My New Toy a Nuvi 660

My new toy arrived yesterday. So far I am impressed with the Nuvi 660. I have yet to use it for navigation, but I was pleasantly surprised with how quickly and easily it paired with my Treo. When I started looking for a GPS device I quickly learned that there are tons out there. Each with pros and cons. There good thing is there seem to be a ton of very good devices on the market.

I had narrowed my choice down before vacation to the Nuvi 360 and the C550 from Garmin and the TomTom 510 or 910. Aside from the navigation features I really wanted something that would work with the Bluetooth on my phone. I have a Bluetooth headset, but I hate driving with it in my ear. It is comfortable enough, I just don't like having on my head the entire time. I was marginally attracted to the mp3 capabilities of the devices.

Fast forward to my return from vacation. I find out that while I was away Garmin had announced a new Nuvi. While away I spent many hours agonizing over which device to get. I finally made my wife to convince me to get the Nuvi. The other devices had similar feature sets, but the nuvi had a better form factor. The nuvi was more portable and I do travel a lot.

I do some more price checking to see if the prices on the 360's have dropped and low and behold, both TomTom and Garmin have announced new devices. TomTom released the ONE, which was interesting, but didn't have the phone capability I was looking for. Garmin had released the Nuvi 660 it had all of the features of the 360, but it included an integrated FM traffic receiver to get live traffic info. This was actually the feature the made it a tough call between the C550 and the Nuvi 360. I had chosen form-factor over traffic. But here was my chance to have my cake and eat it too.

So lets hope my new toy doesn't lead me astray. Now that I have a navigation device telling me how to get places I wonder if I will directions will be come like phone numbers. I can't for the life of me remember the phone numbers of my closest friends. I can barely get out my home and cell phone number when asked. I wonder how long it will be before we all just hop in the card and tell it where we want to go with out any real idea of where we are actually going?

Crazy Shark Water Sports - Inflatable Iceberg

Crazy Shark Water Sports Online Shop - Inflatable Iceberg Wow an inflatable Iceberg.... Titanic watch out. If only I owned a pool or even better a lake. The only downside I can see to this item is being the one stuck blowing it up. That would probably put you out of commission for a week or two.

Standing on top of a Volcano

Mary and I just got back from vacation we had a great time. I will try and update all of the things we did here, but I will start with the most awe inspiring event first. We actually hiked to the back of an erupting volcano!

The above picture is a panoramic view of the Pu'u O'o Vent of The Kiluea Volcano on the Island of Hawaii. It was a truly amazing place to be. The hike is a 4.2 mile stroll through a sort of interesting rain forest. The trail is relatively flat and very wet. It isn't much different than a hike through a wet New Englad forest. While the vegetation is slightly different the ground cover is mostly dense fern type plants.

The thing I found most interesting about the hike was the lava we were walking over. Rather than the hard granite I am used to it was neat to see the relatively new lava flows beneath my feet. There were a few places where the lava looked like tree roots and I had to double take when I stepped on it.

The Back of the Vent was amazing. We didn't dare get much closer then the edge of the forest, which was maybe a mile away from the actual vent. From a distance the 500 foot vent looks rather small, but it was amazing to know that on the other side of a small rock wall was an active volcano.

Mary and I made to the edge of the forest for lunch and spent about an hour just watching the vent steam. We saw a few helicopter tours come by and at least one fixed wing aircraft fly by. We probably could have spent all day watching the vent just pour out clouds of gas.

We have, in the past, watched the lava flow into the ocean which is also an experience not to be missed. But being at the top of the volcano will hold a special place in my memory.