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Post by mailartist on Aug 15, 2017 1:59:03 GMT
When do you guys tend to write? Do you have a specific time of day? I will advise NEVER to write when tired or not 100% with it as have realised that this poor pen-pal is going to receive a letter of gibberish if not careful. Stephanie put the pen down!! I don't have a specific time of day, but believe me, I've done the gibberish thing. Oddly enough, though, I sometimes like writing when I have a feverish cold, since I rather hope my gibberish will skew the direction of e. e. cummings, or "The (disassociative) Love Song of J. Alfred Proofrock," and I'll find myself in the canon (or maybe cannon?) of English literature: "There will be . . . time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo." -- T. S. Eliot
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Post by mailartist on Jun 24, 2017 23:48:53 GMT
I just read this interesting fact on another snail mail site. Unfortunately, I don't yet have any of the eclipse stamps to check this out.
Apparently, though, these stamps are thermal sensitive and "toggle" back and forth between full moon, and eclipse, depending on whether you hold your finger on it to warm it up, or it cools down. (Kind of like the old mood rings, I guess.)
That feature isn't mentioned on the stamp sheet itself, but apparently this other site manager found out about this from the local postal clerk, who posited that this first use of the thermal design might become a collector's item in the future.
Anybody got an eclipse stamp, and can verify this?
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Music
Jun 7, 2017 21:45:08 GMT
Mia likes this
Post by mailartist on Jun 7, 2017 21:45:08 GMT
What an odd expression, now that I think of it. Why should lines ever be "dropped"? Will they shatter, if they do? Maybe it relates to cranky fountain pens with uneven ink delivery (i.e., "blotch me a line?")
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Post by mailartist on May 10, 2017 17:27:31 GMT
Letter writing can fluctuate during the year -- increasing during InCoWriMo, or decreasing during a busy summer, or a time of illness. Factoring those unique times out, how many letters do you write in a a typical week (i.e., what's your epistolary "steady state")?
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Post by mailartist on May 10, 2017 16:43:40 GMT
I read an incoming letter today and thought "Huh . . . I never knew that before!" I realized that I love letters like that, where I learn something new about somebody or someplace else -- letters that teach me something (but not in a preachy way).
Other people may have other ideas, though . . . so . . . what, in your opinion, makes for a great letter?
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Post by mailartist on Apr 11, 2017 17:11:17 GMT
I will have to say, too, that when I got the "don't want to write you" card, I initially felt like I never wanted to send another letter, to anyone, ever again, etc., go away, lick my boo-hoo wounds -- all that. Seriously, it hurts! . . . even though I may want to believe it doesn't.
HOWEVER, I also believe that if one horse bucks you off, there'll be another coming along the way. I get back in the saddle, because who wants to quit when being "on the bottom"?
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Post by mailartist on Apr 11, 2017 17:02:12 GMT
Caz wrote: "I only have one US pen pal/friend because I have a hard time writing to other Americans because I have met too many with issues. Or they make fun of me." Sorry about the "making fun." Nobody should be made to feel rejected or discounted. As for the "too many Americans with issues," I have "issues" myself (who doesn't, to some degree? The idea is to, over time, have fewer of them -- to take them to "issue training," so they can learn to wear a collar, and to sit and heel -- but that takes time.) As for domestic vs. international penpals, I have had far less luck keeping foreign penpals for more than a letter or two. I think the delay in transit is a big impediment, as it the cost for a stamp. In some countries, sending a letter overseas costs $4, and some people just can't afford that day after day. That's part of the reason why I stopped Postcrossing after a while, because the cost soon became prohibitive for what I was getting back in return. (Since I can mail a letter for the same price as a postcard, why not send the extra information?)
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Post by mailartist on Apr 11, 2017 16:52:59 GMT
I've had a couple evaporate into thin air recently. I'm not offended. I know that life gets crazy. I think the evaporating is easier. If I got a letter explaining why they didn't want to write any more, I would feel obligated to reply. Ditto, for me as well. If February is InCoWriMo, then maybe April is the opposite? (Break-up month?) In fact, I received a "don't want to write any more" note just yesterday , and I replied with a brief postcard, thanking this person for letting me know; acknowledging that I will honor that request (i.e., will retire their correspondence to my inactive file); letting them know that my mailbox will continue to be open should things change; that no response was needed to the final postcard I had sent; and making a remark along the lines that I was glad this correspondent was, in fact, still alive, and not dead. (Seriously: I even went to searching online to see if there was an obituary in the town for this letter-writer. I was so certain that if I wasn't getting letters anymore, it was because something tragic had happened.) But it was clear that something tragic had happened (just not death), since there was a curt "this is my last letter" without any sort of explanation as to why. I am not sure why the sudden drop, but I also think that, with the Internet and such, that relationships are far more ephemeral than they used to be. At the first sign of a misunderstanding or confusion, people don't want to ask. They simply "unfriend" or "exclude" and go to some other site, where there are multitudes of "friends" waiting -- all equally expendable. It may also be that the Internet attracts folks who are relationship-challenged: it's the appearance of "friends" without any of the messy hassle of having to realize that not everybody thinks/talks/walks like you. (Personally, I like having a few "different" penpals who are confident in "their different-ness." It adds spice to my life, and makes me realize that I'm not the only one on the planet.)
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Post by mailartist on Apr 10, 2017 13:46:34 GMT
I like Mia's suggestion of a Postcrossing equivalent, only with written letters -- especially if you're trying to attract newbies to snail mail. (With a Postcrossing format, no one would receive a letter until they actually mailed one, letter-for-letter.)
