Slow week, snow week, holiday week. The only thing of substance we have to report to you is the appearance of a generous feature on Nurri’s Feeder series in Photo Raw magazine. The copy we got our hands on looks gorgeous, and so does the work: very gratifying. Pick up a copy if you’re able.

For now, here’s wishing the happiest of holidays to you all from Do HQ here in Helsinki: cozy, healthy, relaxed, and surrounded by those you love best. See you here next week for a year-end wrapup.

Another good solid week; orders continue to come in at a pleasing pace, and we continue to bring stacks of books down to the post office for shipment on a daily basis.

Three things have come up in all of this. The first is that we’re contemplating bumping up our shipping rates to Zone B (i.e. anywhere but Europe) by about a dollar, to reflect higher-than-expected costs. We’ll come to a decision on this in the next few days, and let you know as soon as we do.

The second thing is that we’re especially curious to hear how the first shipments of Tokyo Blues have fared in the mail – if we’re packing the books adequately to protect them on their journeys, how they look when you get them, and so on. We’d appreciate it if you’d let us know when you get your books, what kind of condition they’re arriving in, and how well the packing meets your expectations.

But the last is that shipping orders – which ought to be nothing but drudgery, given that it involves delightful tasks like printing labels, stuffing envelopes, and waiting on line at the post office – unexpectedly turns out to be one of the most rewarding things I can remember doing, and infinitely more gratifying than anything I’m doing at my day job. (Maybe that’s why they call it “fulfillment.”) Every time we walk out of the Posti with another batch of orders shipped, I feel the kind of solid-but-humble, and humble-but-solid, sense of accomplishment that’s all too rare in this life.

It’s a wonderful feeling, and especially welcome in what would otherwise be the lightless and depressive depths of a Helsinki December. I recommend doing whatever you have to do to put yourself in the same position, as soon as you possibly can. The economics of small endeavors like Do will always be brutal, but this is a life-changing sensation.

Adam is hoping to grab some time to dig further in sources for The City Is Here For You To Use, primarily oddball Frei Otto‘s oddball Occupying and Connecting and material on favelas and slums. Nurri’s continuing her work at Refugee Hospitality Club Punavuori, conducting resident and stakeholder interviews and collecting information about how residents sense, understand and make use of Helsinki.

Finally finally, just a quick reminder that it’s holiday season, and while we’re doing our best to get orders out within 24 hours (and in many cases, on the same day they come in), you can expect the mail to be sluggish from now through the end of the year. The people at Posti advised us that orders going out this week will probably show up no earlier than the first week of January, no matter where they’re going to, and we’ve adjusted our expectations accordingly.

Launch week, and a flurry of activity:

- Very gratifyingly, Tokyo Blues was featured on Dwell, MetaFilter, Space and Culture, Boing Boing, Jean Snow and Warren Ellis’s sites, and in too many tweets to keep track of. (Our personal favorite has to be William Gibson’s.) There’s very little more rewarding than seeing how many of you get what we’re trying to do.

- As you can see from the above picture, we’ve been making daily fulfillment runs to the Posti. The first orders went out in last Wednesday’s mail, and while things are bound to be crazy this time of year, those of you who ordered Tokyo Blues might want to start keeping an eye on your mailboxes.

- If you’ve already got your hands on the book, send us your pictures and we’ll publish them here!

- Nurri’s continuing her research at a local reception center for refugees and asylum seekers, with an eye toward developing materials that explain the city and its new residents to one another. Adam took advantage of a trip to San Francisco to discuss requirements for our forthcoming Emergency Maps project with Stamen’s Tom Carden and Michal Migurski.

That’s about it for now, with thanks always for your support, your insightful comments, and (especially) your orders. More news next week.