Data Centers & Planning for Industrial Noise with Claire Pincock

I'm good. How are you doing? I'm doing well. I'm excited to talk to you because you or for

MD acoustics, you have intimate knowledge about the acoustic potential for data centers within

res, or within proximity of residential neighborhoods. This is kind of your daily

and like what you engage in dealing with kind of industrial and commercial scale noise,

talk to me about data centers, your experience with them, and what has happened in the communities

around them that you've engaged with. Yeah, so I think the first time about seven years ago,

my company got a call of a data center that the neighbors were complaining and the data center

wanted to resolve it. They had us come out there, take noise measurements. We were surprised when

we went out there. Overall, the noise levels were not incredibly high. I mean, maybe in the 50s,

which at night is, it's not terrible. A lot of people experienced that with traffic,

but the thing that was really interesting was the hum that was happening. There was this constant

low frequency hum. So that's really what was driving people crazy because it was constant.

So it wasn't just like noise because I've lived near freeways before. So it wasn't just cars

passing or whatever. It was just right. And cars passing can kind of turn into a bit of a white noise

because it changes. I don't know if you've ever slept with a white noise machine.

After a while, you can start to tell when it repeats. Even though it's sort of random noise,

you can start to feel the repeat. So you know, where freeway is more valuable, it can turn

into that white noise until you get the occasional un muffled motorcycle semi that's loud.

And a low level hum is different than white noise.

Constant. And it does not change. And so it's really easy to great. And that can be unexpected.

These companies won't necessarily know that it is going to be more annoying. They don't expect

that. And that was the case for this company. They did not expect that it was going to be that

annoying. They thought, well, this is, you know, it's a low noise. And if you just go out there

and listen to it, you might think, oh, this is not so bad until you live there. And your whole life

is this hum all the time. And that's not something that fades just into the background.

Yeah. Depending on your sensitivity. For some people, they can tune it out.

For there were a lot of complaints. So and eventually one data center turned into two and then

three and they expanded. And so it's the it's the HVAC systems. They have cooling fans. And that

hum will just carry. There's also backup generators. And the backup generators, they don't operate

all the time. If they lose power, that'll turn on. But that's an unusual situation. Usually that

doesn't disturb people. When they do their monthly maintenance, they'll do it during the day.

And it will be annoying during that time. They're doing their monthly maintenance of the generator.

But it is fairly short term. And and that I've heard less complaints about dealing with that

every now and then. Then I have heard from the constant hum. Okay. So there's this problem. Help

me understand why this was a problem. And if it was able to be resolved. Yeah. So when they built

these data centers, they figured they were far enough away that it wasn't going to be an issue

for noise. And they didn't plan for noise. And so a lot of these chillers are on the side of

the building facing the residential properties. Originally, there were no walls to protect them.

They had some walls with like holes in them because they weren't for noise. And so, you know,

there was nothing blocking them. They weren't careful with the kinds that they picked. They just

picked the age back that best suited their needs because they didn't even know that noise was

going to be a problem. And then it was. And then that's when we get called. And it is a lot harder

to fix the problem after you've built something than before. And that that is just my job in a

net shell. The jobs where we get a site plan and we can help the architect and the landowner

actually design the project for noise. It's so much cheaper and easier to deal with.

If we get called in afterwards and saying we have complaints, there's a lot less you can do.

What you can do is more expensive and it's going to be a lot more inconvenient for your site.

Okay. So, bottom line is the first problem was failure to plan appropriately. They made

assumptions about proximity to residential properties which maybe even somebody's like,

hey, we're five miles away right now and a city approves something. But then it's in the path of

progress and the five miles becomes four miles becomes three miles becomes two miles and now it's

a problem. So, first off, whatever the whatever the planning was, even if there wasn't expansion,

it was poorly done as far as, you know, because you have to take into account like topography,

you got to take into account, you know, temperatures, you have to take into account humidity,

you have to take into account a lot of things. Whatever the calculations were about why they didn't

think it would be a problem or something to even be considered, they were wrong. Well, I don't

think they ever did calculations because they just felt they didn't need to. Nobody told them.

They needed to and they, I mean, this was long ago that data centers, it was less of a boom.

This was less of a big deal. I think that these companies now are more cautious when they come in.

But, you know, they were, I think half a mile away, they felt like there was enough of the gap

from the neighborhood. They didn't think twice about noise. They're thinking about all of the

other permitting that they're doing and the city didn't put noise on the list of things they

needed to consider. Got it. Okay. So the city didn't know and how, if I may ask, how long ago was

this seven years? Okay. It's not that long ago. Yeah. But is it, I don't know that I ever heard of a

data center in 2019 could be clear, but like we have been dealing with HVAC systems on commercial

buildings since we've had H like forever. Anyway, great. So half mile away, they thought it would be fine.

