I am still thinking up ideas for what to do with my first $100 check from Google. I've started concentrating on one idea but haven't done much towards it yet, so I'll still keep throwing out ideas.
- I could take the money back to the County Fair to revisit the coin pusher that made all of this possible. I would say “Thanks, Coin Pusher.” I could try out some of the tips people have commented about… although most of the comments would not be very helpful. Recently I got a comment that I had to translate from Chinese and I think something might have been lost in translation. “Not a pen-hold of people.” After some thought, I am guessing that means it wasn’t crowded, which was true, but good, clean fun like the County Fair can only be crowded with fun. The coin pusher tent was a pen-hold of good times. This could be good though as it wouldn’t need to be the full $100, so I’d have a little left to play with.
- I could play a little game with the money, similar to the guy who started with a red paper clip and traded up and up until he owned a home. This could be interesting in a way, but I believe the guy with a paper clip wound up in central Canada . They probably don’t even know what a coin pusher is in central Canada ! They would call them Loonie Pushers.
Back on track and similar to the trading up idea, I could invest in something and follow it here on this blog! Invest might be the wrong word as the stock market is not what I’m thinking of. When I was a kid, I heard this story in Sunday school about these three brothers who were each given money from their father who was going on vacation. They were expected to return the money when he returned. One brother bought two cows or something like that and in the end had five cows that it sold for a profit. Another brother bought seeds and sold the grain. The third brother buried the money and returned it all to his father in the end, and he was shamed. Yep, Sunday school is where I learned all my business savvy. I would need a plan for this though that would fit in my $100 budget.
- I have been wanting to participate in Kiva.org for a long time now. The website essentially brings the glorious world of microfinance into your living room… sort of. I’ll admit that my hesitation is one of greed. Microfinance provides small loans to entrepreneurial folks around the world… the key being that they are very small loans. The website is a charity rather than a business, though, so if I loaned my $105.24, I would receive $105.24 at the end of the term. Even if I received an extra couple of bucks, say I got $107 at the end, it would be a lot more fun. Plus, I think they still do charge interest – a lot of interest – I’m just not sure where that money goes.
As far as the blog goes though, this could work well as I believe you receive notes about how their business is doing along with regular payments. It would all be pretty exciting.
That’s three more and I still don’t feel like I have a good list of potential topics yet. All this scheming might have to come to a close. I might have a few more ideas though.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Tuesday, August 09, 2011
$100 Richer, Oh Yeah!
Now is the time to figure out how best to use my new-found wealth. I would like to somehow use it on this blog, as an investment of sorts, in order to provide a bright future for this sputtering blog. This is why I hope to spend it on something completely ridiculous and self-absorbed.
I hope to put it to a vote soon, with you the reader choosing how it’s spent. Every vote will count as, if the number of total votes reaches double digits, the poll would be deemed a success. But for right now, I’m still very much in the scheming phase. I would like to find something both a bit bizarre and with potentially a lot to tell about… or ideally make a web-sensation video about. Here are some potential ideas:
- I could try out SpaWorld USA. It’s a true Korean spa just minutes from my very own home! The sauna and pool area sound nice, but it is the 7 poultice rooms that intrigue me. One room is made entirely of salt to help cleanse you inside and out. Another is filled with tiny, hard dirt balls… I have no idea why, but I would love to try it out. And there are 5 others! Ice is one! I’m so intrigued. At just $35 dollars for 24 hours of access, I may do this one anyways. Hat tip to Groupon for this idea.
- I could try to become a Free Mason. Ever since reading Dan Brown’s book about the secret brotherhood, I’ve harbored a desire to see what it is all about. This has quite a few advantages. The annual dues are around $150 so my internet earnings would cover most of it and it is an ongoing thing rather than a once-and-done experience. The down side though is that it is a secret organization, so I may be oath-bound not to say anything about it, even if I get to wear horned helmets and slaughter young goats. Of course, if I have to do that I might not last the full year. Also, you have to know a Free Mason to join, which could prove problematic.
