almost a complete fail

Quite a few students, it seems, were leaving the testing center in a hurry and not taking everything from their big blue bag. Big blue bags are provided so each student can store in it everything they brought with them to the testing center. When they left, they were leaving mp3 players, car keys, apartment keys, cards and other jetsam in the corners. Staff wanted a sign.

I talked with the folks about their procedure. My guess would be that the students just wanted to get their stuff and leave as quickly as possible. Familiarity had turned the other wall signs, all corporate rectangles, invisible. I pictured the lion as whimsical, as non-corporate, as non-rectangular. Even a bit silly. It might be noticed. I saw it mounted and standing full size beside the return box with a pile of cool stuff, made like a free standing stand-up Joe. Then I pictured it slowly delaminating over time, taking a lot of abuse, and in bad weather developing a "soggy bottom" from passing foot traffic. So I moved it to the wall, in my mind's eye, and it seemed to work.

As I drew the image, I started to stress over the mounting, the lamination, the hanging. All have been on-going problems. So I made it fit within the limits of the Engineering copy center's lamination machine. Then I made sure I could get foam core large enough. Then I printed, laminated, picked up the foam core and also picked up a small tube of contact cement instead of rubber cement. I pictured it holding the plastic laminate better- it works on formica, right? I tested it to make sure it worked and didn't destroy the foam and was pleased to see that it worked very well. But the fumes were really bad; I'd have to wait till the weekend when the office was empty.

I was still a tad stressed over hanging and pictured strips of velcro so the image could be moved and removed; I'd do some tests to be sure. And I stressed a tad over mounting- handling two 24 foot square surfaces covered with contact cement isn't a joy. As I ran through the process over and over in my head, I felt more comfortable: I saw how I'd align them then clamp one end. I watched as I spread papers from the newspaper can across the floor to catch over brushing and I noted where I'd place fans to ventilate without moving the sign at all. Everything was set.

Early Friday morning I was on my way in to work and my left brain was deeply embroiled in one of its tormenting dialogs when my right brain showed me a little video snip of me hanging a vinyl "WallHog" on the testing center wall. Thank you right brain. We had already solved most of the problems that were tormenting me, but I'd been too stuck on the stand-up idea and the resulting foam core. I got the new idea approved and uploaded to the WallHog server last evening.

Sometimes I wonder what the hell my left brain does for me other than get me in trouble. If I could fire it I would; but I did mention that sudoku, right?