After work on Wednesday, Lisa and I went to Reno for a final round of shopping for thing she and I want before I head off to China for ten days. But first we went to Verdi and the Gold Ranch Casino to buy lottery tickets for the large PowerBall drawing. There was a queue, but not a large one, and I was able to get my quick-picks before returning to ( Read more... )

Yesterday afternoon, we were able to unload the Pres-to-logs from the utility trailer.

( From Trailer to Wood Box )

We've put this season's Jack-O-Lantern to work with its post-Halloween job.

( Birdseed Brain )

With the PowerBall now up to $1.5 billion, we decided to take another shot and headed back to the Gold Ranch after I got off work and after we had a nice lamb soup that Lisa made. It's been cold enough that having a big bowl of hot soup was very welcome ( Read more... )

The reason we were headed into Reno yesterday was to go back to Gold Ranch and buy more lottery tickets, but the eleven-mile tailback on I-80 meant we wouldn't have made it to the Lottery Shop before it closed. Fortunately, nobody won, and Wednesday's draw is estimated at $1.2 Billion. Today we got away much earlier, and there were no traffic ( Read more... )

With the PowerBall lottery up to $800 million (and likely much higher by the time of the draw on Saturday night), Lisa and I decided to go ahead and get some tickets. However, as Nevada doesn't participate in PowerBall, we had to drive to the Gold Ranch casino at Nevada exit 2 on I-80. As I've mentioned before, the Gold Ranch extended their parking ( Read more... )

I have not been able to get to the Bay Area to see my doctor for over a year now. Normally it has not been an issue, because I was obliged to visit the warehouse to which I nominally am attached to more or less prove to people that I'm still alive. When COVID-19 hit, the message changed to, "Unless you are vitally important to the operation of this ( Read more... )

Of course, we didn't win the Mega Millions, so we won't be buying our private rail car (and the property, rail spur, and building in which to store it). Probably just as well that someone finally did hit the jackpot, or else I'd want to drive to Verdi again tomorrow to buy more tickets.

To be honest, I expected to win nothing at all on the twenty PowerBall tickets I bought. So it was a relatively pleasant surprise to get the PB itself (10), and in both cases I also got one number on the main board, so that's a $10 winner overall ( Read more... )

No Hugo Prize Fund Foundation this time, I'm afraid. Aside from 02 having been a recurring theme in many of the tickets I bought for the draw, nothing else hit - not even a lesser prize like $1 or $2. Back to living in the real world ( Read more... )