Praise Internet!

If you're just tuning in, the post office mixed up some of my books with someone else's.

The news is this: someone (a nice couple in Berkeley, CA) found my books in a box they received. In my books they found my name, and my name, as it turned out, was also findable on the Internet. They "Googled" me and found this page, with my description of the problem, and immediately recognized their own books, which I'd found in my box.

Praise People! This nice couple emailed me and described some of my books in detail, enough to establish that most of what they'd found was really mine, and at least two were someone else's. We're working on getting those sent to me.

Now, I'm just trying to get their books sent along to them. Unfortunately, I left their books at the P. O. If you are in this situation, never leave those books at the P. O. The P. O. does not know what to do with them. The P. O. does not have a central "database" or "network" through which to coordinate claims of lost items. If you are in this situation, note that you yourself do have a database and a network, and some impressive algorithms (!) (!) (!) that allow you to find people who are having similar problems. Oh, you should also have a weblog in order to take advantage of that network. A weblog is your place to share online, and it puts the things you want to share in context so that people know who you are.

Luckily, early indications are that the P. O. does still have the books I left with them, so I'm hoping to get those to the nice folks who are sending me mine.