
Newbies, Lurkers, and Splashers
The Welcome Wagon has rolled into town!
The Welcome Wagon has rolled into town!
Question for everyone:
if you won the lottery (say 50 million),
how would you spend it?
if you won the lottery (say 50 million),
how would you spend it?
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Don’t be shy! Now’s your chance to de-lurk and say hello!
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May the 4’s be with you
Say hello to the newest member of the Frog Pond
And since it’s YAHD*, how about a Happy Hour special?
Blue Lagoon:
* 1 oz Vodka
* 1 oz Blue Curacao
* Lemonade
* 1 Cherry
*Yet Another Hump Day
Coincidentally (or not), if I were to win that sizable of a lottery, an island with a blue lagoon would be near the top of my list of things to purchase.
What’s shakin’ in your part of the world?
an island with a blue lagoon would be near the top of my list of things to purchase
One of these?
perfect! please tell me that’s one of your vacation pix.
Unfortunately, no!
But it is one of the places we want to see next time (yes, there will definitely be another trip).
Blue Hole
the vibrancy of the blue hues is hypnotic. i can see why you would want to do some more exploring there.
A trip to your neighborhood is also high on our list.
let me know when!
Definitely! We still have mileage for tickets.
But it is not likely until fall (summer I do the usual Norway trip with the kids).
That blue hole is a very strange place especially to dive in. It gets bigger as you descend into it which leaves one out in the open depths & away from the walls. I was reading up on it about six months ago.
Great pic also. Another scary act, jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.
My favorite!
Especially if they’re consumed by the lagoon.
Hurricane
1 oz white rum
1 oz Jamaican dark rum (Appleton preferably)
1 oz Bacardi® 151 rum
3 oz orange juice
3 oz unsweetened pineapple juice
1/2 oz grenadine syrup
crushed ice
Pay off whatever credit card and student loan debt members of my family have.
Buy a new house for my mother that has no stairs.
Buy a house for myself.
Place $2 million in FDIC-insured accounts and bank CDs, particularly in credit unions serving disadvantaged areas.
Business Proposal 1: Start a payday loan store that charges optional interest with $2 million, and see how long it lasts.
Business Proposal 2: Start a progressive daily in my current town and another in my hometown.
hi Yamaneko! sounds like a good plan, you’re all taking the thoughtful, compassion route on this one.
liberals…
hehehe
Manny!!!
xxoo
From my First Welcome Wagon Comment:
great to see you here and thanks for the link to the Great Welcome Wagon Marathon of 2005 🙂
I love reading through those early welcome wagons.
$50m heh…l’d pay most of it forward, spread the wealth. there’s only so much ya need, eh.
and in honour of YAHD, have a camel hump
clik image for mixoology
later
lTMF’sA
I think I’ve had one of those but under the guise of a more risqué name. good stuff, either way!
pay it forward, yes. good plan. after the island 😉
after the island
but of course…gotta take care of the basics…sand, sun, surf and tranquil breezes :{)
lTMF’sA
camel hump
or moose:
I’d pay off my house and bills.
Convert my MINI to an electric vehicle.
OMG…put my kids into daycare.
Buy more books.
Buy more bookshelves.
Travel (maybe even without those brats)
Donate to either Habitat for Humanity or a local group.
Sushi Bar hop until I explode.
sushi, yum.
This question came about because my boss was using her lunchtime to get through a pile of scratch tickets she had bought over the weekend. I told her I wouldn’t tell anyone she was doing that at her desk, as long as I got a cut of the profits. Leverage, always good to accumulate it.
Me on actually receiving the cash:
“Okay, first things first. I’m going to pull out the checkbook and pay off all my debts!”
Half an hour later or so …
“That felt great! Now, let’s see. How much is left ov– WHAAAT?”
🙁
Feels that way, anyway.
