Getting More R.C.I. Points

Buying another points timeshare is 1 way to get more timeshare points. Buying at another another non-points timeshare is another way — just deposit your straight non-points timeshare week into the points side of RCI instead of depositing it into the conventional week-for-week exchange side of RCI. (RCI calls that Points For Deposit, & starting last year they charge $26 for it, every time.) If you already have a non-points timeshare week at a non-points timeshare resort, you can do Points For Deposit with that, if you want, even without buying more timeshares.

Useless As Mud Flaps On A Toboggan

The 1st few times we took timeshare sales tours, those bonus weeks the sales staffs kept offering seemd like they’d really be something special. We’d just pay $20,000 or so for a timeshare week, plus annual fees every year, & the timeshare company would throw in free RCI membership. Then as RCI members we could get Bonus Weeks & Extra Vacations & I don’t know what-all — without buying anything else, just paying the RCI fees for the Bonus Weeks & Extra Vacations, etc., that we actually took.

In other words, they were offering us nothing — nothing, that is, that everybody in RCI can’t also get on an equal basis, subject to availability, without springing for anybody’s $20,000 timeshare week.

It was all sizzle, no steak.

Even so, once we got into RCI we found Last Call reservations & Instant Exchange reservations to be big bargains, & we’re apt to keep using those features of RCI as long as they remain available — which is not guaranteed if RCI finds more profitable things to do with deposited timeshare weeks than offering them to members at bargain-basement rates on a last-minute basis.

We’ve not yet made an RCI regular Extra Vacation reservation — too expensive compared with Last Call & Instant Exchange.

As I recall it from those old-time timeshare hard-sell sales pitches, they never said Bonus Weeks were free — only that they’d be available if we bought what they were selling. Back then, it looked pretty much like what they were offering was the chance to stay at somebody else’s timeshare for a week for approximately the same amount of money as the owner was paying in annual maintenance fees. It seems like the “bonus” consisted of being able to pay for it & use it 1 time without having to buy the deed to it.

However that may be & regardless of how twisted my comprehension was & is about those long-gone timeshare sales pitches, we’ve been able to vacation in luxury timeshare accommodations for roughly Motel 6 & Super 8 rates without once ever using a Bonus Week or Extra Vacation — sticking with Last Call & Instant Exchange instead. So it goes.

Florida Bad Guys Picking On Tourists

Several years back, way before we got into timeshares, we were pretty much scared off of visiting Florida because of highly publicized murders of tourists in & around Miami — mainly British & Germans, but USA victims too — who were easy to pick out because of the disctinctive tags Florida DMV issued to rental cars back then.

Not only that, bad guys farther north in & around Jacksonville FL were killing & maiming people by dropping cast-iron manhole covers & chunks of concrete off I-95 & I-295 overpasses onto cars below.

When we finally took our 1st non-airline trip to Florida for a vacation in the Tampa-Clearwater area, we made a point of exiting I-95 way before Jacksonville, taking A1A inland to Rt. 301, & sticking with Rt. 301 all through Starke FL & Lawtey FL & Waldo FL till we came to a shortcut over to I-75 somewhere in the neighborhood of Ocala FL.

Tourism is the most important component of the Florida economy, so it doesn’t take much bad news about attacks on tourists to start scaring folks off & causing major serious economic pain down there. That alone should motivate the public safety officials to do whatever it takes to keep us timesharers & outsiders safe. We’ll see, eh?

