Category Archives: Days in My Life

I don’t just sit around and watch TV.

The Joys of Online Shopping

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Why visit stores?

I have gotten to the point where I do about 75% of my non-grocery shopping online. I’m willing to bet that a good portion of the folks who read this are in the same situation. The rest of you might wonder why.

The Shipping Cost Argument

Most people use this as their argument against online shopping: if you shop in a store, you don’t pay shipping.

Okay, this is true. But I still have to get to the store. That takes time and costs money for fuel.

While I’m more concerned with the value of my time than the cost of fuel to drive to a store that has what I need, I won’t deny that I probably would have to drive at least 80 miles roundtrip from my Wickenburg home to find the item I’m looking for.

Let’s do the math here.

First, my time. Suppose I have to drive 80 miles round trip to get to a store that might have what I want to buy. Suppose I can get to the store in about an hour and that it takes me a half hour to find what I want to buy and pay for it. Then another hour to get home. That’s 2-1/2 hours. But what if the store that I thought had what I wanted didn’t have it? Then I have to go to another store, which may or may not be nearby. Let’s estimate 30 minutes for each store I visit. Now let’s estimate 2 stores per item I need to buy. So if I have to buy something as simple as a pair of jeans, I might be spending about 3 hours to get to the store, find them in my size and color, buy them, and get home. In 3 hours, I can write a how-to article for publication on a Web site that pays me several hundred dollars per article. So I’m potentially losing out on several hundred dollars of income.

Okay, so suppose I wasn’t planning on doing anything else that day. For the sake of argument, let’s assume my time is worthless.

But let’s look at the fuel costs. Suppose I drive that in my Honda, which gets about 20-25 miles per gallon highway. There’s some highway driving and some nasty “city” driving in terrible traffic where I usually shop. To make the math easier, let’s assume 20 miles per gallon. That’s 4 gallons for the 80 miles. Fuel prices for premium (which this little car takes) have ranged from $1.50 to $5.00 per gallon over the past year. We’ll use today’s price, which is about $2 per gallon. That’s $8 in fuel alone.

How much is the shipping cost for that pair of jeans?

It’s Not Secure

What? Get with the program. If you shop smart online, your transaction is secure.

In fact, it’s probably more secure than handing your credit card to a waiter in a restaurant where it’s all too easy to copy down credit card information before running a charge for your meal. Or reciting it over the phone, in a place where it could be overheard, or to a company that may or may not have honest employees or good intentions.

What’s risky is entering credit card information in unsecured forms online. Look for the lock icon on the edge of your browser window to ensure that a form is secure. You can also look at the URL; it should start with https (note the all-important “s”). Another thing that’s risky is putting your credit card information in an e-mail message. There’s no reason to do it, so don’t.

It Doesn’t Support the Local Economy

Well, that’s certainly true. But neither does shopping at the mall. Or at Wal-Mart.

And neither does hiring staff in India or China or Pakistan to provide telephone support or make products.

Let’s not go there, okay?

Today’s Purchase

Simply said, online shopping is fast, convenient, and affordable. Here’s an example.

Chef PantsI just bought 3 pairs of the “chef” style baggy pants I like to wear. (And no, I didn’t buy them with this crazy pattern — although you have to admit they look pretty funky.) As I was buying them online, my husband pointed out that he knows a place in Phoenix that sells “those kind of pants.” But do they sell the brand I’m wearing right now? The brand that seems to be cut perfectly for my middle-aged body and relatively long legs? And how much do they sell for there? These are all unknowns. There’s a chance that I could track down the store he knows and spend 30 minutes in there only to find out that they don’t have what I want. That my time wasted.

I found an online retailer that sold the pants I wanted by doing a Google search for a brand name. I immediately saw a store I’d bought from in the past, as well as a bunch of other online stores. Within about 10 minutes, I confirmed that the store I’d used before had the colors I was interested in at the best price. (You want to buy your own pair? The pants are from Five Star Fundamentals and the online store is AllHeartsChefs. These a great pants.) The entire shop-and-buy transaction took 15 minutes of my time as I sat at the kitchen table, enjoying my morning coffee.

Shipping on these three pairs of pants was a hefty $12.50. That’s a lot more than the $8 of fuel that I use up on a Wickenburg to Peoria shopping trip. But guess what? There was no sales tax added to my purchase. That saved me about $4.50. Oddly enough, when you add the cost of fuel to the sales tax I saved, it results in exactly $12.50 for this purchase. So the net savings was just my time.

And I’ll continue to argue that my time is of value to me.

