Daft Musings

Back when I was butting up against teachers and an administration that refused to let Neil work at the level he’d already proven himself capable of, we took him to audition for a television show called Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? More than anything, I was delighted to meet the other families. There was another fourth grader learning algebra! There was another fourth grader who knew quantum physics! For most of the school year, I’d been fighting with his teacher, and we were soon to run into an administration that no way, no how wanted to deal with a boy who was as academically advanced as Neil. It was so refreshing to meet others like him.

Now, five years later, it seems like every elementary school aged child we encounter at Neil’s favorite events is not only a genius, but one certified as such. Some of it is due, no doubt, to the type of things Neil loves to do, but suddenly where there once were none to be found, there are suddenly hundreds. Within the last year, I’ve been asked at least three times about the Davidson Young Scholars program.

I first heard about the program at the end of fifth grade, but by then, we’d already decided to homeschool, and besides, I couldn’t fathom sending him off to Reno, where the program runs a free school for the scholars. For those who don’t know the program, I should explain: it’s for the “profoundly gifted,” who typically work 3 grades or more above the school grade they’re placed in by age, and who score in the top 1% in an IQ (or similar) test. So it’s quite exclusive, but everyone who knows the current scholars and meets Neil assumes he’s in it, and when they find out he isn’t, ask me if I’ve heard about it.

I will confess that at the end of what would have been Neil’s 7th grade year, when he was about to exceed some of the limits of my own education, we almost applied for the program. I asked Neil’s mentor, Bill Gosper, if he would like a letter of recommendation for Neil, and found a psychologist who could give him an IQ test, since Neil was still too young to take an SAT test. But the IQ test cost $525 I didn’t really have, and suddenly, I had to ask others already in the program what would being a Davidson Young Scholar do for Neil, other than give him a prestigious label? Besides offering education at the Reno campus (both for full time students, and on weekends for those who are willing to drive there), they can help a scholar’s family work with their local school to get the right level of education. But since I was homeschooling Neil, that was a moot point. The program will place the scholar with a mentor, but Neil had already found Bill on his own. And there were so many scholars in this area, it wasn’t always possible to find enough mentors for all of them. There’s also a local group of Davidson families who socialize together and organize field trips. But we were already in a group for gifted homeschoolers, which not surprisingly, has a fair number of Davidson scholars in it. The $525 test wouldn’t buy me anything we didn’t have already.

And curiously enough, as Neil increasingly discovers and defines himself, and has accomplishments and friends that say more about him that a formal qualification, I become even more dubious. It’s cool to find someone your own age with whom you can discuss number theory or themes in classical fiction, but it’s also cool to have a friend who challenges you to a splash fight in the pool, or to go geocaching along the creek. And when everyone you know is a genius, how do you stand out from that? I love a lot about Neil beyond his intellect. He spent much of Saturday helping his father pull up old tile from the kitchen floor; he’s empathetic and will go out of his way to cheer up a blue friend; he loves playing Rocksmith. He works one day each week at his dad’s office, helping scan in comic book covers and filing. Where’s the group for teens who are just awesome, with or without the high IQ? Each year, his schoolwork is increasingly more serious, and soon enough his childhood will be over altogether.

He wants to go to college, so he’ll probably be taking an SAT test in the next year or so, and then I’ll have a standardized number to quantify his intelligence. But I’m not happy about that either, because it gives you so little information about who he is. And I’m a little flustered to see so many families testing their five- and six-year-olds and getting them labelled as profoundly gifted so early; for me, there was a certain bliss in not knowing that Neil was so smart. And there was a lot I didn’t like about our school district beyond the fact that they can’t educate him. What I like about Neil is that he’s himself, and he’s free to be so, and I don’t want anything but himself defining that.

This is the fourth year I’ve taken Neil to the Julia Robinson Math festival at Stanford, and I came pondering if maybe this might also be our last. We’ve come a long way in the last four years, and Neil is now high school age. He’s finding his own clubs and activities with his peers, both age-wise and/or intellectually. And it’s time for me to focus on Kelly’s passions and let Neil take fuller responsibility to identifying the clubs and events he wants to do and explore himself.

Luckily for the whole family, Kelly has embraced math, and wants to be a geek, just like the rest of her family on the geek farm. So I signed her up to do some of the activities as well, and she did remarkably well. She asked me for help on the last two questions on one puzzle about Primes in the Land of Evens. I couldn’t figure them out, and she’d done really well on the rest. Later, I saw her intensely working on a game theory puzzle called Who Took the Candy? with the facilitator helping her.

Later she told us it was her favorite puzzle, and told us all about it, and how it worked. According the MSRI website, among the activities, it rated as a 3 out 5 in difficulty, so that’s pretty impressive for an 8 year old.

There seemed to be a lot of younger children there this year; some of it may be my own perception. Now that Neil looks older, those who were his age 4 years ago look much younger. But there were also a fair amount of 7, 8, and 9 year olds and younger. I’m just getting around to understanding that the Bay Area has a lot of academically precocious kids, just like Neil. I used to despair there were none like him, and suddenly it seems there are a lot.

