oddly enough

oddly enough

Man gets a pretty penny – $5K – cashing in coin collection

RUSTON, La.

After more than 45 years of saving pennies, a Louisiana man decided it was time to cash them in.

The News-Star reports that 73-year-old Otha Anders, of Ruston, took 15 5-gallon plastic water jugs full of the coins to the bank Tuesday. His grand total: A deposit of $5,136.14 into his account. He says it will go toward a recent dental bill.

Anders says that after his first coin, his penny pile began to grow, so he ultimately stopped spending pennies. He says he made sure that in any purchase, his change contained at least three to four pennies.

During the five-hour process of counting the pennies, the plastic jugs were hacked open with an ax and hammer.

The pennies were then poured into the coin machine with small plastic buckets.

Ohio county settling suit over morgue body mix-up for $165K

DAYTON

A county has reached a $165,000 settlement with two families over a body mix-up at a morgue that led to one man being incorrectly cremated and another man entombed in his place.

Montgomery County commissioners this week approved the payment, ending a four-year legal battle over a lawsuit filed by the families of Frank Granato, 55, of Carmel, Ind., and Arthur Potter, 67, of Greenwood, Ind., the Dayton Daily News reported. The men were killed in a plane crash in March 2010 in Union County.

The men’s damaged bodies couldn’t be identified by sight after they were taken to the Union County coroner’s office, and they were sent to Montgomery County for autopsies and identification.

Potter’s family had Granato’s body cremated, and Granato’s family had a Catholic funeral and had Potter’s body entombed in a mausoleum. Granato’s widow discovered the mix-up after she received the wrong personal effects, including a jacket with a patch with Potter’s last name sewn on it, according to the lawsuit.

Already home to a ski hill, Emirates may get a snow park

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates

Already home to a ski hill inside a mall, the sunbaked deserts of the United Arab Emirates soon may be home to a snow park, too.

Officials with Abu Dhabi’s Reem Mall, scheduled to open in 2018, say they plan to build a 125,000-square-foot snow park inside the mall.

In a statement Wednesday, the developers said the park will include opportunities to luge and “zorbing” – which, for the uninitiated, involves rolling down a hill in a giant ball made of transparent plastic.

In Dubai, the Mall of the Emirates already is home to an indoor, snow-covered ski hill and penguin shows.

Associated Press