The Death of Brick and Mortar Retailers

Online shopping is going to put a lot of brick and mortar retailers out of business. It’s sad, but is it such a bad thing? Don’t you think we have enough strip malls in this country? Aren’t you sick of seeing “big box” stores popping up all over the place, causing traffic jams during the day and blotting out the night sky with their parking lot lights?

Yes, there’s a loss of jobs. Or maybe it’s just a shift of jobs from malls to warehouses.

The benefits — as far as being green go — are real. People argue that when you buy online, the item has to be shipped to you and the shipper has a carbon footprint. That’s true, but don’t I have a carbon footprint when I drive my Honda down to Peoria and back to buy a single pair of jeans? The UPS guy, in contrast, is bringing goods for dozens — if not hundreds — of Wickenburg residents every time he comes to down. He’s doing the driving for all of us. And the more online shopping we do, the more driving we don’t have to do — while his driving remains almost the same.

This is the same argument the railroads have been using lately to say why shipping freight via rail is more green than shipping via truck. They’re already making the trip; adding more items doesn’t substantially increase the carbon footprint.

Personally, I’d like to see malls go away. I’d like to see downtowns revitalized. I’d love to be able to go to downtown Wickenburg and shop for things like clothes and shoes and books and music. I’d love to sit at an outdoor coffee shop with friends in my own town, with shopping bags at our feet while we discuss the bargains we’ve found. None of that kind of shopping is available in my town or anywhere near it.

Just as malls are killing downtown shopping, online retailers are killing malls.

And the way I see it, I’ve wasted enough time and money shopping. When I want to buy, I’ll buy it online.

What do you think? Use the Comments link or form to share your thoughts.

Country Dog in the City

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Jack the Dog is bored and confused.

One of the things that’s new about my life this year is our place in Phoenix, nicknamed “Rear Window.” You can read more about it here.

When Mike and I go to Rear Window, we bring along Alex the Bird and Jack the Dog.

Alex is easy. We set up his old cage in the living room by the window, stocked it with toys and food, and let him do his thing. He’s not particularly happy to be here — he likes his cage at home better, even though it’s smaller — and he doesn’t seem to want to come out of his cage in the strange surroundings. But at least he does his bird thing and doesn’t seem distressed.

Jack and MikeJack is another story. At home in Wickenburg, he spends most of the day outside, loose. He hangs out on the back patio to watch the cars and trucks coming down the road so he knows when a strange vehicle needs barking at. (We’re at the end of the road and there are only three houses down here, so any strange vehicle qualifies.) He stretches out in the yard to soak up some sun while napping. He patrols the yard for mice or rabbits or, in warmer weather, lizards, and chases them accordingly. Once in a while, his friend, Charlotte, from the house across the wash, comes over and they chase each other for a while. When the weather is good, he often spends the whole day outside, on his own, to do whatever he likes. He never does anything that bothers us or our neighbors. He rarely leaves the property. And, of course, we take him with us for more off-leash fun on hikes all over Arizona.

It’s an idyllic life for a dog.

But in Phoenix, things are different. The apartment is in a complex where people come and go. He can’t see them, but he can hear their noises and he wants to bark. But we need to keep him quiet because we don’t want to annoy our neighbors, so we’re shushing him all the time. Rear Window has two patios, but they’re both too small for him to get any pleasure out of them — and certainly too small for him to do his business, even though they both have untiled dirt patches. Because he’s rarely on a leash at home, his leash skills are very limited. He also doesn’t like to do his business on a leash. In fact, the only way we can get him to do #2 is to let him loose.

Needless to say, this is quite a challenge for all of us. I feel bad for him because I can tell that he’s bored silly in the apartment, even with toys to play with. And I feel bad for all of us because this walking on a leash thing is a real pain in the ass.

And it makes me wonder why people in cities bother having dogs at all.

Anyway, I got a lead on a dog park about 2 miles from here. I figured I’d take him out and give it a try. It might be within walking distance — I have to drive it once to see. I’d hate to walk all the way out there to see a No Dogs sign.

No Dogs SignOne more thing I need to mention here…one reason there are so many No Dogs signs in parks is because so many people fail to clean up after their dogs. What’s the big deal here? Bring along a plastic grocery bag. When the dog does his business, use the bag to pick it up and seal it. Then drop it in the nearest garbage bin. If everyone did this, we wouldn’t have a need for so many No Dogs signs.

Waiting for the Cable Guy

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No, not a movie review.

