GPS Stories

A year ago Christmas Jessica gave us a GPS roadmap unit for Christmas. Prior to that I had considered them a luxury/toy. As we played with it, it became apparent that it is a luxury/toy that you quickly learn you can’t live without. When I started my handyman business, it became even more important. It is marvelous to simply enter an address into the GPS unit and drive there. However, Liz wanted to have it at times, too, so I would have to do without during those times, and/or Liz would be frustrated to do without. So last Christmas Clear Sky Handy Men gave me a new (cheap) GPS for Christmas so Liz could have the older one in her car at all times. Life was good.

A few weeks ago, Liz went to a fancy production in Dallas with her brother and when they used valet parking at the restaurant, the GPS in her car went bye, bye. That was sad. Even sadder, my new GPS (the cheap one) just quit working last week. I was actually entering an address and the touch-screen stopped responding to touches. It refused to respond to any input after that. It is under warranty, so I will get it back eventually, but meanwhile I NEED a working GPS. So Clear Sky Handy Men got a new GPS, another cheap one. I was spoiled by the first one, which was an older model Garmin, and my cheap imitation of a Garmin. This new cheap GPS is also a music player and photo viewer, and the menus were designed by someone who already knew where all the hip hop music clubs and concert venues are. At least, it is clear they’d never been lost and needing directions. It was impossible. On top of that, I tried to enter Joe’s address in the Favorites and it refused to accept his road. “Nope! No such road can be out there,” it said. So I took it back and bought a somewhat more expensive Garmin Nuvi 255.

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=13428

What a delight! First thing it did when I plugged it in to my PC was let me download the very latest U.S. highway map (June 2010). Then I downloaded a Jeep icon to show where I am. It will even let me build my own Point of Interest lists if I want to. (I wonder if I could sell a list of all the Home Depot and Lowes stores as a POI file?) I am very happy to be back in the GPS game. Liz is not so happy, but we WILL get my GPS back after warranty repairs.