' not getting older...' getting better... ;^)

[k001k47]

Nice job, Bloke!
Now could you do the same to my tuba for FREE?

[MartyNeilan]

Joe,
If you wanted to work those kind of hours, you should've gone into IT.

[oldbandnerd]

Have you ever tried to get directions from someone who owns one of those GPS ?

My question to them " Which way did you go to get there ? "

Their standard answer " I don't know I just followed my GPS. If you need directions I'll have to pull over so I can right them down and call you back."

I hope his GPS doesn't stop working. He'll never be able to find his way back home.

I am a service technician and work alongside a sales force that is addicted to their GPS like it was crack. Sometimes they ride with me and would bring their electronic POS with them and insist I follow the directions it gives. I got so fed up with being told how to drive and which way to go to get to accounts I have been to hundreds of times I finally have told the sales men to leave that POS in their car if they wanted to ride with me or they can drive themselves.

My territory covers from Va.Beach through Richmond out to Charlottesville,Lynchburch and Christiansburg Virgina. I've been travel to these cities for years with different jobs I have had. No matter where IT is I probably been there. If I don't know where IT is I have brand new ADC maps and a cell phone . I can always just called the account for directions .......... dddduuhhh !!!

They are very expensive ( $200 and up ) and it cost $49.99 everytime you want to update the map,which needs to be done about every 6 months. Paper maps are cheaper and more accurate .

[Tom Waid]

As one who, in the dim past, has sat upon the deck of a wildly pitching sailing yacht struggling to measure the angular distance of the sun to the horizon with a sextant; I consider GPS to be a godsend. But it is only a tool and the information that it gives is only useful to someone who has the brains and common sense to use that information correctly. If my memory serves me, I recall a story about the master of a ferry in Maine pushing the “goto” button on his GPS without drawing a course line on the chart. If he had, he would have noticed the shoal that was between him and his destination. As it was there was a grounding, an oil spill, and a ferry master out of a job. Anyone surrendering all navigational responsibilities to a little black box is destined to suffer this kind of fate. When you are driving to a destination using a paper map you are forced to keep track of where you are at all times. If you can do this while using a GPS then you are using it properly. If not, you can end up without the faintest notion of where you are when your GPS decides to fly south.

For the record I don’t use GPS in my car.

[Tubaryan12]

I hope his GPS doesn't stop working. He'll never be able to find his way back home.

Sadly, this is me. I have absolutely no sense of direction. Some are blessed with it. Some learn it. I just don't have the ability. There was one trip where, for at least an hour, I crossed back and forth across the same bridge in the Washington D.C. area during a storm because I thought I was going the wrong direction (yes, I did have maps with me). I managed and drove for Domino's Pizza on and off for over 10 yrs, in the greater Cleveland area (where I was born and raised) and I still needed maps to get around. I have literally driven into sub divisions, dropped off a pizza, and then took 10 min. to find my way back out again. I can only follow a map when it is turned the direction I am driving. My GPS has saved me more times than I would like to admit.

[imperialbari]

Rather than some legendary/self proclaimed feat of blokian power-of-will (:D and NOT trying to be argumentary), this seems like a dangerous mix of too little sleep and too much driving.

The sousaphone does look very pr-etty though.

You're right! ...but the guy I put at shotgun is a non-stop conversationalist...I put him there on purpose. I could have NEVER made it up there without him yaking (and subsequently stimulating me to yak back). He was also the one who helped with the homespun detours...and he "claimed" that he was bad with directions...He was EXCELLENT! (Actually he HAD his gps in the car...and I *could have* brought one along myself. I asked him to *please* leave his gps in his suitcase.)

Hopefully your insurance agent isn't on TubeNet!

In the light of your driving practices we maybe shouldn't wonder about your continued, and not very ethical, urge to mock whatever symphony orchestra. As if that species of musical outlet isn’t already pretty endangered!

Klaus

[bearphonium]

The sousaphone looks great. Hope your new customer was happy with the service. Love those paper maps. Hate "mapquest" gps type directions. Have poor sense of direction. Sleep depravation is the cheapest high there is.

How did the gig go?

Ally"who has worked her graveyard shift, umpired a softball tournament and worked her graveyard shift but only at age 46 and haven't tried that since turning 50"House

[MikeMason]

Klaus,Bloke's "Mock Symphony Orchestra" reference is(my guess) a little fun with the mock orchestra and band auditions held at tuba conferences.I don't believe Bloke is anti-orchestra,considering he makes a few dollars a year doing orchestra stuff.(Since I'm speculating,I'd guess he's probably not a big fan of government subsidies for them though).If people only worked when they were perky and fresh,a lot less would be accomplished in the world including medical,military,transportation and many other critical endeavors.

