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Archive for the ‘Automotive’ Category
Well, how funny is that? Last year when I was thinking of updating the personalization of my Garmin nuvi and stopped by the Garmin Garage feature, thinking I might change the icon on my automotive GPS systems to my surprise and delight, they were offering a special Halloween Boo Bundle with “scary” characters and even a ghoulish voice to use on your Garmin automotive GPS units to delight your passengers and break up your commute. Our grandsons got a real kick out of watching and listening to this update on our next outing.
Well, this year they have a new character who will gladly ride along with you and give you directions and funny/scary narrative, Dr. Nightmare. To quote the Garmin blog; “Love the voice. Ours has the habit of saying creepy things at the most opportune moments when looking for a house to buy. When we arrived, if the house was no good, he would say ‘Welcome to this dreadful destination.’ A friend was in the back of our car, and as she leaned over to look in the rearview mirror to check her hair, he said ‘Is that a goblin in the rearview mirror?’ She then replied ‘No its me.’ But the most uncanny of them all was just the other day, we were driving slowly through a small town when the vehicle in front of us stopped at the pedestrian crossing. As he did so a cat by the side of the road crossed in front of this vehicle. As we drove off Dr. Nightmare said “Did a cat just cross your path?”! Weird or what?!” We can hardly wait to go pick the boys up and go for a nice country drive.
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Christmastime is the perfect time to show your mom how much you love her and appreciate for everything she has done for you all these years. No one holds that special part of your heart than your mom, and giving just the right Christmas gift is something you have to put a lot of thought into to be sure you give her something special she’ll really like.
These are some of the gift ideas that will make a gift for mom special:
GPS Navigation – Make mom’s trips easier by giving her a portable GPS navigation system. Some automotive GPS systems offer visual and voice directions. Be sure to get a good brand of GPS navigation system. Consider one which has a bigger screen and clear voice. Some of the best brands are Garmin automotive GPS units, DeLorme and Magellan. You might check out our favorite GPS store for some great ideas.
Spa Gift Certificate – Mom certainly deserves a relaxing break from her daily chores. Get her a Spa Day Gift Certificate, and treat her to a pleasant day relaxing in the Spa.
Antique Collectibles – Your mom may enjoy collecting antiques. If she does, then consider giving her a rare antique which she will cherish and add to her collection. Anything which adds to her collection will be good, but why not try a get a rare collectible. eBay will be a good place to bargain hunt or check out your local antique store for personal service and possibly an inexpensive treasure.
Jewelry – What mom wouldn’t like a diamond necklace? You might consider presenting her with a diamond pendant necklace. Some of the design options are hearts, circles, and modern twist shapes.
Gardening Supplies – If your mom loves gardening and enjoys growing her own herbs or flowers at home, a good gardening kit will make her gardening experience a pleasant one, with all tools in one kit. Or perhaps one of those little seats on wheels that hold her gardening tools conveniently for her would be a great idea and save on her knees while she gardens. What garden loving mom wouldn’t appreciate that?
Massage– After a long day, mom will love to have relaxing massage. Also, a massage cushion can be used on a chair or couch and has adjustable settings so mom can choose the level of massage she wants. There are several massage cushion options which you might consider.
After talking to someone recently I got to thinking of an unusual and very rare situation that had never occurred to me before. Because we have raised guide pups in the past through Guiding Eyes for the Blind, six to be exact, I have a special place in my heart for those wonderful noble creatures and the people they love and take care of. Now here is the situation. Imagine someone who suddenly finds themselves in a new environment with their guide dog and no other friend with them to read a map or street signs. How would they find their way around this unfamiliar city with the most independence and in the shortest amount of time?
Well, I had to stop and think of the different versions of automotive GPS units, several of which are small enough to be handy to carry in your pocket, and some of which are voice activated and give directions by speaking also. Magic! Their loyal dog will keep them straight on the sidewalk, guiding them around any obstacles and watching for traffic at crossroads like always, and the automotive GPS navigation will give them the directions they need which they will ask their dog to execute for them. I imagine they would do well to just contact their favorite GPS store for some help in choosing an appropriate GPS device. Now that will really give them independence and freedom. Any other thoughts on that?
Hey, I was just at a party and met some folks who had come quite a distance to be there. It is summer, and with summer comes lots of road work and detours and with that much confusion on unfamiliar roads. I overheard two of the guests who were comparing notes on their automotive GPS systems and their experiences on the trip. As one of them had just gotten her first automotive GPS unit, and this was her first experience it, it was fun to hear her new friend explaining the ins and outs of using their GPS units. The newbie missed a turn, and her unit told her so and suggested that she turn around and make that turn while the second person explained that their GPS navigation system recalculated for her when she was sent on a detour because of road construction. Explanations continued as to the fact that the GPS unit would calculate the fastest route or the most economical. It was just fun to hear people comparing notes and educating each other on the use of their automotive GPS systems. It is also really nice to see strangers find common ground and help each other out along the way. As ever, happy traveling!
Ahhh, the good old days. Reminiscing with an old friend recently about the good times we had when we were young, traveling around the US by car and all the adventures we had back then. Good times, exciting times, living in poverty or nearly so some of the time, but still enjoying life to the max. One of the memories was the challenge of folding the maps. You practically needed a college course to manage to fold a map and actually get it back anywhere near as compact and tidy as it was when you bought it. Then there were the times when you felt like you would be carsick if you were the copilot and trying to read the map, help with the road signs and not block the view of the driver while you were trying to hold the map so that you could actually read it, sometimes even having to pull over and lay that map out on the trunk of the car so that you could pour over it together, trying to figure out the best way to take to get where we were going. Of course, some folks never did master how to read a map. One of those friends and I actually traveled from Virginia to New York one time during which I fell asleep. Rather than wake me or stop for directions, and knowing he did not know how to read the map, he drove for over an hour in the wrong direction while I was asleep! Well, wasn’t that exciting!
