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Hello, I’m Veronica

The sky is not completely dark at night. Were the sky absolutely dark, one would not be able to see the silhouette of an object against the sky.

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    Game of Stones

    Do you know the absurd story of the London Bridge? Built in 1831, the famous bridge lasted 130 years over the Thames River before overwhelming traffic demanded the construction of a new one. So, what did London do with the old one? They sold it. Robert McCulloch, an American oilman, paid over $2 million to have the bridge dismantled into pieces, shipped to the coast of California (through the Panama Canal), trucked across the desert to the edge of Arizona, and reconstructed in newly-established Lake Havasu City.  Look at that photo below – that’s a lot of truckloads.  Call him crazy but McCulloch recouped his bridge money by selling the surrounding desert properties to retirees. He also took several thousand bits of the bridge and put them in tiny glass bottles for souvenirs. I bought one of these bottled bits when I was a kid.

    The London Bridge story came to mind this week after reading a Wall Street Journal article about Hawaii.  It seems volcanoes are making their way to mainland America much the same way the London Bridge made its way to Arizona.  Tourists to Hawaii’s Volcanoes National Park – the 500-square mile preserve on the Big Island – are stuffing lava rocks into their suitcases as souvenirs; some over a foot long.  I’d like to see the size of the volcano you could build from all the lava bits stolen (yes stolen; helping yourself to rocks in a national park is technically illegal).  That volcano would be hundreds of feet taller than the paper mache science project you assembled in your youth (baking soda + vinegar = lava flow!)

    This rock-robbing in Hawaii is big business.  How do I know?  Because the real story here is the hundreds of rocks being returned to Volcanoes National Park.  Park rangers claim they’re receiving mailings every day, each containing a) a stolen lava rock, and b) a letter of apology.  Turns out – if you believe this sort of thing – taking lava rocks puts a curse on your life and bad things start to happen.  In one case, a tourist claimed his sons began having behavioral problems, his marriage fell apart, and his mother died; all within a few months of bringing home a lava rock.

    The Hawaiian Goddess of fire, lightning, wind, and volcanoes – Pele – is responsible for the curse.  She is credited with creating the Hawaiian Islands in the first place.  Her domain encompasses all volcanic activity on the Big Island, and she’s known for her power, passion, jealousy, and capriciousness.  Yo, don’t take Pele’s rocks!

    (Note: as I was reading up on “Madame Pele” I recalled the 2014 computer-animated short “Lava”.  Remember the story, about two volcanoes who fall in love – “Uku” and “Lele”?  Maybe Lele was Pele in disguise – casting her powerful curse from the big screen!)

    My wife and I went to Hawaii on our honeymoon thirty years ago.  We saw several volcanoes but never did we consider taking a lava rock home (loading up on pineapples and several boxes of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts instead).  I mean really, what do you do with a lava rock: display it in your living room as if you own a share of Hawaii?

    Perhaps these rock-robbers are the same peeps who fell for Pet Rocks in the 1970’s.  If you weren’t around back then, Pet Rocks were smooth stones gathered from Mexico’s Rosarito Beach.  They had cute painted faces and were sold as if live animals, in little boxes with straw beds and breathing holes.  They included a lengthy training manual to “properly raise and care for one’s new Pet Rock”.  (The easiest commands were “sit” and “stay”.)  The Pet Rock phenomenon was as absurd as rebuilding the London Bridge, yet 1.5 million were sold for four dollars apiece in a six-month frenzy.  Gary Dahl – “founder” of the Pet Rock – became an instant millionaire.

    My conclusion on all this rock talk?  Real people are as capricious as Hawaii’s fiery goddess.  London Bridge inspired a nursery rhyme (“… is falling down…”) so we sing about rocks.  Hawaii’s volcanoes inspired a Pixar story so we watch a movie about rocks.  But stealing rocks inspired a curse, cast on all who dare to help themselves.  No thanks, Pele.  Put it in stone; if I must have a rock I’ll take my chances and invest in the $4 pet-friendly variety instead.

    Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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    Refining Buy-Products

    Let’s chat about your last visit to the gas station (assuming you don’t own a “plug-n-play” vehicle).  Chances are you hit the pumps in the last week or so.  If you’re like me you drove in and drove out, mindlessly fueling to be on your way again as fast as possible.  But lately I’ve learned there’s more than meets the eye as you fill-er-up.  We’re all unknowingly playing the great retail chess game known as dynamic pricing.

