Just a quick note to alert readers to a scam that’s evidently been around for a while.

In reviewing my credit card charges for the week I was gone, I found a charge for $2.56 from “#eastcoastmobilestyle.” The name was not familiar to me, so I called the phone number on the charge record, which appeared in the memo field of Quicken’s register when I downloaded my transactions: 912-289-0124. I got a recording with a female voice that sounded Asian. She said they could not provide support and that I should e-mail a support address. I left a message and kept digging, trying to find out what I’d supposedly bought from this company.

I wound up on a Web site called 800Notes where people evidently log the phone numbers of suspicious calls. There was a page dedicated to this number that mentioned East Coast Mobile. There were three pages of comments. In each case, the commenter had received a phone call from this company and a charge for $2.56, $4.56, or $6.56 had appeared on their credit card bill. I checked my new phone’s call log and did not see any calls from that number. However, I’d purchased my phone just the day before and had used the same credit card to make the purchase.

This certainly appears to be a scam. They get your credit card info and process a tiny charge. Most people would ignore a charge like that — after all, it could be for a ring tone or some other minor cellphone related service. But other people — like me, I guess — know who they buy from. I did not buy anything from this company.

I called the fraud department at my credit card company. They reversed the charge and cancelled that credit card account. I’ll get a new credit card later this week.

My advice to everyone reading this: always check your credit card bills for unknown charges. Follow up on the ones you don’t recognize — no matter how large or small they are. If this company places tiny charges like this on 100,000 cards, they can make a quarter of a million dollars in no time. They can also repeat the process for other charges — including larger ones — or sell your credit card information to scammers.

Please spread the word about this to the folks you know.

June 2, 2009 Update: In just a month, this has become one of the most popular posts on this blog. It consistently gets more than 50 hits per day. This is telling me that the fraud is extremely widespread.

Imagine that only 1% of the people who are fraudulently charged by East Coast Mobile Style find their way to this blog post. That means 5000 or more people per day are being charged. Even if the fee is the low number of $2.56, that’s well over $10,000 of fraudulent charges per day!

PLEASE spread the word about this fraud to the people you know. We need to stop credit card fraud any way we can. Always check every item on your credit card bill, no matter how small. I know it’s a pain in the butt to cancel a credit card, but if your has been compromised, that’s the only solution.

Good luck!

Wow, does that tag like look like something written up by a marketing guy for a discount store or what? But that’s not what this is all about. It’s about really shopping smart and taking advantage of sales to buy the things you want and need.

Where I’m Coming From

First, I need to make something clear: I’m not a shopper. I don’t read newspaper ads, looking for the best deals on this and that. I don’t spend hours every week hopping from store to store to save a few bucks. I don’t clip coupons. I don’t have the time or patience for any of that.

And I should also point out that Mike and I are a family of two with just two pets. No kids, no huge meals. Although we might spend as much on food as a family of four, it’s because we like good food. We tend to lean toward quality and the things we really like rather than quantity and settling for second best.

We’re not broke — we’re both still gainfully employed in this f’ed up economy. But like many smart people out there, we’ve seen the writing on the wall. Who knows what could come next? Who knows whether Mike’s company can stay afloat in these troubled times? Or whether people will still be interested in treating themselves to helicopter tours. I’ve already seen a sharp drop in book sales — the real source of my income.

That said, it really irks me to pay more than I have to for the grocery items I like or need. I’m talking about everyday staples, like paper products (toilet paper, paper towels, tissues), coffee, milk, butter, etc.

What I’ve been doing for years now is buying the items I need in quantity when they’re on sale or when I find them somewhere else at a really good price. Here are some examples.

Coffee

I like Eight O’Clock Coffee. It’s an Arabica bean with a light roast. It’s more robust than Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, which I liked before I left New Jersey and could no longer get here in Arizona. (It’s now available in Arizona; I tried it again and was disappointed.) But it’s mellower than Starbucks or any of the other boutique coffee brands — although I’ll take Starbucks Breakfast Blend in a pinch. I buy it as whole beans and grind it at home as part of my coffee-making ritual. Nothing like a good cup of coffee first thing in the morning, huh?

