1. BobRussell Says:
   April 28th, 2008 at 9:09 pm

   So hard to pick just one story, but here’s the funniest one I can think of…

   I was at a conference with a co-worker years ago, when they first started to put GPS navigation devices in cars. Well, he got a car with GPS in it, and it was a great novelty. He didn’t know the city, and he wanted something from the grocery store. As any true geek would do, he requested a grocery store from the device. It found the nearest store and so he followed all the directions as it spoke them aloud to him.

   After a bit of driving he finally made the final turn, and slowed down as he came to the end of the road. The device’s female voice gently, but firmly, said “You have arrived at your destination.” Hmmmm.

   He didn’t see anything but the end of the road, so he got out of the car and took a few steps forward. It was then that he could see he was at the edge of a cliff. When he leaned forward, he realized that there was indeed a grocery store… at the bottom of that cliff. He could have almost thrown a stone into the parking lot far below, but he sure couldn’t pull up to the door from where he was!

   Nope - technology sure isn’t perfect!

2. paschott Says:
   April 28th, 2008 at 10:06 pm

   Well, the best one I can think of was when I was on a last-minute business-trip to the Northeast. We were scheduled to fly out to New York, run down to Princeton, NJ, then over to Pennsylvania. We got to our destination in NY and were asked if we wanted to try the brand new Hertz Neverlost system. We figured that it would help us out as we really didn’t know the area so we got it. It worked great - as long as we stayed on major highways. We turned off to head to Princeton and slowly watched the roads disappear only to be replaced by a lots of black. Even at the most zoomed out display, we couldn’t see I-95 (or anything else) from Princeton. We finally finished up in Princeton and moved on to Pennsylvania. We knew exactly what direction we were heading because the compass worked great. Eventually (like after 30-40 minutes) the roads started to re-appear as we moved towards the highway. We figured that at least we’d get some use when we crossed into Pennsylvania where the streets were bound to be more confusing.

   We drove down I-95 and slowly approached Pennsylvania. We could tell because the border of NJ and PA was marked by a complete void for Pennsylvania. At that point, we laughed, renamed the system to Everlost, and just used the handy compass feature for the rest of our trip.

   For those not really familiar with the NorthEast, it wouldn’t take too much to load a good portion of maps into any reasonable GPS system and including a piece of the surrounding states would be a really good idea because they’re so close together. It’s quite easy to drive between 3 or more states in a day in some places.

   We were frustrated that Hertz wouldn’t load up enough to actually be useful in the area, but quite amused watching the areas we actually cared about turning into a vast void. Even more fun was pointing out to our clients that we were right “there” on the screen.

   Personally, I’m glad that GPS and the accompanying maps have come a long way since then. They’re not perfect, but they’re a whole lot better than my first experience.

3. jhoban Says:
   April 28th, 2008 at 10:49 pm

   They never explained one important concept with GPS units, the time it takes to aquire satelites. I am a little dated with my GPS, I have a pocket pc with a GPS attachment called the co-pilot. I got a little tired of using the online maps while traveling and having my wife as a navigator was just a little too stressful. A few years back I purchased a pocket pc with a co-pilot jacket and went on vacation with my new toy. At that time GPS units sometimes took a few minutes to get a “fix” on the location. We landed in San Jose and stayed at a hotel not too far from the airport. As soon as I got into the rental car, I fired up the GPS unit and waited for it to “fix” itself on satelites. I continued to wait and wait and wait. After 15 minutes of looking like an idiot waiting for the GPS to locate me on a map it finally got a fix on my location. It turns out I was only 5 minutes away from the hotel. My GPS unit only took 15 minutes to tell me my hotel was less than 5 minutes away.

4. geocacher1 Says:
   April 28th, 2008 at 10:54 pm

   I use a bluetooth GPSr and an Axim X51V for geocaching. I was on a slope well in the bush last fall and was having issues getting a good signal so I had the GPSr sitting on the unit while I went through the bush. My glasses got caught in a bush and the GPSr dropped at my feet. I got my glasses free and looked down and the GPSr had disappeared in the leaves. I panicked a bit as I was a few miles into the bush (I did have a compass and knew the general direction to get back to the car but it was getting late in the day) An hour later and 20 feet down the hill (after dropping several rocks to try re-enact the drop) and having swept the slope clear of leaves I finally found it. The worst part was trying to get my wife to quit laughing when I explained why I was late getting home.
   So she would appreciate it if I had everything in one unit (and so would I).

