UTMC

So how's your sense of direction? My boss is so bad he gets lost with a gps. It's been telling him for the last mile and a half that he's gotta turn, and he doesn't realize he missed the turn until a quarter mile past. He's a smart guy, but he'll drive right by a hotel we left ten hours ago. I figured it was just him until I spent the last two nights following another guy, who had a gps, around Portland. Within ten miles we got off and then right back on the freeway three times heading out to a job site.

I've always had a pretty good head for getting around. I spent a fair quantity of time wandering around the back country with my granddad. It has served me well, like that one night in Amsterdam navigating back to the hotel from a coffee shop.

I love Amsterdam. Been there many times.

I had this girlfriend years ago that I detested driving with. When she would ask for the next turn, she would do the opposite I told her. Not only did I not break her habit of this, but I started telling her the wrong way to make her take the correct turn.

I've noticed that GPS is steadily killing my sense of direction. I find myself nervously waiting for it to tell me what to do instead of seeing and taking the actual road. I always had a perfectly adequate sense of direction in my youth, enough to be able to avoid ending up in the wrong city or state, but lately I find myself whipped by the nice lady in the little GPS box.

GPS or sat nav is shite.

Coz I am directionally challeged (ie always lost) I make a point of looking at a map before I go anyware. The missus got a sat nav through work and we have had it in the cage a couple of times and it mostly directs you on a longer route or straight through the built up traffic. Anyway, I cannot hear the voice through my helmet

Anyway, by getting lost all the time you tend to see more interesting places that you would otherwise not go to.

I ended up in Banbury Cross coz I missed the fact I should have been going to Bibury. Lovely little town with the petrol station in some blokes front garden.

motorpsycho67 wrote:I love Amsterdam. Been there many times.

Beautiful city. I'd love to get back and do some exploring. We were just there for an overnight layover.

I am one of those annoying people that, if you take me someplace once, I can find my way back every time.

What makes that annoying is because I don't understand how people *can't* do that. I end up saying things like:

"How can you NOT know how to get to my office? I've taken you with me FOUR WHOLE TIMES!"

Unfortunately, I have no sympathy for people that get lost because i have no understanding of it.

amsterdam is great, and so is my sense of direction.

last time i went there my traveling companion got us on the wrong train and i had to navigate us back through rural denmark.

Mine? Good. Annoyingly so as Caliann says of herself. I also like to get lost so I can find my way out.

Wife's? H.o.r.r.i.b.l.e. She has trouble making it back home from work, and she's been working at that place for almost a year.

GPS? Bogus. Where I live, there are trucks (like the 6 up to 18 and 20 wheel size) following GPS directions onto roads that my 2nd Jeep (when it was running, RIP, yard furniture) had trouble navigating.

But then again, I'm one of those guys who likes to look at maps. Like "Hey, a DeLorme Gazetteer! NICE!" kind of dorky map reading weenie. Like I went to DeLorme and saw Eartha and bought-a-hat-that-I-wear-everyday kind of dorky map reading weenie.

Like I'm even-going-to-link-Eartha-right-here kind of dorky.

Often decent, occasionally hilariously awful.

I use maps. I like maps! GPS as an electronic map that updates position in realtime is cool I guess, but I'm not letting a freakin machine tell me where to go. Humankind's eventual enslavement to robots may be inevitable, I see no reason to start obeying them now.
Bloody collaborators!

No GPS for me. Clearly a map geek. +1 on the DeLorme Gazeteer, those things are great.

When riding w/ the wife I don't need GPS...she just tells me where she wants me to go. My job...get there fast.

It never occurs to her that when she isn't in the car...I'm actually fully capable of going from point A to point B by myself. See what happens when yr married 35 years...it just rolls off yr back.

I'm torn, I dig the almost GPS feature of my iPhone, but I don't have time for blow by blow directions on a bike. It's like having a map that knows where you are and that you never need to fold.

/RM

I am pretty skilled as a navigator, and I too prefer the simplicity of pulling out a map at a gas stop and figuring out;
A. When my next turn is
B. How far back that turn in step A is that I already missed
C. Where my current route will take me if I keep following it

I do have a GPS mount on Big Silver, and before my sleek new Garmin was stolen I enjoyed having it if for no other reason than to show me what roads are nearby. In the car I don't mind using it for directions to a destination, but on the bike I just let it simmer in "Where-Am-I-Now" mode. My older Streetpilot model is too bulky to use on the bike, damn thing is like a brick.

deaconblooz wrote:No GPS for me. Clearly a map geek. +1 on the DeLorme Gazeteer, those things are great.