[imperialbari]

Over the last week or so, he and I have been amusing each other by electronically pulling on and quickly releasing each others' underwear elastics.

Amusing he says! I don't see the fun. He pulled my elastic, secured it, and went out of electronic reach for days without telling me. Waiting for the ever so kind slap was torture.

But then bloke is sharp no matter what people might think! As seen from a recent thread in another sub-forum, today he even managed to come out a whole step sharp on the simple math rule that the sequencing of addends doesn't matter. I don't know the English wording of any math rule or law, obviously.

As for feigning I had to use a dictionary. This cannot be true. A Norwegian friend returned to Korsør this week and gave me a photo taken of me when she was here in August. I thought I was prepared for the worst. I wasn't. But then aside of bodily frailty things are improving. Just pulled out my Vienna horn after 5 years. I remembered that the 5th of 6 piston caps was stuck in a place, where my bear's paw couldn't enter for a good grip.

In came TubeNet, where I had learned about an item I never had heard of before: a strap wrench. Only I don't have one. But one could easily be made out of a trombone cleaning tool: a rag.

Full circle.

Klaus

[Alex C]

re: GPS

When in the Hammond, Indiana area and trying to find one of the first OPEN ramps on to non-flooded portion of I-90 east, I hailed a FedExGround driver for directions...and received bad advice. "

I have learned: NEVER as a FedEx or UPS driver for directions. I followed the directions of a UPS driver (that my wife asked for because he would "know the shortest route) and got irretrivably lost in the Finger Lakes.

We were so lost (WITH a map) that she, a pilot, was almost in tears. When I asked for directions at a gas station (yes, I was that lost). They broke up laughing I was so far from the right place.

A four hour drive ended up taking almost ten.

And lastly, I read bloke's adventure of the whyte phyberglass sousaphone with deep admiration. I not offer any sympathies because I know that his reward is in the realization that 1) he contributed so greatly to the cause of great music, and that 2) the extra money that the school has endowed because of his extraordinary efforts, are more reward than anyone could contain. May it bring him long-lived happiness. I know you will continue to be fruitful in the business relationship now established.

Bravo. Please excuse me now, while I wipe the bullshot off of my laptop screen.

[Rick Denney]

As a civil engineer, maps are my livelihood. Most of the newer maps are made from the same database as what the GPS units use. I've been led deeply astray by maps--they are no better than GPS in telling you which road is or is not Traffic Signal Hell.

And if you can navigate in downtown Washington DC using a paper map, then when you arrive (or should I say "if") you can use the wadded-up map to wipe the blood from various pedestrians off the front of the car. Driving in DC requires two eyes, two feet, and ten white knuckles.

The Garmin is a God-send in places like DC, or in navigating around in a town I've never been in. And it's not bad for telling me which restaurants might be near my route, and not just what's at the next exit.

But I never expect it to find the best route. I only expect it to get me there. Always, if I know a better route, I use it. On the other hand, I've modified my usual route to a few places using tricks I learned from my Nuvi.

Rick "who usually turns the sound off--the female voice in the Garmin has just the right touch of irritation when saying 'Recalculating'" Denney

[gwwilk]

Rick "who usually turns the sound off--the female voice in the Garmin has just the right touch of irritation when saying 'Recalculating'" Denney

I often go off route when I know a better one, and somehow I get a perverse pleasure from hearing the exasperation in her voice. I changed to an Aussie voice briefly in my Nuvi, but quickly restored the default because I missed having her get miffed at my inability to follow her (sometimes inane) directions. And when I miss a turn...don't I deserve a bit of condescension?

[tubatooter1940]

Three of us traveled 24 hours straight from the deep South to Caseville, Michigan to play "Cheeseburger in Caseville".
We pulled all equipment in a 4 by 8 covered trailer and left the back of the station wagon for my tuba and one of us to lay full length in a sleeping bag blocked in with pillows.
We rotated from the sleeping bag to driver to "he who keeps the driver supplied, awake and amused".
I read about Bloke and Klaus giving each other electronic "wedgies" and I fail to understand how it's done.
GPS is my saviour on my sailboat but Mapquest has been fine so far for land travel. I am not afraid to ask directions. I just don't trust most directions I get. It was great the time some good ole boys showed me a bootlegger's road through the woods to avoid a flood In Richmond,Va.
I am getting older but certainly not better. Maybe craftier and more adept at treachery.