When I Win the Lottery

I’m gonna donate half my money to the city, so they have to name a street or a school or a park after me.

Wait, no. That’s what David Lowery’s gonna do. I have no real desire for public acclaim. My tastes run more to the experiential. So when I win the lottery (for the sake of argument, let’s say I walk with an after-tax lump sum of $100m, because, really, anything less isn’t worth the effort, and let’s assume I can get 5% a year on that money in a CD of some sort, giving me at least $2m after taxes in income each year, even though it’d be less if I spend some of the lump, and let’s further assume that this parenthetical thought will end at some point in our lifetimes, freeing us all up to keep reading), here’s what I’ll do:

I’ll quit my job. Natch. Sort of a no-brainer, that one. But I don’t want to sit around and do nothing all day, as I get bored really easily. To combat the boredom, I’ll buy a minor league baseball team, preferably one in or near either a coastal location or a college town on the East Coast. The Charleston (SC) RiverDogs fit the bill, and have the added benefit of being in Charleston, which is a terrific town. Cost: $3m or so for a Class A franchise, according to a recent Forbes.com survey.

Since I’ll be spending a significant amount of time in Charleston, I’ll need a condo there, which will probably set me back $1.0m or so, ‘cause I ain’t goin’ out like no punk bitch.

And while I’m not really into fancy wheels, my current ride does have 130,000 tough miles on it and I can’t be spending my hard-earned money and newly-valuable time heading back and forth to the auto mechanic’s shop. So maybe a Tesla S for kicking around town and Mini Cooper for commuting between my world headquarters in Northern Virginia and the new Charleston compound. Let’s pencil in $100k for automotive purchases.

I’ll set up a personal distribution system for Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons, CO, so they can send me product on a regular basis. I figure a donation of $50k should keep me in Dale’s Pale Ale for the foreseeable future. And since I'll want a place to drink it where everybody knows my name, I'll buy a restaurant/bar for my friend Johnny, which is something I've always wanted to do. Call that another $1.5m.

A pause for pragmatism here for a moment, if I may. I’ll set aside $2.5m to take care of educational expenses for my children, my nieces and nephews, and the children of a handful of friends. If you’re not sure whether you’re one of those friends, you’re probably not. But you should remember this pledge when you see me next, because you never know where my magnanimity may land.

I’ll be making an annual trip to a major music festival, be it Jazz Fest, SXSW, Bonnaroo, Bumbershoot, or one of several others, and I’ll be bringing friends. We’re springing for luxury accommodations, because a man my age can’t be sleeping in the muck with all the neo-hippies. I figure $50k a year for the whole shooting match gets 15 of us to at least one great set of shows annually.

Because I won’t be driving to New Orleans, Austin, Whereverthehell, Tennessee, or Seattle, I’ll buy a fractional ownership in a Gulfstream for $250,000. I’ll also need it to go to the NCAA Final Four and the College Football National Championship game (but only after the BCS is abolished – I’m boycotting it until then).

I almost forgot about The Compound, the place we've always pledged to build if one of us strikes it rich. That's gonna take $20m or so to get up and running (less if real estate values out here in the country keep falling), but it'll have housing for at least 5 families and an inexhaustible supply of silliness and recreational equipment.

Man, $100m is a shitload of money. I’ve only dropped $28.5 large and I’m struggling to come up with new stuff to buy. I’m not a gadget guy. I don’t need a lot of fancy clothes since I won’t be working and all the t-shirts I need I can get at the aforementioned rock shows. I don’t care all that much to winter somewhere warm, because I like a little diversity in my seasons. I guess I’ll get a really good mountain bike ($5k), spring for an HDTV ($3k), and grab Red Sox and Nationals season tickets (the Gulfstream will come in handy for trips to Boston) for another $10k. I’ll set aside another $250k for travel, which leaves me with nearly $72 million with which to play. Okay, $60m – I suppose I’ll set up the Gheorghe: The Blog Foundation and give away a bunch of cabbage to organizations dedicated to making the world a sillier place (we'll focus heavily on kids' causes), and I'll establish Gheorghe: The Political Action Committee to funnel money to Gheorghey politicians (who will, admittedly, be hard to find). But at the end of the day, kids, I’m gonna need some help spending all this money.

Now I just need to start playing the lottery.