Ying and Yang
Daily Photo
This was taken a few months ago in one of our listening rooms. Made of styrofoam, technically it is called an acoustic diffuser panel and is based on fractal mathematics. Interesting, but I didn't feel it was a compelling enough photo to use in my blog (I know, you're all--how is it different from any of the others), but as I was flipping through my photo stash, it brought to mind something that some of you may find interesting. Or maybe not. Judge for yourself.
I have a brother, Jeff, who is 18 months older than me. When we were kids, we fought like most siblings close in age do. He would tease me to the point of mental breakdown, including the systematic torture of my favorite stuffed animals. If you were to ask our mother, she would probably tell you the only complaint she had during our entire upbringing would be that Jeff and I could not be in the same room together, let alone the backseat of a car, for two seconds without him causing me to scream "Mooooooooooom, Jeff's teasing me!" followed by uncontrollable sobbing. We had very little in common, and most personality traits he had, like savage meanness, I lacked, and vice versa.
During our college days, Jeff and I found that we sort of enjoyed hanging out together, although neither of us would admit it. Or perhaps he just liked hanging out with my roommates, I'm not quite sure. As the years march on and he and I have started our own families, it has become quite apparent that we care about each other very much, and the more we talk about it, the more fond memories of our childhood can be found than those of relentless teasing that I focused on for too many years.
Anyway, back to the daily photo. Jeff has made a very successful business out of providing industrial noise and sound control products (that's him in the picture on the home page). In fact, it was his company that installed the Klipsch anechoic chamber floor a few years back, which is a spring-type contraption that allows for complete vibration isolation necessary because we are very close to major highway.
I think it gives our mom a chuckle when she thinks about how I've made my living out of making noise, and Jeff has made his out of muffling it.
