Weekend Report December 16 2012

[Kevin]

Weekend Report December 16, 2012

Friday was a mad dash for me that started at 6:30 AM and lasted till around 11:30 PM. It was just one thing after the other.

The morning started off with me selecting and signing a great many books for Christmas Surprise Packages.

I had a brief meeting with Carmen. As well as Alex and Wayne.

I spoke with a few freelancers and took care of some correspondences.

Handled some business matters and paid some bills.

Helped sort, pack and ship Genesis Pits on Friday to make sure customers who had pre-ordered it would receive it as soon as possible. Of course, many went out Media Mail so it could take 2-3 weeks to arrive this time of year. We also prepped distributor orders so they can go out on Monday.

I wrote a Murmur and wrapped a few last minute presents for the Palladium Christmas Party.

At 6:00 PM I left the office to go home and help Kathy with the final arrangements for the party.

The Palladium Christmas Party! Everyone started showing up around 7:00 PM and we laughed and talked and stuffed our faces, and laughed and talked some more. Carmen Bellaire and his family were there, so were Matthew Clements, Ben Rodriguez, Thom Bartold and my high school pal, Ed Kwiatkowski (who did art in some of the early Palladium titles, most notably Weapons and Armor of the Orient), and, of course, the Palladium crew. There was plenty of delicious food prepared by Kathy and everyone seemed to have a nice time. When it was time to exchange presents, the house erupted with boisterous laughter, cheers and well wishes — not to mention the sound of ripping paper.

Everyone was in exceptionally good spirits and all seemed very pleased with the gifts they received. It was an evening of friendship and joy. Unfortunately for Kathy, nerd friendship, which means a lot of talk about games, TV, movies, comic books, computers, UFOs, history, science fiction and fantasy. It was great! The only disappointment were that a few dear friends, Mark Dudley, Jeff Burke and Chuck Walton among them, were unable to make it this year. I’m sure most of the crowd would have stayed till the wee hours of the morning, but Kathy and I were pretty worn out by 11:30 and we both planned to work through the weekend.

Saturday we slept in till 7:30 AM. I ate yummy leftovers for breakfast, chatted with Kathy and watched some TV. Our hearts went out to the families who suffered such tragedy from the shooting in New Town, Connecticut. Such a tragedy would be horrible any time of year, but at Christmas it seems so much more awful. How sad and pointless.

When Kathy went to check on the orders we were greeted by a flood of Christmas Surprise Package orders. Nice! I spent two hours going through them and selecting books. A lot of smart people are selecting UPS for shipping and they will get them in time for Christmas.

Wayne and Alex came in to work on editing material for The Rifter #61.

I spent the rest of the day on correspondences, contracts and writing. Went home around 7:30 PM.

Sunday, we slept in till 8:00 AM. Kathy made a delicious breakfast and checked the orders while I was tossing shelled peanuts out to the multitude of squirrels outside. Fun.

Christmas Surprise Packages are flooding in! That's wonderful.

Orders for Christmas Surprise Packages are coming in like crazy. Fantastic! Keep them coming. We want gamers to take advantage of this wonderful offer, complete with autographs. If you order Sunday night (and for most people living in the USA, even Monday night) via UPS or Priority Mail, you will get your Surprise Package in time for Christmas. After that, you’ll have to use a more expensive and speedy method of shipping. See the December 13 Weekly Update for shipping time tables. Do NOT use Media Mail unless you want it to arrive after Christmas. Don't forget, the Surprise Package offer ends on Christmas Eve.

I came to the office around noon. Pulled and signed a bunch of books and got busy doing a lot of prep work making boxes, clearing work space, organizing supplies and the warehouse work area. In addition to a cavalcade of Surprise Packages there are regular orders and truckload of Distributor orders to pack and ship on Monday.

Alex got in around 2:00 PM to help. Julius and Kathy at 3:30 PM. We’re all here to make sure book orders and Surprise Packages get pulled, signed, packed up and prepared so they can ship out on Monday!

There were a bunch of Distributor orders for Robotech® Genesis Pits Sourcebook and several placed restock orders, too.

Busy, busy, busy. I only stopped to write this Murmur. Going back into the warehouse to help a bit and then head home for dinner.

Ho, ho, ho
Kevin Siembieda
Publisher, Writer and Surrogate Santa

© Copyright December 16, 2012 Palladium Books Inc. All rights reserved.

Rifts®, The Rifter®, RECON®, Splicers®, Palladium Books®, Phase World®, 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, Northern Gun, Dead Reign, Warpath, Shemarrian Nation, 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.