The Math Museum had a display set up, and I tried applying mathematics to my face. I can squeeze my head! And twist it! And mangle it! Neil’s been excited to see the Math Museum, but its permanent NYC location won’t open until December of this year. But luckily for us, they’ll have their Math Midway at the Lawrence Hall of Science starting in September of this year. Can you say Charybdis and Scylla Academy field trips?

This year’s star lecturer for the festival was Vi Hart, whom we already know from Gathering for Gardener. There I had thought people had gotten a wee bit wild with her geometric balloon sculptures at G4G9, but professors are downright reserved when it comes to exploring the potential of the art. Even the maddest mathematician couldn’t match for the irrepressible enthusiasm of youth. Balloon pyramids on heads were ubiquitous, and they easily tied into pyramid upon pyramid:

This young woman worked multiple shapes into the kind of hat that could take the stage at Beach Blanket Babylon:

But the most OSSUM example of the medium of geometric balloon sculpture was created by this boy, posing with his buddy (who may have had a hand in putting it all together):

If he ends up designing spacesuits for NASA some day, don’t be surprised.

I met some fellow homeschoolers, and Neil saw some of his fellow mathematician/puzzle acquaintances. I told a mom with one of those precocious 7-year-olds about the Stanford Math Circle’s elementary school program; it also appears as the league of young geniuses gathers numbers, there’s more appearing to serve them, but I have another post planned on that. We had to go before we could find out what Vi Hart could complete the video editing to show us what we’d all been singing, because I had a husband with a damaged hand at home who needed help with home remodelling. I’ll see how Neil and Kelly feel about going next year, but this year, a good time was had by all, as usual.

I had no idea that the first time I met Tom Rodgers would also be the last time.

We met him the Monday evening before Gathering for Gardner 9, the 2010 version of his biannual event that united creative thinkers who like to challenge rules and perceptions. To get us there, Peter had turned the frequent flyer miles he’d been saving for years into three round-trip cross-country tickets for Bill Gosper, Neil, and me, but since Tuesday and Wednesday had been unavailable, we ended up with a very early flight on Monday.

When we arrived in Atlanta, Bill called Tom Rodgers, in the hope that Neil, a fellow puzzle-lover, might get a chance to view Rodger’s collection. To our surprise, Tom invited us all over for dinner. We met some other artists whom Tom was putting up for Gathering for Gardner: Akio Hizume, who was heating either water or sake inside a tower; Kaspar Schwabe, who had built hyperbolic bamboo traps in which he caught Neil; and Lennart Green, who pretended to make magical mistakes with cards. Later Bruce Oberg showed up to touch base on the progress of the show set-up, and Neil stumped him with his own puzzle box which he’d bought at the Lawrence Hall of Science.

Tom showed us the black bamboo grove he’d grown, and his Japanese house, which had a tangram table, and an entire room with drawers of rare puzzles. Neil was delighted to see and touch puzzles he’d only read about, like the world’s most difficult sliding block puzzle, and a percussive Georgian puzzle box from 1835 that required just the right tap at the right time to open.

When Tom found out I spoke Russian and had briefly gone to school in the Soviet Union, it turned out he’d had his own adventures in the Eastern Block, before I had. As a younger man, he’d flaunted the rules of where Americans could and could not go in Eastern Europe. He’d seen fascinating things — and been put in horrible jails, like one in which he had to stand all night in knee-deep water. I’d had an easier time than that, but I knew enough that Tom was not exaggerating about Soviet-style prisons.

What he founded– the Gathering for Gardner — however, was his biggest gift to us. For the first time in his life, Neil was among his own kind in mind and spirit. Puberty hadn’t hit yet, so he looked particularly out of sync with his intellect, but at G4G9, he was accepted on his own terms; and he was not the first or only precocious participant. Tom was a wonderful host, circulating among all the participants, and throwing a huge party one afternoon at his place with a barbecue, good wine, and several artists making group-participation mathematical sculptures.

We only found out that Tom was already at death’s door the day Bill, Neil, and Peter were on the airport for Gathering for Gardner 10. Despite his ill health, Tom let Neil see his puzzle collection again, and even greeted him briefly. He was too ill to make it out to his party, but I hope he could sense the fun others were having at it.

I can’t even imagine what he looked like sick, after having met him as such a robust and lively person only 2 years ago, so I think it would have bothered me more than any of his puzzles. I understand Gathering for Gardner will continue without him (and also without Martin Gardner, who died shortly after G4G9.) But I’ll always remember him, for what he built, and for the time he made for a boy who loves puzzles.

In 2010, Peter and I had managed to get our finances back on track after the great crash of 2008, and mortgage rates were at a (then) historic lows. We figured we could save quite a bit by refinancing, but as we soon discovered, it would be a painful, long-drawn out process that would take months, and more than a few false turns.

I found a list of possible brokers via Lending Tree, and contacted each of them. They were all eager to write up a deal, except that both Peter and I are self-employed, and as such, couldn’t provide a pay stub to prove our employment. We needed to show two years of federal tax returns, and even then, our 2008 tax return wasn’t sufficient. One broker tried to work with me to try to get a refinance rolling before we could put our 2010 tax return together, but it was a stretch.