    Here’s the drill.  My local Shell station asks me a lot of questions before I get my first drop of unleaded (which makes me crazy but what choice do I have?)  Cash or credit?  Rewards Program number?  Zip Code?  Car Wash?  Paper Receipt?  All that info is “pumped” out of me (ha) up front.  Even then I must choose the octane before I finally get what I came for.

    Now here’s the rub.  Every one of those data points feeds a Watson-like computer somewhere far removed from the gas station.  Watson brews a big customer-transaction stew, mixing in time-of-day, day-of-week, gallons purchased, and even weather conditions.  The result?  The “optimal” price point, delicately balanced between a) what you the consumer are willing to pay and b) what the supplier wants to net.  It’s a price-per-gallon computation that changes as many as ten times a day.

    Coca-Cola may get the credit for the advent of dynamic pricing – with soft-drink vending (almost 20 years ago now).  Coke added a heat sensor and a computer chip to their machines, and as the outside temperature increased so did the cost of a soda.  Bad taste, and bad decision.  Consumers figured out the game and raised a big stink.  The running joke at the time – maybe not so funny today – was Coke would next install a camera to determine how much change was in your pocket.  Pepsi seized the opportunity to lure the unhappy customers and Coke quickly dropped the techno-gimmick.  But dynamic pricing took hold and never looked back.

    Dynamic pricing is easier to digest when it targets times or situations where customers don’t notice or don’t even care.  The better example is school supplies.  Towards the end of summer your local Wal*Mart or Target will deep-discount pencils and paper and the like, often as much as 50%.  Kids will flock to the sale and load up on everything they need.  Parents will give their receipts an approving smile.  But guess what?  The store still wins.  That’s because “impulse purchases” bagged up with the school supplies are priced slightly higher than usual, more than offsetting any loss from the sale.

    Dynamic pricing is hardest at work in hotels (what rate makes sense to fill that empty room?), utilities (do you really need the air conditioning right now?), and outdoor sporting events (are you willing to watch your baseball team during that unexpected rainstorm?).  And of course, any time you shop Amazon or Uber, dynamic pricing is asking the question, “how much do you really want that product or ride?”

    Let’s pull up to the pumps again.  If you use “GasBuddy” or some other app designed to locate the lowest price-per-gallon, you’re winning the battle – but not the war.  I wish I had GasBuddy the first time I filled up as a teenager.  I crunched the numbers: forty years of driving; a tank of gas per week; eighteen gallons or so per tank.  If I purchased at $0.03/gallon less each time I filled up, I’d have an extra $1,000 in my pocket by now.

    Thanks to Watson and his endless algorithms however, GasBuddy isn’t much more than instant gratification.  The suppliers are always one step ahead.  Unless you keep an eye on prices (and a few gallons in your tank), you’ll inevitably purchase when your demand takes priority.  Did you know gas is less expensive in the early hours of the day?  That’s because commuters are more likely to fill up at the end of the day, when they unknowingly drive up demand.  The computer is only too happy to adjust the price.

    Maybe now you’ll leave the house a little earlier in the morning.  Fill up on your way to work instead of on your way home later in the day.  You will save a couple of cents per gallon if you do that.  And good for you – you’re beating the dynamic-pricing game.

    Just don’t buy a cup of coffee while you’re at it.

     

     

     

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    Down Goes The Flag

    Lately it seems the American flag is more often at half-staff than not. When the flag is at full-staff I get lost in the surrounding scenery, with just a passing glance at the Stars & Stripes. But at half-staff the flag is an effigy of its prouder self.  It might as well be illuminated with several of those Hollywood-style searchlights, as if to say, “something’s wrong with this picture.”

    There is something wrong with this picture: I don’t immediately know the reason the flag goes to half-staff. There’s no accompanying billboard to tell me who or what we’re commemorating with this gesture. In fact, it wasn’t until I wrote this piece that I navigated to halfstaff.org (of course there’s a website), where you can learn why and when the red, white, and blue becomes more than just the unfurled symbol of America’s freedom.

    Let’s get two misconceptions out of the way. One, the flag is not considered “half-mast” but rather “half-staff”. If the flag is “half-mast” you’re probably rocking and rolling on a ship at sea instead of standing on dry land (but the significance remains the same – respect, mourning, distress, or a salute).  Two, the flag is not “raised to half-staff”.  First it is raised to full-staff, paused, and then lowered to half-staff for the rest of the day. But unless you’re there at sunrise you’ll probably miss that little detail.

