post office hang ups

In today's mail was a very nice gift from Patti Ricci, "the Illustrated Discovery Journal," by Sarah Ban Breathnach, which was "media" mailed from the Orange Post Office, along with a $1.82 "postage due" notice, paid for, of course, by our postal carrier, which obliges us to make up for his contribution, a little trick by the U.S. Postal Service to make sure they get their puny $$$, and hope the consumer will shine it on.

I didn't.

I called the national hot line, and got my call transferred to "Wayne" at the Orange Post Office, and that's where the fun began. Wayne looked up the transaction and told me that since this book was bound in a spiral fashion, this New York Times bestseller was a "dayplanner," and it didn't qualify as a book, which "must be bound like a phone book"...a rule he apparently made up as he went along. When I pointed this out to Wayne in a vociferous way, he said "this conversation is over" and hung up on me.

Back to the national line, to complain about good ol' phone hangin' up Wayne and back to the O.C. Post Office customer service who agreed that Wayne was wrong - big surprise, overcharge was a mistake and they're going to pay me back...in postage stamps!!!

I get it. I get to pay for Wayne's screw up in cash, the P.O. reimburses me in stamps. Great. If I wanted stamps, I'd buy stamps. And so on.

Oh, by the way, they want the postage evidence back, and they promise to send a stampless envelope for that purpose.

back from the place where I last was

Has it really been about 3 weeks. Been busy with music, downloading fool that I am, making mucho CDs to play on my WPMD.org show, which I began doing yesterday.

Last night, we went to a small party at Paul & Judy's, good people, good fun, good food, drink, the whole thing was fine. OK, in the past month, I've researched and written about a dozen articles, including one about DJ Hunter Hancock who just died, and found Huggy Boy all over again. Then there's the Chuck Niles tribute article and the West Nile Virus, of which a local oldster just died. Death Along the Niles, I guess it could be called.

Still have yet to see F911, but some of the excitement has waned, so we'll wait. Olympics season has just begun, interesting because of our trip to Athens so many hot summers ago. Just heard that daughter Heather will be Internet cataloging of furniture in some Duke's home, so that's a unique job indeed. In the states, Internship means being a gofer, in DK, it's royal furniture cataloging.

Straightening up 45s takes a bit, but not too much of my precious time, gotta finish that novel, Smoggy Weather, like the title? and get to work on the Koklich true crime opus. Oh, the areas yet to be explored...and got a nibble of a nibble from a new oldies station, KSURF, an old KLON PD asst. I don't recall, but I will call. Then Darryl Smith calls about Cruise Town (Cruise Land), wants me to operate their radio station. Why is it that after I get SS going - with an earnings penalty - I start getting these offers? Well, I guess my future lies (actually, lays) ahead.

Later on.