When I walked into the all-night diner, Ned was already there, sitting in front of a few scraps of toast on a plate and a cup of cold coffee. Ned did that sometimes, getting to my destination before I did. The rest of the Troupe never seemed to do that.

The stool next to Ned was empty, of course, so I sat down there. I turned up the coffee cup that was there, and the waitress efficiently filled it, giving me a smile and a warm greeting in the process. Then she went back to cleaning her counter and clearing old place settings. She never touched the plate and cup in front of Ned. I’m sure if I had asked her why not, she would have devised some rationalization. But I didn’t want to be cruel like that. She was nice and polite, and I hoped I could get a good, quiet meal before the Troupe started to cause trouble.

But that seemed unlikely. Already the teenagers in the booth in the back were acting a little anxious. If I had to guess, I would guess that Mona had taken up residence in the restroom behind their booth. She often just appeared without ever making an entrance, and then began sobbing in the restroom. This soon, the sobs would be too low for the teenagers to hear; but already, they could feel something was wrong.

Oh, well. It was going to be one of those nights. I raised my coffee in a slight toast to Ned, and gulped down as much as I could without scalding myself. Ned looked back at me. He didn’t exactly nod in acknowledgment, but he gave the impression of nodding. Ned mostly communicated by impressions. I just knew what he meant.

The double doors swung open, and two truckers came in, laughing at some joke. Little Tommy darted in between them. He couldn’t seem to grasp the fact that he no longer needed doors, and it frustrated him that he could no longer grasp them to open them. So he had adopted the habit of running through doors when someone living opened them. Often in his haste, he would run right through the person, but he never seemed to notice. As for the people who opened the doors, well, sometimes they didn’t notice, and sometimes they shivered like a cold wind had just cut right through their clothes and skin and right to their bones.

If Little Tommy had arrived, Bert wouldn’t be far behind. And sure enough, in he came, with no regard for doors at all. Bert’s features were pretty vague, but he seemed to be older than me, certainly older than Little Tommy. I wasn’t sure of his relation to Little Tommy – protector, stalker, parent, or what – but Bert never seemed to stray far from the small spirit.

It was starting to look like one of the teenage girls could hear Mona. I still couldn’t hear the sobs; but the girl’s face was noticeably paler than before, her eyes were wide, and she seemed to be telling her friends an urgent message. It wouldn’t be long now before everybody heard the sobs, and some of the rougher members of the Troupe appeared. Time for a change in plans.

"Miss." The waitress came over. She was now actively avoiding looking toward Ned. "I just remembered someplace I have to be. Can I just get a ham sandwich and another coffee to go?"

She nodded, but all the politeness had faded away like Andy sometimes did. The cold look in her eyes told me: she knew. She didn’t know what, and she didn’t know how; but somehow, she knew that something wrong was in the diner; and somehow, she knew it came with me. Some people just could feel the Troupe gathering; and to my sorrow, I found that those sensitive folks were among the most gentle and kind you could meet on the road, the kind you would like to spend more time with. But with the Troupe around, more time was not to be.

As the waitress assembled the sandwich, I got my money ready. Sometimes folks were so eager to be rid of me that they declined payment; and while my money was always tight, it just felt wrong to profit from the Troupe. So I had learned the art of preemptive payment.

As I stood to pay, I heard Mona’s sobs for the first time. The teenagers had reached the limits of their courage, and were crowded at the cash register, eager to pay and flee. They blocked my way. So much for preemptive payment. And through the door glass, I could see Poor Harold limping into the drive, dragging his rotted foot slowly along. This was not good. Unlike most of the Troupe, lots of people could see Poor Harold; and worse, they could smell him.

But the waitress saved us all from that ordeal. Ignoring the teenagers, she handed me the bagged sandwich and the Styrofoam mug, being careful not to touch me. I left the money and as much tip as I could spare on the counter, and I backed away. Our eyes met briefly, and her message was as clear as if she had spoken: Sorry, Mister, but we just can’t have your kind around here. I broke eye contact before she could start to feel guilty, and I pushed open the door and went out to join the gathering Troupe. At least the moon was full, so it would be easy walking, and easy to find shelter.

Then, remembering, I reached back and held the door open. Little Tommy skipped through, and we were back on the road.

