Fun with Google Maps

Many of you may not know my father lives on a sailboat. Sure he has tivo, laptops, GPS, GPRS Modem, DSL and cable (the later 2 only when not under sail) but a sailboat none the less. If I had been paying attention when he had been going on and on about his boat I could tell you how big it was. I do know it was made by 'Dufor'.

He is setting sail today on his annual vacation (I didn't realize people who lived on boats, needed a vacation) sailing from New Rochelle, NY to Newport, RI (Rhode Island, for those of you who's maps aren't printed in wall sized, is the tiny little state robbing both Connecticut and MA from some valuable shore line.)

Originally he was planning on soloing part of this 4 day journey, and having seen too many episodes of Gillian’s Island, Survivor (Richard Hatch is from RI, and we all know how messy THAT could get, and LOST) I decided it was a good excuse to mess around with Google Maps.

I created an email gateway that allows him to email latitude and longitude (from his GPS) to a certain email address which captures his position, and adds a data point to a scrolling (Thanks to Google) updating (thanks to me) map.

From a technical standpoint this may appeal to some of you, from a 'where is my dad' standpoint, it will appeal to even fewer of you. You can see the fruits of my labor at WheresDad or for people with Internet Explorer WheresDad For IE (I couldn't get some of the graphics working in IE).