Waiting for GPS
My GPS navigation system should arrive today. I forewent all birthday and Chanukah gifts from my family in order to build up a fund for the device, a Garmin 2610. It’s a perky little number that sits on your dash and tells you, in a silky voice that forgives all your directional transgressions, how to get from A to B.
I’m not a particularly good driver to begin with, but I spend most of almost every trip trying to envision how the road I’m on links up with the road I’m trying to get to. The rest of the time I’m having mini anxiety attacks, worrying that I’m on the wrong road or in the wrong city. See, I’ve only lived in the same neighborhood for 17 years, so you can understand why going to pick up milk is an adventure that requires road maps, emergency flares and a sextant.
I am just missing some synapses. To me, right and left are like red and black on the roulette table. But two recent incidents really scared me.
A couple of weeks ago, I pulled into a gas station and asked my wife which side of the car the tank is on. (The cars only three years old, so I’m still getting used to it.) My wife, knowing my directional stupidity, said “It’s on your side.” I still pulled in on the wrong side.
Then, yesterday, I said that my son was “up in the basement.” I really thought I had mastered up and down. Fortunately, that smell of burning plastic came from a misguided science experiment.
But my problem isn’t just with basic spatial orientation. I can’t visualize how the parts of my world connect. When driving, I’m constantly surprised that this road leads to that one. To plot how to get somewhere, I have to laboriously piece together scenes of intersections, and often I just can’t do it. I also have no sense of which areas are near other areas.
So, I’m hoping that my new GPS system will let me focus on the important part of driving: Talking on the cell phone.
NOTE: Now would not be a good time to tell me that instead of paying $750 for a Garmin, I could have done the same thing by wrapping copper wire around a $0.59 Boy Scout compass and sticking it into my Palm Pilot. Thank you.
David, most cars these days have a small indicator, near the gas guage, (usually a small triangle) which will point to the side of the car that the tank can be refilled. Try to look for it the next time you rent a car. ;)
(Being a Geography major myself, I love maps and GPS and mapping systems, so I’m all for your new purchase!)
Wow, Gen! And here I thought it was just me!
Thanks for the tip.
“I can’t visualize how the parts of my world connect.”
Many small pieces, loosely.
;-)
David — GPS will really change how you look at things. I don’t know how your Garmin model supports moving data in and out of the unit, but with my handheld unit — which I use for kayaking — I move “waypoints”, that is, coordinates — in and out of the device without having to load whole maps. I can then overlay those waypoints onto a map and print it out. These custom maps with little trails and points of interest of my own are some of my favorite travel keepsakes.
What would be awfully cool is a way to download others’ collections of useful waypoints (diners, artworks, whatever). And fun would be a quick way to load GeoURL blog tags into your car device and see when you were driving by a bloggers’ house!
Dear Sir,
I will like to order for 5 pieces of GPS 12 & GPS 72 Garmine, and i want to know if you have it in stock.
Also, i want to know if you can ship your items to The Gambia.
Kindly tell me the mode of payment and the prices of these items each.
Kindlu contact me if it is avaliable through my email address.
I can *totally* associate with this… I am notorious for my rather lacking sense of direction. Sometimes even reading things from a map doesn’t help; it’s like I have trouble coordinating the top-down, simplified representation depicted on the map with the detailed, first-person perspective I see in real life.
I want to get a really nice GPS device once I have the money… just being able to have the little “YOU ARE HERE” mark on a map is often enough to help orient me. :)
OK—as a Geometry and Spacial Relations teacher, you’re teaching me that I really do need to have more patience with my students…
i need information about gps
Anyone out there own a Navman car gps unit such as an iCN635? Like? Dislike?