My local supermarket sells a 12-0z bag (whatever happened to a “pound” of coffee?) of Eight O’Clock coffee beans for $7.59. I think that’s outrageous. But every once in a while, it goes on sale for $4.99. That’s more like it. I buy enough to last until the next sale, saving about $2.60/bag or 21¢ per ounce. Not bad. But recently, they’ve been having these really kick butt sales on the coffee, selling it for $3.89 per bag. That’s about half price. Each time I find it at that price, I buy eight or ten bags.

One of the nice things about coffee is that it’s sold in the kind of airtight containers designed to keep it fresh. While coffee doesn’t have an unlimited shelf life, if stored properly, it should stay fresh for at least half a year. So why not buy it at that low price and stock up? Just make sure you rotate your stock so you’re always using up the older stuff before the new.

And while I’m talking about coffee, it also makes sense t talk about coffee filters. I make my coffee in a Black and Decker single cup coffee maker. I’m the only coffee drinker and I like my coffee brewed just before I drink it. I don’t like coffee that’s been sitting on a pot on a burner for more than maybe 5 minutes. After that, it starts getting stale and I really can’t drink it.

My coffee maker comes with one of those “gold” filters. It’s a washable thing that’s supposedly better for brewing coffee because it helps the oils of the beans meld together or some such bull. Whatever. What I find is that using the reusable filter guarantees bitter bean residue at the bottom of my cup. I’ll stick to paper filters. The coffee maker takes a #2 cone filter. I don’t buy Melita brand or unbleached or any such nonsense. I buy the cheapest ones I can find — they do the job perfect well. My supermarket sells them in packs of 50 or 100. At my rate of 2+ cups per day, that’s enough filters for one or two months. But over the past summer, I discovered that Wal-Mart sells off-brand paper filters like the ones I use in packs of 250 for less than what I pay for 100 at my local supermarket. So when I go to Wal-Mart — which isn’t very often, thank heaven — I buy two or three packs. Stock up and save.

Oh, and if you’re a coffee aficionado reading this and want to “educate” me about brewing and drinking coffee, save it for another blog. I’m tired of people telling me about how my coffee should be. I make it the way I like it, thank you. My point is not how I brew or drink coffee. It’s how I buy what I like and stock up when it’s at a good price.

Other Products

My husband and I don’t go grocery shopping. We go to the store when we need something and buy what we need, along with a few other things. You’ll never see us in the supermarket with a cart full of groceries. We’re usually able to check out on the 15-items-or-less line. It’s been that way for years, since the days in New Jersey when we’d walk to our local grocery store/meat market after work each day and buy dinner right before we cooked it.

You might think that this kind of shopping is less conducive to saving money. It isn’t really — at least not for us. (Again, remember that we don’t have a family to feed.) We’re still walking many of the aisles of the supermarket. And we’re still keeping an eye out for bargains. When butter goes on sale, we buy two or three pounds and freeze what we don’t immediately need. The same goes (without the freezer) for canned items such as chicken broth and soups. (We don’t eat much canned food.) Pasta, pasta sauce, salad dressing — we buy it all on sale before we need it. We pay close attention to the “Best by” dates and don’t buy anything that we don’t think we’ll use before it “expires.”

What we don’t do is buy things we don’t like or won’t need just because it’s on sale. Mike’s a good example — often, I can buy a gallon of milk for just a bit more than I’d pay for a quart. But there’s no way I’ll use a gallon of milk before it goes bad and I’m not interested in freezing it (as some people do). I also don’t believe in throwing food away. If you buy something you don’t like or don’t use, you’re throwing your money away.

The Lure of Costco and Sam’s Club

Ever notice that if you go into a Costco or Sam’s Club you’re lucky to get out of there without spending at least $200? Ever wonder about that? Ever wonder if you’re really saving money?

I’ve been avoiding these places unless I know for sure that there’s something there I need that’s cheaper there than anywhere else. I firmly believe that I can get better prices on an item in my local supermarket when it’s on sale than I can in a Costco. Best of all, I don’t have to buy a case of it.

My husband — well, he’s still sucked in. He buys cases of canned corn and canned chicken broth. He buys huge plastic jars of nuts and garlic powder and peppercorns. He buys buffet plates full of smoked salmon and styrofoam trays of flank steaks. He buys a lot of junk we don’t need. He freezes things that are better not frozen. We eventually do eat or use most of what he buys, but we also throw some of it out. I don’t like that.

My thoughts on these warehouse stores is that unless you’re shopping for a large family or group — or a restaurant — you probably shouldn’t be shopping in there. Sure, the strawberries are a great price per pound, but do you really think you can eat 10 lbs of them before they go bad? What are you going to do with 12 giant fresh-baked muffins? Got room in your freezer for that 10-lb bag of flash-frozen chicken breast? Are you even going to get them home before they start defrosting? And where are you going to store those 24 rolls of toilet paper and eight boxes of Kleenex? And you do realize that even canned food doesn’t have an infinite shelf life, right?

Shop with a Calculator

Buying bigger isn’t always cheaper. Don’t get conned into buying the jumbo size just because you’re too lazy to do the math.

I know this sounds dorky, but if you have trouble comparing prices of items because they’re sold in different quantities, use a calculator. 12 ounces for $2.39 is cheaper than 20 ounces for $5.29. Most supermarkets will help you by posting the per ounce (or other unit) price for each item on the shelf.

Going back to my coffee example, my supermarket also sells Eight O’Clock coffee in a larger bag. I think it’s 2 pounds. But a comparison of the per ounce price clearly shows which bag is a better deal; when the small bags are on sale, they’re almost always cheaper per ounce.

A calculator and a cheat sheet with supermarket prices would certainly help me prove my theory about Costco. But that brings me back to my original point: I’m not a shopper. I just buy the things I want or need in reasonable quantity when I find them at a good price.

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.

I 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.

For the past few years, I’ve been using iPilot.com as a source for my aeronautical charts. I subscribe to the charts I want, providing a credit card number up front. When the new chart is available, it’s automatically shipped to me and my card is charged for the amount due. The service is very good and very reliable. I always get the new charts before the old charts expire. The prices are slightly discounted and, for regular charts, shipping is free.

Shipping is not free, however, for the Airport/Facilities Directory (A/FD) — that green book with information about airports. Although I seldom refer to this book, I’m required by the FAA to have a current one covering my area of flight on board my aircraft for every Part 135 flight — which is pretty much every flight I do. The books cost $4.45 each. Shipping, however, is another $4.80. That brings the total to $9.35.

Every 56 days.

It’s a tough nut to swallow. After all, it’s a book I rarely refer to which rarely changes. Yet I’m required to buy it every 56 days. It’s an operating cost — one of the smaller costs that make owning and operating a helicopter charter business so costly. And yes, that might not seem like much, but when you have 20-40 of these stupid little expenses, they really add up.

I’ve ordered charts from NACO — that’s the National Aeronautical Charting Office of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the past. Although they sell charts at list price, they don’t charge for shipping. They also don’t charge for shipping non-chart items like the A/FD or similarly bulky Terminal Procedures Publications (TPPs).

But, as I discovered today, they do discount items when you buy subscriptions. A subscription for an A/FD is 7 editions — basically a full year. A subscription for a Sectional chart is 4 editions — basically two full years.

So, for example, I can subscribe to 7 editions of the Southwest A/FD for a total of $27.02. That’s $3.86 each. Shipping is included. So I save about $5.49 per 56-day cycle. Or $38.43/year.

There is a downside to this. Two of them, really:

• You must pay for an entire subscription up front. There are no refunds. So rather than pay each time an item is shipped, it’s all paid for in advance.
• You must renew the subscription manually when it expires. NACO will send you a reminder via e-mail 30 days in advance so you don’t forget, but it is slightly less convenient.

Today I switched my A/FD subscription from iPilot.com to NACO’s online ordering service. I’m keeping my charts with iPilot.com, at least for now. I’ll wait and see how well NACO handles the subscription before I make any more changes. I wouldn’t be saving that much money on a chart subscription and I rather like the convenience of iPilot’s system.

One more thing I should mention…you can download pages from the A/FD or TPP publications for free on an as-needed basis. Although this would not satisfy my requirements for the A/FD, it’s certainly handy for folks needing airport diagrams and instrument approaches. Most of us don’t need them all, right?

If you haven’t checked out the NACO site, I recommend doing so. There’s a lot of information there. Sure, it’s not a pretty site, but you know it’s accurate because it is the source.

I spent the July 4 holiday weekend at Lake Pateros in Washington State. Most of the time I wasn’t flying — I spent 3.1 hours on Friday drying cherries — I was holed up at the extremely pleasant (and helicopter-friendly) Lake Pateros Motor Inn. Mike and I lounged a bit on the upper deck patio walkway right outside our room. The lake was wild with boaters and jet skiers and wake boarders. On a whim, I took out my Nikon D80 camera and its 70-300 mm lens. I set the camera to continuous shooting, zoomed all the way, and started snapping photos.

