Friday® was hectic
I got in early, around 7:30 AM. Wrote the press release, took care of some business issues, paid some bills, did a little writing on Mysteries of Magic™, and got the call that Rifts® Bionics Sourcebook was ready for pickup from the printer. I had to stop at the bank first and talk to the manager about a draw on Palladium's line of credit.
At the bank, the bank manager, who I had not yet met since moving to Westland, took me to his office to take care of business. Everything went fine and we were chatting a bit when one of his associates came in. “Excuse me,” he said, “but haven’t we met?”
I’m terrible with remembering names, and not that great with faces, so while I’m trying to place the name and face, he says, “Yeah, you do books, right? Games and books, but don’t you have an office in Taylor?”
It turns out, we had met in 2006 or 2007 at the old Palladium offices where I had shown him around and we talked business. He was now at the Westland branch of our bank, and of course, so are we. This brought about a fair amount of enthusiastic catching up and talk about the Rifts movie option with Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney. Walter (the gent I had met in the past) had to take care of other business and left. That left me with the very nice bank manager, Gary. We continued to chat about books (he likes mysteries and historical books), movies (we like a lot of the same dramas) and writing. It turned into a fun time, which you don’t expect going to the bank. In fact, the manager and Walter plan on stopping by the offices in the next week or two to see the new place.
After I came back from the printer with the print on demand edition of Rifts® Bionics Sourcebook, I worked a bit on Mysteries of Magic™ and then Wayne and I loaded up the van and went to Comics Archives to set up for Saturday’s event at the comic shop.
Saturday:
Guest at Comics Archives
The Comics Archives store event appeared to have been at least a modest success. The owner said he saw a lot of new faces and had better than average Saturday sales. I know between Julius, Alex and I spent around $100 combined by ourselves. Hmmm, so is that why he brought me in as a guest? Sneaky.
Palladium was in the back room which meant only a handful of casual and new customers wandered to the back. Of course, Palladium fans made a point of finding us and got some great deals on books. We also chatted and signed autographs. It was a nice, sunny, but cool day, so we had a pleasant breeze blowing in through the screen in the back door, cool.
I probably should have agreed to be in the store from 1:00 to 7:00 because it seemed like the most people showed up in the afternoon between 1:00-5:30. Oh well, live and learn.
My old high scool pal, Ed Kwiatkowski, popped by the store and we had a nice time catching up. I still keep in touch with Ed, but only see him once or twice a year. Some readers might recognize the name because Ed did some artwork for A+Plus comics as well as a few titles in the early days of Palladium Books back the 1980s. His most notable contribution was probably in Weapons & Castles of the Orient where he did most of the art.
One of the stranger but fun moments was when a husky voice asked, “Did you go to Saint Andrews?” I looked up from the comic I was reading to see a the face of a grinning blond man who looked to be around my age. Next to him was a strapping young man looking to be 19 or 20, who I assumed (correctly) was his son.
“Come on, I haven't changed that much, have I?” he asked.
I looked hard at him but drew a blank. “Really?” he said a bit disappointed. “I’m Kevin Polka.”
Wow, talk about a blast from the past. Once he said his name, I recognized my old pal from grade school. Considering I hadn’t seen Kevin since seventh or eighth grade, yeah, he had changed quite a bit, but now that I had a name with the face, it certainly was Kevin.
Funny, but back in the 1960s, the name “Kevin” wasn’t very common and Kevin Polka was the only other Kevin I knew until I was in my mid-twenties and met Kevin Eastman, and Kevin Long, and Kevin Fales and all of a sudden it seemed like Kevins were climbing out of the woodwork. Funny.
We spent about 45 minutes talking and catching up before Kevin, still a sports enthusiast and sports card collector, took his leave. What a surprise.
By the end of the day, Palladium made a couple hundred bucks, we packed up and Alex and I headed back to the office around 6:30 PM.
I tried to work for a couple of hours, but writing was coming slow as I was tired and dragging. At 8:30 I went home.
I guess I must be burning the candle at both ends and in the middle because I flopped down in my bed for just a minute at 9:30 PM and the next thing I knew I was waking up at 6:30 AM the next morning! Couldn’t believe it. Worse, I didn’t feel all that rested. Think I need to take a week or two off, but can’t afford to do it if we want to get get out FIVE books by the end of October (Mysteries of Magic™, The Rifter® #48, Dimensional Outbreak™, Dead Reign™ Sourcebook Two, and Robotech® UEEF Marines™).
Sunday
I got to work by 8:00 AM to finish up Mysteries of Magic™. I answered emails and stared at the computer screen. Writing was slow. Don’t know why. Writer’s block maybe. Not good. Trudge through material and rewrites for five hours before I decided to take a break. Trimmed the hedges in front of the office and straightened up my desk a bit. Then took some photos of Kathy Simmons’ latest ghouls to post in her Ebay store.
Around that time, Kathy swung by all giggly about her latest “ghoul” creation. It was an idea I had about making a half figure seeming to rise up from behind a gravestone, but man oh man, Kathy took it beyond what I had envisioned. It is awesome. I took some photos of it and it and the other new figures should go up on line later this evening.
Uninspired to write, I ran around for a 2-3 hours buying Halloween sale items to help out Kathy and stopped at an estate sale where I found all kinds of cool stuff for cheaper than cheap prices. Grabbed McDonald's new Angus and bacon cheese burger, some fries and a lemonaid and went over to Kathy’s to unload the stuff. Hung at her house for a half hour discussing new ideas for ghouls and headed back to the office where I spent the next four hours writing. The writing came much better, but by 11:00 PM, I had to call it quits.
That was my weekend – the store event, faces from the distant past, signing autographs, chatting with friends and fans, writing, ghouling, taking pictures of ghouls and gravestones, buying Halloween props, running around town, reading comic books, and more writing about magic. It's a strange life I live, but it's a pretty darn good one.
Hope you had a pleasant weekend.
Sincerely,
Kevin Siembieda
Publisher, Writer & Game Designer
Palladium Books®, Inc. – 28 years of RPG Publishing
© Copyright August 31, 2009 Palladium Books Inc. All rights reserved.
Rifts®, The Rifter®, RECON®, Splicers®, Palladium Books®, Phase World®, Palladium Books®, The Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game®, Megaverse®, Nightbane®, The Mechanoids®, The Mechanoid Invasion®, Coalition Wars® and After the Bomb® are Registered Trademarks of Palladium Books Inc. Heroes Unlimited™, Beyond the Supernatural, Dead Reign, Warpath, Shemarrian Nation, Fleets of the Three Galaxies, Mysteries of Magic, and other published book titles, names, slogans and likenesses are trademarks of Palladium Books Inc., and Kevin Siembieda.
Robotech® and Robotech® The Shadow Chronicles® are Registered Trademarks of Harmony Gold USA, Inc.