Then before I knew it, Peter had contacted Amerisave, a brokerage which advertises wildly all over the place, and which had given him a song and dance that they could do what all the other brokers couldn’t do. (They were not one of Lending Tree’s suggestions, by the way.) But as it turns out, they were a massive waste of time, and stressful nightmare as well.

The days of Happy Happy Lenderman, the madness that had every single financial institution handing over gobs of money to anyone who wanted a house and was able to sign a document, were clearly long gone. Every day, the Amerisave agent instructed me to send him more and more financial documents. We send in our 2009 income tax return, with both of our Schedule C (sole proprietor business profit report). We also had to send in our current business licenses, asset depreciation forms, and both of our Schedule A’s (business expense details.) But, wait, there was more! Peter sells software, so they needed to see his 809 sales tax form, too. Even that wasn’t enough. They needed the last 3 months of our bank statements, both business and personal, and asked for Peter’s 401K fund statement. Finally, we completed our 2010 income tax form as soon as we could (much thanks to our new bookkeeper), and waited for the loan to come through. We’d been promised underwriting would take just a few days, given that we’d already submitted all the other data already.

And then our Amerisave agent disappeared. Yup, he just up and went missing. I’m already protective about my financial data and had been suspicious Amerisave needed bank statements, so it really freaked me out. I asked Peter how legitimate Amerisave really is. I tracked down the agent’s boss, who was equally flaky, and after two calls, pooped out on us too. AUGH!

I was hating life. I do not like sending my bank statements to strangers, no way, no how. And for this, we got nothing.

Whereupon Lending Tree called me (as had the other brokers, who were still eager to do business with us.) I was crazed by this point, but Peter talked to the agent, Pat, who guaranteed us she would get us a loan at the rate we wanted. The catch was, Lending Tree wanted $4000 for the process, but we’d never have to pay it again if we did another refinance through them. Personally, I had to get out Excel and do some calculations to figure out if this was worth doing again. It was. But given that just a few years ago, banks couldn’t give their money away fast enough, I was more than a little miffed that we, with more than adequate income and as residents in our home for more than 15 years, were suddenly being treated with more caution than the itinerant gardener who bought 5 houses, and surprise, surprise, couldn’t pay for any of them.

Well, I’d scanned the copious amount of documents we’d sent to Amerisave, so getting it over to Lending Tree was easy enough, if still tedious. But all that still wasn’t enough. On top of it, we had to write a sworn and witnessed document that the closing funds wouldn’t make Peter’s business insolvent. We had to sign forms letting the lender check that the numbers we showed on the tax returns we sent in matched those on the forms the IRS received (as if we’d fake a tax return!!) We had to write a signed and witnessed letter saying we weren’t taking out any new loans, because we had a bunch of credit inquires (from the brokers who were trying to get us a loan, including Lending Tree itself). I had to come up with profit and loss statements for both my business and Peter’s. Oh, and we needed a letter from a CPA confirming our businesses were solvent and would not be affected by the refinance, even though the same business(es) had been perfectly able to pay the current loan for the last 15 years.

I forget what the last straw was, but it was just too much. The agent wanted us to take out $10,000 more than we needed so that the closing costs wouldn’t be taken from the business Peter owns. In short, from being giddy with their funds, the banks are now like Gollum in Lord of the Rings, clinging to their credit lines like they’re the One Ring. It was like they had all been communally on some euphoric drug, and suffered a sudden withdrawal or side effect which left them utterly and completely paranoid. A bank makes money by lending it out, but they couldn’t do it any more because they’d already given it away to people whom anyone rational knew (even without the underwriting that was clearly never done) would never be able to pay it back. And, now, here we were, solvent, sober, and successfully self-employed, getting an underwriting work-over that was just too much.

Agent Pat told us only three banks are still writing any home loans at all: Bank of America, Chase, and Wells Fargo. Everyone else, it seems, may be on the verge of collapse, desperately hoping to turn around their foreclosures and praying there will be no more.

In the end, we got our refinance, at a lower rate, screaming and kicking all the way through, and paying an extra $4000 just to get a broker who wouldn’t do a quick fade a month in. But the bank that has the new loan still can’t get its paranoia under control. They’ve twice sent me letters demanding proof of home insurance, threatening to make me pay for their own overpriced home insurance, and ignored all the information and documentation I’ve sent, proving, that, yes, indeed, we have home insurance, and, yes, indeed, they are listed as the mortgagee. The insurance broker has now promised me they’ve been faxed the information directly to the bank, but we’ll see.

One good thing that came from the mortgage euphoria crash is that friends who used to be priced out of home-ownership can now afford real estate. But if you need a loan, it’s clearly a hassle to get one, especially if you’re self-employed. It’s no wonder more houses than ever are being sold for cash to investors who have enough at hand; and though I love my “slumlord” friends who have rescued decrepit property and fixed it up for rent, I’d rather more people could buy their own homes at prices they can pay. In short, the insanely paranoid underwriters may be almost as bad as the insanely euphoric ones of the recent past.

