$4 is $4.

I’m just going to say this out loud. I did NOT win the Powerball drawing. I did not win the $1.6 billion prize. Believe me, though, had I won, things surely be different around these parts. 😀

Back in 2011, I blogged about what I would do had I won the then-astronomical $300 million prize in the Mega Millions jackpot. Here’s what I had planned for that money way back in the day.

• I would search every classic car show from Carlisle to Pasadena, until I found a cherry Pontiac 6000.  Preferably one from 1991, although the LTE special edition had a swank digital dashboard… Nope. My days of driving around in a beater with a heater are long gone. Now, if I happened to spot a 1972 Pontiac GTO “The Judge” with cherry apple red paint, mag wheels and four on the floor, then we’re talking. Or a jet-black ’77 Pontiac Trans Am with the T-bar roof and a vintage CB radio, then we’re talking some more.
• I would purchase the Washington Avenue Armory and resurrect the Albany Patroons, and place them either in the D-League or in the PBL.  And Derrick Rowland would coach the team, and the Armory would be packed every night with appreciative basketball fans. Okay, this was 11 years ago, the Patroons came back, and Derrick Rowland coached the team to the TBL championship in 2019, and Will Brown took them to within a whisker of another championship in 2022. The Patroons are safe. Although with $1.6 billion, I could still purchase the team and the Armory … just sayin’ is all…
• I would buy every dilapidated building in the South End, in Arbor Hill and in north Albany and refurbish each property until it looked like a cover model for Architectural Digest – and then I would contact the Albany Housing Authority and offer the keys and the deed to each property to whatever family needed a home and shelter. This is still an option. Yesterday the old Third Precinct Police Station on North Pearl Street fell victim to the State Bird of Albany – the wrecking crane. Ugh.
• I would re-build J.B. Scott’s on as close to its original location; then I would hire U2 as the first concert in the new building. Price might be higher for that now, but I hear U2’s still available if needed.
• I would make a charitable donation to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in Sharon, Pa., to allow them to operate for the rest of the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, the Vocal Group Hall of Fame exists now only online.
• Harriet Gibbons High School would reopen as a fully-funded and independent high school.  And anyone who graduated with a Regents diploma would receive a full scholarship to Hamilton College. You know I still have thoughts about this. My high school, formerly known as Street Academy of Albany, was shut down by narrow-minded navel-gazing knuckle-dragging chisel-brained Albany City School District board members who did the same thing they do with every other opportunity to make our world better – they rubbed it out. Ugh. Yes, I still hold a grudge over this.
• I would purchase the rights to the TV show Firefly and recast it as an anime.  That would be cheaper than trying to extract Nathan Fillion from his role in Castle. You know what? Screw Firefly. The show was nothing more than a plagiarized Cowboy Bebop, and was followed cultishly by Joss Whedon fans who pined for more episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And I already feel creepy by typing Joss Whedon’s name into this blog post.
• I would do a hundred thousand things with $300 million. Yeah, and I would do over a billion different things with $1.6 billion.

But here’s the thing. Even if you DON’T get the big prize, you can still get SOME money from your lottery ticket. Just hitting the powerball alone (which I did) nets you some cash. In my case, I picked up an additional $4.

That’s two diet colas if I add in the nickel deposits.

Yeah, some things never change. Trust me on this.