Sunday, January 12, 2003

A lazy morning, Andrew went out for croissants, fresh and warm from around the corner. We made two pots of coffee and drank it slowly while reading last week's Sunday New York Times and Saturday s International Herald Tribune. The younger guys, who still can, slept late. Colin went off to rendezvous with a dental assistant he d met during a toothache episode; Rob and Steve went out for coffee with the landlady, Madame Ernst, and I did as little as possible. It was too cold, windy and gray to venture far out of doors in only a tweed jacket. Rick Isaacs arrived in mid-afternoon, sans baggage of course. Ten days after their little ice storm, Air France and Charles de Gaulle Airport still can't cope. Rick described the mountains of bags backed up in the terminal. We walked him up to the Cathedrale on the way to search out a pharmacy, but on Sunday nothing is open except restaurants. Annoying to Americans who are used to twenty-four hour, seven days a week service, but closing everything for one day means almost everybody gets to take a day off. Nothing happens from noon to one pm weekdays either, so the lunch hour is not interrupted by phone calls or demands for information. It has its points, but it would be more difficult in our four-time-zone country.

So many things to do at once, and each seemingly dependant on the others; the steel can t be fixed to the floor until it is perfectly aligned, but to do so will get in the way of the crane lifting the pipes up to the tower, the pipes can t go in the tower until the blower box is put together and the blower box can t be built until the steel is moved. It is the same story on almost every installation, but with such a large crew, nine of us now, we have several projects going forward at once, and I am having a challenging time coordinating them. There are also the usual frustrations of trying to find a particular part one needs when the parts are spread over ten or twelve thousand square feet. We still need to work on our marking system. But the work is going forward, more steel and flooring in place and the rear offset chests are installed. The scaffolding people arrived to talk about the two towers that must be constructed in the back of the balcony from which to lift the 32 pipes. At a half-ton each, it will take some sturdy scaffolds. They'll be back in the morning to set up.

Wonder of wonders, the bags arrived. A little fly-by-night delivery service called for directions to the house and we convinced them to deliver to the Cathedrale. My suitcase and Jason s were handed over, but no sign yet of Rob s toolbox, and of course it s way too early for Rick to expect anything. When I asked the driver if he was a busy man he rolled his eyes and described a mountain of bags with his arm. I spent the rest of the afternoon reveling in having my stuff at long last. This evening, arranging it in my armoire, I reflected that when I packed for the month I thought of eight shirts, four pairs of pants, two sweaters and eight changes of underwear as a small supply of clothing. Now the same amount of clothing seems like an embarrassment of riches. It is all a matter of my attitude toward what I have. I loaned Rick a couple of pairs of socks knowing what he is going through, and it feels better to be a sock donor than a sock recipient. Maybe for a little while I won t take things like my shaving kit and reading glasses for granted.

Tuesday, January 14, 2003

The regular Tuesday meeting of the men who make the decisions at the Cathedrale was held in the balcony this morning, as the scaffolding guys tried to set up, and as we tried to go on building the organ, the architects, archeologist, clerk of the works, electrician and several others inspected the site. It was very crowded. A decision was finally made concerning the long discussed bolts in the wall to hold the 32 pipes vertical, and we will be allowed to drill into the 13th century stone after all. The beautiful and massive steel rack Bob Cornell made was rendered superfluous, and we are talking about presenting it to the art museum. No sign of the special epoxy we were promised yesterday for securing the threaded rod into the floor, and if I understood some asides in French correctly it may not be much different from the product we brought, at great cost, from the States. We ll see.

We had to knock off for forty-five minutes in the afternoon for a special service, so we took the opportunity to return to the Contole des habitants to pass in our completed forms applying for residency permits. In a week or two, when we are about to go home, we will be notified by mail that it is time to return to the office to receive our permits. It is a little like the Registry of Motor Vehicles, no one ever goes there just once. But it was wonderful to be outside while the sun shone. We go to work before dawn and it is full night when we leave. This has given me a skewed perspective of a dark and deserted city, when in fact it is bright and bustling.

