I'm back! I guess. Valleyschwag news and other stuff.

Well, it's been something over two months now since my last post and I guess I did not disappoint anybody (I got this idea from the tremendous amount of comments I got) by not writing a single letter. To be honest I was a bit too busy, too down, too unmotivated to do anything other than work, sleep, work, sleep, work, sleep and occasionally put in some form of relax/fun time or just change the schedule (although work, work, sleep, sleep did not work as good as expected). The thing that woke me up from letargy, well actually it was more than just a single thing, was the nice and friendly fact that I got a raise. Actually a big raise (at least in my eyes) as it was somewhat more than I expected. The second biggest thing that had an impact on lifting my spirits was the fact that Valleyschwag package #4 arrived. It was a long wait since VS3 but finally after a lot of hard work of the Valleyschwag team, the packages went out and even more surprisingly (at least in my case), the packs have arrived. I have to say that the journey of the package was not as easy as some might have expected, but it got here. Despite of the Slovak post, the customs office, various other adverse conditions that need no mentioning and one that really pissed me of. This one being the fact, that the package arrived in Slovakia, actually made it to my place of residence and there the trouble started. Nobody was at home, but that is not a big surprise I guess, the day of arrival being a workday (as there is no post on public holidays). So the logical thing is - lets put the package into the mailbox. Well, I don't live in America and we just don't use mailboxes the size of minivans, so the next problem was there - it was too big for the mailbox (this fact must have hit the postlady the moment she took the package into her hands, unless she is completely stupid, but lets just pretend she did not notice). So the next logical step would be - as last time when VS3 arrived, to put a notice into the mailbox, that there is a letter/package to be picked up at the post office. Well, this seems to be a very demanding task and also probably a awfull lot of work as the postlady decided not to do so. Now you probably wonder how in hell did the package get to me in the end. All I can say is that I got lucky this time, as my mom got home just as the postlady was leaving and she by some miracculous spur of the moment decided to hand the package to my mom. Lucky, eh? But it kinda makes me wonder, where did my VS2 package disappear, as it did not arrive and, as far as I know, was not returned to sender. Well big thanx to the Slovak post and I just love the way it works.

Now what did I get in this long expected package. As before I placed the pictures on flickr.com (pic1: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10974863@N00/248299415/in/set-72157594205416065/, pic2: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10974863@N00/248299475/in/set-72157594205416065/, pic3: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10974863@N00/248299372/in/set-72157594205416065/).
Now lets see if I can insert the picture directly or not. Well obviously not yet, so I will have to use the last resort and that being the RTFM aproach, it will take a while. So as you can see (if you follow the provided links ;-) ) I got some really nice schwag this time and I am really happy about it. Especially as there were some comments in the Valleyschwag blog (http://www.valleyschwag.com/chronicles/) from users that were unhappy about the long time between packages and/or about the package itself. Well ppl, the first problem gets addressed by "patience" and the second one is rather harder to cure and I am not sure if I got the right cure, me being happy with what I got, but try to see the people, the effort and the idea behind it all. If you're still unhappy, well, I can't help you with that.

Well, gotta go, folks and good job Valleyschwag team! Good job!