<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Jan 2, 2007, at 10:42 PM, Elwood Doss wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">When the sanctuary piano is tuned, it's important to have the</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">temperature of the sanctuary the same as it will be at the time of the</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">worship service.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></FONT></P> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR><DIV>I'll ditto that for the school pianos.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>To start Fall Semester, our Dean wanted us to double up our efforts, hire a contract tuner to help and get all the pianos tuned before classes started. I've always thought bulk tunings in August and January were counterproductive wastes of time and effort. I told him it would be a waste of $2000 for a contract tuner and my time as well. He said it wouldn't, but I still disagreed. We're talking about August in one of the hottest and most humid cities in the South. It doesn't make sense to me to waste all the effort to tune 110 or so pianos at 75+% humidity when a 15-20% drop and the follow-up roller coaster ride is only a month or so away. You get much more mileage out of your effort if you wait until then to do the semi-annual tunings and you don't spend all your time retuning instead of getting other important work done.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Anyway, the HVAC had decided to just quit working on the 2nd and 3rd floors sometime during the summer. Now, nearly all of the faculty studios and classrooms, which are practically impossible to get into once classes start, are on those two floors. Needless to say, it was 85 degrees on those two floors for the 3 weeks preceding the first day of classes. We had no way of knowing if or when the HVAC would be working again, but we were gonna tune those 48 pianos or bust.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>The day classes started the HVAC magically healed itself and the temp dropped back to a normal 70 degrees. Pianos that were tuned as late as Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday showed no evidence a piano tuner had ever been in the building by Thursday and fhe faculty and students were complaining as if we had done nothing.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Wasted $2000 of taxpayer money and my time. We would have been much better off to have postponed those tunings until everything settled down. The pianos would have been in better shape left alone.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I could have been regulating faculty pianos or prepping the concert pianos....</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>or refurbishing actions I don't otherwise have time to get to....</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>or on vacation with the family before the kids started back to school....</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>Well, here it is January. Aside from the last two days, it's been like late May for the past couple of weeks. I guess we're going to have winter this year, but we're still waiting for it to get here. <DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>We're doing bulk tunings again....<BR><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV>Jeff Tanner, RPT</DIV><DIV>University of South Carolina</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN> </DIV><BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>