I have long been a fan of the GPS. My first look at one was when they installed the hand held model in the Coast Guard HH-65A in the later 90's, it made ops & position reports a breeze.
I eventually got one for the car (it was a TomTom) and other than it didn't know where I was when I was home & didn't know where the local roads were it didn't hardly ever get me lost. It was great for finding the interstate when I was away from it in a strange area.
I got rid of it.
I replaced it with a Garmin & that was a good machine! Not only did it know where I was when I was home, it could find a grocery store if I was in a strange town & hitting the "home" button would get me to the interstate no matter how lost I seemed.
The best part was it told me when I was going to arrive.
I worked the 2nd shift so I had a good part of the day to goof off if I wanted to. With the gps set to 'work' I could leave early and do things, the machine would tell me when I was going to arrive at my destination. I could goof off until I had to be there.
That was great!
It also helped me to feel 'better', back then I drove an '84 VW camper all the time. On a bad day (on my way to work) I could hit "Key West" in the gps memory and put Jimmy Buffet on the CD player, I was self contained and had the directions to "paradise" in front of me. I'd smile and take my exit to work (it was on the way to Florida) feeling better just because the option was there.
The other day I tried to do this very mood alternator ... I could not find Jimmy Buffet in the car & my new GPS wouldn't display the time/distance.
Something more to work on...
MARGARITAVILLE - Jimmy Buffett, Glenn Frey 1977 Aspen High School
I got two GPS units. One will fit in my shirt pocket and is great for hiking. It will draw a line on the map where ever I walked and therefore, could find my way back. I also used it in the vehicle. Once when I passed an elevation marker I noticed that it read about five feet higher than what the sign read. Then I realized that where it was mounted on my dashboard was about five feet higher than the road.
ReplyDeleteMy Garmin will run for a few hours on it's battery, I used it once on my bike looking for a geocache. If I start doing serious hiking again I will think about one made for it, I'm sold on the technology.
ReplyDeleteI need to figure out how to make the one on my phone find where I left my car when I go to a big flea market!