Lottery Numbers and Pump Faults

So today has been very uneventful thus far. I'm currently helping one of the Haz-Mat guys pick lottery numbers. So, who knows, tomorrow I might be a multi-millionare. Of course, I don't want to break it to him that picking numbers that relate to birthdays really isn't going to win him any money. But you know, whatever. Odds are that he won't win.. but he can buy as many cards as he wants. I'm amazed how many people play the lottery, I mean the big hit this time is 126 million. That is just so tempting. Think of what you could do with 126 million dollars. Even after the gov't takes a big chunk out of it that is still a crap load of money.. probably 40-50 million if you opt to take the lump sum at the beginning, which you'd be crazy not to do. But still.. 40 million in your pocket.. what couldn't you do. New house, new car, new BIKES, travel some, take all your good friends with you.. that would be nice. Almost nice enough to want to spend a few bucks every day on. But let's think about it. You play lottery since you are what, 25.. spend 5 bucks a day on quick picks or using some theory of yours. Play 250 days a year... that's a 1250 a year right there. Say you play for the next 40 years of your life. 50,000.. that's a lot of money to waste on a dream. Now, suppose you invested 1250 a year every year for 25 years in a mutual fund, or an IRA, or something. Let's see, a modest calculation yields 491,774. Hmm, so you could throw away 50 grand trying to win something that you might not be able to ever see, or be guarenteed nearly half a million when you retire. Hmm, who knows. I'm sure the guy that wins the lottery would scoff at me. But have you ever met the person that won a lottery? I haven't, but I've met a lot of people who wished they had planned better for retirement.

Of course the above arguement takes a lot of things for granted. I mean, 5 dollars a day for 250 days a year.. that is a little excessive. And it is sort of fun to spend a few bucks on a few picks every now and again right? Well.. I personally won't be tossing money down tube.. but if I help someone pick the numbers, they win big, and give me.. say.. 1 million bucks. That's cool. I'll live with that. So if you ever want to hire a mathematician to pick your lottery numbers for you, in exchange for a percentage of your winnings, let me know. I'll guarentee that you win as much as the median player does. What is that? Zero?

Pumps have been faulting all morning. Well, not all morning, but enough to tick me off. It rained pretty badly yesterday, so I bagged all the pumps. Just a matter of time before we start getting faults. Luckily none happened to the new guy so I didn't get woken up in the middle of the night to explain how to reset a pump.

Anyways, I think I'm going to jam. Going to go watch some Bebop, waiting for pizza to get her for lunch. I love this job.. free food every day. Excellent.

Later