To my surprise, a few of them came out pretty darn good.

I continued snapping photos throughout the weekend. On Saturday, Mike and I took a helicopter flight around central Washington and we took turns snapping photos out of the helicopter. (He’s a pilot, too, and we had the dual controls in, so I had a rare opportunity to use both hands and decent equipment for aerial photography with doors off.) Some of those photos were pretty good, too, like Mike’s shot of downtown Chelan.

This all goes back to my theory that if you have decent digital photographic equipment, are in a good place to take photos, have good photographic conditions (i.e., lighting), and enough storage space on your memory card that you don’t have to skimp on the number of photos you take, you have to get some good shots. Mike and I took over 200 shots from the air during a 3-hour flight the other day. I bet we only wind up with about a dozen really good ones.

Anyway, I put the Lake Pateros photos online on a new Web site I’m experimenting with: Flying M Photos. I’m hoping to build up a library of stock and fine art images, as well as event images like this, for sale. With luck, this will fund my photography habit, which is quickly becoming quite expensive.

Were you out on Lake Pateros during the July 4 weekend? Check the site to see if I got an action photo of you! If I did and you want to buy a copy to remember your day at the lake, use the coupon code LAKEP to save 20% on your photo order.

My husband, Mike, is always looking for a travel deal. While there’s nothing wrong with that, what he usually winds up with is a prepaid travel deal with restrictions and other strings attached that make the trip a little less pleasant.

Hotels Deals?

His use of Hotwire, for example, has screwed us up more than once. He often uses it to book hotels. He claims he gets a better deal. What he usually gets, however, is a substandard room in the least desirable part of the hotel that doesn’t match his requests. I’m talking about the third-floor room in a high-rise that overlooks the air conditioning units on the roof of the hotel’s conference center. Or the one across the hall from the ice machine or elevator bank or housekeeping storage closet.

The request thing really bugs me. Hotwire — and most of those special deal booking services — include a field in the reservation form where you can enter requests, such as “quiet room” or “upper floor.” It usually also includes form fields for bed size (i.e., King, 2 Queens, etc.). The trouble is, the hotels either don’t see or don’t get these requests. While we’ve never been stuck in a smoking room after requesting nonsmoking, we seldom get our requested bed size (a single King or Queen). And the other requests regarding room type are usually ignored.

So what is your special deal getting you? Certainly not what you wanted.

And what kind of a deal is that?

While it really doesn’t matter on a one-night stay, getting a less-than-satisfactory room on a multi-night stay can really ruin the trip, especially if it’s supposed to be for pleasure.

The hotels, in the meantime, don’t give a shit about you. In their eyes, you’re paying $99 for a $199 room — or whatever your special deal is — and you’re at the very bottom of their list for service. They don’t care about you. They don’t want your kind in their hotel. The very fact that they have to take in Hotwire guests cheapens their establishment, in their eyes. So when you realize that your vacation is about to be ruined by your room’s view of the garbage dumpsters rather than the mountains or ocean on the other side of the building, and ask to get a different room, they respond that the hotel is full. They’re not even willing to do a deal with you for an upgrade. I think it’s because you pay Hotwire for the room — not the hotel itself — and making a change is likely to start an accounting nightmare for whoever’s at the desk.

This happened to us twice on trips Mike booked for the two of us. After the second time, I made him promise he’d never book a hotel through Hotwire for a trip I was going on with him. But Mike continues to use Hotwire for his solo trips, and for the trips he takes with his family members. Whatever.

Rental Car Reservations?

Well, Mike got bit bad by Hotwire this week. He’s flying to Seattle to visit me out in central Washington. I told him to fly into Wenatchee, which is 30 miles from where I was staying, but he was too cheap to pay the extra $220 airfare from Seattle to Wenatchee. He expected me to drive the 300 round trip miles twice to pick him up in Seattle and then take him back. When I explained that wasn’t happening in my 10 miles per gallon truck, he decided to rent a car. I had no problem with that because I figured that whatever he rented would be more comfortable and fuel-efficient than my 1994 Ford F150 redneck truck.