There wasn't fine. The city didn't preemptively put any requirements and they didn't think about

it. So they have these cooling systems, chillers as you put it. Is that because they don't do forced

air systems, they actually do like, they run the cooled coils and stuff all over the place?

You know, it depends. We've had a whole bunch of different types of HVAC systems that we've

worked with. I mean, right, we've done the the water powered and the air powered and, you know,

they have ones with like cooling plates now. We've had HVAC inside and outside and it's, you know,

you never know what you're going to get with the data center until you get the plan. Sure.

Okay. So you you appear on the scene with this big problem. They have a bunch of really loud

electric motors that are and occasionally a generator, right? But in general, they had these like

really loud fans and you guys have to engage in this. Now mind you, when you're dealing with sound

around something like, let's say a pump. Okay. There was a well pump near a place I used to live

and it had this very high pitch habit. And you're like, right. And those are different because

you're not moving a lot of air, right? Like you don't want to stifle. You don't want it to get like

a gigillion degrees, but you have to essentially set up something to dampen the sound,

build up a wall so the sound doesn't move in a certain direction and, you know, engage in that

type of engineering. But when you're dealing with a fan, you need to move an enormous amount of

air, which means you can't just build like a bunch of walls because, you know, you obviously need

to have a huge volume of air that's exchanging heat, which means the material walls are made of and

the way they're designed, all these things become problems. Like, so how did you guys start going

after it when you're like, look, it's going to be a lot more expensive now that you've done this,

right? First and foremost, because of placement of the fans, but like, how did you engage in actually

dampening the sound? Yeah. So for this one, it was mostly just walls. And we have to work with the

mechanical engineers to make sure that again, the airflow is not an issue. You know, at least if

they're exposed on three of the sides and on most of the top, it's going to be okay, but we'd just

help design really tall walls, a major that they were, because not every wall is going to block sound

effectively. So, you know, we have minimum specifications for what they need. And we can also help

with the location, because, you know, depending on where you are, the sound is going to bend around

or over, we know the topography, we know where the people are complaining. In this situation,

there was a small body of water that was guiding the sound directly to a couple of homes,

which, you know, they, that's not something that a city would think about, or that a landlord

would think about as something that I would think about. And that's because the water in general

was cooler than the ambient temperature, and it bent the sound down. And then it's also hard.

So it bends the sound down and then it bounces it back up. Water is really a pain. Oh my gosh,

I remember this from physics class. I mean, physics anyway. Yeah, keep going. So you have very

unique acoustic considerations that hadn't been considered, and then the broader consideration that

hadn't been taken into account. Yeah. And this is why when it comes to my job,

planning is the most important thing. And this goes for absolutely anything, whether we're doing

environmental acoustics like this, where the sound is outside and we're trying to prevent it from

getting all throughout the neighborhood or architectural acoustics, where like a studio,

like that's trying to prevent noise from going from one room to another, you know, knowing

ahead of time that sound can potentially be an issue. And planning for that is it's best for

everyone because then the actual developer avoids complaints. They avoid costly repairs and fixes

afterwards. The people who already live here, they don't have to be bombarded by noise. And

it's a big pain for cities too when they're not prepared for noise because then they don't know

what to do with complaints. We recently had that issue in Idaho Falls where they revamped the

noise ordinance because the police came to the city and said, you know, we don't know what to do

with the current ordinance we have. We don't know how to enforce it. And so they made some changes

to help fix it. And it's made a difference. But we still need to see specifically in Idaho Falls

as well planning for noise. There is a noise limit for residential properties. And the planning

department assumes that the landlords are going to make sure they meet it. And the landlords assume

that it's going to be fine. And they're they don't really think about it or worry about it. And then

it gets built. It's over code. The citizens don't know it exists. They don't know that they can do

anything about it. Or they do know. And they go complain. They don't know how then the city

doesn't know how to enforce it. It's just a man. It's a lot. So the bottom line is it sounds like

there's a larger education plate around this consideration that just we haven't classically

had to design neighborhoods or industry around. Well, like there's some industry because you're not

going to put an industrial like smelter next to a residential residential area. But think like

a lot of that's like from environmental hazards, right? Like you get you don't you don't want

a cooling stack right next to like an elementary school. That's bad call. And I've still seen

I mean right now I'm working on a concrete batch plant that's right next to a residential

neighborhood just because it was farmland that turned into industrial land. It's very rural

residential. And thankfully this city did say, okay, we really need to think about noise. We want

you to hire somebody. Not every city would. What do you do with an industrial batch plant? Like

just plan a bunch of evergreens and hope for the best? You know, that's that's interesting

talking about using vegetation. Vegetation is only effective if it's like really deep

and dense. And so like a lot of evergreens. Oh, yeah. So planting, you know, a line of evergreens,

it will look nice psychologically. You might actually hear less. And if you can block the site

psychologically, you can hear less as well. But it actually doesn't make a huge difference in terms

of the physical noise level. For the one we're working on right now, they're just enclosing

a bunch of the equipment. They're they're building a berm and a wall, you know, they're putting

a ton of effort into this to be good neighbors. But you know, if it wasn't for the city saying,

hey, let's consider this, they might not have even thought about it. Because when you work there

or when you visit there, you perceive the noise differently than when you actually live there.