5. ChessieCat Says:
   April 28th, 2008 at 11:10 pm

   I had a flight from LaGuardia Airport to Syracuse, NY and I had to return my rental car. I kept driving around in circles in the big loop where all of the rental car places were. I kept passing the one I needed to get to. I could see it just after I passed the entrance road every time! I was getting so frustrated. It was also getting close to my departure time. After about the 10th time around I finally looked on the other side of the road and saw the sign (why would they put a sign on the left side of the road when everything is on the right???).

   So I RAN into the airport and checked in with my carry on, then RAN to the gate. The attendant said the plane just pulled away. So what could I do, I started to cry. I was covered with sweat and she must have felt sorry for me. She called on her walkie talkie and got them to hold the plane for me. It wasn’t very far away from the gate yet so they gave me a ride in one of their trucks. I tried not to look at the other people on the plane when I got on. Now that was embarrassing. This was a very negative experience.

6. Dave P Says:
   April 29th, 2008 at 9:50 am

   Somehow I’ve managed to live my life without GPS but with my complete lack of directional sense, it’s been a struggle at times. It’s one thing to turn north instead of south in a city because you realize you’re an idiot in a few blocks. In the open country, it’s another story.

   My worst foul-up was when I flew into Orlando to visit my parents in Winter Haven. Essentially you just have to get out of the airport and turn west.I turned east. In my defense, if all the roads were straight and they met a right angles, west would have been a left turn. Should have been a left turn. However, after several overpasses and underpasses and loop-de-loops obviously constructed for no reason other than to befuddle me, I turned left. Bad move.

   It was night, it was raining, and I hadn’t been down to see them for a year so the fact that I didn’t recognize anything was to be expected. Besides, in central Florida it’s pretty empty for long stretches and there’s not that much to recognize. After about an hour I should have been getting near their set of towns but I didn’t see any signs. Still, I wasn’t going as fast as usual because of the rain so I kept on. Then a sign finally loomed up on the right - the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral was just ahead. I had traveled all the way to the Atlantic.

   I’d say live and learn but I have a hard enough time with the living part, I just don’t have time for the learning. In lieu of a transporter beam, a GPS would really help me out.

7. ravipkumar Says:
   April 29th, 2008 at 12:11 pm

   I write down directions on a post-it and stick it to the GPS display. Never lost

   Ravi.

8. thehotrod Says:
   April 29th, 2008 at 3:21 pm

   My most humorous lack of gps story goes like this…. Several years ago, my wife and I were just graduating from college and traveling to the ‘big city’ of Kansas City for interviews. We had never been to KC before and the biggest town we had ever driven in only had about 300,000 people…so KC was pretty big to us. Anyway, we were staying on the southern edge of town on a Saturday and we wanted to drive down-town to see the big-city lights. So I whipped out a map and saw that there was this nice Highway 71 that went basically from our hotel to downtown. Sweet! It couldn’t be any easier.

   That evening we jumped in our out-of-state sedan and proceeded down the highway. After some distance the highway basically stopped being a highway and turned to a street. And if you are familiar with KC, at the time Highway 71 turned into Prospect Ave. (Which is a pretty rough area of town, especially on Friday and Saturday nights). So here we are, a couple of country bumpkins lost and scared in some of the roughest neighborhoods of KC. I felt like Clark Griswold when he got his family lost in East St. Louis. “Look at all this blight, kids…..Roll’em up!”

   We survived. And I have since bought TomTom for my Treo. But I’m fairly positive, even if I had TomTom back then, it still would have routed me down Highway 71. That’s the only problem I have with GPS units….they are only as good as the map data. And since it is labeled as Highway, it would have probably routed me down that route. Even with GPS you really need to have some idea where you are going and how you want to get there.

   Thanks for the opportunity to win.

9. macattack Says:
   April 30th, 2008 at 9:39 pm

   Thanks for a shot at your X800, Christopher.