    “Half-staff” dates to the century before America’s founding fathers.  Today the President issues the request through executive order, and all government facilities (including schools and military bases) are expected to comply.  Typically, we’re commemorating the death of a prominent government official, whether on the day of passing or the day of remembrance.  And speaking of passing, the gesture of lowering the flag is said to make room for an “invisible flag of death” flying above.  I kind of like that.

    As if to play copycat, state, city, and other flags and pennants are expected to follow suit whenever the American flag goes half-mast.  But state flags can go half-mast by their own right.  Here in Colorado our state flag has been lowered more than twenty times in the past five years.  Just yesterday our governor ordered half-mast, to honor the passing of Ray Kogovsek, a former Colorado lawmaker and U.S. Congressman.

    The American flag is also flown at half-mast to acknowledge days or events in U.S. history.  Thus, you can expect the raise-then-lower on Memorial Day, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day (12/7), and what is now called Patriot Day (9/11).  Also since 2001, the flag is flown at half-mast in conjunction with the annual National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Service.

    Several similar gestures to half-staff – especially since the advent of social media – have emerged to enlighten us to those who suffer.  Think about all those “Awareness Ribbons” (or bracelets), displayed on clothing and cars.  Their meaning is linked to their color, as in the following examples: Blue – Drunk-driving intolerance; Pink – Breast Cancer awareness; Rainbow – Gay Pride and support of the LGBT community; White – Victims of terrorism or violence against women; Yellow – Support of U.S. troops (among a dozen other designations), but generally a symbol of hope.

    Recently I’ve noticed houses in our neighborhoods with a single green light brightly illuminated next to the front door at night.  As I discovered here, I’m seeing the “Greenlight A Vet” program, meant to “show America’s veterans the appreciation they deserve when, back home and out of uniform, they’re more camouflaged than ever.”  You can even purchase and/or register your green light on the website as a show of solidarity.  9.3 million people have done just that.  Four are right here in my zip code.

    The green lights do catch my attention.  As a civilian I don’t think our veterans get nearly the appreciation or respect they deserve, so “bravo” to the program.  But the American flag doesn’t get the appreciation or respect it deserves either (a topic for another post).  Thankfully, it’s hard to ignore the right-but-somehow-wrong image of the Stars and Stripes at “half-staff”.

  • Perfunctory Perception

    The Washington Post began a recent front-page article with the headline “Why President Trump is Probably Right…”, and I was immediately suspicious. The Times is an outwardly liberal rag. I can’t recall one article – let alone a headline – where they’ve waxed positive about the current administration. Curiosity piqued, I read Kristine Phillips’ well-written article and discovered it was not so much about President Trump himself as it was about the “first 100 days”.  You’re going to read a lot about that this weekend.  And history tells us one hundred days – no matter the successes and failures contained within – rarely define the legacy of a U.S. president.

    We have Franklin D. Roosevelt (32nd U.S. President – 1933-1945) to thank for setting the bar of “first 100 days”.  Four months into his first term Roosevelt delivered a noteworthy “fireside chat” to the people, including a plan to pull the country out of the Great Depression.  Roosevelt also had a congressional majority squarely aligned with his administration.  As a result fifteen major bills were passed in his first hundred days, including the most critical; to stabilize the nation’s banking system.  It was a virtual sink-or-swim chapter in American history.

    No president since the days of the Great Depression has faced a more daunting economic crisis, which is why none of their “first 100 days” measure up to Roosevelt’s.  Our last two presidents make for interesting examples.  George W. Bush entered his term intent on cutting taxes and reforming education, and he did sign the No Child Left Behind Act within the first year of his administration.  But more likely Bush will be remembered for the unforeseen events on and after September 11th, 2001.  Barack Obama sought economic stimulus by signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in the first few months of his administration.  But more likely Obama will be remembered for the Affordable Care Act, signed towards the end of his first year.

    Since Roosevelt’s administration, seven of nine presidents have been elected to a second term (not including Kennedy and Nixon).  Accordingly one hundred days is usually the prelude of an eight-year tenure, representing less than 3% of the total time frame.  I’d venture to say a president’s legacy is more the product of what happens during the other 97%.

    To draw personal parallels, I thought about what it would be like to be judged as a son or a husband or a father; a student in school or a manager in the workplace – based on “first 100 days”.  No thanks; I can say with confidence I needed “the other 97%” to establish my legacy in each of those roles.

    So where was President Trump “right”, according to The Washington Post?  The full headline read, “Why President Trump is probably right about the ‘ridiculous standard” of the first 100 days”.  Assuming two terms, Trump’s administration has another 2,820 days.  I’ll go with “probably right” too.  After 100 days, you’re still circling the ring trying to land a punch.  You’ve still got your fifteen rounds.

