Since we're getting all community oriented with our senses (see the earlier "What's That Smell" post), does anyone know what that sound is? I mean, that sound that is resonating from somewhere downtown and is loud enough to be heard all over the lower Westside, if not beyond.

It sounds like one of those flexible tubes you can swing over your head, that make 3 tones or so, changing with the speed it's swung at. Don't know the name of those instruments, but I hope you know what I mean.

I've heard this sound on and off for a few weeks, in various locations on the Westside and on the west side of downtown. Anyone know what it is?

I highly recommend this article to folks interested in the current noise ordinance issue:

Nobody could have imagined that seven days of intense public debate over the city's proposed new noise ordinance would end in five minutes of silence.

And yet it was pin-drop quiet at last Wednesday's public forum on said noise ordinance, when Assistant Police Chief James Fealy used his closing comments to announce that the city wouldn't be moving forward with what he admitted was a "half-baked" proposal.

"We need to slow it down and back it up," Fealy told a standing-room-only crowd of club owners and local music industry players, who had just spent an hour outlining for APD representatives how the ordinance would destroy their livelihoods. Had Fealy begun the meeting with that announcement, those same concert promoters could have shifted their stance from fear and unbridled anger to hope and talk of compromise 55 minutes earlier.

Austin Chronicle - Keeping the Peace

Ever had a "night from hell" because the hotel room you stayed in had an ice machine just a few feet down the hall? If you have, then welcome to my world. No, I don't live in a cheep hotel. I'm speaking of the conditions at my home in the Carlyon-North neighborhood. The noise making culprit is a heat pump installed in a code-violating sideyard setback location, conveniently one foot from the property line between my house and my code-violating neighbor.

18 months is a hell of a long time to have a heat pump spewing noise into your home and property, but that's how long it's been. We can't have a family discussion around the dinner table without having to talk over the monotonous machine rumble. Outdoor barbecues are no longer palatable. Reading C. McCarthy (or OMC) in the living room takes a hell of a lot more focus and breathing control than it used to. Then there's the bedroom.

My wife is ready to move. I'm ready for months of counseling. But hey, from City of Olympia's standpoint, that's probably a good thing, stimulating the economy and such. Sorry, couldn't resist one cheap shot.

Is there anybody else out there who put in a noise complaint to the City, then the City respond that noise level was within compliance? If so, they were probably pulling your leg the same way they were pulling mine. How about set backs - anyone challenged something in the set back and had the City respond nonsensically? I'd like to hear from anyone with these types of experience.