Microsoft sent me some new software to try out, and to tell all the world how great it is. Unfortunately, when you ask for my opinion, you're going to get my opinion, whether you like it or not.

The software they sent me was the new, 2006 edition of Microsoft MapPoint. I'm not sure why I got it. Maybe it's because I'm an MVP. Maybe it's because I've spoken with the MapPoint team at conferences, and raved about it.

And I have raved about it. MapPoint is an indispensable tool for trip planning. I'm very thrilled with it. And I'm even happier with the 2006 edition, for lots of little reasons. For one thing, it has lots of new map data, so it better reflects the roads I'm driving. In particular, it now includes Michigan route M-6, or what I like to call "The Wormhole" because it lets me get to far east or far west quadrants of the Grand Rapids area about half an hour faster. If i need to get from, say, Panera by the Woodland Mall (where I'm at right now) to Panera by the Rivertown Plaza (one of my other frequent Panera stops), it's faster to go east, then south to M-6, then west, and then north, than to just head west from here. The route may be more than twice as long, but the travel time will be shorter. (And to think, it only took them forty years to build that road...)

But there's one way where MapPoint falls short: it's a lousy single-person automobile navigation tool.

I've used it for multi-person navigation, where one person drives and the other navigates on the computer. It works great, especially if you hook it up to a GPS. But when I'm driving without a navigator, I can't stop and look at the computer. I once lost four hours in Chicago traffic because I couldn't read the map and drive at the same time. It's just not that helpful.

What I want is something like Hertz NeverLost. For $9 per day, it will almost guarantee you can't get lost. And while it's not perfect, it's darn good. And you don't have to read it as you drive: it talks to you.

So imagine my excitement when one of the new features promised with MapPoint 2006 was a talking GPS feature! I already had a GPS unit, so I plugged it in and took it on the road.

But now I have to say: Sorry, Microsoft, but it's not quite there yet.

Oh, it works pretty well, at a minimal level: as you drive, it tells you where your next turn will be, without you ever having to look at it. And it has one really nice feature: you can make it repeat the last command by tapping the space bar (which you can easily find without looking at the computer). NeverLost could use that feature.

But as soon as you veer from the planned course, it fails. It tells you "Off course", and that's it. You have to stop the car and create a brand new trip.

Whereas NeverLost... Ah, NeverLost... When you veer off course from the course that NeverLost planned for you, it gives you a little while to correct. See, GPS signals aren't perfect, and you might really be on course.

And then, once it recognizes that you really are off course, it recalculates the course for you automatically. And that's why it's so hard to get lost: even if you miss a turn, you're not lost. NeverLost will still find the way for you.

Sorry, Microsoft, but it's not quite there yet. MapPoint is programmable. I'll bet I could program it to do what I want. But that's not time I can spare (even though it sounds like fun). So NeverLost will still get my business for now.

My buddy Tom (famed co-founder of both the Ann Arbor Dueling Society and L & M Precision Machine, Inc.), isn't normally prone to take a hand in world affairs. He's active with home and work and family and friends, but not usually with matters beyond that.

But recently, he was moved to send an email to both CNN and Fox News. I present it here without comment:

If I wanted to know about American Idol, I would watch American Idol. Please stop polluting the airwaves with stories about American Idol.

Human ingenuity is always amazing. It creates wealth where none existed before.

OfficeMax sells a product that's so insignificant from their perspective that they don't even list it on their Web site. It's called Anti-Static Eco-Packing. It's a recyclable, biodegradable alternative to packing peanuts. And it's cheaper (though it's hard to tell for sure: both products are sold by volume, but this stuff is more compressible, so similar volumes aren't similar in packing value). From the picture, it looks like little spirals of some sort of springy substance.

So what is it? Looking inside, I find that it's the shavings left over when the box company cuts corrugated cardboard into boxes.

And it's perfect! Yes, it's more compressible than peanuts, but not dramatically so. And it does a nice job of filling in empty spaces in boxes.

Is it recyclable? Maybe. You could certainly reuse it if you were so inclined. But the more important fact is that it's already recycled. Before they decided to repackage it as packing material, this stuff would've accumulated on the box factory floor, gotten swept up, and been disposed of. I'm no paper expert. Maybe they could've pulped it for new cardboard. But I suspect they would've just burned it. All labor drains. Instead, they put that same labor to work creating something of value. I'm impressed.