A Lesson From Shirley

I about fell over in amazement the other day.

We are in the process of moving to O'Fallon, Illinois, about 7 miles from where we currently live. Our house is on the real estate market and we purchased a new and wonderful home in O'Fallon. My Mother-In-Law, Shirley, who is a wonderful person that I get along with very well, came out from California to help with the move. And, she has helped out tremendously. But you have to understand my Mother-In-Law, she is very old school. Her family lost everything during the Dust Bowl and moved from Colorado to Los Angeles in the 1930s. She has lived through losing everything and as a result has become very wise in saving and investing her money. Anytime we make a significant financial decision we go to Shirley for advice. She is also a little suspicious of technology. She has a computer and is getting more and more capable on it, but still primarily uses it just to send E-Mail.

Flash back to April 4 when Shirley got off the airplane from California. We get home and she starts playing with one of these. Link. A Garmin Street Pilot Global Positioning System (GPS). I couldn't believe it. She was familiar with the town we have lived in for 11 years now, but didn't want to get lost trying to navigate around O'Fallon. So, God bless her, she bought a GPS to use in the car. We have been in the process of working with Shirley to teach her how to use it, and it turns out to be a great tool.

The Garmin Street Pilot will display a moving map keeping you in the center and will give you verbal directions to get you to your destination. So Shirley can see where she is and hear how to get where she wants to go. Pretty cool tool. I have had several GPSs over the years, but this one is the easiest to use and presents information in a very usable format.

Anyhow, to say the least, I was impressed with Shirley's decision. Working in the Geospatial Information business I would have picked a toy like this, but I didn't know she had it in her.

Way to go Shirley!