It's about time that I update this. So I'm back in Texas gearing up for another semester. Being in the panhandle, Lubbock does get its share of exciting weather. And boy was it exciting this morning. I went to bed last night knowing that there were thunderstorms on the way. I casually wondered whether or not I would hear them while I was sleeping. Well, at 4am I woke up after hearing one particularly loud clap of thunder. Before I knew it, it started to rain. It was kind of peaceful at first. But as the minutes ticked on, the lightning became more frequent and the rain got harder. Soon I could see the flashes of lightning (even with my eyes closed) about every three to four seconds. After about 20 minutes of this, I started to wonder whether this was going to get severe. I got out of bed and went to watch TV. To my surprise most of the channels weren't covering the weather. There wasn't even an icon on the screen indicating a severe thunderstorm. I kinda laughed to myself when I thought how for sure California would be on "Storm Watch 2008" by this point (after all, more than a tenth inch of rain had fallen). Eventually I found a station that had someone awake covering the storm. There was for sure a line of red going across Lubbock (I could have told them that!). As I was watching TV, there were a few times when the lightning would flash and an instance later I would hear what I could best describe as splitting thunder. It was a little too close for comfort. The storm finally subsisted around 5am. Fortunately I was able to go back to sleep, but it was quite the morning.
One last thing I wanted to update is an interesting fact I found out about the Irvine Spectrum. I went to visit the Irvine Spectrum with some new friends when I was last home. We ate at the Cheesecake Factory. As we were leaving to head to the movies, I noticed that the restaurant looked awfully similar to some of the Arab architecture I had seen in Spain. There was tiling on the lower half of the wall, just like in all the Arab-styled palaces. Then we walked over more, and I noticed the familiar red and white arches, which reminded me of La Mezquita in Cordoba. Well, this made me wonder about the design of the Irvine Spectrum, so I Wikipedia-ed (yes, it's a verb) it. In the article on the Spectrum it says, "The unusual architecture of the mall is based on the Alhambra in Granada, Spain figuring most prominently in the mall's second phase." It even goes on to describe the fountain:
An illuminated fountain typical of Irvine Spectrum's splashy ambiance. Designed after the Alhambra's Court of Lions."
Unfortunately this Court of Lions was under construction when I saw it. But it's crazy to think that all this time the Spectrum was designed after something so unique, but I didn't appreciate it until I was able to see in person what it was designed after. Who knew that the Spectrum was so Spanish?
No comments:
Post a Comment