• Blue Notes

Monday, June 29, 2009

My Little GPS

posted by Rick Blue at 8h23

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"Sheila"

Driving home from Sudbury last week we decided to have some fun with my Global Positioning System, or GPS. We found a function that would change the voice. We could pick an English, American or even an Australian voice. So we picked the Aussie and called her Sheila.

It was fun listening to her directions. It was like having a new girlfriend.

But like all foreigners she didn’t really know how to pronounce all our locations. So as we got close to home she said: “Leave highway forty at exit forty one and drive to Sweet Auntie Bellevue.”

Try to imagine this with an Australian accent. 

For those of you behind the cutting edge a GPS is a receiver of satellite information that will tell you where you are at all times. It will display your location on a map. It will tell you how to reach your destination. It talks to you so that you can receive this information as you are driving. It can be an absolute life saver in the dark, where the confusion of not knowing where you are can be downright dangerous.

And imagine, instead of unfolding enormous maps, squinting in vain at hard to read road signs and yelling profanities at your loved ones, you can simply type an address into a small box before you leave home and follow spoken instructions right up to the door of where you want to go.

It’s especially handy for finding weird and exotic places where you have never been before and probably will never go again, like Repentigny.

The time and stress it has saved me in the past few years is phenomenal. I have driven all over Alberta, going straight to a venue or a hotel with ease. And if you get lost in Alberta, it’s fifty miles to the next house.

I have used it all over Southern California with my mother, seeking out hard to find vineyards and tucked away resorts. It took me to Frank Sinatra’s gravesite. Every time it spoke my ninety year old mother shook her head in wonder and said: “That’s amazing.”

But owning a GPS is not without its drawbacks.

I had always taken one as an option with my car rental, but I knew I would eventually have to get one of my own. So last Christmas, Santa Claus (or as we know him at our house: Amazon.ca) was kind enough to give me one. I stuck it on the inside of my windshield.

Bad move.

Last April, at eleven o’clock in the morning, while parked on a quiet street in Westmount, my passenger window was smashed and the unit was stolen. And thanks to the efficiency of my cold blooded insurance company my deductibles cunningly covered most of the loss.

So when you get one (and notice I say “when” because I know that eventually we will all use them) remember this: take it into the house with you or at least keep it out of site while you are away from your car.

They are so handy. You know when you are driving down the 401 and you don’t know where to stop for gas or food? This little baby will display all the locations carefully hidden by the highway planners who thought that motorists only wanted to see the beauty of nature as they tooled down the road.

Do you understand the logic of that? As a motorist I want to know exactly which services are available to me as I pass each town. I could be running out of gas. I could desperately need to pee. And the service providers want me to know what they sell. I suppose the powers that be think advertising signs are ugly. So for years I drove the 401 always thinking I was in the middle of nowhere. But now, thanks to my GPS, I know I am passing world class centres of commerce like Gananoque.

Having a GPS is like having a spouse sitting next to you at all times. But a spouse who actually knows what they are talking about. And when you disobey the unit for some reason, like leaving the highway to get gas or taking another route to your destination because you know it, the GPS doesn’t get mad and have a hissy fit. It merely sighs and says: “Recalculating”.

Now if only they could invent a GPS to help us find the meaning of life.