Funny Yellow Boxes and cyclonic wind events

Delorme came out with these funny yellow boxes. The first one used four AAA batteries and was nice and flat but kind of big in retrospect. It had a cord with a serial connector on it. I bought it as soon as it hit the shelves.

They bundled it with a new version of TOPO USA, and I was frustrated the first time I tried to use it. You had to pick the model number from a drop down box in the software, but the model number of the unit wasn't one of the options. So the calls to the 800 number were made and the answer came back to just ignore it and use the 'default' option.

Thank God I thought when they came out with another version. This one used a USB connection and was this stubby (yellow) thing on the end of another cable. It kind of looked like a yellow wart. It was also bundled with a new version of my favorite Software Package. But the software didn't have a 'USB' connection option.

A year later, a 'Bluetooth' version came out. You didn't have to use a cable, and it was still yellow, but it had a docking/charging station. I thought it very cool, but passed it up. I didn't want to go through the 800 number fiasco again. The yellow wart on the cord was ok, I didn't need to charge it up or add batteries. I was driving around with a laptop propped up on the passenger seat, a power converter humming along on the floor to power the laptop, what was another cable?

I drove from coast to coast, happy as a clam, the TOPO USA map scrolling along on the passenger seat as I passed well to the North of Kansas City. Iowa turned out to be not so flat after all. In the west the aerospace companies mounted aircraft on pylons. My jaw dropped as I drove past a farm implement company with a complete Tractor and enormous plow thing mounted 3o feet off the ground on a hillside.

Imagine that.

I was mystified as I stopped at Rest Stops along the interstate that had TV screens tuned to the National Weather Service in the window of the rest rooms. I thought - those farmers! they really take mother nature seriously. It made sense when I experienced a 'cyclonic winds event' west of Des Moines. At first I didn't know what that meant. It was raining harder than a squall at sea. Cars were pulling over to the side of the road. I couldn't figure it out. Where I come from motorists don't slow down for anything. Not rain, not fog. They pull over during earthquakes only because driving through an earthquake on the freeway feels exactly like a flat tire.

Coming from the 'duck and cover' generation, when I heard that annoying emergency radio interrupt, and it was NOT followed by 'this is a test of the emergency notification system' I thought the Cold War had just gotten hot. If instead of useing the 'cyclonic winds' phrase, someone started yelling 'look out for the Tornado!" it would have made a lot more sense to me. I pulled over, anyway, figuring I'm not from around here, so maybe they know something I didn't.

When the funnel cloud ripped by . . . there was a lot I didn't know. The GPS unit came in real handy, and those TV screens made perfect sense.