life

i wondered what i could have bought for $40 million. a big party, or…

• buy 60 ferrari enzos (and gas) or 4790 Kia Rios
• hire lawyers to file 2000 patents
• completely finance 209 frozen yogurt franchises (and have enough to buy yogurt for your neighbors)
• get 50,000 botox treatments on your forehead
• spend 3595.5 years at louisburg college, including room and board (or 891.8 at harvard)
• burn 8,620,689 acres of grassland
• go to space
• 4000 prosthetic legs (maybe for victims of our habit of leaving land mines all over the world?)
• 80160 mini macs
• more than 8 sony jumbotrons (or 4000 used ones)
• 4000 kilograms of crack cocaine (if you’re willing to bargain shop)

how much cash is that, anyway? it’s this much: times 40.

i find it really offensive that this much was spent on the inauguration. note that clinton’s cost $29.6M. i’m not making a political statement, just wishing we would use the $ for something useful for someone. ok, so my suggestions aren’t useful… fine.

living in the silicon valley for the past 7 years has clearly invaded the only remaining unconnected synapses (the rest were connected storing useless facts or soaked in good beer).

fremont voters decided on measure FF in the november election. the election signs read “vote yes on measure 255″ to me. even more sad, the second thought i had wasn’t “doh! wrong context!” it was “doh! is that 0-based (255) or 1-based (256)!?”

i had a similar experience this morning. driving my daughter to school, we tailed a silver corvette with the personalized license plate “DRMBLVR.” my first thought? “wow, proclaiming belief in digital rights management… here? that’s brave.” clearly, she meant to proclaim her belief in dreams. i guess i believe that dreams exist, too.

side note, what is it with corvette’s and personalized plates? there are three parked on my side of the building at work. that’s down from four or five, last year. there’s clearly something about the personalities of the population of people that decide to drive vettes that also makes them decide that they want personalized plates. if i could pull make, model and plates for a large enough population of cars, this would be fun to check. maybe i’ll interview someone.

buying halloween candy at the grocery store, last night, i noticed an almost entire aisle of candy canes. dept. stores and “christmas” stores, sure… start in july. but grocery stores?!

no wonder we have a hard time finding dried cherries for thanksgiving.

i got a catalog in the mail, on saturday. it was filled with professional greeting cards, open house postcards, and a pile of other crap targetted at realtors. this isn’t suprising, as the previous owner of this house is a realtor.

curious, i flipped through it and ran across a “happy birthday” card with a serene photo of a dinghy. i’m 99% sure that this is a boat that my late grandfather, henry “grubby” douglass built. the picture in the catalog is quite small (~1″x1″) and the picture on their website is also tiny (127×176), but it really looks like the “grub tubs” that he built.

trying to find some better pictures, i located these , one of which shows at least one grub tub (foreground, white hull, blue interior, wood seats).

i also found a reference a two to my grandfather the most interesting of which is an excerpt from “multitudes: the unauthorized memoirs of sam smith“:

During these years, Harry Parker set the sailing standard towards which I strove. So it was with alacrity that I accepted his invitation to crew in the New England men’s sailing championships. Harry, Grubby Douglass and Gardner Brown — the three best sailors I had ever known — had won the Maine championship, but the New England races were in boats that required a four man crew.

the rec room in my grandparent’s house in south freeport had trophies stashed in cabinets, but i can’t remember what was engraved on them.

maybe i’ll order a box of these horrible cards, just to see if it really is a grub tub. then again, maybe not.