Now, I’ve rented cars too many times to count over the past 20 or so years. I don’t like doing it. There are too many different prices and options and add-on fees. I’ve found that the very best way to get a good deal is to check the Web sites or call the toll-free numbers for the top 3-5 car rental places that serve the market you’re going to and get quotes. Have your AAA or AOPA or whatever discount code ready. Unless you’re traveling with a lot of people, always ask for the smallest, cheapest car. Nine times out of 10, you’ll get upgraded for free. (I’ve been upgraded to convertibles, minivans, SUVs, and even sports cars.) The trick is to compare apples to apples to make sure each quote is for the complete and total amount. When you find the best price, book it through the car rental agency. They usually just ask for a name and phone number; they seldom ask for a credit card. You write down the confirmation number and present it at the rental counter when you arrive.

But Mike reserved through Hotwire. And not only did they charge him over $350 up front for the entire rental, but the “reservation” was non-refundable. So when I picked up a contract in the Chelan, WA area and needed my truck (and its miserable fuel transfer system) up there with me, he was unable to cancel the car reservation and make the plane reservation (as I’d originally requested — and yes, that’s an “I told you so”). As a result, he’s paying $350 to rent a car to drive himself from Seattle to Quincy and back again. For the rest of his stay, the car will be parked in front of my camper at the Quincy Golf Course.

After battling with a “supervisor” at Hotwire and the rental car agency and getting nowhere, he admitted that he’d learned his lesson: He will never book anything with Hotwire again.

The Moral of this Story

I guess the thing that bugs me most about this affair is the fact that you can really get screwed just trying to save a few bucks. And while it’s nice to save money when you can, there comes a point when saving $20 or $50 on a 10-day car rental isn’t worth the restrictions and headaches that go along with the savings. In this case, by booking his car rental through Hotwire a few days in advance of the trip, he forfeited all of his travel flexibility.

Moments ago, with 10 minutes of work, without any discount codes, I found a suitable car rental through Enterprise for $373.56 — less than $25 more. Is it worth $25 — less than 7% of the purchase price — to pay for something in advance without any chance of refund?

To add insult to injury, our financial situation does not make it vital to save the $25. It’s not like we’re broke. But that’s part of the big picture. And sometimes, for some people, it’s tough to see the forest for the trees.

A few months back, I speculated that eBay was for suckers when I reported on the condition of a “mint” condition lens I’d bought at almost retail and an auction for another lens that I passed on when the bid went more than $100 higher than the selling price on Amazon.com.

What “Mint” Really Means

According to my Mac OS X Dictionary widget, mint, when used as an adjective, means “in pristine condition; as new.” If that’s the case, then why is the term “mint,” when used on eBay, always followed up with additional describing words and phrases like “It is in mint condition, no scratches, no dust and no marks”?

Hello? Mint means mint. Like new. New items don’t have scratches or dust.

Unless, of course, you’re dealing with an eBay item.

The lens I bought that was in “mint” condition looked as if it had been on a shelf for two years. Yes, some of the dust had been wiped off, but there was enough in the cracks and crevices to tell the tale. And there was the tiniest of scratches on the lens closest to the camera body. That’s not mint.

And my husband, who recently decided that the low profile wheels that came with his used AMG weren’t quite right for Wickenburg’s dirt roads, replaced them with “mint” condition stock wheels. In the seller’s world, “mint” is an adjective that can be applied to tire rims that have obviously been scraped along a curb. No amount of polishing will get those scratches out. My husband’s good deal wasn’t such a good deal after all.

I try to use words carefully. Because of that, I would never apply the word “mint” to any item that has been used in any way. Unfortunately, I’m one of the few people who take the meaning of words like “mint” seriously.

The Price Thing Still Cracks Me Up

The other day, I bought another lens from Amazon.com — but not before I started “watching” an auction for a “4-month old,” “mint” condition lens on eBay. The auction ended a little while ago and the lens sold for $454. Add $19.95 shipping and the final price was just $5 less than I paid Amazon for a brand new lens.

I don’t know about you, but I think it’s worth the extra $5 to get something brand new in a box, shipped by a reputable company than to get suckered in by yet another eBay seller offering “mint” merchandise that isn’t.

So the question is, don’t these eBay buyers do their homework? Don’t they realize that they can buy brand new items for less than they’re paying for [often] misrepresented used items?

Or does the excitement of the auction process get them to bid stupidly?

