Okay, so...
(1) I feel absolutely horrible about the wreck on the Centennial Bridge this weekend that, from what I gather, killed two innocents. I hope to God that none of the parties involved were coming to, or leaving from, the club I DJ at on the weekends. PLEASE be careful when you're out on the weekends, all, PLEASE. And not just YOU - watch out for other idiots who might be LESS careful.
(2) So some guy decided to joy-climb the Channel 4 tower in downtown Rock Island earlier today. In a weird, sick way -- I'm jealous. I don't know why, but I've always loved that particular tower. For one, it's old school looking - you don't see too many of those triangular towers any more. Most aerial towers are slender, sleek things held aloft with a bevy of those God-awful support guidewire things (if you don't believe me, go to Bettendorf and check out that housing subdivision due west of the giant KWQC tower -- the big one with the strobe lights. That neighborhood has countless backyards that are totally ruined by the obnoxious support lines to that behemoth.) But I think I like the Channel 4 tower there in Rock Island mostly because of the way that it's lit. I don't know if it's the lights ON the tower, the lights illuminating the tower, or the way that the tower reflects the general light of downtown Rock Island, but the end effect is that the tower looks completely unreal -- almost as if it's made of Legos or some random kid's toy. A lot of weekends in the summer, I hang out on the back patio of 2nd Ave. just staring up at that beast. I don't know why, but it's always been one of my favorite things in the Quad Cities. Part of me wants to be that dude who climbed it today. I'm happy nobody was hurt and the situation was resolved, tho.
(3) Maybe I'm just fascinated by aerial towers as a rule. I try my best to remember the locations of towers in and around the Quad Cities. If you're ever bombing around in the country at night joyriding and get lost, you can fairly easily find your way if you learn to recognize those towers. That monster strobe tower in Bettendorf can be seen 10 miles away on a clear night... outside of Orion, there's a series of towers (also Channel 4 I think?) that are easily identifiable... in Galesburg, the radio stations out there are all bundled together in a 3-tower chain that's easy to spot... Yeah, so maybe I'm a loser. It DOES make you think about just what all's floating through the air, though, doesn't it? Between radio waves, microwaves, cell phone signals, ground-to-air communication... we've come a looong way from two soup cans and a string, eh?
Anyways, have a great week, all -- I'll get my new column up soon.
1 comment:
Yah, I could see the WHBF tower from my bed by the window at night when I was a kid. It always cast some sort of mystical sense over me. I wonder if they make small scale replicas of radio towers like they do lighthouses?
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