The winners' of course.

Ooh, I also might go for theology. Even though I'm mostly against organized religion, I find it hugely interesting. Can you get a doctorate in that?

Oh, and what would I do with the leftover money? I'd keep probably... 500 grand, give the rest to charity and music programs for poor people, then start a band anyway and try to get rich offa that like I would have without the 600,000,000.

The history of French fries. And :spam1:

Well you've got me curious now. Do you have a pic of these famous boots? The only photo I could find didn't show her feet.

You'll find Southwest Airlines' version here - which evidently inspired the TWA version.

http://static.flickr.com/54/149410471_07c5a4e453.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/49/149410469_d6d0f52223_o.jpg

its similar (read: same) as Nancy Sinatra liked to walk in.
http://static.flickr.com/54/149411520_16e5c3a4a4_o.jpg

USC, to get a DMA in Jazz Studies.

Which, as it turns out, is exactly where I will likely be in about 2 years. The University I've been lecturing at is putting together a full-time faculty position for me, and one of the benefits is that they pick up the tab for all continuing education - including release time from teaching.

smoothmoniker,

listened to some of your compositions on your web site. i like it. please give a head's up if you're performing locally.

i'm in l.a.:juggle:

I can get a PHD on the internet, in almost anything, for next to nothing, according to my email. :rolleyes:

I learned a valuable lesson in college. I loved sports - college football, basketball and baseball. I was (and still am) a huge fan of the college game. So, while in college, I joined the sports staff of the newspaper and eventually got some big assignments that put me at the writer's table on courtside of nationally televised basketball games, in the dugout at baseball games and on the sidelines of big intersectional rivalry football games.

After one year, I left the staff because I couldn't be a fan anymore. I couldn't cheer, couldn't get plastered after the game, I got way too close to the players and coaches for whom its not a game but their lives.

I love astrophysics and quantum physics but I fear that if I try to study it too hard, I'll lose my sense of wonder and curiousity and get bogged down the complexity and uncertainty. I'm content reading a Hawking or Feynman book -leaving the tireless calculations to them.

If I were to study something else... something new... it would be to acquire knowlege and skill that I could use everyday. I'd choose a degree from the American Culinary Institute (I SUCK at cooking), Survival school (learning to live off the land), or (even though they don't exist in their prior form) a Shaolin Temple to learn all the ancient wisdom the Chinese had to offer before the communists destroyed it.

I would bribe my way into private tutoring with well learned persons, studying initially (although by no means strictly, nor in this order, although it is my current list of priorities):

- ceramic art & engineering
- welding/fabrication (frame building), machining, industrial metal casting
- sculpture & material engineering
- mechanical engineering
- woodworking
- spanish, greek, german
- masonry/bricklaying


Periodically I would take "okay, you've told me enough, now I'm going to go and practice for a few years" breaks. And "read a stack of books and then sit, sipping coffee & thinking leisurely about them" breaks.

And then I would teach art at a community college.

also modern dance and voice.


Just to see if there is any groove in there or any octive other than middle c.

Congratulations, sm! That sounds like a great gig for you.

Thinking back, my absolute favorite class in all of college (that I also never expected would intrigue me in the slightest) was statistics. But I guess you can't get a PhD in that... economics would be the closest thing I guess.

I just thought of something ... with all that cash ... can I just study for the sake of studying and enrichment/enlightenment, without having to chase the degree? There's a lot of stuff that I'd like to know more about ...

Oh man, if it were a "choose your own adventure", with no need for a degree at the end, I would just take 2 years off to shadow Lawrence Lessig. Called it a PhD in "Applied Ethics of Intellectual Property."