What You Missed Thursday Evening (June 7th)

Fairfax Band’s summer season opener got rained out last Sunday, so the June 7 Thursday evening concert started off this summer’s outdoor concert season. Associate conductor Rick Parrell was on the podium. I was up in the horn section, as usual, & did the announcing via a microphone that the sound guys positioned up there specially for the purpose. It was an outstanding program for a pleasant summer evening. If you weren’t there, here’s what you missed…

The Bandwagon. Composer Philip Sparke was born in London in 1951. He studied composition, trumpet, & piano at the Royal College of Music. His experience playing in concert band & in forming his own brass band shaped his interest in writing music for brasses & woodwinds & percussion. He has written pieces for brass band championships in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Holland, Australia, & New Zealand. In Japan, there’s a 2-hour weekly radio show titled Bandwagon devoted to band music. The program is broadcast over the national station called Digital Radio Musicbird. The host of the show is Yutaka Nishida. As it happens he & Philip Sparke are old friends, so Yutaka Nishida commissioned Philip Sparke to write a new march as a theme song for the radio show. The result isn’t just on the radio every week in Japan, it’s also the opening number on tonight’s program by The City of Fairfax Band — Philip Sparke’s bright & breezy march tune, The Bandwagon.

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Metroplex. The composer of our next piece, Robert Sheldon, has taught instrumental music in Florida & Illinois schools. Then he taught conducting & instrumental music education at Florida State University, in addition to directing the university bands. Later he became Concert Band Editor for the Alfred Music Publishing Company, & he stays busy composing & conducting band music. In 2005, he wrote Metroplex, Three Postcards From Manhattan, which is next on our program. It’s a musical portrait of New York City. The opening scene shows us the Manhattan skyline, with all those man-made canyons framed by towering skyscrapers. Then we go to the jazzy heart of the Big Apple night club scene. Next thing you know, we’re on a daredevil taxi ride through the tangled traffic of New York. It’s Metroplex, Three Postcards From Manhattan, by Robert Sheldon.

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Belle of the Ball. What Norman Rockwell did with paint on canvas, Leroy Anderson did with musical composition. He created a stream of popular 3-minute gems that are lively & inventive masterpieces of melody, harmony, & rhythm, including the next number on our program. After the Boston Pops recorded this number in 1951 for Decca, 1,000,000 copies of it were sold “accidentally” only because it was on Side B of a single record that reached #1 on the pop charts. Leroy Anderson received a gold record in 1952 for “Blue Tango,” the 1st instrumental piece to sell over 1,000,000 records, & on the flip side was a charming waltz tune that deserves hit status in its own right. And here it is right now, The Belle Of The Ball, by Leroy Anderson.

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Concertpiece. James Curnow is recognized as one of America’s outstanding composers for concert band. Before age 40 — and right now he’s pushing 63 — over 100 of his concert band & chorus & brass band compositions & arrangements had been published, winning him several notable awards for their excellence. In 1999 he wrote Concertpiece for solo cornet with brass band. Before long the piece was re-scored for solo trumpet with concert band at the request of Woody English, principal trumpet of the United States Army Band. This music has strong appeal for the soloist, the ensemble, & the audience because of its challenge, its beauty, & its musical message. Tonight’s performance has additional special appeal because of our featured soloist, as you will see from her introduction by tonight’s conductor. [NOTE: Natalie Parrell, daughter of associate conductor Rick Parrell, was the trumpet soloist.]

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Mancini Magic. Before John Williams started writing the musical scores for the biggest blockbuster movies, Henry Mancini had that gig pretty much sewed up. In fact, John Williams played piano for Mancini on the original 1958 album of music from Peter Gunn. After such big success with Peter Gunn on TV, Henry Mancini had hit score after hit score at the movies, with loads of memorable trademark songs. The Mancini Magic you are about to experience features Moon River from Breakfast At Tiffany’s, plus Mr. Lucky, Baby Elephant Walk, Charade, The Pink Panther, & of course Peter Gunn. Mancini Magic, arranged for concert band by a member of the City of Fairfax Band, Mr. Jerry Brubaker.

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Holiday For Flutes. David Rose’s highly talented musical output was honored with 6 gold records & 22 Grammy awards — not too shabby for a British-born kid who was obsessed with trains & would have preferred being a railroad engineer to being a musical arranger & composer. His 1st big recording success in the 1940s was “Holiday For Strings,” a million-seller that led to a whole train-load of “holiday” numbers — “Holiday For Flutes,” “Holiday For Trombones,” “Autumn Holiday,” “Blue Holiday”. A survey taken round about 1963 found that at every minute of every day at least 1 radio station in the USA was playing a David Rose selection. Meanwhile his music was being used as theme songs for 22 different TV shows. People like David Rose’s music because of the bubbly happiness it brings with it, as in our next selection, arranged by Johnny Warrington, “Holiday For Flutes.”