   I love the benefits of GPS in conjunction with Microsoft Live Search. I love not only getting directions to or from almost anyplace, but finding the Starbucks nearest to my current location. GPS has been a great benefit when I’ve been by myself, looking for something new, but it has been a problem when I’ve used it driving around with my wife.

   She’s always been my trusty navigator, and she’s always gotten us where we’re going. I think she might be jealous of my new-found navigational aid. This past weekend we were driving our boys to a dog breeder’s home to see what will be our new family dog in about four weeks. We had been there before, but we used directions emailed by the breeder. This time I wanted to use my new “toy.” The GPS got us there just fine, but it took us a different way than our previous trip. All the way, my wife was kibitzing. “The breeder said that GPS will only take us down a dead-end road.” “This can’t be right.” “If it gets us there, its got to be a longer way.” “I liked the other way better.” “The other way was more direct.”

   On the way back, we returned to the interstate the way she remembered, and she had to admit that perhaps the GPS route probably wasn’t any longer, just different. I plan on letting her control the GPS and direct me herself, hoping that she can settle into the new role of my “GPS Navigator.”

10. geear Says:
    May 1st, 2008 at 10:18 am

    Here it goes! A little adventure from a few years ago while in Germany. Thanks for this opportunity!

    ——

    Several years ago I was traveling with my brother in Frankfurt Germany. Our hotel was in a small town a relatively short train ride outside of Frankfurt, but there was nothing of real interest in this town so we were heading into Frankfurt on most days to explore the city. On one of these days we spent most of our time just wandering aimlessly through the city, before ultimately meeting up with a friend who was just arriving that day. After picking him up at the airport and giving him a brief tour of the city we begin making our way back to our hotel before it got too late, as the trains would run less and less frequently later into the night.

    We reached the main station shortly before the train departed and managed to get aboard with a few minutes to spare. We were feeling good and rather (overly, as we were soon to discover!) confident in our ability to navigate what was to us a very foreign public transport system, having come from Colorado and Wyoming. The announcement came on that we were approaching our station so we moved to the door and prepared to jump out. The train stopped, we pressed the door button and… nothing happened. We hurriedly took turns pressing the button with various levels of firmness, durations and frequency as the few seconds we had ticked away. Nothing happened. As the train alarms sounded announcing the impending departure from the station we finally glanced out the very large window of the door and realized that rather than a platform there were only the tracks for the train running towards Frankfurt. We instantly dove across the train to the opposing door… but alas it was too late and the train began moving again.

    After what seemed to be only a few minutes it stopped at the next station. We got off the train as quickly as possible; refusing to be distracted by such details as the chances of a return train stopping at what we quickly discovered was a practically non-existent town. It was about 1AM now, and the next return train that would be stopping at that station was at least an hour out. Well, we were only on the train for a few minutes after passing our station, surely it can’t take that long to walk, or so our non-public-transport oriented minds reasoned!

    You can’t walk along the tracks there; it’s in the countryside and the roads don’t necessarily follow anywhere near the tracks and they don’t take kindly to you walking on the tracks (yeah, I’ve tried! And if you value your life you won’t!). In addition our friend had a fair sized roll around suitcase and hauling that through the dirt was not going to work.

    But I did have a PDA running Pocket Maps from Microsoft with an external GPS. After a very slow position lock we began the journey of making our way along small back-roads back to our hotel, in the processing passing through perhaps a half dozen small towns. We traded off pulling the suitcase, which made a frightful amount of noise in the otherwise very quiet and peaceful late night of the Germany countryside and small towns, the blue torch light of the PDA going before us. We finally arrived at our hotel nearly 3 hours later, tired but happy; it was a beautiful night, the air was fresh, and the stars were out in force. I can hardly complain about a mistake that created that opportunity!

11. Mike Says:
    May 3rd, 2008 at 11:29 am

    It was a dark and stormy night. Actually it was a beautiful day. About a year ago we decided to take a family vacation to St. Louis, my wife and I, my daughters Mallory, Kyla, her husband Bert and our year old grandson Trevor. Now I have driven to Florida, Texas, Colorado, and many other places without any problems and with a paper map. Then comes that short trip across the state of Missouri.

    To begin with a few months prior I got my Asus R2Hv, I have never had or used any GPS before so I though this would be great. I used Streets & Trips to plan my route and all the places we wanted to go starting with our room.

