Being in a Big Family

Last night we started talking about some of the more unusual parts of growing up in a big family.

1) At different times, all the kitchen cabinets holding food were padlocked. This wasn't to be controlling. Kids would be up at all hours of the night and eat all the cereal, milk, frozen pizzas, and lunch meats while mom and dad were sleeping. Sharon and Rob believe that this led the children to take the doors off their hinges.
2) The refrigerator was under lock and key at night.
3) The thermostat has a plastic industrial casing on the outside (with a lock) that prevents the children from constantly changing the temperature.
4) Day-old bread was purchased regularly at a special store.
5) Saturday night was bath night and oatmeal for dinner.
6) We ate pretty healthy: Shaklee, co-op foods, very few desserts, fruits and vegetables, no sugar cereals, etc. In the few times that our family was eating sugar (in desserts) then Hostess knock-offs would also be purchased at the day-old store.
7) Hand-me down clothes were welcomed.
8) When handing out gum, only half-sticks were given. *This ritual has continued to the present day as my dad just offered my sister Catherine a half-stick after she bought the gum for him. (He did offer to pay for the pack, but it is so ingrained to have half a piece.)
9) A can of soda used to say that there were 2 servings per container. This was all the proof needed for everyone to share their soda.
10) The oldest kid would always have their own room in the house and sit in the front seat.
11) Our autos went from sedan to stationwagon to van to 15 passenger van.
12) Extra food donated to our church camp that couldn't be used in summer was given to us. Lots of government peanut butter and cheese.
13) Very little privacy....

When I was young, I had a very strict sense of right and wrong. And maybe a bit of a Catholic sensibility on morality (except for stealing change from mom and dad....). When a friend and I were looking around for change throughout the house, we came upon some condoms in my parents bedroom. I was horrified and the next time I saw mom in the house, I yelled 'MURDERER'!

Mom was more disgusted than anything else and told me I would talk to my dad when he got home.

In Chicago

I took a flight yesterday into Chicago and am staying with my sister Catherine. Brage is already here from Minneapolis and Sharon will be here in a couple of hours.

We have our cousin Laura's wedding tomorrow and are really excited for her.

I'm told that a lot of the family will be able to come but not everyone.

It is SO fun to be with family.

Small Rebellions

I wonder what are all the ways in which we are rebellious. Sometimes its a sign of ethical protest, sometimes a selfish act.

As a population:
-When driving we turn our headlights on to notify other drivers of police cruisers up ahead.
-We use radar detectors
-We speed
-In the Freakonomics calendar yesterday, it said: "Among the many forms of customer sabotage, one of the most prevalent occurs in bookstores, where customers hide books by certain authors (Ann Coulter and Michael Moore, for instance) out of political protest. Some stores have even eliminated garbage cans, since too many partisan books were ending up in the trash)." This hurts the bookstores and could be considered theft.
-In video stores we hide the movies we want for a later time or hide "bad" movies from the public.
-A large portion of certain sectors of the economy don't report their earnings to the government: waiters, child care, construction crews, and small business owners.
-Three major revisions to US tax implementation have netted the government billions of dollars: making parents file their childrens' social security numbers if they claim them (eliminating millions of extra exemptions), having employers withhold and file taxes (thus eliminating the government trying to collect from millions of people and now only collecting from thousands) and eliminating much of the overseas tax shelters.
-Stealing cable, stealing music, stealing movies by downloading them off the internet.
-Not saying what is really wrong with our house/car/boat when selling it.
-Betting online even though its illegal.
-March madness betting pools at work.
-Spouses having affairs, violating their covenant and contract with each other.
-Deliberately watering the lawn in non-approved watering times.
-Calling in to work sick when not sick
-Using work items (computers, phone, time, pens) for personal use.
-Not paying enough when sharing a meal at a restaurant.
-Running stop signs.
-Claiming more tax deductible donations to the IRS than actual donations were made.
-Not returning library books
-Not returning tools, books, movies of friends

We all have our justifications for why we do what we do. Sometimes I wonder if we actually obey that much at all.

Rides To/From High School

Traveling to high school by bus, the kids were always half-asleep. On the way home from school, the kids were rambunctious.

Some highlights from rides home:

1) Some guys got trial lipsticks from departments stores and would flick them out of the bus into passing passenger cars. I saw one get flicked into a car with the red lipstick making a diagonal line across a woman's white blouse.

2) We got pulled over by a policeman once because there was so much paper being thrown out of the windows while driving. He didn't arrest anyone, and by the time our bus pulled away from the cop car, the front of his car was covered in paper.

3) Guys used to buy hair conditioner and throw the conditioner all over people on the bus.

4) Guys would fill water guns with urine and spray people.

5) Bus seats are incredibly fire retardant. I know a kid who had his lighter trying to burn the plastic seat almost the entire ride home.

Playing the Lotto

I don't really like gambling, because structurally it preys upon the poor. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, who run Berkshire Hathaway, said something similar at their shareholders meeting in 2007. However....

When the Powerball gets above $147 million*, Jara and I will buy one ticket each. My justification is that the reward is then greater than the risk. Because the odds of winning are 1 in 146,107,962.

I need help with the math part. But if I simplify and say that I was getting odds that were 50/50, the price to enter was $1, and the prize was $2, then I shouldn't enter because it's a break-even proposition. Any prize over $2 should be taken from a mathematics perspective.

So what am I missing?
1) Is it that I didn't figure out the odds of someone else splitting the ticket prize with me?
2) Is it that I didn't figure that the immediate cash value is less than half of the stated prize, because the prize is structured as an annuity over 30 years?

*Actually I thought the odds were closer to 175M to 1, so that was our historical target for buying a lotto ticket.

Things I Learned on the Zoo Train

1) Zebras' stripes are not black and white; they are brown and white
2) There is a scimitar horned antelope-looking animal whose horns are so close together on their head that they often fuse into one; which has given birth to the myth of the unicorn.
3) An ostrich's eyeball is bigger than its brain.
4) A peacock only refers to the male. Peahen refers to the female.


Sadly, I already knew this (from Wikipedia):
Elephants replace their teeth six times. At about 40 to 60 years of age the elephant no longer has teeth and will likely die of starvation, a common cause of death.

In Honor of Dink

So Josh Duenke is coming to town. He is visiting with his wife and children and the Landreths have invited us to a get-together on Thursday.

I plan on going to visit; I like Dink.

However, back in college, Josh pushed me (on purpose) into a urinal while I was urinating, causing me to pee all over myself.

Jared says I always tell that story when Dink comes. So this time its on the internet.