Another retro post. This is cracking me up — how dated it is. Was there really a time when people didn’t know what a GPS was? I’m also laughing at how clever I thought I was. Written in March 1997 and posted on castagnaro.com.

Be still my beating heart, I’m in love!

Russell doesn’t know it, so I can’t give you too much information. I won’t tell you his name, but I will give you his initials. G.P.S. We met last night at the car rental agency. Russell was there so I pretended not to like him. I actually told Russell that G.P.S. was an accident waiting to happen. But, no, Russell wouldn’t listen. He likes G.P.S. and wants to be around him so I’m destined to head down a very treacherous road indeed.

G.P.S. is strong, a born leader. He only takes direction from above. He’s driving me to distraction! When we’re together, he keeps track of my every move and never steers me wrong. On the road of life, he is my guide. Where he leads, I will follow.

All right, all right. For those of you who know what I’m talking about, pretty darn clever, eh? For those of you who don’t… Let me introduce the

GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEMHave any of you ever heard of this? It’s this satellite tracking system that can be installed into your car that will give you directions from any position to any destination. It’s the most incredible thing! I only saw one for the first time yesterday and already I’m hooked.

Russell and I used the G.P.S. to drive from the airport in San Francisco to our new apartment in Sunnyvale. It was our first night in town and we didn’t know where to find a place to eat so , what did we do? Why, we fired up the G.P.S. and asked it to list for us (in order of closest to farthest) the restaurants in the area. We then chose a restaurant, decided to take the shortest route (as opposed to the one with the most freeway or the least freeway), and got there with only 2 wrong turns. Russell’s fault, not the system’s!

To top it off, the G.P.S. has a male computerized voice that will tell you: PREPARE TO EXIT THE HIGHWAY or SLIGHT LEFT TURN AHEAD or LEAVE YOUR HUSBAND, YOU KNOW YOU LOVE ME!

I don’t know where you can get one of these gadgets. I don’t know how much it costs. (I’ll find this all out later, for the sake of keeping our readers informed.) But I do know, I HAVE TO GET ONE OF THESE SYSTEMS. Lucky for me, Russell is addicted too!