Saturday, November 26, 2005

Today I found 58 cents. . . . 1 nickel, 2 dimes, 1 quarter, and 8 pennies (the lucid change cycle).

Yesterday marked only the second time that I started and finished a book in the same sitting. More on the book later, but after I was finished (around 4am) I rewarded myself with a trip to a closed KFC drive-thru where I found 21 cents (two dimes & one penny).

In the evening Tara and I went out to eat and checked out a few stores so I could get some Christmas list ideas. After dinner we went to Fry’s Electronics, where I found nothing that I wanted except for a penny sitting on a pay phone. On the way back from Fry’s we stopped at the Kwick Kar Wash where I found 29 cents (one quarter & four pennies). Our final stop was Wal-Mart where I found another seven cents (one nickel & two pennies). The nickel was sitting atop a gum ball machine, the first penny was on the ground by a cash register, and the second penny was on the ground by another cash register.

The book that I read was Cork Boat, by John Pollack:


The author, a speech writer on Capitol Hill (and later for the Clinton White House) had an amazing childhood. He traveled extensively with his father, a geography professor, and had always had a vivid imagination. Since childhood he had dreamed of building a boat out of wine corks. As he grew older, and became frustrated with his job, he developed a serious case of wanderlust. He walked away from his high paying job and began collecting corks at rapid pace (he had been collecting them his entire life on a small scale). One by one he collected corks and ultimately build his ship (with over 165,000 individual corks) and sailed it down a river in Portugal. The story, fascinating enough, is even more interesting as he weaves in stories from his life, first hand observations on the government during September 2001, and unique trivia. Basically, either someone can really relate to this crazy quest or they think he is insane. I related and really enjoyed the book.

Up next is Ford: The Men and the Machine (an 800 page text covering over 100 years and four generations of the empire built by Henry Ford). I’m guessing that it will take more than one sitting to finish it.

Totals for the day: 58 cents
Race Totals: $204.63