    The start was easy take I-70 and head East. When we got about half way across Missouri I though I would give the GPS a try with my youngest daughter Mallory (15) as my co-pilot and my oldest daughter Kyla and her family following in her car. Mallory did a great job letting me know the upcoming turns and it lead us right to our room. Wow this worked great. It was getting late but everyone wanted to go to Hard Rock Cafe so off we go with the R2H leading the way. Again with Mallory watching the screen, once again made a successful journey. After an “OK” and expensive meal we decided it was time to head back to the room.

    We need to hit the brakes for a moment, like a flashback on “How I Met your Mother” we need to backup a couple of days. On Thursday Mallory said she had a bug bite on her leg that wouldn’t stop itching, by Friday morning we were at the emergency room the bite was the size of a pancake. Turns out she was bit by a black widow spider, she got a shot and some medication and was ready for St. Louis.

    Back to the story:
    With Mallory not feeling so well as a rash was coming on my wife Tammy rode up front with me. It was then that I learned a valuable lesson about Streets and Trips 2007. As we headed out my wife read the map but not with the advance notice Mallory had given me.

    I was in the wrong lane and missed a turn and the nightmare began. With no exit in site to turn around I kept driving as my wife watched the little red arrow getting farther away from our destination and the not so sexy voice repeating like a bad Rap song OFF Route! OFF Route! This is when I found out that Streets and Trips 2007 won’t re-route to get you back on track. Mistake #2: I placed all of the attractions we wanted to see on the same map. The problem when I crossed one of those paths it would say “back on route” but that’s not where I want to go! Cross a path while on a over pass your on route and then off. I pull over to check the map myself only to watch it drift off to hibernation, battery dead. Well here we are on the side of the road with a dead GPS and no paper map.

    I called Kyla in the car behind me and told her I was going to drive until I could find a place to get directions or a map. As time past and several wrong exits later we saw a sign that told us exactly where we were “Welcome to Illinois” aarrgggg!!!!! Now it’s about one in the morning and we found a truck stop to get a map and directions. Now we did stop for directions before the R2H went dead but showing a teenage clerk the map on my UMPC was not good. The Wow factor took over and the help was minimal.

    To finish this story we finally made it back to our room somewhere between 2-3 am. I helped get everyone to their rooms and went to ours. then came a knock on the door. It was my Son-in-law with beer, no doubt about it he is a very patient person. Knowing my frustration with myself he came over just to assure me it was no big deal. when I asked him where he got the beer: Illinois.

    The rest of the trip wasn’t bad, I did use the R2H again. As for Spider Girl she woke up with a rash over most of her body Saturday morning. It turns out she was allergic to the medication that was suppose to treat her allergic reaction to the spider bite. I called the Doc. he said give he a double dose of Benadryl which put her in lala land for the rest of the weekend. We made to most of the sites they wanted to see but skipped Six Flags.

    We made it home, it took about a week for Mallory’s spider bite to heal. Some nice person in St. Louis stole my credit card info and try to buy tickets on British Airways and a membership to a body building club. For Christmas I got Bert a TomTom. Next family vacation BertBert can bring TomTom, I’ll rent a van sit in the back with my wife and entertain the grandson. Someday I need to have my daughters write their version to the story. I’m sure it would be more entertaining.

    I uploaded some photos you can view http://picasaweb.google.com/ML.....isVacation

12. bsugarman Says:
    May 5th, 2008 at 11:36 pm

    My story is short and sweet. I used to run Tom Tom Navigator on my Treo 700W. I had downloaded the English Cabbie voice. My kids nicknamed the voice “Rooney” after the Manchester United player. He became a member of the family with everyone wanting to know where Rooney wanted to go.

    Well, I traded up to a Blackjack II and began using the TeleNav service. Unfortunately, there’s no voice choice here– just a generic woman’s voice. My 4 year-old decided that this was Rooney’s wife. So, Telenav is now known as “Rooney’s wife” and she’s the new virtual member of our family.

