Mood Shifts

I wrote a post this morning and promptly left it at work. I was going to try to recreate the mood of the piece but I'm in such a different place than I was this morning that instead I'm going to sum up all the various moods I've had over the course of the day. And hope that it's enough to be interesting.

My piece this morning was on the Mourning Dove hunt which started in Iowa yesterday. For the first time in 93 years, people are allowed to hunt doves and I'm actually pretty pissed about it. I had a ton of great points about why I'm angry but that is saved on a different computer and to be honest after the afternoon and evening I've had I'm so far from angry that it would be hard to get back into the right mental framework. I'm also a bit drunk so if this makes less than perfect sense I apologize.

My work day was actually pretty fantastic. My coworker brought me the Wicked soundtrack to preview. I had mentioned that I want to see the musical (I'm one of the four people on Earth who LOVED the book) but I haven't heard any of the music. So I spent my morning listening to that and working. The afternoon was really productive. While I worked I listened to hours of Regina Spektor radio on Pandora.

After work we met my parents for dinner at this really tasty pizza place in town. Then we headed back to their house. Jeff and I had something we wanted to talk to them about that we've been putting off. It was wonderful to sit down and talk things through. They were awesome about everything. I'm so lucky to have the parents I do. Thanks Mom and Dad!

After hanging out for a bit Jeff and I headed off to the local comedy club. We grabbed drinks and talked before the show. Both openers were a lot of fun but the main comedian (Bert Kreischer) was hilarious. I was so enthralled by a story he was telling that I forgot where I was for a moment (although the Jameson and the two beers didn't hurt). I laughed for two hours straight. It was fantastic. As we left the club at midnight, the wind was picking up. A thunderstorm was brewing. We found a nice quiet spot to sit and watch the rain and the storm and talked. A perfect end to a perfect day.

I'm sure I'll grab that post some time this weekend and post it. But it won't be tonight. Comedy clubs and anger don't go together. I'm too tired and happy to work up a good lather. So this evening I'll go to bed with a smile on my face, remembering that this morning my mood was completely different. I'm happier with this.

Don't Cry Over Spilled...Water?

It came down from the state meteorologist yesterday. This summer has been listed as one of the wettest summers of all time for Iowa. Wetter than 1993 even and that was the year we saw some heavy flooding. We've had two incredibly horrible nights of storms in the last two days. We were driving home through the first one. The second one I didn't even hear but the branch lying just inches from my car told me that it was a doozy.

But I didn't need the official pronouncement. Jeff and I went out hiking at Saylorville Lake, the local reservoir, and found out how wet it was on our own. The trail we took was actually pretty dry. Closed and off limits, but dry. After the hike, we drove around the lake and that's when it hit us. The lake was high, really high. We drove across the dam and finished our afternoon at the spillway.

The reservoir empties into the Des Moines River through a spillway. When I was in high school, the spillway was my favorite place to go to think. I would drive out there on a quiet afternoon and sit on the bench for hours. It was a great place to be alone. And a great place to feel small. The power of the water coming out of the spillway is humbling. Depending on the lake level, it is opened or narrowed to regulate the flow. This year...its impressive. I don't need a meteorologist to tell me that we're having a wet summer. All I need is to see that spillway. Here is a video of the spillway taken from the ground.

And then from the hill over the opening. It was so loud I couldn't hear Jeff talking to me only inches from my ear. Make sure to turn your sound down to watch these. They are just as impressive on mute.

I've also included a video of the lightning Jeff and I saw on our drive home over the weekend. Incredible. This doesn't even remotely do it justice. {Warning: I'm in the car for this. You'll want your computer on Mute to watch}

Epic

I'm at home today. I decided to spend the day at home after one of the worst blizzards in the history of Des Moines hit last night. I went to work yesterday with the snow flying. When I left the office there was about 7 inches of snow on the ground. The drive home last night was slippery but not horrible. But that was not the worst of the storm. Last night we got an additional 8 inches. And then the winds kicked up.

It has been a full blown blizzard all day. That combined with the current 15 inches of snow has produced one of the most dangerous storms I've ever seen. Many of the interstates have been shut down for most of the day. The National Guard was called out to rescue people who traveled and ended up in ditches. The National Weather Service referred to the storm as "Epic". And the Governor warned last night that people shouldn't drive if they could avoid it.


So this morning I emailed my boss and told him I was taking a furlough day. I have to take seven of them anyway. And this seemed like the perfect day. Here is the view out of my front window. That rapidly disappearing block in the middle of the patio is our air-conditioner. The car was even more buried.


