How Many Potato Olés Does $6.54 Million Buy?

When you move away from Nebraska, either by choice or by lynch mob, there will be things you miss.

Topping my list are Potato Olés, those golden discs of deliciousness from your good buddy and mine, Taco John.

After the news broke about how much loot Bo Pelini would be officially raking in to not coach the Huskers, my mind did not race towards the inevitable figures of what $6.54 million breaks down to in terms of a monthly, daily, hourly, or even by-the-minute salary.

Nope, I had a larger figure to fry.

Specifically, how many Potato Olés could Pelini purchase with his $6.54 million don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out parting gift?

Would it be enough that Bo could be like Scrooge McDuck swimming in money?

Scooge McDuck Swimming In Money

Finding this magically delicious  number was going to be a challenge on two fronts.

1. The closest Taco John’s to Los Angeles is in Reno, NV. This is the Deep Space Nine outpost of the Taco John’s empire. Even though it’s closer to me than all the others, a 1,000 mile round trip journey was going to be a bit much.

2. The alternative would be to simply call a Taco John’s. My fair hometown of Grand Island proudly boasts three locations, one of which has a phone number published online. I opted out of this option because I couldn’t think of anyone that would chap angst-ridden teenage fry cook’s hide more than some moron calling out the blue to bother him about Potatoe Olés.

Luckily, Facebook, aka the the lazy journalist’s best friend, came to the rescue.
Potato Olés

Potato Olés Philosphy

A short while later, the answer was found, thanks to my good buddy Joshua. He even included a photo of himself and Bo for extra credit.

Potato Olé Research

OK, so what we’re working with.

Large Potato Olés = $2.59 (We’ll assume Taco John gave Pelini a quantity discount and covered the tax.)

Large Potato Olés = 46 Olés (That’s the number Joshua got so we’re running with it as the average.)

$6,540,000 / 2.59 = 2,525,095.56 large orders of Potato Olés. (We’ll go ahead and round that up.)

2,525,096 x 46 = 116,154,416 Potato Olés. (That’s 2,171,582,560 calories according to Taco John’s official nutritional information.)

Now to take things up a notch, let’s assume Potato Olés have an average height of a quarter inch when laid flat.

116,154,416 / 4 = a stack of Potato Olés 29,038,604 inches high.

29,038,604 / 12 = a stack of Potato Olés 2,419,883.67 feet high.

2,419,883.67 / 5280 = a stack of Potato Olés 458.311 miles high.

In other words, we’re talking pile of Potato Olés roughly the size of Chimney Rock.

Memorial Stadium filled with Potato Olés
(This illustration is NOT to scale but you get the idea.)

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Nebraska: Where there is no off-season

Hey there. Remember us?

Yes, us. Big Red Fury, that Nebraska Cornhusker site that fell off the radar on the eve of the of the most important Spring Game in nearly a decade.

Well, there’s not much to say other than we got busy and by ‘we’ that is the proverbial royal we as this place is mostly a one-man operation but that is soon changing. We’re about to become a multi-person operation.

The last time we checked-in, Mike Riley was about to do his first Tunnel Walk and we were about to head out to scenic West Covina (aka the hometown of Lawrence Phillips) to play in the annual Dodger Blogger Softball Tournament.

Luckily for those of us on team Sons of Steve Garvey, we had a two game bye when Jon Soo Hoo, the Dodgers’ Team Photographer, was on-scene so our “athletic” exploits weren’t documented for posterity but we did succeed in having the drunkest team photo.

Anyway, we rolled our way to the semis which was no small achievement for us. Plus, we had our own team photographer to capture us at our best.

Todd Flailing
Your humble author, holding down the hot corner. Photo: Scott Killeen

The whole reason for bringing this up is that one of our female ringers on our team ended up being from Columbus. Once we discovered our Nebraska connection, that thing happened when you put two Nebraskans together and they instantly start speaking their own language.

“Runza!”

“Dorothy Lynch!”

“Potato Oles!”

“Dannebrog!”

We had a great Nebraska bro-down and it made the anguish of missing the Spring Game a little more bearable though it did get a little stressful checking Twitter between pitches. Depending on the source, players were either crushing it or forgetting how to play football or were already filling out their transfer paperwork on the sideline. Oh how the rumors swirl when you’re the last quarterback to take the field. (Looking at you, Johnny Stanton.)

By the time it was over, Tommy is still the man, there’s going to be a logjam for the backup spot, DPE will go HAM next season, Imani might not be the featured back, and if the defense can get any linebackers on the roster, things might be OK for the Blackshirts.

Then good ol’ Lawrence Phillips (TODAY is his birthday, btw) popped up in the news for being suspected of murdering his cellmate at Kern Valley State Prison. Apparently it’s not sounding like the most difficult case to prove. Two guys are locked in a cell, one guy ends up strangled.

Lawrence Phillips Murder Suspect

Look, I’ve had some annoying roommates in my day and I know I’ve also been that annoying roommate but stone cold murdering one of them wasn’t exactly high on the list of options much the same as I hope I was never a potential “murderee.”

Ever since we shared our bizarre Lawrence Phillips story, I’ve kicked (OK, maybe not the best word) around the idea of reaching out to the guy to see how he’s been doing after being locked up for a half decade. Has there been any remorse? Is he working on his GED? Is he trying to mentor any short-timers?

Clearly that was not the case and for a guy who was on target to be released at the spry age of 57, tacking on a murder charge isn’t exactly the best move.

In better news though, Randy, Kenny and Ameer all got drafted by the NFL. Here’s hoping they all have long and illustrious careers.

Randy Gregory Dallas Cowboys
If Randy Gregory can make it through camp, look for Macho Man Randy Sackage be snapping into some quarterbacks this Fall.

Then how about that Coach Who Shall Not Be Named 2.0? Dude is  will be getting paid $128,009 a month for the next four years to not coach the Huskers. While a crappy lottery ticket every month sounds like a lot of money, believe it or not he’s actually saving Nebraska $1.4 million thanks to landing on his feet back home in Youngstown.

And finally, we’re thrilled to announce that Haley Archer, aka the Harchinator, is joining Big Red Fury as our first-ever student contributor. Hayley is a Broadcasting student from Minneapolis who made the very wise decision of defecting to Husker Nation. Sorry, Gopher-land. She’s one of us now.

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