If you’ve been to Calgary or any other city that is divided into quadrants, this might not be as funny. But we have NE NW SE SW and 5th Avenue North which is different than 5th Avenue South… I still get lost in downtown after almost 10 years here.
We’ve come to rely so much on technology to guide us through our days. Long ago it was GPS and those little Magellan and Garmin units.
I remember being in Germany thinking how smart we were getting a GPS for our rental car and how easy it was going to be to find our way around. And then I remember sitting in the car for half an hour trying to learn to sprechen sie Deutsch on the fly while we figure out how to read in German so that we can change the display language to in English. Tip for the rental agencies out of that somewhere I’m sure.
And once we had her speaking English we were set. My favorite English we heard often from her was “Recalculating” which we heard many times as I missed turns and exit ramps along the way.
I have to say though, in a foreign country where we didn’t know where we were going and couldn’t read the street signs, Magellan was great. If we needed parking, she would guide us up and around cobblestone roads we didn’t even know we could drive on and poof, there we would be, at a parking lot when there was no parking we were able to see.
Well then along came Siri and Google Maps and Apple Maps v2.0 not necessarily in that order. And now you could just say “Hey Siri give me directions to home” for example. And if you are running Beta iOS 11 Update 3, Siri says “I can’t give you directions home. I don’t know who you are.”…..
On a different day, on my rush out of work to get to Kiyoshi’s golf lesson at The National Golf Academy, no idea where I’m driving to other than having asked Siri for directions to the address. I have some smidge of an idea where I’m going and if you knock knock me over I will get back up again.
And here’s my favorite GPS direction EVER.
“Use any lane to turn left onto Blackfoot Trail south east north.”
I LOLd that was the funniest thing I’ve ever heard Siri say. I actually wanted to end this post here and let you figure out what she was trying to say, but it’s true, that was a valid instruction for a legitimate navigation route guidance. For the spot I was in, as you came around the bend off of the turnoff, there were two left turn lanes, and I actually could use any lane to turn left onto Blackfoot Trail SE which is the actual name of the street (I don’t think it goes as far as Blackfoot Trail NE I think it only exists in the SE part of town), and I would be heading north on Blackfoot Trail SE. Simple right?