When we went to the transport office to get a bus pass for Rick, we discovered that if one gets a pass then leaves the city and returns later, as many of us will do as the project progresses, showing the old pass when asking for a new one will save 20 CHF.

Just before leaving the Cathedrale this evening at 7:30, I discovered that the largest pipes, which we had hoped to raise first thing tomorrow, will strike a cornice at the upper level of the arched wall that did not appear on any drawings and that I had failed to notice on my two previous visits. It is a major collision. There are several solutions, including relocating the half-ton pipes, but we must find the most simple and efficient way that doesn t look like an error. In almost any other building we would cut the cornice.

Wednesday, January 15, 2003

No one came up with a better idea overnight, so we moved the windchests forward in the organ, which will mean modifications to the wind system later on. The big pipes will now just skim by the cornice in question. The lower half of the first pipe was standing by 11am and by days end four of the five pipes on the CC side were up and bolted, thanks to the excellent aluminum staging that was installed. It was relatively simple to sling a block and tackle at the top of one of the thirty-five foot towers and haul up the pipes, and we had a firm place to stand while fastening them. The view from the top of the scaffold is tremendous, a thirty-five foot tower in a thirty-five foot balcony makes for a wonderful vantage point from which to view the nave.

At sunset we went out onto the roof of the Cathedrale through a door in the side of our workshop and were treated to a vista worthy of Maxfield Parrish. The snow on the west facing slopes of the Alps across the lake in France was a delicate peach shading to magenta. It was hard to go back to work. We should finish the P32 1-10 tomorrow, and may get a start on the P32T. Four pipes installed, six thousand seven hundred and thirty-one to go.

The masons came by and epoxied the threaded rods that run thirty inches into the stone floor and hold down the rear transverse steel. They indeed have a product that allows one to control the viscosity, so it was simple for them to mix a thin batch to run in around threaded rod already installed. We have installed the center steel beams that support the console cantilever and will soon have everything ready to bolt down. The blower boxes are fully installed, so the electrician can begin his work mounting the main panel on the ## side.

Madame Ernst paid us a visit when we got home at nine after an excellent meal at Le Raisin near the Town Hall. The west wing bathroom now has a shower curtain and she promised to get one in the east bathroom, But it's more complicated, she said. She showed us a light fixture that might replace some of the bare bulbs and said the TV would be fixed, she also gently chided us for keeping such smelly cheese in the fridge; part of our gastronomic adventures. We have extended these explorations further into the microbial realm, as several other types of cultured milk products are available besides yogurt. We've tried quark and lait acide and we have bifidus and one called LC1, all variations on a sour milk theme.

Thursday, January 16, 2003

A good day on the job. The ten largest open pipes are in place. The ## side pipes went much more easily, thanks to an electric chain hoist borrowed from our friendly masons and the experience gained on the CC side. Fixing the threaded rod into the stone walls is a messy job but it does make a very strong fastening. We progressed rapidly enough that I called the scaffolding people to request that the towers come down Friday afternoon. Late this afternoon and evening we were able to put up CC and DD of the 32T as well, a great relief to me since the racking of these pipes to the 32 Open had always been a question left to figure on site. As it transpired, it wasn't too hard to screw them to the Open using steel angle brackets, it is tricky work at the top of a thirty foot ladder, but it could have been much more complicated to effect. We will put up CC# and DD# in the morning and then the rest of the octave after the scaffolding comes down.

Steve and Colin left today for the States, I was sorry to see them leave. Steve did a great job dealing with the various representatives of the client and helping to get the work organized, and of course his thirty years of trouble shooting was pretty handy to draw on. Colin contributed a great deal of muscle and willingness to any task and smiled even through his toothache days.