13. n0iz3 Says:
    May 6th, 2008 at 3:20 am

    Well.. it happened last summer.
    I was at the seaside enjoying the holiday with a few friends and on a Saturday morning we were supposed to also attend a meeting that took place in a major city 20 km away of the resort we were in. The meeting was at 9 AM.
    We woke up at about 7.30 AM, had breakfast, put our suits on and got in the car at about 8.30 AM. So far so good.
    None of us knew the city very well, so we have put all our hopes in the GPS unit. The thing is that we didn`t have a GPS with us in the first place, so the morning before i asked my uncle to send me one through a bus driver. I had to wake up at 5.30 AM and meet the driver to get the GPS. Anyway, everything worked like a charm, i tested it on the way back to the warm bed. The unit he sent me was a Mio P550 with all maps and updates loaded. I couldn`t worry about not finding the meeting place the next morning.
    So, as we were travelling towards the city, none of us paid much attention to the GPS, as we knew the way. After getting to the city and reaching the first traffic light, i look at the GPS waiting for some directions and i realize there is no connection. At that moment everybody stopped talking. I pulled over the car and started pushing buttons. Nothing happened, it just didn`t want to connect to the satellite. It was already getting late, so i thought i just use the map on the device without any guiding. I found the street we were looking for and headed away.
    So i went ahead on the boulevard looking for a left turn as it was shown on the map. You can imagine our surprise when we reached the city exit and the street was nowhere to be found. It was already 9.20 AM, and we were already late.
    Then it hit me: the only thing i didn`t realize before was that i was holding the map upside down. So as we were looking for the street in the other part of the city, it was just a few hundred meters away from the city exit we used to get to the city in the first place, so we had just travelled through all the city for nothing, when the meeting place was all the way back.
    After that i found out from my uncle that the Mio he sent me has ’some small issues’ in connecting to the satellite, ‘but nothing serious’. For him living in a small town where he doesn`t need to use it maybe

    So this is what happens when you use a GPS unit with no GPS.
    I know i`m not eligible for the competition, as much as i`d like an E-Ten, but i`m living across the Globe, just thought of sharing this with you

14. flea Says:
    May 7th, 2008 at 2:44 am

    Hi everybody.. so my story is a little bit different
    I don’t have a GPS because I’m from Slovakia and I can’t really buy it - poor student haha
    So I was just looking around for any GPS solutions and devices cause it’s my study here and I found your website and your post here.. and I know this contest is for US, Alaska and Hawaii only but you never know so I give it a try.. (I’ll pay for a shipping hihi)

    So my GPS didn’t find any way out for me (cause I don’t have any yet), but my way that I was trying to find something about GPS, maybe found my new way to my new GPS

    thank you guys

    Slavo, Slovakia

15. NX1 Says:
    May 7th, 2008 at 10:13 pm

    I’m probably one of the worst people when it comes to directions. I really have no sense of direction. And can’t remember a street name to save my life. I pretty much learn one route and go that way everytime. Normally it’s a longer route to my destination. The reason being when I get lost I really get lost. Now on one trip a friend and me went to Chicago from Grand Rapids. I printed out maps using mapquest and yahoo maps. And thought we would be good to go. We were doing okay for awhile. Making all the way to Chicago. But once we got there the traffic was really congested and we missed the exit. I kept on driving. But the more we were looking for where we were going to the worst we were lost. I flagged down other cars and they rolled down their windows and I asked for directions. Of course they didn’t know the street we were going to. And it’s hard to get directions in moving vehicles. We stopped and asked this local guy. He told me a bunch of directions but I think he was just saying a bunch of stuff and not really telling us where to go. He also asked us if we had any change lol. So we drove on. But honestly we were driving in circles. 2 hrs later we were still lost. We ended up in downtime Chicago when we were not supposed to be. Luckily we found this police car and parked right next to it. And ask the cop for directions. The thing was were actually only a couple of blocks away. He just told us to get back on the highway and take the first exit and the street should come up. And that’s what happened. This was probably the worst I have got lost. But I have to say I have got lost many times. Sometimes I can’t even find the destination and have to go back. And call someone to tell me how to get there.

