Brrrrrrrr II: Electric Brrrrrrrrgaloo

When the heat in your home goes out in the dead of winter, and after business hours and on a Sunday no less, it’s amazing what one resorts to in order to try to restore some semblance of comfort to the place. For the record, the game room is probably the warmest room in the house; it gets toasty enough in here with all this gear running (especially now that the Avid is here) that I usually have the fan on, running at a low speed, all winter. Well, not tonight. The fan’s off. The heat’s also off. It’s time to turn on anything that might generate a bit of warmth.
The not-quite-fully-functional Kick machine is on for the first time in months (sometimes I even have to remind myself that there’s a reason I bought the thing three years ago) generates quite a respectable amount of heat; that’s why it’s been unplugged for months. It’s currently up and running, its messed-up monitor proudly proclaiming “ICK” to describe the situation.

The game room lights and screens are all a-glowin’, and so is the Avid. I haven’t even edited anything on the Avid today, it’s just that with all those screens and all those outboard modules and decks that run so hot they have their own fans, it’s a handy heat source.
Sadly, the critters are having a bit of a time staying warm. Xena’s got one of our better blankets on her right now, a big flannel number, sleeping in the foor, and Othello and Olivia have either been in my chair or in the nearly-closed master bathroom, where I have the lights on to keep them warm. If they can be bothered to sit still in there.

The multiple light bulbs around the bathroom mirror create an intriguing reflection when the door is almost closed.
Someone’s coming to look at the furnace tomorrow. It’s an electric furnace (after being first-hand witnesses to the fleecing of the public by AOG and its parent company, the Stephens Group – which also owns media interests that wouldn’t touch the skyrocketing gas rates story – we thought this house’s lack of any reliance on natural gas was a huge selling point), probably been here since the house was built and probably never serviced, so I’m hoping this is something where a heating element needs replacing rather than the whole unit.
Even so, considering its stellar performance in heating my game room, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Kick machine gets nominated for winter den duty.