Today is a day that might lead to retail therapy, but I’m going to try to convince myself to not waste money on a knee-jerk purchase that I’m not going to want in the long term. The leading contender for bad ideas is a New P-114 Venezuela note - the new 1 Million Bolivar note. There's a 67 EPQ on sale for not much money but I know long term I'll want a 68EPQ and it won't cost that much more when one comes up. There is also a lot of strong cheap wine in the house... so there's that.  

So, Sam spiked a 102 degree fever last night. Brought him home and put him to bed with Ben. He woke up this morning still running hot but still acting pretty happy. We figured he would just burn through whatever and be fine, he’d just probably have to stay home tomorrow.

Ben, on the other hand… Ben woke up seeming mostly okay, was complaining of stomach pains by 7:30 and was puking by 8:00 AM… so off to Urgent care we go!

Another $150 copay later… Both are still Covid-negative. Ben has a stomach virus. He’s looking at about 72 hours of misery while Shandy and I try to keep the rest of us from getting it.

I don't think I've seen Ben decline so hard so fast since he got the flu 4 years ago.

I'm hoping at least some of the $195 in copays I've made in the last 10 days will come back from BCBS later - at least hopefully the $75 for Sam.

Sam, the one we thought didn’t really need to go in, the one we thought was fine, has an ear infection. He’s on anti-biotics now. He’d been acting fine but by the time we got him home he was starting to grab his ear and show signs of discomfort.

So both kids are sick with unrelated illnesses, falling ill within 18 hours of each other. That’s parenthood for you! But since Sam does NOT have what Ben has, we need to try to keep Ben from getting Sam sick.

I have a long list of things in my eBay watch list calling my name right now… So many temptations to go next to that P-114. I also just keep getting tempted to buy a P-109a and a P-104 in 65EPQ for $15 each but... That's a road to future regret, and I know it.

I got the latest addition to my Venezuela set in yesterday and added it to my signature set. There’s currently no competitive slot for it. It’s a P-113.

I got this from the mailbox last night, opened it up, opened my laptop, looked at my wife and said, "Sorry. I have to go full nerd now."

I’m thinking that, unless they go all-in with the digital bolivar and don’t issue any more notes, they really need to change the design up after these. It is getting hard to get excited about these things with them all looking… oddly the same, shall we say.

My wife likes to poke fun at my Zimbabwean P-1 type set - which is basically a signature collection - but other than color and numbers there may be even less difference between these Venezuela notes. At least the P-1 varieties have different signatures and (sometimes) different watermarks.

Below we have P-108, P-109b, P-110a, P-110b, P-111a, P-111b, and P-113a.

I was looking at my comments for the Zimbabwe 3rd dollar set recently and I think I might try to go back soon and bolster those with some more information on what’s shown in some of the images on the back of the notes. I'm thinking about building in references or links to other notes in the set (1st dollars) where I talk about the Zimbabwe Ruins in more detail, adding information on St. Mary's Cathedral and the Parliament Building....

It’s a little funny to me in that I was very happy with where I’d gotten that signature set to heading into the awards last year - and it did win! - but now I’ve done such a massive expansion and revamp of it and I feel that it has really been kicked up a notch this year.