it's interesting that you're discussing money and such. i was wide awake this morning about 4:30 thinking of ways to make extra cash. i think i've settled on getting a second job and working an extra 26 hours or so. i've considered it several times, but this time i really have a goal to achieve. i need to save as much money as possible in the coming months so i can buy a house. down payments and closing costs are killer.

this weekend i went and bought furniture in preparation. that way i don't have all these huge costs all at once.

oh and gas has actually gone down quite a bit here in the last week. the cheapest i've seen it is $2.58, but the average seems to be around $2.65.

I've yet to see better value from a hotel room than the one that gave me proof of an afterlife for $160/night.

Yeah, I need to know, where was this, Matt? I need to go stay there.

Money. I like it. I don't want to work really hard to get it, though. All I want is to be able to comfortably buy a decent house in a place I want to live (not this place), have no debt, a healthy savings/retirement fund, and be able to travel some and buy some frivolous stuff without straining my budget. Anything beyond that is gravy. I don't quite have that, but I can see getting it eventually. I like money, but I won't kill myself to get it, or hate myself for not having it. I've stayed in 5-star hotels. They were fun, but I'm just as happy with a clean room at Hampton Inn. Fancy cars are fun, but my old Chevy gets me where I want to go. I have no real ambition, and no envy of rich people.

Mostly staying out of the discussion except to say that we are comfortable, yet just getting by, still get to do stuff that we really want to do, and I don't think either Mr. Jane or I consider ourselves nobodies.

Also,

The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., plans to stage protests at funerals of victims of the 35W bridge collapse to state that God made the bridge fall because he hates America, and especially Minnesota, because of its tolerance of homosexuality.

Did y'all see just a little while back where Keith Allen from BBC's Robin Hood got into it with those people? [link] I had no idea Lily Allen was his daughter! So freaking awesome!

This has been a great conversation to read!

What irks me about the $10mil guy is that it's not necessarily representative of how many of the wealthy, even in SiliValley, act and react. When I worked at the ridiculously expensive all-girls school in SiliValley (though, it was a bargain at $16,000/year), I got to encounter how that half of SiliValley lived. There was a donor who gave the school $500,000 for scholarships, and my first year, paid all the staff bonuses ($10k for being there 2 years, $5K for being there one). He owned 5 houses (1 in Tahoe, 2 in Napa, including a vineyard, one in Los Altos and one, I think, in Hawaii) and he worked and worked hard because he liked the work and liked what he did.

His daughter was one of the most modest down-to-earth kids I ever encountered. And while his wealth was out of the norm for our families, his values (work because he enjoyed it, worked hard) were not uncommon.

I never heard a parent complain about how hard it was being a millionaire or a multimillionaire.

Dig this--nurses are asking my dosage of daily drugs. I don't know the Celexa dosage, but I show them the pill.

Nothing.

One of them takes it to pharmacy.

Nothing.

How long does it take me and Google to work out it's 10mg of a Celexa generic? About three minutes.

Have I seen a doctor yet?

Pfft. Of course not.

ita, if i thought you were up for it, i'd come visit as we need something to do today.

Fancy hotels are definitely disappointing! Like plane travel, they seem priced for for price-insensitive customers. The example of the third-class train with no roof comes to mind, but I should really get back to work.

Now restaurants, on the other hand...if I couldn't eat well, I wouldn't be in this job.

Y'all haven't been to the right fancy hotels. The one where the cleaning lady saw what food I was bringing back to my room from the buffets and just started stocking my fridge and saving me the legwork? Worth it. Good Jamaican food and good general cuisine? Worth it.

There's a certain standard of cleanliness and basic functionality I demand. Pile individualised attention and good looks and rich components (sheets, coffee, dessert--whatever)...gotta love it.

Hotels that give you buckwheat pillows or exercise balls--love. All sorts of shit like that.

I get it. I just don't want to pay for it myself.

Kat, I appreciate it, but I'm in way too foul a mood. All I want to do is leave. Fucking hell. It was 4am when I told them I was in a lot of pain. One shot, and they've only moved me around since then.

I get really self-conscious when the maids come in to turn down my bed.

I get really self-conscious when the maids come in to turn down my bed.

Maybe if you put your boxer shorts on...