    Again, the media will be all over this topic in the next couple of days so enjoy their rush to judgment.  The conservatives will make a best effort to spin Trump’s first 100 days positive; the liberals not so much.  The New York Times is quick to point out not one of Trump’s campaign-promised pieces of legislation has been passed, while The Hill prefers to recognize his “five key moments”.  Even Trump himself – who I voted for – recognizes the significance of perception.  One hundred days may be a perfunctory time frame but there’s no escaping the report cards.  Hence we have a bold tax plan – which could amount to Trump’s most defining legislation – released just days before the end of “the first 100”.

    The most thought-provoking quote I found on this topic came from author Doris Kearns Goodwin.  “Less important than a scorecard of accomplishments,” she said, “is the leadership style demonstrated during the early days.”  In other words, our commander-in-chief himself – not just his policies – is a work-in-progress well beyond this weekend.  Keep your eye on the remaining 97%.

     

  • Manipulation Games

    In April of last year Starbucks modified its customer loyalty program, linking reward “stars” to dollars spent instead of store visits. Where previously you nabbed a free coffee for twelve trips to the cash register, you now need a total purchase value exceeding $63 .  According to CNN, “…customers were furious with the new program.”  Maybe so but those customers didn’t stay away either.  Starbucks’ 2016 gross sales were $21.3B, up 10% from its previous fiscal year.

    Once upon a time I resisted customer rewards programs but over the years I’ve made peace with them.  I keep a couple dozen loyalty cards in the car or on my phone, ready to play whenever I visit this store or that restaurant.  I still control where, what, and how much I purchase.  Since I don’t keep a close eye on my rewards, I’m pleasantly surprised whenever I qualify for a freebie or a discount.

    But here’s what I don’t like about rewards programs.  They’re designed to manipulate your spending habits.  That’s where Starbucks – like so many other merchants – gets a “fail” on my customer satisfaction test.  In addition to their stars program Starbucks sends emails every other day (which I unsubscribe from but always seem to return).  Those emails encourage me to purchase in certain ways or quantities or timeframes with the allure of “bonus” stars.  It’s a ruse; plain and simple and obvious.  No amount of “free” will ever tempt me to buy three breakfast sandwiches in five days.  Or three Frappuccino’s in three days.  (I don’ t even buy one breakfast sandwich or one Frappuccino.  Just coffee.)

    Starbucks may annoy me with their sales tactics but I still buy their products.  The same cannot be said for credit card companies.  The newest Visa and MasterCard programs include sophisticated reward programs where spending is literally the only path out of debt.  Take Chase Bank’s Sapphire Reserve Visa card.  As trendy as this elegantly thin metal card appears to be, it’s utterly manipulative.  For starters, just holding the card in your hand sets you back $450 a year.  Then you’re encouraged to spend $4,000 in the first three months to qualify for 100,000 reward points (recently sliced to 50,000).  You’re also tempted by an instant $300 travel credit – which can only be used through Chase’s partners – as well as credits towards Global Entry, TSA Pre, and airline lounge fees.

    No matter how you justify the rewards of Chase Sapphire Reserve you’re still spend-spend-a-spending to recoup the costs.  Consider Sapphire points are valued at 2.1 cents each.  The best-case scenario therefore – spending on travel or dining – still needs to add up to $15,000 before you’ve paid off the $450 annual fee.  Too rich for me.

    Las Vegas is getting in on the rewards game too.  Sin City’s legendary “free drink” is about to enter the history books.  Slot machines now include small colored lights, easy to spot by the passing cocktail waitress.  If you’re “red” she’ll walk right past you without so much as a smile.  If you’re “green” you’ve fed your machine enough to earn a “free” drink.  The same goes for casino parking lots; spend enough inside the building and you’ll earn a voucher for outside.  Is it any wonder gambling is no longer the biggest source of revenue in Las Vegas (in favor of hotel, restaurant, and bar purchases)?

    Despite these trends, I’ll keep playing the rewards game and very occasionally cashing in on anything “free”.  But I’ll also be wary of the subtle manipulations.  Just yesterday I received my umpteenth Southwest Airlines’ Visa card offer.  All I must do is spend $2,000 in three months for 50,000 points and no annual fee.  That application goes straight to the shredder every time.  My one and only Visa card with its no-frills-no-cost rewards program suits me just fine.

     

About Me

The sky is not completely dark at night. Were the sky absolutely dark, one would not be able to see the silhouette of an object against the sky.

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