Materialistic Monday: TomTom

Okay, I know. If you've been following Cindy (as you should be), you've heard about this recently. In fact, I had a few ideas for this week's post that you might not have read about in the past two point five minutes.

However.

My Tom Tom GPS saved my ass so many times in California this past week that now I cannot NOT write about it.

You see, in the weeks before Christmas, I was asked by Baxter to explain what a GPS system is because we were giving one to Matt's Dad for Christmas. I had never thought of one for myself, had never even been in a vehicle with one, at the time. But partway through my description of what it does, I flashed to all the Google Maps I constantly print out for myself and carry around with me, and I recall saying vaguely, "Actually, I could probably use one of those myself!" And the rest was history.

According to Matt, there was no getting him off the topic. No attempts of "How about some earrings?" or "Mommy would love a massage..." would move the child. "No. Mommy wants a GPS," he told Matt with determination. He wouldn't even budge for the old tangerines and beer fall back gift, which he insisted on giving to each of his parents the year he was 3.

No, it was to be a GPS. So my guys bought one for me.

And, let me tell you, it rocks! As Cindy mentioned, I keep mine set to a British man's voice, "Tim", who instructs me to "stay on the left lane" and "keep on the motorway", which is about the only thing that could make Hwy 101 interesting.

But beyond Tim's fantastic voice, I do enjoy that he tells me how to actually get places. Quickly! He remembers all of my destinations, which is handy, and has all sorts of options such as showing all parking garages in the vicinity, which was extremely helpful a couple times last week.

I also love the "Do you need to be there by a certain time?" feature. For example, last week when I had to be at the SCERTS training by 8:30 am in the suburbs of San Francisco, I plugged in the address the night before and it told me what time I had to leave in order to arrive by 8:30, thereby making sure I allowed enough time. Furthermore, it continually re-calculates my time as I'm driving, so when I hit bad traffic I could see the "new and not-so-improved" time of arrival getting updated and was able to send a text message to say I was going to arrive late and by how long (it's handy when the presenter is a personal friend!).

On another occasion in the past week, I left the conference one night and drove off towards my aunt's house for dinner. I knew the way so I didn't use my Tom Tom, of course (because it's not the first week anymore, sillies!). However, I accidentally went north instead of south on the highway (proving once again that it's been a while since I've actually lived out there) and when I got off the exit realized I had chosen poorly and couldn't just get right back on. Oops. Did I mention that this was in the middle of a major rainstorm? I didn't have her address with me but remembered the cross streets and that was enough. I stopped, programmed the intersection into my Tom Tom, and my courteous friend Tim got me there.

I am All. Over. It.

Thanks, Bax.