http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SchlockRSS/~3/AgBiiajgprc/2013-05-26

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SchlockRSS/~3/cv6rYxcabyk/2013-05-25

Schlock Mercenary book release shippings usually have 1200 to 1500 packages. So when the quantity of coin packages racked up beyond those number, I knew this would be the biggest shipping job yet. We topped out at just under 3000 orders, so I thought the job would take about twice as long. I forgot about the force multipliers. Book release packages average three items. The average for coin packages is eleven items. My job isn’t twice as complex it is some other multiple which takes into account the difference between three and eleven. My brain is too tired to math it. On our test day Janci and I timed ourselves assembling sets. We figured the man hours and decided we’d be able to get all the sets assembled in one day. Instead we had six people working for five hours, we got half of them made. So Monday will be yet another set assembly day.

All of those coins are sitting in my garage. Two file boxes of invoices are sitting in my office. I will feel much more at ease when both start flowing out and into the world where they belong. Next week is going to be long.

Total work hours spent so far on shipping coins: 56
Total packages sent to customers: approx 120
By the end of next week I want to improve those ratios.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Tags: business, organization, shipping, work

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/trivia/1955comments.asp

List collects comments purportedly made in the year 1955.

... on the 1980s anime Yoroiden Samurai Troopers, known briefly in the states as Ronin Warriors.

...everything looks like an omelet.

Actual thought process this evening:
As soon as I finish packing these orders for pick up, I need to clear the table because tomorrow is Friday and I’ve got volunteers coming at 9:30 to assemble sets. Goodness, it’s 10:30 pm and the kids are still playing computer games, but that is okay because today is Friday and they can sleep late tomorrow.

I’m trying to hold all the events in my head simultaneously. It isn’t quite working, which is why I am constantly checking my calendars and to-do lists to remember where I am in the endless list of things and which things need to come next. Also, I’ve arranged for there to be other people around to double check me. This is good because I make mistakes. Janci shows up to help with shipping and makes it all more organized. She solves problems I haven’t thought of yet. I’m also quite grateful to my past self who was smart enough to know that I would be frazzled and dumb right now. Redundant systems are actually useful when I can’t keep track of which day I’m in.

Thursday. This is Thursday because I dropped Howard and the airport first thing then raced back to the Elementary school for Gleek’s 6th grade graduation. She got to walk in a line and wear a paper hat. The principal shook their hands and the whole leaving Elementary school got a little bit real. Kiki also had a leaving school getting real type of day. She cleaned out her drawer in the art room. It was a little space at the school that has been hers for three years. Next year it will belong to someone else.
In the afternoon there was an orthodontic appointment and Kiki opting out of going to an awards night to go to a play with a friend. Good call on her part. Then I sat down for the first shipping work of the day, managing some special orders and the orders for local pick up. I spent four hours splitting my time between providing food for kids and packing coins.

Tomorrow the assembly work begins. Also: Helping Patch throw together a book report before school. Making sure the mummified chicken goes to school. Delivering art to CONduit in SLC and picking up art from the Covey Center from a show that is complete. And Delivering orders for pick up to Dragon’s Keep. There is probably something else too. I’d better go check my calendar.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Tags: business, family, shipping, work

http://xkcd.com/1216/

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SchlockRSS/~3/0H7GT54ByAI/2013-05-24

Originally published at Lawrence M. Schoen. You can comment here or there.

Tags: gej, news

http://www.snopes.com/luck/wills/fourhour.asp

A wealthy woman left her entire estate to a man she had met only once.

Would you believe that yet another book on Viking food is being published? Yes, it is, and I lust for it openly on my blog. Go here for the entry.

Crossposted to LiveJournal. Comments either here or there are fine.

Tags: ts entry
I feel: hungry

Today through Sunday I'm in Phoenix for Phoenix Comicon. Here's my schedule.

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• Wed, 22:13: PLZ RT! I want to see @pablowapsi's Wapsi Square on @comicchameleon, the ultimate webcomics iPhone app! http://t.co/68SBIYV6xu

Tags: twitter

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SchlockRSS/~3/k314EowY2EY/phoenix-comic-con-friday-saturday-only

I will be at Phoenix Comic-Con this Friday and Saturday. I won't be in the booth Sunday, though, so if you're planning to make purchases, shop early!

The booth! I'm sharing space with Brandon Sanderson in Booth 896. I don't know what it will look like, except when Brandon is signing, which is when it will look like a crowd of  people. 

The purchases! We have all the books, but only a few copies of each. Again, shop early! We will also have 10 of each of the Schlock Mercenary Challenge Coins, and twenty of the series 4 "unmarked" Tagon's Toughs coins -- no series indicator, no serial number. I don't know how these will sell, since I suspect most of you who wanted these got in on the Kickstarter, but if you didn't, you should shop early. Ten is not a very big number.

And speaking of coins, Sandra and Janci built orders today. The first 100 orders will hit the post tomorrow.

Now it's time for me to finish packing this suitcase. I wonder what the TSA is going to think of 15 pounds of brass...

