GPS: for the GyPSy in you

It wasn't the fascination with gadgetry that inspired me to buy a GPS receiver  this week. It was partly that I was itching to spend money on something to mark my 67th birthday coming up. It was even more due to my fear of getting lost, as we have many times when driving around Ohio. 

Some cities, like Cincinnati, are impenetrable via ordinary road maps. Even Google maps present difficulty when driving: you have a printout on the seat beside you (or on the lap of the seatmate beside you), and you give it your best shot, trying to squint at directions in a timely manner while blasting down a major highway, or through streets that you've never seen before.

The GPS, on the other hand, talks you through the entire hassle. Signals from four Global Positioning Satellites are constantly providing quadrangulation, so that the little car icon on the well-lit screen moves calmly down magenta avenues, and the voice of your choice warns you that you'll need to turn in a few moments. If you miss a turn, or take one that you like better, she says, "Recalibrating", and after a few seconds, directs you to the next possible route back to your original path.  And these are just the features we've tried so far.

However, there's a learning curve.

I had read the manual, and poked in the address of a Hallowe'en hafla that would be our destination for the evening. In passing, I would note that Google's directions always begin with an instruction to "turn north on ..... Street". This is a horrible way to commence a trip for someone other than a flock of birds, who, it is said, navigate by the position of the sun. By contrast, this GPS tells you which way to turn, and shows you the compass setting as well. Then, I handed the unit over to J.

I have blogged elsewhere about my spouse's ability to control the most complex of home electronics without reading the manual. She does it by experimentation. Hence, when it was time to go, she had seen everything worth seeing on the little box.

We started out fine, although Jill got a workout as we followed our normal route to the Interstate, rather than giving in to her insistence to take a more constricted one. She had probably been asked to give the shortest route, rather than the fastest, which, in traffic terms, can make a huge difference. 

As daylight disappeared, we found ourselves moving into a suburban area of 25 mph streets. When Jill announced that we had reached our destination, it was a dark urban wooded park. We turned into the parking area, and stopped to to reconnoitre. Shortly, a white Park Patrol car pulled up and we rolled down our windows.

"Do you need some help", queried the officer.

"Sure do", I explained. "We have this new GPS, and we're trying to get to ...."

"Oh, well, you'll figure it out", she said.

"I sure hope so", I replied.

"Just turn right at ......... and left at ........... and you'll be back on ........."

(I use dots here because whenever someone gives me directions, I retain them in my head for about 10 seconds, 15 on a good day.)

"Thanks for the help", I said.

"No problem: have a good evening."

I reprogrammed the destination, and ultimately, in spite of a detour around a bridge maintenance site, we arrived, safely, a mere 45 minutes late.

So the mystery remained. How did the destination get changed from the original to another one that bore little relation to reality? We may never know, but perhaps this time the "poke around until you find out" learning style of the partner may have manifested Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. 

The best points:

1. With Jill announcing everything in her accurate-to-20-foot self-assured manner, the coefficient of profanity is approaching zero. 
2. Gone is the nagging at the navigator (disagreements are now directed at a 3-by-5 inch screen). 
3. Directions are always given in a timely and complete fashion, such as by telling the driver what the next turn will be at least a block or two ahead of the need to make it, taking into account the actual speed of the vehicle. 
4. The presence of an accurate compass heading is reassuring. 
5. For the navigationally-challenged, saving a home location means that, like a prairie horse in a blizzard, you will always be able to find your way back.