Landmark 11K

 Just moments ago, I reached another Postcrossing landmark when card number 11,000 was registered.  In just over 12 years of this hobby, I have sent 11,000 cards to 118 countries around the world.  (I've actually written and mailed many more cards, but those that become "expired" - i.e., lost in the mail or simply not registered by their recipients numbers in the hundreds) Currently, I rank 27th among 75,692 Postcrossing members in the USA in terms of sent cards.  And I rank #1 in Alabama.  I simply don't allow myself to think about what I've spent on postcards and postage stamps over these twelve years; but hey, everyone has got to have a hobby, right?  Card number 11,000 went to  Postcrossing member mailin4u, otherwise known as Cindy, in northern Virginia, USA.  Cindy is a relative Postcrossing novice, with only 1,297 sent cards.  But it's all one big happy postcard-sending family.  Write on!

Darwin Day

 On this day in 1809. Charles Darwin was born.  His life's work gave us the essential foundation principle of all biology.  Or, as the great scientist Theodosius Dobzhansky put it, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."  And yet, over 200 years after Darwin's birth, a significant number of people can't accept reality and his scientific conclusions which have been supported by steadily growing mounds of evidence.  There was a time when I tried to reason with people like that and bring them to the evidence-based conclusions that science provides.  But there is something in human nature that means that certain individuals will stubbornly reject reality in favor of their own fables.  So today I will simply celebrate the remarkable mind that pulled together disparate observations to give us the foundation of biological science.  Happy birthday Charles, and thanks.

Rare card alert

 Today's rare card alert is a truly unique event for me.  In over eleven years of Postcrossing, I've never encountered such a situation.  I received a beautiful handmade card from a sender in the USA.  But when I tried to register the card, the Postcrossing web page returned an error message that I've never seen before:

The postcard US-11035043 is one you have sent!

If you have received a postcard with that Postcard ID written on it, it might be a thank you postcard from the recipient of your postcard.

You see, when there's a problem with a card ID number- when it's missing, illegible, or wrongly transcribed- the system tells you it's not a card that was assigned to be sent to you.  The correct card ID number can almost always be found by using the Postcrossing search page, where various bits of info like the country and town of origin, sending date, name of sender, etc. will allow a database search to return the correct number so the card can be registered.  But I've never had an ID number come back as one I've already sent, myself.  Turns out this ID number was a card I sent to a member in Germany in early January of this year.  Since this card was sent from the USA, it's not likely a "thank-you" card.  There was a written message with the card, from a sender named "Seren".  (This is the Postcrossing username of a member in Japan.  So, probably also not the card's sender.)  So as it stands, I have little to go on, and no way to register this card or thank Seren, the sender.  And that's a pity, as it was such a beautiful handmade card, a collage of intricately cut shapes in many layers.  And according to the written message, Seren and I have much in common: we are both Anthony Trollope fans, homebrewers, and work in biomedical research.  If you see this, Seren, thanks so very much for the impressive postcard!

Priority update 4- fini

 The adage "better late than never" doesn't provide much comfort, but it is true enough this morning.  Late last night I received a text notification that my lost Priority Mail package was on the move again.  After languishing in Chicago for over six days, it arrived at the Kansas City, Kansas Distribution Center.  Hours later, it was at the Kansas City, Missouri Distribution Center.  And then this morning it at last arrived at the Pittsburg, Kansas Post Office, the destination for which it set out on January 15th.  If you're counting, that's 23 days for it to be delivered by USPS Priority Mail, the 2-3 day delivery service.  In probably the last tracking update, it was "Delivered to agent" at the post office, which I assume means a mail room employee from the university I sent it to now has the package and will later today hand it to the individual named on the shipping label.  What a long and convoluted journey this poor package has been through.  But just when I'd given up all hope, it belatedly arrives.  I suppose there's a life lesson there somewhere.  Besides, I mean, the obvious one that "The USPS is a poor, faint version of its former self."

Happy Birthday, Charlie!

 On this day, 213 years ago, Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England.  He would eventually become one of the greatest writers in the English language.  But before that, he had a difficult childhood.  He grew up under a spendthrift father who was perpetually in debt- at a time when that condition held great shame and often the threat of imprisonment.  Young Charles was sent to work in a factory at a very young age in order to support his family while his father was in a debtor's prison.  This had a profound effect on him.  Not only did it influence his writing, but Dickens also carried a lifelong desire to aid the poor and oppressed, even founding a shelter home for homeless women.  That's not to say, of course, that he was universally kind and benevolent.  He was a distant father to his many children, an unfaithful husband to his devoted wife, and a cantankerous client of his many publishers.  Yet, he managed to be a prolific and popular author of many novels that have a permanent place in the English literary pantheon.  And each year, his classic A Christmas Carol is read, performed, and shown as a movie (in countless iterations) to a degree hardly seen with any other piece of writing.  Thought his life ran a short 58 years, his lasting influence on the culture cannot be overstated.  So on this day, let us remember a true titan of the written word, Charles Dickens.

Priority update 3

 There's no good news to report, I'm afraid, regarding the package I sent to Kansas on January 15.  I've heard nothing about it since talking to Rob at the Pittsburg, Kansas post office almost a week ago.  The search request has turned up nothing, and after arriving in Chicago, the package has not moved for several days, according to the tracking web page.  It's clear the USPS has dropped the ball on this one, so I filed a request for a refund of the shipment costs of $10.45.  Within the maze of web pages on the USPS site, it's difficult to do this, so the closest I could come is put in an insurance claim.  I didn't claim any value of the contents of the lost package, since it was of low value and I had no documentation of the value of the USB drive I bought over a year ago, and is probably worth only a dollar or two at most.  But I really am adamant that I deserve the shipping costs refunded, since the USPS has utterly failed in the one job they had to do.  The refund request is "under review" over 24 hours after I filed it.  I don't have a lot of hope of a good outcome, but that's my view on everything connected with the US government these days.  Disappointment will be the watchword for the next four years, I'm sure.