–Actually, what I think I’d do is this: buy a cool adobe house somewhere not too far from Albuquerque (so as to have access to the university), and divide the rest of my days between exploring New Mexico and the surrounding area and amassing advanced degrees.
i lived in an adobe house in midtown Tucson for five years, they are the best when it comes to insulation. Much better than the glorified cardboard boxes they staple together everyday (or at least used to, until the housing bubble finally popped). sigh…
I’d buy land, lot’s of it, and a pony.
Seriously, I’d get better health care, and try to buy up enough shares of Gunns Pty. Ltd. (the timber company that practically runs Tasmania) to try and pry their grubby fingers off of our state politics.
hi keres, why am I not surprised that you would add to the critter collection? 🙂 I wonder how the alpacas would react to a pony
I’d put money away for my son’s college expenses, buy us a real house and get one of those little Mercedes hatchback coupes from a couple of years ago.
hi b2 – would the real house be set in the shadow of Bell Rock? 😉
Why not? 😉
For me, it would be a two hundred foot freighter converted to solar sail & wind power. It`s the seven seas for me.
hey KNUCKLEHEAD! Was thinking of you last weekend as I accompanied a friend to an aquarium shop. The worker spent about twenty minutes explaining the care and respect demanded of any true keeper of reefs. I smiled as it reminded me how much you care for your tanks. Hope you’re doing well.
Thanks Manny,

I`ve been real busy lately so I haven`t been out much, but saw your wagon & popped in.
The reefs are still doing fine.
I worked this out a long time ago:
50% into securities that would pay me a steady income for the rest of my life
20% or so to charitable donations
Some unreasonable number to taxes
The rest I would enjoy spending. Travel, maybe a new house, a snazzy laptop. I don’t have much in the way of needs — I don’t want a yacht, a fancy-shmansy car or a beachfront house, or anything like that. I would be like the woman on the Washington State Lottery ads who’s sitting out waiting for the bus. A friend comes up and says she’s glad winning the lottery hasn’t changed her any. The woman smiles her thanks, the bus pulls up, and as she gets in it’s decked out with a big table in the middle, lace tablecloth, chandelier, fine china and a butler.
Task #1 would be to explain to my wife where the money came from, since I don’t buy lottery tickets. I have worked out how the conversation will go:
Me: Dear, I have to tell you something. I know it’s stupid and I’ve always said it was stupid, but last week I bought a lottery ticket. Well, guess what? We’re rich! We won the jackpot! Twenty five million dollars! Neither of us has to work a day the rest of our lives!
(stunned silence)
Me: Um, dear, aren’t you going to say anything?
(stunned silence, then with the force and inevitability of a mudslide:)
Her: You . . . bought . . . a . . . LOTTERY TICKET????????
hi Omir! Your sig line – Love. It.
As for the spouse, I’m sure she would get over it 🙂
Oh I’m sure she would, but the initial explaining would take some doing.
As for the sig line, I’m starting to wonder. I might just throw my support behind Hilary and then move to McCain, since everyone I’ve supported so far has dropped out.
When I told my husband about this post last night and what I posted, his response was, “You buying a lottery ticket? Well, that’s not going to happen.” Focus, man! The question said, ‘if’. This is a guy who’d make a great politician as he can never answer a question straightforward (hence, the suicide-inducing story of how it took 5 years for him to lose his virginity). I was stunned he managed to hang on to the first part of the question.
the suicide-inducing story of how it took 5 years for him to lose his virginity
FSM help me, the first thing I thought was, “I hope this wasn’t after you were married.”
I’m with you. I don’t know how we would get out of our bedroom if the house caught fire, but I do have a contingency plan for what to do if a large sum of money suddenly were to appear in my lap. Sad to say, large sums of money seem to go out of their way to swerve around me. A guy could get a complex.
I always thought I would buy an island somewhere, but with the threat of rising sea levels and intense ocean storms, I’ve changed my mind. Instead, I think a nice mountain in the Sierra Nevada range would suffice. There, I would build a completely self-sustaining community and invite BooTribbers one and all to come live. I imagine low impact homes nestled on the hills and a fortified bunker built into the mountain. Like my own private NORAD. :>)
It’s that or buy my way into some nice foreign country.
hi Kamakhya! I’m imagining a bunch of hobbit holes. I think Omir shared this link months ago of one built in Wales.
