We drink a lot of diet soda at home. Pretty much the various iterations of Diet Coke. There’s the regular Diet Coke for Dawn on weekend mornings. For me it’s the Lime Diet Coke. And then there’s the caffeine-free for evenings. It’s kinda like the lazy man’s coffee, something a little bitter and sweet in the mornings or after dinner.

So anyway, Coke has this promotion called My Coke Rewards, where products have this code that you type into their website. It’s like totally tracking everything you drink. Creepy and Orwellian, no doubt. But hey, they’ve got swag in return. Each twelve pack of sodas has a code for ten points, and now after twelve-hundred-some points, I cash in for my prize.

It’s your basic 50mm refractor. You could buy it for like $44 or so. But, hey, in my book, it’s free. Cause I drink Coke, man.

I totally have to set it up on the back porch as soon as I get home. It’s pretty cloudy, though. I can only find like three stars out total, I have no idea which though, without other stars for context. I know Mars is out pretty bright these days, so maybe one of them’s that. I haven’t even calibrated the spotter scope with the main objective lens yet, so I can’t even find them anyway. But still, it’s great fun to have a telescope.

Someday maybe when I’m old and retired and we’re living someplace farther away from bright city lights, it’ll be more useful. Or anyway, I’ll take it down to Newnan GA when we go for Thanksgiving this year. Out on the farm in the middle of nowhere, it ought to be of some more use. And when I’m old and retired I’ll probably invest in like a six-inch reflector with an equatorial mount. But, again, for now, this little baby’s fine. And free, remember?