Stellanova Board Room Discussion

        My dream this morning was very detailed. I was in a classroom with a combination of white boards and green chalk boards. The white boards were full of information with very little room to write anything. It was obvious that there were three different classes in the room as there were notes for each of them on different walls. Since this was not my classroom, I was only borrowing it to meet with my new staff; I didn't want to erase anything. I really wanted to write ideas down on the board though for public brainstorming purposes. We were discussing the resurrection of Stellanova as StellanovaOnLine. I had managed to get the domain Stellanova.pub and StellanovaOnLine.com and .net for a mere 30 dollars a year.

        SCV and I were the primary participants as the back end stuff and I was, as in its previous incarnation, the publisher and managing editor. I had more help this time though, R and M were on board as layout and art direction, as well as R illustrating one of my serial stories. N was being supportive, and agreed to reprise, for a little while only, her column. There were also a couple of former gamer students there B and D for photography and other content. We were having a lively discussion about the proposed look and feel of the site as well as the work flow.

        I wanted to use the two blank chalkboards, but there was no chalk in the room. I knew that I had chalk in an aluminum chalk holder somewhere in my office at home, but, even though by this time I knew I was dreaming, I didn't just make it appear so I could use it. I wanted the realism level to continue. The group dispersed for a five minute break, and we all searched the nearby rooms for a piece of chalk. Apparently there was none to be had. At that point I just proposed that we make notes on A's palmtop and gather around to see what layout and workflow we were talking about. It was not as good a discussion at that point so we just appointed A to take good notes and spread back out across the room.

        I discovered that I had a bottle of antacids in my backpack, so while listening to the conversation I took one out and tested it on the board. It worked. I wiped it off, and it wiped off almost as easily as chalk would. I started laying out the ideas we'd talked about earlier and made a diagram of the web site flow and the work flow as we discussed things. I found myself sorting through my antacids for different colored ones for different parts of the diagrams. Every so often my fingernails would scrape, and I would shiver and drop the remains of the tablet. I had to start digging for another one of the same color. There was a slight fruity smell to the antacids that I could smell when I stood close to the board.

        When our discussion was finished, A brought out his camera and took shots of the board, and then shots of us in front of the board, and then we joked with B about being our official photographer, but not having her camera with her. I stayed behind to clean the board, as I didn’t think the antacids would stain, but didn’t want to take the chance.

Ad astra per technica,

FF