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Bluesette. Next up is Bluesette by Toots Thielemans — a jazz waltz based on be-bop blues progressions favored by Charlie Parker & other jazz greats of that time. Toots Thielsmans played with Charlie Parker’s All Stars in Philadelphia. Besides that, Toots Thielmans added some new sounds to commercial music, such as whistling & playing guitar together in unison, also playing harmonica in movie & TV soundtracks — for example, Toots Thielmans is the harmonica soloist on Sesame Street. He played concerts & recording sessions with stars like George Shearing, Ella Fitzgerald, Quincy Jones, Bill Evans, Natalie Cole, Pat Metheny, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, & a bunch of others. Bluesette is a number he wrote in 1962 — a tune that’s fast, perky, & very bluesy, all wrapped up into 1. Tonight’s performance has additional special appeal because of our featured soloist, as you will see from his introduction by tonight’s conductor. [NOTE: Ricky Parrell, son of associate conductor Rick Parrell, was the also saxophone soloist.]

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To A New Dawn. Philip Sparke, the popular British composer who wrote tonight’s opening selection The Bandwagon, in 1997 became only the 2nd European composer to win the prestigious Sudler Prize of the John Philip Sousa Foundation. Our next composition is another concert band piece by Philip Sparke, titled To a New Dawn, which sweeps sonically through grand vistas, pensive recollections, & glorious proclamations. The piece was commissioned & written for the men & women of the United States Continental Army Band, Fort Monroe, Virginia. To a New Dawn, by Philip Sparke.

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Hollywood! Concerts bands everywhere love playing Warren Barker’s fine arrangements of music from Broadway musicals & Hollywood films. He did lots of those, including 1 specially commissioned by The Greater Miami Symphonic Band in Miami FL, & commercially published so that bands everywhere can have a chance to play it. This collection features Thanks for the Memory, the Star Trek movie theme, Never On Sunday, Over The Rainbow, & the Raiders March from Indiana Jones & the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Here is Warren Barker’s movie medley titled Hollywood!

Sadness At The Death Of Pets

Our sorrow when our dogs & cats reach the end of their days is a measure of the care & affection we had for them all through their lives with us, & if we do not grieve when the earthly days of our pets are done then perhaps our hearts are not as grateful as they should be for the loyalty & companionship our pets gave us so freely, asking for so little in return other than food & shelter & a kind word now & then.

Why I Don’t Give Blood

For a long time I was a regular Red Cross blood donor — gave at the blood drives down at work (& sometimes got an afternoon off for it), gave in the Army (& always got an afternoon off for it), reached the Gallon Donor Club, & kept on going.

Eventually I got to 2 gallons & then 3 & 4 & so on till I got up to 10 gallons. Didn’t quit. Remained a regular blood donor, figuring maybe I’d some day reach the 20 gallon plateau if my health held out. Not a bad way of paying dues for membership in the Human Race, I figured.

Got up to 15 or 16 gallons of cumulative blood donations — I don’t think I’d made it to 17 gallons yet — when I got a frightening letter from Red Cross saying they were throwing me out of the blood donor program because of results of a new test they were applying to all donated blood. They had tested my blood, they said, & my blood flunked.

I rushed right over to my regular physician, showed him the letter, & heard him curse the Red Cross for its frightening language in that letter. He sent me to a commercial lab for blood work, ordering every blood test on the menu, & I went right over to have the samples drawn. What’s a few blood samples to somebody already in the 15+ Gallon Club as a (former) blood donor?

All the tests came back negative. I was OK — still am. Shame on the Red Cross for scaring me that way. But hats off to the Red Cross for screening out potential donors on false positive test results, rather accepting blood for transfusions that might be tainted.

Better safe than sorry. So it goes.

