Is Oregon in a blizzard???

[rubydubyr]

OK, I ordered some picks on Jan 29th. It took 5 days for the supplier to get them to post office and send USPS, then ANOTHER SIX days to get from Albany to Portland. I think the pony express could have gotten there faster than this!

[John Garcia]

All of Oregon is currently very mild, even a bit unseasonably warm right now, and has been for the last week.

Of course, a bridge or two might have been washed out from some heavy rains.....


Weird, Albany is only maybe 60 miles from Portland....

[MikeEdgerton]

69.8 miles straight up I-5. I drove that twice a week for years.

[rubydubyr]

then this is just absurd.......

[Folkmusician.com]

It happens....

Most of our postal shipments make it on time, but at any given time we will have one or two running late, not showing up on tracking, , being directed to the wrong hub, showing delivered when it isn't, etc.. Almost without exception, they work themselves out.

I recall one time, that just about all of the packages were being scanned delivered when they hit the main Reno office. this happened off and on over a period of days. Someone had the scanner on the wrong setting. We received quite a few calls.

[Jackgaryk]

I feel your pain. I order picks online sometimes too. Haven't had but one really long delay, but that was enough to worry me. I can't imagine what it would be like to order a high priced mandolin and wait and wait...I'll probably be finding out soon though.

[rubydubyr]

I like the thinner picks for the brighter clearer sound, and I like the small size Dunlop max grip picks because I hit other strings with the bigger picks, and the only ones that don't slip thru my fingers are the max grip. The only place I could find them was online. Otherwise, I wouldn't have ordered picks online. GC didn't have them. (heavy sigh) I tried some of the picks at GC that had a hole in them, supposedly to help hold on to them, but they were more a distraction than a help, and the thin ones were so thin they were "bendy", plus they were just HUGE. I really don't even know how people can play with these really large picks unless all they are doing is strumming chords. And I rarely strum chords.

[rubydubyr]

It happens....

Most of our postal shipments make it on time, but at any given time we will have one or two running late, not showing up on tracking, , being directed to the wrong hub, showing delivered when it isn't, etc.. Almost without exception, they work themselves out.

I recall one time, that just about all of the packages were being scanned delivered when they hit the main Reno office. this happened off and on over a period of days. Someone had the scanner on the wrong setting. We received quite a few calls.

thankyou Robert, but I doubt its your issue. The amazon supplier was not listed as your business when I ordered, unless you supplied the ummm, supplier. LOL And the USPS isn't your issue either.

[Bertram Henze]

Many suppliers send their parcel data to the shipper first, that's when it first appears in the tracking system.
A long time after that, the shipper might actually find the time to pick up the real parcel at the supplier's (it just so happens that one of their truck is in the area etc) and so on. It's a message in a bottle, tossed in the tides of logistics.

[rubydubyr]

this is the USPS bert. Even so, even IF the supplier sent a shipping order early from the store thru the USPS online center and it took 5 days for a carrier to pick it up (which I have a very hard time believing.....) for it to take SIX days to get from the Albany Or station to the Portland Or station (slightly less than 70 miles) is utterly ridiculous. And we're not talking about a large pkg, we're talking about something that most likely could be put in a small manila shipping envelope.

[journeybear]

And even if you have a tracking number, it doesn't help locate a package in between scans. You have no idea where it was in the meantime. It could have been put on the wrong truck, and then put on another truck to return it, or just sitting in the back of a truck having fallen out of a bin - or just sitting in the PO never having been put on a truck. There's no way of knowing. One of my roommates had something shipped here from her folks in New England that went by way of Washington state - took a week and a half for a 2-3 day trip. Don't know why, as there was no similarity in the zip codes, but at least she had the tracking report - FWIW. Stuff happens, and sometimes with no explanation.

[rubydubyr]

very true, JB. thank god I wasn't waiting on anything more important than some picks that might, or might not, be better than what I already have.

[Randi Gormley]

I ordered a book for Christmas for my son from Amazon and, while the date I ordered it was, say, Dec. 18, my estimated delivery date was Jan. 11. The book showed up yesterday. If I could have been with the package the whole time, I'd have had (I'll bet) an incredible song.

I'm always surprised by the mail. I've had stuff from New Zealand and England show up in less than a week and stuff from New York (about 20 miles away) take 3 weeks. I hope you got enough picks you don't have to order any for a good long while!

[Bertram Henze]

looking at the people who knock on my door, parcel in hand, I am always grateful it arrived at all.

[mandroid]

Cost cutting at the USPS Budget, has things out here trucked to PDX for Postmarking And then trucked Back
to Go Across town or to the next one in the County.

Snow on Mt Hood and other peaks With Skiing, But the Willamette valley south of Portland may only be a little foggy .

Of course there is More than 1 Albany but the Zip codes are different,,

Had a Post card to Antwerp Belgium come back marked as having gone to Belize , instead.