At this moment, I’m sitting cross-legged on a comfy new red leather sofa, listening to NPR and staring at a blank “parchment” (think pale pink) wall. The wall will soon house our first HDTV. And, with luck, it will also sprout a cable Internet connection.

I’m waiting for the cable guy.

He’s supposed to be here between 8 AM and 10 AM — a nice, narrow range. It’s 8:21 AM as I type this.

We spent a lot of time researching our Internet and television options for the Phoenix apartment. We discovered that we could get cable Internet that was 7 times faster than what we have in Wickenburg for half the price. (Chalk that down to another benefit of life in a city over life on the edge of nowhere.) We also discovered that if we went with DirectTV (rather than Dish Network or the cable company providing the Internet), we could get HD television service set up in up to four rooms, with DVR (think TiVo) for half of what we were paying Dish Network in Wickenburg for two rooms.

I should point out here that we’re not getting anything other than “basic cable” television channels. Why? Well, there are a few reasons. First and foremost, this is a part-time residence. It’s idiotic to buy premium cable channels for a home we’ll be occupying only part of each week. Second, we have a Netflix subscription. Why be at the mercy of television provider schedules — or pay extra for on-demand television programming — when you can get the movies you want to see on Netflix?

Netflix LogoBut that’s not all. Netflix also has the ability to play many movies on demand on your HDTV through your Internet connection if your connection is fast enough and you have a compatible device to handle the incoming Internet content. Our connection here will be fast enough. Devices to handle this start at $99; we just have to decide which one to buy.

Of course, all this television stuff is moot right now, since we don’t have any television down here right now. I don’t miss it too much, but I am looking forward to watching movies in high definition on a big screen.

AirPort ExtremeAirPort ExpressBut I’m hoping the cable guy can put the Internet connection on this big empty wall. I’ll use an AirPort Express that I brought from home to set up a wireless network and attach a printer, which I’ll also bring from home. If we wind up with a Netflix-compatible device that isn’t WiFi compatible, I’ll bring down a spare Airport Extreme base station from home and swap it with the Express, which doesn’t have an Ethernet out port. Otherwise, the AirPort Express should do the job.

So I’m waiting for the cable guy. It’s now 8:46 AM. He should be here any minute now.

City Slickers

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We become part-time city dwellers.

The situation was absurd.

Mike was driving 70 miles each way from Wickenburg to Tempe for work every weekday. He was spending more time in the car than doing the things that make life worth living.

I was trying to operate a helicopter charter business in a town where the retiree population was far more interested in making day trips to WalMart than spending money on something new and different. All my business was in Phoenix, Scottsdale, and Glendale, making me wonder why I’d even bothered getting a Wickenburg business permit.

We were both trapped in a town with an ever-aging population, few shopping and dining opportunities, and an economy based on real estate and property taxes. There were few good-paying jobs and more than half of the new businesses failed. All of our friends in our age group had already moved out of town to places like Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and even Michigan. Our remaining retiree friends weren’t usually interested in activities like camping, off-roading, hiking, or weekend trips by plane or helicopter.

I was miserable, starved for input simply not available in Wickenburg. At least Mike got out of town every weekday, where he could socialize with younger, more liberally minded people and enjoy lunch out with a wide variety of ethnic options.

So when the housing crisis sent house values in Phoenix down 30% in one year, Mike acted. He bought a two bedroom, two bath condo in Phoenix.

Condo Living

We moved a bunch of stuff down to the condo on Tuesday, including a futon, Alex the Bird’s old cage, our old bedroom furniture, and a brand new leather sofa we’d bought at Macy’s. My brother and his wife were still in town and they helped out. They were also the first people to sleep on the new sofabed, since we all stayed over on Tuesday night. The new bed arrives January 14. We’ll bring the futon back home when it arrives.

I spent Wednesday shopping for the things we needed to make the condo a home — mostly kitchen and bathroom stuff. Then I came back to the apartment and began cleaning the kitchen. I soon found that the insides of the cabinets needed more than just soap and water. Soon I was giving them a fresh coat of white semi-gloss paint.

The apartment is part of a large complex of two-story buildings set around grassy, tree-shaded courtyards. It was built in 1965 and the cabinets and closets and bathtubs clearly date back to that time. The cabinets have new doors and drawer fronts and the kitchen is fully modernized with a huge refrigerator, gas stove, and dishwasher. It’s a small kitchen with limited counter space, but there’s plenty of cabinet and drawer space. I don’t expect to do much cooking here, especially with so many restaurants nearby.

