Category Archives: Days in My Life

I don’t just sit around and watch TV.

ING

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Real online banking.

One of the things a Robinson helicopter owner has to consider is the big bill that comes after 2200 hours or 12 years of flight (whichever comes first). Robinson made helicopter ownership and maintenance easy by having most limited-life parts end their lives at the same time. When that time comes, the entire helicopter goes in to the factory or an authorized overhaul center for a complete overhaul. When it emerges, it’s like a brand new helicopter.

The only drawback is that this overhaul currently costs $184,000 for a Robinson R44, which is what I own. And that amount goes up by a few thousand dollars every year.

So although my normal maintenance throughout the year is quite low (for a helicopter, anyway), I have to remember that big bill. Every hour I fly, I put aside about $85 in a “reserve” account. Right now, that’s a money market account at my local bank.

The helicopter currently has about 184 hours on its Hobbs meter. Do the math and you’ll see that I already have a pretty good chunk set aside.

The goal, of course, is to keep building up the balance in this account so when the big bill comes along, the money’s there to cover it. Lots of people go the other route — they take out a loan to refinance when the big bill comes. But I hate debt and would rather save up and be prepared.

The problem is that it’s very tempting to spend that money when it’s just sitting around, doing nothing. Especially when it’s only earning 1.25% a year. I was thinking of rolling it into CDs, which are less liquid than a money market account that comes with checks. But the rates are equally dismal at my local bank.

In New Jersey the other day, I got into a conversation about this with Mike’s ex-roommate, Greg. He suggested ING, an online bank. I checked it out last night and learned that I can get 3.5% on a savings account and 4.1% to 4.85% (depending on term) for a CD. Holy cow!

ING can offer such good rates because they have low overhead. They don’t have branches, they don’t offer checking accounts. They have very few banking products. Everything is simple and to the point. Even their Web site is simple.

The last time I had a CD was when my grandfather passed away and my little inheritance — about $15,000 — was tucked away in a CD until I turned 25. My father was the executor of the will and he put the money in a 6 month CD. At the time, inflation was running rampant and CD rates were up around 18%. My father thought the rates would keep going up, so he wanted the money to roll over at a higher rate. But the bottom dropped out and rates descended from the stratosphere. Disappointing, but not a big deal, because I wound up putting most of the money toward the down payment on my first house. But every time I think of CDs, I think about those rates in the late 70s. Today’s rates look pretty bad in comparison.

But 3.5% on a savings account is way better than the .5% my bank offers for savings or the 1.25% I’m getting on my “risky” money market. So last night I opened a savings account for my personal money at ING.

It’s an interesting process. You fill out an online form that asks for the usual information. You also provide information about your checking account, which is linked to your ING savings. ING makes two tiny deposits into your checking account and you tell ING how much those deposits were for. This is so ING can confirm that this is indeed your account. You can then initiate transfers between your ING and checking accounts via ING’s Web site or telephone. There are no fees for your ING account and no minimum balance requirements. Transfers probably take 24-48 hours, so there is a bit of a lag. But if you have a relatively large sum of money, it’s nice to have it sitting someplace where it’ll earn a decent return.

My personal savings fluctuate wildly. Most of my income comes in quarterly, so at the beginning of a quarter, I’ll have a nice, healthy bank balance but, by the end of the quarter, I may be scratching around for loose change. The ING account will work out nicely.

I’ll create a savings account and a CD account for my helicopter overhaul reserve. The CD will be short term — probably six months — and every time it’s ready to roll over, I’ll add a little to it. That’ll keep it intact and growing over the next 11 years or 2016 hours (whichever comes first).

Anyway, if you have a bit of money stashed away and you’d like an FDIC-insured way to earn a decent return on it, you should definitely check out ING.

There Are Billions of Stars

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I know because I look at them.

Last night, after a busy day that included 2 hours of physical therapy for my shoulder and six hours in the office polishing off two chapters of my upcoming QuickBooks book revision, I came home and spent some quality time on the back patio, just hanging out.

Lately, when I get home, I retire to the room we call the Library. It’s the second guest room, the one with the futon and the desk and a whole bunch of books. I sit at the desk and type what I like to think are words of wisdom into my PowerBook. Sometimes it’s the novel I’m working on. Other times, it’s a blog post. Still other times, it’s e-mail to friends. And once in a while, when I have question, I’ll surf to find the answer online.

But last night I decided to celebrate my first full day without painkillers. You see, I did something to my shoulder/neck last week and things came to a head on Sunday. I was in so much pain, I went to the hospital emergency room. The doctor there told me I had a pinched nerve and gave me a few prescriptions. The prescriptions helped me sleep, which did more to make me feel better than anything else.

