'Gang aft agley'...

The presently in foreign climes daughter asked me to write her up a description of how maple syrup is made. She gives bottles of the stuff as gifts and ends up explaining what it is. So, I set off to make her a booklet, with illustrations, one that she could use just the photographs of or hand to someone who wanted more information. And I do have photos, lots and lots and lots of them, from our quarter century of making the stuff.

It took me two days to extract the photos, organize them (um, sort of) and write the text. I have a fine colour printer and my plan was to print off a copy in booklet form, put the text and photos onto a USB, and mail her the result, along with a couple of other things.

Several weeks ago, a good friend and I ventured into The City, and I stocked up on cartridges for this printer. I was all set, I thought, smugly.

Silly me.

Test pages printed, at first not spaced properly, but I solved that. Loaded in the matte paper that makes a good booklet. The printer spit out five pages of the nine I wanted. And quit. Red button flashing. I reloaded. The printer spit out two blank pages, and flashed. Repeat. Spit. Flash. 

This is not the first time this printer has done this to me. The last time it balked, I searched on line and found a fix. I printed off the instructions to use should the wretched thing do it again.

A frantic search did not turn up the instructions. Nowhere. No how. 

A day passed, with repeated tries on my part interspersed with loading and  unloading the washer and the drier. Spit. Flash.

I finally went back to the basic loading instructions and told the [censored] machine that it was being loaded with plain paper in a different size than I was actually using.

It spit out two blank pages and then proceeded to print the rest of the text and photos. Not on the proper paper, no, because I had loaded test paper. 

There is now a booklet on its way to the foreign climes daughter with five pages printed on fine matte paper and four pages printed on flimsy stuff that does not do the colour justice. But it is done and mailed.

And my fine new car reset its clock all by itself to Eastern Standard Time.

You win some. You lose some.