BennyEast.Com/Blog The official blog of Kenny West

The Jubilee Theatre

Today I'm working the Saturday Shift at work.  It's not a bad shift.  It's usually good for getting additional work, or catch up work done since things are slower on Saturdays.  Sometimes they can be quite hoppin' though!  It really all depends on what events are happening.  Tonight is a fundraiser gala.  So I have to stay an extra hour until another guy gets here to take over with that.

It's an event they throw each year to raise money.  It's an institutional advancement thing.  Colleges are interesting as far as how the money comes in.  Not all of it comes from tuition.  Actually a good amount of money for things comes from other sources.  Tuition is generally just one slice of the whole pie.  A lot of people think that the cash from tuition covers the operating costs... That's not so.  It doesn't quite work like Starbucks... Where Starbucks sells coffee and that covers their costs.  Although, Starbucks as well now sells coffee in all kinds of sneaky ways and doesn't just make money from that iced drink you order when you stop in at one of their friendly locations.  They have their name ALL over the place now.  Revenue can come from some very unexpected places in any business or organization.

From the investment research I've done over the years... I've found that colleges aren't the only ones that do this.  As I mentioned with Starbucks, companies sometimes make money from sources that you wouldn't think.  Amazon and Apple along with Google make money from 100s of different sources of revenue.  It's kind of crazy.  I don't know how they honestly keep track of it all.  Although, Google loses money in a lot of places too.  Or Alphabet as they liked to be called now-a-days.  But the ventures that they lose money on are more along the lines of research and development or they are just trying out a new thing to see if it takes off.  If it doesn't generate revenue eventually, they cancel the project.

Any organization can diversify into something else.  Heck, any person can do this too!  Something that could start as a side project could begin to really take off as far as revenue.  Then you can make the decision to hop to that instead.  So, I trade stocks on the side and make music.  Right now my stocks are poised to hit just above the 1k mark in income for me for the year.  Obviously my paycheck from working in the IT field is greater than that... So I won't hop over to trading full time just yet.  Or, I might not ever do that.  But theatrically if my paycheck from trading stocks were greater than the IT pay... I could switch and do that full time.  I'm also making  about 10 bucks a month from music sales.  Who knows... Maybe that will continue to climb and one day I'll hop over to that instead.  Or I can do both as I'm doing now.  And then just keep starting new projects and see what takes off and then  cancel the things that don't.  Just as Google does.

So, anyways this gala is another source of income that makes up the total pie.  I just like finances I suppose.  I enjoy budgets and cash flows and knowing where money is coming in and going out.  It's from all of the time I've spent doing investment research for my own stocks I think... Although even from my first Financial and Managerial Accounting classes in college, I just ate that stuff up!  I was all like...

"THIS IS SO NEAT!"  And everyone else was like...
"Um... Seriously bro?  This is a snoozer.  I'm just trying to pull at least a C in this class and be done with it."  And I was like...
"Yeah.  I think it's cool."

So... yep.

Well anyways I'm working on this rainy Saturday.  It's raining again.  Or about to rain, no, it's already raining.  I've been trying to keep up with my lawn mowing... But this rain is making it difficult.  I'll keep at it though.  I just do a little here and a little there.  Just keep cutting away at the grass as it continues to try and grow and grow.  It's a never ending battle.

Again, ANYWAYS, Saturday work.  I've now been writing this post for a good 2 hours.  I'm just typing and sending emails between tabbing back over to write more blog post here, then back to more work emails, then more blog post...

You're probably saying to yourself, the post name has nothing to do with the content of this post.  That's true.  Let me explain about the post name.  So my post name comes from a random Wikipedia article.  Every morning when I get to work, I load up a random Wikipedia article.  You can get to the random Wikipedia article by clicking "Random article" just under "Current events" but just above "Donate to Wikipedia".  It's one of my favorite things.  I love random generation.  Random stuff is great.

I know I'm strange/nerdy... Oh well.  Whatever.  I like my random daily Wikipedia article!  Today's article was the Jubilee Theatre.  At first I thought it fit in with the theme of the whole gala thing happening today.

The Jubilee Theatre.  That sounds fancy I said to myself.  That sounds like... Ritzy sophisticated ultra wealthy hob nob gala people raising money for a good cause.

But it's not what it seems.  The article explains that the theater was built for patients at a hospital.

"The Jubilee Theatre, is a grade II listed building theatre. It opened in 1899 in St Nicholas Hospital, Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, England."

So it seems it's more of a somber tone type of article... it was for entertainment for the hospital patients.

The daily random Wikipedia thing is something that I've done for a long time.  Although, I'll admit I sometimes check more than daily, you got me.  Sometimes I read random articles multiple times a day.  Just to spur my mind and get me thinking.  My other favorite thing to do is to load up 5 random articles in a row and then use those 5 articles to build a short story on the fly.  Sometimes you get some REALLY interesting stuff to work with.  Sometimes it's tough.  Sometimes the articles are just not great, and super dull... But, I say, that just makes it more challenging.  SO... Sometimes I'll ask for a new "hand", so to speak, and load up 5 new ones.  Or, I can toss out one article and refresh it with a new random one.  Let's see... I'll load up 5 new random Wikipedia articles now...  Here we go... What kind of story would you make with the following...

1. 1940 Venezuelan Primera División season
2. Hicks Mill, Caroline County, Virginia
3. Bob Stanley (musician)
4. Tabaxi
5. Tobu 500 series

Now my random Wikipedia article short story rules include... You can use just the title or the whole article and any part of it in any way that fits into the story.  As well the word can be use in a new way that has nothing to do with the original meaning.  So for example a story could start out...

Tobu and Tabaxi sat in the back of the taxi waiting for the light to change.  "Come on already!"  The cabbie shouted, in his native tongue, from the front of the vehicle.  The year was 1940.  Tobu and Tabaxi suddenly found themselves traveling to Venezuela on last minute detail.  Their previous assignment had them all the way deep in the the hills of Hicks Mill, Caroline County, Virginia.  Venezuela was most certainly vastly different from Virginia.  The only information they had received was a small business card.  A musician by the name of Stanley would be waiting for them when they arrived.

In that example the story has to include something from each one of the 5 articles.

Let's see what you can come up with!  Try your own 5 random Wikipedia articles to make a scene or short story... Or here's 5 more just for kicks...

1. Qincheng Prison
2. Uzma Khan
3. National Windstorm Impact Reduction Act Reauthorization of 2014
4. Prachuap Bay
5. Coláiste Pobail Acla