    Then I kept on hearing about GPS systems. And really thought it would benefit my family and me. So one day I looked on Ebay. At the time I really didn’t know much about GPS systems. Only those Tom Tom commercials. So I went online and researched. Based on the information I found on the net. I narrowed it down to Tom Tom or a Garmin unit. And finally decided on the Garmin 350. The Garmin units are really simple to use for the newbie. And I know friends who purchased other companies GPS systems and have a tough time navigating the interface. Garmin on the other hand is very simple. My first real test was using the Garmin when driving back to Chicago. This time the Garmin unit gave perfect directions and if we went of course it would recalculate on the fly and give us street address when to turn. Also found the Garmin great for finding gas stations and restaurants.

    My experience with my Garmin has been so great that I recommended my relatives to get one. And two of them got one last Christmas when there were some good deals on GPS units. Also my two brothers carry around Blackberry’s with GPS navigation and while both are much better drivers then me they both say that GPS benefits them whether it’s finding a nearby gas station or going on a trip to an unknown destination.

16. wyssaj01 Says:
    May 8th, 2008 at 11:32 am

    I don’t have a GPS device yet but the one time I really could have used one was this past fall. I attend Indiana-Purdue University Fort Wayne and my girlfriend is on the same campus BUT she is in Indianapolis which is a considerable drive. Getting to her dorm building is never a problem as the one way streets flow just right with the major roads and the 2 ways that I can get there without a problem. Getting back is always a considerable challenge however. I borrowed my dad’s AT&T Tilt one time so I could use TomTom to get back without any issues like usual. Normally what I do is call her every time I need the next few steps in the directions and I usually still screw it up. Well, I have the Tilt out and I tell it to take me home, and it gives me a route I have never taken before but I figure, hey, its a GPS device, it knows exactly where I am and exactly where I am going and once I get back onto I-69 I’ll be ok anyway. Well, it takes me around I-465 and some other really weird path I don’t even remember anymore but it was a giant PITA and I still managed to screw it up. So I think having my own GPS device would be pretty beneficial, especially if it was free AND SiRF-III based. So Gear Diary, if you could hook me up, that would be great!

17. MaGNuM Says:
    May 8th, 2008 at 10:36 pm

    Here’s my story : )

    It was around year 2004 in midsummer, four years after my family moved to the United States of America. My family spent a lot of time trying to be adept in American style of life and time really did fly by us during that time. All I can remember is that my parents were busy looking for a stable job while I and my sister were trying very hard to learn to speak proper English. Fortunately I had an Axim X5 from Dell at the time which was my companion during that hard time. I kept my notes, schedules and electronic books in there which helped me a lot quite frequently.

    Back in 2004 it was a HUGE deal for me and my family to go out without someone to guide us around. And also my family was really afraid of all people in the US due to the many rumors that circulated every once in a while. Such as, ‘if you do something wrong to other person, they will sue you to strip away your money’ or, ‘every citizen can purchase a gun, so better watch out wherever you go’ and finally something like this, ‘they act nice in front, but they will backstab you as soon as you turn around’. Right now, I am familiar enough to know that it isn’t true, but my family was so naïve back then that they never had any doubt about it.

    I guess my dad was sick and tired of living a life of an invisible people, decides to take a trip to a local restaurant without receiving any help from anyone outside of a family. And I, being the oldest son in the house, had to plan out the trip. I was still fearful of making contact with other people so I used everything I had to avoid contact at all, I used my computer to print out directions from three websites, a picture of restaurant and a GPS unit attached to my Axim X5 as a added backup. Well, on this trip nothing fascinating happened. Everything worked out as planned so flawlessly that everyone was eager to take another trip, maybe a long and exciting one.

    Guess what happened next? A week later, another trip was planned. This time it’s not a local restaurant that takes at most 30 min to reach. This time, our goal was to take a trip to the Niagara Fall, which would take about 7 hours according to the MapQuest. Planning didn’t take long, this time one day of planning and preparing was enough. I made a plan on my Axim X5 with CF GPS attached to it, my dad double checked the family van, my mom packed a extra large lunch basket and my little sister was all over the house, very excited.

    We left the home around 8:00AM armed with Axim X5 with GPS unit attached to it and Axim X5 sitting on a car mount, it almost seemed everything is going to be just fine. First two hours of driving was just as planned. When my Axim X5 prompts for a turn, I looked at the screen and let my dad know where to turn since the direction for the turn can be very confusing and inaccurate. About an hour after, somewhere in the local street my Axim X5 notified me of a problem, a low battery. I quickly checked to see if everything was plugged in correctly, 12 volt outlet to the car mount and then to my Axim. Green light on the car mount that indicates a power was dim. There must be a problem with a power supply cable, and I remembered at the same time that before my cousin gave me this car mount, he said something about bad power connector, and I regret I did not pay much attention to it. Everything looked grim to me, my family was about to get lost in nowhere.

