The Garmin 405: Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered

I am holed up in the one room in our house with air conditioning for a second day. Our thermometer yesterday afternoon read 132 degrees, which I know is a smidge off, but it was still miserably hot. There are so many metaphors for humidity to choose from, but the most apt description of my condition is that I feel like I'm looking at the world from the inside of a Nalgene bottle filled with broth. And to extend the metaphor, the bottle is definitely green because the air in my town is a swirl of pollen right now. My driveway is green. My white car is green. My counters are green. My skin is green. And my lungs, I'm pretty sure, are green.

One of my few moments outside yesterday afternoon was to retrieve my Garmin package from the back door. After an evening of study, I can tell you it will take a while before I know what the hell I'm doing with that thing and right now, it seems like I need an advanced degree to figure it out--and not in developmental psych, because I have one of those. I still haven't determined how to grab a satellite signal, but I trumped my mom on her first day with the 405 by figuring out how to get it off Central time. I admit, however, that it took me about two hours to figure out that you don't actually turn off the watch, unlike the previous models.

Here's what I do know:

1. You can't sync the 405 wirelessly to a Mac until Fall 2008 when they will release Mac-friendly software. The stinkers at Garmin don't print that on the box or in the manual, and you have to look deep into their website to figure it out, so I'm telling y'all that as a public service.

2. As shown above, the face of the watch is about the size of my knee cap. It may look like a watch, but no woman I know would wear it all day. They did make the band a better fit for small wrists, though, since I don't have to wear it on the tightest setting anymore.

3. It is a lot more comfortable than the 305, which chafed my wrist bone at very long distances (20 miles+) by the way it wraps around. No one else I know has that problem, so I think I just have nasty skeleton wrists.

4. The bezel and screen are really freakin' cool. Sophisticated analysis, I know. Consider it a gift from me to you.


5. The charging clip thingy is also really awesome. My acumen and reflection astound you, don't they? I'm sure Consumer Reports will hire me to write any day now.

6. I am quite excited to race that little stick figure who is my virtual training partner. She looks like a total bitch whose ass I'd like to kick. I'm trying to figure out what to call her to get me fired up when I run. I think I've decided on Rachel, a classmate who once thought it would be fun to encourage all of my friends to ignore me for most of my sixth grade year when, of course, a girl doesn't really care so much what other people think of her. So mean, she's a cliche, and I'm so lame, I haven't forgotten it.

If I can figure this thing out today, maybe I'll take Rachel to the track behind the middle school tomorrow.