I took the time to write reviews on Tripadvisor about the hotels we stayed at in Las Vegas last week, since one was godawful and overpriced (The Sunset Station in Henderson), and another was a bargain and loads of fun to stay in (the Luxor.)

But I couldn’t write about the show we saw, because (as of now) it’s only a temporary attraction, and Tripadvisor won’t list those. But, hey, I have my own blog, so I’ll review it here!

Magician Criss Angel was playing at the Luxor, and we thought it might be fun to see him live. To see if we could get half-price tickets for the show, we went out to the Strip to see what might be available. But before we got there, we were drawn in to the Houdini Magic Shop at the MGM Grand. One of the staff magician showed us a few tricks, and we asked him what he might have heard about the Criss Angel show. As politely as he could, he let us know word was out that it really sucks. For one thing, a large portion of the show is simply videos of Criss Angel performing, rather than him actually doing it. If we wanted to see him on TV, we can do that at home for free! (As it turns out, the Yelp reviews of the show are humorously scathing.)

So we asked what magic shows are out there which are good. Penn & Teller are great, but we’ve seen them once already, and were looking for something new. David Copperfield was getting mixed reviews, and he’s reported also making the audience watch old videos instead of putting on a live show. The Houdini Magic magician asked if we like close-up magic. Do we ever! He suggested we see the Vegas Magic Theatre at the Gold Coast Casino, where he’d be doing close-up magic for an hour before the show itself started, and tickets were only $15 at the door. It was an easy choice: for the price of a single ticket to one of the shows we had considered, the whole family could see the show together.

We arrived a little late, because as it’s easy to do, we underestimated the distance between casinos. But we were still in time to see some of the close-up magic, which was awesome. Our magician twisted a fork into odd positions, while audience members couldn’t bend it at all. Another magician encased Peter’s cell phone into an inflated balloon, and we never quite figured out how he did it.

The stage performance featured 3 acts with an encore. The first act was a whimsical, fun, and original performance by Trigg Watson, the same magician who’d given Peter a balloon case for his phone. Next we saw Matt Marcy, who was big on audience participation which resulted in Peter having his first time on stage with a magician. Marcy had a funny fake tech support call in the middle of his act, and magically made sure we all knew his website, which has its own jingle I can’t forget. After that, we saw juggler Michael Goudeau who opened by juggling…bean bags. Having seen his juggling club attempt similar stunts, Neil knew how hard it is. Goudeau had the, um, most exciting act of all. As he weebled and wobbled on  the edge of the tiny stage atop at 6-foot-unicycle, he juggled flaming pins close to the fabric curtains above. I desperately, desperately hoped he wouldn’t lose his balance or veer off the lip of the stage and flame the theatre. He didn’t, but I think we were all holding our collective breath. Then he did something which made me really glad we hadn’t gotten seats in the front. The show ended with an encore performance by Matt Marcy.

The whole thing was MC’d by the Ben Stone, who is the only regular part of the show, since the performers change each week. Here is a picture of him from Vegas News:

In between the acts, Stone belted out two songs, and did a magic trick himself. He was charming enough, but I can’t quite figure out what bugged me about him. I think it’s that he wore too much make-up for such an intimate venue, so he looked more like an elf than a human. It may have been deliberate to bring up the sense of a cabaret, but this wasn’t that kind of a show. The context here, at least to my American mind, was more like vaudeville or a classic variety show. After all, besides the billed magic, the show included Stone’s singing, the juggler, and an actor portraying an exasperated stage hand.

Well, I’m really glad we caught this show rather than one of the big acts. The close up magic was a real treat, and there wasn’t a single boring or dull moment the entire time. If I lived in Las Vegas, I might even go back and see the new acts another week. Unfortunately, the show is scheduled to end its run in March.

On our most recent trip to Las Vegas, Peter was dismayed to see the Sahara Hotel and Casino had shut down. It was yet another of the older Strip casino-hotels to close, as the town itself becomes nostalgic for the way things were. The relatively new Encore casino had a nightclub named Sinatra, but most of the showrooms in which he performed in Las Vegas no longer exist. Peter went so far to opine that it would be neat to jump in a time machine and visit the Vegas of the past.

I’m not sure I agree. Effectively, I’ve already been in that time machine and the Vegas that was, was an adults-only place. Today’s Vegas is far more mainstream, and fun for people of all ages, tastes, and money.

I first saw Las Vegas in 1980, when my mother and I crossed the country from San Diego to western Massachusetts to visit my cousin (once removed) Louise. On the way back, I convinced my mother to stop over in Las Vegas. I wanted to see Caesars Palace, which was the epitome of glamor to my teenage self, in no small part because it had recently been featured in a TV movie starring my favorite actor, Omar Sharif. (Yeah, that was atypical about me, but it sure beat swooning over Leif Garrett).

There was little I could do in Las Vegas. When I walked into Caesars Palace with my mother, a security guard shooed me out of the casino, directing me to walk on a pathway on the edge that made sure I didn’t go near any of the games. We could and did walk around the front, where I posed with my mother in front of one of the Roman statues:

The drive-up entrance to the casino was far more modest than it is today:

As viewed from Caesars Palace, the rest of the Strip was far smaller and less impressive than it is today. There’s no Venitian, Wynn, or Encore. Tom Jones? Didn’t he do a Prince cover?

