On Timeshare Presentations

My wife and I were recently in Maui on vacation, where (like on most of our earlier Vegas trips) we were offered discounts on our activities in lieu of attending timeshare presentations. This time around, we actually had some free time, so attended a couple of these. We did a Wyndham resorts presentation and a Diamond Resorts International presentation, and while we did not buy any timeshares, we did come away enlightened about a number of sales and marketing techniques.

Both presentations were markedly similar - you get ushered in by a sweet talking attendant who appeals to your emotions by asking you about your dream vacations, about being able to take those for free, about gifting them to family members etc. Then you get shown a video of timeshare owners talking about how they love being owners. Both videos mention stuff about points etc, which awakens your hitherto-suppressed cold and calculating thinking-neurons just a bit. Then the agent does a quick financial calculation to "help you estimate" your approximate lifetime vacation spending. And finally you get presented with "the best deal in the world", one where you will be able to reduce your lifetime vacation expenses by more than 50%.

If you have been emotionally captured by now, you will probably go and sign the agreement (because of course, why would you need more than a few minutes to accept the greatest deal on earth?). OR, your cold-calculating-neurons will spring into action and consider the following:

- There isn't such a thing as a free lunch, so something's probably fishy.

- There IS such a thing as a "discount rate" or an "opportunity cost of money".

- Accomodation is just one component of a vacation expense, which includes travel, food etc.

- And finally, what these guys are selling to you eventually is a piece of real estate! Which means, it can be valued to a ballpark figure. Which is what we did. Diamond Resorts offered us a non-ocean-front one bedroom apartment for one week per year for $15,000, with a $46 monthly maintenance fee. So, lets do the math:

$15,000 times 52 weeks is $780,000.

$46 times 52 weeks is $2,400

SO, Diamond Resorts is selling a non-ocean-front facing one bedroom apartment for 780,000 with a 2,400 monthly maintenance fee. Convert this maintenance fee into an installment on a 30 year mortgage, and at the current low rates of around 5%, that fee is equivalent to an implied condo price of $400,000. All in all - the condo costs a cool $1,180,000. Is that a good deal for me? I dont think so, especially since timeshares are not expected to appreciate in value, and in fact can be bought for much cheaper in the resale market.

So then why have hundreds of thousands of people become timeshare owners? I guess probably due to the great marketing campaigns that target the emotions, biased financial calculations that disregard the time value of money, and skewed schedules that prevent you from regaining your senses against this onslaught of targeted selling. Capitalism in its finest form, so to speak!

And When Everyone's Super...

No one will be!
- IncrediBoy, in The Incredibles (2004)

The way recent media has reported, one would think every single cyclist in the Tour de France is involved in doping. With his incredible past record of comebacks and achievements, no wonder Lance Armstrong finds himself, just as over the past few years, at the receiving end of this global media backlash.

The prevalance of doping has two related aspects - one being whether it is illegal for a cyclist to dope, and the second being that the governing body actively enforces the law. The enforcement part looks like it was lax for years before the governing body woke up. Would cyclists in the face of competition and peer pressure then still keep away from doping - I dont think so. This situation is no different from corporate competitive strategies, accounting management and pretty much any other case where near term incentives are significant enough and the risk of getting caught is low enough to encourage illegal behavior. Hopefully in the case of cycling, the dopers will be identified and punished, but there is another question to this story.

That question is in fact whether it is even possible to have a sport that is completely clean.

A sport is supposed to be a test of training and skill, but more than that a sport is supposed to be a test of one's heart, of one's will to win. Issues like doping skew the playing field one would say, and that taints the sport in addition to messing up the athlete.

So first, if everyone dopes, then why should it matter (outside of the fact that all these dopers will suffer the ill-effects for the rest of their lives) that they all do? If everyone is truly super, then maybe this *is still* a fair race... I know, I know, one could argue that even though everyone dopes, they all dope to different extents, so the most secretive and innovative doper wins. In a sense, the "smartest" participant wins in such a scenario, rather than the best one, and maybe that is not the original intent of the Tour de France. Similar arguments can be made against doping in practically every other sport.

But then in the absence of doping, would the playing field become level? I am not so sure, because I believe doping comes in many flavors - F1 is tainted by technology doping, the NBA is tainted by free-agency doping, baseball is tainted by no-salary-cap doping, and possibly every sport in the world is tainted by training doping. Why only punish the athletes for individual offenses, when in fact in today's world, it might just be impossible to come up with a sport that tests purely human skill and will.

And if it is about a sportsman being a good human being outside of the sport - if survival and do-gooding were sports lets say - then Lance Armstrong maybe is already in their respective Halls of Fame.

First Things First!

On New Year's Day 2005, I made a resolution to run the Bay to Breakers in mid May. That meant that I had four and a half months to get into shape to run 7.5 miles in hilly SFO. This was the start of my career as a flaky runner. I ended up running the Bay to Breakers in decent time, and I have since continued on doing longer distances including two half marathons in the second half of 2005, three Relays in 2006, 2008 and 2009, and two full marathons (The San Francisco Marathon) in 2008 and 2009. I have picked up multitudes of running injuries over this period, and I have understood and overcome all these running injuries over time. Over the years, I have had successive issues with the right lower back, the right ankle, the left hamstring, the left ITB (short for ilio-tibial band), and the right ITB. My journey towards becoming the complete flaky runner continues with my latest niggle - irritation in my right hamstring. This current niggle isnt that bad, since I have had hamstring issues before and I know how to work around them. In fact I ran my second SF marathon this year with this injury. The pursuit for perfection in understanding, preventing and overcoming running injuries continues on!