Random Bits...

This week I am playing the waiting game. I am waiting for paper from Crane. I'm not a big fan of waiting by the way, but it seems when it comes to my letterpress work, that's what I end up doing a lot of. Most of the stuff I order comes from the States...which in itself is not a huge problem, except that everything I order seems to get held up in transit. Before Christmas I ordered some plates from Boxcar. Boxcar forgot to put the commercial invoice with the envelope (needed for NAFTA regulations) so my package sat at the UPS warehouse in Richmond for a whole stinkin' week doing nothing while I fought with UPS on the phone.

As I mentioned, this week I am waiting for paper from Crane. About two weeks ago I faxed my paper order to their so-called "international orders fax number". Well, I never got an order or confirmation number so I phoned them. "Oh, we never received your order - I've never heard of the fax number you sent the order to". Um, ok. "It's on your website, under customer service," I say. "Yeah, that's not the right number, here's the 1-800 number". Ok, fine. There goes a few days wasted. I'm hoping FedEx will show up tomorrow with a big Crane box for me - I've got orders to print and they'd better hurry up.

You'd think in a big city like Vancouver that someone would carry or import Lettra. Nope! Even Coast Paper, which is as far as I know the biggest paper supplier in the city, doesn't even know what Lettra is. To get samples, I had to deal with the US West Coast Crane rep based in California.

So I guess this is my beef - sometimes it seems like we're being punished by suppliers, or couriers, because we're up North. It's lame. I just want my stuff!

The other day I went and got my Nexus pass so I can cross the US border quickly (we basically live on the border, so we go across to the States all the time). Well, you can't use Nexus to do commercial business (i.e. bring back printing plates and paper). Pfffft! So much for that! Oh well, I can still get down to go to Target and Macy's faster I suppose. It's not a total loss :)

Wow, I think it's time to end this post - I'm starting to sound like a raving lunatic. I'm not really mad at everyone, just frustrated. Having to deal with shipments from across the border really gets my knickers in a twist!

p.s. Above photos are of a recent print job I shipped, and below, some notecards available on Etsy.

Happy letterpressing!