2023, Media, News, Stories, Uncategorized

A Slight Miscalculation

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North Dakotans were rather shocked in September to hear on the news that a woman in Minot had been arrested for murdering her boyfriend with antifreeze in order to get money he was inheriting. It even made the New York Times. If you click on the headline, you can read the whole article.

What isn’t in the article is that after her arrest, it was discovered that the man was being scammed, and that the inheritance was fictitious. There never was any money. She sort of miscalculated. Oops! I hate it when that happens!

What have been some of your bigger miscalculations?

34 thoughts on “A Slight Miscalculation”

      1. Or is it? The money angle makes no sense and may be an invention of the journalist. Perhaps Ina was just annoyed that her boyfriend was dumping her.

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  2. sometimes i feel like my rolling with the punches philosophy has been a miscalculation
    failing to plan is planning to fail is what one of those motivational investment brokers said and it isn’t that i failed to plan it’s just rolling the dice can end up craps
    im working a plan now and licking my miscalculating wounds as i get up to put the fix on it
    living in minot with a partner who wants to leave you as soon as the opportunity presents itself might have been her miscalculation
    3 squares a day and an organized daily routine may be an improvement

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  6. On a road trip from MN to Banff NP one year, with two carefully planned stops along the way at predetermined campgrounds, we ended up scrambling for a site the second night because I forgot to include the distance across the great province of Saskatchewan in my planning. *Forehead slap* We drove an extra 100-200 miles that second day, luckily found an available campsite, then arrived late in Banff on our third day.

    Yes, the North American West has a whole lotta nothin’ out there, but that nothin’ is still hundreds of miles of time and space. 😉

    Chris in Owatonna

    **BSP** Northfield tonight, 5-9, for it’s annual Winter Walk celebration. My first time participating. Twenty-plus vendors of all sorts will be in the old Northfield News building at 5th and Division, selling our wares and chatting with customers. Here’s a brief description of the festivities, from the event’s website:

    “Join us in celebrating the 25th Annual Winter Walk! Join us for the highlight of the season!

    Get ready for a festive extravaganza with horse-drawn wagons, heartwarming caroling, pictures with Santa and the Grinch, twinkling luminaries, beautifully decorated store fronts and so much more.

    Indulge in the joy of holiday shopping with fantastic deals and savor the flavors of amazing food throughout the evening.

    Exciting additions this year include a Flash Mob, Window, Tree & Gingerbread House Decorating Contests, real-life reindeer, a DJJD Royalty Storytime, and to top it all off—fireworks at 8:45 pm to celebrate our 25th anniversary in style!”

    **END BSP**

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      1. tim, we usually drive through Canada en route to Banff.
        It all epends on if we want to see sights in the US or Canada. Have driven across I-94 to Glacier and beyond several times.

        Chris

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  7. I think my biggest miscalculation was thinking that I’d get back to St. Olaf before tuition soared to impossible heights. I did get half price tuition for a few years (7 of their credits equals more than 30 in a university or state college) but they ended that before I was ready and told me I had to declare a major and pay full tuition. They don’t really do nontraditional students very well. The older I get the better able I am, it seems, and I was getting straight As by the time I was forced to pay full tuition.

    I’ve heard that state colleges and universities will be offering reduced, even free, tuition if you fill out a FAFSA and apply. I heard it on MPR Marketplace. I’d like to learn more about that.

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  8. We had an engineer overestimate the height of a new water tower in town so that it was way too tall. It had to betaken down and shortened by about 10 feet. Oops!

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  9. I always struggle with these kinds of questions. I can think of A LOT of times I probably didn’t make the best calculations, but all those calculations led me to where I am today and I hate the thought of messing that up.

    Last year when visiting my friend Pat in Nashville we went to Chattanooga for the day. Even using GSP, we got SO lost on the way back (we were detouring to see a state park with waterfalls). We turned a 90-minute drive into a 5-hour drive. But the laughs and the funny memories of that day are well worth it!

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  10. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    I am on the road today for a long weekend. Along Hiway 35 through Iowa there is a large intersection at Ames where Hiway 30 intersects 35. In the last 10 years the Iowa DOT re built the intersection. They had much of it done, then it stalled out and nothing happened. The news finally broke that an engineer miscalculated the heighth and the two pieces in the middle did not meet. The entire bridge had to be rebuilt. Oops

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    1. If that is true, I think there must be multiple people who didn’t do their jobs. It’s simply not plausible that such a project would go ahead without everything having been checked, reviewed, and double checked by multiple people and departments. Or is it? That thought is mind boggling.

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      1. This is Jacque—surely people lost their jobs. It was all over the newspapers there. The humiliating thing for Iowa DOT is that the particular exit involved goes to Iowa State University, home of the school of civil engineering.

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    3. Being from Missouri, the building of the Arch was amazing to me. They built the two legs simultaneously and connected them at the top. I couldn’t believe it when that connection was smooth and on-target!

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  12. The NYT article is behind a paywall, but there are other sources to read more. Including https://www.inforum.com/news/north-dakota/minot-woman-killed-boyfriend-with-antifreeze-in-attempt-to-gain-inheritance-court-docs-allege
    It doesn’t say a whole lot about the scam that started off the foul play, but I would imagine it was something like an e-mail that said “send me $X to cover costs and I will fly out to meet you at the airport to give you your inheritance.”
    You can’t feel a huge amount of sympathy for a guy who gets that e-mail and thinks it’s his big chance to dump his longtime partner and become the sugar daddy of some attractive young thing.
    Or for the 47-year-old woman, who looks more like she’s 70 in her mug shot, who thinks she is somehow going to hijack his imaginary fortune.
    The whole story just makes you wonder what is wrong with people.

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