.: Good Dreams in Minsk 21/08/2003 :.

Last night I dreamed of building a laboratory in [Tulsa??], something I normally wouldn't consider. In the dream, I was awarded a large grant - the grant was paid directly to me, not to my affiliated institution. I used the money to purchase a building an renovate it. The first floor contained the server farm, the servers were under the floor and the cases were water cooled. The front entrance lead to a glass wall with a badge swiper. The sliding glass doors opened letting the person enter a man trap. There was an unoccupied window to the left - room for a security desk. To exit the man-trap there was a key pad where a PIN had to be entered. If entered incorrectly a door to the right would open. The intruder would enter the room to the right were there were smaller holding cells with Internet access, TVs, telephones, chairs and cots - they would have to contact the on-call person to let them out because the doors locked behind them. If they entered their PIN correctly, another glass door opened in the front leading them to a divided staircase - one to the left, one to the right. They both lead to the lab space on the second floor. The ceiling on the second floor was glass and high ( I imagined it something similar to the F gate at the Paris airport). There were ergonomic terminals there divided by cells - not cubicals as there were no walls. The space was open and free. There were large glass covered whit boards in the front on the left and right - places to think.

The white boards had viewing areas - circular sofas sunken into the floor partially for the effect of separation.

All the monitors were flat screens with ergonomic keyboards. All access to the server farm was done via VNC or similar approaches. There were house plants growing in pots on each desk, but the green only accented the bright white surroundings, it did not over come it.

The corridor was moderately long with perhaps six desks on either side. There was plenty of space around each desk. The ceiling was also lit so that it could be used at night. Each desk had smaller white boards - the main focus of the work space pressed against the wall. There was room to breath - room to walk and meditate. Above the main entrance, where the man-trap was downstairs, there was my office. There was only a glass wall, which doubled as a white-board, separating my office from the others. There I had my desk, a leather sofa, plants, and a large flat-screen TV which suspended from the ceiling on cables. There was a short staircase on either side which connected it to the main lab floor (my office was a foot or two elevated).

On the other end of the building there was a solid wall where announcements where posted. Behind the wall, a small apartment where I lived, public restrooms and showers, a private restroom for my flat - more or less a locker room feeling there.

The lab was created to research High Performance GRID computing and Non-Linear Programming Techniques. When I first finished building it, there were no students or researches; the lab sat empty except for me in my office and the occasional visitor. It seems it was difficult to find talented people in [Tulsa??], but eventually a student here and there began to fill in the desks.