Jan 24 2009
Do you GPS?
GLOBAL POSITIONING SATELLITE, thats what it stands for, right? Well, that’s one definition, but I’m going to give you a few more.
My huband and I wanted to be part of the “IN” crowd and bought ourselves a GPS, one of the most easy to use ones. The first time we used it, we had to put in our home location. Makes sense, how else would it know where to start from. I put in our location (keep in mind that I live way, way out in the country). The machine scanned, and scanned and scanned, then asked me to resubmit the information. I did, and it scanned, and scanned and finally found us. Now we were all set! We were only going to take a short trip, just to learn how the thing worked. Thankfully, we already knew where we were going, but the machine was having a little trouble with all our country roads, so we decided it was GIVING PITIFUL SERVICE.
We wanted to give it another chance, so we ignored the voice telling us where to turn, until we were out on a major highway, taking a two day road trip. We made it all the way to Memphis - where it was just our luck that there was a lot of road construction. We followed her directions (I named her Gertie the GPS), until we came to a blockade that put us off the main road onto a detour. Gertie was not aware of the detour. She took us around in circles, searching for that elusive left turn she kept demanding. Finally we found our own way back to civilzation because the area was GETTING PRETTY SCARY. But we forgave Gertie, because after all, she’s only a machine.
On one other foray, into the wilderness known as Arkansas, we depended on Gertie to take us to a camp ground hidden in a small town, where we were to meet my sister and brother-in-law for a week of camping. Gertie got us to the town, but she could not locate the campground, sending us in circles until I pulled her plug because I could not stand to hear “Make a left turn at the next available exit” one more time! I decided that the longer she talked, the more “snooty” her voice sounded, like she was tired of telling us idiots where to turn. My brother-in-law had to come and find us and guide us back to the campground.
Now I do feel that the GPS is a fine tool for knowing which exit to take off the interstate highways (provided there is no construction going on), but my own personal definition of a GPS is: GO PURCHASE STREETMAP!
Technology and I do not agree; the old fashioned way is the best for me.
