Juno, Package Delivery and a Tuber's Tutorial

The killer snowstorm they were forecasting for us never materialized but still, you'd never know it's spring around here. I've heard we can expect temps in the 60s next week. I'd be happy with 50s at this point.

Our furnace went on the blink a couple nights ago. I couldn't even get the fan to turn on. I phoned Center Point and they were able to get a tech out within 20 minutes. It appeared there was no power to the furnace at all and the tech couldn't explain that. He found that the igniter was bad. A simple fix. From the time I made the phone call for help to when he left was no more than 45 minutes. Quite impressive.

We watched Juno this past week. I suppose some may call it a chick flick but I thought it was an excellent movie. I believe it comes out on DVD this week. Tammy and Rachel thought the writing reminded them of the Gilmore Girls. This will probably be one of those movies we buy. I don't usually buy movies but I have a few. The last one I felt the need to own was the World's Fastest Indian. Great film.

I usually try and support my local businesses as much as I can but occasionally I'll use an online retailer especially if it means avoiding a trip to Best Buy. We went online through Amazon to buy Rachel's GPS. I couldn't locate the one I wanted locally and I didn't feel like driving all over town to find it. Even with opting for the express, one-day delivery charge of $17, I was still quite a bit ahead both in time and gas money making the purchase through the convenience of my laptop. The obvious advantage of purchasing online is the ability to compare features as well as prices. The abundance of reviews to mull over is an added bonus.

It's great to be able to track your packages as they make their way to your door. I was concerned that this one wouldn't make it in time as we really needed it by Friday and I'd never used one-day delivery before. No problem.

Carrier notified to pick up package at 12:34:47 PM, April 10, 2008
Shipment picked up by UPS at 05:38:00 PM, April 10, 2008 from Tulsa, OK
Arrival scan, 12:45:00 AM, April 11, 2008, Louisville, KY
Arrival scan, 03:45:00 AM, April 11, 2008, Minneapolis, MN
Delivered, 01:49:00 PM, April 11, 2008, Lakeville, MN

I played around with the unit for a while so I could show Rachel how to use it. She probably already knows more about how it works than I do as her friend has one. Anyway, in typical geek fashion, I took it out for a test drive and wouldn't you know I brought my video camera along. Lucky you...



Rachel and I got out this morning for a test run to put it through its paces. She'll have no problem finding her way around with it. The main concern I have is making sure she hides it from view when her car is parked. I hear they're popular targets for theft. My sister was telling me that thieves will look for the suction cup mark on the windshield and know that there's likely a GPS unit in the car out of view. I was reading the directions and sure enough, they caution you to wipe off the suction cup residue from your windshield for that very reason. I asked Rachel to keep it in the house when she's not using it.

The Nuvi 260 has an anti-theft feature in case it's stolen which disables the unit from performing any functions until the user types in a specific 4-digit PIN or takes the unit to a predetermined secure location. I sort of like the idea of a predetermined location rather than a 4-digit PIN as a person could crack the code in a couple hours if they're persistent. I'll have to look and see how the predetermined location thing works.