Our Tax Dollars Not at Work

I wrote (well, applied online per their request) the National Personnel Records Center in January asking for copies of my dad's service records. I know he kept a lot of papers, but I thought there might be something that I don't have but should be included in the book. The website indicates that it might take six weeks for a response, but that they are working to get that down to seven days. Since it is going on three months and I have received nothing, I sent another email just to make sure that they indeed have my original request on record. Here was the response:

"Thank you for contacting the National Personnel Record Center. We have
received your request for information and we are obtaining the
appropriate records. The estimated date of completion is approximately
7/27/2010. Please allow 5-7 business days mailing time."

I guess that shoots the seven day turnaround goal all to heck, doesn't it? Seriously??? Ironically, the Record Center is located in St. Louis, but you can't go there to copy the things I want. So my decision now is if I want to hold up the book, which is essentially ready to go to the book designer. If some pertinent papers end up showing up in a few months, I'll be mad at myself that I didn't wait. On the other hand, I hate to hold the whole process up. Maybe I'll contact a designer and see if it makes sense to do a layout now knowing that additional papers might be added later.

With regards to my other book, yesterday I stopped in at Pudd'nhead Books to see how sales are going. They actually had sold nine of the copies I had originally left with the store. Nicky wrote me a check for my portion of the sales, and also took an additional eight copies. We also talked about setting up a time for me to do a presentation on house research at the bookstore.

Today I mailed off two copies to the Midwest Library Service, which had sent me a purchase order in the mail. Interesting - I wonder how they heard about the book? And tonight I attended a genealogy lecture which was sponsored by the Clayton History Society. I took advantage of the opportunity to pass out business cards and show them my book. I also let them know I am available for speaking engagements to discuss how to research the history of your home. I figure I need to seize every marketing opportunity that presents itself.