Right. You're trying to barp you on Saturday or something. Exactly. Yeah. And the the bulk of the

issue with noise is and again, I don't I'm not a professional. But the the idea when you're

dampening noises, like you can do one of two things, you can direct it or you can absorb it.

Right. So when you're building a bunch of walls, that's if if they're hard walls,

they're predominantly going to be pointing the noise up like you would point a flashlight.

I could point a flashlight at you. And if you had a mirror and reflected the light up,

you wouldn't get hit by an avid signal, like you hit pipe. Now you might have some splash outside

of that. But that's one of the ideas with noise, right? Like you can bounce the noise wave

very effectively. Almost they just reflect right back to you. Got it. The other option is to absorb

this. And this is where you have like sound mazes for a studio. Like I was mentioning to you,

like there's there's like you want a studio and like this sound studio to be as tight as possible

with noise. But you don't want to suffocate. So you have to have inlets and outlets and you can

imagine like there's a dude. This was hilarious. You see that in that corner over there near the door

at the ceiling? See how there's like the paper taped on the wall at the at the top. That's an

air vent. Okay. The air vent goes to the office right next door. And the reason I have paper over

that as useless as that was is because for some reason, whoever was in that studio for like two

months had this, I don't know if it was like a smoke detector or like something beeping like every 10

seconds. And I was in here like trying to interview people. And I was like beep. And luckily,

I was able to edit it out in the in the show. So people didn't notice it. But I was going absolutely

insane. So it's kind of like look, they're the wall in between. But obviously you have an open

gap that that noise is going to come through. So you have to you have to have ventilation

obviously within places. But you can create sound walls that move the sound through a bunch of turns

and then absorb sound every time it turns. So then by the time you get to the end, it's like a tiny

little piddly amount of the wave that originated, right? Yeah. And that's great for architectural acoustics.

When you're inside of a building, there's a lot more control that you can have over the sound

with industrial and commercial noise that's outside. It's you have to get really creative.

One of my specialties is car washes. I've done about the car wash. I've done about 200 car washes

now. Wow. In nine years, which was not, I mean, it just kind of fell into it. And I've really enjoyed

it. It's been an interesting challenge. But the way car washes work now is you can't close the door

in between cars. And they have those big, big, loud fans. So loud. And they are right next to

the door. They're right at the exit. And you can't you can't very well block it from there. So

you know, you can have walls by the residences and but you know, the the blowers are way up in the air.

And so depending on how far away it is, that's not always very effective. And one of the things we've

done there is is line the car washes with absorptive liner. Now it has to be really hefty industrial

absorptive liner because there's air and water going all over the place. But it's surprising just

getting rid of the reflections in there and how it bounces all around in that little car wash.

It's just absorbing it. It's it's surprising that it actually makes a notable difference when

you add that liner. But in cases like that, you know, the first the first line of defense for an

outdoor noise is going to be muffling the source of noise itself. And yeah, that's that's a

challenge. It can be a challenge for for chillers. Generators usually have their own custom enclosures,

but they only do so much. And if they don't know, they need them. They're not going to install them.

And sometimes they're not going to leave enough room for them. But yeah, there's these are problems.

There what a question for you. And again, I know this is a little geeking out a little bit,

but one of the problems with the blowers is that you have the engine right next to the output

of the blower. If somewhere were to design it intelligently and had a little bit of extra money,

couldn't you locate the blower the actual engine somewhere far away from that and then just run

simple ducting to deliver that air. So it's like, okay, all of our actual blower engines are like way

over there in that box that no one can see in here. And then we just run ducting and we get the

benefit of all that. But you have to have like forethought ahead of time. Yes. Well, in room.

Put it on the roof, man. Yeah. And you, um, it's outside in the roof. And so, you know,

you're going to have to find a way to enclose it up there. Sometimes if, you know, if you don't

have any second stories or whatever that can sometimes help. But yeah, it's problematic.

Enabling it to breathe is a huge thing. And those engines get hot too. Right. And they need

physical air that they can compress and then the engines themselves heat up. And so my company

actually helped design a car wash blower. Oh, you get you. Yeah, it was fun. But, you know,

there's sacrifices you have to make when you're thinking about noise. There, there are other

considerations. You know, you're likely going to lose some air flow. It's going to be expensive.