    So far my dad and I were only ones that knew about this problem, since my mom and my sister were sleeping in the back seat. First, I tried to slice the broken cable and connecting them, which resulted in worse-than-before connector that still does no good. Second thing that came through my mind was a RadioShack. Luckily, I remembered my cousin used to talk about RadioShack and how he can get electronic parts from there, so I thought finding it would be my best shot. But the problem was I had no clue where to find RadioShack, we had to ask local for its whereabouts. We cruised down the local street around 15 miles per hour looking for someone who look nice enough to give us some directions. Not many people looked happy except for the middle aged couple with bottles in their hand. So I got off the car with my mom and I attempted to talk to them. But then, I realized that they were drunk and speaking total gibberish to me. So I thought ‘hey, what do I got to lose?’ and tried my best to explain RadioShack to them. It must have been a rare scene, a drunken couple and broken-English-speaking kid was talking gibberish at each other, with a serious face on them.

    It must have been magic, somehow they understood what I was trying to say and gave us a direction, ‘Past three lights, turn left, go past one light and turn right’. Thank God they gave me the right direction, we found RadioShack and they had a non-soldering power connector that was just right size. I think I seen a divine aura of light surrounding that connector at that time.

    Meanwhile, my mom and my sister were still asleep, they love sleeping, unaware of what was going on. On the other hand, my dad was completely aware of problem. He did ask me if everything is going to be all right, and I answered him “Yes dad, I can fix it and we will get there” and he stopped worrying without a sign of doubt. I was deeply touched by this and almost had tears in my eyes, but I had a job to do. Fixing a power connector was a breeze thanks to my dad’s little pocket knife, that he uses to cut his favorite rice cake. In no time, my Axim X5 was brought back to the life and started to give out directions as if nothing happened. I was so excited and proud of myself as well as my dad. I was totally clueless of my dad’s trust until that event.

    Later that day, I told my mom and my sister about what happened while they were asleep and my mom said ‘huh? I can do that too’ in a funny tone, but I have no doubt that she was proud of me. And of course, my sister loved the view at the Niagara Fall although she was scared to get close to it.

    Whoa, it is quite longer than expected : )

18. zoragotcha Says:
    May 9th, 2008 at 12:43 am

    “Our Lady of the GPS”

    My Grandparents are Jewish and my family is Catholic. We have been praying for their conversion for many years, and this is one of the few times that they actually went to a church, all because of a GPS:

    When I was about 8, my grandfather bought a GPS for his car. I’m not sure exactly which one it was, but GPS devices were relatively new to the mainstream market. He decided to test it out when he and my Grandmother visited me in New Jersey. We went out and had a good time, and used the GPS to help us get home. This was the time before voices and 3d maps, but I was still amazed that the woman in the box knew how to direct us home. I was astounded that she could even talk!

    Eventually, the novelty wore off, and being a typical 8-year old, I fell asleep. A while later, I was awakened to the now-annoying voice stating that we had arrived at our destination. I opened the car door and my eyes to find that the GPS had not led us home, but to our local church! I said a quick thank you prayer and then got back in the car to return to my house.

    P.S. In the end, I, the tired 8 year old, led us to my REAL home. The GPS was turned off.

19. zoragotcha Says:
    May 9th, 2008 at 12:44 am

    BTW, i meant “multiple voices”

    this is not another entry.

20. jasonjjohnson Says:
    May 9th, 2008 at 12:26 pm

    Not sure about funny but here is my GPS story. When I bought a new car for my every day commute to work I decided to go all out and set myself up with a Pioneer DVD player and GPS system. This system quickly became my new best friend for travel for work all over the state and played tour guide on several family vacations. Then one night on the way home a deer decided to assault my car. This was not your normal deer standing in the road incident. This deer decided to run out the woods straight into the side of my car, Dukes of Hazzard slide across the top, and kick the driver’s door as he ran off. After stopping to look for the deer and make sure he was not suffering (evidently he was well enough to be long gone) I limped the car home.