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SchlockRSS/~3/IBWMFE5jIcc/2013-05-23

If you are local and would like to help with assembling and shipping challenge coin orders, please email schlockmercenary@gmail.com. If you’ve already emailed and I responded no need to do it again. If you can only come for part of a day, we’ll take whatever we can get. We’d dearly love to be able to get the majority of the coins shipped by the end of May.

EDIT: All current volunteer slots are full. Thank you! once again I’m blown away by how wonderful and willing to help you all are. There are likely to be additional times to volunteer during the first week of June, this is a huge project.

Volunteers acquired Friday May 24 9:30 am – 1:00ish
Volunteers acquired Tuesday May 28 11:30 am – 4:30pm
Volunteers acquired needed Wednesday May 29 9:30 am – 2:00pm
Volunteers acquired Friday May 31 9:30 am – 2:00pm

I’ll update the volunteers needed numbers as slots are filled. You will earn our gratitude, gifts of merchandise, and food is provided.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Tags: business, community, organization, shipping, work

Yesterday the coins showed up as a big pile of boxes. I also had shipping supplies stacked in various corners of my house. Today Janci and I sorted through all of it and set up the garage to be a warehouse for shipping coins. We assembled the first 100 sets of coins and packaged up the first 100 orders. This test of the process gave us time to figure out a dozen small things, like we need two glue dots per coin instead of one. Which means I had to place an order for six more rolls of glue dots. We also realized that the Maxim 11 key drop does not come with a ring. We ordered those express shipped because it really doesn’t seem fair to sell key chains without rings on them. We’ll draw the line at actually attaching the ring. It only takes a minute to do one, but doing a thousand would seriously crimp the mirth around here. There were half a dozen other problem spots that we identified and resolved. It took us six hours of work to set everything up and test it all. But now we have a process and it works. I’m sitting right next to 100 packages of coins which will go out with tomorrow’s mail. On Friday we start assembly lining this project.

My garage turned coin shipping warehouse, not pictured are a row of four more coin types:

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Tags: business, shipping, work

http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/dambrosio.asp

An 18-year-old high school student was arrested on terrorism charges over material he posted on Facebook.

http://www.snopes.com/medical/drugs/hylands.asp

Have Hyland's Teething Tablets been recalled for causing seizures in children?

... looks like my car's CD player is giving up the ghost slowly.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/hasansalary.asp

Has accused Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan continued to draw his Army salary while awaiting trial?

http://xkcd.com/1215/

Today Janci and I spent four hours organizing the work spaces, sorting invoices, and generally cleaning up so that coin shipping could proceed. This flurry of activity was triggered by the UPS packing tracking stating that the coins were out for delivery. And they were. My garage is full of coins. I spent an hour sorting to pull out samples of all the types of coins. They had to be inspected. Later this evening I spent another 90 minutes making sure all the addresses were in order and everything is cleared for test shipping tomorrow. That will be the day when Janci and I start putting packages together and trying to figure out how everything works.
Total coin shipping work hours today: 10.5

The coins are gorgeous. Holding them makes me very happy. I would be more eloquent about that if I were not so very tired.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Tags: business, work

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SchlockRSS/~3/6mOnL_Klt3U/2013-05-22

Bugger, bugger, bugger, and other bad words.

My PS3 just died, and my short research on the net indicates that it's basically a brick. There's a fix... that involves taking it apart and reflowing solder on one particular set of chips. Out of my league, and in many cases apparently the "fix" lasts only a few weeks.

This really sucks because it's one of the 60GB early models, the first ones which actually were backwards compatible in hardware. I actually DO play some PS2 and even PS1 games, so this matters to me.

So now I either have to get a new PS3, or sell back all the games I have (at ruinous discounts) since they'll be useless without the console.

A few weeks ago I talked about the Hugo Voter Packet and how for a $60 supporting membership to Worldcon you could get copies of most of the Hugo Award-nominated works. Well, the packet was finally released today, so if you're already a member go download it now! If you're not a Worldcon member already, check out the cover art of the nominated works (it looks like pretty much everything except for the Dramatic Presentations are included in the packet) and consider joining so you can vote for the Hugo Awards by the July 31st deadline. My Hugo Award-nominated novella THE EMPEROR'S SOUL is in the packet alongside the other Best Novella nominees, and it's an honor to be in such a group.

This week's Writing Excuses podcast episode talks about short story writing with Mary Robinette Kowal. Mary has published more short stories than the rest of us combined, and she has a lot of good helpful things to say about the process.

I sent out a newsletter last week. Here it is. If you're interested in getting these three or four times per year, and getting an email reminder when I'm signing near your city, sign up here.

Tonight I'm signing in San Jose and tomorrow I'll be in Albuquerque. Details on my events page. I've also left quite a few signed books at my previous tour stops, so give the following stores a call!

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http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/delta.asp

Does Delta Air Lines prohibit Jewish passengers and Bibles on all their flights due to an alliance with Saudi Arabian Airlines?

The site Heart of Romance has been kind enough to step outside of their normal genre area and give Phoenix Rising a shot! Find the interview here!

http://www.snopes.com/photos/patriotic/flaghouse.asp

Photograph purportedly shows a house painted in protest by its owner after being barred from displaying a U.S. flag in his yard.