I saw one!

The weirdest trivial nonsense can make me happy. Rainbows make me happy, even though they're pretty common here in the summer. I once came across the Olympic Torch Relay just coincidentally, and it made my week. I get giddy when I happen upon the Weinermobile. I even stopped and chatted with the driver once (and found it's their job to chat with idiots like me).

This morning could make it into the May's Cool Things Spotted hall of fame. While driving to work, I started thinking of how cool Google Maps is, especially the street-view pictures you can pull up to get a 360-degree view of a spot on the street. The picture of my house is close and finely detailed. The only thing you can't really make out is the house number, and I wondered if that was intentional. About 30 seconds after pondering this, I arrived at an intersection just as the light turned red, putting me in the first position in the line of cars. And then I saw it. It was right there in front of me, driving down a busy street, just as nonchalantly as any other car.

It was a Google Camera Car. A mundane Chevy with metal rails on the roof and a bizarre array of equipment perched atop a long pole on top of the car. I did what anyone would have done. I smiled and waved. Hey, you never know.

I'm not sure which is the bigger deal here--that I saw the Google Camera Car, or that I saw it only seconds after thinking about the very photos it produces, or that I am such a geek, I waved at the car.
(The camera car pictured in this post is one spotted in Milan. The equipment is exactly what I saw.)