Of course, when you’re on painkillers, you can’t drink. Not if you want to keep your brain matter in decent condition. I’m not a big drinker, but I do enjoy a glass of red wine in the evening, with dinner.

Last night I opened a fresh bottle and had my first glass of wine in nearly a week. Ah. And what better place to sip it than on the back patio, watching the sun set?

And while I was at it, why not hook up my new iPod to the stereo speakers Mike put out there? And play some nice native American flute music? Some R. Carlos Nakai, perhaps?

So that’s what I did. Instead of cooping myself up in the library and not even noticing the day’s end and the evening’s start, I went outside to experience it firsthand, with a peaceful soundtrack of flutes and chanting and, later, crickets.

The sunset was not terribly impressive. It usually isn’t when there aren’t any clouds to illuminate from below. But the sky went through its usual ritual of changing colors. Venus was bright, high in the sky — the first star of the night. Then, as the light faded away, the stars came out, one by one. More stars than a city slicker could imagine. And beyond them, the glow of the Milky Way.

We see the Milky Way almost every night here. It isn’t a big deal. But I remember living in the suburbs near New York City. With all that ambient light, it was tough to see the stars at all. But here, out beyond the lighted streets, beyond the end of the pavement, tucked behind a hill that blocks the glow of Phoenix, we can see every star of the Milky Way. It’s a glowing band, a flowing path of densely packed stars.

We used to pull out our telescope once in a while and look into the Milky Way’s depths. If you’ve never seen it for yourself, you just can’t imagine. The entire lens filled with more stars than you can comprehend.

I watched a handful of airplanes, off in the distance, flashing their lights as they sped through the night sky. I remembered the night of September 11, 2001, when there weren’t any planes in the sky. We’d sat outside together that night, Mike and I, still shell-shocked by the events of the day. But it was the absence of airplanes at night that really put things into perspective for us. We — the American people — were afraid to let the planes fly.

I thought for a while last night about the people in homes around us. It was after 7 PM and many people had probably finished dinner. What were they doing? Watching the stars? Or watching their televisions? Did they know what they were missing?

I remembered when I was a kid, growing up in northern New Jersey. I remember summer nights at my grandparent’s house. I remember stretching out on their thick lawn watching the sky, trying not to think of the night-crawlers wriggling around in the moist earth beneath me. There were street lights, but I remember seeing the Milky Way. I remember my grandfather pointing it out. I remember him explaining that the sun rose in the east and set in the west. And knowing, even when I was very young, which direction was east and which was west.

Do kids sit out at night with their parents or grandparents just looking at the night sky? Do they get their first astronomy lesson at home? Do they even know that the Milky Way is something other than a candy bar?

Things are different now. But I’m not convinced that they’re better. People seem more concerned with what they see on television and what goes on in the lives of the rich and famous than their own lives and families. Mike sees this firsthand. He goes to work and he hears his coworkers talking about the shows that were on television the night before. They try to get Mike involved in the conversation, but he has no clue what they’re talking about and wouldn’t care if he did. We haven’t tuned into a prime-time network television show since Seinfeld went off the air. We don’t need television escapes to keep our lives interesting.

Are you reading this? Scoffing at me because of my nose-up attitude toward television and television-based values? That’s okay. I forgive you. You probably don’t know any better.

But do this one day. Go outside in the early evening with your significant other and kids or dog. Find a dark and quiet spot. Settle down on the grass or a lawn chair. And just listen. Listen to the animals, the sound of the wind, the birds, the traffic in the distance. And look at the sky as it changes from evening to night. Look at the stars. Find the airplanes. If it’s dark enough, you’ll see some satellites, too. If you’ve got the kids along, tell them about the stars. Tell them the stories that you remember from your childhood. Or make something up, something special and meaningful. Ask them questions, make them tell you what they think about things. Make them think.

An evening away from the television can be magic if you let it.

At about 7:30 last night, Mike’s car turned the corner to come down the hill toward our house. But I wasn’t watching it. I was watching a shooting star as it sped past Venus and faded into the night.

The Weather

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It’s all relative.

One of the reasons I left the New York City metro area years ago and moved to Arizona was the weather. The winters in the New York area were just too darn cold. I recall getting ready to go to work one winter morning and glancing out the window at the thermometer to find it reading -7°F. (That’s -22°C for you metric folks.) There was an icicle hanging from it.

The winters were gray, too. By November, the trees would be bare and their trunks and branches were gray. The sky was gray. When it snowed, the snow turned gray. Even the grass seemed gray. It would stay like that until May when the trees budded up again.

One year, it snowed not long after New Years and there was snow on the ground for a full two months. Gray snow.

I don’t like cold weather and I found the gray depressing.