Girl Scouts Bridge

The Chief Of Staff & I assembled a rouigh & ready but sturdy wooden bridge for Brownie Scouts to walk across as part of their ceremony of crossing over into the regular Girl Scouts program. The Chief Of Staff’s sister is a scout leader, & her granddaughters — our grand-nieces — are scouts. (The Chief Of Staff is a Great Aunt. I am an OK Uncle.)

The Girl Scouts graduation bridge was a big success — so much so that all the scouts wanted to walk across, not just the 1s graduating from Brownies to Junior Scouts. Our 11-year-old grand-niece, who became a Junior Scout a few years back, lamented, “We didn’t get to walk across any bridge when we flew up. And they didn’t give us Junior Mints. I didn’t get to wear wings, either. I had to wear a scratchy old bird suit.”

Meanwhile, our grandson (age 4) showed concern that if he walked across the Girl Scouts graduation bridge, he would become a Junior Girl Scout when he reached the other end, because that’s the way the purpose of the bridge was describedc to him. We assured him that only happens when Brownie Scouts cross over, & for everybody else it’s just a regular bridge. I walked across myself to illustrate, so he tried it too — with no ill effects. I think it still makes him semi-nervouis, though.

Wisconsin & California U.S.A.

Somebody on TUG who really knows his stuff about timeshare trades (not me — I’m only half bright) says any summertime Wisconsin Dells timeshare will get trades into whatever RCI has available, anywhere, any size unit.

The same is said to be true of summertime coastal California timeshares.

In both instances, I can believe it (even though I can’t vouch for it, not owing timeshares in those locations myself). I mean, it stands to reason that high-demand locations in prime-demand times would have the most pull as timeshare trade bait.

We like vacationing in & around Orlando FL, & so do our son & daughter-in-law, so we’re happy with our (resale) Orlando timeshares. Our non-Orlando timeshares are strictly for exchanges, & those have been OK too.

We took the points plunge in a small-time way & that has complicated matters greatly because, thrift-freaks that we are, we always look for bargain-basement Instant Exchange & Last Call reservations instead of just going ahead with straight-points & straight-weeks timeshare exchanges. So it goes.

Trading Power Catch 22 ?

OK, so the exchange system tries to get me to trade down on the 1 hand, but on the other hand the same system won’t let me trade down because of VEP — because it doesn’t want me to be “disappointed” by accidentally exchanging into some timeshare that I won’t think is as nice as the timeshare I deposited, or some such.

Bottom line is the system can’t find me anything appropriate & suitable to trade into because either my trade power is too low or my VEP is too high or both. Sheesh.

No wonder RCI thinks it has to rent’m out to the general public in order to stay afloat financially. What else can it do with’m when that Catch 22 makes’m all unavailable all the time?

Lock-Off Terminology Can Be Dicey

I have an Orlando FL 3BR lock-off timeshare. Sometimes people separating the 2BR & 1BR components that add up to a 3BR villa will refer to the stand-alone locked-off 1BR suite as the lock-off, or as the 1BR lock-off, even though once that unit has been locked off from the rest of the larger villa, it no longer itself “locks off” any further into any even smaller stand-alone units.

Example : Hey, where’s my iPod ?
You left it over in the lock-off, doofus.

When we were relative newbies to the whole timeshare scene, somebody at a sales presentation somewhere — had to be Orlando FL or Las Vegas NV — tried to correct our terminolgy when we described our outstanding Orlando resale timeshare as a 3BR lock-off. “No,” she said, “if you have a 2BR unit with an adjoining separate 1BR unit, that’s called a 2BR lock-off because it’s a 2BR timeshare with an attached 1BR unit that locks off.”

As newbies who didn’t know any better, that still didn’t sound right to us even though it was coming from a professional sales person in the timeshare biz. So we asked about it & pretty soon several knowledgeable TUG folks replied saying our understanding was correct & the timeshare sales person’s explanation was wrong — our 3BR timeshare villa that locks off into separate stand-alone 2BR & 1BR units is properly designated a 3BR lock-off.