Jeff Adams

A little metallic box about the size of a deck of cards sits beside my laptop connected to it by a USB umbilical cord. Streams of electronic data flow freely through the cord loading detailed maps of the entire North American continent into the little box. I am loading the latest version of maps into my nifty Garmin Nüvi 350, a very fine Global Positioning System (GPS). I’ve had it for a year now and suppose I could live without it, but I don’t want to.

Gadgets are a guy thing, or so they say. I like gadgets as much as the next guy, but I viewed this as purely a luxury item that I really didn’t need. Driving rental cars on the east coast began to tempt me to buy a GPS. In our part of the country spaces are usually wide open and you can see for a long way off. East coast driving is often through tight spaces, rolling hills, forests, tall buildings, and other obstacles that impede vision. I have a decent sense of direction, but I was getting frustrated sometimes by overshooting turns or exits and having to get turned around. Finally, last year I bought a GPS as a birthday present to myself.

It was love at first sight. It talks to me — in several voices and accents. I decide. It warns me of turns coming up, tells me which way to turn and lets me know very accurately how long it will take me to get where I am going. It tells me the direction in which I am headed. All this and more.

Garmin and Tom Tom are the industry leaders. Garmin is located right here in Olathe and is a great success story. I like to buy local, and I have not been disappointed in Garmin. They have a dizzying array of devices, but you can get one like mine for under $200 if you check around for a deal. Here are my top three reasons you might want to drop that kind of cash for a gadget.

• Reduce your own road rage. When looking for an unfamiliar address I love to just enter the address and let the box talk me in. Very neat.
• Save money. Yes, that’s right. With the price of gasoline today, who wants to drive around endlessly looking for an address? I’ve done it and you probably have to. You can’t ask for directions, you know. That’s also a guy thing. But in guy world, a cool gadget cancels out the shame of asking for directions when you are lost. Really. So, with your GPS you don’t have to wander and waste. Just for fun I have often entered familiar destinations in my own city and discovered some great shortcuts and more direct routes. More savings! If this continues I can convince myself I am paying for the cost of my gadget!
• Find stuff. Let’s say you are traveling in a strange city, or even your own. You suddenly want, say, a Wal-Mart. I don’t know why you would, but let’s just say that. I can ask my friendly little box to show me all the Wal-Marts in the area and I then pick out the closest or the one in the right direction and it then guides me to the door. More than once I have dropped Cheryl off somewhere and asked my box to lead me to the nearest coffee shop. Life doesn’t get much better than this. Looking for a certain type of food or restaurant? Not a problem. It has them listed.

Maybe you have some benefits you’d like to add to the list. How about it?