the other hand is on my bad side and is harassing me again about needing to use personal time for yesterday and today since I was 3 minutes late each day.

Lunch Planning

2006-11-21T16:32:28Z

Somehow I ended up being in charge of scheduling John’s Birthday lunch. I think it is just that it was still on the calendar that way from before he left our department.

His first choice was a small Italian restaurant. Mr. Pinkshirt quickly vetoed that idea since it was where he picked last year. Lenny the HR Director didn’t care, but I don’t think he plans on attending anyway. It was out of character for Lenny the HR Director to even have lunch with us yesterday at the holiday potluck.

John’s second choice was an ocean side restaurant in the next county over. It would have taken us an hour to drive there and Mr. Pinkshirt quickly vetoed that idea realizing that he wasn’t going to let someone take his staff away from the office that long. Especially after my birthday lunch second choice ended up taking us to the far side of the city and took up too much time.

It finally was decided that we would go to a Cuban restaurant that Mr. Pinkshirt likes. At least we wouldn’t have to worry about him vetoing this choice even though it is reasonably far away. At least we should all be able to afford the food on the menu. I set the lunch up as a meeting request and made it mandatory for some people and optional for others. I decided to make it mandatory for people I would like to see there and optional for people that I didn’t really want to show up. It doesn’t seem to be having much impact on the responses. The people in my department are accepting the invitation, but the HR department and the department down the hall are less than excited about it.

Holiday Potluck - cleanup

2006-11-20T20:47:00Z

Luckily it looks like everyone learned from last time. It looks like this time the potluck food will not be left to sit for several days to rot on the table. This time it looks like everything is being cleaned up.

Buffy the Twiggy Stick Secretary says, “Where is my pie?”

Her question is answered with silence.

“I brought two apple pies and I don’t think either of them got cut into. Where did they go?” she continued.

“I took one.” said Valerie.

“They weren’t even cut.” Replied Buffy the Twiggy Stick Secretary.

“I know. But lunch was over and so I took it. I like apple pie. I want them” Valerie defended.

“Those are for everyone. If you want to have it for tea time, that’s fine, but you can’t just take it home.” Said Buffy the Twiggy Stick Secretary in an agitated manner.

“Yes I can. I want them.” Valerie defended.

“If anyone should take it home it should be me.” Buffy the Twiggy Stick Secretary explained, “I’m the one who bought them!”

Holiday Potluck - part 3

2006-11-20T19:31:37Z

We all sat at the table. That took a while for us to do. More than 20 people all crowded into a department that can’t hold that many people. Especially since most of the floor space was taken up by tables. Tables for food and tables for us to sit at. Lenny the HR Director and Mr. Pinkshirt ended up having to sit in the last open seats. The last open seats were right next to each other. This would have normally caused conflict between Lenny the HR Director and Mr. Pinshirt. Today there would be no conflict, because sitting across from them was one of the members of upper management. I think he was sent to impart corporate bonding and support for the potluck, but also to make sure that the potluck only lasted for a reasonable amount of time.

The funny thing about potlucks is that you never know what you are going to like and what is going to taste bad. I sat next to Randal. Randal is easy enough for me to distract. I didn’t even need to distract him though. I would wait for him to get into a conversation with Valerie and then I would quickly and discreetly scrape the foul tasting items from my plate onto his. He was so engrossed in his conversation that he never seemed to notice.

Lady Boss asked, “Who got the wishbone for the turkey?”

I was thinking that it probably went in the same place as the skin. I’ve never seen a turkey have so little skin. I think Valerie through away the skin and most of the bones after being criticized for the way she was carving the turkey. In the end the turkey turned into a pile of shredded turkey meat with no bones and no skin. Just an even mix of white and dark meat in small strands and pieces.

Elle shouted from the opposite end of the table from where Valerie was, “Yeah Valerie, where’d the wishbone go!” she meant to just point out Valerie’s poor carving job but then got offended when Valerie didn’t respond so she stood up, “Hey! Valerie, I said where the hell is the wishbone.”

“I’m not listening to Elle, because I’m far too busy looking at something interesting outside the window.” Valerie taunted back.

“What are you looking at!” snapped Elle.

I could tell that there was nothing outside worth looking at. I was sitting right in front of the window so if there was anything worth looking at I would have been looking at it. The speculations began though.

Buffy the Twiggy Stick Secretary said, “She’s probably looking at the cars.”

Elle shouted, “Randal, what’s she looking at?”

“I’m not getting into this argument.” Randal said.

Lady Boss chimed in, “It’s probable college students walking by from the college down the street.”

I finally decided to say something both to amuse myself and to put the argument to an end in one inappropriate statement so I pointed out the window and said, “She’s watching those two cats doing it in the parking lot.” My answer was very convincing, very inappropriate and everyone who heard it turned red. There had been no cats making sweet love in the parking lot, but those who couldn’t see outside couldn’t tell for certain if I was making it up or not. Most of them thought I might be, but were more taken back that I would actually say that while everyone was eating whether it was true or not.

Elle panicked realizing that I could get the entire department in trouble if I continued since she knew if she heard my comment then the member of upper management who was sitting next to her definitely could hear the comment. She was waving her arms as if to signal me to not say anything more.

Mr. Pinkshirt said, “What did he say?”

I replied, “I’m not going to repeat it. It was said for shock value and it worked. It won’t work a second time.” After that I just got up for a second helping of the foods that I hadn’t scraped onto Randal’s plate.