So I moved to Arizona. Winter days here in Wickenburg are quite mild — often warm enough for a T-shirt. Winter nights are cold, sometimes getting down into the mid 20s. The desert depends on the sun for heat and the sun doesn’t disappoint. It’s sunny most days. When the sun sets, the temperature can easily drop 20°F in less than an hour.

The sun does its work only too well in the summer time. It gets hot. Hotter than I bargained for. Hotter than hell for at least two months out of the year. Don’t be lured to Arizona by cheap hotel rates in July and August. Even the people who live here wouldn’t come here then.

Arizona SunriseYesterday and today, it was overcast. It’s been making great sunrises (like the one in this photo, taken out the front of my house this morning) and sunsets.

Today it actually rained.

Rain is a big deal in Arizona. We can go literally months without any rain. This was probably the first rain in at least a month.

For the past two days, the sky has been gray. I’m glad, though, because the sky is blue and clear so often that gray makes a nice change. Everyone I spoke to today pretty much felt the same way. “I hope it rains,” one main said, looking up at the sky.

It had already rained once, but that’s never enough. In Arizona, we hope it rains all day long.

Arizona SunriseYou can hope for rain all you want in Arizona because you’re not likely to get it. Sometimes, when it rains, the air is so dry that the rain dries up before it hits the ground. You can actually see it falling under the cloud, but it disappears before making anything wet. The phenomena is called virga and I think I’ve seen enough of it to last a lifetime. You can see some in this picture, looking pink because of the rising sun. (This picture was taken out my back door yesterday morning.) Sometimes you can actually smell the rain and still not feel a drop. What a tease that is.

The rain does have an interesting smell here. Not at all like back east and nothing like the ocean. Mostly, it’s the smell of the creosote bush. I think it’s the smell of the rain that I like the most. Last night, we slept with the bedroom door open to the patio. This morning, the rain smell was the first thing I noticed. Nice.

Is it possible for the weather in a place to be too nice? I think so.

When you look forward to a rainy day just to have a break from all the good weather, I think that’s proof enough that you’re getting too much of a good thing.

Fine Dining in Wickenburg, Take 2

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Mike and I enjoy a great dinner…in Wickenburg!

To the people reading these blogs — especially lately — it might seem that I spend an awful lot of time and words thinking and writing about food and restaurants. You need to understand that Wickenburg is a small town in a relatively remote area and fine dining is not something that’s in demand — or apparently understood — by the general population. Although there are restaurants where you can get a good meal, getting a fine dining experience in town is a bit tougher. That’s hard for a transplanted city girl who was accustomed to getting any kind of food she wanted any time of the day or night.

Hopefully, when they start selling all the expensive housing they’re building around town, rich people will move in and there will be enough of a demand for fine dining to open a few new restaurants. In the meantime, I’m waiting.

But last night, Mike and I had dinner at one of the town’s three remaining “American Plan” guest ranches: Rancho de los Caballeros. We’d been eating at Los Cab (as the locals call it) occasionally for the past five or more years. During that time, they underwent a change of kitchen staff, with at least three different chefs. Los Cab’s dining room is the closest you can get to fine dining in Wickenburg and sometimes it’s pretty darn close — close enough to convince me, anyway.

Last year, I was quite disappointed. Mike and I ate there three times and it just wasn’t cutting it anymore. The menu had gotten boring and the service just wasn’t what it should be.

One of my pet peeves in a fine dining restaurant is having a server or busperson address us as “you guys.” I’m talking about a greeting like, “How are you guys today?” Or a question like, “Would you guys like anything else?” I call this the You Guys syndrome. While it’s perfectly acceptable in a place like Screamers, for example, where you walk up and order a burger at the counter and they call your name when it’s done, you don’t expect it in a place that has a dress code. Yet sadly, Los Cab’s staff was suffering from the You Guys syndrome.

How are they supposed to address people, you might be asking? How about “How are you this evening?” or “Would you folks like something else?” Duh. It doesn’t take much imagination. But if the young folks that make up the staff aren’t properly trained, they don’t know they’re doing something that’s not quite up to par. So I can’t blame them.

Last night was our first meal at Los Cab this season and we were suitably impressed. Service was excellent, the menu was interesting, and the food was good. And I didn’t hear a single “you guys” during my entire meal. What else can you ask for?

I mentioned the menu. Los Cab changes its menu daily. This is because all guests staying at the ranch eat all meals there. If you’re there for five days, you don’t want to see the same menu every day. Especially since the menu is somewhat short. Last season, the chef experimented with a single menu and revolving specials, but he saw the light and switched back to the seven menu system midseason.

Last night we had the Friday menu.

