{"id":1220,"date":"2006-11-26T08:20:45","date_gmt":"2006-11-26T13:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/pray-for-change-ii\/"},"modified":"2006-11-26T10:16:15","modified_gmt":"2006-11-26T15:16:15","slug":"pray-for-change-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/pray-for-change-ii","title":{"rendered":"Pray for change II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As I mentioned in the previous post, I&#8217;ve been out of the office for the past week-plus (except for Monday). When I have a big block of time available like that, I tend to put together a big-ass list of stuff that needs doing. One of the items on the list was cleaning off the console table.<\/p>\n<p>The table is at the top of the stairs and is the first place small things get dumped upon entry into the house. It was covered in receipts, ATM slips, office memos, warranties, baseball caps, maps, Post-Its, and small change.<\/p>\n<p>I made a couple of passes through the paperwork, dumping most everything in the shredder. Soon I was left only with a significant quantity of change. I dumped it on my desk and thought, &#8220;Well, as long as I&#8217;m clearing that stuff out, I oughtta get the change that&#8217;s been piling up in my car for the last 3 years, too.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That was a little tougher, insofar as pennies and nickels were consigned to the cup-holder area, which left some of the coins at the bottom a little sticky. In fact, there&#8217;s still a penny that I simply am unable to pry from the cup-holder, but I guess that&#8217;s tribute to Charon or something.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, the actual change-holder, which I use for quarters and dimes, turned out to be cavernous. Amy joked that I&#8217;m going to get better mileage and handling now that I&#8217;m not hauling a ton of loose change in the car.<\/p>\n<p>So I looked at this enormous pile of change lying on my desk, and I thought, &#8220;Surely the time it&#8217;ll take me to count all this is worth more than the value of the coins.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But my ethnic stereotype was undeterred. It took even longer than I feared, and put me in mind of being a little kid with a piggy-bank. Final count?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>$5 in Sacajawea dollars<\/li>\n<li>1 50-cent piece (I also carry a &#8220;lucky&#8221; one in my wallet)<\/li>\n<li>$1.71 in pennies ($1.72 if you include the one that&#8217;s permanently stuck to my car)<\/li>\n<li>$4.00 in nickels<\/li>\n<li>$18.70 in dimes<\/li>\n<li>$23.25 in quarters<\/li>\n<li>25.60 Euros (about $33)<\/li>\n<li>64 Danish Kroner (about $11)<\/li>\n<li>400 Hungarian Forints (about 3 cents)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s any sorta lesson I can impart from this, outside of &#8220;Don&#8217;t let your change pile up&#8221; or &#8220;Just use CoinStar, fer chrissakes.&#8221; My next challenge will be finding someone who can exchange the Euros and Kroner, since my local bank won&#8217;t touch foreign coins, only paper money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I mentioned in the previous post, I&#8217;ve been out of the office for the past week-plus (except for Monday). When I have a big block of time available like that, I tend to put together a big-ass list of stuff that needs doing. One of the items on the list was cleaning off the &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/pray-for-change-ii\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Pray for change II&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-jG","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":908,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/no-double-whammy-no-double-whammy","url_meta":{"origin":1220,"position":0},"title":"No double-whammy, no double-whammy!","author":"Gil","date":"April 13, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The City Journal's Steven Malanga explains why my home state sucks: But today New Jersey is a cautionary example of how to cripple a thriving state. Increasingly muscular public-sector unions have won billions in outlandish benefits and wages from compliant officeholders. A powerful public education cartel has driven school spending\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;suburbs&quot;","block_context":{"text":"suburbs","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/suburbs"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":716,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/is-it-racist-to-call-it-black-friday","url_meta":{"origin":1220,"position":1},"title":"Is it racist to call it Black Friday?","author":"Gil","date":"November 25, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't know the answer to that question, but if you're looking to buy me stuff and avoid going to a mall, you oughtta go to my wish list on Amazon! It's worth checking out, just for the novelty factor of having the Metamorpho collection followed by Jane Jacobs! The\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":921,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/someday-only-meth-users-wont-be-congested","url_meta":{"origin":1220,"position":2},"title":"Someday, only meth users won&#8217;t be congested","author":"Gil","date":"April 20, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The true cost of the War on Drugs was the 3 minutes of my life that were wasted in CVS on my lunch break when I bought some decongestant. I had to bring a product-card to the front checkout so they could give me the decongestant. Then was told I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Pharmaceuticals&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Pharmaceuticals","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business\/pharmaceuticals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1143,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/flight-delay","url_meta":{"origin":1220,"position":3},"title":"Flight Delay","author":"Gil","date":"October 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I corresponded today with one of the exhibitors from last week's Paris conference. He wrote, \"I hope that you had a safe flight back. We were stuck outside the terminal for over an hour because of a unattended bag, which they blew up outside the terminal. Besides that we had\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Paris&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Paris","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/paris"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1827,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/jingle-blorch","url_meta":{"origin":1220,"position":4},"title":"Jingle blorch","author":"Gil","date":"December 22, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, I didn't embarrass myself at the office Christmas party (or \"holiday party,\" if that's your preference) yesterday. However, our office drunk managed to deliver, getting positively RIPPED within the first two hours. The party started around noon, and by 2pm, he had mistaken me for a coworker's spouse to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Adventures in Gin&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Gin","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-gin"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4180,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-71309","url_meta":{"origin":1220,"position":5},"title":"What It Is: 7\/13\/09","author":"Gil","date":"July 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: Killshot, by Elmore Leonard, and Asterios Polyp, by David Mazzucchelli. What I'm listening to: LP by Discovery, which was okay, but a little too deliberately like a poor man's Postal Service. What I'm watching: Just The Tall Guy (one of my favorite movies back in college, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Big Business&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B000FC12F0","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}