My daughter is getting married this month. Yesterday, the groom’s family held an event for them, with a “new family meet & greet” theme. I got bad directions from a GPS navigator and wound up nowhere near the event. Of course, I was also taking grandma to the event. And my ex-wife lives out-of-state. So, the new in-laws-to-be held a “meet the inlaws” with… mostly each other. Oops.
Fortunately, my daughter does a MUCH better job of making a first impression than I do.
Arlo and Janis microwave cartoon: Arlo takes the entrees out of the microwave. They are HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT as he juggles them, burning his fingers. They start eating. “This is still frozen” says Janis. “Truly a modern miracle,” thinks Arlo to himself.
James Pollock – Congratulations on the upcoming nuptials. And that is why I hate GPS devices – didn’t you run two at once as Robert does? :-)
I don’t normally run ANY GPS devices. I don’t own one. If I need guidance, I’ll look it up on Mapquest or Google Maps before I leave.
I’m with you – GPS devices are not good – but you mentioned a GPS navigator which is why I mentioned same.
My hatred of navigation devices was based on the impossibly moronic menus in the first device we tried. This was cured after I switched to the “Maps” applet in iOS 7, which was quite good. Since upgrading to a newer iPhone (and iOS 10), the results have been excellent.
One of the most useful features is that when the German police shut down a street (or Autobahn) because of an accident, this data is quickly reflected in the map in real time, and the optimum route can be recalculated. This has saved us from landing in major backups (or closed-off mountain roads) on 4 or 5 occasions.
Kilby – sounds like it works better there. We were away last week and we actually had the GPS tell us to turn left (north) to go south (right).
I am pretty sure that the police do not notify them of anything here. We had (I am sure I have ranted about this before) a GPS which had “real time traffic” keep telling us it was an hour and a half to our destination for the entire 5 hours we tried to get to our destination and we gave up what would have been a half an hour from the end of the trip if there no delays. We only gave up at that point (husband really, really likes Golden Corral buffets and we were going there for dinner in NJ) because the regular radio was saying that the heavy storms that were suppose to come in late at night were about to hit and there were tornadoes with the storm (yes, in NJ) and I had a fit over sitting stuck in traffic literally inching along out in the open with that kind of weather coming. Trip home, one hour and we made it home before the Chinese take out closed for the night.
Don’t use one myself. But I have friends who use one called WAZE, which features input from other driver / users on current conditions.
@ Meryl A – Just northwest of Washington DC, there’s a stretch of “MD Rt 124 South” that runs on the same asphalt (and in the same direction) as “MD Rt 355 North” (and vice-versa).
Kilby – so there are least two places in the country where one can be going in opposite directions at the same time.
Mitch 4 – That’s one of the ones he has.
We drove to a reenactment shopping event this past Saturday. It is to the west of Allentown, PA. Afterwards for dinner we were driving down to the general Lancaster area -about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes away. We have driven this trip in each direction many, many times. We know that we take a small winding road to Rte 222 and then take that south to Lancaster – or we know several places to get off of 222 to get to some of the places we go in the general area a little quicker. In this case we planned to get off at 322.
According to Waze the trip would take us about 3 hrs – huh? I noticed a black square along the route which I had never seen before. A message popped up and disappeared quickly, so all I saw was 222 to 897, road closed.
We were concerned that with the floods last week in PA the road was flooded and Robert asked me where 897 met 222. In times of problems with routes and roads – he asks me over the GPS – but often ignores me and goes back to the GPS. I figured out where 897 crossed 222 and managed to explain to him where that was – at first trying to remind him where we used to turn for a fabric store he liked and then remembering the supermarket / restaurant at the corner – which took a good bit of fish only buffet in the restaurant for him to remember.
We ran through our heads all the alternative routes we know and were concerned about how big a problem this was that none of the alternatives were being given. We decided to go on and figure it out as we went.
He had me shut off the program and restart it – suddenly the black spot was gone and the time we would be there normal. Later the black spot returned. It also showed up as a black line on the road – where it was there was night work being done – but it was afternoon not night. Had we not known alternatives, we well might have canceled the trip down. We are not sure why it was showing that the road was closed when it was not nor why the time was off by so many hours.
One of the problems with Waze is that if no one lets then know about the problem, they don’t know as the alternatives sources normally used are not used by them.
If I could stop falling asleep in the car, he says he would not use/depend on the various GPS devices.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Microwaves cook food faster than methods that use direct heat. So apparently they also punish residents of Hell more efficiently than open flame.
The guy’s other option represents another commonly cited source of unusually intense torture.
Me, I’d pick the in-laws, since they’re rather nice people.
Powers’s explanation sounds right!
