Category Archives: Days in My Life

I don’t just sit around and watch TV.

I Don’t Care How Many Return Address Labels You Send Me

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I still won’t donate to your religion-based charity.

Christmas LabelsThis year, I received a bumper crop of pre-printed return address labels. I got some with autumn colors and decorations (leaves and pumpkins), some with Thanksgiving themes (turkeys and cornucopias), and plenty with Christmas themes (Christmas trees, snowmen, candy canes, and wreaths). I kept them all. After all, I still do send out the occasional piece of mail, and it’s nice to have a colorful return address label to put on it.

I also got a bunch of religious-themed ones (crosses, Mary, baby Jesus). I threw those away. I’m not a religious person and certainly don’t want anyone to think I am.

Of course, all of these return address labels came with a pre-addressed return envelope and donation form. I threw those away, too.

Religious-themed or not, every single return address label I received as a “gift” was from a religious charity. If I’m not a religious person, why would I donate money to a religious charity? There are so many other non-religious charities that are just as noble — if not more so — than ones waving a religious banner.

I have Covenant House to thank for all of these labels. Last year, at the request of an author who had given me an autographed copy of his book, I made a $20 donation to his pet charity. It wasn’t until after I made the donation that I realized what the charity was all about. Yes, they do help battered women and children, etc. But they do so in their special Christian way. That way obviously includes using a direct mailing campaign to nag the hell out of anyone who has ever donated a dime so they keep sending money. I get at least one mailer a month from them, despite multiple requests to get off their list. That way also includes selling my name and address to all the other religious charities they know so they can pester me as well.

Of course, they do send those useful labels, so it isn’t all bad.

I believe that many people donate when they receive these “gifts” because they feel guilty if they don’t. Like God is going to strike them dead or sick or something. Or they’ll just get bad karma.

But the way I see it, a “gift” is a gift. It doesn’t require anything in return. I didn’t ask them to send me these labels. I don’t really need them. Why should I pay for them?

Think of it this way: If someone were to park a new car on your driveway and then ring your doorbell, hand you the keys and a clean title, and ask you for $25,000, would you pay him? Other than the perceived value, how are the labels any different?

And wouldn’t it be wasteful to throw all those pretty labels away?

The Junk Drawer

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And what I found there.

We keep our stamps and batteries in a drawer in a built-in desk in our kitchen. Sadly, that’s not the only thing kept in that drawer. Over the years, our cleaning person used it as a catch-all for little things she could fit in there. And we apparently added our own things.

Today, sick of dealing with a drawer I could often not close, I emptied it as a prelude to cleaning it out. Here’s what it looked like neatly arranged on my kitchen’s center island:

My Junk

Here’s what I found:

  • A set of 6 precision screwdrivers with 3 of them missing.
  • A screwdriver that does not belong to the above set.
  • 3 small padlocks: 1 with keys, 1 with combination known, 1 with combination unknown.
  • A “Jet Fuel Only” sticker, which is kind of odd because none of our vehicles takes JetA.
  • A small plastic ruler.
  • 3 promotional pens, all working. Why they aren’t in the pencil cup on the desk is a mystery.
  • 4 black wooden pencils with erasers, only one of which is sharpened.
  • A pencil sharpener.
  • Numerous sheets of return address labels with various holiday themes, all received in the mail by charities that thought I’d pay for them when I never asked for them. (Wrong.)
  • 2 broken sterling silver bracelets, badly tarnished.
  • An empty Tylenol purse size bottle.
  • Part of a AA battery charger, but not the part that actually plugs into the wall.
  • An exposed roll of 35mm film.
  • A small red square plastic filter.
  • A single-hole punch.
  • A wooden clothespin
  • A small black plastic protractor (think elementary school).
  • An iPod belt clip.
  • An embroidered Ducati patch.
  • 2 round adhesive-back pieces of Velcro, both soft side.
  • 2 pennies
  • 2 rolls of quarters
  • 1 roll of dimes
  • A Garden State Parkway toll token
  • A bottle of Plexus 2 plastic polish
  • A bottle of stamp pad ink
  • A First Class Mail self-inking stamp
  • A telephone jack splitter
  • A tiny of green tea flavored “mints”
  • 2 black binder clips: 1 small, 1 large
  • Several dozen paper clips, 5 of which are preconfigured as Macintosh floppy disk removal tools. (Long-time Mac users know exactly what I mean.)
  • A handful of rubber bands, half of which are dried, cracked, and unusable
  • The “start” pin for a light timer.
  • A tube of dark red lipstick.
  • A tube of Blistex.
  • 2 rings for hanging bird toys in a cage.
  • 8 key rings, empty
  • A key ring flashlight with AAA battery still working
  • 3 partial rows of staples
  • A contact lens case
  • A small round sponge
  • An envelope slitter
  • Multiple screws, including two screw-in hooks
  • A rubber foot for some kind of stand
  • A wooden peg for our futon
  • A wooden peg that looks like it came from a game
  • A lapel mic clip
  • 3 black beads, 2 of which are almost identical
  • 3 promotional pins: 2 Feedburner logos and 1 QuickBooks heart Mac
  • 2 WINGS program pins
  • A tiny safety pin
  • 5 various sized wire ties
  • A sprayer nozzle
  • Magnet-backed promotional 2002 calendar from an out-of-business local mechanic
  • A rock with bits of green color
  • A SanDisk neoprene zippered media card holder
  • A bookmark with Mount Rushmore pictured on it
  • The manual for a Sony cassette recorder
  • A pocket calculator, not solar-powered, with installed battery still functioning
  • A piece of masking tape marked “Do Not Open” with the adhesive dried up. I have no idea what this was affixed to, but recognize my handwriting. (I hope I didn’t open it.)
  • A Bed Bath & Beyond Gift Card, likely never used
  • A package of drapery pins
  • My “captain” pilot stripes from the summer of 2004, when I flew at the Grand Canyon
  • A Newton rechargeable Battery Pack
  • 7 D cell batteries, 2 of which are in an unopened package
  • 2 loose C cell batteries
  • 43 loose AA cell batteries: 6 lithium, 17 alkaline, and 20 rechargeable (4 nickel-cadmium, 15 nickel-metal hydride, and 1 unknown)
  • 8 AAA cell batteries in an unopened package
  • 2 9-volt batteries, both rechargeable nickel-metal hydride
  • Numerous postage stamps in the following denominations: 1¢, 2¢, 3¢, 4¢, 20¢, 27¢, 41¢, 42¢, 72¢, $1, $3, $3.85, $4.80, $4.95, “forever” (current First Class rate)

No, I did not find a partridge in a pear tree, despite the season.

The batteries pose a problem. The rechargeables are likely all dead for good, but there’s no place to recycle them in Wickenburg. The other loose batteries are probably at least half spent, which is why we don’t use them. The lithiums likely came out of my SPOT Messenger, which requires lithium batteries. When they’re too used to rely on them in SPOT — which I need to have fresh batteries — they work great in my handheld GPS and most other devices. The fact that we have so many loose batteries amazes me. It’s probably because they kept sliding into the back of the drawer and we kept buying more.

Anyway, the drawer is now empty. My next tasks is to clean it out — with soap and water — and then put back in the things that are supposed to be in there: batteries, stamps, and a few things likely to be in a regular desk drawer.

The rest of this crap? Who knows where it will end up?

And I wonder what’s on that roll of film…

When a Stranger Calls

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Another episode from my Truth is Stranger than Fiction files.

Yesterday, I picked up a charter flight from Scottsdale to Grand Canyon and back. The client’s agent booked the flight at 11 AM and I was supposed to pick up the client in Scottsdale at 12:30 PM. This is far less advance notice than I want, but pre-Christmas business is always slow — other than gift certificates, of course — and I wasn’t about to turn it down. Instead, I hustled my butt off and, at 12:30 PM, was walking into Scottsdale Airport terminal while a Landmark Aviation fueler topped off my helicopter’s tanks.

My passengers were not around. I had a voicemail and it was from them. They were at the FBO at the other side of the airport. Scottsdale has a terminal building and two FBOs. For some reason, no matter how much I stress that I meet passengers at the terminal, they always wind up at one of the two FBOs. In the background of their second voicemail, I heard the FBO staff member explain how to get to the terminal.

I figured I had about 3 minutes to hit the ladies room. I was just finishing my business there when my phone rang. Expecting my passengers, I answered it.

“Flying M, Maria speaking.”

“Is this Maria?”

I don’t understand this. I answer the phone the same way all the time and 50% of the calls start out with “Is this Maria?” Does anyone listen when they make a phone call?

I replied (as I always do), “Yes, this is Maria.”

“My name is Jean. Steve Smith told me to call you.”

So far, this meant nothing to me. I didn’t know a Steve Smith. I didn’t reply, as I let my brain work on this information.

My caller hurried on. “Steve Smith worked with your husband Mike about two years ago.”

At first, nothing. Then a glimmer. “Steve? The guy who makes the ribs? From Texas or someplace?”

“Oklahoma,” she replied, sounding relieved.

