INSTIGATING LOGIC
Back to work

By JARED PUTNAM Union Sentinel Editor

Having just come back from some much needed vacation time, I've come to a couple of conclusions. One, vacations are never long enough; and two, I'm a lot more content when I have sports to cover.

At least the latter problem is about to be solved, though to my knowledge, no one has figured out a way around that first obstacle.

While I was gone I had a good opportunity to try out my two new toys, a Garmin Nuvi GPS and an iphone. While you can hardly consider either of them to be anything more than a luxury, my GPS in particular comes in handy.

GPS prices have come down considerably, and so far mine has been perfectly accurate. Best of all, gone are the days of using Mapquest.

With all due respect to you, my old friend Mapquest, you are obsolete.

I no longer have a reason to bother taking my eyes off the road to keep up with a series of your printed twists and turns. Not when Mrs. Garmin Nuvi can give me visual and audio cues as to where I need to go.

All I have to do is give her a destination address. That's right, unlike you, Mapquest, she doesn't need to be told where I'm starting from. She already knows. Feeling insecure yet?

I also grew tired of you always getting me close to my destination, only to throw me a curve at the last minute. It was as if to say, "Gotcha, you didn't really think I was going to take you all the way there did you?"

That prank stopped being funny after the first 18 times. So while we have had a good run together, it's time to move on.

That brings me to the iphone.

I might as well go ahead and say that it lives up to every bit of the hype created by all those nifty commercials. This coming from a tech junkie that reviews and researches every significant purchase into the ground.

After all, we're talking about a slick little device about the size of a playing card that can fulfill the majority of your technological needs.

The iphone lets you browse the internet, use email or text messaging, take photos with a builtin 2-megapixel camera, listen to music and play movies or tv shows, all on a touch screen that allows you to zoom in or out by gliding your fingers across it.

Sure, it lets you make phone calls too, but with all those features, who has time to actually interact with another human being? Besides, those are just the highlights, even though I still say they should have created a model that also included a taser.

Just put it on speakerphone and you could ward off potential muggers, vicious dogs or annoying relatives without ever breaking stride in a conversation.

Minor quibbles aside, the iphone is a terrific invention. Between it and my GPS, I don't have any excuse for ever getting lost, whether on vacation or otherwise. Now my only problem is finding another couple of weeks when I can actually go.