Friday, February 17, 2006

Half a Light-Hour...

Can we be totally serious here for half a minute?
I really like the idea of winning a lottery.
No, don’t laugh. Please. I am talking about my Retirement Plan here!
And hey, if your going to win a Lottery… why not make it tomorrow’s Powerball Lottery?
Saturday's Powerball drawing will be for an estimated $365 million, which would not only be the largest Powerball jackpot in the game's history but the largest lottery jackpot ever.
[The largest to date is $363 million, won in 2000 in The Big Game, now renamed Mega Millions.]

OK, so I have been thinking about this… trying to come to terms with how much money this is, and also fantasizing about all of the great things I could do for the world if I won this thing.
So, first of all, there are 365 days in a year, right?
Winning this thing is like the equivalent of winning $1 million a day for a whole year.
Or how about this… [and personally, this is my favorite way of looking at it and drooling all over the place]… it is like winning $1 million a MONTH…. for the next 30 years!
OK, let’s break that down yet further. Let’s say there an average of 23 working days a month. [For those of us who do not work on the weekends].
Winning tomorrow’s Powerball is the equivalent of receiving $43,478.00 a DAY….. for the next 30 years!
I would so love to be able to have to learn how to deal with this!

My mind is racing with the various permutations I can conjure for such an astronomical figure.
Light [in a vacuum] travels at 186,282 miles per second.
Therefore, it would take 1,959 seconds for light to travel 365,000,000 miles.
That works out to 32 and a half minutes.
At a dollar per mile [I wish taxi-rates were this cheap], I could travel AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT for 32 and a half minutes, on tomorrow’s winnings.
All of these figures are not even accounting for interest on my money.

Now I know what some smarty alec is going to put in the comments section…. [my guess is that it will be that RantandRoar guy]…. “You are not accounting for taxes. You forgot to mention taxes!”

Taxes shmaxes!
The point of what I am saying is this.
Whoever wins tomorrow’s prize, I ALREADY hate that person!

To see how close I myself once got to winning a huge-normous Lottery [even so, it would have been a mere 53 second ride in the Light-Speed Taxi]…. click here.

6 comments:

Isabella K said...

"$43,478.00 a DAY..."

Really, give up the lottery dream. Quit your job to go the freelance or consulting route and charge $5,000 an hour. (Or double it and retire sooner.) Better than winning — you'll know you EARNED that money.

Anonymous said...

Nah, keep dreaming...it's fun as long as it's not your only income! Dream big and don't worry about the tax issue because while you'll spend to your hearts content you'll also invest the majority in a solid investment portfolio with a decent return so that you only ever spend the interest and not the principle...then you can dream even bigger!

Cold Molasses said...

Oh literary gnostic one...all I ask is that if you happen to be the winner, don't forget ME...yes, that's selfish I know, but PLEASSSE, if you win the jackpot, give me a couple of mill...that's all I ask...that's just 2 months at the end of your life that you won't even notice at $1M a month. I too dream of retirement...and don't let Isabella fool you, I'm doing the consulting thing and retirement doesn't seem to be coming soon at all.

Cipriano said...

Well, as for the divvying up of my possible winnings, it certainly will not be a result of my winning this huge-normous jackpot today, since I don't even have a ticket.
I wonder if anyone did win it.
But, of course, I would have bought all of you respondents something nice, had I won $365,000,000.
That number is just CRAZY!

Stefanie said...

I heard one person won it and the ticket was bought in Lincoln, Nebraska. Whoever it is must be having a huge freak out right now and hopefully finding themselves a good lawyer and a good accountant. Wish it was me having the freak out :)

Anonymous said...

look , are you sure you want to win , it seems that the people who win always end up on daytime televion talking about how the money ruined there lives...