Steve deserves his own entry in my Stranger than Fiction files. The poor guy moved from Oklahoma to Phoenix to take a job with my husband Mike’s company. The first night he’s in town, staying at a hotel, thieves steal his truck with all of his belongings in it. Mike, who didn’t know him before that, is one of a few people to help him out as he recovers from that and settles into his new apartment. He came to our house one weekend and made us the best smoked ribs I’ve ever had from our smoker. But he’d left his wife (and kids?) back in Oklahoma and he missed them. One Monday morning, he simply didn’t show up for work. When they checked where he had been living, it had been cleaned out. He basically disappeared and we never heard from him again.

Until yesterday.

Jean was talking again. “I just moved into the Phoenix area. Steve said I should give you a call. I’m looking for a job and I was wondering if you knew of anything.”

WTF?

At this point, I was washing my hands, speaking to her from the inside of the ladies room at Scottsdale Airport’s main terminal through my Bluetooth earpiece. I was expecting my passengers to appear any minute. I had to brief them and hustle them out to the helicopter so they could catch a tour at the Grand Canyon in less than 90 minutes.

And this stranger, referred by a missing-in-action friend, was asking me if I could help her find a job?

“I don’t know of any jobs,” I said. “And I think it’s pretty strange that Steve gave you my number, considering he disappeared off the face of the earth two years ago and we never heard from him again.”

This seemed to surprise her. “Oh, well he always said such nice things about you.”

Like that mattered to me?

She was talking again, but I cut her off. “Listen, I’m waiting for some clients and I really can’t talk now. I can’t help you. Good luck with your job search. Goodbye.”

I heard her say goodbye as I pressed the disconnect button.

Thinking back on this, I’m amazed that it happened at all. This woman relocates into the 5th or 6th largest city in the country. A city with newspapers and Craig’s list and employment companies. But rather than tap into the wealth of all the job listings available to her, she cold calls a “friend” of a friend looking for help finding a job? Even if I was hiring, I wouldn’t hire her (unless I was hiring someone to make cold calls; she seems to have some skill at that). She’s obviously not interested in finding her own job and would prefer to have someone else find a job for her.

A stranger.

Maybe she thought I had a job to offer. Maybe that’s why she didn’t offer any details on the kind of job she was looking for. Hell, she didn’t even say what kind of work she did! Was she a secretary? A lawyer? A hair stylist? Who the hell knows? Maybe Steve told her I had a successful helicopter charter business and needed help. By being vague about the kind of job she was looking for, she thought she could wrangle an offer or interview out of me.

Not likely, for so many reasons.

I’m also left wondering if this was some kind of scam. (New Yorkers really can’t help wondering this when something strange happens. It’s in our blood.) Maybe she didn’t even know Steve. Maybe she found (or stole) his address book. Maybe she thought she would wriggle into some kind of friendly relationship with me. Maybe she thought I could help her find a place to live — or that she could move in with me. Or that she could get financial support from me with some kind of sob story.

If any of that is true, she really called the wrong person.

Vaccine Insanity

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When doctors join in on the fear mongering.

FluViewI’ve been wanting to get an H1N1 Flu Vaccine for a while now. I believe that by getting the vaccine, I’ll not only protect myself from getting the Swine Flu, but I’ll prevent myself from becoming a carrier that can infect other people. In other words: I’ll do my part to help protect my fellow citizens and possibly prevent deaths.

When I heard the vaccine was available in town, I started making calls to see where I could get a shot. The Safeway Supermarket pharmacy ran out of doses yesterday. They suggested that I call my doctor. I did. And that’s when I got a shock.

A receptionist answered the phone. When I asked about the H1N1 Vaccine, she told me the doctor wasn’t giving shots. When I asked why, she replied:

The doctor heard that there were serious neurological side effects to the vaccine. She doesn’t think it’s safe.

What?

I asked the girl for details and she had none. I asked her to have the doctor call me. I hung up and went to Twitter. My query there brought links to two reliable sources of information about the vaccine:

I read the information on both pages. Neither discussed any likely serious side effects. The CDC piece did mention the usual flu vaccine side effects but said the H1N1 vaccine was no more likely than any other flu vaccine to result in those side effects. It also mentioned Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), which was apparently an issue back in 1976. The article said that studies had been done and that the risk of GBS was 1 additional person out of 1 million.

Let me repeat that: 1 person in 1 million.

Is this the kind of risk that worried my doctor?

The phone rang. It was the receptionist at the doctor’s office. She told me that the doctor had read about the risks online, but she couldn’t remember where. (Fox News? I wondered.) She’d also heard about it from patients. (Now patients are advising doctors?) And she’d also heard it from a few doctors.

In other words, it was hearsay from vague, unidentified, and mostly unqualified sources.

