The Sounds of Summer...

I live about four miles, as the crow flies, from downtown San Jose. Perhaps more precisely, as the sound wave flies. Thus it is that, as I work from my home today, I can hear a sound that, through a closed window sounds like a huge swarm of very angry bees, or through an open window, sometimes sounds like the sound-effect for a hurricane or tornado in old-time movies, which was made by rotating a large drum under tightly-stretched fabric.

In the past three years, these are the sounds of the last weekend in July, when the San Jose Grand Prix is in town. My 10-year-old son is a car fanatic, and it is infectious, so it is a bit of a siren song for me, all those cars going so very, very fast on such a tiny track just a couple of miles away...

But I am resisting.

I am strong because I actually took Ryan to the SJGP in its inaugural running in 2005, and a general-admission ticket puts you in a position to hear the cars really, really well, but not see them very much. Ryan and I both agreed that we were lucky to have been there for the first running of the race, but that we'd pretty much played it out in that first year.

That first running will remain infamous for the light-rail crossing just past the finish line, which literally sent the cars into the air, damaging them and shaking up their drivers, but making for some unexpectedly exciting footage of open-wheel racers sailing through the air.