Well, Olorin.... I just read the news!
So you can retire right now!... Post haste!
Any other immediate plans (besides meeting with your financial advisor)?
And I hope that you will * ahem* not forget your less fortunate, yet nonetheless loyal, longtime friends here on UCForums

Deimos wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 3:44 am Well, Olorin.... I just read the news!
So you can retire right now!... Post haste!
Any other immediate plans (besides meeting with your financial advisor)?
And I hope that you will * ahem* not forget your less fortunate, yet nonetheless loyal, longtime friends here on UCForums

It took me a minute to figure out what on earth you were talking about. Lamentably, I have to inform you that I am not the person who won the lottery. In fact, I have not even bought a lottery ticket in a long time. We used to have a pool at work where everybody would chip in and we would buy a bunch of lottery tickets whenever the jackpot got pretty high, but we discontinued that about five years ago. Part of it is our office headcount is shrinking and part of it was we had a new person who was believed to be a spy for headquarters, and we figured they would frown on the idea of it. So that was the end of that.

But no, if I had won this lottery, I would definitely be retiring right now. Maybe next weekend! Haha!

You do know, I repeat, You Do Know that I was just kidding, right?
(I hope you knew as otherwise I would fear some mental slippage taking hold )

Ahem... I do believe that aside from retiring immediately, you could at the very *least* cover the domain name and server fees for the forum for the rest of your life?

Yes? No?

Deimos wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 9:27 am You do know, I repeat, You Do Know that I was just kidding, right?
(I hope you knew as otherwise I would fear some mental slippage taking hold )

Of course, duh. Our site's emojis are a little awkward to use even on a desktop, and I didn't even try on my phone. Thus, I guess you fell victim to my famous deadpan.

Actually, the ticket was sold in Des Plaines, a Chicago suburb. An old college friend lives in a nearby suburb so I texted him and said, it wasn't you, was it? He replied that he couldn't answer that until he had talked to his lawyer.

Valkrist wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 5:32 pm Ahem... I do believe that aside from retiring immediately, you could at the very *least* cover the domain name and server fees for the forum for the rest of your life?

Yes? No?

I'm trying to remember Zephram Cochrane's line about why he invented warp drive, so he could retire to some island...I'll leave out the sexist part. But I would probably buy some remote island in the South Pacific that didn't even have internet, so no, no fee coverages....

Playing "what if..."

I would buy an absolutely huge chunk of land in some foothills of the Rockies, have a 3000 sq ft cabin built (post and beam of course), and well I'd have to think some more about what else I'd have in it, or not have.

And "I am with you Gandalf!" I mean Olorin on the "no internet"...well minimally.
I'd still have to be able to contact Christian (Castle Kon) and all of you.
But I don't have streaming, never did and I don't think I ever will.

Actually, I didn't mean I would intentionally not have internet. Just that where I would end up might have no service, or spotty service.

After he became enamored with his Captain Jack Sparrow role and all the exotic location shooting, Johnny Deep bought himself his own private Caribbean Island, and while certainly a very rich man, he's no billionaire.

So, with that in perspective, that's what I would do as part of my 'what if' scenario: buy a private island, build a fabulous mansion on it with a helicopter pad and a nice yacht for access, and live out the rest of my days dipping my toes in the pool while sipping on a slushy tropical drink.

Oh, and yes, there would be internet. Yes, there would. I might be ready to isolate myself from society physically, but I could never give up the luxury of having the information super highway at my fingertips. Besides, how else am I going to use Ubereats or Doordash out in the middle of nowhere?

Did you mean a tropical island? Or an island in less tropical climes?
Iceland is an island. Likewise the Hebrides (both Inner and Outer) and the Orkneys, none of which are tropical.
(And I know you mean your own private island)

HAve you ever lived in the tropics for an extended period of time?
I lived on Oahu for almost 3 years.
If I ever had a hankering (which I never did) to live in the tropics, even on an island, that cured me of it forever.

High humidity (which you are probably used to)... I always felt like a soft green mold was growing on me.
Giant insects INSIDE your home...huge gross centipedes right out of B horror flick...cockroaches that could carry you off. Yikes!

And living on an island? ... I got "'Rock fever" about the second year. But that could happen on an island in any clime.
It was especially bad on Oahu because unlike those islands right off the coast of Scotland, Hawaii is a couple of thousand miles from any sizeable chunk of land.

So: No, thank you! We don't want any tropical living with or without slushy drinks or toes in pools!

Olorin wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 2:27 am ...Actually, the ticket was sold in Des Plaines, a Chicago suburb. An old college friend lives in a nearby suburb so I texted him and said, it wasn't you, was it? He replied that he couldn't answer that until he had talked to his lawyer.

Any time I read the name Des Plaines (and I lived in the Chicago area for a little over a year) I always think of Herve Villechaize who played opposite Ricardo Montalban on Fantasy Island: "De plane, Boss! de Plane!"

Boy, you sure know how to poop all over someone's dream, don't you? You're not playing by the rules here. No negative thought shall intrude upon my dream, thank you very much!

For the record though, yes, it would be a tropical island. Not much point otherwise, because if all I want is isolation, then a cold, windblown rock in the middle of the North Atlantic sounds rather unappealing. As for all the other of the plagues of Egypt that you are cautioning would fall down upon me, I was indeed born and raised in a very hot country, and let's not forget that with all that money, I would definitely be surrounded by every comfort known to man. So yeah, not really afraid of any of those things.

Do you know what really was the most difficult part, psychologically, in living in the tropics (island or not) was that there are no seasons such as we are used to.
Oh, Hawaii has a "winter"...." there are more storms, and violent ones, compared to the regular (non-hurricane) ones in the summer.
The temperatures on the coast drop a few degrees (from 72F to 70F) but there is no autumn or spring (not going to even mention no snow) like in the midwest or even in the lower Rockies.

I'm an "Autumn person" ... not sure why that is but I am.
And living in the AZ desert there is no "midwest" autumn (where I hail from) or like where you are.
I miss it a lot, but I only have travel by car for a few hours to find it in Flagstaff.
IN the tropics, if there is nowhere close to travel to that has an "autumn" you just learn to live with, at most, two very similar seasons.

Yeah, I am at four seasons kind of guy also. And although I wouldn’t mind to visit someplace like Hawaii, I don’t think I’d want to live there. For one thing, I’ve heard the cost-of-living is astronomical, because everything other than pork and pineapples has to be imported from the mainland.

I’ve lived in the Midwest all my life, other than the summer I spent in Wyoming in college. I just don’t think I could ever live anywhere other than the Midwest.

You guys are no fun.

OK... I started the "what I'd do with the umpteen millions" (lump sum payout after taxes), so Val is right about us raining on his parade.

So as far as the cost of living being astronomical, well, he has millions.
If he can afford his own island the C-of-L is a factor not even worth considering. ...he could build his mansion and staff it with servants and not bat a budgetary eye.

But I mentioned life in the tropics per se, and especially on a remote island, because even tho' money can take care of a lot of things ...i.e., hire a lot of exterminators... it can't take care of everything, like giving up four seasons (especially autumn! ) or the weird feelings that sometimes hit you known as "rock fever" (at least that is what the "mainlander" types living in Hawaii called it).

btw...pineapples were a big [compensatory] bonus. I love pineapple...it's my favorite fruit.
If I had to live there for almost 3 years, at least I had fresh pineapple every day.
I would eat a half one at one sitting. And yes, the C-of-L was a real eye opener.