Planning to Retire Soon!

If you are planning to retire in the Philippines soon, I suggest you visit several excellent websites on pro's and cons of retiring in the Philippines. However if you want to retire in the provinces, where life is simple, standard of living cheaper, less traffic congestion and pollution, availability of fresh seafood and vegetables compared to the big cities, my island province is the place for you! If this is your first time in my site, welcome. Some of the photos and videos on this site, I do not own. However, I have no intention on the infringement of your copyrights. The photo above is the front yard of Chateau Du Mer- Our Retirement Home in Boac, Marinduque, Philippines

Saturday, February 25, 2023

How Reliable is Your Car GPS?

The other day a relative drove me to Sky River Casino in Elk Grove, CA. The Casino grand opening was last September and I know it is in Highway 99 about 15 miles south from downtown Sacramento. My relative used her car GPS system. I realized the GPS is routing as thru the back roads instead of the Freeways ( my favorite route to Elk Grove for Pinoy groceries). I have never used a GPS but maps. My personal knowledge is that from My house in Fair Oaks, the fastest route is via Highway 50 to 99 South towards Stockton.

I realized that it was almost rush hour so the GPS routed us away from the Freeways and thru the back roads with less traffic.

The GPS misguided us to CA 104- five miles farther south from the Sky River Casino on Grant Line Rd and Ca 99.

Google Maps showed me three ways from my House in Fair Oaks to the Casino as follows:

1. via Bradshaw Rd

Best route now due to traffic conditions

This route has restricted usage or private roads.

33 min

30.3 miles

2. via US-50 W and CA-99 S

37 min

22.4 miles

3. via Sunrise Blvd and Grant Line Rd

If I were driving and not during rush hours, I will choose #2. My Relative chose #3 as directed by her Car GPS. However, instead of driving straight from Grant Line Rd to Ca-99, the GPS lead us to the small town of Wilton. By the time we reached 99 S, we were at the boundary of Elk Grove and Galt( Twin Cities Rd). The GPS directed us 5 miles farther south from our destination.

The detour in the little town of Wilton was pleasant and my first time. (https://elkgrovehistoricalsociety.com/history-town-of-wilton/

We have a leisurely drive in the rural side roads(Dillard and Arno) with vineyards and farm lands as the back ground. Since it was mid afternoon, the GPS detour was not as bad although we lost about 15 minutes to our destination. We did drove by the Adkins Family Vineyards at Grant Line Rd.

So how reliable is your car GPS system? The price of GPS ranges from as low as $39 to as High as $700. I would guess that the more expensive the more reliable is the system. My relative mentioned to me that this was not the first time that her GPS system instructed her about 5 miles away from her destination.

Here's a summary from Wikipedia on ANS ( Car GPS) for your information.

An automotive navigation system is part of the automobile controls or a third party add-on used to find direction in an automobile. It typically uses a satellite navigation device to get its position data which is then correlated to a position on a road. When directions are needed routing can be calculated. On the fly traffic information (road closures, congestion) can be used to adjust the route.

Dead reckoning using distance data from sensors attached to the drivetrain, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, and a magnetometer can be used for greater reliability, as GNSS signal loss and/or multipath can occur due to urban canyons or tunnels.

Mathematically, automotive navigation is based on the shortest path problem, within graph theory, which examines how to identify the path that best meets some criteria (shortest, cheapest, fastest, etc.) between two points in a large network.

Meanwhile, I am reposting one of our photos from our Sky River Casino Outing last Wednesday.

A Fun 3-4 hours sojourn at the Sky River Casino in Elk Grove, California

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Fruit Trees in the Gardens of Chateau Du Mer

The Mango Tree-I have three varieties in my Garden-The Indian, Guimaras and Carabao Mangoes My caretaker/gardener informed me last month that due to the El Nino drought in Marinduque, two of my Durian trees died in spite of his vigilant watering. One of the tree was attacked by insects that looks like a big fly but yellowish in color that sucks the sap of the seedling. The roots of the other tree was attacked by ants residing in the soil. However, my other fruit trees, the rambutans( 2), the lanzones(2) and the jack fruits ( 2) trees are doing well. The above eight fruit trees were given to me by Retired General Recaredo Sarmiento of Boac and Lucena., about three years ago. General Sarmiento is the “atid” of my wife. “Atid” is the colloquial term for brother. Evidently, Macrine's father, the late Bernardo Jambalos was the Godfather of General Sarmiento during his baptism and comfirmation. Gen Sarmiento's hobby is orchard planting, reforestation and farming. The other fruit trees in my garden are guayabanos, cashew, avocados, starapples, duhats, ates, guavas, mangoes( 3 varieties) and papayas as well as several varieties of bananas . Of the above fruit trees, my favorite is the guayabanos, also known as soursop tree known for its anti-tumor and anti-cancer properties . The following are photos of the fruit trees. The Durian photo is from the web. Note that it almost look like a jack fruit tree, except that the leaves are bigger and shiny. My desire is to have a passion fruit tree in the near future. You are welcome to visit my orchard and flower gardens any time, if perchance you are in the vicinity of The Chateau Du Mer Beach Resort and Conference Center.