Saint Whosit's Day?

You'd think with a name like "Kevin" I'd be all excited about March 17, but although I have an Irish first name, I don't have Irish ancestry of which I'm aware. German, English, Cherokee, yes, but if there is any Irish in me, I don't know about it.

Anyway, I'm all packed up now for this morning's SFSFC meeting, except for the computer. We have wireless access in the meeting room thanks to the adjacent Depot Cafe, but only in about half the room thanks to the way the signal from the cafe's WAP travels, and given how erratic my computer's wireless card has been behaving, I might not even have that.

Update, 20 March 07:45: My mother, who reads this journal from time to time, has e-mailed me to tell me that I do in fact have some Irish ancestry, in the form of a great-great-great grandfather on my mother's father's side of the family.

SFSFC Live Webcam

Well, not really, but the Depot Cafe, which manages the Centerville station in whose meeting room SFSFC is meeting this morning, has several webcams. None of them point at the meeting room, although one of them is actually in our meeting room, although it's pointing out the window at the train platform. If you know exactly when something happened at the station, you can get a specific image, such as, say, this one.

Yes, our meeting room really is that close to the railroad tracks. That does mean that during a typical SFSFC meeting, we'll have an enforced break of a minute or so as a train passes, because it drowns out the speakerphone.

Good Timing

The Formula 1 racing series got underway today with the running of the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, where it looks like it was a fabulous day. With the time difference, this is probably the most convenient of all of the F1 races (save the two held in North America) for me to watch, with the pre-race show starting at 7:30 PM local time. We're now in the post-Michael Schumacher era, but Kimi Raikkonen seemed to have stepped into Michael's role easily in his first race for Ferrari, cruising to a win after qualifying on the pole. He did say in the post-race interview that his radio failed, making communication between the pit and the car a bit difficult, but it did not seem to affect his performance.

I have to think one of the real stories of the Australian GP was Lewis Hamilton, the rookie driver who finished third in this, his first ever F1 race. Hamilton even led for a few laps after the leaders ahead of them took their initial pit stops. He seemed cool and calm, and if he can keep this up, will be one to watch closely.

Another thing I noticed was the new paint schemes. Tobacco company advertising on F1 cars and uniforms is now completely phased, out, although Marlboro still has a significant stake in Ferrari, it seems. The Ferrari paint scheme and uniform has what looks like a bar code in a white rectangle in the same spots that the cigarette logo used to appear. I haven't worked it out, but is that possibly "Marlboro" spelled in bar-code font?

Thanks to Cheryl's influence, F1 is the only motorsport series I pay any significant attention to, despite the fact that my employer sponsors a Craftsman Truck Series driver, Jack Sprague. But it's not surprising that Con-way Freight would sponsor a truck, now, is it?