Near the end of the last century, my job at the time would often fly me to an airport of a city I’d never been to before. From there, I’d pick up a rental car and navigate to the designated jobsite. This was well before the days of Waze and Google Maps, and at that time the best navigational aid I had was MapQuest. Much like today’s mapping tools, I’d key in a starting and ending point. However, since smart phones for the masses were the better part of a decade away, the best I could do was print the resulting instructions and take them with me.
Most of the time, this worked well. However, if I had to deviate from the printed route for any reason such as construction detours or accidents, all bets were off. During one assignment, my designated exit, at least according to my directions in hand, no longer physically existed. MapQuest’s database had not been updated to account for that city’s infrastructure changes. At that point I had to rely on the small-scale map I had of the local area. But plotting out a new course at highway speeds surrounded by local drivers intent on getting to their destination despite any hapless out of towner was not easy.
After that episode, I got myself the latest Garmin satnav device. Gamechanger. Beyond getting me from point A to B and rerouting as necessary, it could pinpoint needed services such as gas stations. It once saved my butt by giving directions to an accessible ATM at 2 AM. It's still sitting in my pile of superseded tech, but I need to fire it up again because it still holds critical data.
On those remote jobsites, I got along well with the local Feds. I’d like to think it’s because I was a pretty cool cat and not the typical dweeby IT type. Regardless, during my time with these men and women, they disclosed some closely guarded intel – the locations of the best below-the-radar eateries in their respective cities. That information is still tucked away securely on that old Garmin.
With the advent of GPS phone applications, many people lost the ability to navigate with actual maps, or worse, never developed it. Full disclosure, when I'm behind the wheel, apart from Spotify, the most used mobile app on my phone is Google Maps. The telemetry it provides like speed, direction, and real time location is excellent. They’ve turned road trips into real life video games. ETA back to Maryland is 18 hours and 36 minutes? Pfft. Hold my Red Bull. That ETA just became my "Time to Beat".
Even with the continuing evolvement of technology, being able to go OG is still a valuable skillset and possibly a lifesaver. Years ago, I was having dinner with Henry, an old high school classmate who’d flown into DC for a meeting. I asked if he had trouble finding the restaurant because unless you break the DC code, navigating the city can be a beast. This led to a surprising diatribe from him where he bemoaned our dependence on GPS. He sounded like "Viper" addressing the Top Gun class, chiding pilots' over-reliance on tech and losing dogfighting skills. As dinner continued, I took comfort in the fact that in the event of a zombie apocalypse, I could pull out my trusty road atlas, compass, and sextant and at least be able to navigate to a safe zone.
No comments:
Post a Comment