My mother and I (always budget travellers) stayed right on the strip in a modest motel called the Tam O’Shanter.

I didn’t see Las Vegas again until 2002 when Peter’s parents moved to nearby Henderson, Nevada. It was dramatically different. Not only was it fresher and glitzier than it had been, all three generations could go out and have a fun time together. We looked at the lions at the MGM Grand, watched the 3D M&M experience in a small mall that had sprung up on the Strip, and watched the pirates fight at Treasure Island. We rode the gondolas at the Venetian and saw street performers put on free shows underneath a video canopy at Fremont Street. Back at Caesar’s Palace, we could go shopping and I had my picture taken with Caesar, Mark Anthony, Hannibal, and Cleopatra. We often had to walk through casinos to get to the entertainment, but it was ok to have children as long as they were moving in a direction.

But I suppose I can see some of the appeal of old Vegas. It was a time when adults had no qualms about segregating some forms of entertainment and their children. These days, even entertainment that ought to be restricted just isn’t. Go into an R-rated movie and you’re more likely than not to find an 8-year-old munching popcorn next to you as the actors on screen simulate a steamy sex scene. My friends threw an adults-only Halloween party, and I walked in to find a couple handing their toddler around for adoration to people in bondage gear. Honestly, people, I love my kids, but I don’t love yours, and I sure as hell don’t want them asking me to help them pull up their pants while I’m trying to play a poker game. Children just weren’t in the scene in 1980 Las Vegas, and while that limited its pull, it almost certainly had its own appeal in just that aspect.

These days there’s very little children may only experience upon reaching a certain age, and that’s only because of legal restrictions, not societal ones. And even then, it’s not necessarily something to look forward to: I don’t even know if my children will smoke, drink, gamble, or watch strippers. But if you want an environment that doesn’t have children in it, you almost always have to choose a place that specializes in one of the above vices.

In any case, thanks to the grandparents willing to do some babysitting, Peter took me to enjoy the glamor of Caesars Palace that I couldn’t experience in 1980. We dressed up, and went to the high-limit area, where I watched him play a few hands of baccarat between a dour Chinese man with a suitcase full of $100 bills, and a young millionaire from Arkansas. It was a lovely sociable experience, and we spent some of Peter’s winnings in a casino bar with silhouetted dancers and showy bartenders. So if you want the adult fun, modern Las Vegas will give it to you, too. But it’s got something for everyone now.

Fujitsu had the only booth at CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) which was exclusively staffed by booth babes. They had no inkling of what the products in the booth were supposed to do, and there was not a single person there who knew. I came away more than a little miffed that all I got was a technology tease without substance.

Along one edge of the booth, Fujitsu was demonstrating waterproof electronic tablets against a picture of people using them in the bathtub and next to a kitchen sink, together with a proud announcement that the tablets had a gesture interface. I used a few known gadget gestures by the tablets, and nothing happened. So I turned to a young woman in a Fujitsu shirt nearby and asked her how the gesture interface worked. She smiled blankly at me, looked at the tablets in puzzlement, and confessed she didn’t know anything, but if I were to go up into the booth, I might find out more.

I found no tablet experts, but I did see the Fujitsu femtocell. I write about femtocell/microcell technology, so I was very interested. I turned to another young woman stationed near the cell and asked her which carrier it worked with. She whirled into a lame explanation of what a femtocell is, boosting cell phone signals. Yeah, I know that, but which carrier does it work with, i.e. AT&T? Verizon? Sprint? Finally someone else (not with the Fujitsu booth) informed me that the Fujitsu femtocell only works in Japan. Um, OK.

I turned the corner to find most of the booth babes clustered around a male booth babe clutching a smart phone to his chest. On the screen in front of him, a cartoon image of Miss Japan was telling him exactly how to hold the smart phone. Between garbled instructions on screens and a bevy of guesses from his fellow booth babes, he leaned right, then left.

What is this, I asked? It was some fitness thing, a booth babe told me. Maybe it would tell him how tight his pects are, or something. How does it work? I asked, hoping for a more coherent answer. Thereupon, one of the brighter booth babes let me know smartphones have a “gyro-thingie” in them which can sense how far you’re leaning. In my world, it’s called an “accelerometer” and it’s nothing new, but I guess Fujitsu has rebranded it as a “gyro-thingie” for booth babes who want to measure how babely they are, by Japanese standards.

Had Zoolander and Hansel appeared and instructed the collective staff to have an “I’m Too Sexy for My Fujitsu Shirt” walk-off, it would have been a better, more effective booth. As it was, Peter and I walked away appalled at the extraordinary waste of space and our time. I have no idea what Fujitsu is doing, but it’s clearly not interested in marketing itself to U.S. tech experts.

I have friends who love Groupon, and buy the coupons and discounts avidly. Personally, I’m leery of getting anything I’m not absolutely, positively sure I’ll use. I’ve used Goldstar and Artsopolis for performing arts, since I like the surprise of seeing a new show at a venue I may or may not have experienced before, and I get to pick the date and time of my choice. But a massage from a place I don’t know, or classes I don’t know will work for my kids, meh.

