My New Best Friend

My new best friend is the GPS. Which stands for, which works how.... Yeah, yeah, yeah, who cares. It works.

In the last year I've been to Orlando, Phoenix, Las Vegas. Driving all the way from Las Vegas to Oakland (in 8 hours, thank you). Currently in San Diego. I would be lost, literally, without my new friend.

Recalculating, recalculating...

I would constantly turn in the wrong direction, or misread a sign and turn here instead of there. Or, unable to get over to the freeway desired because of the horrible traffic, as happened to me in Phoenix during spring training, I kept going. "Recalculating, recalculating," the computer would tell me. And then it told me to take the next exit, took me around the block to the entry to the new freeway, and told me to get on it. Twice. I obeyed.

In San Diego to visit my brother in the hospital, I had to get from the San Diego Airport to the motel in Chula Vista, then to the hospital in that same town, then to Coronado to visit my nephew, then back again. True, for several of those hospital visits, my nephew picked me up at the motel, but for the others, I was on my own.

When I visited my nephew at his home, his 13-year-old son Danny asked him for permission to program his new GPS. Of course, at the time Danny was doing his English homework and looking for any distraction. "Maybe this weekend," replied his dad. I shook my head, and told both of them, "It doesn't need programming. It works right out of the box." Dismayed but undeterred, Danny said, "but I still have to program it in the car." I shook my head again. "Very simple. Plug it in, put in the address, and go."

Recalculating, recalculating. You gotta love it.