Books!!

A week later than expected, and adorned with significantly more postage than I'd actually paid for, 26 copies of The Real-Life Adventures of AgileMan (Lessons Learned in Going Agile) arrived this afternoon! Vicki signed for the package and then immediately tried to phone me with the good news... except that I was still out at lunch.

So these were the 26 that were supposed to go to Agile 2008, but since I have people patiently waiting for the book at the office, I'll be taking 6 copies with me on Monday to fulfill those orders. Hopefully the 2nd batch (20 more copies) will arrive early next week, but if not: it'll only be 20 copies heading to the conference with my friendly Agile Consultant buddy. I can always get some extra copies to him there if - gasp! - the ones that I'm sending actually sell out.

I'm still waiting to hear back from Lulu on why Express shipping seems to no longer be an option when I order. It took approximately twice as long for Standard shipping to get the books to me - with no Tracking # available - and seemed to cost about the same as Express has in the past (for similar sized orders). Incredibly, when I was in a Chat with a Lulu support person last night, she stated that Express hadn't been available for my recent orders because it would've been cheaper than Standard. I said, "Are you telling me that I couldn't get the faster shipping simply because it would've been cheaper? What kind of an assinine policy is that?" She then changed her story and claimed that it was because I was in a "remote part of Canada." After I clarified that a) no I wasn't, and b) I was at the exact same address as I'd been at for all of the earlier Express shipments, she said that she'd have to investigate with the "Tech department." So now I'm waiting to get an e-mail response from them.

But regardless, I'm very happy to have finally gotten some more books!