I did try out Groupon a few times. We bought 4 discounted tickets to Downtown Ice in the Circle of Palms so we could all go ice skating together as a family, and that was fun. This Halloween, while Kelly was a Brownie sleepover, I used half price Groupons so the rest of the family could run through the delightfully cheesy Alien Extreme experience, to which we wouldn’t have gone to otherwise. And a few months ago, I picked up a Groupon for $20-for-$10 at Smoke Eaters, a place we hadn’t visited in years, and which we ended up revisiting after our Groupon use.

So then, when I saw a Groupon to get a car detail, I thought I’d splurge and finally get my Toyota cleaned after its 4 years of hard use as a child receptacle and homeschool bus. I only rarely get a car detail, though I’m well aware of its benefits. Way back in another life, I worked briefly for the used car department of a major auto dealership. All the used cars got a full detail, and it did wonders for their marketability. A car that had come in smelling horribly and fully begrimed inside and out was transformed into near-new within a few hours.

It’s not cheap, though theoretically, you can do it yourself in a few hours with a steam cleaner and a few extra supplies you can find at a local auto supply shop. But I don’t even wash my own car, much less set aside 4-5 hours to scrub away at every nook and cranny and do a full waxing. The last time I splurged for a detail, I only paid for the interior detail, which cost $125 at the local car wash. So even for such a detail, the $85 Groupon for a “$225 value” looked to be worthwhile, and I bought it.

Two weeks after I bought it, I called for an appointment, hoping to get my car spick and span before we planned to go visit some friends in Walnut Creek the next weekend. To my surprise, and horror, I was told the very first appointment that was available was 6 weeks later, on December 20. I was appalled at my mistake in purchasing the Groupon. At the car wash, I could get a detail by just stopping in. Here I’d have to wait 6 weeks!? My life is hectic and packed with activities that rush onto my calendar all the time, how could I possibly know if I’d still be free on December 20? As it was, within a few weeks, my December 20 was booked with another event, and I had to reschedule again, this time for January 6. Nine weeks in order to use my purchase? I don’t like that at all. I never book hairstylists or restaurants who tell me their only appointments are weeks in advance. I loathe Comic Con because of the necessity of having to book everything a year in advance. And here I was with a non-refundable purchase for a service I wouldn’t ordinarily have bought, and I was on the hook for leaving that day so far in advance free and clear.

By the time Car Detail Day finally came around, I was way too ramped up about it. I had never heard of this auto detailer before; would they still be there by the time I got there? Would they really let me use my Groupon, or tell me I need to reschedule once again? To my relief, when I arrived, they had me in their calendar. The shop was pleasant, as was the staff diligently toiling away at two other cars, which looked very shiny and clean. In a little over 4 hours, my car was sparkling: the windows de-gunged, every cranny swiped clean, the upholstery and mats steam-cleaned, and the outside not only washed, but also polished with a protective coating to protect the paint underneath. That same level of service would have cost $300 at my local car wash, if not more, so for $85 it was a really, really good deal.

I expressed my delight at the work, but also told the business I wouldn’t be able to deal with another 9-week wait, even though their regular prices are more than competitive. Apparently, long waits are a common side-effect of a Groupon promotion. The pro who had helped me explained that they’d done the Groupon promotion to put the word out about their services, and it had more than exceeded their expectations. In the 3 days they’d had the deal up, they’d sold more than 750 Groupons, and they were now booked solid into April. Looking at Yelp, it’s clear that they’ve received a lot of reviews from people who used their Groupons to go there, so clearly many more people know about their business and are talking about it than would have ever been the case otherwise. He offered me the same amazing price for the same service once again if I came back after April, but honestly, I don’t know.

But I value being in control of my own schedule, and I’m not that hard-core of a bargain hunter. After this, I will never buy a Groupon that requires a booking. There’s very few services or activities I’m willing to wait months for, and I appreciate someplace that lets me just drop in or make an appointment at my convenience, not theirs. Should I desire another car detail, I might call around rather than just dropping in at the car wash, now that I know independent services may offer more for less. But I’ll also book at a business that can get me in quickly, rather than one that is overwhelmed by its own promotion.

So is it worthwhile for a business to use Groupon? I wish this one had perhaps limited its number of offerings more, and/or staggered them in different stages, but I don’t know the logistics and cost involved for a business in setting up a Groupon. I prefer finding new businesses at charity auctions, where the business gets a full tax-deduction and the charity gets money, but I’ll admit the audience is far smaller. And we’re so saturated with advertising everywhere and anywhere, I don’t think local advertising is at all as effective. There is something to be said for getting a potential customer to walk in your door and try you out, but if they have to wait in a long line to do so, you probably lose out on a lot of people like me. And my favorite local businesses are already working hard to keep my loyalty, with frequent promotions, discounts, and exclusive services tailored to me.

So, hopefully, the Groupon promotion will work out for the local auto detailer, and he’ll receive lots of return business from at least some of the customers who had their cars detailed, and understood the value of his service. But I find the Groupon crowd effect unpleasant. Good luck, Groupon groupies, but I’d rather pay more to be somewhere else than where you’re at.

