A Weekend of Gadgetry

I dunno what it is about gadgetry that makes me fall in love with it but I do.  I get new "toys" and I just zero in on them.

Early this last week I was sitting here and saw an ad on Craigslist.  It said, "Moving: Lots of Free stuff to rumage through" and listed Auburn as the city.  (BTW, that's their spelling of rummage. I know because the ad is still up.)  Inside the ad said, "There are magazines, toolbox, clothes, kitchen stuff, flashlights, plant, farm supplies, cat stuff. etc.  Clothes, bedding, Garmin GPS, wiper board, games, stuff. I don't know, just alot of stuff. Just anything I come across as I am packing and moving is going out there."  Well, it listed an address that was only 10 minutes away from us, and the ad had just been posted so we hopped in the car.

What did I get?  A Garmin GPS for my car.  Suzie has had a GPS for a few years now and it's surely come in handy more than once, but I never saw much need for one myself.  Especially considering she has one.  Besides, I'm a guy and we don't need to ask for directions, right?  Okay, the bag the GPS was in also contained its suction mount, power cord to plug in the car lighter, and a couple other cords that didn't go to it.  The power cord had broken plastic where it plugs into the back of the unit so I didn't expect it to work at all.  I was very surprised to find the unit power up when I carefully plugged it in and wiggled it.  I played with it a little bit and determined that it was a perfectly healthy unit that someone had broken the power cord to, so they scrapped it.  It also has a USB plug on the side of it so you can charge it from your computer at home, so I brought it in and plugged it in.  The next morning I let it "lead" me to work and it operated just fine (after I wiggled it enough that it would stay on).  I let it charge on my work computer all day.  I holds a charge just fine.  A little digging on the internet provided me with a manual, a firmware update, and a bunch of fun vehicle icons to install.  I glued a piece of metal onto my dashboard (yes, you read right: glued! Hey, it's an old car, why not?) for the suction cup to mount to and we used it all day Saturday on our drive to photograph lavender fields over in the city of Sequim.  I worked flawlessly.  Because it passed the operational tests, I ordered up a new power cord from eBay for a whopping $8.50.  Sure, it's an older model, but it works great and the price was right (and I like the her British accent).

While we were in Sequim we stopped for lunch, and in the parking lot of the Arby's we ate at was a Goodwill store.  Hey, how could we pass that up?  In there I found another old camera for my collection for only 6 bucks.  It was still in its original leather case and even still had a roll of film in it.  It's a Falcon Model F from 1938 (don't you love the internet?).

Then yesterday (see, I'm not done yet) we were out and stopped at our local Goodwill store and I bought another wireless router for 6 bucks.  No, I didn't need one, but it had the optional high-gain antennas on it.

It was a great weekend.  It was excellent weather both days, and we got to squeeze in driving, photography, sunbathing, and junk store shopping.

Oh, and gadgetry too!