I just woke myself up from a dream where Makers Local 256 was something much larger than it is today and I had apparently been away from it for a while and was being reintroduced to everything and everyone. I was being shown around what was at least a two story all brick building, where the second story used to be all loft space but had been partially converted into individual work areas by different members of the group but in a non-uniform pattern with parts bins stacked in small islands(5′ tall) between them. People who aren’t members now are members in my dream, people like Doug and Emily. Doug was sitting at an open desk, close to the stairs leading up from downstairs and was acting sort of like the “new hire” guy, making sure I was being shown around and given everything I’d need(phone, a space to work, etc). Emily was apparently working in a graphics design sort of role and I was shown a new concept for an information pamphlet she made that had a small usb circuit built in so that when you plugged it up to your computer you got this animated guided tour kind of thing telling you all about the group/company. I got the impression that everyone was being paid, like the group had been turned into a functional business by producing unique products(I’ll get to this in a second) but everyone still pretty much did their own thing on their own time as if the products were being produced somewhere else but shipped out from downstairs. At one point I was handed what appears to be a 3.5″ hard drive but it had a straw attached to the side and was filled with a liquid. It said pink lemonade on it and had the whole recipe for making it printed on the top. I remember thinking about how satisfying it would be to crush the “hard drive” in my hand when I finished it and how cool it was that it was apparently an open source beverage. I woke up at this point with a sense of satisfaction, unsure as to whether it was satisfaction in the dream or what Makers Local 256 had become in it, all in all it was a good dream…
2008-08-28