Value City

Toward the end of this past Spring or early Summer I started running low on ammo (read golf balls).  Seeing as how I never bought them before and having moved to a new area far away from my normal connected supplier I had no idea how much money was too much for a decent ball.  No way I'm buying the best because, well, I'm just not that good.  So I turned to UF.  "Free" was his first answer, citing something Grandpa Joe had said in life though at the moment I can't remember because it's late and I'd like to continue my rambling.  So, I took to eBay, being the semi-CB that I am, and scored 72 almost-pristine-or-better Pinnacles for $45 shipped I believe.  Not too shabby.  My golf bag increased in weight dramatically and I should be good through next year with that count especially if I keep find the number I do.  Our condo is on Hole #4's fairway at the end of the long range guys.

I call stuff like this, "Value City".  And you thought I was going to talk about the store...

Recently I received a letter from American Airlines stating my miles with them were due to expire but that I could use them to get a few magazine subscriptions.  I won't go in to my thoughts on American Airlines nor the company they recently merged with (or were bought by...both are horrible and the latter doesn't even get name status in my book).  The last time I flew American was on a borked trip to Boston for a lacrosse tournament.  Connecting through LaGuardia on their new partner airline in a different terminal doesn't work so well when your inbound flight is late arriving and departing and you can't get to your connecting terminal without hopping a shuttle outside of security. That was two years ago.  I have not flown them since.  Prior to that I had only flown them once or twice in the preceding four or five years.  Suffice to say there weren't many miles to speak of.  Getting the dollar value of them wasn't even worth it.  But I had enough to entitle me to a one-year subscription to a handful of magazines I would hardly ever read, or one magazine and a year of the Wall Street Journal (plus online edition).  Can't argue with that.

I lost the letter.

I did not, however, lose sleep over the lost letter.  The miles were nothing to cry about.  Too much effort had gone into earning them.

Two or three weeks passed before I, again, received another letter basically stating, "It's now or never".  Who can argue with that?  I made my selections and mailed it back.  The Wall Street Journal plus online edition and maybe two others I can't remember.  Today I got the electronic confirmation and all applicable information to set up my online access to the WSJ.  It was like being a kid in a candy store having access to all these articles that were forever behind a paywall prior to this day.  All the super interesting ones that are buried, the ones that Drudge links to...I CAN READ THEM ALL.

I don't know if it is one of the signs of being an adult, getting excited about reading the WSJ, or having frequent flyer accounts with horrible airlines and getting everything I can out of their benefits even if I never fly them.  I don't really know how much junk mail I've now subjected my our mailbox to by signing up for these subscriptions or how often I'll receive the "Your subscription will end in..." notices and they'll be sorry to see them go.  But I do know that for the next year I'll get the paper without giving out my credit card number and a couple of magazines that will be travel reading when I'm on the road.

I call it value city.