Small brush with fame...
 

This weekend, I placed an ad on Craigslist for my daughters telescope that she never used. The first responder was from a lady by the name of Mindy Jennings and she was looking for one for her sons upcoming b-day. This morning, I got a phone call from her husband, Ken, and he wanted to come by and buy it this afternoon.
He showed up in this old beater Corolla, and about took his facia out on my curb (I was in the garage working on the Revo). He came in, and I could've sworn I'd seen this little geeky guy somewhere before. Anyway, we BS'd for a little bit, he apparently grew up a block away from me. He left and I walked upstairs, and my wife asked me if that was the Jeapordy guy......DUH!!!!
I looked up his personal web page, and sure enough he and his wife Mindy live just north of Seattle.

Kinda cool that this guy shops for used stuff on Craigslist.

...and drives a beat up Corolla.

damn that guy won a ton of money. sweet, i take it he bought the telescope?

Yes - guess I should've asked for more?!?!?

Probably. How much did you sell it for?

50 bucks. It was a Meade 4.5" with the autostar system. Nice scope.

yeah maybe. small world it is,

Thats cool that he is still humble and living well within his means. How many people would have won over 2 and a half million after tax and then bought a fancy car? (raises hand).

I would keep my commuter car and just buy more RCs :)

That just shows he really has some sense not too blow it all. Or maybe they found out he was cheating and took it back lol JK.

Yesh, you could tell while he was on the show that he was not the type to blow it all.

He did give 10% to his church.

Just out of intrest what was the model of the telescope?
And was it automatic (did it point to a star automatically?)
And was a mount included?

$50 sounds extremely cheap for a meade.

Maybe he blew all the cash already on a stripper and gambling binge in vegas and all he has left is that crappy corolla and the $50 telescope for his daughteers B-day.

Its was something like a DSC 415....I cant remember the model off the top of my head. And yes is was the higher end auto tracking with the mount/tripod. Yes, I priced it cheap just to get rid of it quick. Otherwise one tends to get a bunch of no shows and barter's. I think I had a total of about 125 into it. Originally bought it a garage sale, the mirror was busted in it. I picked up a new tube from the Meade clearance site for dirt cheap.

My daughter swore to me the auto tracking system was broken, because it wouldnt just turn on and go to saturn, or whatever. I tried to explain how devices dont know where they are in the world unless you give them a starting point. She refused to read the directions and the "parents are just stupid" attitude in her took over, and it sat in my garage ever since.