I fired up TurboCAD one more time, stared at the rectangular tool, made a couple attempts to get the four walls and decided that this was just not worth it. I launched Parallels (an application that opens a Windows workspace/window and lets me run windows applications on my Intel Mac while still running my mac natively and without rebooting), started up my “Interior Designer” program that I picked up at CompUSA on Sunday and built the lab layout in less than thirty minutes. It helped that they had tools to specifically make walls and windows and doors. Damn. That was a no brainer. Damn.

The janitor came in for a chat and over the course of the discussion I decided to move the teaching station from the north side to the south side… that was one of the benefits of doing a layout of the lab in the computer before moving desks and chairs. Okay, I cheated a bit in that I was sitting in the room as I was building the layout, so that I could walk over to the door and measure the real thing before making the computer rendition. That was yesterday, when I began to move the furniture, today I made a few other changes. I should have done this last month. Ack. Just as long as I don’t find myself making other changes once the school year begins. Tomorrow it’s time to lay the cables and see what works… The best part about being all analytical and technical is that I don’t forget that there is an art to arranging ones classroom that one can’t see in a floor plan. It requires a little sweat moving the actual table and chairs before one can be sure that the design is going to work. In the end, it ain’t the software, it comes down to the tables and chairs. jbb

p.s., the 3D rendering is very cool… too bad my lab doesn’t look that good.