Have Gun, Will Travel

Hello World,

Happy April! Well, I guess that's what you call an early April Fool's joke, because April doesn't actually start until Tuesday, but we are certainly right on the very doorstep of it, that's for sure. It doesn't seem possible that March could be winding down to the last few precious days, because around here it's still so cold, and yet even Easter is behind us already. That reminds me that one good thing about Palm Sunday the previous week, since I knew I would not be able to attend church on Easter, they managed to include just about my favorite choral music of the season, so I didn't have to miss it after all. The prelude was "The Palms," which never fails to delight, and for the anthem, our resident soprano gave us "The Holy City," and she really ripped the top off of it, by golly. It was like a little mini-Easter concert for those of us who had plans to be elsewhere the following week, and since I was going to be one of them, I was a happy little palm waver indeed.

I already knew that last weekend would be busy, because we had plans for Saturday as well as Sunday, so I thought a good idea would be to take off some days from work to balance that out. It turned out that where Bill works, they decided to close for Good Friday, so I stayed home also, and although Bill went back to work on Monday after Easter, I opted for one more day of rest and relaxation at home, and glad of it. It was a nice treat to have a couple of unfettered days off to catch up on things, where my time was my own, and I was beholden to no clocks or itineraries. On Saturday, I was up with the chickens and driving out to the wilderness to help my sister do yard work, which turned into a longer day than I had expected. It was a beautiful day, and we got a lot done, but after I got home and soaking in the tub, I couldn't help but think that I'm getting way too old for this kind of nonsense.

We were up fairly early on Sunday, but the Easter Bunny still managed to be there ahead of us, and we discovered a cornucopia of sweet treats, interesting trinkets and even some practical stuff hidden away in there besides. Soon it was time to get into our Easter finery and head for Long Island. Even though we left later than we wanted, the traffic was not as bad as we expected, and we made good time to Mom's. It was another beautiful day like Saturday, and we were glad for a chance to get out and go to the diner for lunch. I wouldn't describe my spicy quesadillas and seasoned curly fries as traditional fare for the holiday, but they were certainly delicious, and that was good enough for me. After a pleasant and leisurely lunch, my sister and I exchanged belated birthday presents, since we had missed getting together for our birthdays a few weeks earlier, and you know I always say that the only thing better than a day with presents, is a day with two sets of presents! My sister was still hurting from all of her hard work on Saturday, so she was delighted to get a special vest that provides different settings of heat and massage, plus a remote control to switch between all of the various features. In fact, she put it on right out of the box, and never budged after that, and we left her on the sofa, making happy noises and experimenting with all the different options. That was one useful gift that certainly came in handy at the right time, which was interesting because we had bought it ahead of time and didn't realize what a hit it would be after the yard work marathon. Sometimes things just work out that way, although we can't rule out the possibility that the Easter Bunny may have had something to do with it.

Meanwhile at work, I found myself involved in one of those inadvertently funny situations, like trying to explain a spiral staircase to someone without using your hands. The supervisor of our Central Sterile Supply department, who has been at the hospital so long that I believe they built the building around her, and certainly should know better, was trying to get some office supplies out of our Storeroom, and apparently having no luck at it. She started out with the supply clerk, a very polite and accommodating older man, who would not only give you the shirt off of his back, but himself right along with it, if you asked him. She described to him what she was looking for, but since she had no idea what it was called, he was unable to bring to mind anything that would match her description. He finally had to tell her that he had no idea what she was asking for, but she was welcome to wander the aisles of supplies and see if she could spot the correct item on her own. She let him know that she was disgusted at his lack of proficiency, in spite of the fact that he was born at the hospital, and had been working there practically since that day, and certainly knew pretty much all there was to know about supplies in our Storeroom. Compared to these two old-timers, I was a mere newcomer, and know practically nothing about the Storeroom supplies, so of course, she called me next. Here's where I got involved in the "spiral staircase without using your hands" scenario, because she still didn't know what to call the thing she was looking for, and now she was trying to describe it to me over the phone, which is sort of like playing charades blindfolded. After what only seemed like an eternity, it finally came to light, and turned out to be something very simple, although not all that simple to describe. You can go ahead and give it a try for yourself, and imagine that you are looking for Post-It Notes, only you don't know that they're called Post-It Notes, and your descriptions are full of terms like "sticky," "small," "you write on it," and "they hang off the edge." Since we don't keep this as a Storeroom item among our office supplies, it was no wonder the supply clerk couldn't help her, although I have to believe that he would have given anything he had to get her out of his hair. I'm sure the next time she walks up to him with another one of these wild goose chases, he's going to tell her to call me first, and not bother wasting his time, and take her spiral staircase with her.

That shaggy dog story had easily shot to the top of my favorite anecdotes of the week, until unexpectedly, this other tale came out of nowhere and passed it at a flat run. It was late in the day on Thursday, when I got a frantic phone call from the nursing supervisor at our sister institution in Mount Vernon, and she needed a purchase order number immediately so she could place an overnight order for some orthopedic supplies desperately needed to alleviate a patient's suffering. Of course, everyone knows how I aim to be helpful, so I was prepared to give her a verbal number on the spot, and asked her for the name of the vendor she was going to order from. "Smith and Wesson," she replied at once. Excuse me??? This is where I'm thinking that patient care has certainly changed a lot since the last time I looked, and I was about to ask her if this might have been one of Dr. Kevorkian's patients, or someone taking a page out of his book. In the background, I can hear everyone else at the nurses station laughing, and they're all saying, "It's not Smith and Wesson!" Sure enough, it turned out to be instead those fine and upstanding folks at the health care giant, Smith + Nephew (and please feel free to visit their web site at www.smith-nephew.com and see for yourself) whose medical supply divisions run the gamut from orthopedic implants and cardio-vascular grafts, to prosthetic devices and wound care supplies, and everything in between. The nursing supervisor, in spite of decades in the field, and just as many decades using medical supplies from the vast S+N family of products, in the stress of the moment, instead blurted out the name of a well-known gun manufacturer, which you would expect would be totally at odds with what you would be thinking at a time like that. Well, it's certainly true that our minds play tricks on us, but I have to admit that even I wasn't expecting it to come up with Russian Roulette. Or in the immortal words of Dirty Harry, "Do you feel lucky?"

Hop To It

Hello World,

Happy Easter! Although I suppose, in deference to the Easter Bunny of lore and legend, I should say instead "hoppy" Easter, in recognition of our fuzzy long-eared benefactor. For people observing this occasion, I hope (or perhaps it would be better to say, I "hop") that your holiday is like a beautiful Easter basket, filled to the brim with chocolate bunnies, malted milk eggs, jelly beans and marshmallow peeps of all descriptions. There's no wrong way to celebrate Easter, whether you go to church, visit relatives, or try your luck at the casino, whatever it takes to help you appreciate the spirit of rebirth, renewal and redemption. Personally, I just need some Cadbury Creme Eggs and I'm good.

This week started off in fine style with Palm Sunday, which as everyone knows, is the favorite Sunday of the church year for cats the world over. How they love those fresh palms! This year's crop did not disappoint, and we had cats fighting over new palms upstairs and downstairs. At church, I was surprised to see a Palm Sunday pageant put on by the youth, since that has not been a tradition in my experience there, and everyone looked suitably Biblical in their robes and turbans. The congregation played the part of the bystanders, waving their palms at the procession, while the youth as the disciples, led Jesus into Jerusalem on a donkey. In what I thought was a brilliant bit of casting, the part of the donkey was played by an audio-visual cart that had been covered with blankets and fitted with a cardboard donkey head, so the disciples had no trouble pulling Jesus along the center aisle up to the chancel, just as smooth as you please. I don't mind saying this is in stark contrast to actual real donkeys, or even people dressed as donkeys, so I'm thinking that Jesus was probably pretty happy with his means of conveyance, at least compared to the alternatives. The timeless story of Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem was told with reverence and enthusiasm, and all of the youngsters did a wonderful job from start to finish. Unfortunately, in all the excitement, the donkey lost his head before the end of the program, but still and all, it was inspiring and entertaining, and as welcome as it was unexpected.

Earlier in the week, of course, Monday was St. Patrick's Day, and somehow the venerable parade in New York City managed to take place as it traditionally does, but without all of the antagonism and legal wrangling that it usually has, so I would have to consider that a break with tradition right there. Perhaps having the parade during Holy Week was not such a bad idea after all. Actually, I never recall hearing one single solitary word about the entire parade, for weeks beforehand or after, unlike what usually happens, where the media circus surrounding all of the controversy starts months ahead of time. Seriously, with first Waitangi Day passing by without a murmur, and now St. Patrick's Day also quiet as a church mouse, it's enough to make you wonder if society has truly progressed to the point where holidays and armed conflict do not necessarily have to go hand-in-hand. I'm kidding, of course, or should I say, alas. In fact, the only story that kicked up a rumpus before the fabled parade was about an Irish bar that was going to prohibit its patrons from singing "Danny Boy" on St. Patrick's Day, which the management felt had been over-done to an extreme degree, although any other Irish songs would be acceptable. Unless you're an Irish tenor with a repertoire of unfamiliar tunes from the Emerald Isle, Bill and I realized that we had trouble coming up with anything after When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ra, Molly Malone, Christmas in Killarney, MacNamara's Band, Harrigan, I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover, Mother McGree and I'll Be Coming Home Again to You, Kathleen. So without old Danny Boy and the pipes, the pipes are calling, from glen to glen, in sunshine and in clover, I'm thinking it would be pretty quiet in that bar after they ran through the rest of their Irish songs. I suppose they might have filled in with songs from Waitangi Day, but let's face it, that just wouldn't be the same thing at all.

I wore green to work on Monday, as I generally do in honor of the saint's day, because I'm on board with the idea that everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's Day, no matter who you are or where you come from. At our hospital, most people you see are wearing green anyway year-round, because our scrubs are Kelly green, and you'll find everyone from doctors and nurses, to radiologists, physical therapists, phlebotomists, pharmacists and anesthesiologists all walking around in bright green scrubs. One of my favorite things to do on the holiday is to stop someone in the hallway, like a Laboratory technician who is very obviously Asian with an unpronounceable name and the map of China all over their face, point at their scrubs and exclaim, "I never knew you were Irish!" Some of them laugh, and some just stare, as if they weren't expecting to encounter a three-headed polka-dot space alien on their rounds. My favorites are the ones who feel their national dignity has been impugned, and insist on correcting me, in the dense and incomprehensible accents of their home country, that they are certainly NOT Irish, as if they were likely to be mistaken for a freckle-faced child of the Old Sod. Yemen, go bragh!

It transpired that the next day, I wore a different outfit that also happened to be green, and you'd be surprised to find out, as I was, that it excites a lot of comment when you do that. Everywhere I went all day long, people stopped me in the hallways and said things like, "You should have worn that yesterday," or "you missed St. Patrick's Day," or "you're a day late," and on and on like that all the live-long day, with a banjo on my knee. It would have never occurred to me before what a conversation starter that is, and I can highly recommend it, at least for the purpose of getting the attention of strangers wherever you may go on March 18th. I'm thinking of starting my own holiday then, and calling it Easy to be Green Day, because at least it would already have built-in music (Green Day, get it?) and I already know that people seem incapable of passing up an opportunity to say something to you when you wear green on the day after St. Patrick's Day. I call that "The Shamrock Effect," which proves, I suppose, that timing is everything.

Speaking of days and times, here's a recent news story that seems to fly in the face of the way things are going nowadays:

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Monday March 17, 2008 Study Says Daylight Saving Time May Waste Energy, Increase Pollution Categories: News and Events, Pollution, Science Tags: daylight saving time Earlier this month we all had to do what I cynically refer to as the obligatory clock walk. That's when all the clocks and watches around the house had to be sprung one hour forward for the daylight saving time (DST).
Yet, scrambling to advance time and catch more sunlight - a practice that was originally established to reduce the country's electricity usage - may actually cost us 1.21 gigawatts of power. The figure came by way of a UC Santa Barbara study of the state of Indiana, where DST has only been observed for the past few years.
According to Gizmodo, the study concluded that an added hour may have reduced the need for extra lighting. However, air-conditioning in the summer and heating in the fall were used more than they would with less daylight. This cost Indiana residents roughly $8.6 million more in energy bills annually with the additional $5.3 million per year in "increased pollution costs". Go figure!
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Well, I can't think that the DST camp can be too pleased with those statistics, although I've long since given up on the idea that they care what anyone else thinks of their dastardly schemes at this point. Bill and I went out after dinner tonight, and at 6:00 PM, it was still broad daylight with the sun up, so that you would think it was later in the spring, and you could enjoy being outside in the nice weather. Oh, except for the fact that it's still the middle of March, thank you very much not, and it's all of 40 degrees outdoors, so even with the sun up, it feels more like springtime in Nome than time to break out the beach towels and flip-flops. The Daylight Scamming Tricksters can make it as light as they want, but it's still cold around here in March, and having sunlight after dinner when it's cold is just incongruous in these parts, no matter how they try to convince us otherwise. So until they come up with that Temperature Shifting Device that works in conjunction with Daylight Stupid Tampering, it's going to be nothing but a "time is out of joint" anomaly that will continue to be unjustifiable. Sort of like wearing green on the day after St. Patrick's Day, and I ought to know.

Art of Darkness

Hello World,

Beware the Ides of March! They'll be upon us Saturday morning, ready or not, and the superstitious among us would be well advised to keep a sharp lookout, lest they suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or worse. Some of us may think we've already suffered enough slings and arrows, what with Daylight Saving Time on Sunday, causing us to "spring forward" into the gloom, with all of its attendant nuisances of disrupted sleep, haphazard clocks, confused pets, and people showing up everywhere either very late or way too early. Technology is not always your friend here, because although many computers will change the system time to take DST into account, a lot of older equipment will not do that until several more weeks, since it still expects the time change to occur later in April, as it used to. At work, we're just resigned to the fact of having the wrong time on our computers for six weeks, until the software's little pea brain catches up to the idea that it needs to change the time to keep in step with the rest of humanity. And please don't even get me started on the copier and fax machine, for heaven's sake.

This year, I didn't have any problems with losing an hour to the fiendish Daylight Stealing Thugs, because I took off Monday and Tuesday from work, and didn't go to church on Sunday, so it didn't matter to me what time it was, whether in actual hours for normal people, or the ludicrous "spring ahead" realm of hypothetical absurdity. Since I had nowhere to go, I didn't have to worry about being late, or early, and if some of the clocks had one time, while others had a completely different time, it was all blissfully inconsequential. This is my idea of Daylight Saving Time for sissies, and I have to say, I'm all for it.

It was great to have a nice long weekend to relax and putter around, and while I would not consider this the very best week at work, at least it was good and short, which really helped. When I came back to work on Wednesday, my desk looked like a disaster area, and I found that both my voice mail and email were full of ridiculous messages that make you question your own sanity, much less the state of American business in general. I was glad to get home after a long day of stamping out fires and beating off the forces of darkness all around me. The next day was even worse, as the forces of darkness that I thought I had beat off previously, all seemed to return with renewed vigor, and while I would like to say that I was only able to subdue them because my heart is pure, I have the feeling it had more to do with my evil twin than anything else. But when everything seemed at its worst, at least I was able to grasp onto the glimmer of hope that I needed, when I realized that there was no point in walking all the way over to the main building to jump out a window, because after all, it was already Thursday. That gave me all the strength I needed to get through the rest of the week, and the forces of darkness would have to fend for themselves.

Tuesday was my birthday, and having the day off was a nice treat. I felt disappointed in the way our anniversary dinner turned out, so I asked Bill if we could go out to dinner for my birthday, which we usually don't, and this time, go some place familiar where we would be sure of getting a predictably good meal. Bill is a good sport and aims to please, so after he came home from work, we set off for Mamma Francesca's, which is a local Italian restaurant along the water, that is a fixture in the Queen City, and we have been there many times. As soon as we stepped in the door, we were greeted warmly and whisked to a comfortable table, plus presented with menus and a chalkboard of specials, which I don't need to point out, was in stark contrast to our dining experiences from the previous week. The service was attentive and helpful, and while there were other people already eating there, it certainly wasn't cramped. I was pleased to find carrozza on the menu, since it's an appetizer that's hard to find nowadays, and Bill described their garlic bread as some of the best he's ever had. He was also happy with their manicotti with marinara sauce, while I took a chance on their rigatoni ai formaggi, which I had never heard of before, but I figured with ricotta, parmesan, mozzarella and gorgonzola, what's not to like? It was heavenly, and I was glad I tried it, and even more so, since there was too much to eat, that I could take the rest home and enjoy it again another time. We also had nice desserts, and the whole outing was so pleasant, we were really happy that we decided to go there. There's a lot to be said for the tried-and-true, especially after the new and unknown turns out instead to be like a bad experiment gone woefully awry.

After that, as if one person could stand any more wonderfulness, there were presents, and a welcome sight they were, too. I got more gifts of entertainment, apparel and gadgets, including a snazzy new 19" monitor, which I am really looking forward to (get it?!) and a stylish laptop case so I can carry my world and still be fashionable. It's true that I might not have any idea what I'm doing, but I'm certainly going to look good doing it, by golly. I may not be able to defeat the forces of darkness with my brilliance, but if nothing else, I can dazzle them with my glamor.

I know it would seem impossible under normal circumstances that a mere five days after my birthday, it would be Palm Sunday, but that's the plain truth of it in a nutshell, or perhaps a marshmallow peeps would be more appropriate. And just when you thought you knew everything there was to know about Easter, along comes the real scoop, the whole scoop, and nothing but the scoop, so help me, Peter Cottontail.

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Easter is always the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox, which is March 20.
This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify Passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar. Here's the interesting info.
This year is the earliest Easter any of us will ever see the rest of our lives!
And only the most elderly of our population have ever seen it this early ( 95 years old or above! )
And none of us have ever, or will ever, see it a day earlier!

Here are the facts: 1) The next time Easter will be this early ( March 23 ) will be the year 2228 ( 220 years from now )
The last time it was this early was 1913 ( so if you're 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that! )2) The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year 2285 ( 277 years from now )
The last time it was on March 22 was 1818.
So, no one alive today has or will ever see it any earlier than this year!
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Well, I certainly found out some things I never knew, and gained a lot more respect for this early Easter, now that I realize how long ago and far apart these occurrences are, in the whole scheme of the cosmos. I mean, when you take into account the whole continuum of time and the stately progression of years, plus throw in the nefarious monkey wrenches of the Daylight Switching Twits and Comrade Sergei and his infernal date machine, not to mention, the forces of darkness, it's a wonder that anything happens when it's supposed to, and that's not just the marshmallow peeps talking, believe me.

Silver Bells

Hello World,

Well, this is normally where I'd be wishing everyone a "Happy March" and then let them get on with the rest of their lives. Not so fast! Of course, everyone knows how I hate to be an alarmist, but I feel compelled to point out that this Sunday is actually the start of Daylight Saving Time, as incomprehensible as that might seem. And I know what you're thinking, it seems like it just stopped being Daylight Saving Time only recently, and in fact, some of our clocks have never been changed back to the right time since then. Obviously, there's no sense changing them now, not to mention the fact that since the so-called "Standard Time" only comprises about four months out of the entire year, there's really no point in calling it Standard Time anymore. We may as well just have Daylight Saving Time and Temporary Time, because that's about what it amounts to. And you can believe that I'm going to be thinking long and hard about running all around changing all of our clocks over back to Temporary Time in November, just for the sake of switching them all back again at the beginning of March, no thank you very much not. I mean, I do have a life, unlike the bird brains who think up these bone-headed schemes, and better things to do than jumping through their cockamamie chronometrical hoops, that's for sure.

Speaking of better things, while it doesn't seem remotely possible, Bill and I actually celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary last Monday, miraculously reaching this Silver Jubilee milestone along the passing years of wedded bliss. Although we had plenty of time to get ready for the big day, 25 years in fact, we hadn't really come up with a plan for what we wanted to do to commemorate this special occasion in our lives. In hindsight, we might have given more thought to the whole idea, and things could have worked out very different, although sometimes different is not necessarily better either, and I ought to know. Since we didn't have an alternate extravaganza planned, we decided after work to go out to eat, and rather than picking some place familiar and dependable, we opted instead to try Spadaro's Ristorante, which had just opened in a nearby storefront. We hurried over there, and although it looked just like a little pizza parlor from the sidewalk, it turned out to be a tiny restaurant with real linen tablecloths and napkins, plus Italian operas playing at full volume. There was no menu in the window to help us make up our minds if this was the kind of place for us, so we just plunged ahead and walked inside. There's an old apartment joke that says, "The place was so small that you had to go outside to change your mind," and that was about the size of it, because although they had set up about 10 tables, they were all right on top of each other with no room between them. There were already people eating, which surprised us at 5:45 on a Monday, especially since they had just opened very recently. Considering the place was so tiny, and there was nowhere to wait, it took the waitress a long time to notice us and offer us a table. That's probably what they called it anyway, although I've played checkers on larger surfaces than that.

We had plenty of time to study the decor, since apparently inattentiveness is the hallmark of their service, and it would have been a good opportunity to study the menu, except as the waitress explained when she finally appeared, they have no menus. She went into a spiel about how everything is made fresh and from the freshest ingredients, and everything is absolutely delicious because it is so fresh, although it takes time to prepare all of this wonderful fresh food from scratch. (In fact, as we arrived, there were a couple of customers leaving because they felt they had waited too long for their meal, and gave it up as a lost cause.) Since we had no idea what was available, we asked her what we could have for dinner. She rattled off a handful of choices that all seemed to include ham, fish, alcohol or mushrooms, and notably did not include anything that sounded like something I wanted to have, like ravioli or lasagna. But she had mentioned fettuccine with mushrooms, so I asked if it would be possible to just have regular Fettuccine Alfredo, famous for its delightful cream sauce the world over. Oh no, she averred, they don't use any cream or butter, only the freshest grated cheese and purest olive oil, so Alfredo sauce would be out of the question. I finally talked her into letting me have the fettuccine with mushrooms, only leaving out the mushrooms, and I would take my chances with whatever sauce it came with, which she assured me would be fresh and delicious. Bill made her day by ordering their signature dish, the fettuccine with mushrooms, which he was going to attempt as is, with no modifications. Since we knew we were in for a long wait, we also had garlic bread and a salad, although we had to balance one in our hands while we ate the other, since the table wasn't big enough to hold it all at the same time.

When our meal finally arrived, Bill pronounced his fettuccine with mushrooms all that they had promised, and he was very happy with it. I found my makeshift fettuccine so full of pepper as to be basically inedible, although anyone who knows me will tell you that pretty much nothing stops me from eating. By the time we finished our meal, every table was occupied, and it was a wonder that the waitresses could maneuver around, what with everyone holding their salad plates in their hands while they ate their appetizers. It was a good long while before we saw our waitress again, and since there were no menus, we asked for a rundown of their desserts, and decided on cheesecake and a cannoli. The desserts were nice enough, if ordinary, but at least they were as we expected them, and not some mystery concoction with too much pepper. It was another long wait for our bill so that we could leave, and since it was so crowded, you would think they would have been happy to get us out of there sooner. As it was, it took almost two hours for a simple meal, most of which time was spent just being neglected by the staff, or we could have been in and out of there much faster. We left shaking our heads and wondering how places like this ever catch on, and as much as we tried to put the best possible face on it, it could certainly not be considered the Silver Jubilee quality of dining pleasure.

Back home, we settled down to the serious business of opening presents, and in keeping with the Silver Jubilee theme, we each got some beautiful new jewelry in wonderful silvery white gold settings. Bill also got clothes and gifts of entertainment, while I got many handy items (like a new fire bucket for camping, which I desperately needed) and a new Palm Tungsten E2, which hopefully will be a little easier to see than my Zire, so my typing doesn't come out so much like Mad Libs. The presents did a lot to redeem the anniversary from the dinner fiasco, and while it's always nice to be adventurous and try some place new and different, probably in retrospect, the tried-and-true mainstay would have been the more sensible choice. True, it would not have given us a tale of woe with which to regale our acquaintances, but on the other hand, I would not have still been tasting that horrible pepper sauce all the way until Wednesday either, no thank you very much not.

In other local news, Bill discovered that his new Garmin GPS device has a "pedestrian" setting, so that you can carry it with you while you're walking, and it will give you directions and let you know how far you've walked. That's the plan anyway, but like many things, it seems like there's always room for improvement in the actual results, as Bill relates them:

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The idea of trying the Nuvi was so intriguing that I had to walk around again at lunch, even though I didn't originally plan to. I set it to Pedestrian and I was surprised NOT to hear Ms. Nuvi AT ALL the whole time. But she DID keep track of my "progress" and reported that the trip took 18 minutes and my "moving time" was 12:31, my overall average speed was 2.3 mph, my moving average was 3.5 mph and my maximum speed was 84.3 mph. Well, it turns out I should have hit the button that says "Reset Max", so maybe I never got walking quite THAT fast. Anyway, it was interesting and another fun thing to do with Nuvi!
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Well, I always say that Bill's reputation as a super-hero has been woefully under-recognized by humanity, and more's the pity, I'm sure. Personally, I think he should donate the Nuvi to Spadaro's, because if they could get their waitresses to move at a speed of 84.3, it would certainly be a big improvement in their service, which currently can only be measured in geologic time, if not slower. Come to think of it, that might explain those two hold-overs from the Mesolithic Era, who I thought I saw standing by the door and still waiting for a table, but I'm sure I must have been mistaken.