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?

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.

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.

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.

(This illustration is NOT to scale but you get the idea.)