Last year. And she was suggested for my list this year too. Godspeed, Ms. Violet Eyes.

Came from 35 degrees C to 35 degrees F! I had fun, and will have pics and color commentary soon.

A quick FYI - someone picked correctly on the Fantasy Celebrity Cemetary for 2011 today.

to go for the FCC picks for 2011. I got mine, and I got a couple of other sets. So far nobody has dups and we all have interesting picks.

I am accepting remote players. Picks by Dec 31, money later on. Those folks interested can see the comments my last FCC post - they tell you who to email. Write me a comment in case my spam filter is doing too good a job.

I found another silver dime yesterday, half buried next to a tree in front of a church. This one's a bit older - date minted was 1944 - and its a Liberty head dime. For all you young whippersnappers (including me), here's a picture of

one. (not a pic I took, I can't focus it enough using my little digital camera). Its a little grungy, but the relief is nice on it - only the E Plurbis Unum is faint.

I also looked at my PTO accrual as I was figuring out the percent on my 403B. 255 hrs. I'm waiting for HR to bring the hammer down. I could call in sick for a few days.

Finally, I'm working on my FCC list. Have about 8 that I'd like to follow, so 2 more and I'm done. Thank you scfr for a couple of more ideas.

I've been saving relatively crisp $1s and a couple of $5s for the Vietnam trip. So far I have about $30. Because I'm saving for the trip, I've decided to slow down the tip box savings, and return to it in March. I'm now reading and taking notes in a notebook, to bring on the trip.

Just in case you find it unsavory enough to back out ...



not too late....






Tra la la, the FCC (Fantasy Celebrity Cemetary) aka the death bet. Haven't heard much about who is "winning", just that all of my 10 picks for 2010 stayed very, very alive. Thank you, grim reaper... I think.

This obscurity will change for 2011. I am going to be the organizer for this upcoming year. Most of what is happening will be the same - $20 buy-in, 10 picks, final age minus 100 are your points, most points wins.

I'm instituting two twists: 1. celebrity is defined as a person having a Wikipedia page. Useful for many reasons - saves me time to figure out whether your pick is famous enough, the participant does the research, we have a ready birth date, and Wikipedia lists out deaths by year and day, so no fighting about a death date. Twist 2 is that I'm going to collect everybody's pick, list 'em out in Excel with their Wikipedia link, and everybody can see everybody else's choices. Full transparency.

Worked with the death bet organizer today. The second thing out of his mouth was, "man, did we not pick the right people for our death bet." And we only have one month left.

I commiserated - a celebrity who dies seems to be two degrees of separation from the celebrity on my list.

So far lawyer friend is in a slight lead. He picked Robert Byrd, which I remember several of you all suggested. Nah, I said, not enough points. Well, amongst 0 points, the 5 point score is the winner.

Sunday
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $3.88 coffee, bagel + $.50 apple
Found money - $0.56 (spilled over sidewalk curb and road, 2 different spots on Greenwood, grocery checkout floor)

Monday
Saving log - $3 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee
Found money - $0.23 (in the grate protecting a sidewalk tree, crosswalk, Safeway floor, by vending machine

Tuesday
Saving log - $4 tip box +$50 Drp
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $11 produce
Found money - $0.04 (planting strip, bus stop, parking meter, road)

Again, not much going on. Sunday, somebody, bless their heart dropped 3 dimes, 1 nickel and 9 pennies all in one place making up my two days of finding nothing.

I'm at $41.19: 904 pennies, 34 nickels, 153 dimes, 32 quarters, 2 $1 bills, 1 $5 bill, 1 10 pence coin worth 15 cents. All of the coinage is mind blowing, but even more so if I had to roll it up. It would come to 18 rolls of pennies, finishing 1 roll of nickels, 3 rolls of dimes, finishing 1 roll of quarters.

Nobody in our death bet had Lena Horne... or anybody else for that matter. I got word from the organizer that "nobody got anybody". Definitely all of our takers chose life.

Wednesday
Saving log - $2 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee
Found money - $0.04 (parking meter, parking lot)

Tuesday
Saving log - $3 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $20 groceries
Found money - $0.25 (sidewalk, road, grass, Safeway checkout)

Monday
Saving log - $2 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee +
Found money - $0.38 (parking meter, sidewalk, bus seat)

DH asked me how my day went, and I said:
"If I had a gun, I'd be on CNN right now."

Yikes, he said.

This is the month that I'm the busiest - each of my four tasks I'm charged with reaches a peak. If I'm to decide about one more $100 issue, you are really going to read about me on CNN. Time to send the email to not bother with the "quick question", or even the not so quick question. They might sound quick, but you've just knocked me out of my concentration for a good 20 minutes. Rinse and repeat, and the day is shot.

And the worst part? No one on my death bet list has died yet. Then again, I don't think anyone's has. I've come within two degrees, and I thought for a second DH had Haig, but nope.

