T Minus 29 Minutes and Counting

A good win by the San Francisco Giants in Houston tonight.

I baked a fresh peach pie before the game, and made the jalapeño cole slaw for Bakesale Betty's Fried Chicken Sandwiches. I filleted the chicken breasts and marinated them in buttermilk yesterday...no sense working myself into a lather in this heat!

I enjoyed a Bakesale Betty's Fried Chicken Sandwich while the Giants held onto their lead in the 8th and 9th innings. before I had a piece of pie for desert...whoops, missed. The pie turned out like soup inside!

I've been scoring these tree ripened O'Henry freestone peaches at the Farmer's Market for the last 3-4 weeks. I've been making my "Lumpy Peach Cobbler", but wanted to make a pie to change things up a little.

This week's batch of O'Henrys was a bit smaller than last week's...and I guess a little juicier as well! Still, it is delicious!

So, today's title refers to the time I began writing this post. I'm monitoring the launch of another NASA satellite, the Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP). The twin satellites will study the highly charged regions of the Van Allen Radiation Belts, where Man and Satellites find it hard to survive.

So the launch is at T Minus 4 Minutes and holding. It's a built in hold, and everything, including the weather is nominal.

It's a good week for internet streaming! Formula One ends it's Summer Holiday this weekend, so a new episode, #81, of Peter Windsor's excellent video podcast, The Flying Lap was on tap.

Peter's guests were Craig Scarborough, author and draftsman of the excellent F1 Tech Blog, Scarb's F1, and Strategy Engineer for the WilliamsF1 Team, Mark Barnett. Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix is one of F1's most iconic races.

Spa-Francorchamps is an awesome circuit. 7km in length, it's a high speed favorite of drivers and fans alike. 75% of each lap is spent at full throttle. Most of the turns are medium to high speed bends, and many are famous, or as some wags might say...infamous.

Wikipedia has the whole story...and a classic story it is! 

Even the most casual F1 fan knows the names, Eau Rouge, Raidillon, La Source Hairpin, Blanchimont and the Bus Stop Chicane. Each turn is breathtaking in it's own way.

Throw in the always unpredictable weather of the Ardennes Forest, and Spa-Francorchamps never disappoints. 

Here's a gif from the 2008 Belgian GP that'll whet your appetite for more Spa-Francorchamps action. This is Kimi Räikkönen threading the needle made up of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. They all made it through the corner! Felipe Massa won it that year, but Räikkönen bookended the Brazilian with wins in '07 and '09.

Räikkönen, back at it after going RallyCar racing for a couple of years has yet to win this season, but most observers expect him to be the next new winner this season in the Lotus, which is rumored to be debuting their new Double DRS at Spa. Even without the blown wings fore and aft, the Lotus is very quick. Once Lotus get their starts dialed in, they should win several races...until the rest of the teams fit double wing stalling setups on their cars!

Free Practice 1, Friday 1AM PDT, and FP3, Saturday 2AM PDT are streamed LIVE beginning Friday morning by SpeedTV, and they broadcast P2, Qualifying and the Grand Prix on SpeedTV

I'm ready! It's been four weeks since the Grand Prix of Hungary. There's gonna be lots of surprises I'm sure. This season so far has been full of surprises, and I don't see what that would end.

The Atlas 5 rocket has boosted the RBSP successfully into orbit.

Good night!