Schumacher Returns To F1

The greatest. The king. The 7-time world champion. Schumi. Michael Schumacher is making a Lance Armstrong-esque comeback. Well, sort of.

Schumacher retired in 2006. He had spent his last years at Ferrari, winning 5 world championships with them. Since his retirement, Schumi has been an advisor to Ferrari. That is, until Felipe Massa was involved in a horrible accident last week when a spring from a Brawn car came loose and as Massa approached a series of turns the spring bounced off the pavement and pierced his helmet just above the left eye, knocking Massa unconscious at the wheel of a car traveling around 150 mph. Massa crashed into a tire wall and was immediately taken to the hospital. Having suffered a skull fracture and, perhaps, permanent damage to his vision, Massa will most likely not make a return to Formula One.

You can watch a video of the accident here.

Immediately, people were asking, who is going to replace Massa? Normally, a test driver would be promoted into one of the team’s two positions, but Ferrari’s test drivers were recently labeled crap drivers. Thus, all eyes have turned to Schumacher. At first he declined, saying he cannot drive, in competition, a car he isn’t very familiar with. That didn’t last long. I suspect pressure at Ferrari and Schumacher’s own desire to return to the sport contributed to his reassessment of the situation.

Starting with the European grand prix, Schumacher will, once again, be in a Ferrari on the starting grid. There is no telling from what position he will start, but I wouldn’t be all the surprised if he was near the front of the grid.

Although the circumstances for their respective comebacks are completely different, it is a good sporting year when you thought you would never again see the likes of Lance Armstrong on a bike and Michael Schumacher in a Ferrari, but then, like a wish come true, you get to see both back at the pinnacle of their sport within a month's time.

Milwaukee Air Show

We were on Lake Michigan yesterday for the Milwaukee Air Show. It was fun and loud, you know, the things that air shows usually are. I took some videos. They don't really do these jets justice, but I wanted to share at least one.

Sorry, no charts

People sure are getting their panties in a bunch about the potential cost of healthcare. You see them, mostly Republicans, all over the TV these days bitching and droning on about how much $1 trillion is? We are presented with all these arbitrary descriptions of what one trillion dollars would look like. For example, if one trillion in dimes were laid out end to end, the line would stretch around Rush Limbaugh’s head 12 times! Do these childlike charts define one trillion dollars to us any better than $1,000,000,000,000? Perhaps to simple minds, but for most, I think, that number perfectly conveys its size. We get it. It’s big.

You know what’s also a big number? 3 x 1,000,000,000,000. That’s 3,000,000,000,000. This is also known as the cost of war in Iraq. This isn’t a secret. It has been researched by and written about many news organizations. You can read about the cost of the Iraq War here, here, and here.

I don’t know about you, but I would rather spend a trillion on healthcare than three trillion on a war we should have never been fighting in the first place. However, a lot of people feel differently. They would rather keep the only superpower in the world from having some sort of nationalized healthcare option than spend some time getting pissed off about how we were duped into a war that is costing three times as much as this healthcare plan.

40 Years Out From The Moon

Jon Stewart just had a great spot about the 40^th anniversary of the moon landing. You should be able to find it here. It was the first segment of the show. It should be easy to find.

I thought it was a poignant segment because the moon landing has always seemed drastically overrated. Don’t freak out, I understand that America was concerned that if the Russians landed on the moon first, they would use it to possibly attack America. I understand the symbolism of Americans and human beings landing on the moon. However, the moon landing’s importance is diminished in my view by what we have or have not done with our capability to travel there.

In his show tonight, Stewart mocked trips to the moon for golfing and driving. While landing on the moon is admirable, it is hard to see what we have done there since as anything close to admirable. Maybe that doesn’t make sense or it sounds willfully ignorant. Just watch the clip of the show. It makes a lot more sense.

Things I can tell you about these pictures

The newest addition to the Renaud family. I had never met Boston. Cool guy.

Consider this the part of the iceberg that is above water.

To begin with, we are selling city property here. Notice the 9th Avenue sign (background, left). We put our Michael Jackson Thriller album on the desk in the middle of the driveway. Plenty of people saw it and would say to their fellow shoppers, "Hey, look. Michael Jackson. Someone will snatch that up." No one did. Those chairs in the foreground were a steal. No one bought my grandma's golf cart-thing. I'm not sure what those are called. Rachel?

A bargain. A freaking bargain.

A Belated Happy 4th

I soloed July 4th, or I should say 3rd, because Milwaukee lights their fuses on July 3rd in a nod to the suburbs which all host their own fireworks on the 4th. While last year I spent the third under these marvelous explosions, this year I wanted to avoid the crowds. I watched the show from Bayview, and private property I should add, and I brought the tripod and camera, hoping to get a couple shots. I did as best I could with a point and shoot camera, but a more powerful lens is desired to show off my stunning shooting location and the brilliance of this pre-4th display of pyrotechnics.

Off to Colorado tomorrow. Maybe I'll see you there.