We had a good HOT meal at an Indian restaurant on the staircase down to the town hall square; the waiters prefer to speak English, which helped sort out what might otherwise have been surprises. Back at Avenue Warnery I found I now have curtains in my bedroom, these will add immensely to the ambience of the place as I won t need to close my shutters for privacy, and the room should then feel less like a tomb.

Friday, January 17, 2003

It was a little frustrating not to be able to do more today. The masons began grouting under the six cantilever beams and then the scaffold towers had to be removed, so the little twenty-foot by thirty-foot balcony was filled up with other workers and their gear most of the day. But the entire P32T lower octave is in place, so now with the ten from the P32OW, the 22 largest pipes in the organ are standing and fixed in place. We managed to put in some wind system and built floors where the combination action switching system will go, but we spent a good part of the day rearranging and further unwrapping the thousands of parts that are still on the floor of the nave. It was good useful work, but not the exciting and rewarding assembly work that makes installation worth the aches and pains of the heavy labor, the long hours and the being away from home. Tomorrow the masons will work on the weekend especially for us, in order to be done with the grouting and out of our way. They are good fellows.

Rick s bag arrived today only five days after he did, so it looks as if Air France is catching up. He read them the riot act over the phone in his inimitable fashion, and they snapped to. I wish I had advice for those installers and voicers yet to come. It would be difficult to pack for a month and carry it all on the plane. There are so many things that can t be carried on. Perhaps the best strategy is to fly a different airline. We took a quick mugup out on the Monk s porch above the west end door; it affords a spectacular view southwest down the lake towards Geneve.

We knocked off a little early (6pm) in order to be able to shop for breakfast supplies, and then went up to Le Milan, an Italian place just downhill from the train station. Pesto, Carbonara, Risotto with Salmon: it was probably the best meal I've had here and I think several of the other guys would agree. Simon left for Texas this morning and his willing young back will be missed, with so much heavy lifting to come it is a little worrisome to see the average age of the crew increasing.

Saturday, January 18, 2003

I went up to the Cathedrale ahead of the rest of the team this morning in order to be sure to be on hand when the masons arrived. As I went up, a large number of people were going down the hill in the dark towards the train station with skis and snowboards and had the look of anticipation on their faces that I have felt so often when setting out on pre-dawn trips to the mountains. I began to regret my decision not to bring my board and would consider renting if I had brought proper clothing. From our workshop we can see the snow covered peaks that ring the lake and march off to the east up the Rhone valley. Very tempting.

The masons finished poring the grout pads under the steel today. As friendly and accommodating as they are, it is good to have the balcony free of other workers. We ourselves made great strides after having figured a way to put up the steel support posts that hold the beams under the Grande Orgue. We lashed the posts to the side of the bucket lift and flew up to the overhanging cantilevers. With two people in the bucket it was easy to bolt them in place. It was also relatively simple to pass one end of the G.O. beams out to a person in the bucket, lift the front end with the machine and the back end with four people standing on the pedal chests. The bridge beam that spans the whole width of the organ frame went up next, lifted in place by the seven of us, including our young Swiss friend Thomas, who works with us on Saturday. Now all the heavy I-beams are in place, and I can stop worrying about them, (and start worrying about something else). We can begin on Monday to fill in the organ from the back, the 32 Bourdon, the 16 Contrebasse, the bellows stack, and then the machines and coupler stack.

Rick and I had a salad supper at a restaurant in the port of Ouchy on the lake and walked back home through the marina. There were many boats in the thirty to forty foot range and a good number of racers. Quite a few boats are in the water still and look as if they stay in all year, some are covered, but some appear to be regularly sailing. There is the promise of sunny mild weather tomorrow; maybe someone will be looking for crew.

It is difficult to believe that my stay here is half over. I feel as if I am just getting my feet on the ground and we are just beginning to make the kind of progress I had hoped for. This morning as I changed into my work clothes in our triforium office, for a moment I got out of problem solving mode and looked at the eight hundred year old stone around me and realized what an amazing opportunity we have in front of us. I wish I knew how to hold onto that sense of wonder and get the job done too.