Earl Yorke

…and now I won’t have to for quite some time. I’m getting ahead of myself though… let’s start at the begining:

A couple of weeks ago I sent my broken laptop back in to Dell for some ridiculously over-priced repairs. Needless to say, I was hurting as far as the money thing went, but it was necessary for me to have the work done.

I’ve been keeping a secret here for quite some time (although I doubt it would matter to any of you): for nearly seven months I had absolutely no access to any of my manuscripts as they were all on that laptop! I’m a stickler for backing things up though, so the first thing I turned to after my laptop died was the zip disk that I had saved copies of all of my books on. Conveniently, my external zip drive became possessed by some evil spirit (or so I told myself), and killed the disk! After I finished venting by bashing the zip drive against a rock outside of my house, Office Space style, I sank into a deep depression because I had no way to recover any of my work.

Fortunately for me, I had started the screenplay for The Dominance Flush on my desktop computer, so I had a project to keep me occupied while trying to keep my mind off of the possibility that I would never recover my lost work. For seven months I endured this! Sure, I had the Flush and the graphic novel, but how does one cope with potential the loss of SIX COMPLETE MANUSCRIPTS?! Two weeks ago I had finally taken all I could stand… I called Dell (or India if you want to get technical), and told them to send the damned box for me to ship my laptop to them. I hate giving in to those bastards (Dell… not the Indians). I may be the only person on the planet who hates Dell, but I don’t care who knows it.

I HATE DELL!

Okay, back to the point of this post. The laptop is back now, and working fine after swapping out its motherboard and fixing the monitor. All of my work has been transferred, and it all now rests in one place on my desktop computer. I’ve also placed it all on a number of CDs, and have given them to my grandmother to store in her safe desposit box… no worries now!

So what will become of the laptop now that I have no use for it? I’m perfectly happy with my desktop though I don’t like sharing it with my wife (hehehe), so the logical thing for me to do is…

Give her the laptop…

Photo By Earl Yorke

…yes, I made her pose that way with the computer. I’m just lame like that… and so is she for actually doing it.

This has been a rocky year for my family and I. I haven’t exactly been the best person to be around as various things have blown up in my face, and other truths that I had ignored have demanded my attention. I have no idea where my screenplay or books may be going, nor do I have a clue as to when I’m actually going to settle into a job that truly is for me. But for the first time in what seems like an eternity I’m okay with it all.

This year I am thankful that I finally have begun to discipline myself in the area of patience. Although my wife would argue that I am still a shaky freak when it comes to waiting for her to pick out clothes in a department store, as far as the big picture is concerned I have come to realize that it is stupid for me to believe that I am going to get my work out there quickly. I’m okay with that.

I will be patient; balance my writing and my family time… with a little World of Warcraft mixed in from time to time! Hehehe.

I hope that you all have a great Thanksgiving. Take this day to appreciate what you have, and love the family you are breaking bread with. Sometimes in this crazy world we lose sight of what is truly important… most important. Family. I would be nothing without mine.

Feel free to post any comments about what you are thankful for this year.

November… already. It’s been over a month since I last posted here, and I am sorry. I’ve been very busy with my new job at Canbury Homes, or as I prefer to call it: The Stress Pool. I’ve also been working on the screenplay, but I’m not making as much progress as before. I suppose it might have something to do with the strange hours I’m putting in at Canbury, and I’ll admit that I’ve been very distracted with the graphic novel that Jeff Fitzgerald and I are working on (I’m actually meeting with him tonight to go over the outline I have come up with for the story). It is a nice distraction, but there are so many things I want to be working on right now that it’s frustrating that I can’t get to it all. Oh well.

I meant to put up a post during Halloween and show everyone how cute my son was, dressed up as a scuba-diver. I’m still laughing about it. How many three year-old kids want to be a scuba-diver for Halloween? When I was young I always wanted to be something scary… like a vampire (but who didn’t see that coming). Anyway, look for a picture or two of the Yorke kids at Halloween at some point over the next few days. Better late than never.

I’ll also be reviving what has become an annual post for me, “What I’m Thankful For.” Look for that one to hit on Thanksgiving day, and if you wanna get lame about it feel free to post what you are thankful for in the comment section of that post.

Anyway, back to work for me… I’m lucky to have found the time here today to get this one up!