13 Week Pennsylvania Power Ball Pool - 17th Update

13 Week Pennsylvania Power Ball Pool - Game One

Date: 08/26/2007

To: Kenneth E Stutzman, Jr. Charles W. Rutherford, Juanita L. Brown, Mac Almond, Johnnie M. Dodson, and Chauncey Stumpter

Membership List: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddn3r8c7_69c35dhf

From: Michael Porter

RE: 17th Newsletter

My Father's Luck

How many people who win the lottery actually do something good with the money? How a poor boy changed people's lives.

By Celeste Leon

Once there was a poor young man who grew up in the small village of Maunabo, Puerto Rico, who had a dream.

This young boy, named Ramon, was the 15th child born in his family. His mother was 46 when he was born, and almost lost her own life during the birth.

Born in 1925, a child of the depression, Ramon started working to help support his large family when he was just 7 years old. One of his jobs was selling pastries. On Fridays, young Ramon would walk a mile to the nearby sugar cane plantation, carrying a large basket of pastries on his head to sell them to the "macheteros" -- the men who worked in the fields all day cutting stalks of sugar cane with their sharp machetes.

"Boy, those pastries went fast!" Ramon would tell his mother.

When he was 8-years-old, Ramon developed a terrible toothache. He had to hike to the outskirts of his small village to see the dentist. The dentist placed him in a kitchen chair, gave him a shot, and pulled the tooth. Expecting to feel pain, Ramon felt nothing but relief. "Someday I would like to be able to do that!" he thought.

The seed was planted -- Ramon decided he wanted to become a dentist.

Years later in 1944, when Ramon was 19, he was still holding onto his dream. He knew that coming from a poor family; he did not have the finances to attend college. So, he fantasized about winning the lottery and even envisioned a number: 14000.

Shortly after, a lottery salesman came into his mother's small store where Ramon was working.

"Caimito," Ramon said to the salesman, "I would like to buy a ticket, but it should be a number in the 14000s."

"Actually, I do have one," Caimito replied. "I have a ticket numbered 14165. Ramon, here it is!"

"I have a strange feeling that I may win the jackpot," Ramon told his mother after purchasing the ticket.

Several days later, on the day before Thanksgiving, Ramon took three buses to San Juan to buy merchandise for his mother's store, and to see the winning lottery numbers. Once he arrived, Ramon passed a placard displaying the winning numbers.

There it was! 14165! He had won!

Despite his premonitions about winning, Ramon had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming. Excitedly, Ramon raced to a nearby shop, and told the owner his good news. This kindly gentleman gave Ramon a ride to the lottery office to collect the first prize: $18,000, tax free.

It was too late to take the bus home so Ramon found a hotel to spend the night. He sent his mother a telegram, and told her not to expect him until the following day.

Ramon could not sleep at all that night, thinking about this turn in his life. He arrived home the following day, Thanksgiving. Half the town was in the plaza to congratulate him.

There was a large celebration in the village that day. Ramon was able to help his family by giving each of them several hundred dollars. He used the remainder of his money to finance his education.

It was an arduous journey. Ramon did not speak English fluently and the first six months of college were daunting. Ramon would sit in the front of the classroom with his Spanish-English dictionary, and explaining his situation, would ask his professors to "Repeat, repeat, repeat."

He persevered and obtained his degree in 1955 from Indiana University School of Dentistry.

Before starting his own dental practice, Ramon worked for the Public Health department in Puerto Rico, providing free dental services.

"I'm a lucky man," Ramon tells his friends and family. "I have truly experienced the American Dream."

As his youngest daughter, I have learned much from my father, who had the wisdom to take advantage of his good fortune, and the tenacity to see his dream through. He has accomplished more with the gifts God gave him than anyone I know.

For this, I am proud to tell his story.

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Here is Mac’s spreadsheet: http://tinyurl.com/253gxw

Before I went to bed last night, I prayed that we would win this, however I knew that this game would not be a winner right after I finished praying.

I’m not so sure as to why I knew that before the drawing would take place. But, I had a feeling that there would be a winner.

Powerball Jackpot Hit in Indiana

One lucky Powerball player in Indiana is $314.3 million richer after matching all six numbers to win the jackpot in the Aug. 25 drawing.

The white-ball numbers drawn Saturday were 2, 8, 23, 29 and 35, and the Powerball number was 19. The Power Play multiplier was 3. A total of 2,589,933 Powerball players won more than $20.5 million.

Players should carefully check their tickets after every draw. Even though there was a jackpot winner in Indiana, there are always winners at other prize levels. In fact, one Missouri Powerball ticket matched all five white-ball numbers to win the $200,000 second-level prize.

Now, I regularly suffer from a depression when someone wins the Mega Million. I always feel like a failure. But, never do I have to be depressed with Power Ball.

1) I always have tickets for Multi-draw, so I can win the next one

2) The Jack Pot starts out with $15 Million and will reach $100 million with in 4 or 5 drawings.

3) I just feel blessed to have tickets in Power Ball, since I don’t live in a Power Ball state.

