Some you win, others...

One of the auctions Galina bid on while I was in Houston was for a pallet of refurbished electronics, supposedly worth $3,000. (This is not the same deal I wrote about a few days ago, which we didn't win - thankfully!) I duly paid the auction price, plus $160 for shipping.

Soon after opening the store, I got a call from the shipper, who expects to collect over $500 upon delivery. So far, I've left voice mail, sent a fax, and sent e-mail to the seller.

Upon reviewing the seller's feedback on eBay, I find that he's got almost 1000 positives, but 5 of his 10 overall negatives were logged this past week (and another two within the past 30 days) regarding - you guessed it - the pallets. To be sure, none of them complained about shipping charges; instead, the buyers were complaining that the stuff was junk.

On the other hand, I did find a few buyers who left positive feedback after buying pallets. It makes no sense to worry, though, before seeing what I bought. But I do hope the shipping problem gets resolved soon.

In other shipping news, we shipped a large box by freight for one of our clients in December and charged the client on the basis of what was quoted to us by the shipping company ($130). We got their bill the other day, and it was for $160! Galina called to read them the riot act the other day, and I got a call this morning telling us they'd made a mistake, having charged us the January rate.

It's nice to win one once in a while.

Cheers...

Taking a break from...what?

Today threatens to become another yesterday. Sasha had a bad night - waking me up about three times - and a bad morning, but she's been okay for the past few hours. We got about an inch and a half of very wet snowfall overnight, most of it being whipped around nearly horizontally by a wicked-sounding wind all night long.

The local amateur radio club has a weekly breakfast on Fridays, and thanks to Sasha I was up in time to make it to this one. Had a pleasant time; I've known most of the folks there since before I left for Houston in '96. My only problem is that, with my rather infrequent visits, it's hard to keep up contacts (especially as all of my ham gear - which consists of a 2-m handheld - hasn't been in working order for a while).

I've been owing my editor a column for The SlavFile, which is a quarterly publication of the ATA's Slavic Language Division. The Muse finally struck yesterday, and I just got finished polishing the text and sending it off. To be frank, it sounded a lot better when I was composing it my mind as I drifted off to sleep last night, but I think it's a workman-like piece nonetheless.

Another 34 pages of text has arrived for translation, along with a short editing assignment from another client. I also got back the edited versions of an assignment I sent in earlier this week. I printed those files out and started to compare them against what I had sent; after completing the first third of the comparison, I'm happy to see that only a handful of corrections were made to my text, mostly of a word-choice nature.

Anyway, I really do need to get cracking...

Cheers...