The last time the powerball was over two hundred million, people here waited in line for hours to get tickets. Other came in from out of state to "play". Even if it is assumed that these people make minimum wage, the cost/payoff ratio is worse than that of normal powerball ticket. Who are these people that come crawling out of the woodwork when lottery jackpots hit record levels? Perhaps they consist of multi-millionaires, people to whom another one million is pocket change, but one hundr...

Since I’m a computer geek (an engineer, no less) I’m not much of a writer. That’s my excuse, anyway. As a child, making hen scratchings on processed wood pulp using a wooden stick seemed bizarre to me; almost cannibalistic. I was a conscientious objector. A product of the American education system, I had no writing classes past middle school and managed to avoid anything involving writing in college. Now that I’m out of college I don’t have time to take a writing course but I find myself ...

It’s over. The statute of limitations expires today. In the beginning it was just another quarrel involving a circuit court judge, two kissing cousins, my great uncle, the unbearable lightness of being, and a Selectric: nothing out of the ordinary. We were young and stupid; we-can’t-let-them-get-away-with-this expressions of outrage led to an elaborate plan involving eggs, TP, and half a ton of pork. They had a security system that only protected the doors and windows – no cameras or motion s...