Got this from my friend, Tom, a while back and forgot to share it. Give it a try — it can’t make things any worse.

Apparently, once protected cell phone numbers have been released to telemarketing companies. Their calls are not only annoying, but depending on your call plan, you can be charged for their intrusion.

To help prevent this, call the National Do Not Call list, from your cell phone, at:

888-382-1222

It’s very easy, and blocks your number for five (5) years. You must call from the cell phone number you want to have blocked.

Pass this on to others you know too… Tom

I’m cleaning house these days, trying to get rid of items I no longer use or need.

It’s tragic, in a way. You spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on an item, use it for a few years (if that long) and find that it’s value had dropped to a fraction of what you paid for it. That’s not bad if you still use it. But if you’ve replaced it with a newer or better model, you’re stuck with something that has no value to you.

And that’s the key: no value. Once you realize that something is nearly worthless to you, it’s easy to put it on eBay to see what it’s worth to someone else.

That’s what I’ve been doing this week: putting my old stuff on eBay.

As I write this, the following items are up to bid:

• Dual G5 PowerMac computer
• 20″ Sony Triniton monitor
• 2 USB/Firewire Hubs
• Olympus microrecorder
• Nikon 6006 Camera body (see photo above)
• 2 USB Bluetooth Adapters

My old stuff can be your new treasure. Stop by and see what’s currently up for grabs.

If you’ve been following this blog, you know I’ve been spending a lot of time with photographers lately in some of the most outstanding scenic areas of Arizona. I’ve had a lot of downtime on these trips, waiting for passengers, etc. I brought along my Nikon D80 camera with the 3 lenses I used to use on my old film cameras, a pair of Nikon 6006s. (I still have those camera bodies in excellent condition. They’re great for anyone interested in working with film. Make me an offer.)

Again, I’m not a great photographer, but I do get lucky once in a while. It’s hard to come away without any good photos when you’re in a beautiful place and have a camera capable of storing 300+ 10-megapixel images on a single card. Digital cameras give us the luxury of experimentation without cost. We can try different lenses and different aperture or shutter speed settings. We can shoot a dozen photos of the same thing at different times of the day. Something has to come out okay or even — dare I say it? — good.

A lot of the photographers I’ve been working with — Mike Reyfman and Jon Davison come to mind — do a lot of work with wide angle lenses. The photos look great, the curvature gives the images a certain character. And Jon even showed me how to remove the curvature when it isn’t wanted (although I admit I forgot how; I’ll have to research that again in Photoshop documentation).

Although lens collection includes a 28-85 mm zoom lens, I only recently discovered that a 28 mm lens for a film camera doesn’t give you a 28 mm focal length on a digital camera. There’s a conversion factor, which I looked up for my camera: 1.5. That means the focal length of my lens is 1.5 times whatever the lens is labeled. So, for example, a 28 mm lens is resulting in a 42 mm focal length. (Please, someone, correct me if I’m getting this wrong. This is my understanding and I’m not an optics expert.)

This explains why I’m not getting the curvature effect I was looking for with my “wide angle” lens.

So I did some research and found that Nikon makes a 18-55 mm lens. I saw the retail price and decided to see if I could do better on eBay. I did. I bought a used lens in pretty good (but not “mint,” as advertised) condition on eBay for $81 including shipping. I got to play with it on Sunday when we were goofing off at the local airport. The photos you see with this post are examples. I didn’t have much to work with in the way of subject matter, so I took a few shots of my car (parked in front of my hangar) and a cool little airplane sitting out on the ramp.

But, as I expected, this curvature wasn’t enough. I wanted more. It looked like I’d have to go with a fisheye lens, which I’d already been researching and bidding on on eBay. I kept losing the auctions. The lenses were going for $700+ and one used one slipped out of my grasp for $620. My top bid was in the low $500s, and even that was more money than I wanted to spend.

Then there’s the condition of the lens that arrived on Saturday. The seller said it was used, but also said it was in “mint” condition. In my mind, “mint” condition means perfect. It doesn’t mean dusty, like it’s been sitting on a shelf for half a year. It doesn’t mean accompanied by a skylight filter that has dust on both sides. And it certainly doesn’t mean dust on either end of the lens. This was not mint. I couldn’t complain because I thought I’d gotten a good deal, but I wasn’t about to spend $700 on another lens and have it arrive in the same condition. For that kind of money, I wanted a brand new lens in a box.

