42 Posts

My eldest son is a Boy Scout in Troop 403 and every spring they have a Strawberry Festival for the Scouts to raise money for Summer Camp. This year we bought seven tickets (we had a guest). I think most of us had vanilla ice cream with strawberry goodness poured over all of it.

And then there are delectable goodies to enjoy as well: various cakes and cookies and brownies.

If you're not careful, it's quite easy to go over your calorie limits for the day!

My daughter approached me and asked for another ticket (she thought I had a pocket full). Instead, I pulled out a fiver (for ticket number eight) and insisted she return the change. (I've found you've got to be explicit or it never comes back.)

It's a good thing I did or I might not have ever seen this Philadelphia, number 13.

Yesterday's change after lunch at Akron's Spaghetti Warehouse included this prize.

And to think I was so close to using my debit card!

I always find Akron's street grid very confusing. This time I came from the north on Route 8 (versus west/south on i77/i76) and to complicate matters, something was going on at Canal Park that had the street blocked off.

But I found the place and enjoyed a great lunch (the 15-Layer Lasagna is excellent, but beware the 1,051 calories!) with an old colleague, spending the time catching up on old office gossip and swapping job opportunity information.

I was at our local outdoor supply store yesterday, Appalachian Outfitters and received this one in change.

If you've never been there before, you should check them out. They have just about everything you'll need on a campout, whether you're car-camping, tent-camping, backpacking or just want to look cool.

My, it's been a long time (August 2010) since we found one of these.

My wife found a 1976P bicentennial in her change at the snack hut at the zoo.

We had taken the day off to visit the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. We saw some skilligimink cotton candy, some pink flamingos, some giraffes and generally had a good time.

Mondays are "free" days for residents of Cuyahoga County (meaning that we pay via our various taxes).

Don't tell anyone, but we were really there to squash some pennies for the children's collections.

Really.

The bicentennial quarter, the lions, tigers, bears and oh my, the koalas, flamingos, kangaroos and butterflies were all bonuses.

What's nicer than finding a bicentennial quarter in a quarter roll?

Finding a second one in the second roll!

Although we didn't find any silver quarters or 2009 District of Columbia and United States Territories quarters, we did find this nice bicentennial Denver mint quarter.

And since that's what we're looking for right now, that's what we needed and it joins the others.

Be sure to check out the new histogram and the map!

My oldest son collects quarters and we occasionally will head down to the bank to get a roll or two to see what he can find.

At best, we'll find a silver one and add that to his collection of pre-1965 quarters.

Sometimes he'll find a state quarter that he needs or a nicer one that he can upgrade to.

At worst, I end up with a whole mess of quarters that I use for paying to have the trash taken out (25 cents a bag, with contractor bags going for 50 cents).

So it's kind of like gambling, only at the end, you still have the vast majority of your initial outlay. And anything that you might remove from the roll is almost certainly worth more than 25 cents. So really, it's a nice gamble with the odds greatly in my favor.

This one we found peeking out of a plastic quarter roll. It doesn't get much easier than that!

Be sure to check out the new histogram and the map!

The quick shiny quarter jumped over the lemonade stand.

Well, not really.

My eldest daughter, EMG found this quarter (yes, that's her hand) in her lemonade stand change.

And sold it to me for 75 cents. I think my kids are beginning to understand that when supply is low and demand is high, the price can go high, too.

Gives me an idea: why not change the price of the lemonade to be some function of the temperature? Assuming that the temperature of the lemonade stays the same, why not increase the price as the outdoor temperature increases? Why stop there? Why not factor in the relative humidity and sunlight intensity?

Hmm, I'll need to see if someone has already worked that out; otherwise, this might make a great homeschool math project for the summer.

(6/13/2010) Note: I'm working on two more tracking mechanisms (in addition to the map). One is a histogram of sorts tracking the time between finds. Another is a virtual quarter roll that shows how close we are to goal. (Hmm, that gives me an idea: what about a time-lapse slideshow of the roll getting filled?)

(8/4/2010) Note: The Histogram is here!

I've been painting inside a house for a couple of weeks (note the Behr Swiss Coffee flecks on my hand) and sneaking out for a Dairy Queen® treat on the odd occasion or two and today's was a Midnight Truffle Blizzard®. In my change was a Philadelphia 1976 Quarter!

Obviously, I was busted, for how could I document the find without giving away the location?

I may need to revisit to see if they have any more.

(5/23/2010) Note: A map has been added for your tracking pleasure!

The Starbucks at BP Tower provided this one. I think I embarrassed the barista, Amanda. When I showed it to her, she was quite surprised as I don't think she'd ever seen one before!

She made some comment about not having been born then.

I'm feeling old today.

I got this one at a local coffee shop.