By Dale M. King
As they used to say back on the farm, I finally went and done it. I have placed one toe into the pool of technology.
Actually, it was my wife’s doing – as many things in my life are. For Christmas, she bought me a Global Positioning System for my car. (The motivation was more than just gift-giving – she was tired of me borrowing her GPS).
Anyway, I tend to drive to some out-of-the-way places, and the GPS is a lot more soothing that a roadmap, a road atlas or even a Google map.
I don’t want to say my GPS is smarter than her GPS, but the map of the main street near our home on her unit shows a street that doesn’t exist.
Dale M. King
Also, hers, in a fit of “recalculating,” once told me to take a right turn – which would have landed me in a canal. These electronic gizmos just can’t handle stress.
So I’ve been maneuvering for the past couple of months with my own GPS. It has some of the same idiosyncrasies that my wife’s GPS has. It has a penchant for pronouncing Hypoluxo as “HE –po-lux-o.” But I can forgive that.
I must admit that cranking up the little gadget was something of a trip. I took it out in the car, plugged it into the power plug and the directions told me to take it outside to a spot where I could hold the GPS over my head and point it toward a clear sky so it could lock its signal onto a satellite. I may have looked like I was performing some arcane ritual, but it has worked fine since then.
I haven’t used the GPS in Boca yet. After nine years of working in this city, I have most of the streets down pat. Still, there are many congested areas that befuddle me. The streets in the north end that are numbered in the 70s were always hard to navigate. So are the neighborhoods between Yamato and Glades.
One bit of caution to those who would acquire a GPS. Don’t leave it in the direct sun. I have packed mine in a case in the center console.
Also, it appears some of them will lead you on a circuitous route to your destination. In these days of nearly $4-a-gallon fuel, a direct route is the most cost-efficient – and necessary.
The GPS really is a wonderful little toy, though. It tells you how fast you are going, the speed limit on the road you are traveling and even the estimated time of arrival.
If someone could find a way to connect the GPS to the cruise control, you could probably take a nap while the car drives itself. But that’s a little too high-tech.
Move your brain an hour forward
It seems the older I get, the more difficult it is to adjust to Daylight Saving Time.
Sunday wasn’t so bad. My wife and I slept until about 10, missing the three earliest Masses of the day.
But Monday was freaky. We awoke about 6:45 a.m. to total darkness. “This can’t be right,” I said, shaking the alarm clock. “It’s still the middle of the night.
But it really wasn’t. Soon, twilight began to break out.
I’m not sure which one I like best – sunlight at 7 p.m. or darkness at 6:45 a.m. Either way, there’s not much I can do about it.