pattyfaye

I am way overdue for an update so here you go.

We got back from our trip last Saturday night. All and all we had a great time but the week was very busy with thesis stuff.

While I was typing my last post Joe was starting to print his thesis. Once he finished that we were going to go to the Hershey factory. Well… our day turned out quite different. It’s a long story so stay with me J

After printing just 3 pages the printer was out of toner and need a new black toner. So Joe contacted the system administrator who would be in charge of getting and installing a new toner. Turns out he had ordered the new toner Monday (it’s Thursday that all this is taking place) and it had still not arrived. He then called and checked the status of the order but it would be a couple of days at least before it arrived.

So now we were running low on options. It turns out there isn’t another printer in the department that we could use so we started to look at outside sources. We started with the Queen’s “printer” I put printer in quotes because it turns out he is really just a photocopier. So the main problem there… we need something for him to copy.

Okay so we then set off on a trek across Kingston to find a cheap place to print the thesis. So we were looking at getting 5 copies, one for the university, one for the Physics department, one each for Joe’s two supervisors and then one for Joe.

Off we went checking out various places all ranging from a place with official quotes and fancy machines to a guy with a printer. The main problem we were running into cost wise was the colour pages we needed. See Joe’s thesis was 188 pages long but 47 of those pages had colour on them. I’m not talking about a lot of colour, mostly one of two lines on a graph. However, no matter how much colour is on a page they need to charge you the colour printing cost which can range from 40 cents to a dollar PER PAGE. The quotes we get for the job range anywhere from $30 - $80 per copy.

At this point we are obviously getting discouraged but head back to the guy who quoted $30 and see what he has to offer. Joe asks for a test page because hey this has to look good. Guy says no problem, sends the file to the printer and… jams. Yep that’s right it printed 2 pages and jammed. The main problem with this is that one of the copies had to be on “special” archival paper. We had 200 sheets of the special paper; the thesis is 188 pages, not a lot of room for error.

So Joe decides he wants to think about it, we will go eat lunch and come back either later that afternoon or tomorrow if we want to get it done.

We head back to Queens and get some lunch. By now it’s almost 1pm and my chocolate factory dreams have gone out the window, this was much more important. We had one more day to get the thesis printed and submitted before we left for Halifax.

So after lunch we are back in Joe’s office and just for fun he looks up the part number for the toner and finds that Staples has some online and that they ship in 1 day. We decide to call and see if they have any at the store in Halifax and see if we can get it earlier. I call Staples and the lady there says they have 2 sitting on the shelf. YEAH!!! Joe’s runs down and tells the System Admin that Staples has two can we order one of those. They go to the lady who orders stuff and find out that when you order from Staples it actually comes from Ottawa or Toronto, not your local store so it would still be a few days. So Joe says “well what if I just drive out to Staples and get it, can I be reimbursed” (the toner cost $155) “Sure”

So back out to Staples we go and get the toner (I buy a big chocolate bar at Staples to make up for my missed factory). We come back to the school; Joe prints all the copies and finishes close to 5. The grad school, where you submit, closes at 4:30 so we will have to wait until tomorrow for that.

So after all day of trying to print we are done, exhausted in fact. We then went out and saw some friends who recently had a baby. I say recently she is 6 months old J and then head back to the hotel and collapse for the night.

Phew you still with me after all of that?

It was a good trip there is more to tell but I’m sure you have had enough reading so I will post more later.

Tricia