$590,000,000 Powerball!!!

My, oh My.

I'm not even going to comment on this.

Thanks,

Preston

_________________

This from the Miami Herald
By BRENT KALLESTAD
Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- When Gloria C. MacKenzie went to a Florida supermarket near Tampa last month to buy a Powerball ticket, another person in line did something nice for the 84-year-old widow.

"While in line at Publix, another lottery player was kind enough to let me go ahead of them in line to purchase the winning Quick Pick ticket," she said in a statement Wednesday.

The nice gesture turned out to be a life-changing one for MacKenzie and her family. She came forward Wednesday to claim the biggest undivided lottery jackpot in history, $590 million.

A retiree from Maine and a mother of four who lives in a modest, tin-roof house in Zephyrhills, Fla., where the lone winning ticket in the May 18 drawing was sold, MacKenzie took her prize in a lump sum of just over $370 million. After federal taxes, she is getting about $278 million, lottery officials said.

Wearing large sunglasses and dressed in a pink sweater and white pants, she clasped her son's arm after visiting the lottery offices as they made their way to a silver Ford Focus and left quickly. She did not speak to a crowd of reporters outside the building. She was accompanied at the lottery offices by two unidentified attorneys.

MacKenzie bought the winning ticket at a Publix supermarket in the town of about 13,300, which is 30 miles northeast of Tampa. It is best known for the bottled spring water that bears its name - and now, for one of the biggest lottery winners of all time.

The $590 million was the second-largest lottery jackpot in history, behind a $656 million Mega Millions prize in March 2012, but that sum was split, with three winning tickets.

MacKenzie let the lottery computers generate the numbers at random. She said she had previously bought four other tickets for the drawing.

"We are grateful with this blessing of winning the Florida Lottery Powerball jackpot," she said in a statement read by lottery officials. "We hope that everyone would give us the opportunity to maintain our privacy for our family's benefit."

The winner had 60 days to claim the prize. Lottery spokesman David Bishop said MacKenzie, her lawyers and her financial adviser spent about two hours going through the necessary paperwork.

"They had clearly been preparing for this. They took all this time to get everything in order," Bishop said.

Minutes after the announcement, a dozen reporters in Zephyrhills were camped outside MacKenzie's gray duplex, which backs up to a dirt alley and is across from a cow pasture.

Neighbors were surprised by her good fortune.

"She didn't say anything about it. She's so quiet and secluded. She's usually in the house," said James Hill. "I'm very happy for her. It couldn't have happened to a nicer person. She was always pleasant and smiling."

Another neighbor, Don Cecil, joked, "I hope she gets a better place to live."

MacKenzie's neighbors offered few details about her life. They said she mostly kept to herself, but they'd seen her take short walks along the street and exchanged pleasantries with her.

Her house, situated among mostly mobile homes and pre-fabricated houses, has a chain-link fence with a sheet-metal roof and an old TV antenna.

MacKenzie retired to Zephyrhills more than a decade ago from rural Maine with her husband, Ralph, who died in 2005.

Back in her hometown of East Millinocket, Maine, relatives and friends were surprised to hear of her good fortune.

Robert MacKenzie, Ralph's brother, said the couple met just after World War II after Ralph got out of the Navy. He went to work in the town's paper mill, laboring as a technician for almost four decades.

He said the couple raised four children in East Millinocket, a town of less than 2,000 people in northern Maine. A daughter and son still live in East Millinocket, another son lives in Florida and another daughter lives out of state, possibly in Massachusetts, he said.

Robert MacKenzie said he didn't know his sister-in-law had won until a reporter called him.

"Holy mackerel," he said when told of her winnings. He added: "It hasn't soaked in, but I'm happy for her. That would be great because she's a widow and she can have a nice home now."

One of the MacKenzies' daughters, Melinda "Mindy" MacKenzie, a high school teacher, still lives in the family home in East Millinocket in a quiet middle-class neighborhood of white clapboard houses.

Ralph MacKenzie enjoyed snowmobiling, hunting and fishing, said Andrew Hopkins, a retired high school teacher and assistant principal who taught some of the MacKenzie children.

"They were good people. That's about all I can tell you," said Hopkins, who lives across the street.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/05/3434747/590-million-powerball-jackpot.html#storylink=cpy

Quote of the Day: Wednesday 5 June 2013: I was very fortunate in my gene mix. The gambling instincts I inherited from my father were matched by my mother's gift for analysis. T. Boone Pickens

Do you still feel the Monkey on your back?

No. . . Not really. At first, yes. Oh it was very bad. I had these dreams. My fingers would be like tapping the PLAY button on my pant leg. I would be doing this a while before I noticed or someone pointed it out to me. It was in my subconscious. That's how deep it was. But that is to be expected when you were in it is hard and as long as I was. I got help in 2003, about the time I wrote the novel. There were a few slip ups . . . heck, there were a lot of slip ups, but eventually it took. That is my message to you--it will take if you want it hard enough and you work hard at it. The folk who won't get fixed are those who refuse to admit that they are broken. By the time the book was published in 2007, the monkey was on his way out. But he's not gone. He's sitting outside on my porch waiting to be invited back in. But he's like that vampire girl in "let Me In." He can't enter unless I invite him in. Thanks, Preston

Quote of the Day: Tuesday 4 June 2013: I'm a strange mixture of my mother's curiosity; my father, who grew up the son of the manse in a Presbyterian family, who had a tremendous sense of duty and responsibility; and my mother's father, who was always in trouble with gambling debts. Rupert Murdoch

My Luckiest Numbers

The luckiest numbers for me? It's a three-way tie. 232. 737. And 464. Just like P in the novel. Those were my numbers. The most unlucky? That's easy too. 1964. Every time I went to my storage unit, 4196, I would tell the clerk, "That's my birth year boxed. I was born in 1964." He would always tell me, "Then you should play it." Of course, I wouldn't because of something I told you on this bog before, I never win PLAY-4. Never. I won once on a quick pick boxed for 50 cents, but that's it. Nothing more. But very often after I went to unit 4196, that night in the PLAY-4, a boxed form of 1964 would play. But not if I played it! Noooo. It would never do that. Why should it? PLAY-4 hates me. But not CASH-3. I can't tell you how many times my lucky numbers hit in CASH-3. Yes, boy. I would put in a couple grand and then boom! I'd be rewarded for my patience with $500. A couple grand in: a mere $500 out. Lucky in CASH-3 my butt. Do the math. Thanks, Preston.

Quote of the Day: Monday 3 June 2013: Gambling is part of the human condition. I love it. I have the best time gambling. I've been winning fortunes, and I've been losing them. Jerry Lewis

Get help, Marquisa (Not her real name)

To Maquisa J. (Not her real name or initial). No. I do not gamble anymore. No. I do not think one can stop gambling with willpower alone. Yes. I do hope that you can get your gambling under control. Yes. It will destroy you if you don't. Yes. Pray for His help. Whatever it takes. Thanks. Preston

Quote of the Day: Sunday 2 June 2013: A weekend in Vegas without gambling and drinking is just like being a born-again Christian. Artie Lange