But this morning when I saw that someone won it in Indiana had won, I went back to bed, and slept until 10:30 a.m. So, I didn’t go to work, and couldn’t even get to church in time.

Then I saw Mac’s spreadsheet and realized that if this group holds the winning ticket, I could still get $2,100,000.00. So all is not lost, after all did we really need $300 Million. (Of course we did, but I have to accept God’s decisions).

Time is really flying fast. This game was name 13 Week Pennsylvania Power Ball Pool, because Pennsylvania plays Power Ball with 26 drawings (on one ticket – Well in theory it does.)

I bring to your attention because we have when through our ½ mark. We just completed 15 drawings -- That is 7.5 weeks of playing. Our last drawing is on October 3^rd, 2007.

I brought that to your attention for a reason, so be sure to read the end of the newsletter.

The Jack Pot has been reset to show $15 Million. The Cash Option is now at $7,000,000.00. There are only 10 shares in this game, most likely if no one wins this next drawing, you will see $1 Million per share on this next Saturday’s drawing.

For now here is our payout for Wednesday August 29^th, 2007: There are 10 shares issued in this game, here is the payout, not including any attorney fees, taxes or tithes:

Shares Purchased	Amount you could win
.5	$350,000.00
1	$700,000.00
2	$1,400,000.00
3	$3,100,000.00

We didn’t really lose last night; we did win another $7.00.

Here is a recap of what we have won so far:

Date Money Won	Amount	Running Total	Notes
07/02/2007	$3.00	$3.00
07/28/2007	$3.00	$6.00
08/01/2007	$7.00	$13.00
08/11/2007	$3.00	$16.00
08/25/2007	$7.00	$23.00

You next ticket is attached for Wednesday’s drawing.

Juanita e-mailed this morning and reminded me of when she was going back to Pennsylvania. Here is our e-mail exchange:

just to let you know I'll be going back to pa. on Oct. 5th so I can pick up our money then.

Sunday August 26th, 2007

Dear Juanita,

Before I say anything to the group, do you want to do this again?

I would like to make the announcement to the group only, and if everyone would pay the same amount, then we can extend this game another 26 drawings.

If people drop out or pay less dues, then I can open it up to anyone who wants to play, and just do Game II.

Michael

Michael,

Since we've won a little cash this game can extend anyway. But yes I'd do it again. I know where there's a self serve machine now to buy our tickets rather than dealing with uneducated sales clerks.

After this trip I probably won't be going back until July, but I can send tickets to my sister to cash. I could get tickets for diehard too, if you want.

So I would like for you to know that this game will be extended beyond the October 3^rd (which is what your last ticket’s date is).

My first option is to renew this game. So I’m offering everyone to pay again that same amount, and we will use our original $260.00 and any winnings to buy more tickets for this game.

I would like to mail Juanita a check no later than September 18^th, 2007. Remember extending this game is optional and voluntary, so if you don’t want to continue to play in this game, you don’t have to, but your game will still be extended.

Now that means I need to hear from everyone what your intentions are this next week.

Now, since I purchased 3 shares, I’m worried that I can’t do that again. That is $78.00! And I had not budget that out. (Okay, I would have thought we would have won the damn thing by now.)

So I may have to give up smoking to finance this next game. I’m hoping that I can save something out of this check coming up and the pay the remainder on the check of the 15^th, 2007.

So if you want to play again AND buy the same amount of shares as you did before, there will be no Option Two.

Option Two is if you want to play but want to increase or decrease the shares you bought last time. This is okay, but since the payout will be different, I will create a new game called 13 Week Pennsylvania Power Ball Pool – Game Two.

If you opt not to play again, you will still have tickets in the first game, because as of today we have $23.00 in wins.

So please e-mail what your intentions are, because if I have to create Game Two, I’m going to announce this game, and see if I can get more members to play.

So let me know what you would like to do, so I can every new member advance notice of this game.

A Heart Warning Story

This is truly a heartwarming story about the bond formed between a little girl and some construction workers. This makes you want to believe in the goodness of people and that there is hope for the human race.

A young family moved into a house next door to a vacant lot. One day a construction crew turned up to start building a house on the empty lot.

The young family's 5-year-old daughter naturally took an interest in all the activity going on next door and started talking with the workers.

She hung around and eventually the construction crew, all of them gems-in-the-rough, more or less adopted her as a kind of project mascot.

They chatted with her, let her sit with them while they had coffee and lunch breaks, and gave her little jobs to do here and there to make her feel presented her with a pay envelope containing a dollar.

The little girl took this home to her mother who said all the appropriate words of admiration and suggested that they take the dollar pay she had received to the bank the next day to start a savings account.

When they got to the bank the teller was equally impressed with the story and asked the little girl how she had come by her very own pay check at such a young age.

The little girl proudly replied, "I worked all last week with a crew building a house."

My goodness gracious," said the teller, "and will you be working on the house again this week, too?"

The little girl replied, "I will if those useless bastards at Home Depot ever brings us the fucking drywall."