Broadening horizons.

Back in August, I dragged the German off to Discworld Con. He enjoyed it, although not quite as much as I did. I was lucky enough to be able to participate in a Kaffeeklatch (as I did in San Antonio, although whether at Nasfic in '87 or Worldcon in '97 I have no idea!).

As I mentioned, the con was giving away a large number of Sir Terry's books and the ones we kept were those in German (there were no English editions available). The German has been in a relatively non-reading frame of mind for years (magazines, business books, an occasional novel) so I have been flabbergasted to see him working his way through Die Farben der Magie, Das Licht der Phantasie, Das Erbe des Zauberers, Gevatter Tod, and MacBest. Those are pretty strange for me to look at in German, but are a darned good start to reading through the oeuvre.

After reading Gevatter Tod, the German was pretty upset to realize that although we still had 9 more German books (and I have 6 others in English here) the others are not in order. So I gave him MacBest, which is in the Witches cycle and we tried to decide the best way to handle the problem. It's obviously not cost effective for me to fly back to the US and get my Pratchett books out of storage and send them over here. Even if I were in my storage unit, it would take an entire vacation to dig back through it and go through the 100+ boxes of books until I found the right one. It's really quite shocking to look at the cost of replacing quite a lot of books that one already owns, even in paperback. I took a look at buying the e-books and it might be possible to do so with a British residence— or while in the UK— but he'd rather not read on his phone or even another reader.

However, although I never saw the multi-book collections in the US, in the UK the books were reprinted in 2 to three novel groupings. So I ordered the next grouping for him (along with a copy of the Malory Towers collection for Thing1) for him, delivered to a co-worker in Wales and hopefully in his hands at work on Monday. The price, divided over the three books, and even including the cost of shipping (not free because through a third party used) is still a lot lower than buying them here in Germany. I am looking forward to being able to reread these myself and I'm really curious to see how the German feels the difference between the translator and the original works: he thinks the translation was great but now he'll really get a chance to see.

There are 35+ (and counting) for the German to enjoy, but after that, I wonder where we will go? Shall I try him on Patricia Briggs or move into CJ Cherryh? Or Lawrence Watt-Evans, who has the type of whimsy that Pratchett so exemplifies?

It's fun to have something to read together.

What the well dressed Dwarf is wearing

American customer service, as accessed abroad. aka Kenneth Cole is great.

I spent the weekend celebrating a birthday by going to DiscWorldCon for a weekend away with my husband. It's a celebration of Pterry Pratchett and his world and I may talk about it later.

But I started with a lovely conversation with Kenneth Cole customer service. As I have been decluttering, one of the first targets is damaged or broken items. This suitcase had a broken wheel. We had thought about taking it back with us to the US this summer to have it repaired, but the thought of dragging it along without a wheel, while traveling en famille, was insupportable (ah, Steampunk, it's catching).

So, I called their customer service. Who gave me the number for their warranty service for luggage (as opposed to The Luggage). When I called the number, a got a voice-mail telling me for a faster response I could use e-mail, as the person in charge would not be available.
I sent an e-mail and got back an out of office reply. I also said that I did not have a receipt and could only make a guess as to the store I got it in (although I knew the approximate time period).
Within 5 minutes the person whose e-mail it was got back in touch with me and asked for a specific piece of information that was attached to the suitcase.

I sent that and reminded her that (as per my address), I was out of country and wouldn't want to return the suitcase for warranty work until next back in the US: I was calling only to see what I would need to do and whether there was a possibilty of having it repaired in Europe rather than in the midwest.

She waived the requirement and said that she would get a replacement suitcase right out. Wow.

That is just amazing. I had thought the cost of shipping and repair would be too great and that I would just discard the suitcase and feel bad.

Instead I had several great experiences with people who knew exactly how to direct me and were generally chatty and friendly while looking up information that I required, someone who helped me out while not even at work, and who actually took my personal circumstances into consideration.

It was great and in celebration, while on the way to shop so that my (unbelievably great) in-laws could have food for the weekend, I stopped off at the recycling Hof and T2 and I recycled it:).