The materials are going to go up a lot. There's a lot of foam in these things. Um, but right,

the fans aren't right out there exposed. They are, you know, more enclosed, but they still have

the ability to breathe. Um, but they're, they're huge. And then you have to, you can't just,

most of the time, you can't just install them. You can't like after the fact. Yeah, you have to plan

for them. It's going to take at least that area of like two parking spots in a parking lot.

Oh, oh, yeah. So much more. Yeah. Well, I mean, depending on how you, if you space it out

laterally or vertically, yeah, it depends. They, this, I mean, the system is huge, but I mean,

you can stand underneath it. And you can talk to somebody. And it's like, it's wild. That's all

awesome. I went to Neal's hot springs in Oregon. It's a geothermal plant. And dude, the heat

exchanges they have at those things, the entire plant, right? So you have, obviously, you're,

you're really hot brine, right? That comes up. It's, I don't know, like 250 degrees or something.

I can't remember exactly what it is. And they run it through a system. They transfer the heat

to their refrigerant, right? And the perversion goes from a really small tube to a really big tube

with, you know, obviously the turbine in between. So it's like the, the refrigerant gets heated up.

And then it's like, oh my gosh, it's so hot. We got to like get out of here, like people running

out of a burning theater, like you go from this high pressure zone. It's like we got to get through

this door. And then we can all be in the nice cool outside evening air, right? So that's what the

refrigerant does. And it runs through the turbine. That obviously turns the turns the generator. And

you get electricity. But then you have all this cool. And where it's like, okay, it's not cold enough

to like dump back into the ground yet. And we got to like do something with it. So they have these,

like gigantic fans that point straight up. And so what they do is they take the giant tube of coolant,

which you're in, break it down into small capillaries that are like the size of your fingers,

thousands of them that like run goes from one giant tube to like thousands of these capillaries

all running across on the underside of these fans. And these fans are pointing straight up,

right? And they're, you know, like two stories up off the ground. So you can stand underneath

and you look up. And it's just gigantic fan. And it's so loud. It's so loud. Like you could hear it.

You were coming down the road. You're like, where are we going? And then you finally see you're like,

oh, this is why. And it's in a valley, you know, which is really nice because acoustically then,

you know, you're not. But it's a, yeah, it's a huge amount of noise. And it's just fans. Like,

it's all fans turning over and just generating a huge amount of coolant for this refrigerant.

Well, and hills and valleys are, they're a huge thing. I mean, especially if you get into regions

like Eagle, where, you know, into the north where it's a little more in the boonies and

start putting noise producing activities out there, it's insane. How far that value like a

shooting range. I won't. That was a thing. That's a thing. I know. I'm aware. That's fantastic.

It's crazy. They're just going to bounce off the hills, right?

And it comes right back up. And, you know, you can hear every single shot that can come back up,

depending on where you're at. You know, so topography is a really big deal. But one of the big

challenges is that in the entire state of Idaho, that I know of, there are two people who are

qualified to do this kind of work. You and your coworker? Oh, no, I'm the only one in Idaho

in my company. Oh, okay. Yeah, we're, we've got Arizona, LA area, and provow offices. Okay.

And I'm the lone one in Idaho, because I loved it too much right back to stay here.

Plus, are we like the car wash per capita capital of the country or something?

I have never done a car wash in Idaho. What's wrong with you? You got to come to the treasure valley,

man. Like we got them everywhere. Well, because nobody requires studies here. They just build them.

And so I don't know. There is one person here in Boise. There was one guy who's been doing Boise

projects for decades, the same as Ed Mullins. And he did a really great job. So Ed Mullins.

Yeah, I would assume he did a few car washes here. I would hope. Shout out, Ed. I want to hear

about city planning. And this is particularly important. I mean, obviously we have this gigantic

question around data centers, not just from from a energy utilization, but from a water utilization,

from a land utilization. And then obviously, you know, they're not you like they use up the quiet.

I don't know how else to say that, but you know, like they destroy peace and peace and enjoyment.

Right. And where there's only two of us in the entire state, there's one person here in Boise

who took over for Ed. And then there's me in Idaho Falls. There are some firms out of Portland

that they they'll target this area and when people need. But you know, in general, because the cities

aren't asking for planning, they're not asking for noise planning. There's just not a ton of work

going on. And that's going to make it tough because as the noise issues come up, you know,

there's there's only a few of us who are qualified. And one of the things I've noticed that happens

in areas where there's not very many people that are qualified is other people think they're qualified.

