winnings

I went to the Michener Museum on Wednesday. I had an appointment in Doylestown that morning so I figured I'd do something cultural while in town. A friend joined me for a second date and we spent a few hours touring all the rooms. I started reading about William Trego and the Pennsylvania Impressionists last year and focused my attention on their work. I even bought two books on both topics in the gift shop, both of which were marked half off. I went out walking with the dogs when I got home, pausing by the Trego house to snap a picture of the historical marker in front of it.

I spent the rainy Thursday afternoon working on a tooling project for managing blog media. That's a priority I set for the next few months so I was excited to make some progress there. I went back to boro hall that evening for this month's Shade Tree meeting where I conducted my first official business voting on a permit application. The Mega Millions jackpot was still bubbling then so I stopped for one more ticket on the walk home. I spent Friday running errands and cleaning the car then went out for a third date. He made us dinner from a TikTok recipe, baked shredded tofu tacos. We listened to music, chatted with his roommate and played some video games. The food was good but made mysterious for having apparently been prepared by a ghost. I heard that if you visit Bucks three times in one week you might meet such an apparition but the skeptic in me had to see firsthand to believe. I also didn't believe that tofu could be shredded but was happy to see the technique pan out and add it to my repertoire.

I went to a reptile exhibit with a friend yesterday. We saw geckos, iguanas, frogs, toads, rhino snakes, vipers, cobras, rattlesnakes, alligators, and a crocodile. I also met one vendor who happens to live a few blocks over from me. I was drawn to some of the rodents and insects before realizing they were intended as food for the others on display, though somebody tried to sell me on bringing home a cockroach as a pet. I was surprised and amused by the diversity of isopods and I thought I might build a terrarium to house some from the backyard as a spring project. We also saw a table of carnivorous plants, my favorite of which was probably the pitcher plants. My insect brain thought it wouldn't be so bad to drown in nectar, but I did feel some sympathy for the ants crawling across the table. I felt a sympathy for everybody in the room, of course, and wasn't naive to the fact I'd positioned myself there in the same way I had at the chili cook-off in October. One vendor chatted us up about a species of lizard from a small Australian island beset by wildfires. He said the government's plan was to let the ocean contain the fire since water doesn't burn, and I thought I heard distant laughter echoing from the Exxon offices.

We spent about two hours wandering the floor then I rambled about church and childhood on the drive back before we parted ways. He left for a party and I napped with the dogs then went to neighbors for a game night. They made pizzas, one with no meat or cheese, and supplied vegan cookies and brownies and wine and beer. We caught up on the last few weeks over a round of Ticket to Ride and watched the Jaguars win over the Chargers. I made it home after midnight and climbed into bed with the dogs after catching back up with them, too. The wind chill had been below freezing most of the day and dipped low as we were falling to sleep so we piled up close.

I slept in this morning and skipped church. I made corn bread from what I had on hand then went for a walk with the dogs. I thought it'd be too cold again but the sun came out and we were able to make a loop around the neighborhood. All the other dogs seemed to have a similar thought and shouted to us from behind their fences and storm doors.

Somebody wrote into the newspaper proposing a lottery arrangement that guarantees awards to multiple winners positing that 25 winners each winning $25M would be better for society than one person winning the entire pot. Even better might be to maintain some small but non-zero chance for one individual to earn a billion dollars overnight while simultaneously lowering taxes and granting Congress an even higher probability of funding some randomly chosen and unspecified portion of the government. An article in the newspaper suggested politics might interfere with the government's ability to pay its bills in the near future, and this system would simply re-codify and quantify that potential outcome with the benefit of amortizing the impact of such events rather than having the entire government shut down at less predictable times. A bank wrote into the paper today seemingly in support of my economics by augury. They advertised a one year certificate of deposit with a 4% APY plus an increase of basis points equal to the number of points scored by the Eagles in the next game they play. The team earned an average of 28 points per game during this regular season and ten in their lowest scoring game so the maximum deposit of $500k could have earned an extra $500 minimum and an average of $1400. Their highest score was 48 points against the Giants in December, which would have earned a bonus $2400. A 52-week Treasury Bill bought at the end of November could have earned a 4.57% return without all the hassle or the federal tax on interest earned, but that's less exciting. I didn't win the Mega Millions this week or any bonus kiss. A remorseful gambler might conclude that the cost of the tickets and the gum were lost, but I came out with a stronger sense of what I'd do with the money and relationship. I looked at catering prices in town and reasoned that even a thousand dollar prize is enough to throw a rager for the neighbors and plant a tree in town. For that amount I don't think I need to wait to win a billion to fund the affair or finally get around to deciding what I'd do with the jackpot.