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After the 800th time reading someone complain about the clomping foot traffic noise of the tenants upstairs, and the 2000th response from a well-meaning someone else advising them to install acoustic tile, I've gotta post something that will hopefully get Googled for the next poor shnook who asks about it. I don't have an architectural acoustics degree but this is something I learned in the trenches, building recording studios.

There are two basic types of noise control: one that alters the acoustics inside a room (absorption) and one that contains that noise and keeps it from invading neighboring spaces (transmission). The respective technical approaches are about as similar as frying a hamburger and paper training a puppy. In other words, different.

Yesterday was a rough one for me. For those who keep up to date here (there are a few of you and I really appreciate it), you know why.

But today was a new day and, in a weird way, I figured I owed it to my buddy Chopper to get this place one step closer to completion. After all, this was his home too. So I returned (again) to the stained glass. While I have five stained glass projects ahead of me, at least the design of ONE of them is finally locked in. What did that take me? Sixteen months? I can't wait to post about the completion of this project, presuming blogs are still around in 2015.

A lot of the credit for settling on the design goes to the folks on Old House Web forums and to a couple of people on the forum at Brownstoner.com. I was reaching the point of cognitive overload, scratching my head about whether stained glass even worked for that cabinet. I was getting ready to slap a couple of sheets of plywood in those doors until one of the OHW users, probably tired of reading my bellyaching about it, took one of the designs and 'shopped it into a photo of that cabinet.

I found Chopper as a 9 week old kitten. It was almost a set up for a bad joke: "A cat walks into a bar..." but that's how it went. During our Tuesday night motorcycle hang at the Ear Inn on Spring Street in Manhattan, an orange kitten bravely walked in the door and started begging food from the patrons. I picked him up and he started licking my face like a golden retriever.

Last year, NYC DOT repaved several Brooklyn avenues. Last month, they began ripping up some cross streets, mine included. Even though my street was in good condition, people who have lived on the block for 40 years can't remember the last it was repaved. I figured this might make a good photo archive moment for my planned neighborhood blog.

When I saw the yellow signs pop up all over the street I thought it was going to be yet another annoying film shoot. Over the past couple of years Brooklyn has gotten to be a hot location with Hollywood.

You might even see me in the background of an Ashton Kutcher/Cameron Diaz flick, "What Happens In Vegas", which was shot earlier this spring in the park down the block. I guess they wanted someone walking dogs so the PA pulled me out of the crowd of rubbernecks and told me to walk slowly and not look at the camera. I obeyed but Auggie became obsessed with a squirrel and caused a scene so we probably got left for dead on the cutting room floor.