What would you do?

The fella in front of me is obviously a hard working man, worn
clothes, down at the heels, thick calloused hands, greasy nails, etc... He
has a wad of the slips you mark with a #2 pencil for the machine reader to
enter your numbers... He is talking to himself and by the time he gets
to
the register he has a hundred bucks worth of numbers marked up... By the
time he gets done with the clerk he has a hundred fifty bucks worth of
numbers...

This is not uncommon at all.

As many of you know, in a previous life I spent 7 years in Racine, WI's
inner city (between Milwaukee and Chicago) collecting money from deadbeats.
This meant going into the poorest, meanest parts of town on what was known
as "Father's Day" -- the day the welfare checks arrived, shortly after the
first of the month. (It was called "Father's Day" cuz that was the only day
of the month anyone ever saw 'em.)

If you got to the deadbeat Moms before the Dads could take the money, you
stood a decent chance of getting paid. Otherwise, you were out of luck for
another month. And those deadbeats could be found standing in line at one
of two places: On the street, buying drugs, or at the convenience store,
buying lottery tickets.

It was always a lively debate, discussing which was more pathetic.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"John Harlow" wrote in message
...
Now if she would just loan me some money...

Lol - I personally know a family which was once very close - until the
grandparents won the lottery. It ended up really ruining things for
them -
there was much bickering about "fairness" and the grandparents really
became
paranoid about who was being sincere and just trying to get on their good
side for the money. It wasn't a pretty sight.



That could happen very easily in my in-laws family...

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:QB7Ib.698670$Fm2.603110@attbi_s04...
I would probably keep my existing plane and upgrade it.

Wow -- a hundred million would go a long ways on your Ercoupe, Greg.

Hell, you could probably top MU-2 Mike, and gold-plate the whole danged
thing!

:-)
--

If I gold plated my Ercoupe, I'd have problems with the W&B. ;-)

I wouldn't spend the whole $100M on the Ercoupe, probably a few k's to get
some 'features' (not rudder peddles!) and someplace nice to keep it. Maybe
move to an airpark? I'll decide after I win...

No problem with my family... When my father died at 41, the brothers and
sisters descended upon the farm like locusts with all sorts of claims that
they had loaned money on a handshake, etc... The judge allowed their claims
(1950's) and they turned my mother and myself out into the road (not even a
street with the clothes on our backs... I told em to go **** up a rope at
the time...

Funny thing, 20 years later when I had clawed my way out of poverty into the
upper tax brackets, they suddenly showed up at my office and wanted me to be
'family' again... I reminded them of my last set of instructions to them as
they turned us out... So, if I win a 100 million, I won't be hearing from
them, at least... Ghod knows what vermin will turn up otherwise, though...
Denny
"Chuck" wrote in message
.net...

"John Harlow" wrote in message
...
Now if she would just loan me some money...

Lol - I personally know a family which was once very close - until the
grandparents won the lottery. It ended up really ruining things for
them -
there was much bickering about "fairness" and the grandparents really
became
paranoid about who was being sincere and just trying to get on their
good
side for the money. It wasn't a pretty sight.



That could happen very easily in my in-laws family...

"Sven" :
The multi-state PowerBall lottery is going to be over $200 million
Wednesday. This thread has been done on here before...

What would you do if you won the Lotto???
Upgrade your plane?
Get a newer/bigger/better plane? Get a fleet?
Get AMEL/ASES/ Instrument and/or Commercial ratings?

I'll wait until I win to decide... ;-)

I formed an office pool. 27 people spent $5 each ... 135 tickets.
There's no way we can lose!

If I had $100MM to spend, I'd make a small fortune in aviation by
starting out with a large one. Maybe buy a private strip in the area,
some gliders, and spend the rest of the money on lawyers so that I can
actually make it a nice operation.

(Jim Buckridge) wrote in message . com...
"Sven" :
The multi-state PowerBall lottery is going to be over $200 million
Wednesday. This thread has been done on here before...

What would you do if you won the Lotto???
Upgrade your plane?
Get a newer/bigger/better plane? Get a fleet?
Get AMEL/ASES/ Instrument and/or Commercial ratings?

I formed an office pool. 27 people spent $5 each ... 135 tickets.
There's no way we can lose!

I've never bought a lottery ticket, but it would be at least a teensy,
teensy, teensy, teensy, teensy (but still 20 times) better and more
tempting to buy a ticket and hope for one of twenty $10mm prizes than
one $200 mm prize.

"Philip Sondericker" wrote in message
...
in article , John Harlow at
wrote on 12/29/03 6:35 AM:

Not all of us own airplanes, you know. I'd probably start by paying
off the credit card I maxed out just getting my license.

Yikes!

It wasn't quite as bad as it sounds--the license cost me 5 grand, and
about
half of that I managed to pay in cash.


Not for me. I hate paying interest. I put my lessons on my credit card but
I make sure I will be able to pay it off at the end of the billing cycle.
Credit cards are nice, but have the potential of being very evil. I have
several of them but always pay off their balances every month.

As much as I would love to just go nuts and fly as much as possible to speed
up getting my license, but I just hate paying interest. I don't think I
have paid interest on anything for over two years now. Anything I finance
needs to be interest free for the first 3, 6, what ever months and I need to
be confident that I can pay it off in that amount of time or I won't do it.

And yet, I pay the "stupidity tax" from time to time when the PowerBall
jackpot starts getting up there.

I just look at the lottery numbers each time. I then satisfy
myself that I wouldn't have chosen those numbers then
carry on about my business.

Paul

"David Dyer-Bennet" wrote in message
...
On the other hand, the *utility* to me of a dollar every month or so
is essentially nil; it simply dissappears out of my budget without any
consequences. Whereas the *utility* of winning a few million dollars
is very high

The lottery in the UK occasionally pays for some good stuff:

Duxford museum:
http://www.iwm.org.uk/duxford/airspace.htm
See "Funding the Project".

Getting XH558 flying again:
http://www.tvoc.co.uk/index2.htm

I prefer to donate directly to these projects though.

Paul

Roger Halstead" wrote in message
...
Wellll... In Michigan the lottery was supposed to support the schools,
but some how the money ended up being diverted to the general fund and
the schools are still struggling.