Chit Chat Thread for the week of May 26th 2008

The sun is out. The smoker is going cooking pulled pork and the beer is cold and the pool is warm. Life don't get much better than this. Hope all have a safe Memorial Day.

Yes, very nice day today. Great day for house hunting which I am getting very tired of.

Be careful for speed traps and check points!

Back in FL again after a 3500 mile vacation trip from FL>VA(NW)>NH>NY(upstate)>VA(SW)>FL.
Was happy to get back to warmer temps - us FL Wimps
did not like the COOL, wet weather we had for 12 out of the 17 days.
Saw 400-500 bikers of the Rolling Thunder (all together) crowd travelling towards Wash D.C. on our way home. Impressive.
Only found 2 missing Rest Areas on the entire trip but found a few Turnouts (for our trucker friends)
A couple of the Rest Areas did not alert even though they were in the file so have refined coordinates and added missing ones.
Next update to "Rest Areas Combined" file about
the first of June.
Have a great Memorial Day and remember the fallen !

Welcome home MrKen. Glad you had a safe, enjoyable trip. As I said in another post, I knew you would using your trip to conduct GPS "rest area field trials."

How about those guys at the Univ of Arizona... Landing the Phoenix on Mars.. Must of had one heck of a gps

As we enjoy our freedom, let us all pray for those who ensure our safety here and abroad, for those who have paid the ultimate price and their families and friends left behind, and for the wounded whose lives are forever changed.

Have a safe holiday to all.

Do you mean "Galaxial Positioning System"?

Sounds right to me..

Have been gone for 4 days and it has been wet and raining the whole time. Should be in the high 70's

Hope everyone has a nice day. My GPS feels faster for some reason today, maybe less people using theirs? =)

Landing the Phoenix with a soft landing on Mars, what a accomplishment.
My hats off to all involved, NASA needs the funding to continue project just like this one in partnership with the colleges and other think tanks.

Do we need to back to the Moon or even Mars?
Nope, However the spin-offs that come from such projects are astronomical, and make day to day life easier with better quality.

Good Job Landing the Phoenix on Mars..

Well, have been on the road for 3 weeks (and guess I lost my windmill).... Left middle GA and went to Denver. Escaped there (before it snowed) and went the South Rim of the Grand Canyon (got snowed on!). Left there and went to San Antonio to visit a cousin I haven't seen in 15 years. Left there and went to Arkansas (to pick tomatoes - oh and to visit my wifes uncle). Left there and came home. My Honda Navi system guided me every step of the way flawlessly. Went door to door without a single missed step. Kept my Nuvi 750 in the back seat in the little Walmart bag (just in case), but never had to take it out.

Cheers for now..... Joel

Hope you had a chance to do the "Riverwalk" while in San Antonio.
Have visited it 3 times in the past 2 years. Just an enjoyable visit each time and some great restaurants.

Have you seen the commercials for SYNC on the new Ford family cars? Built-in voice command of the on-board Nav, Bluetooth for phones, and MP3 players.

Test drove a '08 Taurus with SYNC yesterday and asked the salesman how it worked. I got stuck in a Bluetooth Pairing menu and just couldn't get out of that menu. All I wanted to do was abort and go back to the main menu.

The salesman couldn't figure out how to exit and go back to the main menu either and in frustration actually told me to turn the car off and restart it.

That old "if Microsoft made cars" joke just became a reality.

I'm sure the problem was mostly user error, but it was a humorous moment. Oddly, the SYNC system does not control the radio/CD player. It only controls the Nav, cell phone or a separate MP3 player such as iPOD. I would have expected it to work with the radio and CD Player, too. I was not interested in a model with the on-board Nav for obvious reasons and I don't have an iPOD, so for me SYNC was a $395 Bluetooth headset. I didn't buy that car.

Back to work....

This weekend due to the extreme price of gas I decided to stay home. So I turned my scanner on and listened to the police run speed traps on I-77 in northern South Carolina. First of all, the speed limit in the area they set up is 60 MPH. Almost all the stops were in the high 80's. Some over 100. The police were making an average stop about every 2 minutes. Some body had a lot of gas and lost a lot cash in fines. Next, holiday I think I'll do this again, better than paying out all my money to the gas companies.

Probably was a lot of NASCAR fans coming & going to the races at Charlotte. We were travelling on I-81(S)and I-77(S) on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. Couldn't believe the number of Race fans going by us. I will admit that they were not crazy drivers, quite curteous, but FAST.
Didn't seem to be real concerned about the $4.00/gal gas they were burning up !

Gas is $3.78/gal in my area of Arkansas. I have to agree, the landing on Mars was amazing. Hopefully they will find oil

Ya, Now if Apple made cars...
different story haha. That would be amazing ha.