Stay home if possible when you are sick. Visit www.cdc.gov/h1n1 for more information.

I told her what I’d learned from the CDC. She wasn’t interested. She wanted to argue with me. Evidently, the doctor’s sources were more valid than the Centers for Disease Control of one of the most advanced nations on the face of the earth. She wouldn’t listen to reason, she wouldn’t give me a chance to speak.

So I hung up on her. Why should I waste my time listening to a raving idiot?

I’ll be looking for a new doctor. Again.

And I’ll keep looking for my vaccination.

You want more information from the CDC? Start here.

You want some satire on the whole vaccine idiocy? Check out this on the Onion.

Marketing Madness

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I design and assemble 24 copies of a 12-page marketing piece for Flying M Air.

Phoenix Tour
River Tours
Moonlight Dinner Tour
Henry Wickenburg's Legacy
Sedona Tour or Day Trip
Grand Canyon Skywalk
Grand Canyon Day Trip
Meteor Crater

The Arizona tourist season is starting and will be in full-swing by mid November. That means it’s time for me to meet with Phoenix and Scottsdale hotel and resort concierges to make sure they’re aware of Flying M Air’s tours and day trips and to make it easy to sell them for me.

With the relocation of my helicopter from Wickenburg to a base much closer to my customers, I was able to cut prices on all of my tours and day trips. That should make them more attractive to customers. They are not, however, cheap. My lowest price tour is a 50-60 minute trip around Phoenix that costs $495 for up to 3 people. My most expensive flight is a day-long trip to Grand Canyon West’s Skywalk that includes at least four hours in the helicopter and all ground fees and costs $2,495 for up to three people. Ouch.

When you’re selling services with big price tags, you can’t expect a flyer printed on your Epson inkjet printer to impress anyone. You need to create marketing materials that will fully explain and illustrate what you’re offering, presented in a professional-looking package.

And that’s what I spent much of the past week doing.

Flying M AirI use plastic portfolio binders with a cover insert to prepare 12-page booklets about my company and its services. The cover has an 8×10 glossy photo of the helicopter with my company marketing design (the blue and red swirls).

Inside, there’s a “Welcome” letter, mostly for the use of hotel/resort guests who might be browsing the book on their own. It provides brief information about the company and urges them to book through a concierge. If a concierge isn’t available, however, they can call us directly for more information and reservations.

Next are full-color information sheets about the tours and day trips we offer. Each tour sheet includes at least two photos of the destination or route, full pricing information, and branding elements such as my logo. You can see thumbnails of these pages here, on the right side of this post. I created each of these sheets in InDesign, using photos from a collection I’ve been building steadily for about six years. When they were finished, I e-mailed them to the local KwikPrint. The folks there printed them out on their color laser printer. Although I have a color laser printer, their’s does a better job and, given the cost of consumables on mine, is actually cheaper. As you might imagine, all of these documents are available as downloadable PDFs from the Flying M Air Web site. I figure I spent about $200 on printing.

August 2009 AZ HighwaysI also included a copy of the front cover of the August 2009 issue of Arizona Highways magazine, which listed my company’s Southwest Circle Helicopter Adventure as “The best way to see Arizona in a week.” I clipped out the paragraph about us and pasted it onto the cover image so both the cover and the text are on the same page. The folks at KwikPrint handled the copies of these sheets,too. They look nice.

Then there’s a full page summary of all tours and day trips and their prices, including optional add-ons like Jeep tours or lunch stops.

Finally, there’s a page that provides information about our helicopter, including the make and model, engine specs, and passenger-friendly features.

Putting the books together was rather time consuming and tedious. We did it after dinner last night. Mike helped me. I spread piles of each page out along the table and we walked around the table, inserting pages into the booklet’s plastic sheets. It took about an hour to do 24 of them. I figure that if I would have paid a marketing firm to do the same job, it would have cost me at least $5K for design and document creation and $20 to $50 per booklet.

The resulting booklets are extremely attractive and professional. They present the image I want people to have of my business. The removable pages make it easy for a concierge to pull out a page and make a copy for a guest or co-worker. Frankly, the only way I could make this any better is to print individual booklets using something like iPhoto. But if you make them too nice, people take them as souvenirs — as I discovered the expensive way with a local guest ranch a few years ago.

But what’s most important about the booklets is that they provide all of the information a concierge needs to help a guest make an informed decision about a tour or day trip with Flying M Air. And that, after all, is the purpose of this exercise.

Later this week, I’ll start making the rounds with my husband, Mike, who has become the company’s Marketing Manager. By that time, we’ll have my new business cards back from the printer.

This season, it’s do or die in the Phoenix area. I’m determined to make it work.