- In a very different way, I could take a cue from my brother-in-law and start a long term project. Matt recently showed off his handmade boat, the product of several years of tinkering and hard work. While the boat is just a boat, it is a pretty damn impressive accomplishment. I could build just about anything, except I’m not at all handy and I don’t have much extra space to devote to this project.
What I have in mind though is to build something of a small studio in my garage where I can make better videos to post on YouTube. I could make a studio for my game show, the Ticket Tree among other ideas. I’ve also got a vision of a weekly Sunday night rant. My first one would be about how little sense Andy Rooney makes. I have no idea what the cost of this would be, but I imagine it would be exponentially larger than $105.24 and my wife may have a word about it.
This brain-storming may take some time. I’ll try to post some more as I think of them. Meanwhile, if you have any suggestions, please share!
Monday, August 08, 2011
Cost-Conscious Goldilocks
This past weekend, I bought a shirt from Kohl’s. I try to buy something from the department store every few months, whenever they send a ten-dollar Kohl’s Cash Card in the mail. If you limit yourself to the out of season, significantly reduced apparel, you can usually get something pretty nice for less than ten dollars. And this week was a tax-holiday! This bargain shopping mentality has left me with a plethora of decent work shirts, but a severe shortage of pants options.
All this Kohl’s talk though is just a strange lead-in to the true crux of my lack of quality pants: I’m getting bigger. It’s happened so slowly that it is almost difficult to notice. Ten years ago, I graduated college wearing baggy, saggy pants measuring 32 inches at the waist. In the next few years, the 32’s became a little snug, and for a long time I was hovering around 33 and 34.
A year or two ago, I came upon a pair of 36 inch pants (on Old Navy’s Clearance Rack) and recently I realized that they are, by far, the most worn pants I own. I still wear some 34’s fairly regularly as they aren’t uncomfortably snug, yet; plus most of my pants are 34’s. I should say that my beloved 36 inch pants are a little big, and I do need a belt so that they appear neither baggy nor saggy. It’s almost as if my waist measures somewhere between 34 inches and 36 inches, but where?
Lo and behold, there is a number between 34 and 36! So, maybe, just maybe, my goldilocks waistline is 35 inches, which leaves me to wonder why I can’t buy something off the shelf that fits just right. My choices are either too big or too small.
Even before college, I’ve followed the progression. I remember buying pants in high school that were 29’s. 30 inches I remember well. 31 inches I still see quite a lot of. 32 and 34 are both very popular, and now you don’t even have to really search for the 33 inch measurements.
34 is the cut-off though. After that it is just evens. Maybe the thought is after 34 inches, it doesn’t really matter if your pants fit just right. Or probably more accurately, if you limit your shopping to bargains at department stores, you don’t care if your pants fit just right.
All this Kohl’s talk though is just a strange lead-in to the true crux of my lack of quality pants: I’m getting bigger. It’s happened so slowly that it is almost difficult to notice. Ten years ago, I graduated college wearing baggy, saggy pants measuring 32 inches at the waist. In the next few years, the 32’s became a little snug, and for a long time I was hovering around 33 and 34.
A year or two ago, I came upon a pair of 36 inch pants (on Old Navy’s Clearance Rack) and recently I realized that they are, by far, the most worn pants I own. I still wear some 34’s fairly regularly as they aren’t uncomfortably snug, yet; plus most of my pants are 34’s. I should say that my beloved 36 inch pants are a little big, and I do need a belt so that they appear neither baggy nor saggy. It’s almost as if my waist measures somewhere between 34 inches and 36 inches, but where?
Lo and behold, there is a number between 34 and 36! So, maybe, just maybe, my goldilocks waistline is 35 inches, which leaves me to wonder why I can’t buy something off the shelf that fits just right. My choices are either too big or too small.
Even before college, I’ve followed the progression. I remember buying pants in high school that were 29’s. 30 inches I remember well. 31 inches I still see quite a lot of. 32 and 34 are both very popular, and now you don’t even have to really search for the 33 inch measurements.
34 is the cut-off though. After that it is just evens. Maybe the thought is after 34 inches, it doesn’t really matter if your pants fit just right. Or probably more accurately, if you limit your shopping to bargains at department stores, you don’t care if your pants fit just right.
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