a billion

congratulations! you now have $1 billion. it's all stacked in your basement in $50 bills. there is a job you must do in connection with having this $1 billion. your task is to burn it exactly as follows:

burn one $50 bill every 30 seconds,
8 hours per day,
5 days per week,
50 weeks per year (you get a 2 week vacation)...

your schedule means you will burn through:

$100 per minute
$6,000 per hour
$48,000 per day
$240,000 per week
$12,000,000 per year,

which means it will take you

83.3 years to burn through $1 billion.

now, how long to burn $1 billion in one year?

$4,166.67 every 30 seconds
$500,000 every hour
$4,000,000 per day
$20,000,000 per week
$1,000,000,000

so, the next time you hear about how many billions are burned on this or that, imagine the inferno ...

the old wood boat

pieces of the old wood boat are cast overboard as the wise ancient mariner patiently wrests 

and works her more alive than dead. 

one at a time, in a quiet order, not unsymbiotic, they drift away with the ebbing tide

from their long-time resting place when taken from their forest home; 

rotten and rotting from the inside, 

very much alive in places.

the smell of fresh old forest still emanating from the places alive, 

the smell of old forest reincarnating from the rot.

tight, straight beautiful grain of ancient wood; such a shame. 

the pieces floating away are as somber, quiet tomb stones, marking end of life in their place on the old wood boat;

reincarnation wherever tide and sea rest them.