That house is adorable! It’s just what I want.
Hi Kama and Manee, that house is what I want toooooo.
That is the coolest house I can imagine, years ago I got interested in the sod covered houses, they are best insulated of any material, I understand…yeah it’s fabulous.
BTW how’s your knitting going, I am now working on poncho, crocheted, in fact the Martha Stewart one, it’s so pretty, will have it done tomorrow. This is my first try with anything other than flat, this one is worked in the round so as you go it’s complete, from top down.
i’ve occasionally fantasized about doing a straw-bale house. It would look like a normal house, but just use the straw for insulation. You’d frame your way around the bales.
Trouble is I would have to win the lottery to get it done. It’s not that expensive as houses go, but it’s still more money than I have (and then there’s the issue of where to put it).
Hi Diane. I’m still knitting, slowly but surely. I’m presently waiting for some yarn to come to try out a new project. Your learning is obviously coming along astoundingly. Do you sleep? ;>)
Kama, lol, funny about the sleep, yes I do sleep but I crochet nearly all day, to the point my wrists, shoulder, neck and fingers hurt, I have to take pain pills every night, but I will not be deterred. Since I wrote that comment I have nearly finished the poncho and will be done tonight for sure.
I’ll definitely be putting up a knit-(and crochet)-a-palooza diary this weekend then.
I’m almost finished the socks I was working on, and my new needles came so I can cast on for my sweater now too.
My socks are done – pictures to come this weekend. I started another pair and cast on tonight for my Grand-daughter’s sweater. Looking forward to Knit (and crochet)-a-polooza!
Um, Sweetie? That’s not good. The whole phrase, “No Pain, No Gain” does not work for crochet. :>)
Please take care. Repetitive motion is not good on the body. Take many breaks, no matter how much fun you are having!
But, on the plus side, you are putting me to shame! :>)
I’m looking forward to this week’s stitch ‘n bitch. I even have a new scarf to show off and another on the needles.
I’m late to the party, but thanks for the link, Man E.
One thing about underground houses: you’d better make damn sure it’s properly engineered & perfectly constructed.
Meaning money!
Build that hobbit hole in the Sierra Nevada and wait long enough, and maybe with the anticipated sea level rise it will be an island retreat eventually. 🙂
Don’t think I haven’t calculated that into my ultimate plan!
I just finished an eco-sci-fi thriller by Kim Stanley Robinson and he made a convincing argument that the Sierra Nevadas would experience severe drought. That got me to thinking of Arakis from Dune. So, I am now planning for several cavernous underground aquifers.
Any day now, money will come falling from the sky. :>)
Are you reading the entire trilogy? You really should.
Yes. I just finished it. It was pretty good, though Mr. Robinson can get a bit verbose and dry. I do appreciate his vision of a great president.
I have a Phil Chase for President logo, I’ve made. I just need to get it on my Zazzle store.
LOL. I would so vote for him and even contribute to his campaign!
buy an RV and give most of it away
Road Trip!
or maybe a new airline?
A) Pay the taxes
B) With what’s left:
1) Set aside money enough to see two grandchildren through a doctorate if they want it.
2) Invest, probably in municipal bonds and with the interest:
a) Live not so differently than we are now on our Social Security
b) Contribute to charities to fight autism, cancer, heart problems and those that help this community.
Something tells me you were a great student.
There’s a family joke about “diploma inflation”. My Grandparents only had 8th or 9th grade educations. My parents both graduated from high school during the Depression. I earned a B.A. with a history major & an art minor. Both my daughters have Master’s degrees, one a MBA, the other in Elementary Ed. So it stands to reason, that to continue the trend, the grandkids should have the means to go for a PhD if they so desire. Right now, my 7 year old Grand-daughter is studying for her HAM radio license and reading at a 5th grade level when she’s the youngest in her 2nd grade class. (Can you tell that I’m a proud Grandma?? <g>)