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Save your marriage .....Buy a GPS
By Mike in Politcs Plus
April 22, 2008

This past Saturday, my wife and I had the pleasure of revisiting San Antonio after a long absence, because for me this lovely city was difficult to get around, even with a map.  My navigator of 40 years would mumble endlessly as she fidgeted with the map.  Combine my lack of a sense of direction and her not able to read a map, and you have the makings of a very unpleasant trip. This is why we avoided San Antonio, when we needed a big city,instead we opted for Austin or Houston.

 

Two years ago I bought "Microsoft Streets and Trips" packaged with a GPS system for my laptop. I used the system sparingly on our Chicago vacation, because of my laptop's battery constraint.  The GPS got us to the doorstep of our Hotel, but then we put it away, as we relied on city transportation and the L-Train to get us to our destination.

 

On October 2007, we decided that our final vehicle,would have GPS installed.

Since then, we have found our grandsons, remote apartment in Austin and to this day I can’t tell how we got to Hobby Airport ,and back to Victoria ,because we relied solely on the GPS. Saturday's San Antonio trip was a pleasure.  We got to see everything we wanted ,without the stress of being lost.

Comments


  • ErnieCash ErnieCash Report a ViolationReport a Violation
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    Actually, Mike, I'm surprised that *anyone* in S. TX - or at least this "Coastal Bend" area - has any semblance of a "sense of direction.
    Having been transferred to the fine city of Victoria in '98 (It's where they said my paycheck would be arriving. I found it somewhat convenient to be in the vicinity.) I came from spending thirty plus years in central and westen OK. The latter twenty years of that tenure was spent at a job that required my driving nearly every freeway, highway, throughway and cow path in a state and area where 99% of the roads run north and south or east and west like God intended roads to run and you could count reliably on there being a roadway exactly one mile north, south, east or west of the one you were on.
    When I worked in OK directions to work sites were given as "turn North on Hwy XX for 5 miles then turn east on blacktop 2 miles then south into location." I found it somewhat odd at first that when I arrived here, similar directions would state "Take Hwy 59N to FM 447, turn left for 5 miles to CR XX, turn left 5 miles then turn right into location."  Now "back home" in OK those directions would put you right back where you started. Here, by some manipulation of the time/space continuum, it puts you somewhere east of Houston!
    Methinks whoever laid out and named the roads around here was drunk and had a seriously inoperative compass.
    Ernie

    April 23, 2008 at 6:58 p.m.