Like Matt. I'm like, Hey, man, I built the sound studio. I'm qualified. Well, let me tell you all

about walls. I mean, that's the there's nothing wrong with doing your own studio because you're

you're doing it for yourself. Oh my God. Can you imagine me going out there? I'm like, I know,

we're going to we're going to get a lot of center blocks hang with me. So if you were to come in

and say, and I've, unfortunately, I have seen very similar things like this happen where someone

comes in and says, I'm an AV specialist, you know, I do audio visually, a visual. And so I'm

qualified to do this kind of noise. And they'll go out with a noise meter on their phone or,

you know, a microphone like this and take measurements or do plans. And they'll do very simple

calculations. And sometimes it's okay. Sometimes that's good enough for something like a data center

or a car wash. You know, they don't know how to do any actual modeling. They don't know the actual

physics. And I'm not qualified to do audio video. Yes. Like look at some of my look at some of my

some of my some of my contemporary episodes. Like some of them I just killed the blacks like the

skin tone colorings off. Like I didn't even know what white bounce was until like two years ago.

Like it's terrible. Yeah. No, it's not great. So the problem is you were saying as you don't have

resources, then people think like, Oh, I should be able to do this or like, Hey, my son-in-law

does audio video. Let's get him to just do the audio for the new data center going in or

something. So you have to look for somebody with the qualifications. And you know, there's the

we've got the Institute of Noise Control Engineers. And you know, we there's plenty of us that

are registered with them. That's a great way to see if someone really knows what they're doing

because they don't just let anybody be an associate. They also do like board certification.

And it's kind of similar to a professional engineer certification. And so we we have a member

of our company who is like board certified. You know, it's it's good to look at degrees.

I don't think a degree is necessarily, you know, you have to have this acoustics degree to do the

job. But at the very least, you know, you have to have taken some classes and had some experience.

And that's what INCE, that's what they look for when they're putting you in as an associate.

Yeah, you look for firms that are partners like a national council of acoustical consultants,

firms that will register with them. And right, there's two here at Idaho. And that's that's

stuff I have started to I have started to see people step up when when cities have asked for the work

who shouldn't be stepping up and doing it that they're not qualified.

Yeah, well, let's hope that doesn't happen. I know the conversation around data centers in particular

has been a very, very charged conversation. And I also know that everything I do relies on data

centers, right? So this is one of those things where it's like, listen, we don't have to love data

centers, but we shouldn't have to hate them either, right? So whatever can be done, be it, you know,

power inside defense, be it noise cancelling technology, be it really stringent water replacement

and cycling, tech like whatever it is so that we could get data centers and not have impacts on

our power bills, on our water resource, on our peace and enjoyment outside, like whatever these

things are, we need to do a really, really good job with it because it would be terrible if Idaho,

you know, because of our low power rates and our capacity to deliver great resources like

water and whatnot, you're like, that's the other thing. It's like, we have so much ag land and we have

low power, which means we have water and we have low power. So my house is powered by the snake river

and it's so cheap. It's it's lovely. It's lovely. I really, I really enjoy living in Idaho falls

and that's that's one of the reasons is yeah, but that cheap, clean energy that we get we have

that lovely abundance of water over there. Which uh, which power company you guys with?

We're with Idaho Falls Power. Idaho Falls Gotcha. Which shout out to Idaho Falls Power there.

Idaho Falls Power. You guys crush it. You're just rocking that. How much you guys per kilowatt?

Like are you under are you under Idaho power? Uh, we are under Idaho power. Yeah. You're underneath

the power. Are you doing that? It's amazing and they work. I mean, I'm I'm pretty sure. I

I won't I'm not going to say that for sure. I'm pretty sure that my rates are cheaper than like

my sisters who lives out in the county. And I go, I mean, it's it's crazy. Uh, and I love it. And,

you know, yeah, so do the data centers. I know they love it too. They're like, that's their number one

expense, right? Right. It's just power. Like once they have the servers, then they have like some dude

watching the levels and then they it's all power. But we can plan for that. Um, and you know,

we are trying to plan for that in Idaho. And I love that. We can plan for the water usage and

for the power usage. We can plan for the potential and viral impacts of noise and air quality.

These are all things that when if we think about them right now before we get a huge influx of

them coming in and if we plan for them, if we legislate for them in a way that doesn't shut

them out, but that allows us to all live together harmoniously. It's a it's a win for everybody.

No one wants to be the company that comes in that everybody hates that ruins the city. And

that gets companies in the pool. Yeah. Nobody wants to be that. None of my clients are like, yeah,

wait, we don't care. We're ruining their lives. But whatever. I mean, I've had clients that

didn't plan for it and they come back to straw that somebody is saying that their, uh,

their use is ruining their lives. You know, it, it, I, they're most of them are good people that

they don't want that. Yeah, man, nobody wants to have that hanging over their head. Yeah,

it's a rough one. You have to be a pretty, uh, have to be a pretty bad person to just not care.

Now mind you, there are a lot of bad people. That's fine too. Like you get to be a bad person.

It's a minority. And um, planning for this helps them to having this legislation in place where we

can say, you know, when you're within this distance of a data center from the residential,

you have to ensure that noise is properly accounted for. Um, then that's, that's a win for everybody.

