Mine's taller than yours!

     Tallest building west of Mississp.  Used to be the US BANK Building.  Downtown LA.
.

     It's on 5th Street right behind the Egyptian looking art deco brown Main LA Library, looking up Hope Street.
   
     Now it's this building, Air Korea Building under construction , 7th and Figueroa ( Fig-er-o-ah).

     I had to take it in four section.

     But what's this?  Not tall enough?  Did they have to attach a spire on top to make her the tallest?

     Certainly no observation area like the Empire State Building.  Will we have to shinny up the pole to look out.  Some engineer's miscalculation?  (Too many Coronas the night before?)  Can't be saying, "We're almost the highest building..."
  
     "Make it the tallest!  We already told everybody.  I want the tallest!"
   
     "You got the tallest."
   
     "What?  A spire?  Okay.  Do it.  Do it...and you're FIRED!"

I ain't climbing up there!

$205 Mil!

       7-Eleven down 7th from the coffee shop sells PowerBall.  Now over $200 million.  People drift past me in line for coffee.  They look up (annoyed ) from their cell phones when I ask, "What'd you do with $200 million dollars if you won?"
     "You wouldn't get that much.  Taxes."
     Okay, (Mr. TECHNICAL)  a hundred million?"
     He looks at me.  "Paaaar-Tay!!!   Wad ya think?"

     "Buy a helicopter...Fly to Mexico."  (Then what?)  "Hmmm, I done know...buy a house...I guess."
 
      "I'd buy this place, all the coffee I could drink."  (Then what?)  "I done know.  Buy the building maybe.  ( Still got 90 million left.)  "I done know...buy stuff I guess."
   
      "Buy a yacht, like Tiger Woods, and a crew,  (And?)  "Sail around... I guess."
   
     Tough question.  People thinking soooo small.  "Buy a car, a house, a boat?  Then what?  Get bored?  It's like a native from the wilds of the Amazon, hunting for food with a blow gun (are they still around?) suddenly walks into a brightly lit Whole Foods store.  He wouldn't know what to do.  No concept that a place like this exists.

      Same with big Lotto money.  No idea what that amount of money can do.  And would we know how to handle it, like the native, peanut butter in a jar, what the hell is this.  You eat this?
     
     Buy a city?  "Huh, a city?"  Sure, North Hollywood, Reseda, Belair, (well not Belair).   "Buy a city, you can do that?"  It's a hundred million.  Nothing happens without your OK.  If that's what you wanted to do.

     Could you trust anybody?  Will I get kidnapped for ransom?  Guys with machine guns for protection like drug lords?

     Open an orphanage?   Probably not your first response.  But how many do you open?
   
     Buy a business to make MO' MONEY.  How much more do you want?  You have so much money (is it ever enough?) you don't need to make anymore.  Do you?  Be the richest person on earth?  Put in that kind of effort?
 
     I'm getting a headache here.  Maybe the answer is simply our first response...

                                 PAAARRR...TAAAAY!

     Later...

     P.S.  Buy my book.  It's on Amazon.  You'll like it.  (5 stars?)

Almost sucked in!

     I stare at my mailbox in the lobby.  I check it two, three times a week.  It's either something I can't afford (a cruise ship booklet- I'm still on their mailing list after 30 years, OR no interest for six months if I buy over $299 @ Home Depot, a fridg, or dryer, or cord of lumber, some such, OR, New York Times weekend edition ONLY $2.99 (I live in LA guys).
OR BILLS.
I see a letter...from the bank.  Not again.  Didn't I just pay you guys?
But no, I've been granted a higher credit amount on my credit card!!!
Wow, that was nice of them.  For an instant I feel excited, proud of myself.

But...WAIT!  A bank being nice to me.  What am I thinking?  It's harder than hell to pay off the interest they charge now.  I pay $200 on it, they take off $30 from the principle.  (Pay the minimum I'll have it paid off 2032) So now they're encouraging me to spend MORE.  (We need a few months of no interest to pay some of this off...I do anyway.)
I think it's just a tease.  To grab more of my hard earned Social Security.   Like at the Globe up on Broadway.  There I don't have to pay for decades.  I get the pay off right away!!!