| Current location: | work |
| Current mood: |  nauseated |
| Current music: | ambient noise at mollys |
weather beacon!
portland has a weather beacon!
since before i existed, a tower in the center of downtown des moines has blinked with lights that change color according to the weather forecast. you can see it from almost anywhere in the metro area. day or night, it is visibly lit to tell the community the current conditions. there is even a little rhyme to help you remember what the colors mean:
"weather beacon red: warmer weather is ahead
weather beacon white: colder weather is in sight
weather beacon green: no change forseen
weather beacon flashing night or day: precipitation is on the way"
for the last ten years i have missed the weather beacon constantly, often doing a random search for a webcam chronicling it's changes, or others who miss it. i've bitched, i've moaned and i've wailed over the loss of this funny little landmark. too many people have heard me talk about the sucker. way. too. many.
one night when i was sixteen, i taught my friend dace all of the little sayings as a way of introducing her to des moines. we were both a little tipsy, standing outside in the parking lot of my friend james' apartment. taking a few minutes away from the party, i pointed out over the skyline at the illuminated tower, and chanted the sing-songy syllables of the rhyme. it was so cold and clear it felt like the stars were tiny shards of ice riddling the sky. i remember feeling larger than life, my heart swelling with pride at the beauty of my hometown. it's a memory where that 500 ft tower of lights takes center stage, and it's a memory i will never lose. the weather beacon is one of my favorite weird landmarks back home. it's just one of those des moines things.
driving in downtown portland i have often noticed a little cylindrical shaped box of lights set atop one of the smaller buildings in town. it has often made me wish for the beacon, though i never knew what purpose the lights served. i think maybe i hoped it might be another weather beacon, but for some reason never followed up on it.
today, i picked up a local magazine to distract me from the pizza they served us for lunch (i was feeling nauseated and really didn't want to put too much thought into the scents and sights of the pizza all around me). i flipped the pages open- right to an article about the little light box. which is a weather beacon. with the same lights for the same purposes. then i did a wiki search for the kcci weather beacon (dsm) and clicked on the highlighted words "weather beacon" and, of course, there was a whole listing of weather beacons including the one here- which has been a portland landmark since 1963. duh! how did i miss this? how come i didn't guess? and then i ran a google search- just because... well, by that time i was obsessing. and wouldn't you know it, the new york times did a story about portland featuring the weather beacon which ran- today! how weird is that?
DUDE. it's right by the museum, too, so i will see it all of the time! unreal. this place reminds me more of dsm daily. is that a good thing?
can i have lightning bugs now, too?
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bemytomato) wrote,