Yes, they'd look amazing, cost a fortune ... and be totally incompatible with 99% of existing roads

Sure would be one heck of a long pipeline!!!

But the pump shouldn't cost much.

Happy Memorial Day to everyone!

My home town of 1000 people has a traditional Memorial Day Service at the cemetery each year. The old guys in the VFW march through town from the church on main street followed by the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts. The local high school VFW "Voice of Democracy" speech winner gives his speech, the VFW Honor Guard fires a few rounds and a bugler plays taps. Afterwards we all go to the town park for ice cream.

Sure did! When I went thru AF basic training back in 1961, the River Walk was "Off Limits" because of crime and drugs. Today, it is an adventure, and very safe (walking police everywhere), not to mention all the lovely gardens, and friendly people.

BTW - I averaged 44.685 miles per gallon over the 5000 miles! Love them Honda Hybrids!

Joel

lots of rain here in the Inland Empire last week. even a tornado over by March AFB.. derailed a train and knocked over a big rig.. Meh ..Global Warming .

Nansoutey~

Paid tribute to our living and fallen Veterans.

Took a 3 hr. motorcycle ride along the coast of New Hampshire and Maine, stayed overnight with friends in Goose Rock Beach(20 minutes from Kennybunkport), drove the same 3 hr. scenic route back home. My butt hurts, but it was worth it.

Today is my wedding anniversary. It was a great weekend in New England.

Hope everyone else had a good weekend too.

(Garmin wasn't very helpful...showed us in the ocean instead of on Rt. 9 that runs along site of the ocean. Must call Garmin this week.)

I have to agree with you. We have stayed at the INN at Gosse Rock. Very beautiful coastline. Great shopping in Kennybunkport. May have to take a trip up to Maine. very soon. I am glad that you had a great weekend. Happy Anniversary!!

Now that was funny!

Happy belated anniversary. How many years?

80s on Monday and barely 50s yesterday and today!

Thirty five years. I was 18 when I got married. So I'm still young enough to enjoy rides to the beach on our motorcycle, and romantic stays at B & B's

Thanks for the belated well wishes.

You know one of the many things I like about this site, when it opens you are greeted with Miss POI smile.

Joe

oh that is so sweet I have missed having you on the boards, it is nice to have you back.

Miss POI

who is always smiling because I have an extended family of gps fanatics like me that just make me happy.

I love you guys!!!!

I realy love this site, and have learned so much from all of you. It's been wonderful to be able to really customize my Nuvi 350. Thanks!!

Believe I heard a news report that memorial day travel was off by 5% this year vs last year. This seems to be consistent with what seems to be a decreasing number of folks that are filling at the local stations. Has anyone else also noticed a decrease?

I also heard that Memorial Day travel was down for the first time since the recession of 1991. The only way oil companies and producers are going to lower prices is if demand goes down. We need to drive less. Diesel in Texas went up 66 cents in 3 weeks to $4.66. Good incentive to plan ahead and combine errands.

Now that the holiday has passed, Crude oil is still on the rise, fuel at the pump has gone down 6 cents a gallon. I can't understand why lawmakers don't put a thumb on these idiots that gouge us all.
I could say it's the big oil companies, however the independent gas retailers are worse.

Bob

Just got back from a trip to Illinois from NYC. I really enjoyed going to the Pilot rest stops.

First real sunny week in the DC area. Kept my shirt off all week. Now I am peeling. Summer is here!!!

hot...

Ugh, I hate rain.... I've got work to do in my yard and it won't stop raining.

Oh well, We need the rain....

It'll be cold again...

I was reading the entries here and noticed that people were talking about paying $4.00 per gallon. Well sit down for a minute. I live in Kent in the United Kingdom and we are now paying over 5gbp per gallon which in dollars is a touch under $10.00 ($9.89). It is really beginning to hurt. The thing that has most people up in arms here is about 70% is tax.....

I fear that's where we're headed...

Go White Sox!!!!!!

Must be some pay scale there to pay that price.

Our taxes are not as high, but pretty darn high per gallon, at both the Federal and local levels. However is is a catch 22, these taxes also pay for the repairs to roads & bridges and our fantastic Interstate system repair and improvements. Not sure what the percentage is on the taxes, I would imagine it would reduce the cost of gasoline here in Ohio by 2/3rd's. I know your personality's such as the Actors, Rock stars etc. move to the United States to avoid the high taxes of the United Kingdom. So your $10.00 a gallon does not surprise me in the least.

Now what we need to do as a world is figure this quagmire out. Wheat for oil, A barrel or wheat for a barrel of oil? Beef for Oil?
Hey bullets & bombs don't work.

The obscene profits the oil companies are making instead of the gasoline??