Hi All… Got to confess... I thought for sure I was coming down with a really bad case of Epizudic... or, for a while I was self diagnoseing it as a case of Hybotry... However, I just found out it is neither, it's "Technochricy" Bought myself a Christmas present at West Marine Jewelers... I actually got this a few days ago, locked myself in the house, read the entire manual and can now turn it on... Anyway, I got the land and sea package of the Garmin GPS Map 276c My last GPS was a Garmin Map 76 which wouldn't even hold the paper equivalent of a few maps to cover the SF Bay area. I got pretty frustrated with the lack of performance & sold it on EBAY. Here's the story... I have the City Select CD which gives me all maps to roads & addresses in North America and I have the Blue Chart CD. I've opened the Blue Chart maps for California and Mexico. Then I used a 128 MB Chip (fits Garmin only) and downloaded all of the Blue chart maps from Acapulco to Oregon and all of the road maps for Coos Bay, Oregon to San Diego and from the Coast into Nevada. It all fit onto one small 128 MB chip. Isn’t science amazing ($). The learning curve was a bit frustrating, however… not to impossible. I found it refreshing to find I couldn’t loose any data or screw anything up by pushing buttons… even the wrong ones. Which I did lots of times, as I was trying to figure it out. So, without Tipperary close by, I’m perfecting my NAV skills on the road. It’ s essentially the same as on the water as far as the 276c is concerned. You tell it where you want to go and it tells you how to get there. This one even has the voice prompts, "Turn left on Main Street", that you can hear as you near a turn off or follow a route that you’ve created. So, now that I know exactly where I am, in this big old world… I look down at my GPS & wonder… Does big brother know exactly where I am too? These things don’t transmit position… or so we’re told. Bill M-17 #496 "Tipperary" San Francisco