DDAR Update and GPs Navigation (was RE: Welcome t the revolution, comrades)

["Graham Howe" <graham@xxxxxxx>]

DDAR mission has gone well so far, here is an update and description of the
latest stage.

I flew out of Heathrow Wednesday afternoon (and got bumped up t  Club Class
which was nice!) arriving in New York at 7pm local time. I then picked up
my
hire car from Hertz which I had already booked over the internet and which
included their 'Neverlost' system.

This system is absolutely fantastic and consists of a boot mounted GPS
(Magellan) and a dash mounted colour navigation system. I simply entered my
destination address. The unit then directed me through the nightmare of New
York roads, automatically re-routing as I missed turnings. I would probably
not have missed as many turnings if I had read the instructions and loaded
the correct map before I drove off! Three hours later I arrived at a hotel
in South New Jersey and checked in for the night.

Thursday morning I entered the address of the site that had received the
DDAR units and the Neverlost system directed me there without me making a
single wrong turn. I arrived at the site and started unpacking 60 DDAR's
and
repacking them int  5 boxes. Thanks to a huge amount of help from the site
I
was finished and back in the car by 11.30.

I then entered the address of the shipper (Newark in North New Jersey)
which
was about a hundred miles away and the directions were again perfect all
the
way t  the door. Goods were handed over, receipt was obtained and I was
back
in the car by 3pm.

The final stretch of the journey was the biggest test of the Neverlost
system. About 30 miles t  Hertz Rental, JFK heading right through the
centre
of New York. I did have problems here, quite simply there were t o many
lanes and exit options and when the voice was saying stay left and there
are
four or more lanes then how far left do you stay? Anyway, every time I made
a mistake the unit recalculated and got me back on course, at one point I
even went through the Lincoln tunnel (and the system continued t  show my
location perfectly throughout) t  end up driving through the heart of
Manhattan. At 4.30pm I got t  the Hertz site and ditched the car, my
mission
was complete. Time t  party!

This was my first time in New York (or the US for that matter) and the
earliest I got t  bed was 4am, I reckon I had about 15 hours sleep since
Thursday morning. It was all great fun but now I am back home and as you
can
see, back on line. This is my first email of the day, despite being sat in
front of Outlook since about 10am, the reason of course was the 500 emails
I
had in my inbox!

Hopefully the units will arrive in the UK in the next 2/3 weeks, I expect t
get an actual date sometime this week (just depends on which ship the goods
actually left on). Once they arrive I will start arranging delivery and
collection.

One final point, there WILL be some units available for sale by me once
everything has arrived. These will be sold at a profit and the price will
be
set once I have worked out all of the actual costs (we still d  not know
what if any customs charges might apply). I will post a one off advert here
so that list members have the opportunity t  buy one.

Regards

(a very tired) Graham