Priority update 2

 There's been a little movement on the lost package front.  After my phone conversation with Rob at the Pittsburg, Kansas post office on Friday evening, the tracking status page for my package showed in big red letters that a Missing Mail Search Request had been initiated.  But then late Saturday evening, I received an (apparently automated) email saying that "We regret to inform you that your missing item(s) cannot be located due to insufficient information in the description of your item(s)."  This was puzzling, since I provided all info requested in the initial online missing mail form that I filled out, and gave Rob further info about my package.  I suspect an automated system generated the email without knowledge of my interactions with Rob.  The Saturday email had a link to update further information, but this link is non-functional.  I went directly to the USPS missing mail page and found where I could check the status of existing missing mail searches.  But when I put in the search number or the original tracking number, no search is found.  If I use the form to create a new search, the first step is to enter the tracking number and when I do, there's an error message saying a search request is already filed.  So at every step, there's a hurdle that blocks any action.  Meanwhile, the red letter status of the tracking page has gone away, and reverted to a placeholder status of "Moving through network- in transit to next facility."  So I have no confidence this package will ever arrive at this point.  If nothing more happens in the next couple days, I will file a lost package claim, unless the web site blocks that as well.  My package had no significant value, but since it's not been delivered, I feel that I deserve reimbursement of the shipping cost of over $10.00.  Amusingly, I also got an email with a link to fill out a survey on my satisfaction of this whole incident.  I think I'll hold off on that until some resolution is reached.  Stay tuned.

Monthly stats

 Another month of Postcrossing is complete, and the January 2025 stats are in.  It was a slightly more active month for me, as I was able to ramp up my card writing after a particularly hectic holiday season.  This month, I sent 83 cards to recipients all over the world and received 75 cards.  This makes my lifetime total sent cards of 10,945 -- so I may reach the 11k landmark this month.  My national rank based on sent cards remains 27th, and I remain the #1 leading Postcrosser in Alabama.  As I write cards this morning, I will use for the first time a newly issued International rate stamp, the first to be issued over a year.  Also, yesterday marked the Lunar New Year, and with it, the newly issued Year of the Snake stamp.  Because Lunar New Year animals run in cycles, I was born in the year of the Snake, nearly six decades ago.  Such an auspicious year!  May it be a happy year for all postal activities.  Write on!

Priority update

 Just as I got home from a long week of work and was sitting down with my first TGIF beer, I got a phone call from Rob at the Pittsburg, Kansas post office.  He was responding to my online inquiry of a couple days ago about my wayward parcel.  Rob was very nice, and was as puzzled as I am about the path of my package that was destined to his town.  He asked about the contents of my package, and promised to put in some sort of official search request.  If my package can be found in wherever it is in Chicago, he says it will be manually pulled from the mail stream and be directly sent via air to Pittsburg.  I hope it can be located and this odyssey can be concluded.  Stay tuned.

Lost in space

 

I've written previously about the marked decline of the US Postal Service in recent years.  Rapid price increases accompanied by poorer service doesn't seem like a good business model to me.  However, even all that couldn't have prepared me for the atrocious episode I am about to relate, one which is not yet concluded.  And that's part of the problem.  On January 15, 2025 I mailed a small parcel to a recipient in the small southeastern Kansas town of Pittsburg.  The shipment in question was simply a letter and a USB memory stick, within a common Priority Mail® flat rate envelope.  I used the USPS Click-n-Ship web page to generate and print at home a shipping label in the USPS preferred format.  I dropped it off at my local post office, expecting delivery in the promised 2-3 days.  I remember a few years ago when Priority Mail was reliable and almost always met this service goal.  However, it is now 16 days later, and my package has not yet been delivered to a destination about 650 miles away.  If tracking information is to be believed, it is this morning further from being delivered than it was a week ago...when it was already over a week overdue.  I reproduce below the current tracking status as of a few minutes ago (click on the photo to enlarge it for better readability).  If it is to be believed, the package has travelled from my home town of Helena, AL to the processing center in nearby Birmingham.  From there it went to Memphis, TN, and then to St. Louis, MO.  Then it unaccountably took a quick side trip to Greensboro, NC for reasons I don't understand (though it was such a fast diversion, I suspect this may have just been some sort of tracking service glitch.)  After the quick side trip to Greensboro, it returned to St. Louis.  Then it continued on to the Kansas City, KS processing center, where it arrived Jan 22, or 4 days overdue. It then took three days to make the short journey to the Springfield, MO Distribution Center.  Getting close to delivery, I thought! But after a couple days, it returned to Kansas City, where it sat for three days!  And then, hoping against hope for an eventual delivery, I see this morning that tracking shows the package now in the Chicago, IL International Distribution Center.  Chicago seems like an odd route between central Alabama and southeastern Kansas.  And I have no idea about that worrying "International" part.  Is my package headed overseas?  Stay tuned!  I'll post updates as the adventure continues.  Two days ago, I contacted the USPS through their online form to inquire about lost packages, and have not yet received a response.  Until then, this is just absolutely pathetic performance on the part of the USPS.