A few years ago, my progressive friends started singing about the glories of taxation, and how much they loved paying taxes, and why, oh why, couldn’t the rest of us understand how important it was to hand over even more of our hard-earned money to the omniscient, wise state. I felt like I was in bizarro land. Never before in my life had I heard anyone demand to be taxed more, and never has it seemed like a good idea to me.

Having been a freelancer, and thus responsible for my own taxes and benefits (like health care and unemployment savings) for most of my working life, I’ve never found the state an effective provider of the services I want. Yes, there is something to be said for pooling our resources for a mutually-needed service, like public safety, cross-country roads, and parkland. But:

1. No matter how much you pay, it is never enough.

I have lived in California most of my life. When I moved here, the sales tax was 5%, the top personal state income tax rate was 7%, and the schools were good, the parks were clean, and the roads drivable. Now it’s 7.75% sales tax (just dropped from 8.75%) and the governor is jonesing for a vote that’ll give us the highest personal state income tax rate in the nation at 12% and most schools are nigh-unusable, the roads are falling apart, and there’s not enough money to lock up car thieves. I hear moans on the injustice of Proposition 13, which had to be voted in as old people were being forced out of homes they could no longer afford to pay the taxes on, without any consideration that shortly thereafter, we instituted a lottery to replace said lost income. Housing has gone up in price, so the amount of money that comes from property tax is similar to that paid by homeowners in other states; the lottery brings in millions, but it’s still not enough.

People, no matter how much you give the state, it will never be enough for all the things the politicians want to spend it on. Feel free to speculate and debate amongst yourselves on how this money is being mis-spent, or why those greedy people who do have money run away with it rather than keep watching it flow into Sacramento and disappear. But the more you give the government, the more it’ll spend, and once you’ve started spending on one thing or another, it’s impossible to stop.

It might hurt a little less if it weren’t also for the fact that:

2. No one ever says thank you

When someone pays me, I am grateful. But when I fill out a form and send the required funds (which are coerced, not asked for) to the appropriate agency, more often than not, I am punished for it. The EDD and the IRS constantly lose forms, which I then have to recreate and send to them again and again, not that my time is worth anything to them. Peter moved his business to San Jose, but rather than receiving a welcome from the Chamber of Commerce, as soon as he paid for his $300 business license, he received a demand for 2 years’ worth of fees and penalties just ‘cuz. A string of incompetent accountants resulted in me doing the back taxes for a small corporation for several years, and the State promptly cashed, but did not credit, the exorbitant (one of the highest in the nation) $800 franchise tax fee for one of the years, and sent us a nasty, incorrect bill. When I called, I was connected to a snotty, imperious agent who insisted she would not deign to talk to me, the mere mortal whose signature and name were at the bottom of each form, but only to one of the members of the board. Really, honey, only the CEO will do for you? When you’re going to be treated like tax-evading scum whether you’re honest or not (and more often when you are honest), is it any wonder some people prefer to hide their income instead of having to deal with the lords of the state?

and

3. If they’re right, you pay. If they’re wrong, you pay.

The first year I paid my income tax, I received a nasty little letter from the IRS demanding thousands for back taxes my mother had said she’d paid on my trust, but hadn’t, since the IRS had taken the liberties to simply suck taxes off it themselves. I had to pay a forensic accountant to recreate years of investments, returns, and tax rates, and in the end, they owed me $1, and took their sweet time paying up. Another year, I sent in my state income tax, and whoever processed the form, threw away the check. I had the check stub and registered proof of delivery, but I had to pay late payment penalties on a payment I made in time.

When they make a mistake, they don’t have to do right by you, and in fact, they can do all sorts of harm to you, seizing your assets and payments until you finally manage to get it corrected. If you make a mistake, the penalties appear the second you’re even a penny short of what you should have paid, and keep snowballing: and they’ll take their sweet time applying your correction to your record. Even my favorite tax lawyer has trouble dealing with them, because an auditor is free to interpret the laws on the books more freely than he or a judge may.

So don’t get me wrong. I’m not an anarchist or a libertarian. I don’t mind tithing some of my income to libraries and schools, to parades and police pensions. I doubt I’ll receive Social Security, at least not in any amount I could ever expect to live on, and also think it’s stupid to drop expensive bombs on Libya for no clear reason. Beyond that, I don’t care to debate how much should go where, and what is more important that other things. But I. Have. Paid. Enough. So don’t self-righteously go about telling me I need to pay even more than I already am, because taxes suck.

A few weeks ago, I received a postcard in the mail telling me I could have groceries delivered from Walmart. It seemed almost too good to be true. I love grocery delivery — at least in concept — and whenever we can, we’ve been driving 30 miles to Gilroy just to go grocery shopping at the Super Walmart there, because their prices are so excellent.

My first experience with grocery delivery in the internet age was fantastic. During the dot.com boom, a company called Webvan appeared, and quickly plastered the area with promotions that offered not only free delivery of groceries, but credits (sometimes as much as $20) for doing so. Free delivery and free groceries?! It was a no-brainer to try them.

