Three Men and a White Board

What do you get when you put a doctor, an engineer and a cheap techie Scotchman in a room for three hours? Why, you get the floor plan for a clinic on the Burmese/Indian border, of course! Ray Comeau of Medical Mercy Canada is a Red

 Deer doctor who has been leading a group of volunteers to India for the last five years to provide medical assistance to the locals. Pat Romerman is a Principal with Group2 Architecture Engineering who volunteers with A Better World. I am the cheap Scotchman.

At Olds College, I teach a course on farm building planning, and I use a great floor planning process I learned from an agricultural engineer, Sandy Roberts, 15 years ago. Basically there are four steps:

1. List the needs and wants for the building
2. Determine minimum sizes for each room or area
3. Organize the rooms for optimum internal and external traffic flow
4. Determine the overall size and shape of the building.
   

Last year Ray and I went through this process and developed the Cadillac of clinics. Ray took the plan to India to price it out and found that we couldn't afford it. He brought back a plan that was designed locally. The foundation looked like my lower intestine--no shortage of outside walls, and the roof lines looked like something from Architectural Digest but would make adding on to the building later difficult—so it was back to the drawing board, or in this case, the white board.

Ray and Pat started listing and sketching on the white board (Pat had to sketch on a white board because he only had a Macbook with him. It looked very stylish, but, of course, couldn't do any real work), and I opened AutoCAD to start drawing up their ideas with precise dimensions. When we had all the basic components of the building sized, we hooked up my laptop to a big screen to organize the rooms.

The great thing about a CAD program is the ease with which you can move and edit. On paper, you need to redraw each time you want to make a change, but, with CAD, you can move rooms around like puzzle pieces—and that is what we did. After the rooms were organized to optimize traffic flow, the overall size and shape of the building was decided upon. It is at this point that you often create some extra space and can fit in some of those "wants" from your original list. Things like storage closets and extra office space magically appear. And, for this building which, we suspect, will later have a phase 2 and a phase 3, we made sure our plan paved the way for those wings to save headaches in the years to come.

The advantage of collaboration becomes so apparent during sessions like these. I know the product of this design charrette will be much better than any of us could have formulated individually. (For starters, Pat would have to get a work computer! But I have to say Pat, your pictures look really good on that Macbook!) And this is just the first step in getting this clinic up and running. There are many more steps to follow, but remember: proper planning promotes productive projects!

I really enjoyed working with Ray and Pat—even if I had to skip my Christmas party to be there. Thanks guys!

If you would like more information on this project, go to http://www.a-better-world.ca/ and read the feature article on the Comeaus.

My Baby’s Got a New Pair of Shoes!

Shoes have impacted my life on more than one occasion and for more than one reason. One of the early stories I remember my mother telling me about the Depression included shoes. She said that growing up on a farm during the Depression wasn’t too bad because each year they got a new pair of shoes, a new dress and always had enough food! Some kids came to school with lard sandwiches and shoes lined with paper to plug the holes in their soles, but not my moms family.
Later in life, I saw shoe ownership become a limiting factor for children who wanted to attend school in many of the countries in which I have worked. This summer, the pastor of a local church raised enough money to provide new shoes for all the students attending a particular school in Kenya. Injecting shoes into the local economy is like injecting cash. You can bet that the shoes will be worn by someone until they are worn right out.

Although there are some, few people in Canada have to worry about being able to afford shoes. My daughter, however, has been unable to wear shoes for more than four years because of nerve damage. Summers are not so bad; capris and open-backed shoes are right in style then, but when it is forty below, they are not so stylish. More importantly, driving around the prairies in such flimsy attire in the middle of winter is just plain dangerous!
After more than four years of trying pills, creams, and therapy, she still hasn’t been able to get into shoes. At one point, I suggested a brace, but the product from the physio lab just didn’t work. This past Monday night, my daughter and I took a stab at creating one ourselves. Years of molding airplanes has given me some knowledge of fiberglass, carbon fiber and molding agents. Two evenings, some plaster of Paris and various resins and fibers later, we had a prototype as a concept-prover.
Here we have the lacing up of the first pair of real shoes to go on my daughter’s feet in over four years! She made it through half a day in the shield, but even more importantly, we have a new concept to try that will, I’m sure, lead to a more normal life and definitely to warmer feet!
So, here’s to a new start ‘cuz my baby’s got a new pair of shoes!

Running With the Herd

I first attended AutoDesk University (AU) in 2001. I remember walking into the registration area at the MGM Grand hotel in Vegas and looking around at all the other people wandering in to register. What I observed was that, for the most part, they were kinda middle-aged, kinda fat and kinda badly dressed, and I thought to myself, “Oh my God, I’m home!” The conference was the most incredible learning experience of my life. There were about 3500 techy people in attendance that year, among them the people who wrote the software I work with everyday and I met (and drank) with them. I listened and asked and absorbed and was generally overwhelmed. I left aware that I knew just shy of nothing—which, for me, was very motivating.

