Apologies to my regular readers, but the incisive mind of the Renaissance writer, instead of producing the usual entertaining and insightful missive, is off on a one-track tangent.
It all has to do with having a son in the TV/Movie business. He’s a production designer in Toronto, but every once in a while he gets an opportunity to pick up a job on the Left Coast. He takes it, and then he can visit with the Parental Unit. And usually hire the Father Half as a carpenter. This time it’s dogsleds. Yep. Genuine 1913 replica dogsleds. I’ll tell you what the commercial is for when it’s on the air.
So we’ve been communicating by email, sending Sketchup designs back and forth, and I started building while “the boss” was still in Toronto. Four days, and I now have two beautiful, vintage 1913 dogsleds sitting in my carport. A truck was supposed to show up Sunday evening to take them away.
But TV production doesn’t often work to schedule. The favoured offspring was supposed to show up at 9 this morning to give instructions, but I started work, and he didn’t show. I worked through the day, and still no boss in sight. Fortunately I’m a self-starter.
Now, most fathers would start getting worried about this time. But I know the business. The dogsleds don’t shoot until Thursday. My assessment (designed to keep the Worried Half of the Parental Unit happy) was that something tanked about the site for tomorrow’s shoot, and a prop that wasn’t happening ‘till Thursday just dropped to the bottom of the elevator shaft of priorities.
Which turned out to be exactly the case. We get a phone call at 9 pm (only 12 hours late) confirming my suspicions. They spent the day in the mountains somewhere near Squamish, out of cell phone range. And by the way, that vintage 1908 prop that you ordered, that’s sitting at your house? It needs to be on the prop truck that is leaving for the shoot at 4 am tomorrow.
So I’m at the moment twiddling my thumbs over the keyboard while I wait for the wine I had for dinner to bleed through my system, so that I can take a 45-minute jaunt to my son’s hotel downtown to deliver this prop. I’m about to find out how the high fliers live, if they have time to enjoy it.
Two Hours Later.
Well, that was surreal. I get in my car, crank up the Spanish lesson on Bluetooth, and away I go, driving through the night en Español. Because of Sunday night lack of traffic, I make it downtown in record time, so the department heads are still having supper (didn’t eat all day). I have to find the restaurant. My boss comes out and I deliver the precious prop. We have a ten-minute production meeting in my car in a No Parking zone outside Moxies Grill and Bar. Not in the bar. I’m not one of the high flyers, and both of us have had a long day.
I have my orders. Sand, paint, and antique. Truck coming to pick them up in two days, but now they have to be camera-ready.
No pressure.
A la casa again, arriving at 11:30 pm. Just another 14-hour day in the TV industry.
SIDEBAR: No Hurry With eBay
Last week, before we really got going on the dogsleds, I had another assignment. The company doing the commercial is over 100 years old, and someone was offering one of their original products from 1918 for only 20 bucks! Perfect for the commercial. Would I go on Ebay and buy it? Oh, and by the way, it needed to be shipped immediately, overnight express. It was going on set Monday morning.
So I dutifully ordered the item. EBay allows you to leave a message for the seller, which I did, requesting the overnight shipping. I told him I was quite willing to pay the extra. I got a note back (through eBay) saying, sorry, can’t ship overnight, because you can’t pay me extra money because eBay won’t allow contact outside of their transaction. Protecting privacy and all that. Even discussing such a travesty might not get through the eBay email filter.
He suggested that he cancel the transaction, put the item back up on eBay for a higher price, and we start all over again. Meanwhile one more day has passed.
Cynic that I am, I doubted this would happen quickly enough. I went looking for a quicker solution that involved messing with eBay’s labyrinthine rules as little as possible. So I went on this guy’s site at eBay, found another item (an antique cod-jigging lure) for $10, and ordered it, paying $100. With a note, asking him to put the smaller item inside the larger one, and PLEASE ship it overnight.
I get a note last thing Thursday afternoon stating that the orders have been shipped ($82). Whee! Sure enough, Friday afternoon about 6, a UPS truck pulls up and the man hands me the package.
But that’s not all.
I email the seller, asking if he got paid enough. He answers back that he’s out the $40 extra shipping !!! Huh ???
I check my eBay account, and sure enough, eBay didn’t accept my $100, and only gave him the asking price plus $10 shipping. Either they don’t allow you to be nice, or they thought I put in the extra zero by mistake.
But, he says, I can pay him the $40 through his eBay Paypal account, and just put “Extra Shipping Charge” on it. WHICH IS WHAT I WANTED TO DO IN THE FIRST PLACE!
I sent him $50 plus my thanks. What can you say? Maybe the cod will come back, and I can go cod jigging and make up the extra cash.
So, all his prices being in US$ (in spite of the fact that he’s in Nova Scotia), the total cost of the $20 item was $130.
I haven’t submitted my bill to the production company, yet. I hope they think it was worth it!