I did Postcrossing for about a year, and enjoyed sending/receiving postcards, but postcards are difficult to find anymore in the US. (Not so in other countries, apparently, but rare and expensive in the US, except for the stock tourist ones.) However, I was assigned too many "postcard collectors" for my taste: those who didn't care if Barney the Grizzly Bear sent it, or what was written for a message, but just that the postcard had "this" on the front, or "that" on it.
I got way too many acknowledgments like the following: "Dear ___, I received your card. It was okay, and the long message was nice, I guess. But I only wanted cards with old automobiles on the front. And you didn't send me one like that for my collection. But, thanks." A bit deflating, I thought, given that international postage isn't that cheap.
People can "collect postcards" without intending an ongoing communication, or caring about "communication" at all. The postcard is simply a durable good to fill a slot in an album or a space on the wall. With letter, however, it's harder to do that without investing some of yourself in the process. However, even a letter equivalent to Postcrossing could still produce some telegraphic "dud" missives, such as "Hi, This is me. Who are you? Sincerely, Whoever."
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Post by mailartist on Apr 7, 2017 13:48:43 GMT
Hi, Warren, and welcome to the site here.
Your app idea sounds intriguing, and, if I remember right, there have been some threads elsewhere on the site about how to interest "newbies" in snail mail.
I am a chronic techno-Luddite, so don't have either facebook or instgram, but when you say "members who don't mind exchanging letters with beginners," do you mean "on paper" letters, in the real mailbox, or some sort of handwritten "e-letters," through your app?
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Post by mailartist on Mar 28, 2017 11:26:02 GMT
The US postal services requires that THE COUNTRY (whatever the country's official name is) appear at the bottom of the international address (separate line) IN ALL CAPS.
England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland are all UNITED KINGDOM. (Every person on the street may recognize Great Britain as term as well, but apparently the US postal service wants UNITED KINGDOM.)
UNITED KINGDOM should appear, then, below "the British zip code," as below . . . . Leichestershire LE14 3DS UNITED KINGDOM
P.S., Brit addresses may be lengthy, but I rather love how they snake down the page, with their line after line or words. Perhaps they remind me of the Bard's blank verse.
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Post by mailartist on Mar 28, 2017 11:18:29 GMT
Love that! Brings to mind the sharks AA group in the movie "Finding Nemo," only after they have fallen off the wagon! A shark swimming in a little too much gin, I think.
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Post by mailartist on Mar 22, 2017 15:35:12 GMT
A received a group email from an acquaintance in our church congregation who (for some homework for a class in her program) needed a certain number of letters from those who knew her. The letters needed to be short, be addressed to "thus and so" person, and cover this point, that point, etc. Kind of like a letter of recommendation or reference. Business-like.
I could have just responded to the email, hitting type and "pixel send," but I was in a handwrite-y mood, so got out a ballpoint pen, a small piece of writing paper, a small homemade envelope, and some retro stamps, and complied with the request.
The next Sunday, she came hustling up behind me in the church hallways, thanking me not only for responding, but for "making it snail-mail." "I can't even THINK of the last time that I got something in the mail that was actually handwritten!" she excitedly said.
-- and this from a letter sender whose handwriting would, hands-down, win the "last place" ribbon (maybe of a drab olive green color, instead of the typical blue, red and gold ribbons?) in any sort of cursive competition.
Personalized snail mail still does make a difference!
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Post by mailartist on Mar 17, 2017 13:41:30 GMT
I will say that we had some billing problems with Fed Ex, back before we retired from our small business, and occasionally had to ship products. (This is a "mail" site, so this story fits, thematically.)
We had repeated occasions where we'd go to ship something, pay with a business credit card, and receive documentation that the shipping cost would be This Much. However, when the credit card statement came in, the charge was Something Else (higher, mind you). Similar thing to Jamberry, that we didn't check the actual charges in comparison to the original receipt that Fed Ex gave us, and when we dug back, we discovered that this sort of deceptive Fed Ex shipping thing had happened to us ALL THE TIME. Sometimes to the tune of about 30% increase above what we expected.
We inquired from Fed Ex, and were given some sort of song and dance about initial shipping estimates which could change down the road, blah blah.
So, we fought back. We switched to paying for any shipping with a business check. We NEVER used our business credit card there again, so when we left the Fed Ex drop off point, the shipping had been "paid in full." They no longer had the benefit of delayed billing time with credit card purchases to jigger the prices up.
This "bait and switch" approach is hardly "integrity," but it made the company money -- if that's the only thing that matters to such.
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Post by mailartist on Mar 17, 2017 13:32:00 GMT
Though the company terminated its relationship with Adaptive Marketing and Vertrue (interesting company name choice, that, all things considered), that was in 2009, eight years ago. Jamberry's experience has been since then, so it seems that whether it's apples or oranges, it is still Vistaprint "fruit," and, as the Bible teaches, "By their fruits, ye shall know them." A questionable harvest, it seems to me.
A quote from Tad R. Callister seems applicable here:
Integrity is not doing just that which is legal but that which is moral or Christlike. It may be legal to commit adultery . . . , it may be legal to gossip, but none of those actions is moral or Christlike. Integrity is not just adherence to the legal code; it is also adherence to the higher moral code.' -- (emphasis added)
And, in my book, the higher moral code involves being neighborly, kind, and straightforward. Hardly what seems to be happening with this company's business model.
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