[rubydubyr]

I ordered a book for Christmas for my son from Amazon and, while the date I ordered it was, say, Dec. 18, my estimated delivery date was Jan. 11. The book showed up yesterday. If I could have been with the package the whole time, I'd have had (I'll bet) an incredible song.

I'm always surprised by the mail. I've had stuff from New Zealand and England show up in less than a week and stuff from New York (about 20 miles away) take 3 weeks. I hope you got enough picks you don't have to order any for a good long while!

Well, if I decide I like them, perhaps I should order some more right away! I only ordered a set of 12.....

[rubydubyr]

Cost cutting at the USPS Budget, has things out here trucked to PDX for Postmarking And then trucked Back
to Go Across town or to the next one in the County.

Snow on Mt Hood and other peaks With Skiing, But the Willamette valley south of Portland may only be a little foggy .

Of course there is More than 1 Albany but the Zip codes are different,,

Had a Post card to Antwerp Belgium come back marked as having gone to Belize , instead.

But deahhhhh, you ARE in the outer spiral arm after all, and I am talking about Oregon to Texas.....

[barney 59]

The USPS has some weird things going on right now. Congress in it's wisdom has imposed a rule that the USPS has to fund their retirement plan for 75 years! Some believe this is designed to break the Postal Service and set it up for privatization. Whether that is true or not they are going broke pumping billions of dollars of catch up money into the fund. No business or other Government agency has such a rule! So they cut back staff and service,close facilities and are making changes that might make sense to them but ---don't know-- seem pretty silly to me and really screws up the mail!
In my town we don't have home delivery so you go to the PO to get your mail, it's always been that way. New rule! All mail goes to a distribution center,so if I send a letter to someone in town it travels 35 miles away and then has to come back to be put in a PO box that was no more than 35 feet from the letter drop. That is a 24 hour minimum. Used to be that you could have a prescription called in to the pharmacy in the next town and you received it in the afternoon mail --not anymore --maybe you'll get it tomorrow if you live! + for the PO is we have one postal worker instead of two. The local Ma and Pa pharmacy,always on dubious terms, is going to meet it's last straw when people catch on that the can get it sent from some CVS and it will arrive in the same time frame!
I ordered something on line recently --I made the order over the weekend and it shipped early Monday from the East Coast --Arrived -SF (I can see SF from my house!) early Tuesday AM ---Wed -Arrived Oakland --(wrong direction folks!) Thursday -Arrived Santa Rosa (oops missed!) --needless to say it did not make it here before Friday closing 4PM to my town and since packages don't fit in the box you have to get them at the counter --did I mention they cancelled Saturday service? Less than one day to travel across the country and another week to travel roughly 15 miles as the crow flies! Now, there is a new thing with FedEx with some packages -instead of delivering directly to your address they deliver to the local Post Office for final delivery by them! I just had the Friday -wait the weekend-- thing happen with some machine parts sent FedEx!

[rubydubyr]

oh dear Barney, if it were that bad here, I think I'd get a POB near the distrib. ctr. Have you thought about that?

[barney 59]

The days of "through rain and snow and dark of night" are over! Well the closest distribution center to me they are talking about closing or maybe it's already past talking and it's on the schedule. No to do that would be crazy, eventually the distribution centers will be out somewhere on the interstate like the truck carriers do.
I'm a believer that nothing beats free for cheap but when I order stuff I really need quickly I pay for the upgraded shipping and will specify UPS if possible. They still come past the house everyday. Actual mail for me is pretty much bills anyway -I'm in no hurry for those! Wow! Think of the lost revenue from bill receiving and paying delays! It's just can drive you postal to see something that has worked and worked well since at least the invention of the train go in the crapper. It used to be our postal service now it looks like it's going up for grabs and something like Bain will end up with it!

[mrmando]

I just had a bass shipped from Albany. Two business days, no problem.

Actually, never mind ... it came via UPS.

[rubydubyr]

I just had a bass shipped from Albany. Two business days, no problem.

Actually, never mind ... it came via UPS.

I think that just underscores Barney's point.

[Russ Donahue]

I sent a guitar out west via USPS and it moved right on time in good order at a better price and a day earlier than UPS. I ship things regularly by Post Office and find them to be better than my regional UPS, which delivers expensive packages to snow banks, leaves cardboard boxes in the rain, or drops boxes off at my neighbor's house with no note as to where it is...

[rubydubyr]

I sent a guitar out west via USPS and it moved right on time in good order at a better price and a day earlier than UPS. I ship things regularly by Post Office and find them to be better than my regional UPS, which delivers expensive packages to snow banks, leaves cardboard boxes in the rain, or drops boxes off at my neighbor's house with no note as to where it is...

Gasp! Have you tried filing a complaint with the regional HQ?

[Jim Roberts]

I have had great luck with shipping via USPS. It's a much greener way to ship, too, as the PO already is driving to your crib every day (except Sunday) with no special trip required by a polluting FedEx or UPS truck.

As Barney 59 suggests...Congress has the USPS strung up by its avocados.