This Life is Not a Dress Rehearsal: Still Cold!!

This cold spell refuses to break. The snow never materialized yesterday. It was supposed to warm up a bit today, but now the temperature stands at 17° at 8:30 a.m. The projected high is only at 29°. So much for “projected warming up”! We were trying to get people out to row this afternoon, but with this cold that is not going to happen. Hopefully we will be able to get on the water Sunday afternoon.

One of the life skills learned from living in Western New York was to only heat the living areas of the house actively in use. My back study is closed off…it is 56°. The second floor temperature is 44°. The heat is turned off in the front rooms which are cool. The thermostat is located in the central hallway is set to 60° for daytime and the low 50’s at night.

Fortunately my tankless water heater is mounted on the house in a secluded spot. It has so far survived the cold.

My bungalow home was built back in 1922. The construction of this house is vastly inferior to that of my old house in Lockport which was built in the late 1870’s. This home of mine was not designed for this type of prolonged sub cold weather. All I can do is dress in layers.

I began this entry two days ago. The temperatures have not warmed up any since then. My Google home page had the outside temperature at 16° when I got up this morning. It is currently 21° (at 10:00 a.m.) with a high projected of 34°. There is no way we will be rowing this afternoon.

The heating system at the “Y” has been unable to cope with the cold. It is colder in workout rooms than in my house! This morning I erged on the Concept 2 wearing my full sweats, scarf, and wool cap!

The phonograph I sold on E-Bay made its way safely to France. I’ve just heard from the purchaser that in cleaning the machine up he needs a screw. (I could really make a comment here but will refrain!) Everything he has access to is metric. I have a pretty good idea of what he needs. I have a spare screw in the right thread pitch, but I have to turn down the head in my watchmakers lathe for a good fit and have it look right. The workshop on the second floor is freezing. I’m hoping it will warm up a bit from the sun shining in through the skylights and windows to allow me to work up there for an hour or two.

I got a good price for this phonograph, so I want to help him out. It is a very rare machine that has such a good look to it. Sadly, the upper works were poorly designed and cheaply made. Performance wise it is disappointing.

I meant to hang on to this machine because of its rarity. But, I became a victim of the “mushroom effect”. A record cabinet I purchased at the phonograph show in June had a very special feature. The bottom drawer was six inches tall, meaning it was designed and sold for the storage of the now extremely rare 6” long 20^th Century cylinder records. These were produced by the Columbia Graphophone Co for a short period of time.

This cabinet was made with fantastic scallops that coincide with the base of a Columbia Graphophone model BF. This Graphophone had an extra long mandrel to play these “new improved” cylinders. Once I acquired a BF there was no need to keep this other model known as a "BKT". Mechanically the BF is much superior over my other machine. The rule I’m trying to live by is: When something new comes in, something goes out.

Columbia BF on top of the cylinder record cabinet with a rare 6" Cylinder record.