I gave you wrong information in my previous status update here. That’s because the third-party importer/broker that my manufacturer hired to oversee delivery gave me wrong information. (And that’s also what I really want to go nuts telling all of you all about! What an… ARGH! You’ve got to hear this whole story. Like. Ugh.)

Only after I turned into an all-out full-on Karen did I finally get the name of the warehouse. And still, no contact info was provided to me for that warehouse, so I had to go search for it myself.

I called the warehouse directly this morning (the info wasn’t given to me until last Friday; my status update to you was on Saturday; today is Monday) and spoke with a very kind, pleasant fellow at the warehouse.

It turns out my packages are not at the warehouse yet, as I was told by the broker/importer guy. Thank goodness I took the initiative to look up the warehouse contact and called on my own.

So here’s the real deal. There are 15 containers ahead of mine in line for unloading at the warehouse. Until those 15 containers of goods are unloaded into the warehouse and one by one shipped out by truck to where they need to go, no one is even going to get to me.

While he doesn’t know exactly how long it’s going to take, by his best estimate, it is going to be another 2 weeks before they unload the container that my packages are in and my boxes are delivered to me.

One more ARGH! moment: The guy at the warehouse and I took a long time figuring out what reference number info I had to give him for him to track my package BECAUSE… get this… because the importer/broker guy filled out my forms wrong. ARGHHHH!!

Oh– and (!!!)– I was given the wrong # of boxes in my total shipment. I was told 36 boxes, and kinda thinking in my head, oh wow, each box is gonna be huge (because, math, which means there would be about 100 decks in each box, which means each box is going to require at least 2 people to lift). When I finally talked to that warehouse guy this morning, he said, “Uh, no, ma’am… it’s 63 boxes. You’ve got 63 boxes incoming.” The exact # of boxes matters because that’s how you do your initial headcount, to make sure you’ve got everything before you start opening the boxes up.

Breathe…breathe… okay. I’m calm. Promise. I’m very calm. Everything is fine. Nothing to see here. Happy Monday.

::adds whiskey to my next cup of coffee…it’s not even 9 am…::

As I’ve been told, the decks are now in a warehouse near the Port of Oakland (here in California) and we’re waiting for our turn for delivery to our front doorstep.

Between my last SKT communiqué and this one, there’s a lot simmering in me that I want to vent and chit-chat about, but I’m going to hold off on that for now, focus on what’s the priority (getting the decks to you), and at some future time, we’ll talk. =) Oh boy, will we!

I still don’t have the decks (inferred by the first sentence of this update, I hope, but I suppose it bears spelling out) but a projection has been given for last week of September. That’s when the decks will physically, literally be in my home.

In the meantime, we’ve done our best to transform parts of our home into a warehouse and assembly line, so the plan is once the decks arrive, we’ll do a final quality check, tally of what’s arrived, make sure everything is in order and we have enough decks that pass superficial quality check to send out to all pre-orders. What I mean by “superficial quality check” is we give the outside box a quick look. For making sure the cards, cardstock, illustrations, gilding, booklet, all the interior stuff, we will open at random a deck here and a deck there a box there and a box here for arbitrary quality checks, and assume if all these random decks we open are fine, then the rest should be fine, too.

Continue reading “SKT Deliveries Begin First Week of October” →

I’m continuing to keep you up to date on all the granular details of your SKT pre-order and deck delivery, because it turns out many of you– lots– are full-blown nerds like me and find this stuff interesting. Who knew.

Continue reading “Importing the SKT Decks: CBP Form 7501 Entry Summary” →

In my last SKT update sharing the Bill of Lading, I shared the version with the ship my decks were supposed to be on. But something happened with the manufacturer, they didn’t get the boxes on board in time, so it was delayed. It had to wait for another vessel, and the manufacturer simply didn’t think to update me until I proactively reached out and asked.

Here’s the actual Bill of Lading:

I was tracking the vessel named “EVER FEAT” thinking that was the boat my decks were on.

But no.

My decks never made it on to EVER FEAT due to delays.

Instead, it’s on CMA CGM LOIRE (click on the hyperlink to track the ship).

Continue reading “SKT Delivery Update and New Lessons Learned Re: Import-Export” →

Just a super quick update that really doesn’t contain any substantive content with regards to your pre-order, but some of you might find a look-see at the Bill of Lading to be interesting. So here you go. With personal info redacted. =)

A Bill of Lading, or B/L (you can also see it in shorthand as BoL) is used in import-export, to acknowledge and document cargo on board. I’m sharing what ours looks like in case that’s something you were curious about. Haha. I dunno. I think this is something I’d find interesting if I pre-ordered a deck. So here you go. In case you’re like me.

Continue reading “SKT Revelation Pre-Orders Update: Bill of Lading” →

We received a status update from our manufacturer in Shenzhen, and China is in effect back under quarantine due to the new variants of Covid-19 cropping up. Travel– and business operations– within the city have slowed due to 48-hour testing requirements anywhere you go, so even something simple like going from Point A to Point B within the city to get raw materials, to ship, anything at all, what used to take 1 day now takes 3 days. If you want to travel within the country, or travel between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, there’s a 14-day quarantine, making business travel next to impossible.

An example of how this applies to the production process resulting in delays: the gilding applied to the cards is done outside their office location, in a different neighborhood. Now, due to the travel restrictions and 48-hour testing requirements, anything at all that took one afternoon to complete now takes 3 days minimum.

We had hoped that the actual production of the decks would be completed by early July, and then the 40 to 45 day shipping time would mean receipt of the containers at our front door by mid-August. However, with the new quarantine regulations in effect in Shenzhen, the projected date we got from the manufacturer for production completion is now the last week of July, which pushes everything back by two to three weeks.

In the meantime, I wanted to share with you some insights I learned about the deck printing and manufacturing process.

Continue reading “SKT Status Update & the Cards Printing Process” →

Click on the above image if you want to download the high-res JPG file. This is going to be a 2″ x 3.5″ magnet that will accompany each SKT III deck purchase. They’re produced by the same company I ordered the 2″ x 2″ magnets from, for those who remember the First and Vitruvian Edition packaging.

Continue reading “Sapere Aude Magnets with the SKT Revelation Decks” →