Hit the lottery, 'cause the baby needs new shoes...

Disconnected topics.  We did hit the lottery.  No, not that Powerball one.  Like many folks, we did buy some lottery tickets.  Got one number, but not the Powerball.  So, return on investment is... nothing.  Much like the stock market the past week or so.

But, the Packers won yesterday.  We sat with Dan to watch the game on TV.  The playoff game will be against... the Cardinals.  Yeah, the Arizona team that handed the Packers their collective asses right after Christmas.  That will be a good game to watch.  "What's that?  It will be here in Phoenix?  Let's get tickets!"

Joan and Dan started scheming on how to get tickets.  "They are going to go within a couple minutes of them going on sale tomorrow..."  Joan said she'd get online as soon as they are made available to the public, noon on Monday.  Then, we found out that, if you have an Arizona address, you can get in the cue to get them at 10:00 am.  I'm guessing Joan was planning on using Steph's address, but by the time she got in, the tickets were gone.  A few minutes later, we got a text from Steph - "We got tickets for the 4 of us!"  Face value, plus all the "convenience fees"... apparently giving Ticketmaster your money is more convenient if you give them more money?  Truth in advertising would list that as "we're sticking it to you even more" fees.

Doesn't matter, we're going to see the Packers try to wreak revenge on the Cardinals on Saturday!  It is going to be a busy weekend.

What about "the shoes for the baby"?  No, Izzy doesn't need shoes, and Stephanie can buy her own damn shoes - and she does.  The "baby" reference here is the grandma car: the silver Malibu I inherited when my Mother passed away.  We leave it here in Phoenix; Dan drives it when they need to go different directions, and we use it when we visit.  It gets to sleep in their garage most of the time.

When we took the car this time, it had a slight vibration in the front end.  I put some air in the tires - no difference.  The past couple days, it got worse.  We looked the tires over closely and didn't see any sign of a bulge... but looking close in the tread on the edge was just a bit of weather checking.

We took the car to our friends at Discount Tire today.  I went in and visited with my new friend Grayson and told him of the vibration... "Dry rot.  Welcome to Arizona."  We went out to look at the tires and he said, "Yep.  That is your vibration problem."  We went back inside to discuss what kind of tires to put on the grandma car.

"What?  How much??"  The price he quoted me was about half the value of the car.

"How long do you want them to last?  This is Arizona; tires will only last 3 or 4 years here."

"Well, let's look at some of those 3-year tires," I said.  He chuckled.

He shot me a better price on the famous Brillanta (or some other made-up Chinese-trying-to-sound-English brand) model.  "Let's do it."

Joan and I walked to the nearby Chick-Fil-A for lunch, and they had the car done when we got back.  Can't beat the service with these guys.  We have a lot of tires with our different conveyances, and Discount Tire has been our go-to place when we need tires.

While at Chick-Fil-A, Joan saw a car go through the drive up and said, "Oh, I really like that!"
I turned to check it out... a white Mini Cooper Paceman.  Well, that is the first we have agreed.  May have to check out one of those.  I'll let 'em know the Malibu has new shoes.  ;-)