When riding w/ the wife I don't need GPS...she just tells me where she wants me to go. My job...get there fast.

It never occurs to her that when she isn't in the car...I'm actually fully capable of going from point A to point B by myself. See what happens when yr married 35 years...it just rolls off yr back.

I so read that as "When riding the wife..."

Maps, memory & instincts. And a dyslexic wife. My daughter, on the other hand, only needs to go somewhere once, and she has it locked in. She's better than me on the back-roads.

No GPS for me, it just takes the adventure out of figuring out where to go when I am lost. I was Infantry in the Army and I was the land navigation guru of my platoon so I will find it. I admit they do come in handy but I still don't like them.

As far as the directional dyslexia I have always confused my left and right (I think I actually have dyslexia) which I know sounds fucked up after saying what a good sense of direction I have, if you give me directions you have to say "drivers side" or "passengers side". You can ask Matt, he came up with that idea and I know he has more than one story involving it.

The only times I ever feel like a GPS would be worthwhile is in the forest, where roads/trails are often unmarked and don't even appear on the map.

If I am on pavement of significant gravel road, all I ever need is this.

Mean Chuck wrote:
As far as the directional dyslexia I have always confused my left and right (I think I actually have dyslexia) which I know sounds fucked up after saying what a good sense of direction I have, if you give me directions you have to say "drivers side" or "passengers side".

See and I don't like to give directions in left/right format. I, and thankfully my wife as well, try to always give directions in N-S-E-W compass directions. Noone can say we gave them the wrong directions that way, and they will only have themselves to blame if they fuck them up.

I like maps. For those that complain about buying maps at state lines, I have a very old, fold-up Atlas in a nice, faux leather jacket that has served me, and my mother before me, quite well over the last 40 years or so. It has taken us from California to New York, Florida to Oregon, and has never done us wrong.

I will get a GPS when it starts logging construction zones and tells me things like, "287 South has over 40 miles of construction, slowing traffic to 35 miles per hour. You may wish to choose an alternate route."

Other than that, maps are more fun.

I don't need GPS in the middle of a forest. If it is so overcast that I cannot see the sun or stars, I need a compass...and luckily, I have one of those built into my watchband. Don't leave home without it.

I'm a fan of maps and gps. Different tools for different applications. If I've just got one or two destinations and want to get there by the most direct route, I'll just look at a map for a few minutes and I'm good to go. If I have multiple stops to make, or a longer route with more turns than I can keep in my head, a gps can be pretty handy. It can also be useful when needing services after getting well and truly lost in the hinterlands. "Hey garmin, where's a gas station?"

@ Caliann-
Some do have real time traffic updates, my gps has it as a subscription add on. On my crackberry it's included with the service plan. The Streets and Trips software does a reasonable job of tracking construction zones. Just punch in a route and tell it to update construction info and it'll highlight any construction zones along the way.

I loves my GPS. Even if I know where I am going I will still turn it on just to log the trip data (yeah, I'm a fucking geek) and give me an accurate speed while I am moving.

And yeah, Chuck has his left and right totally bass ackwards.

So maybe I am prejudiced....I use a 12 satellite GPS unit all day at work that logs my position to 6 inches....I don't wanna feel like I am working while on a road trip.

*smiles*

For finding addresses, I print out directions on Google maps.....

in professional life i use GPS all the time, makes like easy, on the motorcycle its kind of cool because i love pissing it off for example:

GPS: left turn in 100 yards
Me: Nope
GPS: left turn in 50 yards
Me: Nope, this road is twisty, yay
GPS: You fucking dolt, you missed the turn, recalculating
Me: Dance monkey dance


My only gripe is when a state has 2 towns that are 4 hours apart and you end up going to the wrong one because you relied solely on "the box"

I sometimes look at the Sun, the Moon, or the Stars, to orient myself on the planet.

Really.

GPS is good tech, but seems like it needs a few more years to work all the bugs out.

