The Mission....

It was unsettling, descending for the first time into the dark world of the Grainger Basement. I didn't know what to expect. Sure, the staircase was still its jolly yellow color and the sconces mounted on the bright blue walls or inset into the ceiling did just as fine a job lighting my way as the daylight from 20-ft windows...and yet...it seemed darker, and my footsteps echoed on the narrowing, empty stairs. Tall, stern bookshelves arose in front of me, as did hallways bathed in twilight extending to either side.

On a whim, I chose the left fork, exploring tentative step by tentative step, until a bright light at the end of the hallway drew my eyes. "Engineering Workstations" proclaimed the sign bolted to the wall by a set of glass double-doors. Inside...

Inside, I found easily fifty dual-screen machines, over half of them in use by students. Upon logging in with my usual ID and password, I found them running GNOME and chock full of software--Firefox, Pidgin, Matlab, ProE, Mathematica...anything an engineering student could want!

Quickly and easily*, I accessed Gmail and printed my homework set. Mission accomplished!

(*actually, it initially got lost in a stack of someone else's printed papers, so I had to print it twice...and of course as soon as I printed the second, I found the first *roll eyes* but that wasn't really the lab's fault.)