Behind the Mask, Biking with GPS

I watched the movie Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon this weekend. It is a very meta look at horror movies, a fake documentary following a killer (think Jason, Fredy, Chuckie, etc.). It was fun – not for everybody, but if you enjoy movies like Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Halloween, etc. you’ll probably get a kick out of it. It is a nice combination of horror and comedy.

A while back (days after getting my TomTom One GPS) I picked up a Garmin c330 GPS at a yard sale – the c330 was pretty bare, just a mounting bracket and the GPS itself – no charger, etc. which is why the guy said he was selling it (he had lost the other bits) – he also stated it didn’t keep a very good charge when he was using it. Anyway, I bought it for cheap to play with it. It charges fine over USB, but he was right – it doesn’t hold a charge for very long, after less then about 90 minutes before shuts off. To combat that problem, I found a website where I can order a replacement battery for about $15 which should run the unit for 8+ hours per charge. Having used both the c330 and the TomTom One, I find that they are both decent units but I would say I prefer the TomTom user interface in pretty much every way – I am glad I bought the TomTom One.

I did want to try to find a use for the c330 other than just as a “backup GPS” for travel or whatever… so I decided I would try to mount it on my bicycle. After trying various methods and techniques I found a method that seems to work quite well. I’ll provide pictures and a description in the near future, but I’ll just say now that it is neat being able to just ride around and when I am done just saying “Navigate to Home” and I don’t have to worry about getting lost – I can explore the surrounding neighborhoods without any worry 🙂 Yes, it is silly, but hey… For those who might ask, I did look for a bike mount for this GPS, but didn’t find anything that seemed to work better than what I jury rigged myself (yes, it is definitely jury rigged). While riding I did get a couple comments along the line of “Wow! You have a GPS on you’be bike?? That is so cool!” Maybe I’ll start a new trend.

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