I got you. Um, Claire, we've talked about a lot of things. You've sold me on the planning.

I think every city in the entire state of Idaho should take this into account. Wouldn't

they're dealing with something like a data center? Is there anything we've missed here?

Yeah. Man, I should take notes. You can always come back. You can always come back whenever

you're in town visiting, you know, people again. I'm more than happy to have you. Yeah, I just,

I guess another thing is I, I hope to see more people know that this is a job not only to know that,

you know, we are people that you can hire to help, but also so that more people get into this

because we need more of us and we need more of us who are properly qualified people who go in

and get the STEM degrees and and take the time to learn acoustics and have the experience.

More of us are needed who take this seriously and who, you know, really care about noise and

love this. There's, there's a gap. Um, and it's a really exciting job. It's different every day.

Um, you know, my company, we, we get so much work, we're constantly expanding and it's,

it's really exciting. Man, that's a sales pitch for me. I'm like, I like waves. I like stuff.

I mean, obviously I've put some thought into sound before. I was a, I was a music major and we had

to take a physics of sound class and I changed my major because it was so fun. And I was like,

you know, I can make money off of this and it's also actually a lot easier for me than music is.

I remember when I was 15, I was in physics and really enjoyed the class, obviously. And we were

learning about sound bending. And one of the examples was that there were people, there,

there were these dudes out on a lake that was very fogged over. So they're fishing. They weren't

supposed to be fishing because it wasn't like the season and they're like, nobody can see us. It's

fine, but the sound bent all the way across the lake. And when they came back into the dock,

there was like a fishing game guys just waiting for them to give them tickets. They're like,

they're like, how do you know they're like, we listened to the entire time. That also happened in

a, I was a rower in college and obviously you could hear things, you know, if especially I'm like

a cold cold morning, you could hear something things all the like, you would hear them way before

you saw them. And you had clarity and crispness and it's always, I don't know, I've always found

it interesting as well. Well, yeah, if you look up acoustics war stories, there are so many

interesting stories about battles where, you know, the row is the brown noise reel. Brown noise?

Like the South Park episode. I'll talk, we'll talk about it off air.

By the way, I have a really cool product idea too. Anyway, keep going. But right, there have been cases

where there, there have been battles. I wish I'd like this up beforehand. I'm trying to remember

what the battle was called, but there's one in particular where I want to say it was the Civil War

and the, the South had like extra armies ready to go. And they said, you know, once you hear us charge,

you come in and join us. And because of the way that sound had traveled and there was like a

forest there and all sorts of interesting topography, they didn't give the signal to flank.

They didn't hear a thing. I made a huge difference overall in the war. Just acoustics turn the

tide, which was fascinating. Well, again, music symbols were originally I believe created by Japan.

And they were horrifying to people that didn't know what they were, right? Like you're coming through

the some valley in Japan, trying to like go to war with some other, you know, and you hear these

like gigantic crashes. And you're like, what the hell is now we know from, you know,

percussion, we're like, okay, no problem. But if you don't know that, it was obviously a terrifying

terrifying experience for them. You've got a Bible story about that. Maybe about the walls of

Jericho where they're running around and they've got their trumpets and they're being super loud.

And yeah, we've been using noise as a tool forever. That's pro wrestling move, by the way.

The walls of Jericho. It's where the guys sitting on a prone on his or lying down face down

and you grab his legs and pull his legs up so his feet are like wrapping around his back to get

to his head and you're like pulling on and he's like, yeah, the walls of Jericho. That's a

that's a bad one. What did you play? Um, so I played the viola in the organ. Oh, fantastic.

I play piano and trumpet. Not quite the same. Yeah. My husband does trumpet. Oh, there you go.

Yeah. The trumpet's a great instrument. The problem is you like everyone hates you and tell

you're like six years in. And then once you're six years in, you're really, really like it.

You can play interesting and engaging things. I play the viola so everyone just hates me. That's

sad. No, it's really nice because it's such a, um, an uncommon instrument for people to

want to play that it's really easy to get scholarships. Yeah, to join. I mean, I'm like last chair

in the Idaho Falls Symphony and I'm just like, I'm happy to be here. Yeah, I wish I kept after

my son now plays trumpet. So I like, I still have my trumpet from high school, which is great

because trumpets don't, you know, age out. Yeah, no, they don't go bad. But if I had like some

crummy violin that I was like carrying around, it would have been, yeah, it would have been a problem.

But I love music. I specifically love brass because it like, I can sit down and play the organ.

