Sunday, March 6, 2011

Hello, Dave.

I apologize for this not being "on topic", but sometimes even the best of us color outside the lines. I promise to talk about parenting and technology very soon, it's still percolating.

Let me preface this entry by saying how deeply and passionately in love with my G.P.S. I truly am. It is the great love of my life, as far as modern technology goes. I never would have survived my years in LA without it. It is an amazing gadget, 90% of the time. Every so often, it has a bad hair or doesn't get enough sleep or something. On those days, bad things happen.

Yesterday, we set off as a family in the afternoon, after nap time. We were originally destined for the splash pad to meet one of Riley's baby friends. I'd been there 3 or 4 times before, but it's been too cold to go for months now. I had vague memories of where it was, but it didn't matter because we had the G.P.S. We loaded up and punched in the address which seemed straightforward enough. I glazed over in the the passenger seat listening to the noise of a backseat full of excited children.

The next thing I knew we were exiting the highway early and weaving through unsavory neighborhoods. Mike's blood pressure started to rise as the strange commands to drive through neighborhoods on small side streets continued. I, having loved and depended on the G.P.S. this long, convince myself it's showing us a short cut.

After about 10 minutes of what felt like gratuitous turns I started to worry too. I double checked the address and the step by step directions. I didn't know what to think. That's when Mike asked (I'll spare you the expletives) if I had it set to no highways. Oopsie. Still, what a route!

The kicker was we arrived, finally, frazzled and irritable and had to immediately turn around and leave. That's a story for another day. We decided as long as everyone was in the car we'd run a few quick errands. We made our now weekly trip to Joann's Fabric and then debated whether or not to hit Toys-R-Us while we were in the neighborhood. We did and the kids made out like bandits. I felt so guilty about getting them all excited about the splash pad and then having to leave so they got an awesome kiddie pool with slide, squirt guns and a crazy caterpillar sprinkler guy. It was the last stop that was the problem.

Mike needed to go to a certain Lowes to get paint for his car. Apparently, ours is sold out and this one had a whole case of the stuff. Also, it's important to note Riley soiled her regular diaper and I only had swim diapers with me so we were on borrowed time there. Mike looked up the address on his phone and we eagerly punched it in to the G.P.S., everyone deserves a second chance.

It was a nightmare once again. Weird commands to leave major roads and make strange overly complicated sets of turns. We double checked avoidances to make sure we were having the same issue twice, but it turned out the route was just ridiculously over complicated. The kids were tired, Riley had finished her water and was demanding more which I didn't have and traffic was increasing every second. Maybe there used to be construction on that road or something...

As the stress level in the car was reaching critical mass the G.P.S. ordered one last ridiculous set of 5 turns where one turn the other direction would have put us in the parking lot and we were now sitting on the wrong side of a busy 4 lane road staring at our destination. I turned the G.P.S. off with gusto at this point. Stupid thing.

The time before that was so much worse because we were in an unfamiliar state(s). We had driven from LA to Georgia with no problems. I even remember thinking, "Gosh, I guess trip-tics are obsolete now." I once misread one and drove 3hrs out of my way, but that couldn't happen with my lovely G.P.S.. I've been wrong before. It was the last leg of the journey and we'd come so far unscathed.

The trouble started when we realized we'd be driving through Atlanta at rush hour (YIKES!). We set it to avoid highways and checked the route, scrolled through the whole route zooming in on the map and passed it back and forth between us. When we were satisfied we'd done it we were off. The miles and hours ticked by. I may even have slept, but at some point I noticed signs saying Alabama. "Mike, why don't any of the signs say Georgia?" He wasn't sure either. We kept going for about 20minutes and then we were sure something was wrong and Isaac had to pee (or had an accident or something I'm fuzzy, but I remember urgency).

When we stopped I took the opportunity to ask where in the heck we were. We'd been driving almost exactly the time it should have taken to get home and we weren't there. It turned out we'd been driving the wrong direction this whole time. We were stunned.

It turns out all that trying to avoid Atlanta tapping of the screen somehow added Sneaky Pete's Hot Dogs in Alabama as a via point! So Mike had been taking surface roads the opposite direction of where were headed for hours because the G.P.S. thought we really wanted hot dogs! Don't you think there should be a confirmation message if you set a via point over 20 miles in the opposite direction of your destination? My email makes me confirm like 10 times if I call something junk and that's reversable. Geez, G.P.S.!

The detour was traumatic and we did end up driving through Atlanta in horrific traffic after all. There were times in LA when the G.P.S. would insist I get on the highway somewhere and there was no longer an on ramp or there was construction and no matter what buttons I pushed or which way I drove it sent me back there. Usually only when I was running late for an important audition.

I find myself laughing at the car insurance commercial where the G.P.S. commands a turn and the guy smashes into another car because it seems so silly. We're still the drivers, we have eyes and brians. If the G.P.S. is wrong we should ignore it with confidence.

I think the issue is people have never trusted an earlier piece of technology the way we trust our G.P.S.. Maybe our cars, but we generally control the vehicle, and not the other way around. The G.P.S. barks orders and we happily follow, trusting it to take us where we want to go. It's a big responsibility. So, I guess it makes sense that 3 or 4 times in the last 5yrs mine has buckled under the pressure.

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