Wow, how things have changed. Now there are even automotive GPS units that will talk you through your trip and even plan out the best way to go, even down to helping you avoid the bad traffic, road work or accidents along the way and recalculating for you if you take a wrong turn. Now that is really slick. With lots of features to choose from, budget to fancy options, and much smaller than most of those old maps we used to use, why would I even consider pulling out one of those old maps any more. Perhaps you lose some of the sense of adventure and self reliance we learned so early? Or, maybe not so much…
A common question that you hear is “is there a site that one can go to for a profile to fit a GPS to the person and needs?” Generally you can go to any of the major manufacturers’ web sites and find comparison charts on their models. Most manufacturers have comparison functionality on their web sites that could help determine what to look for. It looks pretty basic, and you may have already determined what you are looking for, now you just need to find the right unit. First you must decide what type of unit are you looking for – automotive GPS systems, motorcycle GPS, marine GPS chartplotter or fishfinder, handheld GPS units? I especially like Garmin’s site for doing comparisons of features. There you can pick your interests (basic handhelds, mapping handhelds or on the side there is a link to geocaching). You can learn a lot from their site, and they have a wonderful comparison feature. This would be a terrific place to start. If you like geocaching there are also sites such as geocaching.com which teach you a lot and are a lot of fun. I generally like helping you find answers to your questions, but at the same time a feature which makes great sense to one person will sound like a waste of time and money to someone else, so you really need to do the final homework yourself to be sure you really find the GPS unit which suits your needs and that you will love for some time to come. I hope this helps to simplify things a little for you.
Every day, we rely a little more on GPS satellites for both work and pleasure. Along with items like your car GPS navigation system, many items in Google Earth (such as ships or real-time air traffic or for emergency position indicating radio beacons – called EPIRBs or PLBs) require GPS to enable us to see their current location.
The U.S. Air Force has launched a new satellite, the first in a series of launches aimed at replacing all 24 existing satellites over the next 10 years. These new satellites offer a variety of enhancements over the existing ones. The most important part of this project is to simply replace them. Numerous reports are concerned that the existing network may begin to fail due to age. This will obviously remedy that.
In addition, these new satellites will provide a stronger, more accurate signal. Rather than the roughly 20 foot accuracy that you currently receive, the new ones will allow for accuracy down to about 3 feet. In addition, the stronger signal will help more GPS units to function properly indoors, which could be a big boost for various augmented reality tools that are beginning to find their way into the marketplace.
It is vacation time, camping time, again. Well, we wanted to find someplace new this year. We went looking for ideas of new campsites, wanted water for play and trails to wander. This is a new place, an out of the way sort of location I have never been before. Well, we packed our bags, packed the car, all piled in and started our trip by plugging in the exact address of the campground into our automotive GPS. A pretty drive and a lunch stop later we ended up in the most beautiful out of the way campground I have seen in ages. Wow, the view from our campsite is spectacular – right on the lake with mountains in the background. How much better can you get! Set up the tent, admittedly always taking longer than planned, and cooked our dinner over the outdoor fireplace. I moved the GPS unit over onto my GPS bike mount and took off on some back roads for an evening ride to discover some of our new area; that was fun. Ahhh, now it is time to rest by the fire. There will be time enough for wandering the trails with our trusty handheld GPS unit tomorrow.
School’s out, the kids are home. I wonder if I can use my GPS unit to get away from the kids and find myself? Well, maybe I should use it to find adventure with the kids, in so doing perhaps to help us find each other? We can grab the handheld GPS device and take off on foot exploring the trails nearby. I like to pack a picnic and head out after work and do just that. Or we could do a day trip and take off exploring in the car using the automotive GPS unit to do that. Actually, now that I think of it I probably really don’t need to leave those kids behind to find myself after all. There are some great spots here in the Adirondacks for hiking and boating or just sightseeing, even to sit beside the lake and read while the kids splash around in the water. See ya later – its a pretty day – time for me to go pack that picnic lunch and get wandering with the kids…
Oh my, we get lots of calls requesting me to make a choice for folks so that they don’t have to decide which GPS unit to buy. Looks good on paper, but how can I know which features might be really useful or totally useless to each individual person. I could just decide which GPS unit I might prefer, but how would that information help a total stranger whose needs and budget may be totally different from mine? I feel like I really disappoint people when I try to point this out, but we are all individuals, which is why there are so many different versions of, for instance, handheld or automotive GPS units out there.
Most of the manufacturers, especially Garmin, have really great interactive websites already where you can choose to compare several units to each other so that at a glance you can sort them out by which features you really want, which ones would only be nice perks and which ones are definitely yes or no features for you. Do you want it to be small and thin with a great battery life so you can carry it with you to find your way back to your car? Do you want lifetime traffic? Bluetooth? You get the idea. Anyway, once you have it narrowed down to possibly one or two favorites, it becomes simple to go back to Google or your favorite GPS store and see which one they have to offer, which types of accessories you will need and for what price they are offered. I just think it totally simplifies your shopping experience. I like simple. After all, I would rather be spending time exploring with my GPS unit than sitting in front of a computer trying to figure out all the pros and cons or entrusting my decision to someone who doesn’t even know me. Well, good luck in your search for the best GPS units for your needs and budget, and I hope this helps.