But not even the second floor was immune. Here is my back bedroom/studio. I walked by and noticed how dark the room was. That's when I realized that the bottom half of the window is completely buried with drifts.


I worried this morning about whether I should go in or not. My father did go in to work. He described the roads as horrible. I've been watching the conditions deteriorate all afternoon. I'm glad I stayed home. I hung out with Jeff (whose school closed for the day), shoveled a bit of snow, drank tons of hot chocolate, and read most of the day. Now I'm planning to curl up, watch Mythbusters, and drink some coffee. It was a wonderful day...for those inside.

Isaac's Storm

They say that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Isaac's Storm is a perfect example of this.

About two years ago I read Erik Larson's book The Devil in the White City at the insistence of my mother. Now that is noteworthy for the fact that my mother is not much of a book reader. It is rare that she makes recommendations so I tend to read them. The book told the juxtaposed stories of the construction of the World's Fair in Chicago, and the story of H.H. Holmes, a brilliant serial killer who supposedly killed more than 27 people. The stories may seem odd bedfellows but Larson intertwined them in ways that just make sense. And kept me fascinated. I devoured the book and started seeking out more of Larson's books. I bought Isaac's Storm but it ended up relegated to my shelves until this past trip. I figured with a hurricane just missing the Yucatan Peninsula where I was going, this would be perfect beach reading.

Isaac's Storm also tells multiple stories. The first is about the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. The storm has been considered one of the worst natural disasters to ever occur on U.S. soil. It killed over 6000 people and almost leveled the entire city of Galveston. The reason the hurricane was so devastating is mostly because the town never had any indication that it would be hit. The storm simply wasn't predicted. And that leads to the other stories in the book. Larson also tells the story of Isaac Cline, the chief weather observer for Galveston and provides a history of meteorology and hurricane prediction. In the early 1900s the Weather Bureau in the US was just starting out and so many of their predictions were based on the current knowledge. The "law of storms" as it were. And the "law" stated that no hurricanes ever went that far into the Gulf of Mexico. Because of that Galveston never built a seawall to protect itself from hurricanes. Because of the known "law of storms" the chief meteorologist never noticed the classic signs of a major storm. And because of this arrogant ignorance, a town nearly was destroyed.

Galveston after the hurricane

Larson weaves these stories together beautifully. This well researched book reads like a novel in parts, and a detailed history in others. I learned a ton about the early history of weather prediction, about the signs and warnings of a hurricane, and about the people and the city of Galveston. All personal accounts are based on letters and on Isaac's own accounts of living through the hurricane. The Weather Bureau at that time used telegrams to convey current conditions and predictions so Larson had a treasure trove of documents that allowed him to map the storm out. In many of the chapters we follow the path of the storm as it grows and moves east into the Gulf. We learn how the Cubans tracked the storm perfectly but because of an arrogant director at the Weather Bureau, those reports were not read. This was a book for me about devastation that possibly could have been avoided. It was about willful ignorance and arrogance and the feeling that humans could control nature. And it was particularly poignant after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

As I mentioned at the beginning, those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it. We see a city like New Orleans, very much like the city of Galveston. It was built below sea level. It was built without a high enough levee to fight off rising waters. It was a city built on arrogance that a storm could never be powerful enough to destroy it. And one did. And many people lost their lives and their property because of it. I know I'm up on my soapbox here but I see them rebuilding New Orleans and I hope that this time they get it right. Building in a flood plain is risky and arrogant. And for some reason we keep doing it. No matter what the consequences. I hope fervently that the government of New Orleans rebuilds with the worry of another storm. I hope they rebuild smart. Or if they won't, then they shouldn't rebuild.

Power Outages and Magic Moments

Last week we had a number of storms, beautiful but violent storms. The kind that drop grape sized hail and brighten up the sky with constant lightning. On Wednesday I had gone over to see my uncle who was visiting my parents. Jeff called at 10 to let me know not to rush home. The power was out. I can't pass up a power outage so I rushed home. I am actually one of those strange people who love power outages. They are so quiet and so dark. We sat in the dark, no flashlight, and watched the lightning outside. Every couple of seconds the sky lit up but there was no thunder or rain. A perfect electrical storm. Out in the woods the fireflies would light up everytime the lightning struck. There were thousands of them. So Jeff and I rolled up our pants and went out to play in the puddles and the lightning and the fireflies. It was totally dark, and silent, and beautiful. After a couple attempts Jeff caught a lightning bug. He carried it in his hands over to show me. And the moment he opened his hands the firefly lit up, and the power came back on.

Magic.