Happy Chinese New Year! We celebrated by…doing regular Tuesday things.
I’m in the middle of sourcing a new copier for the church. Our current machine one is not serviceable anymore and is about 8-10 years old and in need of new drums and skips pages and it is trying very hard (go little engine!), but not performing very well (alas, missing the top of the hill).
I first noticed this at choir practice when our choir director squinted at the score copies and semi-cursed at the extra horizontal lines that the copier put in. A regular musical staff has 5 horizontal, evenly spaced lines telling you which note it is. The copier had put in extra lines so now the staff had 6 or 7 irregularly spaced lines and the notes (to him) were willy-nilly and frustrating to read. Was that a F#? or a B flat? Who is to say? (I’m embarrassed that I didn’t notice this before his under-the-breath curse – goes to show you how critical I think the note placement is when I am singing. hahaha.).
So as taking apart and putting together machines is a favorite thing of mine, I went to go look to see if I could clean the glass or replace the drum ordered from ebay or whatever. I watched youtube videos, I poked around the machine, I got toner all over my fingers. I decided that it wasn’t going to be particularly easy or cheap. I talked to one the Director of Congregational Life who said (not that the copier had lines, that was not her main complaint), rather – every Sunday when she went to make Sunday copies – the copier would give her random error messages and then she’d open all the doors, take the toner out, shake it around, close all the doors and then maybe it would work. I asked her – so every Sunday? And she said – yes every Sunday.
So I spent a bunch of time talking to a bunch of people about copiers. A copier is about 10-13K, so there is financing involved and honestly, I do strangely enjoy talking to people about copiers. They seem like fun people. Though it is like buying something you have never seen, never tried out, you can’t really go online and read reviews about them on reddit. Do I want the Canon, Ricoh, Kyocera? I put my hands in the air and shrug. I just want it to work, to be under budget and for people to not be mad at me.