I’ve made the long migration back to the herd every year since, and each year I have come away with something great to put into classes and the rest of my life. This year, some 9000 geeks migrated to AU at the Sands Convention Center to wallow in the collective knowledge of our colleagues. As I have said in past blog entries, I know I tend to stand slightly to one side of normal, and I am okay with that. I am fine with being a zebra in a herd of horses most of the time, but I am just realizing how much I enjoy running with my own herd—even if it is only briefly.

Additionally, I make a point of spending time with some of the same individuals every year. Friendships and working relationships have developed over time. There are some people whom I only see at AU and others with whom I communicate, problem solve, debate, and prophesy all year. This year I even solved a problem presented to me by a true CAD guru—which only proves anew that it is better to be lucky than to be good. I have come to realize that it is not just the friends I have or the learning I do that makes me feel so good at AU. It is that when I am walking the halls, eating lunch, or riding the escalator, I am surrounded by people I intuitively know would understand me IF we had a conversation. It is not that I have to have the conversation; just knowing that I could have the conversation if I wanted to is important.

This year I seemed to have a greater need to run with the herd than usual, and I am happy to say that the herd did not let me down! Perhaps the herd is even a little older, fatter, and more badly dressed now or perhaps I have surrounded myself with some of the truly geeky gurus. Most of you reading this will not understand why I rarely leave the hotel even though it is in the middle of the Las Vegas strip, or why I never even dropped a nickel in a slot machine. Could you possibly understand why, after a great meal, I would rather talk CAD than go to the nightclub? Could you understand that one of the best days of my year ended with me going head to head on a laptop figuring out how to break the software just to prove we had the fix? The herd gets it! Every single member of the herd gets it, and once a year I need to be part of that. I am happy to run with the horses 51 weeks of the year, but please understand that I need to show my stripes for one week at least.

Live From Vegas

Well here I am at 7 a.m. on a Monday morning in Las Vegas, and something isn’t quite right. For starters, I got up at 6 a.m. whereas 10 years ago I would have still been up at 6 a.m. Worse yet is the reason for my early rising in ; during my stay in Sin City, I got up to go to work! As I write this, I am giving a CAD exam to my students back in Olds, Alberta—giving it live and interactively. Making these arrangements has been a very involved process and has made me realize that I would make a terrible hostage! Gunmen, remember my name, and if you find me in your grasp, just shoot me or release me, because you do not want to have to deal with me. (This statement might also hold true for controlling managers…)

If you cannot follow the link between these two events, then you just don’t understand my twisted mind, so let me explain. About four months ago, I knew I would be at this amazing conference and suggested that I deliver a class from here. Everyone thought it was a great idea, and it appeared that the necessary technology would be in place. But things do not always move at the pace I prefer, and three months later, it became apparent that, for whatever reason, the College would not be in a position to make my idea a reality. Those fateful words were uttered: “Sorry, it is not going to happen. We just don’t have the manpower.” And the new, more relaxed me said, “Shucky darn. That’s too bad, but oh well.”

Fast-forward two more weeks. It became obvious that I could not avoid having an exam during the week I would be away. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem as I would simply have the program I.A. proctor the exam, but the College eliminated that position this fall. We no longer have an I.A., so I asked my Chair if another I.A. was available. None were; it seemed at the time that everyone was busy. My Chair, bless her heart, offered to proctor the exam herself if no one else could be found!

Enter the old me!! He might be less relaxed and more stubborn, but he can always build the proverbial 'better mousetrap.' THERE MUST BE A BETTER WAY! I cannot personally push the massive CLC machine to move fast enough to solve this problem with technology, but I recognize (and can’t understand why no one else seems to) that it is crazy to use a department Chairperson’s time to proctor an exam. What to do? Every way seemed blocked, but it has been my experience that if the front door is locked, the back door is often open. And, said the old me, firmly taking control now, if the back door is locked, climb the T.V. antenna tower, remove a section of soffit, and climb in through the attic (which is the topic of another blog--as soon as the statute of limitations is up!) But somehow there is always another way in! Do not tell me that it can’t be done!

At this point, my mind goes into the spin cycle. (Murray has learned over the years that it is best to step back because it often spins a little off balance.) I committed to myself that I would find a technical solution that minimized the impact on other staff—why should my problem be theirs, after all? I started bouncing ideas off people in the know, and I got answers like, “We could do that, but it would be quite a bit of work,” and “We would have to get Drumheller up and running first.” So I arrived at a solution that I could do mostly on my own, and—a few tie-wraps and a little cabling later—here I sit., in Vegas at 7 a.m. proctoring my own exam, answering my own questions, and doing my own job with very little impact on others. (As I type this, my first exam was handed in. Yes!). Robin, you have some great people!

The exam is over now, and my 20 students are carrying on with their day. We have great students at Olds College, and they will adapt to a new paradigm far faster than will we. My strength working overseas is that I am creative and cheap; those traits sometimes serve me well at home, too. A web cam, some tie-wraps, free software, and 20 feet of wire means I may never have to leave Vegas! Thanks to all of you who helped, gawked, offered advice, or pretended you didn’t know what I was up to. The new, calmer me is back now, and I will try to keep old me boxed up until I really need him.