Re: OT Jeopardy Winner 12/15/2022

[Bob La Londe <none@none.com99>]

On 12/16/2022 4:27 PM, ABLE1 wrote:
> On 12/16/2022 6:17 PM, Bob La Londe wrote:
>> On 12/16/2022 3:42 PM, ABLE1 wrote:
>>> On 12/16/2022 5:13 PM, Bob La Londe wrote:
>>>> On 12/16/2022 2:59 PM, ABLE1 wrote:
>>>>> On 12/16/2022 4:44 PM, Bob La Londe wrote:
>>>>>> On 12/16/2022 1:40 PM, ABLE1 wrote:
>>>>>>> On 12/16/2022 3:25 PM, Bob La Londe wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 12/15/2022 6:07 PM, ABLE1 wrote:
>>>>>>>>> Hey Bob,
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Do you know or are you related to a "Ray La Londe"???
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Well either way he is now the Jeopardy Champion as of tonight!!
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> He won #32,600.   Maybe more on the way.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Just I would share the news!!
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Les
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> If I wasn't before I am now.  LOL.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Nah! I don't actually know all that many La Londes.  Less than a
>>>>>>>> hundred probably. We've been in country since the 1680s, but
>>>>>>>> most are in the north country with a few in the deep south.
>>>>>>>> Cajuns and Canuks. Mostly Canuks.  Far less of us are Damn Yankees.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I don't have any immediate relationship I am aware of.  No, I'm
>>>>>>>> not directly related to that Canadian boxer either.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Now if you asked if I was related to that Bob La Londe who was a
>>>>>>>> research mechanic at NASA's Lewis Research Center who retired in
>>>>>>>> the early 1980s.  Yes.  That was my Grammpa.  If you asked if I
>>>>>>>> was related to the Paul La Londe who held several patents for
>>>>>>>> R&D work with Donn Products (USG NOW) including the ceiling tile
>>>>>>>> grid latch most of us have cursed at one time or another.
>>>>>>>> Yes.  He was my uncle.  If you asked if I was related to the
>>>>>>>> grocery and hardware store owner from Dateland.  (2 miles north
>>>>>>>> of Dateland actually.) Yep.  That's my dad.  If you asked if I
>>>>>>>> am related to that kid named Rob La Londe who is a licensed
>>>>>>>> pharmacy tech, crazy smart gamer (with paid creds as a gamer),
>>>>>>>> and mad higher math skills. Yep. That's my son.  If you asked if
>>>>>>>> I am related to that hack shade tree button pushing wannabee not
>>>>>>>> a real machinist. That's me.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Sorry.  I do not know who Ray is.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> LOL thanks for the Family Tree!!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Depending on how long this "Ray La Londe" can maintain his
>>>>>>> championship on Jeopardy it might be a good thought to check the
>>>>>>> DNA just to know.;-)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Last week the Champion walked out with more than $850,000.00
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Les
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It was probably more like $400,000 and many of the prizes wouldn't
>>>>>> be claimable if he couldn't independently pay the taxes on them
>>>>>> first.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've day dreamed about winning the lottery so I only have to do
>>>>>> jobs that really interest me.  I've done the research.  LOL.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Jeopardy it is only ca$h.  No prizes!!  And yes, the actual
>>>>> take-home
>>>>> is always less than what is posted. It is the taxes! That will get
>>>>> you.
>>>>>
>>>>> But, forgetting the taxes, the WHAT IS LEFT!! Is not to be cried
>>>>> about!!
>>>>>
>>>>> I gave up on the Lottery before the Flood of 1972!!
>>>>> They always say "You gotta to play to win"
>>>>> What they don't say is, You gotta to play to lose!!
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Ultimately you play to have fun.  (I don't buy lottery tickets but
>>>> my wife does once in a while.)Â  I used to enjoy playing low limit 7
>>>> card stud in Vegas.  Even if I was losing I had fun.  Sometimes I
>>>> won and a few times I pulled crazy movie level bluffs and won (and
>>>> lost). Then everybody switched to high pressure, high speed
>>>> aggressive play Texas Holdem.  It wasn't fun for me.  I could hold
>>>> my own unless there were more than two or three good players at the
>>>> table, but it was not fun. It was hard work in your face game play.
>>>>
>>>> I figure one day I'll come home and find my wife gone with a couple
>>>> bags missing.  I'll know we finally won the lottery.  I'll call her
>>>> of course.  I hope I catch her before she gets to far out to sea on
>>>> her round the world cruise, so she can tell me where my half is
>>>> stashed.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Back in the 80's when I got my first computer "Timex Sinclair".  I
>>> got it on a 30 Day Trail basis for $99.99 and $39.99 for a extra 16K
>>> memory