It's not going to sound good. But like I can hit a button on the organ and or a key rather and

it'll be it'll be a tune. And it doesn't cost me anything to do that to play trumpet,

cost you something in both audio and physical. Like it sounds bad. You can't hide the fact that

you sound bad. And it hurts. Like I pretty much when I was, I think it was like an eighth grade

gave myself a hernia because I was playing so much. I was probably, I was like really like,

okay, I want to get good at trumpet. And dude, I endured so much pain that I'm like, I don't

want to practice anymore. And it literally knocked the bug out of me. This was like, there was a

period of time I really want to be really good. But like if that's what it takes to be really good,

I can't handle the pain in my app. Like, you know, it doesn't matter. Well, it's part of the reason

why I was a really bad music major is I, I did not like practicing four hours a day. But it hurt.

It was not fun. I was like and and I was, you know, gosh, one of the worst musicians that was over

there. But you are in the symphony. I am in the symphony. I got in on a year where they really

needed them. And it was like, I'm here. Yeah. Did you ever see that movie whiplash? Yes.

I didn't, I never watched it specifically because a friend of mine from college had seen it. And

we're on the rowing team together. And he hit me up. He was like, this is the best representation

of D1 rowing ever. And I saw a preview of it. I'm like, nope. I'm like, I started sweating. I was

like, uh, like the guy just screaming at people and being super intense. The only scene I ever saw

was like, when the guy asked if he was out of tune, he's like, well, were you? And the the

students like, yeah, he's like, then why don't you go and get better? Get the hell.

The guy leaves. And he's like, all right, let's take five. And just for the record, he wasn't off

you were. But he didn't know if he was or not. So that's just as bad. And I'm like, that's

pretty much every Saturday for me. Yeah. I mean, I never had a teacher who was like that.

But, you know, you know, when you're the worst in the room. And it's, I don't know, sometimes

that's a nice place to be because it's a place where you can grow. But to be the worst in the room,

you need to have a lot of passion to keep up. And you need to have a lot of love. And I,

I didn't love music as much as I needed to to succeed there. But then when I got into the

physics class, I felt it there. I could sit down and do four hours of homework of homework a day

and love every moment of it. And, you know, I, it was good to have that moment of understanding

of like this is, this is fun. And when it was something physical, when I combined two of my

loves, when I was getting into sound and physics, it just, it, it's shown for me. And I've,

I've loved it. I love it so much. I feel that I greatly appreciate that. I went into

Cal as a math major. I remember sitting there being like, I just, this isn't, I was in pre-calculus.

I was a junior. I remember going through like gigantic matrices. And I remember going into class

and telling my pre-calc teacher, I was like, this is so great. And he was like,

what did he? And I remember telling him, I was like, this is so fun to like run through three pages.

I got, I got really excited when I realized that one math problem took me one more than one page.

And it was like, this super cool thing. So I was like, to run through three pages and arrive at

the answer and get the right answer. Not just get an answer, but get the right one knowing like,

you went, I was like, this is so great. And I had this love from math and the complexities.

I was like, I remember learning derivatives and integrals. I'm like, this stuff is so fun.

And then I, I remember getting to Cal and sitting in this auditorium in this lecture hall and this

guy's, you know, just doing some stuff. I'm like, I don't, I don't have any connection to this. Like

it's gone. And then I had found somebody's a friend's brother was in a rhetoric class. And I'm

like, I wonder what that is. So I went and took a class and I'm like, wait, we get to talk about

like ideas and like track communication. And I don't know what it was. I was like, but I could

sit here and listen to this and engage in this for a long time. And now, just like my first

interview this morning was 6 a.m. And I got up at 4.30. So I could edit the videos for the day.

And now I'm going like all day. It's, I'm going like four to five, four a.m. to five p.m. And

I don't mind at all. Yeah. No, I understand that. You just, I mean, I, I've got three kids and, you

know, work comes in between when it comes. And yet it's, it's not, it's not hard to push in that time.

Most of the time. There's the occasional project that really wears me down. But most of the time,

you know, I look forward to hopping on the computer and doing another car wash model. I get excited

when it doesn't work out with the easy solutions. And I just have to jump in and ticker, tinker

and come up with new ideas for how to make things work. And yeah, I don't know. That's not something

that I thought would be fun when I tell people, you know, I make car washes quiet. That doesn't

really sound like the most interesting job in the world. But it's so, it's so much fun. And I think

there are a lot of people out there who don't know how much they would love doing it. You know,

what else is fun? Speaking of kids, check this out. So I grew this giant lawn last year,

because I moved to this place and have a lawn. And my vision was like, I'd love to play baseball.

Now mind you, I'm not a big baseball player. But like, love the idea of like playing catch playing

baseball. Anyway, so we start playing baseball, right, on this lawn. And it's like, you know,

just a dumb bat, you know, whatever. But it's like, you don't need a lot to play baseball with kids,

right? And then we started playing like it was the most ridiculous thing. So we'd try to get

like home run. So we'd like hit and we're playing with wiffle ball. So they don't go very far.