Our place has two bedrooms, each with two full baths. The master bedroom has a walk-through closet big enough to satisfy any clothes horse — so big, in fact, that we put my long dresser inside the closet. There’s a big living room/dining room area with a gas fireplace and a wall big enough for the flat screen television Mike keeps talking about. There are two patios, one accessible from the living room and second bedroom and the other accessible from both bedrooms. (Yes, the second bedroom sits between two patios.) Each patio is surrounded by a 5-foot block wall with a gate to the courtyard.

The apartment complex is on Highland Avenue, between 22nd and 24th Streets. That’s part of the “Biltmore” area of Phoenix, although it might officially be just south. It doesn’t matter. We are walking distance from a Trader Joe’s, a Fry’s supermarket, the Apple Store in the Biltmore Fashion Park (which also features Macy’s and Saks), two bookstores, and dozens of restaurants. If Wickenburg is a desert island, our new part-time home in Phoenix is in the port city.

Part-Time Home

Yes, I did say “part-time.” We have no intention of living here full-time — at least not yet. Like at least two other friends of ours, we’ve decided to maintain a home for work and a home for play. We’ll still be in Wickenburg part of each week. The rest of the time, we’ll be in Phoenix.

You see, despite Wickenburg’s shortcomings and the direction that the town’s former administration pushed the town in — real estate growth above all else, including business or job growth — it still has a few things you can’t get in a big city:

Dark skies.
At night, it gets very dark around our Wickenburg home. We’re on the edge of town and few of our neighbors believe in those ridiculous accent lights on their homes and trees. We see the Milky Way every clear night — which is just about every night in Arizona. At the Phoenix condo, there are parking lot lights and pathway lights and the general glow of the city all around. You can see some stars — after all, this part of Phoenix isn’t nearly as bright at night as Los Angeles or New York — but stargazing is not an option.

Peace and quiet.
Because we live on the edge of town in Wickenburg, at the very end of a road, there’s no traffic noise. Because we have 2-1/2 acres of land, we have no neighbor noise. Sure, there’s an occasional barking dog, but we’re more likely to hear coyotes howling at night. And yes, if the wind is blowing just right, we can hear the occasional loud motorcycle or truck air brake from Wickenburg Way or Vulture Mine Road. And, during the spring and fall months, when windows are open at night, we do hear the garbage collector making her 4 AM rounds. At the Phoenix condo, however, there’s a bit more noise. Outside on the patio, you can clearly hear the sound of traffic passing by on Highland, 100 yards away. Police helicopters fly by once in a while, mostly at night. There are more neighbors with more dogs and we can occasionally hear them. Don’t get me wrong — the Phoenix condo isn’t what I’d call loud. But it’s not as quiet as the peaceful quiet in Wickenburg or the absolute dead silence at our Howard Mesa property.

Privacy.
Having 2-1/2 acres of hillside land helps keep neighbors away from your windows. Indeed, in Wickenburg we rarely bother closing blinds or curtains. We have absolute privacy, which is the primary reason we purchased a home that wasn’t in a subdivision. (Who the hell really wants neighbors that close?) At our Phoenix condo, however, privacy is simply not available. Our windows — all of which are actually full-wall sliding glass doors — look out into our patios. Beyond the 5-foot walls is the courtyard. Beyond that is another two-story building looking out our way. Ever see the movie Rear Window? That’s my nickname for this place. No, it’s not quite that bad, but that’s the idea.

Is all the shopping, dining, and convenience of a Phoenix home really worth sacrificing these things for a few days each week?

You bet they are.

I’m Not as Dumb as Most Cars Think

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And I don’t like cars bossing me around.

This week, I had the dubious pleasure of driving a Dodge. In all honesty, I don’t know what kind of Dodge it was. It seemed to be a kind of cross between a station wagon and an SUV. The car was a rental and I didn’t rent it so I can’t complain. I do feel bad for the company that rented it for me. They got ripped off. The 6-day rental cost them nearly $400.

I will make some comments about this vehicle:

  • It is designed for short people. I’m 5 feet 8 inches tall and my eyes looked almost directly into the top frame of the windshield. Slouching while driving was required.
  • The car was a dog. That means it didn’t want to go. I spend a lot of time with my heavy foot pressing down hard, just to enter or pass on the freeway.
  • It seemed like a perfectly workable family car. Four doors, storage in back. I could imagine kids sitting in there with dirty soccer uniforms on.

Check Tire Pressure?

