New Toy

I feel kind of sheepish typing this, because it has no practical purpose to me other than my curiosity, but on the way back from lunch I stopped at Radio Shack and bought a decibel meter.

I can remember wishing I had one, occasionally, for a long time. Hammering in the garage wondering if I was doing damage to my ears. Running a shop vac or power tools. Riding an airplane. Riding the L or Metra. Standing under the L. Goliath's bark. The lawnmower. Inside the car at highway speeds. In a movie theater.

What made me think about it again was walking past the construction site on Wacker Drive. They had a HUGE crane-mounted pile driver pounding in HUGE metal pilings. The only thing unusual is that the pile driver was about 20 feet from pedestrian's heads! There had to have been a few violations with that. It was so loud that when I was a block away on Adams it was hard to carry on a conversation. Fortunately for me, by the time I got there it had stopped.

So now you can all look forward to sound level reports from me.