Right On, Chessex

Sorry...it's been feeling a lot like summer around these parts, even though it's only now (as of about an hour ago) June 1st. I've been watching a lot of baseball lately. And drinking a lot of beer...often together. My toddler (he's two) is also into baseball and we've been playing a lot outside. The kid is a surprisingly decent athlete. His throws nearly as far as me (I don't throw very well), if not quite as accurately, and he has demonstrated an ability to hit an underhand pitch from about ten feet. And he switch hits. He kept trying to bat left (and missing) but he'd hit 60-75% of the time (or better) when I'd ask him to switch to the other side. Then today he was batting left again, but managing to hit two out of every three or four.

I really don't know where he gets his genetics from. Right now, his favorite thing in the world appears to be lawn mowers, and I know that's not from me.

Last weekend (Memorial Day) I had four days off (through Tuesday). We spent about half that time down at the Seattle Center at the 42nd annual Folklife Festival (forty-something anyway). It was a blast but I got a damn parking ticket because...well, no one cares about that sob story, but it was damn irritating (only the second such ticket I've gotten in my life...I hate throwing money away like that). But otherwise, the weekend was a blast. My wife got back in town Sunday morning, and even though it poured rain all Monday, we spent the whole day lazy and having family fun and Tuesday was also great, 'cause my wife took the day off, too, and we went out and saw Iron Man 3 while D. was with the nanny. And to cap it off, when we got home my CUSTOM DICE had finally arrived from Chessex...the dice I'd ordered three weeks prior and which I intend to package with 5AK when it is finally released (hopefully) in the next couple weeks. I was so excited to open the box that I was willing to put off opening the box till after we'd gone out to dinner.

[you have to understand that I am a person who absolutely HATES "delayed gratification;" I don't like to wait for anything, and being forced to wait or being hamstrung in my freedom of impulse is the quickest thing to make me grumpy. It's a character flaw with which I constantly struggle, often losing because I'm not paying close enough attention. So for me to NOT rip the top off a box that I'd been waiting three weeks to arrive via mail order should tell you how excited I was...just KNOWING that the box had arrived...finally!...and that it was waiting patiently for me was enough to "carry me through" without needing to immediately satisfy my impulse. I was in a minor state of bliss]

So then when we got home and I DID cut open the box, you might be able to glean a little bit of my consternation when I found the contents of the box did not match my order.

Specifically, I got the wrong color. There will be two pair of dice enclosed with each copy of 5AK (at least, that's my intention at this point) and each pair will be a different color. Chessex sent me two bags full of dice, with the correct engravings and, presumably, quantities (I haven't bothered to count 'em yet), but the color of one set was wrong. Not only that, but it was a little too "matchy-matchy" with the color of the other set, which makes it really tough to distinguish between them (one of the reasons for doing two different colors in the first place). ARGH!!!

Not the right color, dude.

Welp, I called Chessex the next morning (EST) and they were very apologetic and professional and agreed to manufacture and mail me the correct order immediately, and I am extremely pleased to report that as of today, they've made good on my order: a box arrived in the mail with the correct dice in the correct color with (presumably) the correct quantity. And they did it with no extra charge, nor did they require me to ship the defective set back.

I am extremely pleased.

In fact, the whole mistake turns out to have been fortuitous. First off, it gave me a chance to see how Chessex operates when it comes to this type of order snafu (extremely customer friendly, as it turns out), which definitely gives me peace of mind for further dealings with their company. I know now I can trust them to fill future orders and not to screw me (accidents do happen after all, but how one deals with that accident shows character)...I hope I'm as responsive to my customers.

[if I haven't been, I apologize and will strive to do better in the future]

Secondly, I now have a large set of custom dice on hand that I can give out as freebies to my play-testers since I don't plan on packaging them with the final printed book(s). We used them Thursday night (Greg, Will, Kayce, and Zach showed up and each got a full set) and they really were fantastic...I'm really glad I decided to include them with the game (even though normal D6s work, there's a lot less confusion with these). So that's cool.

Okay, that's enough blathering for the moment. The wife's leaving town again tomorrow for a few days which means that I'll have a little more free time for writing (even though I'll have less energy for doing the same)...I've got some more stuff to post (including the download for my custom Dungeon! cards) but I'll get to that tomorrow.

Ciao for now!
: )