>>> card.  It connected to my TV and the keyboard was about 4"x7" pressure
>>> sensitive keys.
>>> After I taught myself to write a Basic Language program to generate a
>>> random 3 digit number I ended up calling my Dad and told him what I got.
>>> He really never understood that "computer thing" but I said that I could
>>> generate a 3 digit number for him to play on the Lottery this week.
>>> He always played the Lottery!!  He said "Ok?"
>>>
>>> So I loaded the program and pressed Enter.
>>> The number that came up was 2 7 2
>>> I said to my Dad "The computer says 2 7 2 so play that number this week!
>>> He said "Well Ok  ?"
>>> Soooooo Friday night I am watching the News and at the end at 6:59pm
>>> they do that Lottery Drawing thing.
>>>
>>> The first number was a     2
>>> The Second number was a    7
>>> The third number was a     2
>>>
>>> I called my Dad and said "DAD!! DAD!! You Won!!!!
>>> There was dead silence............................
>>> I said Dad did you see the number came up you WON!!!
>>> He said, I forgot to buy a ticket.................
>>>
>>> He kicked himself for years after that.  And it never happened again!!
>>>
>>> Totally TRUE STORY!!!
>>>
>>> Oh, I ended up taking the Timex Sinclair back and got a refund.  Then
>>> went out and bought an ATARI 400Â  :-)
>>>
>>> Hope you enjoyed the History Story!!!
>>>
>>> Les
>>
>>
>> Well if you just want to talk about antiques I learned to write BASIC
>> on a Commodore Pet 2001 with a push button tape drive.  That would
>> have been around 1977.  I wrote a numbers instead of colors version of
>> Master Mind on the Heathkit H89A and I was in the process of writing a
>> black jack program when APS dropped a wire across another wire feeding
>> a massive over voltage into every household in the area.  I knew there
>> was a problem when the surge suppressor exploded and flames shot up
>> the wall.
>>
>> The H89A with its Z80 could have eaten a half dozen Timex Sinclairs
>> before breakfast.
>>
>> I got to play with some Apple II+ computers in school in 81/82, but it
>> wasn't until 83 when I discovered the wide open world of the PC/XT.
>>
>> In the mid 90s a buddy of mine was setting up networks in local high
>> schools.  At one point he had a bunch of the old PC cases with the
>> holes for the two big connectors in the back.  He was whining because
>> he couldn't put AT boards in them.  I said, "I have a Sawzall and a
>> bunch of hole saws."Â  We were installing computers with sushi cases
>> before anybody knew what a sushi case was.
>>
>> Sushi cases were the nickname we gave the cheap Chinese stamped cases
>> that were not deburred.  The joke was you would get chopped up like
>> sushi building computers with them.  Used to buy a lot of that stuff
>> from Yokohama Telecom.  Back then the Computer Shopper was still a
>> great resource for computer businesses and serious hacks.  I used to
>> call Yokohama Telecom about once a week and ask what the specials
>> were. Often as the new tech was coming out they would be selling the
>> last gen at dumpster fire pricing.  I made a little bit of coin on the
>> bulletin boards upgrading PCs (XT and AT) for the social computing crowd.
>>
>>
>> A couple years earlier my buddy with the PC cases at one point was
>> just dumping XT hardware from his computer business.  I offered him a
>> dollar a board for everything he was going to throw in the trash.  I
>> made a pretty good coin upgrading XTs for people.  For 20 dollars I'd
>> drop an RLL controller in a PC and give somebody 50% more drive
>> space.  For $30 I'd set them up with an MFM-A controller and almost
>> double their drive space.  All the folks who couldn't afford a real
>> computer store.  I'd give them a small bump instead of forcing them to
>> buy current generation right now like the computer stores.  The PC I
>> used for surfing the bulletin boards back then was an XT with a 5 meg
>> Seagate (not gig meg) hard drive and an RLL controller giving me a
>> whopping 7.5 meg.  I also had a 286 with a bit more specs, but that
>> was my play computer.  LOL.  I probably still threw away 75% of those
>> boards, but I made money first.
>>
>> That was also when I started writing the story, "Hackers & Phreakers &
>> Things That Go Bump In the Night," on the never ending story board on
>> Timelords BBS.  Things have changed so much since then I don't know if
>> its even still relevant.
>>
>
> Gee Whiz Bob, just think if you could go back and do it all over AGAIN!!
> With what you know NOW you could have made enough coin to take your wife
> on the around the world trip and beyond.......................
>

It could have gone either way really.  At one point I was delivering
pizzas at night, doing shipping and receiving at a tool store during the
day, and working on computers when I could.  If an old Alarm Data
customer hadn't asked a buddy of mine to get me in touch with him to
work on his home computer I'd probably be a pizza store manager, and the
owner probably wouldn't have gone to jail for arson.


--
Bob La Londe
CNC Molds N Stuff


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