Monday, December 22, 2008 - Brenham TX

Flyover, Melville LA, December 20, 2008

My Poor-Man's-GPS mapping experiment

Apple came out with a new version of the iPod touch back in mid September that got my attention and I grabbed one right away to try as an ebook reader. I'd much rather carry the weight of tools than books on my travels and thought the touch might make a decent ebook reader. It does indeed but that's another story. Today I'm interested in trying an alternative to my usual paper route sheet for today's travels.

The Apple iPhone and iPod touch come with a mobile version of Google Maps built in. For some whacky reason I had the thought that I could improve on it. Yeah right - the thing is already pretty darned good.

So I made me a Google trip map of my intended course from Livingston to Brenham TX and saved it to my Mac as a PDF file, fired up the DataCase app I installed on the iPod and dragged that file into my Shared Files folder on the iPod.

That works - fairly well - except that the print version of the Google trip map prints the distance to travel between waypoints way over on the right of a letter size sheet - If I zoom in on the iPod to get the text big enough to read that column is scrolled way off the screen. Darn.

There's gotta be another way - let's try emailing myself the map and reading it on the iPod in Mail - Ha! that works pretty well BUT - the map it displays is the wrong one - it's the one with the route through Houston. This technology has it's limits!

Sheesh. The best bet seems to be just using Google Maps on the iPod Touch, and breaking the trip up to get the route I want. THe mobile version of Google maps on the iPod touch won't let me avoid highways or add intermediate waypoints and it chooses a route through Houston - that's no good. I could advance step by step and create the map as I go (assuming I have a place to pull over for a minute and an internet connection). That might work. Ah! - idea - I know my route to Huntsville; I'll start mapping from there, close the iPod with that map in place and then when I open the iPod - there it is. That works - I get a route the same as above for the rest of the trip.

Except that it takes two hands to open the iPod touch.....

Sheesh - I'm right back where I started from. If I get a dash mount to hold the iPod while I open it.....

Foiled by a flare-up of bad TPS syndrome

No sooner had I headed out on my days drive than the engine throttle position sensor started acting up in the old familiar way it had back in Mississippi last winter. The transmission wouldn't stay locked up and slight throttle changes caused the engine to stumble and buck. Darn. The mechanic at Patriot Ford who diagnosed the problem back in January said it might heal itself and it did. So I didn't bother to replace it. Now, as seems usual with my breakdowns, the holidays are looming over the problem, complicating getting a shop's attention and the delivery of parts.

At my first chance to pull over I Googled for Ford dealers in Navasota, the next town of any size ahead of me. One was listed and mapped obviously wrong. Googles satellite view showed their pin stuck in an empty field. Thinking it might have been built since the image was taken I went north on TX6 to see. Nope. I couldn't find it and by then I was well on my way to College Station so I figured I'd head on over there and look up a Ford dealer. Googling turned up Varsity Ford in three or four different locations in College Station and adjoining Bryan. Well gee, non of the pinned locations seemed to make any sense and once again - nobody home.

This Googling for business locations idea needs some work. On my part maybe in getting my search terms right and on Google's part in getting the bugs out of their database. Meanwhile the stumbling is getting REALLY bad and now LD doesn't want to idle without one foot on the throttle and the other on the brake. Sure makes driving in heavy traffic in a strange city a barrel of fun. I found a spot to stop for a few minutes to get my bearings and after some thought I decided to head for the Wal-Mart I'd passed coming into the city where I can park a while and think this problem through a bit. So I found my way back to TX6, headed back south and what do I see over there on the east side of the highway? - why it's a brand new Varsity Ford! Well darn. I stop in, get no attention from anyone in this fancy big city dealership and quickly decide this is NOT a good place to get this problem fixed.

Now it gets interesting - I notice as I find my way back onto the highway that the TPS has healed itself again, well, almost. Enough to encourage me to head back to much smaller Navasota and see what I could turn up. By now I've gone to Ford's website and used their dealer locator to locate the dealer in Navasota. Why didn't I think of that sooner?

Off to Navasota I go and... the dealer is not there! WTF?

Time to crash and off I go the last 25 miles to Brenham as planned - and here I sit the next morning, sipping my coffee, tickling the keys putting this little story together. Almost within sight of a Ford dealer I passed coming here last night.

Travel route for the day

From Livingston TX

• West on US190 about 40 miles to Huntsville TX then
• West on TX30 about 26 miles to Roans Prairie TX then
• West on TX90 about 16 miles to Navasota TX then
• North on TX6 about 16 miles to College Station TX then
• North on TX6R about 5 miles to Bryan TX then
• South on TX6 about 20 miles to Navasota TX then
• West on TX105 about 25 miles

To Brenham TX

Night camp

Wal-Mart Parking Lot in Brenham TX

Wal-Mart Supercenter in Brenham TX

Wal-Mart Supercenter Store #321, 203 Us Loop 290 West, Brenham, TX 77833 - (979) 836-1118

• The store is on the southeast corner of the US290 / US36 interchange south of Brenham
• This Superstore has a nice level parking lot and propane and a dumping station are readily available from here.
• Get propane at Brenham L-P Gas Inc, 302 W.Main, Brenham TX - (979) 836-3221
  • From Wal-Mart head north on TX36J / TX105 / TX283 / S Day Street which becomes S Austin Street. Turn left at the next stop sign AFTER the traffic light at Alamo Street. Brenham L-P is the second building on the right.
• Dump tanks at the municipal dump station in the field next to the EMS station on E Blue Bell Road across from the fairgrounds.
  • From Wal-Mart head north on TX36J / TX105 / TX283 / S Day Street which becomes S Austin Street, then at Alamo Street it becomes N Park Street. Turn right onto E Blue Bell Rd. The EMS station is 1/4 mile or so on right and the dump station is just beyond the EMS station.
• Verizon cell phone service- yes, excellent signal
• Verizon EVDO Broadband service - yes, excellent signal
• Find other Wal-Marts in the area
• Get a Google map and Steeet View
• Check the weather here