I started with a mixed appetizer definitely designed for daring city slicker types — it included fried cactus, home made jerky, and grilled rattlesnake. Unfortunately, they were out of rattlesnake — it is out of season now, you know — but the jerky and cactus strips were very good. I wasn’t too keen on the dipping sauce, which tasted a bit too much like soy sauce for me. Mike had the Tortilla Soup. He said it was a different recipe and a bit spicy but good.

For our main course, I had grilled venison served with tabbouleh and pear slices. It was very good, although I think a little more sauce wouldn’t have hurt it. Mike had roast duck breast atop a smoked portabella mushroom. It was an interesting preparation — most times we’ve had duck, it’s been paired with a sweet sauce, like a cherry or orange glaze. This had a more smokey sauce that was definitely different. We shared a bottle of wine with dinner. (In case you’re wondering, it was served properly in the correct glasses.)

For desert, we shared creme brulee and something called Chocolate Lasagna. The creme brulee wasn’t my idea of a creme brulee, which is an eggy custard served very cold with caramelized sugar still hot on top. (Frank’s in the Myrtle Beach area made the absolute best when we used to do down there about 10 years ago.) This was a more pudding-like concoction served over fresh berries in a thin sugar cookie crust with vanilla creme on the bottom. Very good. The Chocolate Lasagna was chocolate cake layered with marscarpone. It wasn’t my taste, but Mike gobbled it up. Of course, we had that with coffee and tea. My coffee was very good — I’m so picky about coffee — although the bean was a bit darker roast than I prefer. At least it was brewed to the proper strength, fresh, and hot.

What’s nice is that Los Cab has a fixed price menu that includes three courses — appetizer/soup, entree, and desert with coffee. Alcohol is extra, of course, but they don’t nickel and dime you for entree accompaniments or beverages (like one Wickenburg restaurant that gives you free “dessert” — a tiny scoop of half-melted ice cream — but charges you $2 for the coffee you drink with it). And this year, Los Cab accepts MasterCard and Visa — previously it was a cash-only restaurant.

After the meal, the restaurant manager brought our check and asked how everything was. I told her it was great. We talked about last season when both she and the chef were new. She said it was like opening a new restaurant back then and that they had to work out the kinks. I told her that so far, this year was looking much better than last and that we were looking forward to coming back on other days to sample the rest of the menu.

If you live in or visit Wickenburg, you really owe it to yourself to try Los Cab’s dining room for your next special occasions. You’ll need reservations to get in. Because all guests eat at the restaurant, they open up tables to outsiders only if tables remain after all guests have been seated.

So yes, you can have a fine dining experience in Wickenburg. Thank heaven!

Bumper Stickers Wanted!

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I begin to “personalize” my golf cart with bumper stickers.

When I first got my Marketeer golf cart (which I wrote about in a previous bLog entry), I realized that looks were not one of its fine points. And I decided early on to cover all its ugly paint and rust spots with bumper stickers.

Making a decision to do something and actually doing it are two different things. But my comments about the bumper stickers did not fall on deaf ears. John and Lorna, friends of ours from Maine who visit Wickenburg in the winter months, began looking for stickers for me. And when Mike and I arrived at their place in Maine last week, they presented their two finds: “Save the Maine Blackfly” and “This Car Climbed Mt. Washington.” While we were there, I added to the collection with “Slow Minds Keep Right” and “Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History.”

StickersThis morning, I put the stickers on the cart, as shown here. (The Blackfly sticker is on front.) I used a Sharpie to change “This Car Climbed Mt. Washington” to “This Cart Climbed Mt. Washington.” (John and Lorna’s idea, not mine.)(Mt. Washington, to you west-side-of-the-Rockies people, is a “mountain” on the east coast. Although I’ve never been up there, it’s evidently a big deal to drive up the road to the top. (I can’t imagine it being such a big deal, having climbed Pike’s Peak — over 10,000 feet — in a rental car.) There are lots of cars on the east coast with these bumper stickers.) Of course, I had some other personalization options in mind. Gus, the Fuel Manager, had gotten an orange and white checkered flag for his golf cart. It’s the standard airport “Follow Me” type flag. I decided I needed a flag, too. But I wanted something different, something that said something about me. I got that in Maine, too. A Jolly Roger.

My MarketeerSo now my cart is starting to look like something special, something I’m proud to drive around the airport. But I need more bumper stickers! Do you have a bumper sticker you think would make a unique addition to my cart? If so, send it! If it’s appropriate, I’ll stick it on and take a new picture here for this bLog. Please don’t send anything crude, tasteless, or politically incorrect. I may not be the most popular person at the airport, but I don’t want to be universally hated, either.

You can send your bumper sticker to me at:
Maria Langer
c/o Wickenburg Municipal Airport
3410 West Wickenburg Way
Wickenburg, AZ 85390

I look forward to seeing what arrives and sharing it with the folks who read this bLog — not to mention the folks at the airport.