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Tomorrow morning, my friend Spencer, my brother Mike and I are heading out on a week-long trip across Canada. Well, at least to Winnipeg.  The original plan was to drive Spencer’s car as far as we could and back within a week. That plan may change, since his car isn’t running quite as smoothly as it once was. It does have a cool paint job, though.

One new option we have is to rent a car from Avis for the week. Apparently they have rental packages with unlimited kilometers throughout North America starting at around $250 for the week. We’ll have to look into this a bit more to see if it’s true and if there are any extra costs or hidden fees.

It would be fun to take Spenny’s car, but might not be so fun to be stranded in the middle of nowhere in northern Ontario with a dead Hyundai. On the other hand, it would be nice to take a newer, reliable car and not have to worry about breakdowns. We’ll weigh the pros and cons of each and make our decision tonight. See ya next week!

Here’s a couple of pics of the sweet ride from the car painting party:

A week before my birthday, I decided I would spend a bit of money on myself and buy an acoustic guitar. I’ve wanted one for a long time, and I figured this would be a good opportunity to finally get one.

I wasn’t too concerned with getting the best guitar money can buy, so I figured I would get a decent guitar in the $250 to $300 range. I checked out a few local stores and saw a few possible guitars that would fit the bill. Then I decided to check out craigslist. My friend Spencer recently bought his electric Tokai from a guy on craigslist, so I decided to have a look and see what I could find.

Right away I found an almost new Yamaha for $200 with a case. It’s the F-310, which retails for about $200-$300 in stores. I contacted the guy, and we arranged to meet at a Starbucks in Toronto. I drove out on a Friday afternoon after work and met the nice guy with the crazy accent. The guitar is in excellent condition and still had that new guitar smell. He said he bought it about three months ago, played it a little bit and then decided guitar wasn’t for him. Now he plays piano. I paid $200 for it, which included a nice hard shell case and a tuner and went on my way.

I’ve had the guitar for about a month now, and I’m very happy with my purchase. The F-310 sounds great, stays in tune really well and is pretty solidly made. It was a great deal and a great first experience with craigslist.

Check it out: