NA NA NA Family + Holidays = stress

4 hours 24 minutes down, 3 hours 15 minutes back up.

santa-geek.jpg


The reindeer were still in the TSA line last I checked.

Security was tight and traffic was horrid on the way down. Coming back home was a breeze. Maybe a three minute delay on the Hutch, and the rest was smooth sailing. Tom Tom's live traffic is excellent, by the way.

Rich
 
The holidays are even more enjoyable when your parents are divorced and hate each other.

Hate this time of year...
 
RJM62 said:
Tom Tom's live traffic is excellent, by the way.
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I rarely go anywhere far without one of the gadgets that does live traffic updates fired up anymore. One of the few awesome features that changed the mobile driving directions gadgets from nice to have to need to have.

I'm surprised with your Google aversion that you don't know they own the most common aggregator of that data, though. I think TomTom even uses it. :)
 
I love the aviation community! So many curmudgeons just like me.

(Not sure this is a good thing, but it is nice to know I am among "my people".)

I too, and have become weary of the whole large Christmas get together thing and often wonder why I am spending good money for gifts for people who don't need anything, or want anything

I also wonder why, once again, I am among people I really don't want to be around, doing things I really do not want to do.

During these get-togethers, there are always times in which fun and enjoyment is to be had, but sadly, those times are infrequent.
 
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Yesterday's word of the day with family was 'pivot'. When someone (inevitably) wanted to bring up politics, my SIL and I would yell PIVOT! and talk about anything else. Bipartisan Christmas - oh joy, but it became a running joke of sorts. Watching the CAVS win helped lighten the mood too.
 
denverpilot said:
I rarely go anywhere far without one of the gadgets that does live traffic updates fired up anymore. One of the few awesome features that changed the mobile driving directions gadgets from nice to have to need to have.

I'm surprised with your Google aversion that you don't know they own the most common aggregator of that data, though. I think TomTom even uses it. :)
Click to expand...

I really don't know whether TomTom uses Google data. I kind of doubt it because they're direct competitors. Tom-Tom is a major primary provider of both basemaps and traffic data, and they brag incessantly about theirs being superior to Google's. Also, they're a Dutch country, and The Netherlands has pretty tough privacy laws.

My impression is that TomTom's traffic data is mainly crowd-sourced from users of their various devices and apps. I also know that TomTom's Android app will run just fine on a rooted Android with Google Maps disabled. None of that proves that they don't use Google data, but I think it suggests that they don't. At most, I think they might use it as a secondary source to supplement their own.

One odd thing I noticed last night was that once I got out of The City, my ETA kept getting later, despite my doing a pretty steady 70 MPH (5 MPH over the limit) the entire time I was on the Thruway. I arrived about five or six minutes later than the ETA had been at the time I cleared The City.

That leads me to believe that TomTom's ETA is based on real-time speed data that Tom-Tom receives from users, when that data is available, rather than on speed limits or an individual driver's speed. My suspicion is that it calculates the mean and bases the ETA on that, regardless of the speed limit or the driver's own speed.

Not that it matters much, mind you. It was just something to think about during the drive.

Rich
 
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Our second son is due in a couple or three weeks, so for the first time in 40 years, I missed Christmas in NY. What I didn't miss was the six hour overnight drive. Thankfully, a local family fostered us for the evening and fed us shellfish and spaghetti and cookies.
 
Cpt_Kirk said:
The holidays are even more enjoyable when your parents are divorced and hate each other.

Hate this time of year...
Click to expand...
I feel for you, but it seems like every one close to me hates the holidays for one reason or another. I am not religious, but I don't hate the holidays and have fond memories of family gatherings. I just wish people could let go of the baggage and just enjoy being around those who care about them. Yet another year goes by with me looking forward to January 1st and normalcy again.
 
I come from a family of seven kids in Indiana. With all of my sibs, their spouses, kids and grandkids the holidays are a freakin' circus back home so I rarely go. Thankfully, one of my brothers also lives in NC (Raleigh), so we can spend some holidays with him and his small family. This year they went back to Indy for Thanksgiving but they stayed home for Christmas so we spent Christmas day there. It was peaceful and enjoyable which is the exact opposite of what every holiday in Indiana has been for nearly 20 years now.
 
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