barn-car

Have you ever heard about the guy who found a '66 Stingray in and old widow's barn and was able to buy it for $75? It's an old story that may well be true. The thought that there is an old classic car tucked away, sleeping the decades away just waiting for an opportunist to come make a dream car out of it is a common train of thought in most all men. It happened to me today, well, as close as it does in my life.

I was offered a 78 Cadillac El Dorado convertible this Friday and snatched it up. I have a place to put and I'll put a few hours and a few dollars in it here and there and see what I end up with. Yeah, it's no Bel Air, or Stingray, or Shelby.....but a classic none the less. I'd like to photo blog this whole thing, so here is what I found yesterday.



It now has a new home, while not as posh and protected as the shed it's in now. It will get the TLC it needs. If I can afford it (if it needs almost no work) I'll have me a pimp ride.

lottery curse

I've read alot about the "lotto curse". It's a series of horrible events that happen as a direct result of the people coming into so much money so fast and wind up penniless in the aftermath. I can certainly understand what happened, but not so much as calling it a curse. A curse would indicate some magical, supernatural force caused all the "bad stuff" to happen and these things that happen are readily explained.

1. You win $100 million, you don't get the whole thing. Taxes are taken out. Inorder to get anywhere near the grand sum, you have to take installments that usually last 25-30 years. If you decide to take a lump sum, the actual payout is roughly half and a good lump of that will go to taxes, you might end up with 30 million.

2. People spend like there is no limit because millions of anything is beyond the normal person's comprehension. How far is a million miles? How much do you need to drive to amass a sum of 1,000,000 miles traveled? Take 10 cars and drive them for 100.000 miles. With no real concept of how to deal with that kind of money things can get unrealistic quickly. Buy all of you friends and family a really nice house and car, you can spend all most all of it right then.

3. People will start to feel you owe them something, you will get begged, pleaded with, threatened, sued and generally harassed because they want your money. You start looking like a walking piggy bank that everyone wants to crack wide open.

4. Party time!!!! With that kind of cash, you could live a live 99% of the population would crave, but that doesn't mean you can do everything you want whenever you want all day everyday. You have to pace yourself if you want it to last. You can afford a Bently but not a fleet of Bentleys. You can afford a really nice house, but not a mansion everywhere you ever wanted to live.

If you don't decide to keep up everyone who ever did you a favor, you can eat steak and lobster every night for the rest of your life, go on HUGE vacations with a small group of loved ones every year and have a full and satisfying life.

On the other hand, if you go around spending like a fool, throwing money away at every opportunity, you will be broke before you know it. With 100 million after taxes, you could spend over 9 thousand dollars a day for the next 30 years before you went broke. Hell, even with the afore mentioned 30 million, you'd have 2,700 per day to spend for 30 years. I don't know about you, but I think I could skimp a little here and there so I could splurge on a nice event all at once.

For me, the only lottery curse I get is when I see that I still didn't win. I say "dammit" and head to work.

One Cingularly bad experience

Before there was Cingular, there was a group of smaller cell phone companies that merged to become cingular. My original carrier, BellSouth Mobility, was one of them. They merged protocols and we traded up for new phone since ours was not in that protocol and I've been with them pretty much ever since and I've been really happy with the service until recently. The dropped calls have increased, customer service has become horrible, they've changed calling features and prices on me with no notice, and it only gets worse from there. Cingular offers "savings" on new phones via mail-in rebates. If that isn't the most insulting and demeaning premium to ever come around, I don't know what is, and just to really twist the knife in a little more; they don't send checks. They send Visa rewards cards. You can't cash them, you can't use them in many ways. You can buy more crap you don't need with them and that's about it.

The nail in the coffin is that someone has gotten my cellphone number and has been harassing me with blocked calls. After 9 years of faithful business, my only option to end the harassment is change my number...with a $38 service fee. I refuse. If I have to have all that mess, I guess I'll just have to switch carriers.

In a dynamic market that actually rewards customer disloyalty it is the customer who suffers in the long run.

The A&W burger joint

I love the root beer. You mean they actually have a whole restraunt based after my beloved soft drink? I came upon the website while procrastinating here: http://www.awrestaurants.com/default.htm . I see they are not too popular here, as there are only 4 in all of NC. Looking at the website, I can see why. I'm not too sure what the "curd it" incentive is, but I'm sure I wouldn't be into it. Also, all the people are ugly, they look like they eat burgers and they are on some type of antidepressant medication. Just browse through a few of the pages. If I saw any of these hopped-up, loony-bin escapees, I'd leave. Maybe they could find a niche by sending their website models over to McDonald's and scaring the the normal people to A&W. I'd kinda like to visit just to try a root beer float, but it just isn't worth the risk.

PA?

It has been brought to my attention that PA could be a nice place to move. I'm no idiot, I've done some research to see what the big deal is. Seems like certain areas are cracking down on illegal aliens. They have made English offical language and some counties refuse to cater to non-english speaking folks.

Let it be known that while I'm not xenophobic, I do harbor certain ill will toward people who move to MY country and make me try to cater to thier needs and bend to THIER culture. I say keep your culture, respect mine. I find it disgusting that there are places in the US where you cannot get a job as a cashier in a store if you are not bilingual. I can traipse through any country I like, wherever I want and not speak their language at least to some passable degree. Go ahead, try it.

Anyway, I'd have to reseach it more, but it would be more likely for me to be a forensic scientist there, but I still like teaching. The verdict is still out, but Nowhere, NC really isn't too much fun either way and if I want more for myself, I know I'll have to leave.

waiting for nothing

I've been a little lazy in my studies this past week, I've been lazy in everything. This upcoming week, I'll get back to work. Studies, housekeeping and fitness must not be neglected. The tradgic part is, even though I work close to 60 hour a week, I don't do much most of the time I'm at any given job. I've got to remind myself how important my goals are on a regular basis, or May '08 will not be of signifigance.

I have a slight feeling my weekend job is about to turn sour really quick. It get to become less and less of a good deal every week, as the owner has reniged on almost every thing that made this job a perk. It has made me less motivated, and I'm already lazy, so it becomes a downward spiral. I was hoping it would hold out until after school, but if it gets any worse, I might have to find something else.