I'm doing the carless challenge, but since I'm already carless, I'm counting trips that I take with DH, the amount of bus I use and the distance I walk. So,

3/1 - no car used, used the bus 13 mi, walked 2 miles.
3/2 - no car used, used the bus 12.5 mi, walked 2.5 miles
3/3 - no car used, used the bus 13 mi, walked 2.5 miles

And finally, $28.16: 711 pennies, 27 nickels, 112 dimes, 29 quarters, $1 bill, 1 10 pence coin worth 15 cents.

Friday
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee
Found money - $0.01 (escalator railing)

Thursday
Saving log - $3 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $8 salad, trail mix
Found money - $0.27 (bus stop, crosswalk, sidewalk)

A penny on the railing of the escalator, for pity's sake! I was lucky to be alert at the right moment, all to find coins in the oddest places. Total of other people's money found thus far: $18.88: 493 pennies, 16 nickels, 79 dimes, 17 quarters, $1 bill.

Ever since DH has been working for the IRS, our snail mail looks forbidding; a lot of pieces addressed to DH from the IRS. They are nearly all new hire decision bits... apparently DH's paycheck comes from the Dept of Agriculture (?!). Write your own public servant joke here:________________________________.

Pulled the trigger and I am now beginning a new stock Drp (actually since the dividend has been suspended, its a Direct Stock purchase account). Its is OSK. I've officially diversified into war.

The organizer of the death bet is about to publish everybody's list. We have 9 entrants. We talked about this at lawyer friend's lunch. The bad karma and the creepiness aspect was brought up, I argued for the death bet. The fact that the onus is on you to alert the organizers should one of your list perish means that you do exactly what most celebs want you to do: be alert to their every move, career change, etc. And it is so rare to have a bit of black humor "fun".

Tuesday
Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee
Found money - $0.03 (sidewalks)

Monday
Saving log - $2 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $12 lunch
Found money - $0

Well, the 38th day in a row finding found money was not to be. I found nothing yesterday, but got back on the horse and found three pennies today.

Abandoned most of the frugal principals yesterday. I was going to decline a lunch screenwriter friend and lawyer friend's partner, but I sniffed the lunch that I had in the work fridge - it turned, and I thought, "a bought lunch with friends would be money well spent."

Work is picking up - I expect that it will be hopping by Thursday the 31st. This year is shaping up to be a strange one: more antsiness about making sure that the credit card is charged by the 31st than in previous years. Also, we are seeing a rise in bad credit cards again, as in 2007.

DH joined our death bet.

Thursday
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $20 buy-in to the death bet + $20 shipping sister's Christmas gift
Found money - $0.24 (parking meters, sidewalk, bus floor)

Wednesday
Saving log - $2 tip box (replaced the 20$, BTW) + $50 Drp
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $110 Christmas gifts
Found money - $0.08 (sidewalk, parking lot, under Coinstar machine)

Nearly finished with Christmas shopping - two more small gifts and I'm done. We had the work holiday lunch and the half day afterward; the lunch itself was very low key, nothing too fancy, no alcohol, only a moderate amount of rah rah. I won a little something in the drawing - a free Sunday brunch for 2, including 2 mimosas.

Coin rescue is proceeding apace: $13.50, 320 pennies, 13 nickels, 59 dimes, 11 quarters, and 1$ bill. Several other co workers confided that they look for change too. Just what I need, more competition. One even told me that she plants a quarter in different places just to see how long it takes for someone to pick it up. Most places, the quarter disappears quickly, within hours. She tried planting a quarter at Westlake Mall a couple of years ago and it took a couple of days for that quarter to disappear. That opens up a whole new area of economic experimentation I hadn't considered. I could imagine the halflife of a quarter on the sidewalk as a recession indicator.

The death bet caused quite a stir, so I asked the organizer about it as I bought in. Turns out he got the idea from a friend of his at Amazon.com, where the employees have held one for years and years. Our organizer wanted in on it, but figured, well, why not just start another one? Our organizer's friend at Amazon held, for this year's death bet, these: Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon. Yowsa! Full house. Anyway, I'm putting my list in the comments. Its a reasonable mix of ill and ill will.

Tuesday
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $22 groceries
Found money - $0.14 (gym table, parking meter, sidewalk)

Two recessionary items of note:

I haven't been looking in on 4 wk T-bills for a few weeks. Tuesday is when the T-bill auctions occur; sale occurs on Thursday. The interest rate of this week's 4 wk T-bill auction, and last week's: $0. Not just pennies of interest after the 4 weeks are over. You will make absolutely no money. I've made 15 cents these last two days - pretty good compared to that!

I finally did find a pretty good way to research the health of one's credit union

here. You can look at your bank, also - check out the sidebar at the site.

Others are sharing a funny, dark mood this holiday season - I've joined a friendly death bet at work. Not us - you pick 10 celebrities that you think might cash in their chips in 2010, you pay in $20, and you monitor for 2010. If you have somebody on your list, you get assigned points based on how old they were - 100. In other words, Lindsay Lohan would be worth far more than, say, nearly anybody else.