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And by that I mean the NFL Draft. No, while I am excited about the upcoming NFL Draft this weekend, (and praying that the Giants pass on Eli Manning and pick up Gallery or Sean Taylor) I am much more excited about this Monday's coming departure for the "Chris Across America Trip". Alright, I need a better name for this thing. All suggestions are welcome. We have procured many of the things we will need, like bottles of water and Compact Flash to USB adapters, but I still feel that much of this is still wildly unplanned. Part of that's good, but I would feel better if I knew where we were staying in SF and LA. Right now, I'm waiting on some people to get me info on good places to stay in those cities, so there's not much I can do there, but I still feel like I should be doing more. The thought that has crept persistently into my head the past day or two is the prospect of renting a convertible. It looks like it would cost about $900 for the two weeks. That's a ton of money, especially for the unemployed like myself, but I still feel a desire to throw caution into the wind, because I don't think an opportunity like this will come around again. I've been trying to rationalize it, and my latest attempt actually kind of worked. I checked the Kelly Blue Book value on my car, and the value decreases by $400 if I were to put 8,000 miles it, which should be about right for the trip. That means that renting the car would actually only cost me $500 in real money. That's $35/day for sunshine on my face and blue skies all around. I'm getting pretty close to saying yes. And then I just took a look at my check book. Ugh. And then... The stock market went well my way again today, and I'm up another $350 today. That's about ten days of the car. I'm really only paying for four days! I'll have a decision in the next day or two. Until then, I need names for the trip, so please submit them via comments below. The winner gets the satisfaction of being the winner, and isn't that what it's all about? P.S. I brought back my old TiVo from the grave tonight, so I'm in a very "King of the World" mood with my stock luck and technical expertise. Maybe that's what's filling my head with this car talk.