    When I was finally able to pick my car up from the body shop I noticed that the air bag sensor for the passenger seat was acting strangely so the body shop asked me to drop it back off. I dropped the car off on Friday and while they later told me the car was ready Friday they did not bother to let me know so the car sat in their facility over the weekend. When we went to pick the car up on Monday we were informed that some nice person had decided to break into my car and steal my system. I guess this wonderful individual was pretty new in this line of work since they ended up taking half of the dash (including most of the AC system) and cutting all of the wires in the dash to get it out. Three months later I finally got my car (minus the navigation system) back from the dealer since the car had to be gutted for a new wiring harness to be installed.

    The one funny part of the story is that the thief was so clueless that they did not know that the control unit for the system was mounted under the seat and they cut the data cable that connected it to the head unit when they cut the rest of the wires so unless they had a spare control unit laying around the part they stole hopefully did them no good.

21. breley Says:
    May 9th, 2008 at 3:11 pm

    This actually occurred a week ago. I took my wife, my 7-year-old son, and our 2 month-old-son out for a walk in the park, so to speak. I decided to take my X7501 along and use my GPS software to find some Geocaches. The local park we chose has about 6 caches, plug a multicache. My older son and I were dutifully following the gps coordinates, easily finding a few of the caches.
    It was a great early evening…sunny, 74 degrees, so we enjoyed every minute of it. We were making good time and took the path less traveled to reach a particular cache. The wife and newborn stayed on the white gravel path and my older son and I scrounged around in the underbrush. The cache had to be here! The GPS says so. Unfortunately, on closer examination I noticed the internal gps had dropped the satellite signal and somehow the screen stopped animating and the cache image on the screen was in fact waaaaay behind us. We had overshot it. To make matters worse, it was getting darker, and we had about 2 miles to walk back to the car. And for any one you with small children, you quickly find out they have small bladders. “Where can I go pee, daddy???!” my son wailed. “Can your GPS point out a restroom?” my now-irritated wife asked sarcastically. Ignoring the remark, I gave my son a quick lesson on how to water the nearest tree. Whew! At least we got that out of the way.

    Half-way back to the car it got VERY dark, late twilight to be sure. Unfortunately, our larval offspring #2 decided it was time to announce in his wailing siren of a coughing cry that it was time for mom to dispense proprietary dairy product. Luckily for us, the white gravel was quite visible and easy to follow and we found a bench. Nothing like the blind leading the blind, but the X7501 gave off sufficient light that I could use it as a makeshift flashlight to aid in food dispersal. Normally I bring a small flashlight when hiking, but somehow forgot this time. Doh!
    We made it back finally in nearly pitch black conditions. Back at the car I examined the X7501 more closely to see what the matter was with the earlier screen freeze: it was a reminder that had popped up underneath reminding me to bring a flashlight. I had forgotten to dismiss it properly!

22. jlhorng Says:
    May 10th, 2008 at 11:39 pm

    I was on the highway 101 with my silky terrier dog, Tuffy, to a trip to the Kiwanis Park in Tempe. It was my first time visiting that place, so – you guessed it – I took my loyal GPS to me. It has never failed me once. And it stays that way.

    “Stay on the right lane,” the British female voice said firmly.

    As I glanced at the mirror, I saw Tuffy scoot to the right seat: his ears sprung up, his back was curved sharply, his black, black eyes were wide open, and his short, stubby tail was probably wagging ten times a second as if to detect further instructions.

    “Exit at the next lane,” the same, unchanging voice said.

    Sure enough, when I looked at the mirror again, Tuffy was whining away, scratching at the right door. I wondered if Tuffy really understands what the GPS was saying, or moreover, English.

    I decided to try an experiment. When I had to stop at the red lights, I changed the voice to a low, American male voice.

    Tuffy started barking like crazy.

    “What’s wrong?” I soothed. I processed a few hypothesizes in my mind. I came to the conclusion that Tuffy liked the British female voice better. I chose to prove that to myself by changing back the voice. Sure enough, Tuffy stopped barking.

    My GPS and Tuffy are sure unexplainable things.

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