I wonder how much calculation went into the ratios being employed.
“I got myself a microwave fireplace. Now I can sit in front of a fire for the evening in just five minutes” — Steven Wright
And another microwave joke for today . . .
https://www.gocomics.com/theargylesweater/2018/07/08
My daughter is getting married this month. Yesterday, the groom’s family held an event for them, with a “new family meet & greet” theme. I got bad directions from a GPS navigator and wound up nowhere near the event. Of course, I was also taking grandma to the event. And my ex-wife lives out-of-state. So, the new in-laws-to-be held a “meet the inlaws” with… mostly each other. Oops.
Fortunately, my daughter does a MUCH better job of making a first impression than I do.
Arlo and Janis microwave cartoon: Arlo takes the entrees out of the microwave. They are HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT as he juggles them, burning his fingers. They start eating. “This is still frozen” says Janis. “Truly a modern miracle,” thinks Arlo to himself.
James Pollock – Congratulations on the upcoming nuptials. And that is why I hate GPS devices – didn’t you run two at once as Robert does? :-)
I don’t normally run ANY GPS devices. I don’t own one. If I need guidance, I’ll look it up on Mapquest or Google Maps before I leave.
I’m with you – GPS devices are not good – but you mentioned a GPS navigator which is why I mentioned same.
My hatred of navigation devices was based on the impossibly moronic menus in the first device we tried. This was cured after I switched to the “Maps” applet in iOS 7, which was quite good. Since upgrading to a newer iPhone (and iOS 10), the results have been excellent.
One of the most useful features is that when the German police shut down a street (or Autobahn) because of an accident, this data is quickly reflected in the map in real time, and the optimum route can be recalculated. This has saved us from landing in major backups (or closed-off mountain roads) on 4 or 5 occasions.
Kilby – sounds like it works better there. We were away last week and we actually had the GPS tell us to turn left (north) to go south (right).
I am pretty sure that the police do not notify them of anything here. We had (I am sure I have ranted about this before) a GPS which had “real time traffic” keep telling us it was an hour and a half to our destination for the entire 5 hours we tried to get to our destination and we gave up what would have been a half an hour from the end of the trip if there no delays. We only gave up at that point (husband really, really likes Golden Corral buffets and we were going there for dinner in NJ) because the regular radio was saying that the heavy storms that were suppose to come in late at night were about to hit and there were tornadoes with the storm (yes, in NJ) and I had a fit over sitting stuck in traffic literally inching along out in the open with that kind of weather coming. Trip home, one hour and we made it home before the Chinese take out closed for the night.
Don’t use one myself. But I have friends who use one called WAZE, which features input from other driver / users on current conditions.
@ Meryl A – Just northwest of Washington DC, there’s a stretch of “MD Rt 124 South” that runs on the same asphalt (and in the same direction) as “MD Rt 355 North” (and vice-versa).
Kilby – so there are least two places in the country where one can be going in opposite directions at the same time.
Mitch 4 – That’s one of the ones he has.
We drove to a reenactment shopping event this past Saturday. It is to the west of Allentown, PA. Afterwards for dinner we were driving down to the general Lancaster area -about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes away. We have driven this trip in each direction many, many times. We know that we take a small winding road to Rte 222 and then take that south to Lancaster – or we know several places to get off of 222 to get to some of the places we go in the general area a little quicker. In this case we planned to get off at 322.
According to Waze the trip would take us about 3 hrs – huh? I noticed a black square along the route which I had never seen before. A message popped up and disappeared quickly, so all I saw was 222 to 897, road closed.
We were concerned that with the floods last week in PA the road was flooded and Robert asked me where 897 met 222. In times of problems with routes and roads – he asks me over the GPS – but often ignores me and goes back to the GPS. I figured out where 897 crossed 222 and managed to explain to him where that was – at first trying to remind him where we used to turn for a fabric store he liked and then remembering the supermarket / restaurant at the corner – which took a good bit of fish only buffet in the restaurant for him to remember.
We ran through our heads all the alternative routes we know and were concerned about how big a problem this was that none of the alternatives were being given. We decided to go on and figure it out as we went.
He had me shut off the program and restart it – suddenly the black spot was gone and the time we would be there normal. Later the black spot returned. It also showed up as a black line on the road – where it was there was night work being done – but it was afternoon not night. Had we not known alternatives, we well might have canceled the trip down. We are not sure why it was showing that the road was closed when it was not nor why the time was off by so many hours.
One of the problems with Waze is that if no one lets then know about the problem, they don’t know as the alternatives sources normally used are not used by them.
If I could stop falling asleep in the car, he says he would not use/depend on the various GPS devices.