Thank you price dumper. House sale money all converted finally after a month and a half voyage from check to bitcoins.
you sold your house and bought bitcoin with the money?
Yep, 230 bitcoins added to my stash.
crazy, are those US prices? where i live houses start at 500k$
Depends on where in US. There are places where you can get a house for 50k, maybe less. Remember seeing some dilapidated mansion-looking place in Detroit for something ridiculous, like 5k.
Pirate gets off with a year and a half, makes BBC news http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36865208 
"A Texan man has been sentenced to 18 months in jail for running a fraudulent Ponzi-style scheme based around the Bitcoin virtual currency."