I still remember marveling at the clearly quality-obsessed picker they used for my area. When produce arrived, it was always the crispest and freshest I could have expected. They also seemed to do some sort of customer service/driver matching, based on my comments on each delivery. I had two women deliver my groceries when I said I was recommending the service to my girlfriends; perhaps I should have said my husband the dancer loved it, and seen who came by. But alas, like most dot.com schemes, it didn’t make sense to pay people to use your service (as nice as it was while it lasted.) Without even having the chance to try a more commercially viable tactic, like having people pay a modest price for delivery, Webvan folded.

Around that time, a Schwann’s van showed up in our neighborhood. I had no idea what it was, but Peter knew of them from the Midwest as someplace with good ice cream. We talked to the driver who was canvassing the neighborhood for interest and found out they sold a variety of frozen meals as well. I was a new mom to Neil at the time, and grateful for anything that could make my life easier, so we became regular customers on the route.

But suddenly, the driver disappeared. We called, and found out our area had a new driver. He finally appeared, surly and complaining that our record had disappeared from his device, but grouchily filled our order. He showed up one more time, and then disappeared again, despite my repeated calls to the regional area dispatcher, who kept swearing the driver had indeed shown up, or so he’d said. I finally ended up getting all the way through to the headquarters in Minnesota, whereupon the driver showed up once more, and then did a fade again. I’d see the Schwann’s van parked for hours at the local Weinerschnitzel; eventually the service disappeared. If Schwann’s wanted to know why they failed in San Jose, I could have told them, but they obviously cared less than me.

A few years later, Safeway started offering grocery delivery, and given my experience with Webvan, I decided to try them out. They didn’t have the give-it-all away model Webvan had, but delivery was only $5, and with a rare coupon or an order for more than $150, it was free as well. But they had the customer service from hell. I inquired if I could get deli cuts in the quantity of my choice, as would be the case if I were to go in in person, and was told that was far too much of a bother, as if the deli workers couldn’t receive the orders electronically and set them aside in advance. I received moldy vegetables and expired yogurt, and when I called was told I’d have to take the rotten products back to the store in person for exchange or refund. But the entire purpose of grocery delivery is to not have to go to the grocery store! Oh, and any delivery date had to be made two days in advance. It could have been great, but I was better off shopping in person. And, oh, Safeway, the groceries are cheaper now at the Super Smart and Final down the street, so I shop there now.

So I was worried about what I would get with Walmart. But I recently started trying out Once a Month Cooking, which means I usually have at least one big, well-planned grocery trip. And like I said, the Walmart prices are great, so why not give Walmart a chance to come to me? Plus, for my initial order they’d deliver for free (given a minimum order) and give me $10 off as well.

Ordering was about as easy as it had been with any of the other grocery delivery services. The search engine is stupid, so it can’t find, say french fries, unless you say fried potatoes. I couldn’t find mango chutney, though it’s possible Walmart does carry it. But Safeway’s system was every bit as bad. And I could find some Walmart exclusives like their delicious frozen Chicken Cordon Bleu. Scheduling a delivery was also a breeze. There were lots of times available: you could choose a more expensive slot for $10, or one less expensive for $8. I suspect the more deliveries in a time slot, the lower the delivery cost may be, which is a smart way to use value shopper’s incentives for economic efficiency.

The driver came right on time, not too early, not too late, within the slot, and even gave me a call to let me know he was on his way and would arrive in approximately 15 minutes. The groceries were fresh and uncrushed, much to my delight, and I signed. The amount didn’t reflect my discounts, but the customer service number I called said the discounts would be applied to my charge correctly (and they were.) Unfortunately, I didn’t piece count the order (and years of watching Hell’s Kitchen should have taught me to do so.) As I was preparing my next few week’s worth of family dinners, I discovered I didn’t have the Monterey Jack cheese I ordered. Not having done the piece count, I can’t say I will someday find that cheese, but I did have to make a run to Smart and Final to get some. It cost less than the $10 discount I received, so I let it go, but I’ll be more careful in the future.

Oh, did I say I’d be using Walmart to Go again? I probably will. It’s as good as it gets, given that I at least received satisfactory groceries, and they do say they guarantee their stuff, so if I do receive expired milk, the driver will just take it back and give me a refund, instead of me having to drive to Gilroy*. Peter pointed out that $8 or $10 is a good value, given the cost of driving and my time, as well as how much we save just buying from Walmart. I do miss Webvan, but a business that is actually making money will last longer and continue to be there when I need it.

*I asked the driver which Walmart the groceries came from, and he said there was a Walmart on Story Road. It took me two questions to parse that. I can’t understand Story Road, though I know it’s somewhere in East San Jose — I never go there, whereas we pass the Gilroy Walmart by 101 and 152 fairly frequently. In any case, I don’t care where the groceries come from, as long as they come to my door.

Update: Walmart To Go asked for my feedback, and I told them about the mystery of the missing cheese. The next day, they sent a driver out to delivery the missing cheese to me, even though I hadn’t done the piece count I should have! He also assured me their pickers are properly picky. Yup, my next big grocery order will be through Walmart to Go again!