Google maps is pretty awesome (though also not perfect). I've blown my dad's mind a few times when taking a route recommended by the software, totally contrary to the way he's been navigating his whole life (and he was born here).

And yeah, I'm one of those annoying types. If I drive there once, it's mine. I could still take you directly to most of the great old dance halls and honky tonks in Texas...

I'm revisiting this post because of a recent purchase, and maybe a rethinking of the whole thing.

I took my wife out to dinner the other night. Because of my drink selection*, she drove home.

She grew up in this area, at least 20 years here. But she wasn't sure how to get home... really bad with getting lost. It was time. She needs GPS.

Looked around, got a Garmin Nuvi 205w. Set it up in the car for the ride home, to "Charge the battery". Hey, neat!

If the bike were running, I would run out and get one of those GPS puppies in a heartbeat. Not necessarily to get from point A to point B, but to deviate from the normal route. I noticed, as I was driving along, the side roads that were showing up. I've passed them hundreds of times before, but never really ventured onto them. But on the screen I could see that they could be interesting rides. I think a GPS would allow me to increase my riding adventures by taking me places I would have never thought to go before.

Plus it displays speed, has fuel mileage calculations, can instantly route you to the nearest gas station/restaurant/strip club (not sure about that one), and can get you home with one or two touches of the screen.

Now I'm torn. I love maps, but one thing I would rarely do when riding was to pull over, get out the map, find where I was and look for interesting roads to go on, put the map back, and go. With this GPS, it could be done on the fly.

Something I noticed though is reduced attention to the road. Not just the driving portion, but the landmark portion. I can see people relying on GPS exclusively to get from point A to point B. Take it away from them, and some would have a hard time retracing the route from memory.


*A scotch flight of Macallan (which I learned was a 1/3 glass, three glass sampler, basically), 10 year Fine Oak (good), 12 year Sherry Oak (very smooth), and Cask Strength that almost hurt to drink. After the flight, I maintained altitude with a full glass of the 12 year Sherry Oak.

Zim wrote:
If the bike were running, I would run out and get one of those GPS puppies in a heartbeat. Not necessarily to get from point A to point B, but to deviate from the normal route. I noticed, as I was driving along, the side roads that were showing up. I've passed them hundreds of times before, but never really ventured onto them. But on the screen I could see that they could be interesting rides. I think a GPS would allow me to increase my riding adventures by taking me places I would have never thought to go before.

That's what I enjoy most about my old GPS on the bike. When you get the Buell back on the road, you need to get a 12v power connection somewhere to keep the GPS charged up. Its really quite easy to do.

I fall into the once there, locked in camp, and tend to navigate by crow-flies directional reckoning. I spent a lot of time as a delivery driver, and a courier, which helps a lot with urban wayfinding.

If I'm in a strange area, though, and arrive either at night, or as a sleeping passenger, I'm completely at a loss. I need to have my bearings figured out, locally for any of this to work, and that's where getting a nice top down view can be a real help.

I enjoy my little Garmin for the bike, more as a road preview screen and trip data logger- I seldom use the routing functions.

It's nice knowing "it's about to get all kinds of twisty, better pass this chump before the double yellows show up!"

For normal travel and visiting other cities, or even parts of Seattle I'm less familiar with, I love my iPhone/Google maps, which is particualarly handy for impromptu transit planning, and traffic condition updates.

On a separate note, I've enjoyed using GPS for geocaching, and other games/activities. It's particularly fun to hand a friend a birthday card with a set of coordinates written inside, and then having them go find their gift!

A conversation with Claudia.

Me, "Do you know how to read a map?"

Claudia, "Uh, yeah, sure I do."

Me, "Can you use a map to get from one place to another place?"

Claudia, "Well, uh, no."

Me, "You don't know how to read a map."

Funny this should come up again. The gps in the crackberry saved our bacon during a recent trip to Chicago, my first time there. Long story short, on the train into town the friend we were visiting has a major seizure and gets taken to the hospital. His wife decides to stay at the hospital with him overnight, so I get tasked with going to find the car, driving it back out to their house in the burbs where the wife and I are staying, back into town, round and round. We could have managed it with maps, but the wife isn't much of a map reader and it would have been rather torturous.

The phone gps updates a bit slower than the garmin, and it seems to have a harder time in the canyon like environs of downtown, but it really was a godsend. In, out, and around town, quick as you please.