Check Tire Pressure

After leaving Burbank and starting my long drive to Ventura on the 101 freeway, I noticed that one of the idiot lights was on. We used to call them idiot lights because they used to warn drivers about the obvious problems with a car: overheating, low oil pressure, out of gas. But these lights have apparently graduated to the next level of reporting. Now they report about more advanced problems — or potential problems. I thought the symbol was referring to the oil, but I didn’t pull over to check. After all, I’d just picked it up at Enterprise and they should have checked the oil. Instead, I ignored it.

On the third day, I got tired of looking at it. I pulled out the manual, which was in the glove box, and looked it up. It was a tire pressure indicator. The light on meant one of two things:

  • The tire pressure in one or more tires was low
  • The tire pressure monitoring system was broken.

I walked around the car. The tires looked fine.

I spent the rest of the week ignoring the light.

Stop Nagging Me about My Seat Belt!

I wear my seat belt — at least most of the time. I don’t wear it in parking lots, especially when backing up. I also don’t wear it on the extremely rough roads I sometimes drive in my Jeep. And no, I don’t wear it while driving around town, since my speed seldom tops 45 MPH. My 2003 Honda S2000 and 1999 Jeep Wrangler both have airbags. In the unlikely event of a collision at 30 MPH, I’ll let the airbag protect me from the steering wheel. I don’t think a collision at that speed is going to throw me out of the vehicle, either. I’m more likely to get trapped in my seat when some senior T-bones me at an intersection.

I’m fortunate. Neither of my primary vehicles (or the two secondary vehicles — a 1987 Toyota MR2 and 2994 Ford F-150 Pickup) has one of those annoying seatbelt reminders. Sure, an idiot light goes on on the panel. It might even flash — I’m so good at ignoring it that I just don’t know. But it doesn’t repeatedly beep until I fasten the damn seatbelt. It gently reminds me and then allows me to make my own decision.

The Dodge this past week was a nag. It got so annoying that I fastened the seatbelt behind my back on Tuesday and left it there until I departed Ventura today.

It could be worse. It could be one of those automatic seatbelt things. My sister had a car with one of those. What a pain in the butt.

I’ll Shift When I’m Ready to Shift!

My Jeep thinks it needs to tell me when to shift gears. An idiot light comes on when I accelerate, apparently to signal me when it’s time to upshift. As if I can’t hear the engine or feel the power of the engine. As if I’d prefer watching the instrument panel for the cue than the road in front of me.

I don’t shift when it tells me to. I like to wind things out a bit. My Honda redlines at 9000 RPM — and yes, I’ve been there.

And that’s another thing: engine cutoffs. Both my Honda and my Toyota cut power if I enter redline territory. Okay, so maybe that’s not such a bad idea. It certainly keeps me on my toes when Mike and I race home from Scottsdale or Phoenix. I have better reaction time at traffic lights, but if I don’t shift before redline, the car gives him an advantage. (The fact that he’s driving an AMG doesn’t help me much, either.)

I’m Not Quite Out of Gas Yet

My Jeep also likes to beep when the fuel level gets low. That’s a good thing, since I have become an expert at ignoring idiot lights. The audible warning is a real help. Unfortunately, the Jeep’s idea of low fuel and mine are very different. The Jeep tells me I’m low when the 19 gallon tank gets down to 5 gallons. That’s not low, even for a Jeep.

My Honda uses a series of lighted bars on the digital dash to indicate fuel level. When it gets down to two bars (out of about a dozen), the low fuel light goes on. But I’ve taken it down to zero bars and have only put 11 gallons in the 13 gallon tank. At 25 miles per gallon, I still had 50 miles left.

Of course, I have completely run out of gas in my Toyota. I was on my way to work, wearing a suit and heels, and had to walk about a half mile to the nearest gas station. Then I had to beg them to loan me a container for the fuel. Sheesh. So I’m more careful now. And I use the odometer on that car to judge remaining fuel.

I almost ran out of gas in my redneck truck. (That’s the 94 Ford.) You can read about it here, if you’re curious. That vehicle doesn’t have low fuel lights. It has two fuel tanks, though, and only one fuel gauge.

And Another Thing…

What is it with driver controls these days?

My Honda has buttons near the steering wheel to control the stereo and climate control. But the main control buttons for both devices are less than 10 inches away from the steering wheel. I don’t know about you, but I don’t find it a hardship to reach 10 inches, even when I’m driving.

The car’s cockpit — and yes, it is a cockpit, with less room for the driver than my helicopter has for the pilot — has everything clustered around the driver’s side of the dashboard. And some things are clustered there twice.

At least that car doesn’t tell me when to shift gears.