We're not pitching them hard. We're not calling balls and strikes. We're just like throwing

them. Tell me my point is we started playing where it's like, you would have to tag somebody with

the ball or like throw it at them. So then like my son, one of my, my 12 year old figured out he

could bump it and then kick it, kick the ball and run for it. And of course, it's like game on,

right? So then I realized I'm like, why am I even trying to hit it forward? So I'd get a bad

mitten racket. I'm like, hit it. They're like, you're not going to hit it very far. I'm like,

just pitch the ball, right? They pitch it. And I flipped the bad mitten racket instead of

vertically, horizontally. And I smashed the ball up. So it flies behind me. I take off.

We have been having like the most ridden. And again, I get home after like 12 or 13 hours.

I'm dead to the world. But when they say, can we go out and play baseball? It's like,

yeah, we can go. Well, and actually speaking of sports, that's another hot topic of

Boise noise. I don't know if you read the articles about a pickleball noise. No. Yeah. So that

was a really big thing. What like people screaming about pickleball? Yeah. So there was a pickleball

court that was built next to a neighborhood. And one of the people who lived in those homes,

it was really difficult for them. They struggled with it. And I believe it was the city of

Boise itself that they ended up suing the city of Boise over it. It became national news.

It was a very interesting issue. And again, it comes down to planning.

Yeah. I, the house I used to live in, which was in Ada County, had we backed up to a big field.

Seven acres, Alfa, and they're like, one day, this will be an elementary school. Great. I don't

care. Like the bell for the elementary school. No problem. You got traffic in the morning and

the afternoon on care. Like I love having the playground, you know, whatever we would have,

you know, grass, black top, whatever. So the playground or the school isn't coming. It's not coming.

It's not coming. And then people realize the enrollment in West Ada is dropping. And if you're

are going to put an elementary school somewhere, you're not putting it where we are. You're going to

put it over in star, which they're doing because like that's the population of growth where the kids

are fine, whatever. I'm like, cool. Whatever. I'll felt filled in the backyard. Don't care about

that. And then they're like, hey, as an amenity, the developers, like, we're going to make a soccer

field back here. Like, oh, that doesn't sound too bad. Like big grass area. No problem. Dude,

the number of balls that hit our back fence, just the smash. Then the number of community events

that happen back there, then they started renting the field out to like youth sports camps all

the time. So then it was like soccer and then it was baseball and then it was, you know, football

and then it became this thing where it's like, oh, my God, my backyard is gone. Like, my backyard

is literally just an extension of this, you know, soccer field that is now the hub for like the whole

community because we didn't have any other community amenities. Man, that was a lot. Yeah, it's

and it's it's hard to balance where, you know, this is, but schools are a lot of ways there are

residential use sports courts can and a lot of ways be of residential use and take a ball too.

I mean, a lot of residential properties, pickle ball is an amenity. Yeah, yeah. And so you don't

always know when is something going to annoy someone versus them just saying, oh, you know, that's

and most people who live by an elementary school aren't going to go, oh, there's a kid screaming

again because you want schools to be in the neighborhoods. Yeah, yeah. But sometimes they will.

And, you know, it planning for noise is not it's not simple. There's a lot to consider. You know,

what what kind of noise is going to be annoying? What's the frequency range? You know, is it going

to be high pitch or low pitch? Is it going to be, you know, broadband? Is it going how loud is it

going to be? Is it going to be impulse like a pickle ball where it's really short or or a gunshot

really short? You have to take that and that's going to be more annoying than something that drones

is it going to be going at night? You know, they it's so hard to make a noise ordinance that

covers everything. I mean, honestly, it's impossible. And finding the balance, you know,

it's going to depend on your community. It's going to depend on the source type. It's

a huge challenge. You ever get driven insane by a click off a ceiling fan at night when you're

trying to sleep? Oh, yeah, I don't turn my ceiling fans on. I can't I can't deal with it. And it's

like it's literally like the water. It's like Chinese water torture. Is that the proper name for that?

I have no Chinese water torture. I feel like waterboarding. No, the torture is not the drop. It's not

jet. No, I think it's Chinese. It's not Japanese. Dude, you know that I think one of the methods

of torture in the Philippines was that they would bury you up to your head cover your head with honey

and then the ant would come and eat you. I have never heard that before. True story. Anyway,

listen to me, Claire. I appreciate you. We are far foot. Thank you for coming out. Listen,

if I'm over in Idaho Falls, I'd love to hit you up again because I've really enjoyed this and

again, planning appropriately ahead of time in Idaho. Idaho communities planning and requiring

the industry come in and defending the community first and foremost. I love that idea. So

thank you for what you do. Thanks for the shout out for, you know, call to action for young people

getting into this. Obviously, it's something that that is going to be an emerging field. So

thanks for what you're doing. We'll do it again. Thanks for having me on.