One. Pay all the bills (less than $100,000).
Two. Buy a somewhat bigger house in a suburb with good schools (about $200,000 max).
Three. My wife gets to quit her job and stay home with the Crown Prince; plus, we go ahead and have Baby Number Two.
Dad likes his job right now so he stays at it for a while.
Four. Get a 20'-25' sailboat now for plonking around Lake Erie (prices are good round here, so about $5,000 max plus around $1,000 per year for summer slip & winter storage). Total: About $320,000.
Five. Acquire shed space somewhere, hire George Buehler to redraw his *Olga* double-ender for schooner or brigantine rig, and commence to building. Probably around $60,000 when all's said and done. Nice cruising boat for the golden years. Total up to about $380,000.
Six. Consider getting pilot's license (used to want to pretty badly, but I held off due to poor depth perception and fell in love with sailing in the meantime anyway). If I get one, get myself a nice little biplane, maybe a Stearman or something. Research is needed. Figure $150,000 max, though I have no real idea. Total about $530,000.
Seven. Sock away about $250,000 or so for the kids' college. $780,000.
Eight. Sock away about $2 million (invested) to retire on. Total about $3 million, to make a nice round number.
Nine. Endow about $1 million to a start a foundation designed to increase the public's level of understanding of science, espcially in relation to nutrition and agriculture. Scientific agriculture means that poor people get affordable cheap food too; a lot of folks don't realize that. We're up to about $4 million.
Ten. Decide which business to start: a boatyard (specializing in wooden boat construction, restoration and salvage), or, in the event IMagic folds, buying Dawn of Aces.
Actually, if my investments went well enough, I'd probably run the boatyard as a biz. I'd hire 1-2 programmers on a contract basis out of investment income, fund the server resources the same way, and put out DoA for a flat rate with the goal of paying for *itself*--just the server and programming resources needed to keep it running, incremental improvements, new planes and arenas, etc--not having to feed my family or pay for my T-28 or meet quarterly P&L targets or whatever. I just want a refuge for people who want the best WWI flight sim, free from the ravages of Quake Dweeb/Duke Sopwith types and hackers.
This got kind of OT, but I want HTC to concentrate on building an insanely great WWII sim, without having to think about the guys like me clamoring for an equally insanely great WWI sim.
Not as ambitious a plan as some of the others here, perhaps, but in the words of Frank Miller, "This will be a good life...good enough."
Flathat
[This message has been edited by Flathat (edited 08-13-1999).]