I lost my most recent bid on a 10.5 mm lens on eBay. Just for the hell of it, I decided to check Amazon.com. And guess what? They had the same lens, brand new in a box from a camera dealer, for $589 with free shipping.

So what the hell was I doing on eBay?

I bought the lens on Amazon.com.

I also learned a few valuable lessons here:

• eBay should be the discount seller of last resort when buying an expensive item.
• Buy used only when condition is not vitally important. (To me, it’s vital that photographic equipment be in pristine condition.)
• Do your homework on an item’s pricing in at least four other places before placing any eBay bids.
• And of course, the rule we should all know: don’t get auction fever when bidding on eBay.

The good news of all this is that I still have about $300 left from some “found money.” (I unexpectedly sold some post-level advertising on this site, resulting in a little windfall of mad money.) And when the new lens arrives, I know it’ll really be in “mint” condition.

I just wanted to take a minute to share one of my Grand Canyon secrets: The low-budget rooms at Bright Angel Lodge.

I’m sitting in one now. It’s small — perhaps 10 x 12 — and features a neat full-sized bed with a single night table, four drawer dresser, desk, and chair. There are two windows overlooking a deserted area filled with bushes and wildflowers. There’s a toilet, a sink, and a telephone. There’s heat if I’m cold and a fan if I’m hot. There’s a small closet, too.

But what there isn’t is what makes this room less desirable to the average American tourist, thus keeping the price down: there’s no shower, television, or air conditioning.

The shower is down the hall in a private, lockable, two-part room that includes a dressing area and a shower. That’s not a big deal — how many showers does a person take during an 18-hour hotel stay?

As for television, who needs that when the Grand Canyon’s South Rim (see photo) is less than 50 paces out the door?

And air conditioning? The Grand Canyon seldom gets hot enough to need that. (I do expect to make use of the baseboard heater tonight.)

The price for all this non-luxury steps away from one of the most awesome sights on earth: $61.91 per night, including all taxes.

Hell, I’ve paid more than that at a Motel 6.

Best of all, the housekeeping staff didn’t spray a whole bottle of room freshener in here.

When I started working at Papillon, I was told that many of the Tusayan businesses offered discounts for local residents and employees. I was also told that the grocery store was not one of them.

But the truth emerged slowly. While waiting in line to check out — in uniform at the end of the workday — the girl in front of me whined that she’d forgotten to bring her canvas shopping bag, the one that entitled her to the discount. She, her friend, and I were the only three people in line. The check out guy pretended at first that he didn’t know what she was talking about. But she was persistent and he finally gave in, probably to shut her up. But when she left, he was faced me with — obviously another local. He gave me the discount, too.

At Papillon, I asked around about the grocery bag. I was told that you had to buy a special canvas grocery bag and use it every time you shopped. You’d get a 10% discount on the bag and anything you bought when you had the bag with you. It was a sort of signal, a way to let the checkout guy know you were a local and you knew about the discount without spilling the beans in front of the tourists.

So today I went into the grocery store. I poked around, looking for the canvas shopping bag. When I didn’t find it, I went to the checkout counter, where the clerk was taking care of a customer. He asked me if he could help me.

I said, “I was told I needed to buy a certain canvas shopping bag.”

He looked at my uniform and nodded knowingly. “I haven’t seen one of those bags here in a while,” he said, packing the other customer’s purchases. “I’ll see if I can find one.”

But then other customers came and his line got long. I decided to let him work. I began to gather up the groceries I needed. I found the other clerk stocking shelves. I asked him about the bag. He told me they didn’t sell them. They only sold them in their grocery store in the park. I certainly didn’t plan on driving into the park to get a 10% discount on a few groceries. I finished shopping and brought my basket to the counter. The other customers were gone and the two clerks were talking. The one at the register said that even though I didn’t have the canvas bag, he’d give me the discount. And he did. I saved $4.

Afterwards, I went to Wendy’s and ordered a Chicken Spinach Salad at the drive thru window. (I don’t really like fast food, but I admit that Wendy’s makes a pretty good salad.) When I got to the pay window and asked how much (I can never understand them on those speakers), he mumbled a number, then said, “But four sixty seven with the discount.” He’d obviously seen my captain’s bars.

Oddly enough, I’m starting to FEEL like a local here. I just have to get my hands on one of those canvas bags.